IN THE WILDERNESS

By Robert Hichens

BOOK I--HERMES AND THE CHILD

CHAPTER I

Amedeo Dorini, the hall porter of the Hotel Cavour in Milan, stood onthe pavement before the hotel one autumn afternoon in the year 1894, waiting for the omnibus, which had gone to the station, and which wasnow due to return, bearing--Amedeo hoped--a load of generously inclinedtravelers. During the years of his not unpleasant servitude Amedeo hadbecome a student of human nature. He had learnt to judge shrewdly andsoundly, to sum up quickly, to deliver verdicts which were not unjust. And now, as he saw the omnibus, with its two fat brown horses, comingslowly along by the cab rank, and turning into the Piazza that ispresided over by Cavour's statue, he prepared almost mechanically tomeasure and weigh evidence, to criticize and come to a conclusion. 

He glanced first at the roof of the omnibus to take stock of the luggagepile there. There was plenty of it, and a good deal of it was leatherand reassuring. Amedeo had a horror of tin trunks--they usually gavesuch small tips. Having examined the luggage he sent a searching glanceto two rows of heads which were visible inside the vehicle. The brawnyporters hurried out, the luggage chute was placed in position, theomnibus door was opened, and the first traveler stepped forth. 

A German of the most economical type, large, red and wary, with a mouthlike a buttoned-up pocket, was followed by a broad-waisted wife, withdragged hair and a looped-up gown. Amedeo's smile tightened. A Frenchmanfollowed them, pale and elaborate, a "one-nighter, " as Amedeo instantlydecided in his mind. Such Frenchmen are seldom extravagant in hotels. This gentleman would want a good room for a small price, would beextremely critical about the cooking, and have a wandering eye and ashort memory for all servants in the morning. 

An elderly Englishwoman was the fourth personage to appear. She wasbadly dressed in black, wore a tam-o'-shanter with a huge black-headedpin thrust through it, clung to a bag, smiled with amiable patronage asshe emerged, and at once, without reason, began to address Amedeo andthe porters in fluent, incorrect, and too carefully pronounced Italian. Amedeo knew her--the Tabby who haunts Swiss and Italian hotels, theeternal Tabby drastically complete. 

A gay Italian is gaiety in flight, a human lark with a song. But agloomy Italian is oppressive and almost terrible. Despite the trainingof years Amedeo's smile flickered and died out. A ferocious expressionsurged up in his dark eyes as he turned rather bruskly to scrutinizewithout hope the few remaining clients. But suddenly his face cleared ashe heard a buoyant voice say in English:

"I'll get out first, Godfather, and give you a hand. "

On the last word, a tall and lithe figure stepped swiftly, and with asort of athletic certainty, out of the omnibus, turned at once towardsit, and, with a movement eloquent of affection and almost tenderreverence, stretched forth an arm and open hand. 

A spare man of middle height, elderly, with thick gray hair, and aclean-shaven, much-lined face, wearing a large loose overcoat and softbrown hat, took the hand as he emerged. He did not need it; Amedeorealized that, realized also that he was glad to take it, enjoyedreceiving this kind and unnecessary help. 

"And now for Beatrice!" he said. 

And he gave in his turn a hand to the girl who followed him. 

There were still two people in the omnibus, the elderly man's Italianvalet and an Englishman. As the latter got out, and stretched his limbscramped with much sitting, he saw Amedeo, with genuine smiles, escortingthe two girls and the elderly man towards the glass-roofed hall, on theleft of which was the lift. The figure of the girl who had stepped outfirst was about to disappear. As the Englishman looked she vanished. But he had time to realize that a gait, the carriage of a head and itsmovement in turning, can produce on an observer a moral effect. A joyoussanity came to him from this unknown girl and made him feel joyouslysane. It seemed to sweep over him, like a cool and fresh breeze of thesea falling through pine woods, to lift from him some of the dust ofhis journey. He resolved to give the remainder of the dust to the publicgarden, told his name, Dion Leith, to the manager, learnt that the roomhe had ordered was ready for him, had his luggage sent up to it, andthen made his way to the trees on the far side of the broad road whichskirts the hotel. When he was among them he took off his hat, kept itin his hand, and, so, strolled on down the almost deserted paths. Ashe walked he tasted the autumn, not with any sadness, but with anappreciation that was almost voluptuous. He was at a time of life andexperience, when, if the body is healthy, the soul is untroubled bycare, each season of the year holds its thrill for the strongly beatingheart, its tonic gift for the mind. Falling leaves were handfuls of goldfor this man. The faint chill in the air as evening drew on turned histhoughts to the brightness and warmth of English fires burning on thehearths of houses that sheltered dear and protected lives. The far-offvoices of calling children, coming to him from hidden places among thetrees, did not make him pensive because of their contrast with thingsthat were dying. He hailed them as voices of the youth which lasts inthe world, though the world may seem to be old to those who are old. 

Dion Leith had a powerful grip on life and good things. He was young, just twenty-six, strong and healthy, though slim-built in body, alert and vigorous in mind, unperturbed in soul, buoyant and warmlyimaginative. Just at that moment the joy of life was almost at fullflood in him, for he had recently been reveling in a new and gloriousexperience, and now carried it with him, a precious memory. 

He had been traveling, and his wanderings had given him glimpses of twoworlds. In one of these worlds he had looked into the depths, had feltas if he realized fully for the first time the violence of the angry andugly passions that deform life; in the other he had scaled the heights, had tasted the still purity, the freshness, the exquisite calm, whichare also to be found in life. 

He had visited Constantinople and had sailed from it to Greece. FromGreece he had taken ship to Brindisi, and was now on his way home toEngland. 

What he had thought at the time to be an ill chance had sent him on hisway alone. Guy Daventry, his great friend, who was to go with him, hadbeen seized by an illness. It was too late then to find another manfree. So, reluctantly, and inclined to grumble a little at fate, Dionhad set off in solitude. 

He knew now that his solitude had given him keen sensations, whichhe could scarcely have felt with the best of friends. Never, in anycompany, had he been so repelled, enticed, disgusted, deeply enchanted, as on these lonely wanderings which were now a part of his life. 

How he had hated Constantinople, and how he had loved Greece! Hisexpectation had been betrayed by the event. He had not known himselfwhen he left England, or the part of himself which he had known had beenthe lesser part, and he had taken it for the greater. For he had set outon his journey with his hopes mainly fixed on Constantinople. Its roadof wildness and tumult, its barbaric glitter, its crude mixture ofraces, even its passions and crimes--a legend in history, a solid factof to-day--had allured his mind. The art of Greece had beckoned to him;its ancient shrines had had their strong summons for his brain; buthe had scarcely expected to love the country. He had imagined it ascertainly beautiful but with an austere and desolate beauty that wouldbe, perhaps, almost repellent to his nature. He had conceived of it asprobably sad in its naked calm, a country weary with the weight of aglorious past. 

But he had been deceived, and he was glad of that. Because he had beenable to love Greece so much he felt a greater confidence in himself. Without any ugly pride he said to himself: "Perhaps my nature is alittle bit better, a little bit purer than I had supposed. "

As the breeze in the public garden touched his bare head, slightlylifting his thick dark hair, he remembered the winds of Greece; heremembered his secret name for Greece, "the land of the early morning. "It was good to be able to delight in the early morning--pure, delicate, marvelously fresh. 

He at down on a bench under a chestnut tree. The children's voices haddied away. Silence seemed to be drawing near to the garden. He saw afew moving figures in the shadows, but at a distance, fading towards thecity. 

The line of the figure, the poise of the head of that girl with whom hehad driven from the station, came before Dion's eyes. 

CHAPTER II

One winter day in 1895--it was a Sunday--when fog lay thickly overLondon, Rosamund Everard sat alone in a house in Great Cumberland Place, reading Dante's "Paradiso. " Her sister, Beatrice, a pale, delicateand sensitive shadow who adored her, and her guardian, Bruce Evelin, awell-known Q. C. Now retired from practice, had gone into the country tovisit some friends. Rosamund had also been invited, and much wanted, forthere was a party in the house, and her gaiety, her beauty, and her finesinging made her a desirable guest; but she had "got out of it. " On thisparticular Sunday she specially wished to be in London. At a church notfar from Great Cumberland Place--St. Mary's, Welby Street--a man wasgoing to preach that evening whom she very much wanted to hear. Herguardian's friend, Canon Wilton, had spoken to her about him, and hadsaid to her once, "I should particularly like _you_ to hear him. " Andsomehow the simple words had impressed themselves upon her. So, whenshe heard that Mr. Robertson was coming from his church in Liverpool topreach at St. Mary's, she gave up the country visit to hear him. 

Beatrice and Bruce Evelin had no scruples in leaving her alone for acouple of days. They knew that she, who had such an exceptional facultyfor getting on with all sorts and conditions of men and women, andwho always shed sunshine around her, had within her a great love of, sometimes almost a thirst for, solitude. 

"I need to be alone now and then, " they had heard her say; "it's likedrinking water to me. "

Sitting quietly by the fire with her delightful edition of Dante, herleft hand under her head, her tall figure stretched out in a low chair, Rosamund heard a bell ring below. It called her from the "Paradiso. " Shesprang up, remembering that she had given the butler no orders about notwishing to be disturbed. At lunch-time the fog had been so dense thatshe had not thought about possible visitors; she hurried to the head ofthe staircase. 

"Lurby! Lurby! I'm not at--"

It was too late. The butler must have been in the hall. She heard thestreet door open and a man's voice murmuring something. Then the doorshut and she heard steps. She retreated into the drawing-room, pullingdown her brows and shaking her head. No more "Paradiso, " and she lovedit so! A moment before she had been far away. 

The book was lying open on the arm-chair in which she had been sitting. She went to close it and put it on a table. For an instant she lookeddown on the page, and immediately her dream returned. Then Lurby's dry, soft voice said behind her:

"Mr. Leith, ma'am. "

"Oh!" She turned, leaving the book. 

Directly she looked at Dion Leith she knew why he had come. 

"I'm all alone, " Rosamund said. "I stayed here, instead of going toSherrington with Beattie and my guardian, because I wanted to hear asermon this evening. Come and sit down by the fire. "

"What church are you going to?"

"St. Mary's, Welby Street. "

"Shall I go with you?"

Rosamund had taken up the "Paradiso" and was shutting it. 

"I think I'll go alone, " she said gently but quite firmly. 

"What are you reading?"

"Dante's 'Paradiso. '"

She put the book down on a table at her elbow. 

"I don't believe you meant me to be let in, " he said bluntly. 

"I didn't know it was you. How could I know?"

"And if you had known?"

She hesitated. His brows contracted till he looked almost fierce. 

"I'm not sure. Honestly I'm not sure. I've been quite alone sinceFriday, when they went. And I'd got it into my head that I wasn't goingto see any one till to-morrow, except, of course, at the church. "

Dion felt chilled almost to the bone. 

"I can't understand, " he almost burst out, in an uncontrolled way thatsurprised himself. "Are you completely self-sufficing then? But it isn'tnatural. Could you live alone?"

"I didn't say that. "

She looked at him steadily and calmly, without a hint of anger. 

"But could you?"

"I don't know. Probably not. I've never tried. "

"But you don't hate the idea?"

His voice was almost violent. 

"No; if--if I were living in a certain way. "

"What way?"

But she did not answer his question. 

"I dare say I might dislike living alone. I've never done such a thing, therefore I can't tell. "

"You're an enigma, " he exclaimed. "And you seem so--so--you have thisextraordinary, this abnormal power of attracting people to you. You arefriends with everybody. "

"Indeed I'm not. "

"I mean you're so cordial, so friendly with everybody. Don't you carefor anybody?"

"I care very much for some people. "

"And yet you could live alone! Shut in here for days with a book"--atthat moment he was positively jealous of old Dante, gone to his restfive hundred and seventy-four years ago--"you're perfectly happy. "

"The 'Paradiso' isn't an ordinary book, " she said, very gently, and looking at him with a kind, almost beaming expression in heryellow-brown eyes. 

"I don't believe you ever read an ordinary book. "

"I like to feed on fine things. I'm half afraid of the second-rate. "

"I love you for that. Oh, Rosamund, I love you for so many things!"

He got up and stood by the fire, turning his back to her for a moment. When he swung round his face was earnest but he looked calmer. Shesaw that he was making a strong effort to hold himself in, that he wasreaching out after self-control. 

"I can't tell you all the things I love you for, " he said, "but yourindependence of spirit frightens me. From the very first, from thatevening when I saw you in the omnibus at the Milan Station over a yearago, I felt your independence. "

"Did I manifest it in the omnibus to poor Beattie and my guardian?" sheasked, smiling, and in a lighter tone. 

"I don't know, " he said gravely. "But when I saw you the same eveningwalking with your sister in the public garden I felt it more strongly. Even the way you held your head and moved--you reminded me of themaidens of the Porch on the Acropolis. I connected you with Greece andall my--my dreams of Greece. "

"Perhaps if you hadn't just come from Greece--"

"Wasn't it strange, " he said, interrupting her but quite unconsciousthat he did so, "that almost the first words I heard you speak wereabout Greece? You were telling your sister abut the Greek divers whocome to Portofino to find coral under the sea. I was sitting alone inthe garden, and you passed and I heard just a few words. They made methink of the first Greek Island I ever saw, rising out of the sunsetas I voyaged from Constantinople to the Piraeus. It was wonderfullybeautiful and wonderfully calm. It was like a herald of all the beautyand purity I found in Greece. It was--like you. "

"How you hated Constantinople!" she said. "I remember you denouncing itsnoise and its dirt, and the mongrel horrors of Pera, to my guardian inthe hotel where we made friends. And he put in a plea for Stamboul. "

"Yes, I exaggerated. But Constantinople stood to me for all the uproarof life, and Greece for the calm and beauty and happiness, the greatSanity of the true happiness. "

He looked at her with yearning in his dark eyes. 

"For all I want in my own life, " he added. 

He paused; then an expression of strong, almost hard resolution made hisface look suddenly older. 

"You told me at Burstal, on the Chilton Downs, after your debut in'Elijah, ' that you would give me an answer soon. I have waited a goodwhile--some weeks----"

"Why did you ask me just that day, after 'Woe unto them'?"

"I felt I must, " he answered, but with a slight awkwardness, as if hewere evading something and felt half-guilty. "To-day I decided I wouldask you again, for the last time. "

"You would never----"

"No, never. If you say 'Wait, and come later on and ask me, ' I shall notcome. "

She got up restlessly. She was obviously moved. 

"Dion, I can't tell you to-day. "

"Why not?"

"I don't know. I just feel I can't. It's no use. "

"When did you mean to tell me?"

"I don't know. "

"Did you mean ever to allude to the matter again, if I hadn't?"

"Yes, I should have told you, because I knew you were waiting. I--I--often I have thought that I shall never marry any one. "

She looked into the fire. Her face had become almost mysterious. 

"Some women don't need--that, " she murmured. 

The fire played over her pale yellow hair. 

"Abnormal women!" he exclaimed violently. 

She turned. 

"Hush! You don't know what you are saying. It isn't abnormal to wish todedicate----"

She stopped. 

"What?" he said. 

"Don't let us talk of these things. But you must not judge any womanwithout knowing what is in her heart. Even your own mother, with whomyou have lived alone ever since your father's death--do you know verymuch of her? We can't always show ourselves plainly as we are. It maynot be our fault. "

"You will marry. You must marry. "

"Why--must?"

He gazed at her. As she met his eyes she reddened slightly, understanding his thought, that such a woman as she was ought not toavoid the great vocation of woman. But there was another vocation, andperhaps it was hers. She felt confused. Two desires were strugglingwithin her. It was as if her nature contained two necessities which werewholly irreconcilable the one with the other. 

"You can't tell me?" he said, at last. 

"Not now. "

"Then I am going, and I shall never ask you again. But I shall never beable to love any one but you. "

He said nothing more, and went away without touching her hand. 

Words of Dante ran in Rosamund's head, and she repeated them to herselfafter Dion had gone. 

"_La divina volontate_!" She believed in it; she said to herself thatshe trusted it absolutely. But how was she to know exactly what itwas? And yet, could she escape from it even if she wished to? Could shewander away into any path where the Divine Will did not mean her to setfoot? Predestination--free will. "If only I were not so ignorant, " shethought. 

Soon after six she went up to her bedroom to put on her things forchurch. 

Her bedroom was very simple, and showed plainly an indifference toluxury, a dislike of show and of ostentation in its owner. The walls andceiling were white. The bed, which stood against the wall in one corner, was exceptionally long. This fact, perhaps, made it look exceptionallynarrow. It was quite plain, had a white wooden bedstead, and was coveredwith a white bedspread of a very ordinary type. There was one arm-chairin the room made of wickerwork with a rather hard cushion on the seat, the sort of cushion that resolutely refuses to "give" when one sitsdown on it. On the small dressing-table there was no array of glitteringsilver bottles, boxes and brushes. A straw flagon of eau-de-Cologne wasRosamund's sole possession of perfume. She did not own a box of powderor a puff. But it must be acknowledged that she never looked "shiny. "She had some ivory hair-brushes given to her one Christmas by BruceEvelin. Beside them was placed a hideous receptacle for--well, foranything--pins, perhaps, buttons, small tiresomenesses of that kind. It was made of some glistening black material, and at its center therebloomed a fearful red cabbage rose, a rose all vulgarity, ostentationand importance. This monstrosity had been given to Rosamund as athank-offering by a poor charwoman to whom she had been kind. It hadbeen in constant use now for over three years. The charwoman knew thiswith grateful pride. 

Upon the mantelpiece there were other gifts of a similar kind: aphotograph frame made of curly shells, a mug with "A present fromGreenwich" written across it in gold letters, a flesh-colored glassvase with yellow trimmings, a china cow with its vermilion ears cockedforward, lying down in a green meadow which just held it, and a toytrombone with a cord and tassels. There were also several photographs ofpoor people in their Sunday clothes. On the walls hung a photograph ofCardinal Newman, a good copy of a Luini Madonna, two drawings of headsby Burne-Jones, a small painting--signed "G. F. Watts"--of an old treetrunk around which ivy was lovingly growing, and one or two prints. 

The floor was polished and partially covered by three good-sized mats. There was a writing-table on one side of the room with an ebony-and-goldcrucifix standing upon it. Opposite to it, on the other side of theroom near the fireplace, was a bookcase. On the shelves were volumes ofShakespeare, Dante, Emerson, Wordsworth, Browning, Christina Rossetti, Newman's "Dream of Gerontius" and "Apologia, " Thomas a Kempis, severalworks on mystics and mysticism, a life of St. Catherine of Genoa, another of St. Francis of Assisi, St. Ignatius Loyola's "SpiritualExercises, " Pascal's "Letters, " etc. , etc. Over the windows hunggray-blue curtains. 

Into this room Rosamund came that evening; she went to a wardrobe andbegan to take down a long sealskin coat. Just then her maid appeared--anItalian girl whom she had taken into her service in Milan when she hadstudied singing there. 

"Shan't I come with you, Signorina?" she asked, as she took the jacketfrom her mistress and held it for Rosamund to put on. 

"No, thank you, Maria. I'm going to church, the Protestant church. "

"I could wait outside or come back to fetch you. "

"It's not far. I shall be all right. "

"But the fog is terrible. It's like a wall about the house. "

"Is it as bad as that?"

She went to one of the windows, pulled aside the curtains, lifted theblind and tried to look out. But she could not, for the fog pressedagainst the window panes and hid the street and the houses opposite. 

"It is bad. "

She dropped the blind, let the curtains fall into place and turnedround. 

"But I'd rather go alone. I can't miss the way, and I'm not a nervousperson. You'd be far more frightened than I. " She smiled at the girl. 

Apparently reassured, or perhaps merely glad that her unselfishness wasnot going to be tested, Maria accompanied her mistress downstairs andlet her out. It was Lurby's "evening off, " and for once he was notdiscreetly on hand. 

Church bells were chiming faintly in this City of dreadful night asRosamund almost felt her way onward. She heard them and thought theywere sad, and their melancholy seemed to be one with the melancholy ofthe atmosphere. Some one passed by her. She just heard a muffled soundof steps, just discerned a shadow--that was all. 

To-morrow she must give an answer to Dion Leith. She went on slowly inthe fog, thinking, thinking. Two vertical lines showed in her usuallysmooth forehead. 

It was nearly half-past six when she turned into Welby Street. Thechurch was not a large one and there was no parish attached to it. Itwas a proprietary chapel. The income of the incumbent came from pewrents. His name was Limer, and he was a first-rate preacher of thesensational type, a pulpit dealer in "actualities. " He was also anexcellent musician, and took great pains with his choir. In consequenceof these talents, and of his diligent application of them, St. Mary'swas generally full, and all its pews were let at a high figure. To-night, however, because of the fog, Rosamund expected to find fewpeople. 

One bell was mournfully ringing as she drew near and presently saw afaint gleaming of light through long narrow windows of painted glass. "Ping, ping, ping!" It was a thin little summons to prayer. She passedthrough a gateway in some railings of wrought ironwork, crossed aslippery pavement and entered the church. 

It was already more than three parts full, and there was a largeproportion of men in the congregation. A smart-looking young man, evidently a gentleman, who was standing close to the door, nodded toRosamund and whispered:

"I'll put you into Lady Millingham's seat. You'll find Mrs. Chetwindeand Mr. Darlington there. "

"Oh, I'd rather--" began Rosamund. 

But he had already begun to move up the aisle, and she was obliged tofollow him to a pew close to the pulpit, in which were seated a smartlydressed woman with a vague and yet acute expression, pale eyes anda Burne-Jones throat; and a thin, lanky and immensely tall man ofuncertain age, with pale brown, very straight hair, large white ears, thick ragged eyebrows, a carefully disarranged beard and mustache, andan irregular refined face decorated with a discreet but kind expression. These were Mrs. Willie Chetwinde, who had a wonderful house in LowndesSquare, and Mr. Esme Darlington, bachelor, of St. James's Square, whowas everybody's friend including his own. 

Rosamund just recognized them gravely; then she knelt down and prayedearnestly, with her face hidden against her muff. She still heard thelittle bell's insistent "Ping, ping, ping!" She pressed her shut eyesso hard against the muff that rings of yellow light floated up in herdarkness, forming, retreating, melting away. 

The bell ceased; the first notes of the organ sounded in a voluntary byMendelssohn, amiable and charming; the choir filed in as Rosamund rosefrom her knees. In the procession the two last figures were Mr. Limerand Mr. --or, as he was always called in Liverpool, Father--Robertson. 

Mr. Limer was a short, squat, clean-shaven but hairy dark man, withcoal-black hair sweeping round a big forehead, a determined face andlarge, indignant brown eyes. The Liverpool clergyman was of middleheight, very thin, with snow-white hair, dark eyes and eyebrows, and ayoung almost boyish face, with straight, small features, and a luminous, gentle and yet intense look. He seemed almost to glow, quietly, definitely, like a lamp set in a dark place, and one felt that his glowcould not easily be extinguished. He walked tranquilly by the side ofMr. Limer, and looked absolutely unselfconscious, quietly dignified andsimple. 

When he went into the pulpit the lights were lowered and a pleasanttwilight prevailed. But the preacher's face was strongly illuminated. 

Mr. Robertson preached on the sin of egoism, and took as the motto ofhis sermon the words--"_Ego dormio et cor meum vigilat_. " His methodof preaching was quiet, but intense; again the glow of the lamp. Oftenthere were passages which suggested a meditation--a soul communing withitself fearlessly, with an unyielding, but never violent, determinationto arrive at the truth. And Rosamund, listening, felt as if nothingcould keep this man with the snow-white hair and the young face awayfrom the truth. 

He ranged over a wide field--egoism being wide as the world--he exposedmany of the larger evils brought about by egoism, in connexion with theArts, with politics, with charity, with religious work in great cities, with missionary enterprises abroad; he touched on some of the moresubtle forms of egoism, which may poison even the sources of love; andfinally he discussed the gains and the losses of egoism. "For, " he said, "let us be honest and acknowledge that we often gain, in the worldlysense, by our sins, and sometimes lose by our virtues. " Power of a kindcan be, and very often is, obtained by egoists through their egoism. He discussed that power, showed its value and the glory of it. Thenhe contrasted with it the power which is only obtained by those who, completely unselfish, know not how to think of themselves. He enlargedon this theme, on the Kingdom which can belong only to those who areselfless. And then he drew to the end of his sermon. 

"One of the best means I know, " he said, "for getting rid of egoism isthis: whenever you have to take some big decision between two coursesof action--perhaps between two life courses--ask yourself, 'Which can Ishare?'--which of these two paths is wide enough to admit of my treadingit with a companion, whose steps I can help, whose journey I canenliven, whose weariness I can solace, and whose burden I can now andthen bear for a little while? And if only one of the paths is wideenough, then choose that in preference to the other. I believeprofoundly in 'sharing terms. '"

He paused, gazing at the congregation with his soft and luminous eyes. Then he added:

"_Ego dormio et cor meum vigilat_. When the insistent _I_ sleeps, onlythen perhaps can the heart be truly awake, be really watchful. Then letus send the insistent I to sleep, and let us keep it slumbering. "

He half-smiled as he finished. There had been something slightlywhimsical about his final words, about his manner and himself when hesaid them. 

Silence and the fog, and Rosamund walking homewards with her hands deepin her muff. All those bodies and minds and souls which had been in thechurch had evaporated into the night. Mrs. Chetwinde and Esme Darlingtonhad wanted to speak to Rosamund, but she had slipped out of the churchquickly. She did not wish to talk to any one. 

"_Ego dormio et cor meum vigilat_. "

What an odd little turn, or twist, the preacher had given to the meaningof those words! "Whenever you have to take some big decision betweentwo life courses, ask yourself, 'Which can I share?' and if you can onlyshare one, choose that. "

Very slowly Rosamund walked on, bending a little above the big muff, like one pulled forward by a weight of heavy thoughts. She turned acorner. Presently she turned another corner and traversed a square, which could not be seen to be a square. And then, quite suddenly, sherealized that she had not been thinking about her way home and that shewas lost in the impenetrable fog. 

She stood still and listened. She heard nothing. Traffic seemed stoppedin this region. On her left there were three steps. She went up them andwas under the porch of a house. Light shone dully from within, and by itshe could just make out on the door the number "8. " At least it seemedto her that probably it was an "8. " She hesitated, came down the steps, and walked on. It was impossible to see the names of the streets andsquares. But presently she would come across a policeman. She went onand on, but no policeman bulked shadowy against the background of nightand of the fog which at last seemed almost terrible to her. 

Rosamund was not timid. She was constitutionally incapable of timidity. Nor was she actively alarmed in a strong and definite way. But graduallythere seemed to permeate her a cold, almost numbing sensation ofloneliness and of desolation. For the first time in her life she feltnot merely alone but solitary, and not merely solitary but as if shewere condemned to be so by some power that was hostile to her. 

It was a hideous feeling. Something in the fog and in the night madean assault upon her imagination. Abruptly she was numbered among thederelict women whom nobody wants, whom no man thinks of or wishes to bewith, whom no child calls mother. She felt physically and morally, "Iam solitary, " and it was horrible to her. She saw herself old and alone, and she shuddered. 

How long she walked on she did not know, but when at last she hearda step shuffling along somewhere in front of her, she had almost--shethought--realized Eternity. 

The step was not coming towards her but was going onwards slowly beforeher. She hastened, and presently came up with an old man, poorly dressedin a dreadful frock-coat and disgraceful trousers, wearing on his longgray locks a desperado of a top hat, and carrying, in a bloated andalmost purple hand, a large empty jug. 

"Please!" said Rosamund. 

The old gentleman shuffled on. 

"Could you tell me--_please_--can you tell me where we are?"

She had grasped his left coat-sleeve. He turned and, bending, she peeredinto the face of a drunkard. 

"Close to the 'Daniel Lambert, '" said an almost refined old voice. 

And a pair of pathetic gray eyes peered up at her above a nose that waslike a conflagration. 

"Where's that? What is it?"

"Don't you know the 'Daniel Lambert'?"

The voice sounded very surprised and almost suspicious. 

"No. "

"It's well known, very well known. I'm just popping round there to get alittle something--eh!"

The voice died away. 

"I want to find Great Cumberland Place. "

"Well, you're pretty close to it. The 'Daniel Lambert's' in the EdgwareRoad. "

"Could you find it?--Great Cumberland Place, I mean?"

"Certainly. "

"I wish you would. I should be so grateful. "

The gray eyes became more pathetic. 

"Grateful to me--would you, miss? I'll go with you and very glad to doit. "

The old gentleman took Rosamund home and talked to her on the way. When they parted she asked for his name and address. He hesitated fora moment and then gave it: "Mr. Thrush, 2 Albingdon Buildings, John'sCourt, near Edgware Road. "

"Thank you. You've done me a good turn. "

At this moment the front door was opened by the housemaid. 

"Oh--miss!" she said. 

Her eyes left Rosamund and fastened themselves, like weapons, on theold gentleman's nose. He lifted his desperado of a hat and immediatelyturned away, trying to conceal his jug under his left arm, butinadvertently letting it protrude. 

"Good night, and thank you very much indeed!" Rosamund called after himwith warm cordiality. 

"I'm glad you've got back, miss. We were in a way. It's ever so late. "

"I got lost in the fog. That dear old man rescued me. "

"I'm very thankful, miss, I'm sure. "

The girl seemed stiffened with astonishment. She shut the street doorautomatically. 

"He used to be a chemist once. "

"Did he, miss?"

"Yes, quite a successful one too; just off Hanover Square, he told me. He was going round to get something for his supper when we met. "

"Indeed, miss?"

Rosamund went upstairs. 

"Yes, poor old man, " she said, as she ascended. 

Like most people in perfect health Rosamund slept well; but that nightshe lay awake. She did not want to sleep. She had something to decide, something of vital importance to her. Two courses lay open to her. Shemight marry Dion Leith, or she might resolve never to marry. Like mostgirls she had had dreams, but unlike most girls, she had often dreamedof a life in which men had no place. She had recently entered upon thecareer of a public singer, not because she was obliged to earn money butbecause she had a fine voice and a strong temperament, and longed forself-expression. But she had always believed that her public careerwould be a short one. She loved fine music and enjoyed bringing itsmessage home to people, but she had little or no personal vanity, andthe life of a public performer entailed a great deal which she alreadyfound herself disliking. Recently, too, her successful career hadreceived a slight check. She had made her festival debut at Burstal in"Elijah, " and no engagements for oratorio had followed upon it. Someday, while she was still young, she meant to retire, and then----

If she married Dion Leith she would have to give up an old dream. On theother hand, if she married him, perhaps some day she would be a mother. She felt certain--she did not know why--that if she did not marry DionLeith she would never marry at all. 

She thought, she prayed, she thought again. Sometimes in the dark hoursof that night the memory of her sensation of loneliness in the fogreturned to her. Sometimes Mr. Robertson's "Which can I share?" echoedwithin her, in the resonant chamber of her soul. He had been very quiet, but he had made an enormous impression upon her; he had made her hateegoism much more than she had hated it hitherto. 

Even into the innermost sanctuary of religion egoism can perhaps finda way. The thought of that troubled Rosamund in the dark. But when thehour of dawn grew near she fell asleep. She had made up her mind, or, rather, it had surely been made up for her. For a conviction had comeupon her that for good or for evil it was meant that her life shouldbe linked with Dion Leith's. He possessed something which she valuedhighly, and which, she thought, was possessed by very few men. Heoffered it to her. If she refused it, such an offering would probablynever be made to her again. 

To be a lonely woman; to be a subtle and profound egoist; to be loved, cherished, worshiped; to be a mother. 

Many lives of women seemed to float before her eyes. 

Just before she lost consciousness it seemed to her, for a moment, thatshe was looking into the pathetic eyes of the old man whom she had metin the fog. 

"Poor old man!" she murmured. 

She slept. 

On the following morning she sent this note to Dion Leith:

"MY DEAR DION, --I will marry you. 

"ROSAMUND. "

CHAPTER III

In the following spring, Rosamund and Dion were married, and Dion tookRosamund "to the land of the early morning. "

They arrived in Greece at the beginning of May, when the rains were overand the heats of summer were at hand. The bed of Ilissus was empty. Dustlay white in the streets of Athens and along the road to Phaleron andthe sea. The low-lying tracts of country were desert-dry, and aboutAthens the world was arrayed in the garb of the East. Nevertheless therewas still a delicate freshness in the winds that blew to the little cityfrom the purple Aegean or from the mountains of Argolis; stirring thedust into spiral dances among the pale houses upon which Lycabettoslooks down; shaking the tiny leaves of the tressy pepper trees near theRoyal Palace; whispering the antique secrets of the ages into the earsof the maidens who, unwearied and happily submissive, bear up the Porchof the Erechtheion; stealing across the vast spaces and between themighty columns of the Parthenon. The dawns and the twilights had notlost the pure savor of their almost frail vitality. The deepness ofslumber still came with the nights. 

Greece was, perhaps, at her loveliest. And Greece was almost deserted bytravelers. They had come and gone with the spring, leaving the land toits own, and to those two who had come there to drink deep at the wellsof happiness. And, a little selfish as lovers are, Rosamund and Diontook everything wonderful and beautiful as their possession. 

The yellow-green pines near the convent of Daphni threw patches of shadeon the warm earth because they wanted to rest there; the kingfisherrose in low and arrow-like flight from the banks of Khephissus to make asweet diversion for them; they longed for brilliance, and the lagoons ofSalamis were dyed with a wonder of emerald; they asked for twilight, andthe deep and deserted glades of Academe gave it them in full measure. All these possessions, and many others, they enjoyed almost as childrenenjoy a meadow full of flowers when they have climbed over the gatethat bars it from the high road. But the Acropolis was the strongholdof their joy. Only when their feet pressed its silvery grasses, and trodits warm marble pavements, did they hold the world within their grasp. 

For some days after their arrival in Greece they almost lived among theruins. The long-coated guardians smiled at them, at first with a sortof faint amusement, at last with a friendly pleasure. And they smiledat themselves. Each evening they said, "To-morrow we will do this--orthat, " and each morning they said nothing, just looked at each otherafter breakfast, read in each other's eyes the repetition of desire, andset out on the dear dusty road with which they were already so familiar. 

Had there ever before been a honeymoon bounded by the precipices of theAcropolis? They sometimes discussed that important question, and alwaysdecided against the impertinent possibility. "What we are doing hasnever been done before. " Dion went further than this, to "What I amfeeling has never been felt before. " His youth asserted itself insilent, determined statements which seemed to him to ring with authentictruth. 

It was a far cry from the downs of Chilton to the summit of theAcropolis. Dion remembered the crowd assembled to hear "Elijah"; he feltthe ugly heat, the press of humanity. And all that was but the preludeto this! Even the voice crying "Woe unto them!" had been the preludeto the wonderful silence of Greece. He felt marvelously changed. AndRosamund often seemed to him changed, too, because she was his own. Thatwonderful fact gave her new values, spread about her new mysteries. Andsome of these mysteries Dion did not attempt to fathom at first. Perhapshe felt that some silences of love are like certain ceremony with afriend--a mark of the delicacy which is the sign-manual of the thingsthat endure. In the beginning of that honeymoon there was a beautifulrestraint which was surely of good augury for the future. Not allthe doors were set violently open, not all the rooms were ruthlesslyvisited. 

Dion found that he was able to reverence the woman who had given herselfto him more after he had received the gift than before. And this wasvery wonderful to him, was even, somehow, perplexing. For Rosamundhad the royal way of bestowing. She was capable of refusal, but not ofhalf-measures or of niggardliness. There was something primitive inher which spoke truth with a voice that was fearless; and yet thatvery primitiveness seemed closely allied with her purity. Dion onlyunderstood what that purity was when he was married to her. It was likethe radiant atmosphere of Greece to him. Had not Greece led him to it, made him desire it with all that was best in his nature? Now he hadbrought it to Greece. Actually, day after day, he trod the Acropoliswith Rosamund. 

Greece had already, he believed, put out a hand and drawn them moreclosely together. 

"Love me, love the land I love. "

Laughingly, yet half-anxiously too, Dion had said that to Rosamund whenthey left Brindisi and set sail for Greece. With her usual sincerity shehad answered:

"I want to love it. Do you wish me to say more than that, to makepromises I may not be able to keep?"

"No, " he had answered. "I only want truth from you. " And after a momenthe had added, "I shall never want anything from you but your truth. "

She had looked at him rather strangely, like one moved by conflictingfeelings, and after a slight hesitation she had said:

"Dion, do you realize all the meaning in those words of yours?"

"Of course I do. "

"Then if you really mean them you must be one of the most daring ofhuman beings. But I shall try a compromise with you. I shall try to giveyou my best truth, never my worst. You deserve that, I think. Indeed, Iknow you do. "

And he had left it to her. Was he not wise to do that? Already hetrusted her absolutely, as he had never thought to trust any one. 

"I could face any storm with you, " he once said to Rosamund. 

Rosamund had wanted to love Greece, and from the first moment of seeingthe land she had loved it. 

In the beginning of their stay she had scarcely been able to believethat she was really in Athens. A great name had aroused in herimagination a conception of a great city. The soft familiarity, thealmost rustic simplicity and intimacy, the absolutely unpretentiousbrightness and homely cheerfulness of the small capital of this uniqueland had surprised, had almost confused her. 

"Is this really Athens?" she had said, wondering, as they had driveninto what seemed a village set in bright bareness, sparsely shaded hereand there by small pepper-trees. 

And the question had persisted in her mind, had almost trembled uponher lips, for two or three days. But then had come a mysterious change, brought about, perhaps, by affection. Quickly she had learnt to loveAthens, and then she had the feeling that if it had been in any waydifferent from what it was she could not have loved it. Its verysmallness delighted her, and she would not permit its faults to bementioned in her presence. Once, when Dion said that it was a great pitythe Athenians did not plant more trees, and a greater pity they so oftenlopped off branches from the few trees they had, she exclaimed:

"You mustn't run down my Athens. It likes to give itself to the sungenerously. It's grateful, as it well may be, for all the sun has donefor it. Look at the color of that marble. "

And Dion looked at the honey color, and the wonderful reddish-gold, and, laughing, said:

"Athens is the one faultless city, and the dogs tell us so every nightand all night long. "

"Dogs always bark when the moon is up, " she answered, with asemi-humorous gravity. 

"As they bark in Athens?" he queried. 

"Yes, of course. "

"If I am ever criticized, " he asked, "will you be my defender?"

"I shan't hear you criticized. "

"How do you know that?"

"I do know it, " she said, looking at him with her honest brown eyes;"nobody will criticize you when I am there. "

He caught hold of her hand. 

"And you? Don't you often criticize me silently? I'm sure you do. Whydid you marry me, Rosamund?"

They were sitting on the Acropolis when he put that question. It wasa shining day. The far-off seas gleamed. There was a golden pathway toAegina. The brilliant clearness, not European but Eastern, did notmake the great view spread out beneath and around them hard. Greecelay wrapped in a mystery of sunlight, different from, yet scarcely lessmagical than, the mystery of shadows and the moon. Rosamund looked outon the glory. She had taken off her hat, and given her yellow hairto the sunlight. Without any head-covering she always looked morebeautiful, and, to Dion, more Greek than when her hair was concealed. He saw in her then more clearly than at other times the woman of all theages rather than the woman of an epoch subject to certain fashions. As he looked at her now, resting on a block of warm marble above theprecipice which is dominated by the little temple of Athena Nike, hewondered, with the concealed humility of the great lover, how it wasthat she had ever chosen to give herself to him. He had sworn to marryher. He had not been weak in his wooing, had not been one of those menwho will linger on indefinitely at a woman's feet, ready to submit tounnumbered refusals. But now there rose up in the depths of him the cry, "What am I?" and the answer, "Only a man like thousands of other men, inno way remarkable, in no way more worthy than thousands of others of thegift of great happiness. "

Rosamund turned from the shining view. There was in her eyes an unusualvagueness. 

"Why did you?"

"Why did I marry you, Dion?"

"Yes. When I found you with your 'Paradise' I don't think you meant everto marry me. "

"I always liked you. But at first I didn't think of you in that way. "

"But you had known for ages before Burstal----"

"Yes, of course. I knew the day I sang at Mr. Darlington's, at thatparty he gave to introduce me as a singer. I knew first from yourmother. She told me. "

"My mother?"

"By the look she gave me when you introduced me to her. "

"Was it an----How d'you mean?"

"I can scarcely explain. But it was a look that asked a great manyquestions. And they wouldn't have been asked if you hadn't cared for me, and if she hadn't known it. "

"What did you think when you knew?"

"That it was kind of you to care for me. "

"Kind?"

"Yes. I always feel that about people who like me very much. "

"And did you just go on thinking me kind until that day at Burstal?"

"I suppose so. But I felt very much at home with you. "

"I don't know whether that's a compliment to a man who's still young, ornot?"

"Nor do I. But that's just how it was. "

He said nothing for a little while. When he spoke again it was with somehesitation, and his manner was almost diffident. 

"Rosamund, that day at Burstal, were you at all inclined to accept me?"

"Yes; I think, perhaps, I was. Why?"

"Sometimes I have fancied there was a moment when----"

He looked at her and then, for once, his eyes fell before hers almostguiltily. They sat in silence for a moment. Behind them, on a bench setin the shadow of a mighty wall, was a guardian of the Acropolis, a thinbrown man with very large ears sticking out from his head. He had beendozing, but now stirred, shuffled his feet, and suddenly cleared histhroat. Then he sighed heavily. 

"And if there was, why did you think it came, Dion?" said Rosamundsuddenly, with an almost startling swiftness of decision. 

Dion reddened. 

"Why don't you like to tell me?"

"Oh, well--things go through the mind without our wishing them to. Youmust know that, Rosamund. They are often like absurd little intruders. One kicks them out if one can. "

"What kind of intruder did you kick out, or try to kick out, atBurstal?"

She spoke half-laughingly, but half-challengingly. 

He drew a little nearer to her. 

"Sometimes I have fancied that perhaps, that day at Burstal, yousuddenly realized that love might be a more powerful upholder of lifethan ambition ever could be. "

"Sometimes? And you thought it first on the downs, or at any rate afterthe concert?"

"I think I did. "

"Do you realize, " she said slowly, and as if with an effort, "that youand I have never discussed my singing in 'Elijah'?"

"I know we never have. "

"Let us do it now, " she continued, still seeming to make a strongeffort. 

"But why should we?"

"I want to. Didn't I sing well?"

"I thought you sang wonderfully well. "

"Then what was it that went wrong? I've never understood. "

"Why should you think anything went wrong? The critics said it was aremarkable performance. You made a great effect. "

"I believe I did. But I felt for the first time that day that I was outof sympathy with my audience. And then"--she paused, but presently addedwith a certain dryness--"I was never offered any engagement to sing inoratorio after Burstal. "

"I believe a good many people thought your talent would show at its bestin opera. "

"I shall never go on the stage. The idea is hateful to me, and alwayshas been. Would you like me to sing on the stage?"

"No. "

"Dion, why don't you tell me what happened that day at Burstal?"

"I scarcely could. "

"I wish you would try. "

"Well--I think it was a mistake for you to begin your public career inoratorio by singing 'Woe unto them. '"

"Why?"

"It's an unsympathetic thing. It's a cruel sort of thing. "

"Cruel? But it's one of the best-known things in oratorio. "

"You made it quite new. "

"How?"

"It sounded fanatical when you sang it. I never heard it sound like thatbefore. "

"Fanatical?" she said, and her voice was rather cold. 

"Rosamund, " he said, quickly and anxiously, "you asked me to tell youexactly what I meant, what I felt, that is----"

"Yes, I know. Go on, Dion. Well? It sounded fanatical----"

"To me. I'm only telling you my impression. When I've heard 'Woe untothem' before it has always sounded sad, piteous if you like, a sort ofwailing. When you sang it, somehow it was like a curse, a tremendoussummoning of vengeance. "

"Why not? Are not the words 'Destruction shall fall upon them'?"

"I know. But you made it sound--to me, I mean--almost as if you wererejoicing personally at the thought of the destruction, as if you werelonging almost eagerly for it to overwhelm the faithless. "

"I see. That is what you meant by fanatical?"

"Yes, I suppose so. "

After a long pause she said:

"Nobody has told me that till now. "

"Perhaps others didn't feel it as I did. "

"I don't know. What does one know about other people? Not even myguardian said anything. I never could understand----"

She broke off, then continued steadily:

"So you think I repelled people that day?"

"It seems impossible that you--"

But she interrupted him. 

"No, Dion, it isn't at all impossible. I think if we are absolutelysincere we repel people very often. "

"But you are the most sincere person I have ever seen, and you must knowhow beloved you are, how popular you are wherever you go. "

"When I'm being sincere with the part of me that's feeling kind oraffectionate. Let us go to the Parthenon. "

She got up, opened her white sun-umbrella and turned round, keeping herhat in her left hand. As she stood there in that setting of marble, withthe sun caught in her hair, and the mighty view below and beyond her, she looked wonderfully beautiful, Dion thought, but almost stern. Hefeared perhaps he had hurt her. But was it his fault? She had told himto speak. 

Rosamund did not return to the subject of her debut at Burstal, butin the late afternoon of that day she spoke of her singing, and of theplace it might have in their married life. Dion believed she did thisbecause of their conversation near the Temple of Nike. 

They had spent most of the day on the Acropolis. Both had brought books:she, Mahaffy's "History of Greek Literature"; he, a volume of poemswritten by a young diplomat who loved Greece and knew her well. Neitherof them had read many pages, but as the strong radiance began to softenabout them on the height, and the breeze from the Saronic Gulf came tothem with a more feathery warmth and freshness over the smiling barenessof the Attic Plain, Dion, who had been half-dreamily turning the leavesof his little book, said:

"Rosamund. "

"Yes?"

"Look at the sea and the mountains of Trigania, those far-offmountains"--he pointed--"and the outpost of Hydra. "

She looked and said nothing. Then he read to her these lines of theyoung diplomat-poet:

 "A crescent sail upon the sea, So calm and fair and ripple free You wonder storms can ever be;

 A shore with deep indented bays, And o'er the gleaming water-ways A glimpse of Islands in the haze;

 A face bronzed dark to red and gold, With mountain eyes that seem to hold The freshness of the world of old;

 A shepherd's crook, a coat of fleece, A grazing flock;--the sense of peace, The long sweet silence, --this is Greece!"

Rosamund gazed before her at Greece in the evening light. 

"'The freshness of the world of old, '" she repeated, and her voice hada thrill in it. "'The sense of peace, the long sweet silence, --this isGreece. ' If there was music with the music of those words I should loveto sing them. "

"And how you could sing them. Like no other. "

"At any rate my heart would be in them. 'The freshness of the world ofold--the sense of peace, the long sweet silence. '"

She was standing now near the edge of the sacred rock, looking out overthe tawny plain flanked by gray Hymettos, and away to the sea. Therewere no voices rising from below. There was no sound of traffic onthe white road which wound away down the slope to the hidden city. Hercontralto voice lingered on the words; her lips drew them out softly, lengthening the sounds they loved. 

"Freshness, that which belonged to the early world, long sweet silence, peace. Oh, Dion, if you know how something in me cares for freshness andfor peace!"

Her glad energies were strangely stilled; yet there was a kind of forcein her stillness, the force that is in all deep truths of whatevernature they may be. He felt that he was near to perhaps the mostessential part of her, to that which was perhaps more truly her thaneven the radiant and buoyant humanity by means of which she drew peopleto her. 

"Could you live always out of the world?" he asked her. 

"But it wouldn't be out of the world. "

"Away from people--with me?"

"With you?"

She looked at him for a moment almost as if startled. Then there cameinto her brown eyes a scrutiny that seemed half-inward, as if it werepartially applied to herself. 

"It's difficult to be certain what one could do. I suppose one hasseveral sides. "

"Ah! And your singing side?"

"I want to speak about that. "

Her voice was suddenly more practical, and her whole look and mannerchanged, losing in romance and strangeness, gaining in directness andenergy. 

"We've never discussed it. "

She sat down on a slab of rock at the edge of the precipice, and wenton:

"You don't mind your wife being a public singer, do you, Dion?"

"Suppose I do?"

"Do you?"

"You're so energetic I doubt if you could be happy in idleness. "

"I couldn't in England. "

"And in Greece? But we are only here for such a short time. "

He took her hand in his. 

"Learning the lessons of happiness. "

"Good lessons for us!" she said, smiling. 

"The best there are. I believe in the education of joy. It opens theheart, calls up all the generous things. But your singing; can I bearyour traveling about perpetually all over England?"

"If I get engagements. "

"You will. You had a good many for concerts last winter. You've gotseveral for June and July. You'll get many more. But who's to go withyou on your travels?"

"Beattie, of course. Why do you look at me like that?"

"How do we know Beatrice won't marry?"

Rosamund looked grave. 

"Why shouldn't she?" asked Dion. 

"She may, of course. "

"D'you think she'll remain your apanage now?" he asked, with a hint ofsmiling sarcasm that could not hurt her. 

"My apanage?"

"Hasn't she been something like that?"

"Perhaps she has. But Beattie always sinks herself in others. Shewouldn't be happy if she didn't do that. Of course, your friend GuyDaventry's in love with Beattie. "

"Deeply. "

"But I'm not at all sure that Beattie--"

She paused abruptly. After a moment she continued:

"You asked me to-day why I married you. I didn't answer you and I'm notgoing to answer you now--entirely. But you're not like other men, mostother men. "

"In what way?"

"A way that means very much to me, " she answered, with a deliciouspurity and directness. "Women feel such things very soon when they knowmen. I could easily have never married, but I could never, never havemarried a man who had lived, as I believe most men have lived. "

"I think I always knew that from the first moment I saw you. "

"Did you? I'm glad. I care tremendously for _that_ in you, Dion--morethan you will ever know. "

"That's my great, too great reward, " he said soberly, almost with atouch of deep awe. Then, reddening and looking away, he added, "You werethe very first. "

"Was I?"

"Yes, but--but you mustn't think that it was a religious feeling, anything of that kind, which kept me back from--from certain things. Itwas more the desire to be strong, healthy, to have the sane mind in thesane body, I think. I was mad about athletics, all that sort of thing. Anyhow, you know now. You were the first. You will be the only one in mylife. "

There was a long silence between them. Then Rosamund said, with a changeof manner to practical briskness:

"If Beattie ever should marry, I could take a maid about with me. "

"Yes. An hotel in Liverpool with a maid! In Blackpool, in Huddersfield, in Wolverhampton, in Glasgow, when there's a heavy thaw on, with a maid!Oh, how delightful it will be! Manchester on a wet day in early springwith a--"

"Hush!" she put one hand on his lips gently, and looked at him with asort of smiling challenge in her eyes. "Do you mean to forbid me?"

"I don't think I could ever forbid you to do anything. "

"We shall see in England. "

"But, Rosamund"--there was no one in sight, and he slipped one arm roundher--"if something came to fill your life, both our lives, to the brim?"

"Ah, then, "--a very remote expression came into her eyes, --"then itwould all be different. "

"All?"

"Yes. Everything would be quite different then. "

"Not our relation to each other?"

"Yes, even that. Perhaps that most of all. "

"I--I hardly like to hear you say that, " he said, struggling againsta perhaps stupid, or even hateful, feeling of depression mingled withsomething else. 

"But wouldn't it? Think!"

"I don't want that to change. I should hate any change in that. "

"What we want, and what we hate, doesn't affect what has to be. And Iexpect at the end we shall be thankful for that. But, Dion, yes, _if_what you say, I could give it all up. Public singing! What would itmatter then? I'm a woman, not a singer. But perhaps it will never come. "

"Who knows?" he said. 

And he sighed. 

She turned towards him, leaned one hand on the stone and looked at himalmost anxiously. 

"What is the matter, Dion?"

"Why? There is nothing the matter. "

"Would you rather we never had that in our lives?"

"A child?"

"Yes, a child. "

"I thought I longed for that, " he answered. 

"Do you meant that you have changed and don't long any more?"

"I suppose it's like this. When a man's very happy, perfectly happy, hedoesn't--perhaps he can't--want any change to come. If you're perfectlyhappy instinctively you almost fear any change. Till to-day, till thisvery minute perhaps, I thought I wanted to have a child--some day. Perhaps I still do really, or perhaps I shall. But--you must forgive me, I can't help it!--this evening, sitting here, I don't want anything tocome between us. It seems to me that even a child of ours would takesome of you away from me. Don't you see that?"

She shook her head. 

"That's a man's feeling. I can't share it. "

"But think--all the attention you would have to give to a child, all thethoughts you would fasten on it, all the anxieties you'd have about it!"

"Well?"

"One only has a certain amount of time. You'd have to take away a gooddeal, a great deal, of the time you can now give to me. Oh, it soundstoo beastly, I know! Perhaps I scarcely mean it! But surely you can seehow a man who loves a woman very much might, without being the leastbit unnatural, think, 'I'd like to keep every bit of her for myself. I'd like to have her all to myself!' I dare say this feeling will pass. Remember, Rose, we're only just married, and we're in Greece, right awayfrom every one. Don't think me morbidly jealous, or a beast. I'm not. Iexpect lots of men have felt as I do, perhaps even till the first childcame. "

"Ah, then it would be all right, " she said. "The natural things, thethings nature intends, are always all right. "

"How blessedly sane and central you are!"

"If we had a child--Dion, you must believe me!--we should be drawn everso much nearer together by it. If we ever do have one, we shall lookback on this time--you will--and think 'We were much farther apart thenthan we are now. '"

"I don't like to hear you say that, " he said gravely, almost with pain. 

Could a woman like Rosamund be driven by an instinct blindly? Shewas such a perfect type of womanhood. It would be almost a tragedy ifshe--such a woman--died childless. Perhaps instinct had obscurely warnedher of that, had taught her where to look for a mate. He, Dion, hadalways lived purely. That day she had acknowledged that she had divinedit. Was that, perhaps, her real, her instinctive reason for marryinghim? But a man wants to be married for one thing only, because thewoman longs for him. And Dion was just an ordinary man with very strongfeelings. 

"Let's take one more stroll before we go down, " he said. 

"Yes, to the maidens, " she answered. 

Her voice sounded relieved. She pushed her arm gently through his asthey moved away, and he felt all his body thrill. The mystery of lovewas almost painful to him at that moment. He realized that a great lovemight grow to have an affinity with a disease. "I must be careful. Imust take great care with this love of mine, " he thought. 

They went slowly over the slabs of marble and the gray rocks and passedbefore the west front of the Parthenon. Dion felt slight resistance inRosamund's arm, and stopped. In the changing light the marble was fullof warm color, was in places mysterious and translucent almost as amber. The immense power, the gigantic calm of the temple, a sort of stillbreathing of Eternity upon Time, confronted a glory which was beginningto change in the face of its changelessness. Soon the seas that heldtheir dream under the precipices of Sunion, and along the shores ofAegina, where the tall shepherd boys in their fleeces of white lead homethe flocks in the twilight, would lose the wonder of their shining, andthe skies the rapture of their diffused light. In the quietly austereAttic Plain, through the whispering groves of Academe, and along thesacred way to Eleusis, a very delicate vagueness was beginning totravel, like a wanderer setting forth to greet the coming of the night. The ranges of hills and mountains, Hymettos and Pentelicus, Parnesstretching to the far distance, Mount Corydallus, the peak of Salamis, the exquisitely long mountains of Trigania--"the greyhounds of theirtribe, " Rosamund loved to call them--were changing almost from momentto moment, becoming a little softer, a little more tender, putting offtheir distinct hues of the day for the colors of sleep and forgetting. But the great Doric columns fronting them, the core of the heart of thisevening splendor, seemed not to defy, but to ignore, all the processesof change. In its ruin the Parthenon seemed to say, "I have notchanged. " And it was true. For the same soul which had confrontedPericles confronted the two lovers who now stood at the foot of thetemple. 

"I wonder how many thousands of people of all nations have learnt thesame lesson here, " Rosamund said at last. 

"The Doric lesson, you mean?"

"Yes, of strength, simplicity, endurance, calmness. "

"And I wonder how many thousands have forgotten the lesson. "

"Why do you say that, Dion?"

"I don't know. Great art is a moral teacher, I'm sure of that. But menare very light-minded as a rule, I think. If they lived before thesecolumns they might learn a great deal, they might even develop in asplendid direction, I believe. But an hour, even a few hours, is thatenough? Impressions fade very quickly in most people. "

"Not in you. You never forget the Parthenon, and I shall never forgetit. "

She stood for some minutes quite still gazing steadily up at thetemple, gaining--it seemed to her--her own stillness from its tremendousimmobility. 

"The greatest strength is in silence, " she thought. "The greatest poweris in motionlessness. "

She thought of the raging of the great sea. But no! There was more ofthe essence of strength, of the stern inwardness of power, in that whichconfronted life and Time in absolute stillness; in a mountain, inthis temple. And the temple spoke to something far down within her; tosomething which desired long silences and deep retirement, to somethingmystic which she did not understand. The temple was Pagan and she knewthat. But that in her to which it spoke was not Pagan. Before she leftAthens she meant to realize that the soul of man, when it speaks throughmighty and pure effort, of whatever kind, always speaks to the sameListener, to but one, though man may not know it. 

"Doric!" she said at last. "I have always known that for me that wouldbe the greatest. The simplest thing is the most sublime thing. Thattemple is like the Sermon on the Mount to me. Didn't you bring me herebecause it meant so much to you?"

"Not entirely. No, Rosamund, I think I brought you here because I feltthat you belonged here. "

"This satisfies me. "

She sighed deeply, still gazing at the temple. 

"You aren't only in Greece, you are of Greece. Come to the maidens. "

As they went on slowly the acid voices of the little birds which flyperpetually among the columns of the Parthenon followed them, biddingthem good night. 

They descended over the uneven ground and came to the famous Porch ofthe Caryatides, jutting out from the little Ionic temple which is thehandmaid of the Parthenon. Not far from the Porch, and immediatelybefore it, was a wooden bench. Already Rosamund and Dion had spent manyhours here, sometimes sitting on the bench, more often resting on thewarm ground in the sunshine, among the fragments of ruin and the speary, silver-green grasses. Now Rosamund sat down and Dion stood by her side. 

"Rosamund, those maidens are my ideal of womanhood shown in marble, " hesaid. 

"They are almost miraculously beautiful. And one scarcely knows why. ButI know that every time I see them the mystery of their beauty seems moreineffable to me, and the meaning of it seems more profound. How did menget so much meaning into marble?"

"By caring so much for what is beautiful in womanhood, I suppose. "

He sat down close beside her. 

"I sometimes wonder whether women have any idea what some men, many men, I believe, seek in women. "

"What do they seek?"

"What do those maidens that hold up the Porch suggest to you?"

"All that's calm without a touch of coldness, and strong without a touchof hardness, and noble without a touch of pride, and obedient without atouch of servility. "

"Brave sweetness, too, and protectiveness. They are wonderful, and soare some women. When I saw you in the omnibus at Milan I thought ofthese maidens immediately. "

"How strange!"

"Why strange?"

"Isn't it?" she said, gazing at the six maidens in their floweringdraperies of marble, who, upon their uncovered heads, bore tranquillityup the marble architrave. "How wonderfully simple and unpretending theyare!"

"Are not you?"

"I don't know. I don't believe I think about it. "

"I do. Rosamund, sometimes I feel that I am an unique man--just think ofa fellow in a firm on the Stock Exchange being unique!--because I havehad an ideal, and I have attainted to it. When I was here alone, Iconceived for the first time an ideal of woman. I said to myself, 'Inthe days of ancient Greece there must have been such women in the fleshas these maidens in marble. If I could have lived and loved then!' And Icame away from Greece carrying a sort of romantic dream with me. And nowI sit here with you; I can't think why I, a quite ordinary man, shouldbe picked out for perfect happiness. "

"Is it really perfect?" she asked, turning to him. 

"I think so. In such a place with you!"

As the evening drew on, a little wind came and went over the rockyheight, but it had no breath of cold in it. Two Greek soldiers passedby slowly behind them--short young men with skins almost as dark asthe skins of Arabs of the South, black eyes and faces full of activementality. They were talking eagerly, but stopped for a moment to lookat the English, and beyond them at the six maidens on their platform ofmarble. Then they went on talking again, but presently hesitated, cameback, and stood not far off, gazing at the Porch with a mixture ofreverence and quiet wistfulness. Dion drew Rosamund's attention to them. 

"They feel the beauty, " he said. 

"Yes, I like that. "

She looked at the two young men with a smile. One of them noticed it, and smiled back at her almost boyishly, and with a sort of confidentialsimplicity. 

The light began to fail. The six maidens were less clearly seen, but thedeep meaning of them did not lessen. In the gathering darkness they andtheir sweet effort became more touching, more lovable. Their persistencewas exquisite now that they confronted with serenity the night. 

"They are beautiful by day, but at night they are adorable, " saidRosamund. 

"Don't you know why I thought of them when I met you?" he whispered. 

She got up slowly. The Greek soldiers moved, turned, and went down theslope towards the Propylae. Their quick voices were heard again. Thenthere was the sound of a bell. 

"Time to go, " said Rosamund. 

As they followed the soldiers she again put her arm through her younghusband's. 

"Dion, " she said, "I think I'm a little afraid of your ideals. Iunderstand them. I have ideals too. But I think perhaps mine are less indanger of ever being shattered than yours are. "

"Why? But I know mine are not in danger. "

"How can you say that?"

"It's no use trying to frighten me. But what about your ideals? What isthe nature of the difference between yours and mine, which makes yoursso much less vulnerable than mine?"

But she only said:

"I don't believe I could explain it. But I feel it, and I shall go onfeeling it. "

They went down the steep marble steps, gave the guardian at the foot ofthem good night, and walked almost in silence to Athens. 

CHAPTER IV

After that day Rosamund and Dion often talked of the child who mighteventually come into their lives to change them. Rosamund indeed, nowthat such a possibility had been discussed between them, returned to itwith an eagerness which she did not seek to conceal. She was wonderfullyfrank, and her frankness seemed to belong naturally to her transparentpurity, to be an essential part of it. Dion's momentary depression thatevening on the Acropolis had evidently stirred something in her whichwould not let her rest until it had expressed itself. She had detectedfor the first time in her husband a hint of something connected with hislove for her which seemed to her morbid. She could not forget it and shewas resolved to destroy it if possible. When they next stood together ontheir beloved height she said to him:

"Dion, don't you hate anything morbid?"

"Yes, loathe it!" he answered, with hearty conviction. "But surely youknow that. Why d'you ask me such a thing? How dare you?"

And he turned to her his brown face, bright this morning with goodspirits, his dark eyes sparkling with hopefulness and energy. 

It was a pale morning, such as often comes to Athens even at the edgeof the summer. They were standing on the little terrace near to theAcropolis Museum, looking down over the city and to helmet-shapedLycabettos. The wind, too fond of the Attic Plain, was blowing, notwildly, but with sufficient force to send the dust whirling in lightclouds over the pale houses and the little Byzantine churches. Longand narrow rivulets of dust marked the positions of the few roadswhich stretched out along the plain. The darkness of the groves whichsheltered the course of the Kephisos contrasted strongly with the flyingpallors and seemed at enmity with them. The sky was milky white andgray, broken up in places by clouds of fantastic shapes, along theruffled edges of which ran thin gleams of sunshine like things halftimorous and ashamed. Upon the flat shores near Phaleron the purpleseas broke in spray, and the salty drops were caught up by the wind andmingled with the hurrying grains of dust. It was not exactly a sad day, but there was an uneasiness abroad. The delicate calm of Greece wasdisturbed. Nevertheless Dion was feeling gay and light-hearted, inclinedto enjoy everything the world about him offered to him. Even therestlessness beneath and around them accorded with his springingspirits. The whirling spirals of dust suggested to him the gaiety of adance. The voice of the wind was a joyous music in his ears. 

"How dare you?" he repeated with a happy pretense of indignation. 

"Because I think you were almost morbid yesterday. "

"I? When?"

"When we spoke of the possibility of our some day having a child. "

"I had a moment of thinking that too, " he agreed. "Yes, Rose, thethought went through my mind that a great love, such as mine for you, might become almost a disease if one didn't watch it, hold it in. "

"If it ever did become like that, do you know what would happen?"

"What, Rose?"

"Instead of rejoicing in it I should shrink from it. "

"That's enough for me!"

He spoke gaily, confidently. 

"Besides, I don't really believe I'm a man to love like that. Ionly imagined I might for a moment, perhaps because it was twilight. Imaginings come with the twilight. "

"I could never bear to think, if a child came, that you didn't want it, that you wished it out of the way. "

"I never should. But I expect lots of young married people have queerthoughts and feelings which they keep entirely to themselves--I blurtedmine out. You've got a dangerously sincere husband, Rose. The wholematter lies in your own hands. If we ever have a child, love it, butdon't love it more than me. "

"I should love it so differently! How could maternal love interfere withthe love of woman for man?"

"No, I don't suppose it could. "

"Of course it never could. "

"Then that's settled. Where shall we go to get out of the wind? It seemsto be rising. "

After searching for a place of shelter in vain they eventually tookrefuge in the Parthenon, under the shadow of the great western wall. Perhaps in consequence of the wind the Acropolis was entirely deserted. Only the guardians were hidden somewhere, behind columns, in the Porchof the Museum, under the roof of their little dwelling at the foot ofthe marble staircase which leads up to the Propylae. The huge wall ofthe Parthenon kept off the wind from the sea, and as Rosamund and Dionno longer saw the whirling dust clouds in the plain they had, for themoment, almost an illusion of peace. They sat down on the guardian'sbench, just beneath some faint fragments of paintings which datedfrom the time when the temple was made use of as a church by GreekChristians; and immediately Rosamund went on talking about the child. She spoke very quietly and earnestly, with the greatest simplicity, andby degrees Dion came to see her as a mother, to feel that perhaps onlyas a mother could she fulfil herself. The whole of her beauty wouldnever be revealed unless she were seen with a child of her own. Hithertohe had thought of her chiefly in relation to himself, as the girl helonged to win, then as the girl he most wonderfully had succeeded inwinning. She put herself before him now in a different light, and hesaw in her new and beautiful possibilities. While she was talking hisimagination began to play about the child, and presently he realizedthat he was thinking of it as a boy. Then, in a moment, he realized thaton the previous evening he had thought of a male, not of a female child. With this in his mind he said abruptly:

"What sort of a child do you wish to have, Rosamund?"

"What sort?" she said, looking at him with surprise in her brown eyes. 

"Yes. "

"What do you mean? A beautiful, strong, healthy child, of course, thesort of child every married woman longs to have, and imagines havingtill it comes. "

"Beautiful, strong, healthy!" he repeated, returning her look. "Ofcourse it could only be that--your child. But I meant, do you want it tobe a boy or a girl?"

"Oh!"

She paused, and looked away from him and down at the uncemented marbleblocks which form the pavement of the Parthenon. 

"Well?" he said, as she kept silence. 

"If it were to be a girl I should love it. "

"You wish it to be a girl?"

"I didn't say that. The fact is, Dion"--and now she again looked at him, "I have always thought of our child as a boy. That's why your questionalmost startled me. I have never even once thought of having a girl. Idon't know why. "

"I think I do. "

"Why then?"

"The thought was born of the desire. You wanted our child to be a sonand so you thought of it as a son. "

"Perhaps that was it. "

"Wasn't it?"

He spoke with a certain pressure. She remained silent for a moment, andtwo little vertical lines appeared in her forehead. Then she said:

"Yes, I believe it was. And you?"

"I confess that when yesterday we spoke of a child I was thinking allthe time about a boy. "

She gazed at him with something visionary in her eyes, which made themlook for a moment like the eyes of a woman whom he had not seen tillnow. Then she said quietly:

"It will be a boy, I think. Indeed, if it weren't perhaps absurd, Ishould say that I know it will be a boy. "

He said nothing more just then, but at that moment he felt as if he, too, knew, not merely hoped, or guessed, something about their jointfuture, knew in the depths of him that a boy-child would some day besent to Rosamund and to him, to influence and to change their lives. 

The wind began to fail almost suddenly, the sky grew brighter, a shaftof sun lay on the marble at their feet. 

"It's going to be fine, " Dion said. "Let's be active for once. The windhas made me restless. Suppose we get a couple of horses and ride out tothe convent of Daphni!"

She got up at once. 

"Yes. I've brought my habit, and haven't had it on once. "

As they left the Great Temple she looked up at the mighty columns andsaid;

"Doric! If we have a boy let us bring him up to be Doric. "

"Yes, Rosamund, " he said quietly and strongly. "We will. "

Afterward he believed that it was then, and only then, that he caughtsomething of her deep longing to have a child. He began to see how aman's child might influence him and affect his life, might even send himupwards by innocently looking up to him. It would be bad, very bad, tofail as a husband, but, by Jove! it would be one of the great tragediesto fail as a father. Mentally Dion measured the respective heightsof himself and a very small boy; saw the boy's trusting eyes looking, almost peering, up at him. Such eyes could change, could become veryattentive. "It wouldn't do to be adversely criticized by your boy, " hethought. And one day he said to Rosamund, but in almost a casual way:

"If we ever do have a boy, Rose, and want him to be Doric, we shall haveto start in by being Doric ourselves, eh?"

"Yes, " she answered, "I've thought that, too. "

"D'you think I could ever learn to be that?"

"I know you could. You are on the way already, I think. I noticedin London that you were never influenced by all the affectations andabsurdities, or worse, that seem to have taken hold of so many peoplelately. "

"There has been a wave of something rather beastly passing over Londoncertainly. But I almost wonder you knew it. "

"Why?"

"Can your eyes see anything that isn't good?"

"Yes. But I don't want ever to look long on what I hate. "

"You aren't afraid you might cease from hating it!"

"Oh, no. But I believe in feeding always on wholesome food. "

"Modern London doesn't. "

"I shall never be modern, I'm afraid, " she said, half laughing, and witha soft touch of apparently genuine deprecation. 

"Be eternal, that's better!" he almost whispered. "Listen to thatnightingale. It's singing a song of all the ages. You have a messagelike that for me. "

They had strolled out after dinner in the warm May night, and had walkeda little way up the steep flank of Lycabettos till they reached a woodenbench near which were a few small fir trees. Somewhere among these treesthere was hidden a nightingale, which sang with intensity to Athensspread out below, a small maze of mellow lights and of many notinharmonious voices. Even in the night, and at a distance, they felt thesmiling intimacy of the little city they loved. Its history was likea living thing dwelling among the shadows, hallowed and hallowing, itstreasures, like night flowers, breathed out a mysterious message tothem. They received it, and felt that they understood it. Had thenightingale been singing to any city its song must have seemed to thembeautiful. But it was singing to Athens, and that fact gave to itsvoice, in their ears, a magical meaning. 

They sat for a while in silence. Nobody passed on the winding path. Their impulse to solitude was unshared by the dwellers in Athens. Neither knew exactly what thoughts were passing through the other'smind, what aspirations were flaming up in the heart of the other. Butthey knew that they were close bound in sympathy just then, voyagingtowards a common future. That future lay over the sea in gray England. Their time in Greece was but an interlude. But in it they weregathering up impressions, were laying in stores for their journey. Thenightingale's song was part of their provision. It had to sing to justthem for some hidden reason. And to Dion it seemed that the nightingaleknew the reason while they did not, that it comprehended all the underthings of love and of sorrow of which they were ignorant. When he spokeagain he said:

"A bird's song always makes me feel very unlearned. Do you know what Imean?"

"Yes. We've got to learn so much. "

"Together. "

"Yes--partly. "

"Partly?" he said quickly. 

"I think there's a great deal that can only be learnt quite alone. "

Again, as sometimes before, Dion trod on the verges of mystery, felt asif something in Rosamund chided him, and was chilled for a moment. 

"I dare say you are right, " he said. "But I believe I could learn anylesson more easily with you to help me. "

"No, I don't think so. "

"Perhaps we shall know which is right, you or I, when we've been muchlonger together, " he said, with an effort to speak lightly. 

"Yes. "

"Rosamund, sometimes you make me feel as if you thought I didn't knowyou, I mean didn't know you thoroughly. "

"Do I?"

"Yes. "

Again silence fell between them. As Dion listened once more to thepersistent nightingale he felt that there was pain somewhere at the backof its ecstasy. He looked down at the soft lights of little Athens, andsuddenly knew that much sorrow lay in the shadows of all the cities ofthe earth. There was surely a great reserve in the girl who had givenherself to him. That was natural, perhaps. But to-night he felt that shewas aware of this reserve and was consciously guarding it like a sacredthing. Presently they got up and went slowly down the hill. 

"Suppose you had never married, " he said, as they drew near to the city, "how would you have lived, do you think?"

"Perhaps for my singing, at first, " she answered. 

"And afterwards?"

"Afterwards? Very quietly, I think. "

"You won't tell me. "

"I don't know for certain, and what does it matter? I have married. If Ihadn't, perhaps I should have been very selfish and thought myself veryself-sacrificing. "

"I wonder in what way selfish. "

"There are so many ways. I heard a sermon once on a foggy night inLondon. "

"Ah--that evening I called on you. "

"I didn't say so. It made me understand egoism better than I hadunderstood it before. Perhaps it's the unpardonable sin. "

"Then it could never be your sin. "

"Hush!"

They no longer heard the nightingale. The voices and the houses ofAthens were about them. 

As the days slipped by, Dion felt that Rosamund and he grew closertogether. He knew, though he could not perhaps have said how, that hewould be the only man in her intimate life. Even if he died she wouldnever--he felt sure of this--yield herself to another man. The tiebetween them was to her a bond for eternity. Her body would never begiven twice. That he knew. But sometimes he asked himself whether herwhole soul would ever be given even once. The insatiable greed of agreat and exclusive love was alive within him, needing always somethingmore than it had. At first, after their marriage, he had not been awareof this greed, had not realized that nothing great is content toremain just as it is at a given moment. His love had to progress, andgradually, in Greece, he became conscious of this fact. 

His inner certainty, quite unshakable, that Rosamund would never belongto another man in the physical sense made jealousy of an ordinary kindimpossible to him. The lowness, the hideous vulgarity of the jealousywhich tortures the writhing flesh would never be his. Yet he wanted morethan he had sometimes, stretched out arms to something which did notcome to nestle against him. 

There was a great independence in Rosamund, he thought, which sether apart from other women, Not only could she bear to be alone, shesometimes wished to be alone. Dion, on the contrary, never wished to beaway from her. It might be necessary for him to leave her. He was nota young doting fool who could not detach himself even for a moment fromhis wife's apron strings. But he knew very well that at all times hepreferred to be with her, close to her, that he relished everythingmore when he was in her company than when he was alone. She added to hispower of enjoyment, to his faculty of appreciation, by being besidehim. The Parthenon even was made more sublime to him by her. That wasa mystery. And the mystery of her human power to increase penetratedeverywhere through their life in common, like a percolating flood thatcould not be gainsaid. She manifested her influence upon him subtlythrough the maidens of the Porch, through the almost neat perfectionof the Theseion, through the detached grandeur of those columns in thewaste place, that golden and carved Olympieion which acts as an outpostto Athens. It was as if she had the power to put something of herselfinto everything that he cared for so that he might care for it more, whether it were a golden sunset on the sea over which they drifted ina sailing-boat off the coast of old Phaleron, or a marble figure in amuseum. She dwelt in the stones of a ruined temple; she set her feetupon the dream of the distant mountains; she was in the dawn, thetwilight, and in all the ways of the moon, because he loved her andfound her in all things when they were together. 

He did not know whether she, in a similar mysterious way, found him inall that she enjoyed. He did not ask her the question. Perhaps, really, in that truth of apprehension which lives very far down in a man, he haddivined the answer, although he told himself that he did not know. 

He found always something new to enjoy and to worship in Rosamund. 

They had many tastes in common. At first, of deliberate choice, they hadbounded their honeymoon with the precipices of the Acropolis, learningthe Doric lesson on that height above the world. Then one day they hadmade a great sacrifice and gone to pass their hours in the pine woodsof Kephissia. They had returned to the Acropolis quite athirst. But bydegrees the instinct to wander a little farther afield took greater holdupon them, their love of physical exercise asserted itself. They beganto take long rides on horseback, carrying food in their saddle-bags. Thegently wild charm of Greece laid its spell upon them. They both lovedAthens, but now they began to love, too, escaping from Athens. 

Directly they were out of the city they were in a freedom that appealedto the gipsy in both. Dion's strong boyishness, which had never yetbeen cast off, was met and countered by the best of good fellowshipin Rosamund. Though she could be very serious, and even what he called"strange, " she was never depressed or sad. Her good spirits wereunfailing and infectious. She reveled in a "jaunt" or a "day out, " andher physical strength kept fatigue far from her. She could ride for manyhours without losing her freshness and zest. Every little episode of thewayside interested and entertained her. Everything comic made her laugh. She showed an ardor almost like an intelligent child's in getting tounderstand all she saw. Scenery, buildings, animal life, people, everyoffering of Greece was eagerly accepted, examined and discussed by her. She was the perfect comrade for the wilds. Their common joy in the wildsdrew her and Dion more closely together. Never before had Rosamund beenquite away from civilization, from the hitherto easily borne trammels ofmodern complicated life. She "found herself" in the adventure. The pureremoteness of Greece came to her like natal air. She breathed it in witha sort of rapture. It was as Dion had said. She was not merely in, shewas of, Greece. 

They rode one day to Eleusis; on another day to Tatoi, buried inoak-woods on the slope of Parnes; on another through noisy and mongrelPiraeus, and over undulating wrinkled ground, burnt up by the sun andcovered with low scrub and bushes of myrtle, to the shore of the gulfopposite to Salamis; on yet another to Marathon, where they lunched onthe famous mound beneath which the bodies of the Athenians who fell inthe battle were buried. They took no companion with them. Dion carrieda revolver in his hip pocket, but never had reason to show or to useit. When they dismounted they tethered the horses to a bush or tree, orsometimes hobbled their forelegs, and turned them loose for a while. 

Such days were pure joy to them both. In them they went back to theearly world. They did not make the hard and self-conscious imaginativeeffort of the prig to hurl themselves into an historic past. They justlet the land and its memories take them. As, sitting on the warm groundamong the wild myrtle bushes, they looked across the emerald greenunruffled waters to Salamis, that very long isle with its calm gray andorange hills and its indented shores, perhaps for a moment they talkedof the Queen of Halicarnassus, and of the deception of Xerxes watchingfrom his throne on Mount Aegaleos. But the waters were now so solitary, the peace about them was so profound, that the memory of battles soonfaded away in the sunshine. Terror and death had been here once. A queenhad destroyed her own people in that jeweled sea, a king had fled fromthose delicate mountains. But now sea and land were for lovers. A flywith shining wings journeyed among the leaves of the myrtles, a beetlecrept over the hot sandy ground leaving a minute pattern behind it;and Rosamund and Dion forgot all about Artemisia, as they brooded, wide-eyed, over the activities of the dwellers in the waste. At suchmoments they realized the magic of life, as they had never realized itin the turmoil of London. The insect with its wings that caught thesun, the intent and preoccupied little traveler whose course could bedeflected by a twig, revealed the wonder that is lost and forgotten inthe crowded highways of men. 

It was when they were at Marathon that Rosamund told Dion she lovedGreece partly because of its emptiness. The country was not only ratherbare of vegetation, despite its groves of glorious old olives, its woodsof oaks round Tatoi, its delicious curly forests of yellow-green pines, which looked, Rosamund declared, as if they had just had their daintyheads perfectly dressed by an accomplished coiffeur, it was also almoststrangely bare of men. 

"Where are the Greeks?" Rosamund had often asked during their first fewrides, as they cantered on and on, scarcely ever meeting a human being. 

"In the towns to be sure!" Dion had answered. 

"And where are the towns?"

"Ah! That's more than I can tell you!" he had said, laughing. 

To one hitherto accustomed to England, the emptiness of the country, even quite near to Athens, was at first surprising. Soon it becameenchanting. 

"This is a country I can thoroughly trust, " Rosamund declared atMarathon. 

Dion had just finished hobbling the two horses, and now lifted himselfup. His brown face was flushed from bending. His thin riding-clotheswere white with dust, which he beat off with hands that looked almost asif they wore gloves, so deeply were they dyed by the sun. As the clouddispersed he emerged carrying their lunch in a straw pannier. 

"Why trust--specially?" he said. "Ah, " he threw himself down by herside with a sigh of happiness, "this is good! The historic mound, andwe think of it merely as a resting-place, vandals that we are. But--whytrust?"

"I mean that Greece never keeps any unpleasant surprises up her sleeve, surprises such as other countries have of noisy, intruding people. It'sterrible how accustomed I'm getting to having everything all to myself, and how I simply love it. "

He began slowly unpacking the pannier, and laying its contents out onthe mound. 

"You're a puzzle, Rosamund, " he said. 

"Why?"

"You have a greater faculty for making yourself delightful to all sortsof people than I have found in any other person, woman or man. And yetyou are developing a perfect passion for solitude. "

"Do you want people here?"

"No. "

"Then you agree with me. "

"But you have an absolute lust for an empty world. "

"Look!"

She stretched out her right arm--she was leaning on the other with hercheek in her hand--and pointed to the crescent-shaped plain whichlay beyond them, bounded by a sea which was a wonder of sparkling andintense blue, and guarded by a curving line of low hills. There weresome clouds in the sky, but the winds were at rest, and the clouds werejust white things dreaming. In the plain there were no trees. Here andthere some vague crops hinted at the languid labors of men. No humanbeings were visible, but in the distance, not very far from the seaedge, a few oxen were feeding. Their dark slow-moving bodies intersectedthe blue. There were no ships or boats upon the stretch of sea whichRosamund and Dion gazed at. Behind them the bare hills showed no sign oflife. The solitude was profound but not startling. It seemed in place, necessary and beautiful. In the emptiness there was something touching, something reticently satisfying. It was a land and seascape delicatelypurged. 

"Greece and solitude, " said Rosamund. "I shall always connect themtogether. I shall always love each for the other's sake. "

In the silence which followed the words the far-off lowing of oxen cameto them over the flats. Rosamund shut her eyes, Dion half shut his, andthe empty world was a shining dream. 

When they had lunched, Rosamund said:

"I am going to climb up into that house. The owner will never come, I'msure. "

Near them upon the mound was a dwelling of Arcady, in which surely ashepherd sometimes lay and piped to the sun and the sea god. It waslifted upon a tripod of poles, and was deftly made of brushwood, withroof, floor and two walls all complete. A ladder of wood, from which thebark had been stripped, led up to it. 

"You want to sleep?" Dion asked. 

She looked at him. 

"Perhaps. "

He helped her up to her feet. Quickly she mounted the ladder and steppedinto the room. 

"Good-by!" she said, looking down at him and smiling. 

"Good-by!" he answered, looking up. 

She made a pretense of shutting a door and withdrawing into privacy. Helit his pipe, hesitated a moment, then went to lie down under her room. Now he no longer saw her, but he heard her movements overhead. The drybrushwood crackled as she lay down, as she settled herself. She waslying surely at full length. He guessed that she had stretched out herarms and put her two hands under her head. She sighed. Below he echoedher sigh with a long breath of contentment. Then they both lay verystill. 

Marathon!

He remembered his schoolbooks. He remembered beginning Greek. He hadnever been very good at Greek. His mother, if she had been a man and hadgone to Oxford or Cambridge, would have made a far better classic thanhe. She had helped him sometimes during the holidays when he wasquite small. He remembered exactly how she had looked when he had beenconjugating--half-loving and half-satirical. He had made a good manymistakes. Later he had read Greek history with his mother, he had readabout the battle of Marathon. 

"Marathon"--it was written in his school history, "became a magicword at Athens . . . The one hundred and ninety-two Athenians who hadperished in the battle were buried on the field, and over their remainsa tumulus or mound was erected, which may still be seen about halfa mile from the sea. " As a small boy he had read that with a certaininevitable detachment. And now here he lay, a man, on that very tumulus, and the brushwood creaked above his head with the movement of the womanhe loved. 

How wonderful was the weaving of the Fates!

And if some day he should sit in the place of his mother, and shouldhear a small boy, his small boy, conjugating. By Jove! He would have torub up his classics! Not for ten years old; he wasn't so bad as that;but for twenty, when the small boy would be going up to Oxford, andwould, perhaps, be turning out alarmingly learned. 

Rosamund the mother of a young man!

But Dion shied away from that. He could imagine her as the mother of achild, beautiful mother of a child almost as beautiful; but he could notconceive of her as the "mater" of a person with a mustache. 

Their youth, their youth--must it go?

Again she moved slightly above him. The twigs crackled, making an almostirritable music of dryness. Again the lowing of cattle came over thatold battlefield from the edge of the sea. And just then, at that verymoment, Dion knew that his great love could not stand still, that, likeall great things, it must progress. And the cry, that intense human cry, "Whither?" echoed in the deep places of his soul. Whither were he andhis great love going? To what end were they journeying? For a momentsadness invaded him, the sadness of one who thinks and is very ignorant. Why cannot a man think deeply without thinking of an end? "All thingscome to an end!" That cruel saying went through his mind like footstepsechoing on iron, and a sense of fear encompassed him. There is somethingterrible in a great love, set in the little life of a man like a vastlight in a tiny attic. 

Did Rosamund ever have such thoughts? Dion longed to ask her. Was shesleeping perhaps now? She was lying very still. If they ever had a childits coming would mark a great step onwards along the road, the closingof a very beautiful chapter in their book of life. It would be over, their loneliness in love, man and woman in solitude. Even the sexual tiewould be changed. All the world would be changed. 

He lay flat on the ground, stretched out, his elbows firmly planted, hischin in his palms, his face set towards the plain and the sea. 

What he looked at seemed gently to chide him. There were such abrightness and simplicity and such a delicious freedom from allcomplication in this Grecian landscape edged by the wide frankness ofthe sea that he felt reassured. Edging the mound there were wild aloesand the wild oleander. A river intersected the plain which in manyplaces was tawny yellow. Along the river bank grew tall reeds, sedgesand rushes. Beyond the plain, and beyond the blue waters, rose theIsland of Euboea, and ranges of mountains, those mountains of Greecewhich are so characteristic in their unpretentious bareness, whichneither overwhelm nor entice, but which are unfailingly delicate, unfailing beautiful, quietly, almost gently, noble. In the distance, when he turned his head, Dion could see the little Albanian village ofMarathon, a huddle of tiny houses far off under the hills. He looked atit for a moment, then again looked out over the plain, rejoicing inits emptiness. Along the sea edge the cattle were straying, but theirmovements were almost imperceptible. Still they were living things anddrew Dion's eyes. The life in them sent out its message to the life inhim, and he earnestly watched them grazing. Their vague and ruminatingmovements really emphasized the profound peace which lay around Rosamundand him. To watch them thus was a savoring of peace. For every contentedanimal is a bearer of peaceful tidings. In the Garden of Eden with theTwo there were happy animals. And Dion recalled the great battle whichhad dyed red this serene wilderness, a battle which was great becauseit had been gently sung, lifted up by the music of poets, set on highby the lips of orators. He looked over the land and thought: "HereMiltiades won the name which has resounded through history. To thatshore, where I see the cattle, the Persians were driven. " And itseemed to him that the battle of Marathon had been fought in order thatRosamund and he, in the nineteenth century, might be drawn to this placeto meet the shining afternoon. Yes, it was fought for that, and to makethis place the more wonderful for them. It was their Garden of Edenconsecrated by History. 

What a very small animal that was which had strayed away from its kindover the tawny ground where surely there was nothing to feed upon! Thelittle dark body of it looked oddly detached as it moved along. Andnow another animal was following it quickly. The arrival of the seconddarkness, running, made Dion know that the first was human, the guardianof the beasts, no doubt. 

So Eden was invaded already! He smiled as he thought of the serpent. Thehuman being came on slowly, always moving in the direction of the mound, and always accompanied by its attendant animal--a dog, of course. SoonDion knew that both were making for the mound. It occurred to himthat Rosamund was in the private room of him who was approaching, waspossibly sound asleep there. 

"Rosamund!" he almost whispered. 

There was no answer. 

"Rosamund!" he murmured, looking upward to his roof, which was herfloor. 

"Hush!" came down to him through the brushwood. "I'm willing it to cometo us. "

"What--the guardian of the cattle?"

"Guardian of the ----! It's a child!"

"How do you know?"

"I do know. Now you're not to frighten it. "

"Of course not!"

He lay very still, his chin in his palms, watching the on-comers. Howhad she known? And then, seeing suddenly through her eyes, he knew thatof course it was a child, that it could not be anything else. All itsmovements now proclaimed to him its childishness, and he watched it witha sort of fascination. 

For he had never seen Rosamund with a child. That would be for him a newexperience with something, perhaps, prophetic in it. 

Child and animal approached steadily, keeping an undeviating course, andpresently Dion saw a very small, but sturdy, Greek boy of perhaps tenyears old, wearing a collarless shirt, open at a deep brown throat, leggings of some thin material, boots, and a funny little patched browncoat and pointed hood made all in one, and hanging down with a fulnessalmost of skirts about the small determined legs. The accompanying dogwas a very sympathetic, blunt-nosed, round-headed, curly-coated type, whose whiteness, which positively invited the stroking hand, was brokenby two great black blotches set all askew on the back, and by a blackpatch which ringed the left eye and completely smothered the cocked-upleft ear. The child carried a stick, which nearly reached to hisshoulder, and which ended in a long and narrow crook. The happy dog, like its master, had no collar. 

When these two reached the foot of the tumulus they stood still andstared upwards. The dog uttered a short gruff bark, looked at the boy, wagged a fat tail, barked again, abruptly depressed the fore part of itsbody till its chin was against the ground between its paws, then jumpedinto the air with a sudden demeanor of ludicrously young, and ratheruncouth, waggishness, which made Dion laugh. 

The small boy replied with a smile almost as sturdy as his legs, whichhe now permitted to convey him with decisive firmness through the wildaloes and oleanders to the summit of the tumulus. He stood before Dion, holding his crooked staff tightly in his right hand, but his large darkeyes were directed upwards. Evidently his attention was not to begiven to Dion. His dog, on the contrary, after a stare and two muffledattempts at a menacing bark, came to make friends with Dion in a waydevoid of all dignity, full of curves, wrigglings, tail waggings andgrins which exposed rows of smiling teeth. 

"Dion!" came Rosamund's voice from above. 

"Yes?"

"Do show him the way up. He wants to come up. "

Dion got up, took the little Greek's hand firmly, led him to the footof the ladder, and pointed to Rosamund who leaned from her brushwoodchamber and held out inviting hands, smiling, and looking at the childwith shining eyes. He understood that he was very much wanted, gravelyplaced his staff on the ground, laid hold of the ladder, and slowlyclambered up, with the skirts of his coat sticking out behind him. Hisdog set up a loud barking, scrambled at the ladder, and made desperateefforts to follow him. 

"Help him up, Dion!" came the commanding voice from above. 

Dion seized the curly coat of the dog--picked up handfuls of dog. Therewas a struggle. The dog made fierce motions as if swimming, and whinedin a thin and desperate soprano. Its body heaved upwards, its forepawsclutched the edge of the brushwood floor, and it arrived. 

"Bravo!" cried Rosamund, as she proceeded to settle down with herguests. "But why don't I know Greek?"

"It doesn't matter, " Dion murmured, standing with his hands on theladder. "You know their language. "

Rosamund was sitting now, half-curled up, with her back against thebrushwood wall. Her light sun-helmet lay on the floor. In her ruffledhair were caught two or three thin brown leaves, their brittle edgescurled inwards. The little boy, slightly smiling, yet essentiallyserious, as are children tested by a great new experience, squattedclose to her and facing her, with one leg under him, the other legstretched out confidentially, as much as to say, "Here it is!" The doglay close by panting, smiling, showing as much tongue and teeth aswas caninely possible in the ardor of feeling tremendously uplifted, important, one of the very few. 

And Rosamund proceeded to entertain her guests. 

What did she do? Sometimes, long afterwards in England, Dion, recallingthat day--a very memorable day in his life--asked himself the question. And he could never remember very much. But he knew that Rosamund showedhim new aspects of tenderness and fun. What do women who love andunderstand little boys do to put them at their ease, to break down theirsmall shynesses? Rosamund did absurd things with deep earnestness andcomplete concentration. She invented games, played with twigs and strawswhich she drew from the walls of her chamber. She changed the dog'sappearance by rearrangements of his ears, to which he submitted witha slobbering ecstasy, gazing at her with yellow eyes which lookedflattened in his head. Turned quite back, their pink insides exposedto view, the ears changed him into a brand-new dog, at which his masterstared with an amazement which soon was merged in gratification. With apocket-handkerchief she performed marvels of impersonation which the boywatched with an almost severe intentness, even putting out his tongueslowly, and developing a slight squint, when the magician rose to thetop of her powers. She conjured with a silver coin, and of course letthe child play with her watch. She had realized at a glance that thosethings which would be considered as baby nonsense by an English boy often, to this small dweller on the plain of Marathon were full of themagic of the unknown. And at last:

"Throw me up an orange, Dion!" she cried. "I know there are two or threeleft in the pannier. "

Dion bent down eagerly, rummaged and found an orange. 

"Here!" he said. "Catch!"

He threw it up. She caught it with elaboration to astonish the boy. 

"What are you going to do?" asked Dion. 

"Throw me up your pocket-knife and you'll see. "

Again he threw and she caught, while the boy's mouth gaped. 

"Now then!" cried Rosamund. 

She set to work, and almost directly had introduced her astounded guestof the Greek kingdom to the famous "Crossing the Channel" tragedy. 

So great was the effect of this upon little Miltiades, --so they bothalways called the boy when talking of him in after times, --that he beganto perspire, and drops of saliva fell from the corners of his small andpouting mouth in imitation of the dreadfully human orange by which hewas confronted. Thereupon Rosamund threw off all ceremony and franklyplayed the mother. She drew the boy, smiling, sideways to her, wiped hismouth with her handkerchief, gently blew his small nose and gave him awarm kiss. 

"There!" she said. 

And upon this the child made a remark. 

Neither of them ever knew what it meant. It was long, and soundedlike an explanation. Having spoken, Miltiades suddenly looked shy. Hewriggled towards the top of the ladder. Dion thought that Rosamund wouldtry to stop him from leaving her, but she did not. On the contrary, she drew up her legs and made way for him, carefully. The child deftlydescended, picked up his staff and turned. The dog, barking joyously, had leaped after him, and now gamboled around him. For a moment thechild hesitated, and in that moment Dion popped the remains of theirlunch into his coat pockets; then slowly he walked to the side of thetumulus by which he had come up. There he stood for two or three minutesstaring once more up at Rosamund. She waved a friendly hand to him, boyishly, Dion thought. He smiled cautiously, then confidentially, suddenly turned and bolted down the slope uttering little cries--and soaway once more to the far-off cattle on the old battlefield, followed byhis curly dog. 

When Dion had watched him into the distance, beyond which lay theshining glory of the sea, and looked up to Rosamund again, she waspulling the little dry leaves from her undulating hair. 

"I'm all brushwood, " she said, "and I love it. "

"So do I. "

"I ought to have been born a shepherdess. Why do you look at me likethat?"

"Perhaps because I'm seeing a new girl who's got even more woman in herthan I knew till to-day. "

"Most women are like that, Dion, when they get the chance. "

"To think you knew all those tricks and never told me!"

"Help me down. "

He stretched out his arms to her. When she was on the ground he stillheld her for a moment. 

"You darling!" he whispered. "Never shall I forget this day at Marathon, the shining, the child, and you--you!"

They did not talk much on the long ride homeward. The heat was great, but they were not afraid of it, for the shining fires of this land onthe edge of the east cherished and did not burn them. The white dust laydeep on the road, and flew in light clouds from under the feet of theirhorses as they rode slowly upwards, leaving the blue of their pastoralbehind them, and coming into the yellow of the pine woods. Later, asthey drew nearer to Athens, the ancient groves of the olives, touchedwith a gentle solemnity, would give them greeting; the fig trees andmulberry trees would be about them, and the long vineyards watched overby the aristocratic cypress lifting its dark spire to the sun. But nowthe kingdom of the pine trees joyously held them. They were in the happywoods in which even to breathe was sheer happiness. Now and then theypulled up and looked back to the crescent-shaped plain which held achild instead of armies. They traced the course of the river markedout by the reeds and sedges. They saw the tiny dark specks, which werecattle grazing, with the wonder of blue beyond them. In these moments, half-unconsciously, they were telling memory to lay in its provisionfor the future. Perhaps they would never come back; never again wouldRosamund rest in her brushwood chamber, never again would Dion hear thedry music above him, and feel the growth of his love, the urgency ofits progress just as he had felt them that day. They might be intenselyhappy, but exactly the same happiness would probably not be theirs againthrough all the years that were coming. The little boy and his dog haddoubtless gone out of their lives for ever. Their good-by to Marathonmight well be final. They looked back again and again, till the blueof the sea was lost to them. Then they rode on, faster. The horsesknew they were going homeward, and showed a new liveliness, sharing thefriskiness of the little graceful trees about them. Now and then theriders saw some dusty peasants--brown and sun-dried men wearing thefustanella, and shoes with turned-up toes ornamented with big blacktassels; women with dingy handkerchiefs tied over their heads;children who looked almost like the spawn of the sun in their healthy, bright-eyed brownness. And these people had cheerful faces. Their rusticlot seemed enviable. Who would not shed his sorrows under these pinetrees, in the country where the solitudes radiated happiness, and evenbareness was like music? Here was none of the heavy and exotic passion, none of the lustrous and almost morbid romance of the true and distantEast, drowsy with voluptuous memories. That setting was not forRosamund. Here were a lightness, a purity and sweetness of Arcadia, andpeople who looked both intelligent and simple. 

At a turn of the road they met some Vlachs--rascally wanderers, lean asgreyhounds, chicken-stealers and robbers in the night, yet with a sortof consecration of careless cheerfulness upon them. They called out. In their cries there was the sound of a lively malice. Their brown feetstirred up the dust and set it dancing in the sunshine, a symbol surelyof their wayward, unfettered spirits. A little way off, on a slope amongthe trees, their dark tents could be partially seen. 

"Lucky beggars!" murmured Dion, as he threw them a few small coins, while Rosamund smiled at them and waved her hand in answer to theirgreetings. "I believe it's the ideal life to dwell in the tents. "

"It seems so to-day. "

"Won't it to-morrow? Won't it when we are in London?"

"Perhaps more than ever then. "

Was she gently evading an answer? They had reached the brow of the hilland put their horses to a canter. The white dust settled over them. Theywere like millers on horseback as they left the pine woods behind them. But the touch of the dust was as the touch of nature upon their facesand hands. They would not have been free of it as they rode towardsAthens, and came to the region of the vineyards, of the olive groves andthe cypresses. Now and then they passed ramshackle cafes made of boardsroughly nailed together anyhow, with a straggle of vine sprawling overthem, and the earth for a flooring. Tables were set out before them, or in their shadows; a few bottles were visible within; on benches orstools were grouped Greeks, old and young, busily talking, no doubtabout politics. Carts occasionally passed by the riders, sending outdust to mingle with theirs. Turkeys gobbled at them, dogs barked infront of one-storied houses. They saw peasants sitting sideways onpattering donkeys, and now and then a man on horseback. By thin runletsof water were women, chattering as they washed the clothes of theirhouseholds. Then again, the horses came into the bright and solitaryplaces where the cheerful loneliness of Greece held sway. 

And so, at last they cantered into the outskirts of Athens when theevening was falling. Another day had slipped from them. But both felt itwas a day which they had known very well, had realized with an unusualfulness. 

"It's been a day of days!" Dion said that evening. 

And Rosamund nodded assent. 

A child had been in that day, and, with a child's irresistible might, had altered everything for them. Now Dion knew how Rosamund would bewith a child of her own, and Rosamund knew that Dion loved her moredeeply because he had seen her with a child. A little messenger hadcome to them over the sun-dried plain of Marathon bearing a gift ofknowledge. 

The next day they spent quietly. In the morning they visited theNational Museum, and in the late afternoon they returned to theAcropolis. 

In the Museum Rosamund was fascinated by the tombs. She, who alwaysseemed so remote from sorrow, who, to Dion, was the personification ofvitality and joyousness, was deeply moved by the record of death, bythe wonderfully restrained, and yet wonderfully frank, suggestion of thegrief of those who, centuries ago, had mingled their dust with the dustof the relations, the lovers, the friends, whom they had mourned for. 

"What a lesson this is for me!" she murmured at last, after standing fora long while wrapped in silence and contemplation. 

"Why for you, specially?" he asked. 

She looked up at him. There were tears in her eyes. He believed shewas hesitating, undecided whether to let him into a new chamber of herbeing, or whether to close a half-opened door against him. 

"It's very difficult to submit, I think, for some of us, " she answered, after a pause, slowly. "Those old Greeks must have known how to do it. "

"To submit to sorrow?"

"Yes, to a great sorrow. Such a thing is like an attack in the dark. IfI am attacked I want to strike back and hurt. "

"But whom could you reasonably hurt on account of a death that came inthe course of nature? That's what you mean, isn't it?"

"Yes. "

After a slight hesitation she said:

"Do you mean that you don't think we can hurt God?"

"I wonder, " Dion answered. 

"I don't. I know we can. "

She looked again at the tomb before which they were standing. It showeda woman seated and stretching out her right arm, which a woman friendwas touching. In the background was another, contemplative, woman anda man wearing a chaplet of leaves, his hand lifted to his face. Forepitaph there was one word cut in marble. 

"It means farewell, doesn't it?" asked Rosamund. 

"Yes. "

"Perhaps you'll smile, but I think these tombs are the most beautifulthings I have seen in Greece. It's a miracle--their lack of violence. What a noble thing grief could be. That little simple word. It's greatto be able to give up the dearest thing with that one little word. But Icouldn't--I couldn't. "

"How do you know?"

"I know, because I didn't. "

She said nothing more on the subject that morning, but when they wereon the Acropolis waiting, as so often before, for the approach of theevening, she returned to it. Evidently it was haunting her that day. 

"I believe giving up nobly is a much finer thing than attaining nobly, "she said. "And yet attaining wins all the applause, and giving up, if itgets anything, only gets that ugly thing--pity. "

"But is pity an ugly thing?" said Dion. 

He had a little stone in his hand, and, as he spoke, he threw it gentlytowards the precipice, taking care not to send it over the edge. 

"I think I would rather have anything on earth from people than theirpity. "

"Suppose I were to pity you because I loved you?"

He picked up another stone and held it in his hand. 

"I should hate it. "

He had lifted his hand for the throw, but he kept hold of the stone. 

"What, pity that came straight out of love?"

"Any sort of pity. "

"You must be very proud--much prouder than I am then. If I were unhappyI should wish to have pity from you. "

"Perhaps you have never been really unhappy. "

Dion laid the stone down. He thought hard for a moment. 

"Without any hope at all of a change back to happiness--no, actually Inever have. "

"Ah, then you've never had to brace up and see if you could find astrong voice to utter your 'farewell'!"

She spoke with firmness, a firmness that rang like true metal struckwith a hammer and giving back sincerity. 

"That sounds tremendously Doric, " he said. 

His lips were smiling, but there was an almost surprised expression inhis eyes. 

"Dion, do you know you're intuitive to-day?"

"Ah, your training--your training!"

"Didn't you say we should have to be Doric ourselves if----?"

"Come, Rosamund, it's time for the Parthenon. "

Once more they went over the uneven ground to stand before its solemnsplendor. 

"Shall we have learnt before we go?" said Dion. 

"It's strange, but I think the tombs teach me more. They're more withinmy reach. This is so tremendous that it's remote. Perhaps a man, or--ora boy----"

She looked at him. 

"A boy?"

"Yes. "

He drew her down. She clasped her hands, that looked to him so capableand so pure, round her knees. 

"A boy? Go on, Rose. "

"He might learn his lesson here, with a man to help him. The Parthenon'stremendously masculine. Perhaps women have to learn from the gentlenessof those dear tombs. "

Never before had she seemed to him so soft, so utterly soft of nature. 

"You've been thinking a great deal to-day of our boy, haven't you?" hesaid. 

"Yes. "

"Suppose we did have a boy and lost him?"

"Lost him?"

Her voice sounded suddenly almost hostile. 

"Such a thing has happened to parents. It might happen to us. "

"I don't believe it would happen to me, " Rosamund said, with a sort ofcurious, almost cold decision. 

"But why not?"

"What made you think of such a thing?"

"I don't know. Perhaps it was because of what you said this morningabout grief, and then about bracing up and finding a firm voice to utterone's 'farewell. '"

"You don't understand what a woman would feel who lost her child. "

"Are you sure that you do?"

"Partly. Quite enough to----Don't let us speak about it any more. "

"No. There's nothing more futile than imagining horrors that are nevercoming upon us. "

"I never do it, " she said, with resolute cheerfulness. "But we shallvery soon have to say one 'farewell. '"

"To the Parthenon?"

"Yes. "

"Say it to-night!"

She turned round to face him. 

"To-night? Why?"

"For a little while. "

A sudden happy idea had come to him. A shadow had fallen over her fora moment. He wanted to drive it away, to set her again in the fullsunshine for which she was born, and in which, if he could have hiswill, she should always dwell. 

"You wanted to take me away somewhere. "

"Yes. You must see a little more of Greece before we go home. Say your'farewell, ' Rosamund. "

She did not know what was in his mind, but she obeyed him, and, lookingup at the great marble columns, glowing with honey-color and gold in theafternoon light, she murmured:

"Farewell. "

On the following day they left Athens and set out on the journey toOlympia. 

CHAPTER V

"Why are you bringing me to Olympia?"

That question, unuttered by her lips, was often in Rosamund's eyes asthey drew near to the green wilds of Elis. Of course they had alwaysmeant to visit Olympia before they sailed away to England, but she knewvery well that Dion had some special purpose in his mind, and that itwas closely connected with his great love of her. She had understoodthat on the Acropolis, and her "farewell" had been an act of submissionto his will not wholly unselfish. Her curiosity was awake. 

What was the secret of Olympia?

They had gone by train to Patras, slept there, and thence rodeon horseback to Pyrgos through the vast vineyards of thePeloponnesus--vineyards that stretched down to the sea and were dottedwith sentinel cypresses. The heat was much greater than it had been inAthens. Enormous aloes hedged gardens from which came scents that seemedwarm. The sandy soil, turned up by the horses' feet, was hot to thetouch. The air quivered, and was shot with a music of insects faint butpervasive. 

Pyrgos was suffocating and noisy, but Rosamund was amused by democracyat close quarters, showing its naked love of liberty. Her stronghumanity rose to the occasion, and she gave herself with a smilingwillingness to the streets, in which men, women, children and animals, with lungs of leather, sent forth their ultimate music. Nevertheless, she was glad when she and Dion set out again, and followed the banks ofthe Alpheus, leaving the cries of the city behind them. It seemed to herthat they were traveling to some hidden treasure, secluded in the foldsof a green valley where the feet of men seldom, if ever, came. Dion'seyes told her that they were drawing nearer and nearer to the secret heknew of, and was going to reveal to her. She often caught him lookingat her with an almost boyish expression of loving anticipation; and morethan once he laughed happily when he saw her question, but he would notgive her an answer. 

Peasants worked in the vineyards, shoulder-high in the plants, brown andsweating in the glare. Swarthy children, with intelligent eyes, oftenwith delicate noses, and those pouting lips which are characteristic ofmany Greek statues, ran to stare at them, and sometimes followed them alittle way, but without asking for alms. Then the solitudes took them, and they wound on and on, with their guide as their only companion. 

He was a gentle, even languid-looking youth, called Nicholas Agathoulos, who was a native of Patras, but who had lived a good deal in Athens, who spoke a few words of English and French, and who professed a deeppassion for Lord Byron. Nicholas rode on a mule, leading, or not leadingas the case might be--for he was a charmingly careless person--asecond mule on which was fastened Rosamund's and Dion's scanty luggage. Rosamund, like a born vagabond, was content to travel in this gloriousclimate with scarcely any impedimenta. When Nicholas was looked at hesmiled peacefully under his quiet and unpretending black mustache. Whenhe was not looked at he seemed to sleep with open eyes. He never sangor whistled, had no music at all in him; but he could quote stanzas from"Don Juan" in Greek, and, when he did that, he woke up, sparks of fireglowed in his eyes, and his employers realized that he shared to thefull the patriotism of his countrymen. 

Did he know the secret of Olympia which Dion was concealing socarefully, and enjoying so much, as the little train of pilgrims woundonwards among fruit trees and shrubs of arbutus, penetrating farther andever farther into a region sweet and remote? Of course he must know it. 

"I shall ask Nicholas, " Rosamund said once to Dion, perversely. 

"What?"

"You know perfectly well what. "

His face was a map of innocence as he touched his thin horse with thewhip and rode forward a little faster. 

"What is there to see at Olympia, Nicholas?" she said, speaking ratherloudly in order that Dion might hear. 

Nicholas woke up, and hastily, in a melodious voice, quoted some scrapsof guide-book. Rosamund did not find what she wanted among them. Sheknew already about the ruins, about the Nike of Paeonius and the Hermesof Praxiteles. So she left the young Greek to his waking dream, andpossessed her soul in a patience that was not difficult. She liked todwell in anticipation. And she felt that any secret this land was aboutto reveal to her would be, must be, beautiful. She trusted Greece. 

"We aren't far off now, " said Dion presently, as they rode up thevalley--a valley secluded from the world, pastoral and remote, shaded byJudas trees. 

"How peaceful and lovely it is. "

"And full of the echoes of the Pagan feet which once trod here. "

"I don't hear them, " said Rosamund, "and I am listening. "

"Perhaps you could never hear Pagan echoes. And yet you love Greece. "

"Yes. But I have nothing Pagan in me. I know that. "

"It doesn't matter, " he said. "You are the ideal woman to be in Greecewith. If I don't come back to Greece with you, I shall never come back. "

They rode on. Her horse was following his along the windings of theriver. Presently she said:

"Where are we going to sleep? Surely there isn't a possible inn inthis remoteness?--or have they build one for travelers who come here inwinter and spring?"

"Our inn will be a little above Olympia. "

The green valley seemed closing about them, as if anxious to take themto itself, to keep them in its closest intimacy, with a gentle jealousy. Rosamund had a sensation, almost voluptuous, of yielding to the pastoralgreenness, to the warm stillness, to the hush of the delicate wilds. 

"Elis! Elis!" she whispered to herself. "I am riding up into Elis, whereonce the processions passed to the games, where Nero built himself amansion. And there's a secret here for me. "

Then suddenly there came into her mind the words in the "Paradiso" whichshe had been dreaming over in London on the foggy day when Dion hadasked her to marry him. 

The Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence from warm love and living hopewhich conquereth the Divine will. 

It was strange that the words should come to her just then. She couldnot think why they came. But, repeating them to herself, she felt howvery far off she was from Paganism. Yet she had within her warm lovesurely and living hope. Could such things, as they were within her, everdo violence to the Kingdom of Heaven? She looked between her horse'sperpetually moving ears at the hollow athletic back of her younghusband. If she had not married she would have given rein to deepimpulses within her which now would never be indulged. They would nothave led her to Greece. If she had been governed by them she would neverhave been drawn on by the secret of Olympia. How strange it was that, within the compass of one human being, should be contained two widelydiffering characters. Well, she had chosen, and henceforth she must liveaccording to the choice she had made. But how would she have been inthe other life of which she had dreamed so often, and so deeply, in herhours of solitude? She would never know that. She had chosen the warmlove and the living hope, but the Kingdom of Heaven should never sufferviolence from anything she had chosen. There are doubtless many ways ofconsecrating a life, of rendering service. 

They came into a scattered and dingy hamlet. Hills rose about it, butthe narrowing valley still wound on. 

"We are close to the ruins, " said Dion. 

"Already! Where are we going to sleep?"

"Up there!"

He pointed to a steep hill that was set sheer above the valley. 

"Go on with the mules, Nicholas. "

Nicholas rode on, smiling. 

"What's that building on the hump?"

"The Museum. "

"I wonder why they put the inn so far away. "

"It isn't really very far, not many minutes from here. But the way'spretty steep. Now then, Rosamund!"

They set their horses to the task. Nicholas and the mules were out ofsight. A bend of the little track had hidden them. 

"Why, there's a village up here!" said Rosamund, as they came to asmall collection of houses with yards and rough gardens and scatteredoutbuildings. 

"Yes--Drouva. Our inn is just beyond it, but quite separated from it. "

"I'm glad of that. They don't bother very much about cleanliness here, Ishould think. "

He was smiling at her now. His lips were twitching under his mustache, and his eyes seemed trying not to tell something to her. 

"Surely the secret isn't up here?"

He shook his head, still smiling, almost laughing. 

They were now beyond the village, and emerged on a plateau of roughshort grass which seemed to dominate the world. 

"This is the top of the hill of Drouva, " said Dion, with a ring of joy, and almost of pride, in his voice. "And there's our inn, the Inn ofDrouva. "

Rosamund pulled up her horse. She did not say a word. She just looked, while her horse lowered his head and sniffed the air in through histwitching nostrils. Then he sent forth a quivering neigh, his welcome tothe Inn of Drouva. The view was immense, but Rosamund was not lookingat it. A small dark object not far off in the foreground of this greatpicture held her eyes. For the moment she saw little or nothing else. 

She saw a dark, peaked tent pitched in the middle of the plateau. Smokefrom a fire curled up behind it. Two or three figures moved near it. Beyond, Nicholas was unloading the mules. 

She dropped the cord by which she had been guiding her horse and slippeddown to the ground. Her legs were rather stiff from riding. She held onto the saddle for a moment. 

"A camp?" she said at last. 

Dion was beside her. 

"An awfully rough one. "

"How jolly!"

She said the words almost solemnly. 

"Dion, you are a brick!" she added, after a pause. "I've never stayed incamp before. A real brick! But you always are. "

"Aren't you coming into the camp?"

She put her hand on his arm and kept him back. 

"No--wait! What did you mean by shaking your head when I asked you ifthe secret was up here?"

"This isn't the real secret. It wasn't because of this that I asked yousuddenly on the Acropolis to say 'farewell' to the Parthenon. "

"There's another secret?"

"There's another reason, the real reason, why I hurried you to Olympia. But I'm going to let you find it out for yourself. I shan't tell youanything. "

"But how shall I know when----?"

"You will know. "

"To-day?"

"Don't you think we might stay on our hill-top till to-morrow?"

"Yes, all right. It's glorious here; I won't be impatient. But how couldyou manage to get the tent here before we came?"

"We've been two nights on the way, Patras and Pyrgos. That gave plentyof time to the magician to work the spell. Come along. "

This time she did not hold him back. Her eagerness was as great as his. Certainly it was a very ordinary camp, scarcely, in fact, a camp at all. The tent was small and of the roughest kind, but there were two neatlittle camp-beds within it, with their toes planted on the short drygrass. In the iron washhand stand were a shining white basin and a jugfilled with clear water. There was a cake of remarkable pink soap with astrange and piercing scent; there was a "tooth glass"; there was a strawmat. 

"What isn't there?" cried Rosamund, who was almost as delighted as achild. 

A grave and very handsome gentleman from Athens, Achilles Stavrosby name, received her congratulations with a classical smile ofsatisfaction. 

"He's even got a genuine Greek nose for the occasion!" Rosamund saiddelightedly to Dion, when Achilles retired for a moment to give someinstructions about tea to the cook. "Where did you find him?"

"That's my secret. "

"I never realised how delicious a camp was before. My wildest dreams aresurpassed. "

As they looked at the two small, hard chairs with straw bottoms whichwere solemnly set out side by side facing the view, and upon whichAchilles expected them to sink voluptuously for the ritual of tea, theybroke into laughter at Rosamund's exaggerated expressions ofdelight. But directly she was able to stop laughing she affirmed withdetermination:

"I don't care what anybody says, or thinks; I repeat it"--she glancedfrom the straw mat to the cake of anemic pink soap--"my wildest dreamsare surpassed. To think"--she spread out her hands--"only to think offinding a tooth glass here! It's--it's admirable!"

She turned upon him an almost fanatical eye, daring contradiction; andthey both laughed again, long and loud like two children who, suddenlyaware of a keen physical pleasure, prolong it beyond all reasonablebounds. 

"What are we going to have for tea?" she asked. 

"Tea, " Dion cried. 

"You ridiculous creature!"

From a short distance, Achilles gazed upon the merriment of thesesnewly-married English travelers. Nobody had told him they were newlymarried; he just knew it, had known it at a glance. As he watched, thelaughter presently died away, and he saw the two walk forward to theedge of the small plateau, then stand still to gaze at the view. 

The prospect from the hill of Drouva above Olympia is very great, andall Rosamund's inclination to merriment died out of her as she lookedupon it. Even her joy in the camp was forgotten for a moment. 

Upon their plateau, sole guests of the bareness, stood two small olivetrees, not distorted by winds. Rosamund leaned against one of themas she gazed, put her arms round it with a sort of affectionatecarelessness that was half-protective, that seemed to say, "You dearlittle tree! How nice of you to be here. But you almost want taking careof. " Then the tree was forgotten, and the Hellenic beauty reigned overher spirit, as she gazed upon the immense pastoral bounded by mountainsand the sea; a green wilderness threaded by a serpentine river ofsilver--a far-flung river which lingered on its way, journeying hitherand thither, making great curves as if it loved the wildernessand wished to know it well, to know all of it before being mergedirrevocably with the sea. 

"Those are the valleys of the Kladeos and the Alpheios. "

"Yes. "

"And that far-off Isle is the Island of Zante. "

"Of Zante, " she repeated. 

After a long pause she said:

"You know those words somewhere in the Bible--'the wilderness and thesolitary places'?"

"Yes. "

"I've always loved them, just those words. Even when I was quite achild I liked to say them. And I remember once, when I was staying atSherrington, we drove over to the cathedral. Canon Wilton took us intothe stalls. It was a week-day and there were very few people. The anthemwas Wesley's 'The Wilderness. ' I had never heard it before, and when Iheard those words--my words--being sung, I had such a queer thrill. Iwanted to cry and I was startled. To most people, I suppose, the wordwilderness suggests something dreary and parched, ugly desolation. "

"Yes. The scapegoat was driven out into the wilderness. "

"I think I'd rather take _my_ sin into the wilderness than anywhereelse. Purification might be found there. "

"_Your_ sin!" he said. "As if----" He was silent. 

Zante seemed sleeping in the distance of the Ionian Sea, far away asthe dream from which one has waked, touched with a dream's mysticremoteness. The great plain, stretching to mountains and sea, vast andgreen and lonely--but with the loneliness that smiles, desiring nothingelse--seemed uninhabited. Perhaps there were men in it, laboring amongthe vineyards or toiling among the crops, women bending over the earthby which they lived, or washing clothes on the banks of the river. Rosamund did not look for them and did not see them. In the greenlandscape, over which from a distance the mountains kept their quiet anddeeply reserved watch, she detected no movement. Even the silver ofthe river seemed immobile, as if its journeyings were now stilled by anafternoon spell. 

"It's as empty as the plain of Marathon, but how much greater!" she saidat last. 

"At Marathon there was the child. "

"Yes, and here there's not even a child. "

She sighed. 

"I wonder what one would learn to be if one lived on the hill ofDrouva?" she said. 

"It will be much more beautiful at sunset. We are looking due west. Soonwe shall have the moon rising behind us. "

"What memories I shall carry away!"

"And I. "

"You were here before alone?"

"Yes. I walked up from the village just before sunset after a long dayamong the ruins. I--I didn't know then of your existence. That seemsstrange. "

But she was gazing at the view, and now with an earnestness in whichthere seemed to him to be a hint of effort, as if she were, perhaps, urging imagination to take her away and to make her one with that onwhich she looked. It struck him just then that, since they had beenmarried, she had changed a good deal, or developed. A new dreaminess hadbeen added to her power and her buoyancy which, at times, made her verydifferent from the radiant girl he had won. 

"The Island of Zante!" she said once more, with a last look at the sea, as they turned away in answer to the grave summons of Achilles. "Ah, what those miss who never travel!"

"And yet I remember your saying once that you had very little of thenormal in you, and even something about the cat's instinct. "

"Probably I meant the cat's instinct to say nasty things. Every woman--"

"No, what you meant--"

He began actually to explain, but her "Puss, Puss, Puss!" stopped him. Her dream was over and her laugh rang out infectiously as they returnedto the tent. 

The tea was fairly bad, but she defended its merits with energy, andmunched biscuits with an excellent appetite. Afterwards she smoked acigarette and Dion his pipe, sitting on the ground and leaning againstthe tent wall. In vain Achilles drew her attention to the chairs. Rosamund stretched out her long limbs luxuriously and shook her head. 

"I'm not a school-teacher, Achilles, " she said. 

And Dion had to explain what she meant perhaps--only perhaps, for hewasn't sure about it himself, --to that classical personage. 

"These chairs fight against the whole thing, " she said, when Achilleswas gone. 

"I'll hide them, " said Dion. 

He was up in a moment, caught hold of the chairs, gripping one in eachhand, and marched off with them. When he came back Rosamund was nolonger sitting on the ground by the tent wall. She had slipped away. Helooked round. She must have gone beyond the brow of the hill, for shewas not on the plateau. He hesitated, pulling hard at his pipe. He knewher curious independence, knew that sometimes she wanted to be alone. No doubt she had gone to look at the great view from some hidden place. Well, then, he ought not to try to find her, he ought to respect herwish to be by herself. But this evening it hurt him. As he stood therehe felt wounded, for he remembered telling her that the great view wouldbe much more beautiful at sunset when the moon would be rising behindthem. The implication of course had been, "Wait a little and I'llshow you. " It was he who had chosen the place for the camp, he who hadprepared the surprise. Perhaps foolishly, he had thought of the wholething, even of the plain, the river, the mountains, the sea and theIsland of Zante, as a sort of possession which he was going gloriouslyto share with her. And now----! He felt deprived, almost wronged. Thesky was changing. He turned and looked to the east. Above Olympia, ina clear and tremulous sky, a great silver moon was rising. It was hishour, and she had hidden herself. 

Again, at that moment, Dion felt almost afraid of his love. 

His pipe had gone out. He took it from his lips, bent, and knocked outthe tobacco against the heel of his boot. He was horribly disappointed, but he was not going to search for Rosamund; nor was he ever going tolet her know of his disappointment. Perhaps by concealing it he wouldkill it. He thrust his pipe into his pocket, hesitated, then walked alittle way from the camp and sat down on the side of the hill. What rotit was his always wanting to share everything now. Till he met Rosamundhe had always thought only women could never be happy unless they sharedtheir pleasures, and preferably with a man. Love apparently couldplay the very devil, bridge the gulf between sexes, make a man who wasthoroughly masculine in all his tastes and habits have "little feelings"which belonged properly only to women. 

Doric! Suddenly the word jumped up in his mind, and a vision of theParthenon columns rose before his imagination, sternly glorious, almostwith the strength of a menace. He set his teeth together and cursedhimself for a fool and a backslider. 

Rosamund and he were to be Doric. Well, this evening he didn't knowexactly what he was, but he certainly was not Doric. 

Just then he heard the sound of a shot. He did not know what directionit came from, but, fantastically enough, it seemed to be a comment onhis thought, a brusk, decisive exclamation flung at him from out of thesilent evening. "Sentimentalist! Take that, and get out of your mushof feeling!" As he recognized it--he now forced himself to thatsticking-point--to be a mush, the shot's comment fell in, of course, with his own view of the matter. 

He sat still for a moment, thinking of the shot, and probably expectingit to be repeated. It was not repeated. A great silence prevailed, thesilence of the Hellenic wild held in the hand of evening. And abruptly, perhaps, from that large and pervasive silence, Dion caught a coldnessof fear. All his perceptions rushed upon him, an acute crowd. He sprangup, put his hand to his revolver. Rosamund out alone somewhere in theloneliness of Greece--evening--a shot!

He was over the brow of the hill towards the west in a moment. Allrespect for Rosamund's evening whim, all remembrance of his own properpride, was gone from him. 

"Rosamund!" he called; "Rosamund!"

"Here!" replied her strong voice from somewhere a little way below him. 

And he saw her standing on the hillside and looking downwards. He thrusthis revolver back into his pocket quickly. Already his pride was pushingits head up again. He stood still, looking down on her. 

"It's all right, it is?"

This time she lifted her head and turned her face up to him. 

"All right?"

"I heard a shot. "

He saw laughter dawning in her face. 

"You don't mean to say----?"

She laughed frankly. 

"Come down here!"

He joined her. 

"What was it?"

"Did you, or didn't you, think I'd been attacked by Greek brigands?"

"Of course not! But I heard a shot, and it just struck me----"

At that moment he was almost ashamed of loving her so much. 

"Well, there's the brigand, and I do believe he's going to shoot again. The ruffian! Yes, he's taking aim! Oh, Dion, let's seek cover. "

Still laughing, she shrank against him. He put one arm round hershoulder bruskly, and his hand closed on her tightly. A little way belowthem, relieved with a strange and romantic distinctness against theevening light, in which now there was a strong suggestion of gold, wasa small figure, straight, active--a figure of the open air and the widespaces--with a gun to its right shoulder. A shot rang out. 

"He's got it, " said Rosamund. 

And there was a note of admiring praise in her voice. 

"That child's a dead shot, " she added. "It's quail he's after, Ibelieve. Look! He's picking it up. "

The small black figure bent quickly down, after running forward a littleway. 

"He retrieves as well as he shoots. Shall we go to him and see whetherit's quail?"

"Another child, " said Dion. 

He still had his arm round her shoulder. 

"Why did you come here?" he asked. 

"To look at the evening coming to me over the wilderness. But he made meforget it for a moment. "

Dion was staring at her now. 

"I believe a child could make you forget anything, " he said. 

"Let's go to him. "

The gold of the evening was strengthening and deepening. The vast view, which was the background to the child's little figure, was losing itsrobe of green and of blue, green of the land, blue of the sea, wasputting on velvety darkness and gold. The serpentine river was a longband of gold flung out, as if by a careless enchanter, towards thegolden sea in which Zante was dreaming. Remote and immense this landhad seemed in the full daytime, a tremendous pastoral deserted bymen, sufficient to itself and existing only for its own beauty. Now itexisted for a child. The human element had caused nature, as it were, to recede, to take the second place. A child, bending down to pick up ashot quail, then straightening up victoriously, held the vast panoramain submission, as if he had quietly given out the order, "Make mesignificant. " And Rosamund, who had stolen away to meet the evening, wasnow only intent on knowing whether the shot bird was a quail or not. 

It was a quail, and a fat one. 

When they came to the boy they found him a barefooted urchin, withtattered coarse clothes and densely thick, uncovered black hair growingdown almost to his fiery young eyes, which stared at them proudly. Therewas a wild look in those eyes never to be found in the eyes of a dwellerin cities, a wild grace in his figure, and a complete self-possession inhis whole bearing. The quail just shot he had in his hand. Another wasstuffed into the large pocket of his jacket. He pulled it out and showedit to them, reading at a glance the admiration in Rosamund's eyes. Dionheld out a hand to the boy's gun, but at this his manner changed, heclutched it tightly, moved a step or two back, and scowled. 

"He's a regular young savage, " said Dion. 

"I like him as he is. Besides, why should he give his gun to a stranger?He knows nothing about us. "

"You're immense!" said Dion, laughing. 

"Let's have the quail for our dinner. "

"D'you expect him to give them to us without a stand-up fight andprobably bloodshed? For he's armed, unfortunately!"

"Don't be ridiculous. Look here, Dion, you go off for a minute, andleave him with me. I think you get on his nerves. "

"Well, I'm----!"

But he went. He left the two figures together, and presently saw themboth from a distance against the vastness of the gold. Bushes andshrubs, and two or three giant pine trees, between the summit of Drouvaand the plain, showed black, and the figures of woman and child werealmost ebon. Dion watched them. He could not see any features. Thetwo were now like carved things which could move, and only by theirmovements could they tell him anything. The gun over the boy's shoulderwas like a long finger pointing to the west where a redness was creepingamong the gold. The great moon climbed above Drouva. Bluish-gray smokecame from the camp-fire at a little distance. It ascended withoutwavering straight up in the windless evening. Far down in the hiddenvalley, behind Dion and below the small village, shadows were stealingthrough quiet Elis, shadows were coming to shroud the secret that washeld in the shrine of Olympia. A slight sound of bells stole up on thestillness from somewhere below, somewhere not far from those two ebonfigures. And this sound, suggestive of moving animals coming frompasture to protected places for the night, put a heart in the breast ofthis pastoral. Thin was the sound and delicate, fit music for Greecein the fragile evening. As Dion listened to it, he looked at that blackfinger below him pointing to the redness in the west. Then he rememberedit was a gun, and, for an instant, looking at the red, he thought of thecolor of fresh blood. 

At this moment the tall figure, Rosamund, took hold of the gun, and thetwo figures moved away slowly down the winding track in the hill, andwere hidden at a turning of the path. 

Almost directly a third shot rang out. The young dweller in thewilderness was allowing Rosamund to give a taste of her skill with thegun. 

CHAPTER VI

Rosamund came back to the camp that evening with Dirmikis, --so the boyof the wilderness was called, --and five quail, three of them to her gun. She was radiant, and indeed had an air almost of triumph. Her eyeswere sparkling, her cheeks were glowing; she looked like a beautifulschoolgirl as she walked in over the plateau with the sunset flushingscarlet behind her, and the big moon coming to meet her. Dirmikis, ather side, carried the quail upside down in his brown hands. Rosamund hadthe gun under her right arm. 

"It's a capital gun, " she called out to Dion. "I got three. Here, Dirmikis, "--she turned to the boy, --"show them. "

"Does he understand English?"

"No, but he understands me!" she retorted with pride. "Look there!"

Dirmikis held up the birds, smiling a savage smile. 

"Aren't they fat? Feel them, Dion! The three fattest ones fell to mygun, but don't tell _him_. "

She sketched a delicious wink, looking about sixteen. 

"I really have a good eye, " she added, praising herself with gusto. "It's no use being over-modest, is it? If one has a gift, well one justhas it. Here, Dirmikis!"

She gave his gun carefully to the barefooted child. 

"He's a little stunner, and so chivalrous. I never met a boy I likedmore. Do give him a nice present, Dion, and let him feed in the camp ifhe likes. "

"Well, what next? What am I to give him?"

"Nothing dressy. He isn't a manikin, he's a real Doric boy. "

She slapped Dirmikis on the back with a generous hand. He smiledradiantly, this time without any savagery. 

"The sort of boy who'll be of some use in the world. "

"I'll give him a tip. "

Rosamund seemed about to assent when an idea struck her, as sheafterwards said, "with the force of a bomb. "

"I know what he'll like better than anything. "

"Well?"

"Your revolver, to be sure!"

"My revolver to be suren't!" exclaimed Dion passionately, inventing anegative. "I bought it at great cost to defend you with, not for theendowment of a half-naked varmint from the wilderness under Drouva. "

"Be careful, Dion; you're insulting a Doric boy!"

"Here--I'll insult him with a ten-lepta piece. "

"Don't be mean. Bribe him thoroughly if you're going to bribe him. We goshooting together again to-morrow evening. "

"Do you indeed?"

"Yes, directly after tea. It's all arranged. Dirmikis suggested it withthe most charming chivalry, and I gave yes for an answer. So we mustkeep on good terms with him at whatever cost. "

She cocked up her chin and walked exultantly into the tent. A minuteafterwards there rang out to the evening a warm contralto voice singing. 

Dirmikis looked at the tent and then at Dion with an air of profoundastonishment. The quail dropped from his hands, and he did not evensnatch at them as he listened to the remarkable sounds which, he couldnot doubt, flowed from his Amazon. His brows came down over his fieryeyes, and he seemed to stand at gaze like an animal, half-fascinatedand half-suspicious. The voice died away and was followed by a sound ofpouring water. Then Dirmikis accepted two ten-lepta pieces and picked upthe quail. Dion introduced him to the cook, and it was understood thathe should be fed in the camp, and that the quail should form part of theevening meal. 

Very good they proved to be, cooked in leaves with the addition ofsome fried slices of fat ham. Rosamund exulted again as she ate them, recognizing the birds she had shot "by the taste. "

"This is one! Aren't mine different from Dirmikis's?" she exclaimed. "Somuch more succulent!"

"Naturally, you great baby!"

"Life is glorious!" she exclaimed resonantly. "To eat one's own bag onthe top of Drouva under the moon! Oh!"

She looked at the moon, then bent over her plate of metal-ware whichwas set on the tiny folding-table. In her joy she was exactly like a bigchild. 

"I wonder how many I shall get to-morrow. I got my eye in at the verystart. Really, Dion, you know, I'm a gifted creature. It isn't everyone----"

And she ran on, laughing at herself, reveling in her whimsical pretenseof conceit till dinner was over. 

"Now a cigarette! Never have I enjoyed any meal so much as this! It'sonly out of doors that one gets hold of the real _joie de vivre_. "

"You're never without it, thank God, " returned Dion, striking a matchfor her. 

So still was the evening that the flame burned steadily even upon thatheight facing immensities. Rosamund leaned to it with the cigarettebetween her lips. Her face was browned to the sun. She looked ratherlike a splendid blonde gipsy, with loose yellow hair and the carelesseyes of those who dwell under smiling heavens. She sent out a puff ofcigarette smoke, directing it with ardor to the moon which now rode highabove them. 

"I'd like to catch up nature in my arms to-night, " she said. "Come, Dion, let's go a little way. "

She was up, and put her arm through his like a comrade. He squeezed herarm against his side and, strolling there in the night on the edge ofthe hill, she talked at first with almost tumultuous energy, with anenergy as of an Amazon who cared for the things of the soul as much asfor the things of the body. To-night her body and soul seemed on thesame high level of intensity. 

At first she talked of the present, of their life in Greece and of whatit had meant to her, what it had done for her; and then, always with herarm through Dion's, she began to talk of the future. 

"We've got to go away from all this, but let us carry it with us; youknow, as one can carry things that one has really gathered up, reallygot hold of. It will mean a lot to us afterwards in England, in ourregular humdrum life. Not that life's ever humdrum. We must take Drouvato England, and Marathon, and the view from the Acropolis, and thecolumns of the Parthenon above all those, and the tombs. "

"But they're sad. "

"We must take them. I'm quite sure the way to make life splendid, noble, what it is meant to be to each of us, is to press close againstone's heart all that is sent to one, the sorrows as well as the joys. Everything one tries to keep at arm's length hurts one. "

"Sins?"

"Sins, Dion? I said what is sent to us. "

"Don't you think----?"

"Sins are never sent to us, we always have to go and fetch them. It'slike that poor old chemist going round the corner in the fog with a jugfor what is ruining his life. "

"What poor old chemist?" he asked. 

"A great friend of mine in London--Mr. Thrush. You shall know him someday. Oh--but London! Now, Dion, can we, you and I, live perpetually inLondon after all this?"

"Well, dearest, I must stick close to business. "

"I know that. And we've got the little house. But later on?"

"And your singing, your traveling all over the place with a maid!"

"I wonder if I shall. To-night I don't feel as if I shall. "

She stood still abruptly, and was silent for a minute. 

"Don't you think, " she said, in a different and less exuberant voice, and with a changed and less physical manner--"don't you think sometimes, in exceptional hours, one can feel what is to come, what is laid up forone? I do. This is an exceptional hour. We are on the heights and it'svery wonderful. Well, perhaps to-night we can feel what is coming. Let'stry. "

"How?"

"Let's just be quiet, and give ourselves up to the hill of Drouva, andGreece, and the night, and--and what surrounds and permeates us and allthis. "

With a big and noble gesture she indicated the sleeping world far belowthem, breathless under the moon; the imperceptible valleys merged in thegreat plain through which the river, silver once more, moved unsleepingbetween its low-lying banks to the sea; the ranges of mountains whichheld themselves apart in the night, a great company, reserved and almostaustere, yet trodden with confidence by the feet of those fairies whohaunt the ancient lands; the sea which drew down the moon as a loverdraws down his mistress; Zante riding the sea like a shadow in harbor. 

And they were silent. Dion had a sensation of consciously givinghimself, almost as a bather, to the sea. Did he feel what was coming tohim and to this girl at his side, who was part of him, and yet who wasalone, whose arm clasped his, yet whose soul dwelt far off in its ownremoteness? Would the years draw them closer and closer together, knitthem together, through greater knowledge, through custom, through sharedjoys and beliefs, through common beliefs, through children, till theywere as branches growing out of one stem firmly rooted?

He gave himself and gave himself, or tried to give himself in thesilence. Yet he could not have said truly that any mystical knowledgecame to him. Only one thing he seemed strangely to know, that they wouldnever have children. The sleeping world and the sea, and, as Rosamundhad said, "what surrounds and permeates us and all this" seemed topermit him mysteriously to get at that one bit of foreknowledge. Something seemed to say to him, "You will be the father of one child. "And yet, when he came to think of it, he realized how probable, howindeed almost certain it was that the silent voice issued from withinhimself. Rosamund and he had talked about a child, a boy, had begunalmost to sketch out mental plans for that boy's upbringing; they hadnever talked about children. He believed that he had penetrated to thesecret of the voice. He said to himself, "All that sort of thing comesout of one's self. It doesn't reach one from the outside. " And yet, whenhe looked out over the world, which seemed wrapped in ethereal garments, garments woven by spirit on looms no hand of woman or man might evertouch, he was vaguely conscious that all within him which was of anyreal value was there too. Surely he did not possess. Rather was hepossessed of. 

He looked at Rosamund at last. 

"Have you got anything?"

But she did not answer him. There was a great stillness in her bigeyes. All the vital exuberance of body and spirit mingled together hadvanished from her abruptly. Nothing of the Amazon who had captured theheart of Dirmikis remained. As Dion looked at her now, he simply couldnot see the beautiful schoolgirl of sixteen, the blonde gipsy who hadbent forward, cigarette in mouth, to his match, who had leaned back andblown rings to the moon above Drouva. Had she ever set the butt of a gunagainst her shoulder? Something in this woman's eyes made him suddenlyfeel as if he ought to leave her alone. Yet her arm still lay on his, and she was his. 

Against the silver of the moon the twisted trunks of the two smallolive trees showed black and significant. The red of the dying camp-fireglowed not far from the tent. Dogs were barking in the hamlet of Drouva. She neither saw details nor heard ugly sounds in the night. He knewthat. And the rest? It seemed to him that something of her, the spiritof her, perhaps, or some part of it with which his had never yet had anyclose contact, was awake and at work in the night. But though he heldher arm in his she was a long way from him. And there came to him thisthought:

"I felt as if I ought to leave her alone. But she has left me alone. "

Almost mechanically, and slowly, he straightened his arm, thus lettinghers slip. She did not seem to notice his action. She gazed out towardsZante over a world that now looked very mystical. In the daylight it hadbeen a green pastoral. Now there was over it, and even surely in it, adim whiteness, a something pure and hushed, like the sound, remote andcuriously final, of a quiet sleeper. 

That night, when they went to bed, Rosamund was full of the delight ofa new experience. She insisted that the flap of the tent should not bekept shut down. She had never slept in a tent before, and was resolvedto look out and see the stars from her pillow. 

"And my olive tree, " she added. 

Obediently, as soon as she was in her camp-bed, Dion lifted the flap. A candle was still burning, set on a chair between the two beds. As themoonlight came in, Rosamund lifted herself on one arm, leaned over andblew it out. 

"How horrible moonlight makes candlelight, " she said. 

Dion, in his pyjamas, was outside fastening back the flap, his bare feeton the short dry grass. 

"I can see the Pleiades!" she added earnestly. 

"There!" said Dion. 

He looked up at the sky. 

"The Pleiades, the Great Bear, Mars. "

"Oh!" she drew in her breath. "A shooting star!"

She pressed her lips together and half-shut her eyes. By her contractedforehead Dion saw that she was wishing almost fiercely. He believed heread her wish. He had not seen the traveling star, and did not try towish with her, lest he should cross the path of the Fates and throw hisshadow on her desire. 

He came softly into the tent which was full of the whiteness of themoon. Sleeping thus with Rosamund in the bosom of nature was verywonderful to him. It was like a sort of re-marriage. The moon and thestars looking in made his relation to her quite new and more beautiful. 

"I shall never forget Olympia, " he whispered, leaning over her. 

He kissed her very gently, not with any passion. He had the feeling thatshe would almost resent passion just then. 

He got into his bed and lay with his arm crooked, his cheek in his hand. Part of the Milky Way was visible to him, that dust of little starspowdering the deep of the sky. If he, too, should see a falling starto-night, dropping down towards the hidden sea, vanishing below the lineof the hill! Would he echo her wish?

"Are you sleepy, Rosamund?" he asked presently. 

"No I don't want to sleep. It would make me miss all the stars. "

"And if you're tired to-morrow?"

"I shan't be. I shan't be tired while we are in camp. I should likenever to go to bed in a room again. I should like always to dwell in thewilderness. "

He longed for the addition of just two words. They did not come. Butof course they were to be understood. There is no need to state thingsknown. The fact that she had let him bring her to the wilderness wasenough. The last words he heard Rosamund say that night were these, almost whispered slowly to herself and to the stars:

"The wilderness--and--the solitary places. "

Very early in the morning she awoke while Dion was sleeping. She slippedsoftly out of the little camp-bed, wrapped a cloak around her, and wentout to gaze at the dawn. 

When they sat at breakfast she said:

"And now are you going to tell me the secret?"

"No. I'm going to let you find it out for yourself. "

"But if I can't?"

"You will. "

They set off, about ten, down the hill on foot. The morning was verystill and already very hot. As they descended towards the basin in whichlies Olympia, heat ascended to meet them and to give them a welcome--asoft and almost enticing heat like a breath from some green fastnesswhere strange marvels were secluded. 

"Elis even smells remote, " Rosamund said. 

"Are you sorry to leave the hill-top?" he asked. 

"I was, but already I'm beginning to feel drawn on. There's somethinghere--what is it?"

She looked at him. 

"Something for you. "

"Specially for me?"

"Specially for you. "

"Hidden in the folds of the green. Where are we going first?"

"To the ruins. "

He was carrying their lunch in a straw pannier slung over his shoulder. 

"We'll lunch in the house of Nero, and rest there. "

"That sounds rather dreadful, Dion. "

"Wait till you see it. "

"I can't imagine that monster in Elis. "

"He was a very artistic monster, you remember. "

"Like some of the decadents in London. Why is it that those who hatemoral beauty so often worship all the other beauties?"

"D'you think in their hearts they actually hate moral beauty?"

"Well, despise it, laugh at it, try to tarnish it. "

"Paganism!"

"Good heavens, no!"

And they both laughed as they went down the narrow path to the softgreen valley that awaited them, hushed in the breathless morning, withdrawn among the hills, holding its memories of the athletic triumphsof past ages. Near the Museum they stopped for a moment to look down onthe valley. 

"Is the Hermes in there?" Rosamund asked, glancing at the closed anddeserted building. 

"Yes. "

"What a strange and delicious home for him. "

"You shall visit him presently. There are jackals in this valley. "

"I didn't hear any last night. "

She looked again at the closed door of the Museum. 

"When do they open it?"

"Probably the guardian's in there. That's where he lives. "

He pointed to a small dwelling close to the museum. Just then a tinymurmur of some far-away wind stirred the umbrella pines which stoodsentinel over the valley. 

"Oh, Dion, what an exquisite sound!" she said. 

She held up one hand like a listening child. There was awe in her eyes. 

"This is a shrine, " she said, when the murmur failed. "Dion, I know youplanned to go first to the ruins. "

"Yes. They're just below us. Look--by the river!"

"Let me see the Hermes first, just for a moment. "

Their eyes met. He thought she was reading his mind, though he tried tokeep it closed against her just then. 

"Why are you in such a hurry?" he asked. 

"I feel I must see it, " she answered, with a sort of sweet obstinacy. 

He hesitated. 

"Well, then--I'll see if I can find the guardian. "

In a moment he came back with a smiling Greek who was holding a key. Asthe man went to open the door, Dion said:

"Rose, will you follow my directions?"

"When?"

"Now, when you go into the Museum. "

"But aren't you coming too?"

"Not now. I will when we've seen the ruins. When you go into the Museumgo straight through the vestibule where the Roman Emperors are. Don'tturn to the right. In front of you you'll see a hall with a wooden roofand red walls. The 'Victory' is there. But don't stay there. Go into thesmall room beyond, the last room, and you mustn't let the guardian gowith you. "

From behind came the sound of the big door being opened. 

"Then that is the secret, and I knew about it all the time!"

"Knew about it--yes. "

She looked down on the green cup surrounded by hills, with its littleriver where now two half-naked men were dragging with a hand-net forfish. Again the tiny breath from the far-away wind stirred in the pinetrees, evoking soft sounds of Eternity. She turned away and went intothe Museum. 

Left alone, Dion lifted the lunch-pannier from his shoulder and laid itdown on the ground. Then he sat down under one of the pine trees. A wildolive grew very near it. He thought of the crown of wild olive which thevictors received in days when the valley resounded with voices and thetrampling of the feet of horses. He took off his hat and laid it besidehim on the ground by the lunch-pannier. One of the men in the rivercried out to his companion. Sheep-bells sounded softly down the valley. Some peasants went by with a small train of donkeys on a path whichwound away at the foot of the hill of Kronos. 

Dion was being unselfish. In staying where he was, beyond the outerdoor of the house of Hermes, he was taking the first firm step on a pathwhich might lead him on very far. He had slept in the dawn when Rosamundslipped out of the tent, but till the stars waned he had been awake, andin the white light of the moon he had seen the beginning of the path. Men were said to be selfish. People, especially women, often talkedas if selfishness were bred in the very fiber of men, as if it wereineradicable, and must be accepted by women. He meant to prove to onewoman that even a man could be unselfish, moved by something greaterthan himself. Up there on Drouva he had definitely dedicated himselfto Rosamund. His acute pain when, coming back to the place where hehad left her by the tent before sunset, he had not found her, hissense almost of smoldering anger, had startled him. In the night he hadthought things over, and then he had come to the beginning of the path. A really great love, if it is to be worthy to carry the torch, musttread in the way of unselfishness. He would conform to the needs, doubtless imperious, of Rosamund's nature, even when they conflictedwith his. 

So now he sat outside under the pine tree, and she was within alone. Afirst step was taken on the path. 

Would she presently come through the hall of the Victory to call him in?

He heard the guardian cough in the vestibule of the Emperors; the coughwas that of a man securely alone with his bodily manifestations. Thetrain of peasants had vanished. Still the sheep-bells sounded, but thechime seemed to come to him now from a greater distance. 

The morning was wearing on. When would she come back to him from thesecret of Olympia?

He heard again above his head the eternities whispering in the pinebranches. The calmness and heat of the valley mingled together, and roseto him, and wanted to take him to themselves. But he was detached fromthem, terribly detached by his virtue--his virtue, which involved him ina struggle, pushed them off. 

Surely an hour had passed, perhaps even more. He began to tingle withimpatience. The sound of the sheep-bells had died away beyond thecolonnade of the echoes. A living silence was now about him. 

At last he put on his hat and got up. The Hermes was proving his powertoo mercilessly, was stealing the hours like a thief at work in thedark. The knowledge that Rosamund was his own for life did not help Dionat all at this moment. He had planned out this day as if they were neverto have another. Their time in Greece was nearly over, and they couldnot linger for very long anywhere. Anyhow, just this day, once gone, could never be recaptured. 

He looked towards the doorway of the Museum, hesitating. He was devouredby impatience. Nevertheless he did not wish to step out of that path, the beginning of which he had seen in the night. Determined not to seekRosamund, yet driven by restlessness, he did one of those meaninglessthings which, bringing hurt to nature, are expected by man to bring himat least a momentary solace. His eyes happened to rest on the olive treewhich stood not far from the Museum. One branch of it was stretched outbeyond the others. He walked up to the tree, pulled at the branch, andfinally snapped it off, stripped it of its leaves and threw it on theground. 

As he finished this stupid and useless act, Rosamund came out of theMuseum, looking almost angry. 

"Oh, Dion, was it you?" she asked. "What could make you do such athing?"

"But--what do you mean?" he asked. 

She looked down at the massacred branch at his feet. 

"A branch of wild olive! If you only knew how it hurt me. "

"Oh--that! But how could you know?"

She still looked at him with a sort of shining of anger in her eyes. 

"I saw from the room of the Hermes. The doorway of the Museum is theframe for such a picture of Elis! It's almost, in its way, as dream-likeand lovely as the distant country one sees through the temple door inRaphael's 'Marriage of the Virgin' in Milan. And hanging partly acrossit was that branch of wild olive. I was looking at it and loving it inthe room of the Hermes when a man's arm, your arm, was thrust into thepicture, and the poor branch was torn away. "

She had spoken quite excitedly, still evidently under the impulse ofsomething like anger. Now she suddenly pulled herself up with a littleforced laugh. 

"Of course you didn't know; you couldn't. I suppose I was dreaming, and it--it looked like a sort of murder. But still I don't see why youshould tear the branch off, and all the leaves too. "

"I'm sorry, I'm very sorry, Rosamund. It was idiotic. Of course I hadn'tan idea what you were doing, I mean, that you were looking at it. Onedoes senseless little things sometimes. "

"It looked so angry. "

"What did?"

"Your hand, your arm. You can have no idea how----"

She broke off again. 

"Let me come in with you. Let's go to the Hermes. "

"Oh no, not now. "

She spoke with almost brusk decision. 

"Very well, then, I'll just pay the man something, and we'll be off tothe ruins. "

"Yes. "

Dion went to pay the guardian, whom he found standing up among the RomanEmperors in a dignified and receptive attitude. When he came back hepicked up the lunch-basket, slung it over his shoulder, and they walkeddown the small hill and towards the ruins in silence. He felt involvedin a tragedy, pained and discomforted. Yet it was all rather absurd, too. He did not know what to say, how to take it, and he looked straightahead, seeking instinctively for some diversion. When they were on theriver bank he found it in the fishermen who were wading in the shallowswith their nets. 

"I wonder what they catch here, " he said. "There's not much water. "

Rosamund took up the remark with her usual readiness and sympatheticcordiality, and soon they were chattering again much as usual. 

The great heat of the hour after noontide found them lunching among theruins of Nero's house. By this time the spell of the place had fasthold of them both. Nature had long since taken the ruins to her gentlebreast; she took Rosamund and Dion with them. In her green lap shesheltered them; with her green hills and her groves of pine trees shewrapped them round; with her tall grasses, her bushes, her wild flowersand her leaves she caught at and caressed them. A jackal whined in itslair near the huge limestone blocks of the temple of Zeus. Green lizardsbasked on the pavements which still showed the little ruts constructedto save the feet of contending athletes from slipping. All along thegreen valley the birds flew and sang; blackberry bushes climbed overthe broken walls of the mansion of Nero, and red and white daisies andsilvery grasses grew in every cranny where the kindly earth found afoothold. 

"Look at those butterflies, Dion!" Rosamund said. 

Two snow-white butterflies, wandering among the ruins, had found theirway to the house of Nero, and seemed inclined to make it their home. Keeping close together, as if guided by some sweet and whimsicalpurpose, they flew from stone to stone, from daisy to daisy, oftenalighting, as if bent on a thorough investigation of this ancientprecinct, then fluttering forward again, with quivering wings, not quitesatisfied, in an airy search for the thing or place desired. Severaltimes they seemed about to abandon the ruins of Nero's house, but, though they fluttered away, they always returned. And at last theyalighted side by side on a piece of uneven wall, and rested, as ifasleep in the sun, with folded wings. 

"That's the finishing touch, " said Rosamund. "White butterflies asleepin the house of Nero. "

She looked round over the ruins, poetic and beautiful in theirprostration, as if they had fallen to kiss the vale which, in return, had folded them in an eternal embrace. 

"Don't take me to Delphi this time, Dion; don't take me anywhere else, "she said. 

"I was thinking only to-day that our time's very short now. We lingeredso long in Athens. "

"We'll say our good-by to Greece from the Acropolis. That's--of course!The grandeur and wonder are there. But the dream of Greece--that's here. This is a shrine. "

"For Pan?"

"Oh no, not for Pan, though I dare say he often comes here. "

From the Kronos Hill, covered with little pines, came the mystical voiceof the breeze, speaking to them in long and remote murmurs. 

"That's the most exquisite sound in the world, " Rosamund continued. "Butit has nothing to do with Pan. You remember that day we went into theRussian church in Athens, Dion?"

"Yes. "

"There was the same sort of sound in those Russian voices when they weresinging very softly. It could never come from a Pagan world. "

"You find belief behind it?"

"No--knowledge. "

He did not ask her to define exactly what she meant. It was not an hourfor definition, but for dreaming, and he was happy again; the cloud ofthe morning had passed away; he had his love with untroubled eyes amongthe ruins. Thinking of that, realizing that with a sudden intensity, hetook her warm hand from the warm stone on which it was resting, and heldit closely in his. 

"Oh, Rosamund, shall I ever have another hour as happy as this?" hesaid. 

A little way off, in that long meadow in the breast of which the Stadiumlay hidden, the sheep-bells sounded almost pathetically; a flock wasthere happily at pasture. 

"It's as if all the green doors were closing upon us to keep us in Elisforever, isn't it?" she said. "But----"

She looked at him with a sort of smiling reproach:

"You wouldn't be allowed to stay. "

"Why not?"

"You committed a crime this morning. Nature's taken possession ofOlympia, and you struck at her. "

"D'you know why I did that?"

"No. "

But she did not again ask him why, and he never told her. When the heathad lessened a little, they wandered once more through that garden ofruins, where scarcely a column is standing, where convulsions of naturehave helped the hands of man to overthrow man's work, and where naturehas healed every wound, and made every scar tender and beautiful. Andpresently Rosamund said:

"I want to know exactly where Hermes was found. "

"Come, and I'll show you. "

He led her on among the wild flowers and the grasses, till they came tothe clearly marked base of the Heraeon, the most ancient known templeof Greece. Two of its columns were standing, tremendously massive Doriccolumns of a warm golden-brown color. 

"The Hermes was found in this temple. It stood between two of thecolumns, but I believe it was lying down when it was found. "

"It's difficult to imagine him between such columns as these. "

"Yet you love Doric. "

"Yes, but I don't know----"

She looked at the columns, even put her hands on them as if trying toclasp them. 

"It must have been right. The Greeks knew. Strength and grace, power anddelicacy, that's the bodily ideal. So the Hermes stood actually here. "

She looked all round, she listened to the distant sheep-bells, she drewinto her nostrils the green scents of the valley. 

"And left his influence here for ever, " she added. "His quietinfluence. "

"Let me come to see him with you on the way home. "

And this time she said, "Yes. "

At a little after four they left the sweet valley, and, passing overthe river ascended the hill to the Museum. The door was open, and theguardian was sitting profoundly asleep in the vestibule of the Emperors. 

"You see, that's the picture-frame, " Rosamund whispered, when theywere inside, pointing to the doorway. "The branch came just there in mypicture. "

She had lifted her hand. He took her by the wrist and gently pulled herhand down. 

"You mustn't show me that. "

"Don't let us wake him. "

A fly buzzed outside on the sunny threshold of the door, making a sleepysound like the winding of a rustic horn in the golden stillness, as theywent forward on tiptoe between the dull red walls of the hall of theVictory, and came into the room beyond, where the Hermes stood alone butfor the little Dionysos on his arm. 

There a greater silence seemed to reign--the silence of the harmonywhich lies beyond music, as a blue background of the atmosphere liesbeyond the verges of the vastest stretch of land that man's eyes havepower to see; he sees the blue, but almost as if with his soul, andin like manner hears the harmony. Both Rosamund and Dion felt thedifference in the silence directly they entered that sacred room. 

There was no room beyond it. Not very large, it was lighted by threewindows set in a row under a handsome roof of wood. The walls were dullred like the walls in the hall of the Victory. On the mosaic pavementwere placed two chairs. Rosamund went straight up to one of them, andsat down in front of the statue, which was raised on a high pedestal, and set facing the right-hand wall of the chamber. Dion remainedstanding a little way behind her. 

He remembered quite well his first visit to Olympia, his first sightof the Hermes. He had realized then very clearly the tragedy of largeMuseums in which statues stand together in throngs, enclosed withinroaring cities. From its situation, hidden in the green breast of thisvalley in Elis, the Hermes seemed to receive a sort of consecration, ablessing from its shrine; and the valley received surely from the Hermesa gracious benediction, making it unlike any other valley, howeverbeautiful, in any land of the earth. Nowhere else could the Hermes havebeen so serenely tender, so exquisitely benign in its contemplation; andno other valley could have kept it safe with such gentle watchfulness, such tranquilly unwearied patience. Surely each loved the other, and soeach gained something from the other. 

Through all the months since his visit, Dion had remembered the uniquequality of the peace of Olympia, like no other peace, and the strangeand exquisite hush which greeted the pilgrim at the threshold of thechamber in which the Hermes stood. He had remembered, but now he felt. Again the silence seemed to come out of the marble to greet him, aremembered pilgrim who had returned to his worship bringing anotherpilgrim. He entered once more into the peace of the Hermes, and nowRosamund shared that peace. As he looked at her for a moment, he knew hehad made a complete atonement; he had sent the shadow away. 

How could any shadow stand in the presence of the Hermes? The divinecalm within this chamber had a power which was akin to the power ofnature in the twilight of a windless evening, or of a beautiful soul atease in its own simplicity. It purified. Dion could not imagine anyman being able to look at the Hermes and feel the attraction of sin. Rosamund was right, he thought. Surely men have to go and fetch theirsins. Their goodness is given to them. The mother holds it, and is awareof it, when her baby is put into her arms for the first time. 

For a long while these two watched Hermes and the child in the silenceof Elis, bound together by an almost perfect sympathy. And theyunderstood as never before the beauty of calm--calm of the nerves, calmof the body, calm of the mind, the heart and the soul; peace physical, intellectual and moral. In looking at the Hermes they saw, or seemed tothemselves to see, the goal, what struggling humanity is meant for--theperfect poise, all faculties under effortless control, and so peace. 

"We must be meant for that, " Dion said to himself. "Shall we reach thatgoal, and take a child with us?"

Then he looked down at Rosamund, saw her pale yellow hair, the back ofher neck, in which, somehow, purity was manifested, and thought:

"I might perhaps get there through her, but only through her. "

She turned round, looked at him and smiled. 

"Isn't he divine? And the child's attitude!"

Dion moved and sat down beside her. 

"If this is Paganism, " she continued, "it's the same thing asChristianity. It's what God means. Men try to separate things that areall one. I feel that when I look at Hermes. Oh, how beautiful he is! Andhis beauty is as much moral as physical. You know the Antinous mouth?"

"Of course. "

"Look at his mouth. Could any one, comparing the two, honestly say thatpurity doesn't shine like a light in darkness? Aren't those lips stampedwith the Divine seal?"

"Yes, they are. "

"Dion, I'm so thankful I have a husband who's kept the power to see thateven physical beauty must have moral beauty behind it to be perfect. Many men can't see that, I think. "

"Is it their fault?"

"Yes. "

After another long silence she said:

"Spirit really is everything. Hermes tells me that almost as plainly asthe New Testament. Lots of people we know in London would laugh at mefor saying so, the people who talk of 'being Greek' and who never can beGreek. And he stood between Doric columns. I'm trying to learn somethinghere. "

"What?"

"How to bring _him_ up if he ever comes. "

Dion felt for her hand. 

They stayed on for a week at Drouva. Each evening Rosamund shot withthe boy of the wilderness, and they ate any birds that fell, at theirevening meal. The nights were given to the stars till sleep came. Andall the days were dedicated to Hermes, the child, and the sweet greenvalley which served as a casket for the perfect jewel which the earthhad given up after centuries of possession. Since Rosamund had told thedear secret of her heart, what she was trying to learn, Dion was able tosee her go in alone to the inner chamber without any secret jealousy orany impatience. The given confidence had done its blessed work swiftlyand surely; the spring behind the action, revealed so simply, wasrespected, was almost loved by Dion. Often he sat among the ruins alone, smoking his pipe; or he wandered away after the call of the sheep-bells, passing between the ruined walls overgrown with brambles and grasses andmosses, shaded here and there by a solitary tree, and under the low archof the Athletes' entrance into the great green space where the contestshad been held. Here he found the wearers of music feeding peacefully, attended by a dreaming boy. With the Two in the Garden of Eden therewere happy animals. The sheep-bells ringing tranquilly in his ears madeEden more real to him, and also more like something in one of the happydreams of a man. 

A world that had risen to great heights of emotion in this valley wasdead, but that did not sadden him. He found it impossible to be sad inOlympia, because his own life was so happy. 

A delicious egoism, the birthright of his youth, had him safe in itsgrasp. But sometimes, when Rosamund was alone in the room of the Hermes, learning her lesson, and he was among the ruins, or walking above theburied Stadium where the flocks were at pasture, he recalled the greatcontests of the Athletes of ancient Greece; the foot-races which werethe original competitions at the games, the races in armor, the longjumps, the wrestling matches, the discus and dart-throwing, the boxingand the brutal _pankration_. And he remembered that at the OlympicGames there were races for boys, for quite young boys. A boy had won atOlympia who was only twelve years old. When Dion recalled that fact onegolden afternoon, it seemed to him that perhaps his lesson was to belearnt among the feeding sheep in the valley, rather even than on thehill where the Hermes dwelt. The father surely shapes one part of thesacred clay of youth, while on the other part, with a greater softness, a perhaps subtler care, the mother works. 

He would try to make his boy sturdy and strong and courageous, swiftto the race of life; he would train his boy to be a victor, to be a boychampion among other boys. Her son must not fail to win the crown ofwild olive. And when he was a man----! But at that point in his dreamsof the future Dion always pulled up. He could not see Rosamund as themother of a man, could not see Rosamund old. She would, of course, bebeautiful in old age, with a perhaps more spiritual beauty than she hadeven now. He shut his eyes, tried to imagine her, to see her before himwith snow-white hair, a face perhaps etherealized by knowledge of lifeand suffering; once he even called up the most perfect picture of oldage he knew of--the portrait of Whistler's mother, calm, dignified, gentle, at peace, with folded hands; but his efforts were in vain; hesimply could not see his Rosamund old. And so, because of that, he couldonly see their child as a very young boy, wearing a boy's crown of wildolive, such as had once been won by the boy of twelve in the games atOlympia. 

The last day of their visit to the green wilds and the hilltops dawned, still, cloudless and very hot. There was a light haze over Zante, andthe great plain held a look of sleep--not the sleep of night but of thesiesta, when the dreams come out of the sun, and descend through thedeep-blue corridors to visit those who are weary in the gold. Rosamund, bareheaded, stood on the hill of Drouva and gazed towards the sea; herarm was round her olive tree; she looked marvelously well, lithe andstrong, but her face was grave, held even a hint of sadness. 

"Our last day here!" she said to Dion. "One more night with the stars, only one! Dion, when you brought me here, you did a dangerous thing. "

"Gave you opportunities for regret? D'you mean that?"

She nodded, still gazing towards Zante. 

"Such opportunities!"

"It couldn't be helped. I had to bring you. "

"Of course. I know. If you had let me leave Greece without coming here, and I had ever come to understand what I had missed, I don't believe Icould have forgiven even you. "

"I always meant to bring you here. "

"But you had a sudden impulse, didn't you?"

"Yes. "

"Why exactly did it come?"

He hesitated. Suddenly he felt reserved; but he broke through hisreserve and answered:

"I saw I had made you feel sad. "

"Did you? Why was that?"

"Don't you remember?"

She was catching the dream of the plain, perhaps, for she replied, withan almost preoccupied air:

"I don't think so. "

"I wanted to make you happy again, very happy, to give you a treat asquickly as possible. The idea of this"--he flung out a brown hand--"cameto me suddenly. That's how it was. You--you don't know how I wish tokeep every breath of sorrow out of your life. "

"I know you do; I feel it. But you've put a sorrow in. "

She spoke with a half-whimsical smile. 

"Have I?"

"The sorrow of leaving all this, of leaving the Hermes. I didn't knowit was possible to grow to care for a lifeless thing as I care forhim. Sometimes I believe the marble has actually retained nothing ofPraxiteles as a man. I mean as apart from a sculptor. But he must havebeen full of almost divine feelings and conceptions, or he could neverhave made my Hermes. No man can make the divine without having divinityin him. I've learnt more here in these few days than I have learnt inall my years. "

"From the statue of a Pagan. Isn't that strange?"

"No, I don't think so. For I was able to see the Christianity in it. Iknow what Praxiteles was only able to feel mysteriously. Sometimes inLondon I've heard people--you know the sort of people I mean--regrettingthey didn't live in the old Greek world. "

"I've regretted that. "

"Have you? But not in their way. When I look at the Hermes I feel verythankful I have lived since. "

"Tell me just why. "

"Because I live in a world which has received definitely and finally themessage the Hermes knew before it was sent down. "

She took away her arm from the olive tree and sighed. 

"Oh, Dion, I shall hate going away, leaving the tent and Drouva and him. But I believe whenever I think of Olympia I shall feel the peace that, thank God, doesn't pass all understanding. "

They went down to the valley that day to pay their final visit to theHermes. Twilight had not yet come, but was not very far off when, forthe last time, they crossed the threshold of his chamber. More silentthan ever, more benignly silent, did the hush about him seem to Dion;more profound were his peace and serenity. He and the child had surelywithdrawn a little farther from all that was not intended, but that, forsome inscrutable reason, had come to be. His winged sandals had carriedhim still farther away. As Dion looked at him he seemed to be afar. 

"Rosamund!"

"Yes?"

"This evening I have a feeling about the Hermes I've never had before. "

"What is it?"

"That he's taking the child away, quite away. "

"But he's always been here, and not here. That's what I love so much. "

"I don't mean quite that. It's as if he were taking the child fartherand farther away, partly because of us. "

"I don't like that. I don't feel that at all. "

"We belong to this world, you see, and are subject to all itsconditions. We are in it and of it. "

"Well?"

"He belongs to such a different world. "

"Yes, the released world, where no ugly passions can ever get in. "

"The way he looks at Dionysos tells one that. He hasn't any fear for theboy's future when he grows up and comes to know things. It just strikesme that no human being who thinks could ever look at a human child likethat. There would always be the fear behind--'What is life going to doto the child?'"

She looked at him, and her face was very grave. 

"D'you think we should feel that?"

"Surely. "

"Unless we got the serene courage of the Hermes. "

"But he lived among gods, and we live among men. "

"Not always. "

"I don't understand. "

"Perhaps some day you will, " she answered. 

Into her eyes there had come a strange look of withdrawal. 

At that moment the atmosphere in the room of the Hermes seemed to Dionmore full of peace even than before, but the peace was like somethingalmost tangible. It troubled him a little because he felt that theHermes, the child and Rosamund were of it, while he was not. They weresurrounded by the atmosphere necessary to them, and to which they weremysteriously accustomed, while he was for the first time in such anatmosphere. He felt separated from Rosamund by a gulf, perhaps verynarrow, but probably very deep. 

Over Elis the twilight was falling, a green twilight sylvan and veryethereal, tremulous in its delicate beauty. It stole through the greendoors, and down through the murmuring pine trees; it crossed the shallowriver, and made its way to the garden of ruins where once the Hermes hadstood between Doric Columns in the Heraeon. Through the colonnade of theechoes it passed, and under the arch of the Athletes. Over the crude andalmost terrible strength of the ruins of the temple of Zeus it let itsgreen garments trail down, as it felt its way softly but surely to theburied Stadium where once a boy of twelve had won the crown of wildolive. The sheep-bells were ringing softly; the flocks were goinghomeward from pasture. They were making their way up the valley now atthe base of the Kronos Hill, and the chime of their little bells mingledwith the wide whispering of the eternities among the summits of the pinetrees. Music of earth mingled with the music from a distance that knewwhat the twilight knew. 

The tall oblong of the Museum doorway on the hill framed a tiny pictureof Elis, bathed in green and tremulous light; a small section ofhillside, a fragment of empty, poetic country--Pan's world rather hintedat than revealed--a suggestion of evening sky, remote, with infinitylost in its distance. But there was no branch of wild olive flickeringacross the picture. 

Rosamund missed it as she looked from the room of the Hermes out to thewhispering evening and the quiet vale of Olympia. But she did not sayso to Dion. He thought of it too, as he looked at her, and he tried toforget it. The picture framed by the doorway strangely grew dimmer andyet more full of greenish light; the country of Pan was fading in light. Presently details were entirely lost. Only an oblong of green, nowalmost emerald, light showed from the chamber of the Hermes. And in thatchamber the two marble figures were gradually fading; the athletic, yetmiraculously graceful, messenger of the gods with the winged sandals, the tiny child clinging to his shoulder with one little arm stretchedout in an enchanting gesture of desire. Still the child nestled againstHermes, and still Hermes contemplated the child, with a celestialbenignity, a half-smiling calmness of other worlds than this. 

In the vestibule of the Emperors the guardian waited patiently. He wasnot accustomed to visitors who lingered on like these two English, when the light was failing, and surely it must be difficult, if notimpossible, to see the statues properly. But Rosamund, with her usuallack of all effort, had captivated him. He had grown accustomed to hervisits; he was even flattered by them. It pleased him subtly to have inhis care a treasure such as the Hermes, to see which beautiful women, the Rosamunds of the world, traveled from far-off countries. Rosamund'sperpetual, and prolonged, visits had made him feel more important thanhe had ever succeeded in feeling before. Let the night come, she mightstay on there, if she chose. He took very little account of Dion. ButRosamund was beginning to assume a certain vital importance in his quietlife. 

The green light faded into a very dim primrose; the music of thesheep-bells drew near and died away among the small houses of thehamlet at the foot of the hill of Drouva; Elis withdrew itself into theobscurity that would last till the late coming of the waning moon. OfHermes and Dionysos now only the attitudes could be seen faintly. Buteven they told of a golden age, an age from which everything ugly, everything violent, everything unseemly, everything insincere, everything cruel was blotted out--an age of serenity of body and soul, the age of the long peace. 

"He's gone, " said Dion at last. 

Rosamund got up slowly. 

"You think he's taken away the child because of us?"

There was an almost pathetic sound in her voice, but there was a smilein it too. 

"You remember my stupid remark?"

"Perhaps it wasn't stupid. I think those who dare to have a child oughtto keep very near to the world Hermes walks in. They mayn't wear wingson their sandals, but the earth oughtn't to hold their feet too fast. Hermes has taught me. "

"No one could ever want to take a child away from you, " he answered. 

In the vestibule of the Emperors they bade good-by to the guardian ofthe Museum, and made him understand that on the morrow they would begone. 

As he looked at Dion's gift he felt for a moment almost depressed. Hewas accustomed to his constant visitor. Surely he would miss her. Shesmiled on him with her warm and very human cordiality for the last time, and went away, with her companion, into the dimness towards the hill ofDrouva. Then the guardian pulled the great door. It closed with a finalsound. The key was turned. And Hermes was left untroubled in that worldwhere wings grow out of the sandals. 

BOOK II -- ECHO

CHAPTER I

Robin, whose other name was Gabriel, arrived at the "little house, " ofwhich Rosamund had spoken to Dion upon the hill of Drouva, early in thefollowing year, on the last night of February to be exact. For a longtime before his coming his future home had been subtly permeated by anatmosphere of expectancy. 

No. 5 Little Market Street was in Westminster, not far from the riverand the Houses of Parliament, yet in a street which looked almostremote, and which was often very quiet although close to great arteriesof life. Dion sometimes thought it almost too dusky a setting for hisRosamund, but it was she who had chosen it, and they had both becomequickly fond of it. It was a house with white paneling, gracefulceilings and carved fireplaces, and a shallow staircase of oak. Therewas a tiny but welcoming hall, and the landing on the first floorsuggested potpourri, chintz-covered settees, and little curtains ofchintz moved by a country wind coming through open windows. There were, in fact, chintz-covered settees, and there was potpourri. Rosamund hadtaken care about that; she had also taken care about many other littlethings which most London housewives, perhaps, think unworthy of theirattention. Every day, for instance, she burnt lavender about the house, and watched the sweet smoke in tiny wreaths curling up from the smallshovel, as she gently moved it to and fro, with a half smile of what shecalled "rustic satisfaction. " She laid lavender in the cupboards and inthe chests of drawers, and, when she bought flowers, chose by preferencecottage garden flowers, if she could get them, sweet williams, pansies, pinks, wallflowers, white violets, stocks, Canterbury bells. Sometimesshe came home with wild flowers, and had once given a little dinnerwith foxgloves for a table decoration. An orchid, a gardenia, even ahyacinth, was never to be seen in the little house. Rosamund confessedthat hyacinths had a lovely name, and that they suggested spring, butshe added that they smelt as if they had always lived in hothouses, andwere quite ready to be friends with gardenias. 

She opened her windows. In this she was almost too rigorous for hermaid-servants, who nevertheless adored her. "Plenty of warmth but plentyof air, " was her prescription for a comfortable and healthy house, "andnot too much or too many of anything. " Dust, of course, was not to beknown of in her dwelling, but "blacks" were accepted with a certainresignation as a natural chastening and a message from London. "They aren't our fault, Annie, " she had been known to observe to thehousemaid. "And dust can't be anything else, however you look at it, canit?" And Annie said, "Well, no, ma'am!" and, when she came to think ofit, felt she had not been a liar in the moment of speaking. 

Rosamund never "splashed, " or tried to make a show in her house, andshe was very careful never to exceed their sufficient, but not large, income; but the ordinary things, those things which of necessity comeinto the scheme of everyday life, were always of the very best when sheprovided them. Dion declared, and really believed, perhaps with reason, that no tea was so fragrant, no bread and butter so delicious, no toastso crisp, as theirs; no other linen felt so cool and fresh to the bodyas the linen on the beds of the little house; no other silver glitteredso brightly as the silver on their round breakfast-table; no otherlittle white window curtains in London managed to look so perenniallyfresh, and almost blithe, as the curtains which hung at their windows. Rosamund and Annie might have conversations together on the subject of"blacks, " but Dion never saw any of these distressing visitants. The mere thought of Rosamund would surely keep them at a more thanrespectful distance. 

She proved to be a mistress of detail, and a housekeeper whoseenthusiasm was matched by her competence. At first Dion had been rathersurprised when he followed from afar, as is becoming in a man, thisdevelopment. Before they settled down in London he had seen in Rosamundthe enthusiastic artist, the joyous traveler, the good comrade, the gaysportswoman touched with Amazonian glories; he had known in her the deeplover of pure beauty; he had divined in her something else, a littlestrange, a little remote, the girl to whom the "Paradiso" was adoor opening into dreamland, the girl who escaped sometimes almostmysteriously into regions he knew nothing of; but he had not seen in herone capable of absolutely reveling in the humdrum. Evidently, then, hehad not grasped the full meaning of a genuine _joie de vivre_. 

To everything she did Rosamund brought zest. She kept house as she sang"The heart ever faithful, " holding nothing back. Everything must beright if she could get it right; and the husband got the benefit, incidentally. Now and then Dion found himself mentally murmuring thatword. A great love will do such things unreasonably. For Rosamund's_joie de vivre_, that gift of the gods, caused her to love and rejoicein a thing for the thing's own sake, as it seemed, rather than for thesake of some one, any one, who was eventually to gain by the thing. Thus she cared for her little house with a sort of joyous devotion andenergy, but because it was "my little house" and deserved every careshe could give it. Rather as she had spoken of the small olive tree onDrouva, of the Hermes of Olympia, even of Athens, she spoke of it, witha sort of protective affection, as if she thought of it as a livingthing confided to her keeping. She possessed a faculty not very commonin women, a delight in doing a thing for its own sake, rather than forthe sake of some human being--perhaps a man. If she boiled an egg--shewent to the kitchen and did this sometimes--she seemed personallyinterested in the egg, and keenly anxious to do the best by it; theboiling must be a pleasure to her, but also to the egg, and it must, if possible, be supremely well done. As the cook once said, after aculinary effort by Rosamund, "I never seen a lady care for cooking andall such-like as she done. If she as much as plucked a fowl, you'd swearshe loved every feather of it. And as to a roast, she couldn't hardlyseem to set more store by it if it was her own husband. "

Such a spirit naturally made for comfort in a house, and Dion had neverbefore been so comfortable. Nevertheless--and he knew it with a keensavoring of appreciation--there was a Spartan touch to be felt in thelittle house. Comfort walked hand in hand with Rosamund, but so didsimplicity; she was what the maids called "particular, " but she was notluxurious; she even disliked luxury, connecting it with superfluity, for which she had a feeling amounting almost to repulsion. "I detest thesensation of sinking down in _things_, " was a favorite saying of hers;and the way she lived proved that she spoke the sheer truth. 

All through the house, and all through the way of life in it, thereprevailed a "note" of simplicity, even of plainness. The odd thing, perhaps, was that it pleased almost every one who visited the youngcouple. A certain well-known man, noted as a Sybarite, clever, decadentand sought after, once got into the house, he pretended by stealth, and spent half an hour there in conversation with Rosamund. He came way"acutely conscious of my profound vulgarity, " as he explained later tovarious friends. "Her house revealed to me the hideous fact that all thebest houses in London smack of cocotte-try; the trail of cushions andliqueurs is over them all. Mrs. Leith's house is a vestal, and its lampis always trimmed. " Daventry's comment on this was: "Trimmed--yes, buttrimmings--no!"

Even Esme Darlington highly approved of the "charming sobriety of No. 5Little Market Street, " although he had had no hand in its preparation, no voice in the deciding of its colors, its stuffs, its rugs, or itsstair-rods. He was even heard to declare that "our dear Rosamund isalmost the only woman I know who has the precious instinct of reticence;an instinct denied, by the way, even to that delightful and marvelouscreature Elizabeth Browning--_requiescat_. "

The "charming sobriety" was shown in various ways; in a lack of thoseenormous cushions which most women either love, or think necessary, inall sitting-rooms; in the comparative smallness of such sofas as were tobe seen; in the moderation of depth in arm-chairs, and in the completeabsence of footstools. Then the binding of the many books, scatteredabout here and there, and ranged on shelves, was "quiet"; there was noscarlet and gold, or bright blue and gold; pictures were good but few;not many rugs lay on the polished wooden floors, and there was nolitter of ornaments or bibelots on cabinets or tables. A couple of smallstatuettes, copies of bronzes in the Naples Museum, and some bits ofblue-and-white china made their pleasant effect the more easily becausethey had not to fight against an army of rivals. There was some goodearly English glass in the small dining-room, and a few fine specimensof luster ware made a quiet show in Dion's little den. Apart from thewhite curtains, and outer curtains of heavier material, which hung atall the windows, there were no "draperies. " Overmantels, "cosy-corners, "flung Indian shawls, "pieces" snatched from bazaars, and "carelessly"hung over pedestals and divans found no favor in Rosamund's eyes. There was a good deal of homely chintz about which lit up the ratherold-fashioned rooms, and colors throughout the house were rather softthan hard, were never emphatic or designed to startle or impress. 

Rosamund, indeed, was by far the most vivid thing in the house, andsome people--not males--said she had taken care to supply for herselfa background which would "throw her up. " These people, if they believedwhat they said, did not know her. 

She had on the first floor a little sitting-room all to herself; in thiswere now to be found the books which had been in her bedroom in GreatCumberland Place; the charwoman's black tray with the cabbage rose, the mug from Greenwich, the flesh-colored vase, the china cow, the toytrombone, and other souvenirs of her girlhood to which Rosamund "held. "On the brass-railed shelf of the writing-table stood a fine photogravureof the Hermes of Olympia with little Dionysos on his arm. Very often, many times every day, Rosamund looked up at Hermes and the Child fromaccount books, letters or notes, and then the green dream of Elis fellabout her softly again; and sometimes she gazed beyond the Hermes, butinstead of the wall of the chamber she saw, set in an oblong frame, andbathed in green twilight, a bit of the world of Pan, with a branch ofwild olive flickering across the foreground; or, now and then, she sawa falling star, dropping from its place in the sky down towards a greenwilderness, and carrying a wish from her with it, a wish that was surelysoon to be granted. Her life in the little house had been a happy lifehitherto, but--she looked again at the little Dionysos on the arm ofHermes, nestling against his shoulder--how much happier it was going tobe, how much happier! She was not surprised, for deep in her heart shealways expected happiness. 

People had been delightful to her and to Dion. Indeed, they had flockedto the small green door (the Elis door) of 5 Little Market Street inalmost embarrassing numbers. That was partly Mr. Darlington's fault. Naturally Rosamund's and Bruce Evelin's friends came; and of courseDion's relations and friends came. That would really have been enough. Rosamund enjoyed, but was not at all "mad about, " society, and had nowish to give up the greater part of her time to paying calls. ButMr. Darlington could not forbear from kind efforts on behalf of hisdelightful young friends, that gifted and beautiful creature RosamundLeith, and her pleasant young husband. He, who found time foreverything, found time to give more than one "little party, just a fewfriends, no more, " specially for them; and the end of it was thatthey found themselves acquainted with almost too many interesting anddelightful people. 

At first, too, Rosamund continued to sing at concerts, but at the end ofJuly, after their return from Greece, when the London season closed, she gave up doing so for the time, and accepted no engagements for theautumn. Esme Darlington was rather distressed. He worked very hard inthe arts himself, and, having "launched" Rosamund, he expected greatthings of her, and wished her to go forward from success to success. Besides "the money would surely come in very handy" to two youngpeople as yet only moderately well off. He did not quite understand thesituation. Of course he realized that in time young married peoplemight have home interests, home claims upon them which might necessitatecertain changes of procedure. The day might come--he sincerely hoped itwould--when a new glory, possibly even more than one, would be added tothe delightful Rosamund's crown; but in the meanwhile surely the autumnconcerts need not be neglected. He had heard no hint as yet of any--h'm, ha! He stroked his carefully careless beard. But he had left town inAugust with his curiosity unsatisfied, leaving Rosamund and Dion behindhim. They had had their holiday, and had stayed steadily on in LittleMarket Street through the summer, taking Saturday to Monday runs intothe country; more than once to the seacoast of Kent, where Bruce Evelinand Beatrice were staying, and once to Worcestershire to Dion's mother, who had taken a cottage there close to the borders of Warwickshire. Theautumn had brought people back to town, and it was in the autumn thatRosamund withdrew from all contact with the hurly-burly of London. Shehad no fears at all for her body, none of those sick terrors which somewomen have as their time draws near, no premonitions of disaster orpresages of death, but she desired to "get ready, " and her way ofgetting ready was to surround her life with a certain stillness, tobuild about it white walls of peace. Often when Dion was away in theCity she went out alone and visited some church. Sometimes she spent anhour or two in Westminster Abbey; and on many dark afternoons she madeher way to St. Paul's Cathedral where, sitting a long way from thechoir, she listened to evensong. The beautiful and tenderly cool singingof the distant boys came to her like something she needed, something towhich her soul was delicately attuned. One afternoon they and the men, who formed the deeply melodious background from which their crystallinevoices seemed to float forward and upward, sang "The Wilderness" ofWesley. Rosamund listened to it, thankful that she was alone, andremembering many things, among them the green wilderness beneath thehill of Drouva. 

Very seldom she spoke to Dion about these excursions of hers. There wassomething in her feeling for religion which loved reserve rather thanexpression; she who was so forthcoming in many moments of her life, whowas genial and gay, who enjoyed laughter and was always at home withhumanity, knew very well how to be silent. There was a saying she caredfor, "God speaks to man in the silence;" perhaps she felt there was asuspicion of irreverence in talking to any one, even to Dion, abouther aspiration to God. If, on his return home, he asked her how she hadpassed the day, she often said only, "I've been very happy. " Then hesaid to himself, "What more can I want? I'm able to make her happy. "

One windy evening in January, when an icy sleet was driving over thetown, as he came into the little hall, he found Rosamund at the foot ofthe staircase, with a piece of mother's work in her hand, about to gointo the drawing-room which was on the ground floor of the house. 

"Rose, " he said, looking down at the little white something she washolding, "do you think we shall both feel ever so much older in March?It will be in March, won't it?"

"I think so, " she answered, with a sort of deeply tranquil gravity. 

"In March when we are parents?"

"Are you worrying about that?" she asked him, smiling now, but with, inher voice, a hint of reproach. 

"Worrying--no. But do you?"

"Let us go into the drawing-room, " she said. 

When they were there she answered him:

"Absolutely different, but not necessarily older. Feeling older must bevery like feeling old, I think--and I can't imagine feeling old. "

"Because probably you never will. "

"Have you had tea, Dion?"

"Yes, at the Greville. I promised I'd meet Guy there to-day. He spokeabout Beattie. "

"Yes?"

"Do you think Beattie would marry him if he asked her?"

"I don't know. "

She sat down in the firelight near the hearth, and bent a little overher work on the tiny garment, which looked as if it were intended forthe use of a fairy. Dion looked at her head with its pale hair. As heleaned forward he could see all the top of her head. The firelight madesome of her hair look quite golden, gave a sort of soft sparkle to thecurve of it about her broad, pure forehead. 

"Guy's getting desperate, " he said. "But he's afraid to put his fortuneto the test. He thinks even uncertainty is better than knowledge of theworst. "

"Of one thing I'm certain, Dion. Beattie doesn't love Guy Daventry. "

"Oh well, then, it's all up. "

Rosamund looked up from the little garment. 

"I didn't say that. "

"But if Beattie--but Beattie's the soul of sincerity. "

"Yes, I know; but I think she might consent to marry Guy Daventry. "

"But why?"

"I don't know exactly. She never told me. I just feel it. "

"Oh, if you feel it, I'm sure it is so. But how awfully odd. Isn't it?"

"Yes, it really is rather odd in Beattie. Do you want Beattie to marryGuy Daventry?"

"Of course I do. Don't you?"

"Dear Beattie! I want her to be happy. But I think it's very difficult, even when one knows some one very, very well, to know just how she canget happiness, through just what. "

"Rose, have I made you happy?"

"Yes. "

"As happy as you could be?"

"I think, perhaps, you will have--soon. "

"Oh, you mean----?"

"Yes. "

She went on stitching quietly. Her hands looked very contented. Diondrew up a little nearer to the fire with a movement that was ratherbrusk. It just struck him that his walk home in the driving sleet haddecidedly chilled his body. 

"I believe I know what you mean about Beattie, " he said, after a pause, looking into the fire. "But do you think that would be fair to Guy?"

"I'm not quite sure myself what I mean, honestly, Dion. "

"Well, let's suppose it. If it were so, would it be fair?"

"I think Beattie's so really good that Mr. Daventry, as he loves her, could scarcely be unhappy with her. "

Dion thought for a moment, then he said:

"Perhaps with Guy it wouldn't be unfair, but, you know, Rose, that sortof thing wouldn't do with some men. Some men could never stand beingmarried for anything but the one great reason. "

He did not explain what that reason was, and Rosamund did not ask. Therewas a sort of wide and sweet tranquillity about her that evening. Dionnoticed that it seemed to increase upon her, and about her, as the dayspassed by. She showed no sign of nervousness, had evidently no dread atall of bodily pain. Either she trusted in her splendid health, or shewas so wrapped up in the thought of the joy of being a mother thatthe darkness to be passed through did not trouble her; or perhaps--hewondered about this--she was all the time schooling herself, looking up, in memory, to the columns of the Parthenon. He was much more strung up, much more restless and excitable than she was, but she did not seem tonotice it. Always singularly unconscious of herself she seemed at thisperiod to be also unobservant of those about her. He felt that she wasbeing deliberately egoistic for a great reason, that she was caring forherself, soul and body, with a sort of deep and quiet intensity becauseof the child. 

"She is right, " he said to himself, and he strove in all ways in hispower to aid her beautiful selfishness; nevertheless sometimes he feltshut out; sometimes he felt as if already the unseen was playing truantover the seen. He was conscious of the child's presence in the littlehouse through Rosamund's way of being before he saw the child. Hewondered what other women were like in such periods, whether Rosamundwas instinctively conforming to an ancient tradition of her sex, orwhether she was, as usual, strongly individualistic. In many ways shewas surely not like other women, but perhaps in these wholly naturalcrises every woman resembled all her sisters who were traveling towardsthe same sacred condition. He longed to satisfy himself whether this wasso or not, and one Saturday afternoon, when Rosamund was resting in herlittle sitting-room with a book, and the Hermes watching over her, hebicycled to Jenkins's gymnasium in the Harrow Road, resolved to put inforty minutes' hard work, and then to visit his mother. Mrs. Leith andRosamund seemed to be excellent friends, but Dion never discussed hiswife with his mother. There was no reason why he should do so. On thisday, however, instinctively he turned to his mother; he thought that shemight help him towards a clearer knowledge of Rosamund. 

Rosamund had long ago been formally made known to Bob Jenkins, Jim'sboxing "coach, " who enthusiastically approved of her, though he hadnever ventured to put his opinion quite in that form to Dion. EvenJenkins, perhaps, had his subtleties, those which a really good heartcannot rid itself of. Rosamund, in return, had made Dion known to herextraordinary friend, Mr. Thrush of Abingdon Buildings, John's Court, near the Edgware Road, the old gentleman who went to fetch his sin everyevening, and, it is to be feared, at various other times also, in a jugfrom the "Daniel Lambert. " Dion had often laughed over Rosamund's "cult"for Mr. Thrush, which he scarcely pretended to understand, but Rosamundrejoiced in Dion's cult for the stalwart Jenkins. 

"I like that man, " she said. "Perhaps some day----" She stopped there, but her face was eloquent. 

In his peculiar way Jenkins was undoubtedly Doric, and thereforedeserving of Rosamund's respect. Of Mr. Thrush so much could hardly besaid with truth. In him there were to be found neither the stern majestyand strength of the Doric, nor the lightness and grace of the Ionic. As an art product he stood alone, always wearing the top hat, a figureDegas might have immortalized but had unfortunately never seen. Dionknew that Mr. Thrush had once rescued Rosamund in a fog and had conveyedher home, and he put the rest of the Thrush matter down to Rosamund'sgenial kindness towards downtrodden and unfortunate people. He loved herfor it, but could not help being amused by it. 

When Dion arrived at the gymnasium, Jenkins was giving a lesson to asmall boy of perhaps twelve years old, whose mother was looking eagerlyon. The boy, clad in a white "sweater, " was flushed with the ardor ofhis endeavors to punch the ball, to raise himself up on the bar tillhis chin was between his hands, to vault the horse neatly, and to turnsomersaults on the rings. The primrose-colored hair on his small roundhead was all ruffled up, perspiration streamed over his pink rosycheeks, his eyes shone with determination, and his little white teethwere gritted as, with all the solemn intensity of childhood, he stroveto obey on the instant Jenkins's loud words of command. It was obviousthat he looked to Jenkins as a savage looks to his Tribal God. Hisanxious but admiring mother was forgotten; the world was forgotten;Jenkins and the small boy were alone in a universe of grip dumb-bells, heavy weights, "exercisers, " boxing-gloves, horizontal bars, swingingballs and wooden "horses. " Dion stood in the doorway and looked on tillthe lesson was finished. It ended with a heavy clap on the small boy'sshoulders from the mighty paw of Jenkins, and a stentorian, "You'regetting along and no mistake, Master Tim!"

The face of Master Tim at this moment was a study. All the flags oftriumph and joy were hung out in it and floated on the breeze; asoul appeared at the two windows shining with perfect happiness;and, mysteriously, in all the little figure, from the ruffledprimrose-colored feathers of hair to the feet in the white shoes, thepride of manhood looked forth through the glowing rapture of a child. 

"What a jolly boy!" said Dion to Jenkins, when Master Tim and his motherhad departed. "It must be good to have a boy like that. "

"I hope you'll have one some day, sir, " said Jenkins, speaking heartilyin his powerful voice, but looking, for the moment, unusually severe. 

He and Bert, his wife, had had one child, a girl, which had died ofquinsy, and they had never had another. 

"Now I'm ready for you, sir!" he added, with a sort of outburst ofrecovery. "I should like a round with the gloves to-day, if it's all thesame to you. "

It was all the same to Dion, and, when he reached Queen Anne's Mansionsin the darkness of evening, he was still glowing from the exercise; theblood sang through his veins, and his heart was almost as light as hisstep. 

Marion, the parlor-maid, let him in, and told him his mother was athome. Dion put his hand to his lips, stole across the hall noiselessly, softly opened the drawing-room door, and caught his mother unawares. 

Whenever he came into the well-known flat alone, he had a moment ofretrogression, went back to his unmarried time, and was again, as for somany years, in the intimate life of his mother. But to-day, as he openedthe door, he was abruptly thrust out of his moment. His mother was inher usual place on the high-backed sofa near the fire. She was doingnothing, was just sitting with her hands, in their wrinkled gloves, folded in her lap, and her large, round blue eyes looking. Dion thoughtof them as looking because they were wide open, but they were strangelyemptied of expression. All of his mother seemed to him for just the oneinstant which followed on his entrance to be emptied, as if the woman hehad always known--loving, satirical, clever, kind, observant--had beenpoured away. The effect upon him was one of indescribable, almost ofhorrible, dreariness. Omar Khayyam, his mother's black pug, was not inthe room as usual, stretched out before the fire. 

Even as Dion realized this, his mother was poured back into the roundface and plump figure beside the fire, and greeted him with the usualalmost saccharine sweet smile, and:

"Dee-ar, I wasn't expecting you to-day. How is the beloved one?"

"The beloved one" was Mrs. Leith's rendering of Rosamund. 

"How particularly spry you look, " she added. "I'm certain it's theJenkins paragon. You've been standing up to him. Now, haven't you?"

Dion acknowledged that he had, and added:

"But you, mother? How are you?"

"Quite wickedly well. I ought to be down with influenza like allwell-bred people, --Esme Darlington has it badly, --but I cannot compasseven one sneeze. "

"Where's Omar?"

Mrs. Leith looked grave. 

"Poor little chap, we must turn down an empty glass for him. "

"What--you don't mean----?"

"Run over yesterday just outside the Mansions, and by a four-wheeler. I'm sure he never expected that the angel of death would come for him ina growler, poor little fellow. "

"I say! Little Omar dead! What a beastly shame! Mother, I am sorry. "

He sat down beside her; he was beset by a sensation of calamity. Oddlyenough the hammer of fate had never yet struck on him so definitely asnow with the death of a dog. But, without quite realizing it, he wasconsidering poor black Omar as an important element in his mother'slife, now abruptly withdrawn. Omar had been in truth a rather greedy, self-seeking animal, but he had also been a companion, an adherent, afriend. 

"You must get another dog, " Dion added quickly. "I'll find you one. "

"Good of you, dee-ar boy! But I'm too old to begin on a new dog. "

"What nonsense!"

"It isn't. I feel I'm losing my nameless fascination for dogs. A poodlebarked at me this afternoon in Victoria Street. One can't expect one'sday to last for ever, though, really, some Englishwomen seem to. But, tell me, how is the beloved one?"

"Oh--to be sure! I wanted to talk to you about Rose. "

The smile became very sweet and welcoming on Mrs. Leith's handsome roundface. 

"There's nothing wrong, I'm sure. Your Rosamund sheds confidence in herdear self like a light all round her. "

"Nothing wrong--no. I didn't mean that. "

Dion paused. Now he was with his mother he did not know how to explainhimself; his reason for coming began to seem, even to himself, a littlevague. 

"It's a little difficult, " he began at last, "but I've been wonderingrather about women who are as Rosamund is just now. D'you think allwomen become a good deal alike at such times?"

"In spirit, do you mean?"

"Well--yes, of course. "

"I scarcely know. "

"I mean do they concentrate on the child a long while before it comes. "

"Many smart women certainly don't. "

"Oh, smart women! I mean women. "

"A good definition, dee-ar. Well, lots of poor women don't concentrateon the child either. They have far too much to do and worry about. Theyare 'seeing to' things up till the very last moment. "

"Then we must rule them out. Let's say the good women who have thetime. "

"I expect a great many of them do, if the husband lets them. "

"Ah!" said Dion rather sharply. 

"There are a few husbands, you see, who get fidgety directly thepedestal on which number one thinks himself firmly established begins toshake. "

"Stupid fools!"

"Eminently human stupid fools. "

"Are they?"

"Don't you think so?"

"Perhaps. But then humanity's contemptible. "

"Extra-humanity, or the attempt at it, can be dangerous. "

"What do you mean exactly by that, mater?"

"Only that we have to be as we are, and can never really be, can onlyseem to be, as we aren't. "

"What a whipping I'm giving to myself just now!" was her thought, as shefinished speaking. 

"Oh--yes, of course. That's true. I think--I think Rosamund'sconcentrating on the child, in a sort of quiet, big way. "

"There's something fine in that. But her doings are often touched withfineness. "

"Yes, aren't they? She doesn't seem at all afraid. "

"I don't think she need be. She has such splendid health. "

"But she may suffer very much. "

"Yes, but something will carry her gloriously through all that, Iexpect. "

"And you think it's very natural, very usual, her--her sort of livingalone with the child before it is born?"

Mrs. Leith saw in her son's eyes an unmistakably wistful look at thismoment. It was very hard for her not to take him in her arms just then, not to say, "My son, d'you suppose I don't understand it all--_all_?"But she never moved, her hands lay still in her lap, and she replied:

"Very natural, quite natural, Dion. Your Rosamund is just beingherself. "

"You think she's able to live with the child already?"

Mrs. Leith hesitated for a moment. In that moment certainly she felt astrong, even an almost terrible inclination to tell a lie to her son. But she answered:

"Yes, I do. "

"That must be very strange, " was all that Dion said just then; but alittle later on--he stayed with his mother longer than usual that daybecause poor little Omar was dead--he remarked:

"D'you know, mater, I believe it's the right thing to be what's called athorough-paced egoist at certain moments, in certain situations. "

"Perhaps it is, " said his mother incuriously. 

"I fancy there's a good deal of rot talked about egoism and that sort ofthing. "

"There's a good deal of rot talked about most things. "

"Yes, isn't there? And besides, how is one to know? Very often whatseems like egoism may not be egoism at all. As I grow older I often feelhow important it is to search out the real reasons for things. "

"Sometimes they're difficult to find, " returned his mother, with anunusual simplicity of manner. 

"Yes, but still----Well, I must be off. "

He stood up and looked at the Indian rug in front of the hearth. 

"When are you coming to see us?" he asked. 

"Almost directly, dee-ar. "

"That's right. Rosamund likes seeing you. Naturally she depends upon youat such----" He broke off. "I mean, do come as often as you can. "

He bent down and kissed his mother. 

"By the way, " he added, almost awkwardly, "about that dog?"

"What dog, dee-ar?"

"The dog I want to give you. "

"We must think about it. Give me time. After a black pug one doesn'tknow all in a moment what type would be the proper successor. Youremember your poor Aunt Binn?"

"Aunt Binn! Why, what did she do?"

"Gave Uncle Binn a hairless thing like a note of interrogation, that hadto sleep in a coating of vaseline, when his enormous sheep-dog died whocouldn't see for hair. She believed in the value of contrast, butUncle Binn didn't. It would have led to a separation but for the hecticefforts of your aunt's friend, Miss Vine. When I've decided what type ofdog, I'll tell you. "

Dion understood the negative and, in spite of his feeling of fitness, went away rather uncomfortably. He couldn't forget the strangeappearance of that emptied woman whom he had taken unawares by thefireside. If only his mother would let him give her another dog!

When he got home he found Beatrice sitting with Rosamund. 

Dion had grown very fond of Beatrice. He had always been rather touchedand attracted by her plaintive charm, but since she had become hissister-in-law he had learnt to appreciate also her rare sincerity anddelicacy of mind. She could not grip life, perhaps, could not mold it toher purpose and desire, but she could do a very sweet and very femininething, she could live, without ever being intrusive, in the life ofanother. It was impossible not to see how "wrapped up" she was inRosamund. Dion had come to feel sure that it was natural to Beatrice tolead her life in another's, and he believed that Rosamund realized thisand often let Beatrice do little things for her which, full of vigor and"go" as she was, she would have preferred to do for herself. 

"I've been boxing and then to see mother, " he said, as he tookBeatrice's long narrow hand in his. "She sent her best love to you, Rosamund. "

"The dear mother!" said Rosamund gently. 

Dion sat down by Beatrice. 

"I'm quite upset by something that's happened, " he continued. "You knowpoor little Omar, Beattie?"

"Yes. Is he ill?"

"Dead. He was run over yesterday by a four-wheeler. "

"Oh!" said Beatrice. 

"Poor little dog, " Rosamund said, again gently. 

"When they picked him up--are you going, Rose?"

"Only for a few minutes. I am sorry. I'll write to the dear mother. "

She went quietly out of the room. Dion sprang up to open the door forher, but she had been sitting nearer to the door than he, and he was toolate; he shut it, however, and came slowly back to Beatrice. 

"I wonder----" He looked at Beatrice's pale face and earnest dark eyes. "D'you think Rosamund disliked my mentioning poor Omar's being killed?"

"No. "

"But didn't she leave us rather abruptly?"

"I think perhaps she didn't want to hear any details. You were justbeginning to--"

"How stupid of me!"

"You see, Rosamund has the child to live for now. "

"Yes--yes. What blunderers we men are, however much we try--"

"That's not a blame you ought to take, " Beatrice interrupted, withearnest gentleness. "You are the most thoughtful man I know--for awoman, I mean. "

Dion flushed. 

"Am I? I try to be. If I am it's because--well, Beattie, you know whatRose is to me. "

"Yes, I know. "

"Dearer and dearer every day. But nobody----Mother thinks a lot of her. "

"Who doesn't? There aren't many Roses like ours. "

"None. Poor mother! Beattie, d'you think she feels very lonely? You knowshe's got heaps of friends--heaps. "

"Yes. "

"It isn't as if she knew very few people, or lived alone in thecountry. "

"No but I'm very sorry her little dog's dead. "

"I want to give her another. "

"It would be no use. "

"But why not?"

"You see, little Omar was always there when you were living there. "

"Well?"

"He was part of her life with you. "

"Oh--yes. "

Dion looked rather hard at Beatrice. In that moment he began to realizehow much of the intelligence of the heart she possessed, and how widelyshe applied it. His application of his intelligence of the heart was, hefeared, much less widespread than hers. 

"Go to see mother when you can, will you?" he said. "She's very fond ofyou, I think. "

"I'll go. I like going to her. "

"And, Beattie, may I say something rather intimate? I'm your brothernow. "

"Yes. "

She was sitting opposite to him near the fire on a low chair. There wasa large shaded lamp in the room, but it was on a rather distant table. He saw Beatrice's face by the firelight and her narrow thoroughbredfigure in a dark dress. And the firelight, he thought, gave to both faceand figure a sort of strange beauty that was sad, and that had somethingof the strangeness and the beauty of those gold and red castles childrensee in the fire. They glow--and that evening there was a sort of glowin Beatrice; they crumble--and then there was a pathetic something inBeatrice, too, which suggested wistful desires, perhaps faint hopes andan ending of ashes. 

"Would you marry old Guy if he asked you? Don't be angry with me. "

"I'm not. "

"Of course, we've all known for ages how much he cares for you. He spoketo me about it to-day. He's desperately afraid of your refusing him. Hedaren't put his fate to the test. Beattie--would you?"

A slow red crept over Beatrice's face. She put up one hand to guardherself from the glow of the fire. For a moment she looked at Dion, andhe thought, "What a strange expression firelight can give to a face!"Then she said:

"I can't tell you. "

Her voice was husky. 

"Beattie, you've got a cold!"

"Have I?"

She got up. 

"I must go, Dion. I'll just see Rosamund for a minute. "

As she left the room, she said:

"I'll go and see your mother to-morrow. "

The door shut. Dion stood with one elbow resting on the mantelpiece andlooked down into the fire. He saw his mother sitting alone, a strange, emptied figure; he saw Beatrice. And fire, which beautifies, or makesromantic and sad everything gave to Beatrice the look of his mother. Fora moment his soul was full of questions about the two women. 

CHAPTER II

"I've joined the Artists' Rifles, " Dion said to Rosamund one day. 

He spoke almost bruskly. Of late he had begun to develop a mannerwhich had just a hint of roughness in it sometimes. This manner was theexpression of a strong inward effort he was making. If, as his motherbelieved, already Rosamund was able to live with the child, Dion'ssolitary possession of the woman he loved was definitely over, probablyforever. Something within him which, perhaps, foolishly, rebelledagainst this fact had driven him to seek a diversion; he had found it inbeginning to try to live for the child in the man's way. He intended toput the old life behind him, and to march vigorously on to the new. Hecalled up Master Tim before him in the little white "sweater, " withthe primrose-colored ruffled feathers of hair, the gritted white teeth, small almost as the teeth of a mouse, the moist, ardent cheeks, andthe glowing eyes looking steadfastly to the Tribal God. He must be theTribal God to his little son, if the child were a son. 

Rosamund did not seem surprised by Dion's abrupt statement, though hehad never spoken of an intention to join any Volunteer Corps. She knewhe was fond of shooting, and had been in camp sometimes when he was at apublic school. 

"What's that?" she asked. "I've heard of it, but I thought it was acorps for men who are painters, sculptors, writers and musicians. "

"It was founded, nearly forty years ago, I believe, for fellows workingin the Arts, but all sorts of business men are let in now. "

"Will it take up much time?"

"No; I shall have to drill a certain amount, and in summer I shall gointo camp for a bit, and of course, if a big war ever came, I could beof some use. "

"I'm glad you've joined. "

"I thought you would be. I shall see a little less of you, I suppose, but, after all, a husband can't be perpetually hanging about the house, can he?"

Rosamund looked at him and smiled, then laughed gently. 

"Dion, how absurd you are! In some ways you are only a boy still. "

"Why, what to you mean?"

"A man who sticks to business as you do, hanging about the house!"

"You wouldn't like it if I did. "

"No, because I should know it was doing you harm. "

"And besides--do you realize how independent you are?"

"Am I?"

"For a woman I think you are extraordinarily independent. "

She sat still for a minute, looking straight before her in an almostcurious stillness. 

"I believe I know why perhaps I seem so, " she said at length. 

And then she quietly, and very naturally, turned the conversation intoanother channel; she was a quieter Rosamund in those days of waitingthan the Rosamund unaffected by motherhood. That Rosamund had beenvigorous and joyous; this Rosamund was strongly serene. In all she wasand did at this time Dion felt strength; but it was shown chiefly instillness. She worked sometimes; she read a great deal sitting upstairsin her own little room. One day Dion found her with a volume ofTennyson; another day she was reading Shakespeare's "Henry the Fifth";she had the "Paradiso" in hand, too, and the Greek Testament with theEnglish text in parallel columns. In the room there was a cottage piano, and one evening, when Dion had been drilling and came back late, heheard her singing. He stood still in the hall, after shutting softly thedoor of the lobby, and listened to the warm and powerful voice of thewoman he loved. He could hear the words of the song, which was a settingof "Lead, kindly Light. " Rosamund had only just begun singing it when hecame into the hall; the first words he caught were, "The night is dark, and I am far from home; lead thou me on. " He thrust his hands into thepockets of the black jacket he was wearing and did not move. He hadnever before heard Rosamund sing any piece of music through withoutseeing her while she was doing it; her voice seemed to him now differentfrom the voice he knew so well; perhaps because he was uninfluenced byher appearance. That counted for much in the effect Rosamund createdwhen she sang to people. The thought went through Dion's mind, "Am Ireally the husband of this voice?" It was beautiful, it was fervent, but it was strange, or seemed strange to him as it came down through thequiet house on this winter evening. For the first time, listening thus, he was able imaginatively to realize something of what it must belike to be a mystic, or rather, perhaps, to have within one a definitetendency towards mysticism, a definite and ceaseless and governingaspiration towards harmony with the transcendental order. When thisvoice which he heard above him sang "The night is dark, and I am farfrom home, " he felt a sort of sharp comprehension of the real meaning ofhomeless wandering such as he had certainly never experienced before. Hefelt, too, that the spirit from which this voice proceeded could neverbe at home in the ordinary way of ordinary people, could not be at homeeven as he himself could be at home. The spirit behind this voice neededsomething of which, till now, he had not consciously felt the need;something peculiar, out of the way and remote--something very differentfrom human love and human comfort. Although he was musical, and could becritical about a composition according to its lights, Dion did not thinkabout the music of this song _qua_ music--could not have said how goodhe considered it to be. He knew only that this was not poor or insinceremusic. But music sung in this peculiar way was only a means by whichthe under part of a human being, that which has its existence deep downunder layers and layers of the things which commonly appear and areknown of, rose to the surface and announced itself. 

The Artists' Rifles--and this!

When the voice was silent, Dion went slowly upstairs. The door ofRosamund's little room was shut. He paused outside it, and stood lookingat it, the movable barrier of dark shining wood which divided him fromthe voice. When he was ascending the stairs he had meant to go in toRosamund. But now he hesitated, and presently he turned away. He feltthat a greater barrier than the door was between them. He might open thedoor easily enough, but the other barrier would remain. The life of thebody seemed to him just then an antagonist to the life of the soul. 

"I'm on the lower plane, " said Dion to himself that evening. "If it's aboy, I shall have to look after his body; she'll take care of the rest. Perhaps mothers always do, but not as she could and will. "

From this moment he devoted himself as much as possible to his body, almost, indeed, with the ardor of one possessed by a sort of mania. The Artists' Corps took up part of his time; Jenkins another part; hepractised rifle shooting as diligently almost as if he expected to haveto take his place almost immediately in the field; he began to learnfencing. Rosamund saw very little of him, but she made no comment. Heexplained to her what he was doing. 

"You see, Rose, " he said to her once, "if it's a boy it will be my jobeventually to train him up to be first-class in the distinctivelyman's part of life. No woman can ever do that. I mustn't let myself getslack. "

"You never would, I'm sure. "

"I hope not. Still, lots of business men do. And I'm sitting aboutthree-quarters of my time. One does get soft, and the softer a chap getsthe less inclined he is to make the effort required of him, if he wantsto get hard. If I ever am to be the father of a growing-up son--whenthey get to about sixteen, you know, they get awfully critical aboutgames and athletics, sport, everything of that kind--I should like tobe able to keep my end up thoroughly well with him. He'd respect me farmore then. I know exactly the type of fellow real boys look up to. Itisn't the intelligent softy, however brainy he may be; it's the man whocan do all the ordinary things superlatively well. "

She smiled at him with her now curiously tranquil yellow-brown eyes, andhe thought he saw in them approval. 

"I think few men would prepare as you do, " she said. 

"And how many women would prepare as you do?" he returned. 

"I couldn't do anything else. But now I feel as if we were workingtogether, in a way. "

He squeezed her hand. She let it lie motionless in his. 

"But if it weren't a boy?" he said, struck by a sudden reaction ofdoubt. 

And the thought went, like an arrow, through him:

"What chance should I have then?"

"I know it will be a boy, " she answered. 

"Why? Not because you sleep north and south!" he exclaimed, with alaughing allusion to the assertion of Herrick. 

"I don't. "

"I always thought the bed----"

"No, it's east and west. "

"Fishermen say the dead sleep east and west. "

"Are you superstitious?"

"I don't know. Perhaps, where you are concerned. "

"Don't be. Superstition seems to me the opposite of belief. Just wait, and remember, I _know_ it will be a boy. "

One evening Dion went to Great Cumberland Place to dine with BruceEvelin and Beatrice, leaving Rosamund apparently in her usual health. She was going to have "something on a tray" in her sitting-room, and hewent in there to say good-by to her just before he started. He foundher sitting by the fire, and looking at Hermes and the Child with steadyeyes. They were lit up rather faintly by a couple of wax candles placedon the writing-table. The light from these candles and from the firemade a delicate and soothing radiance in the room, which was plainlyfurnished, and almost somber in color. A very dim and cloudy purple-bluepervaded it, a very beautiful hue, but austere, and somehow suggestiveof things ecclesiastical. On a small, black oak table at Rosamund'selbow two or three books were lying beside a bowl of dim blue glasswhich had opalescent lights in it. This bowl was nearly full of waterupon which a water-lily floated. The fire on the hearth was small, but glowing with red and gold. Dark curtains were drawn across the onewindow which looked out at the back of the house. It was a frosty nightand windless. 

Dion stood still for a moment on the threshold of the room after he hadopened the door. 

"How quiet you are in here!" he said. 

"This little room is always quiet. "

"Yes, but to-night it's like a room to which some one has just said'Hush!'"

He came in and shut the door quietly behind him. 

"I've just a minute. "

He came up to the fire. 

"And so you were looking at him, our Messenger with winged sandals. Oh, Rosamund, how wonderful it was at Olympia! I wonder whether you and Ishall ever see the Hermes together again. I suppose all the chances areagainst it. "

"I hope we shall. "

"Do you? And yet--I don't know. It would be terrible to see him togetheragain--if things were much altered; if, for instance, one was less happyand remembered----"

He broke off, came to the settee at right angles to the fire on whichshe was sitting, and sat down beside her. At this moment--he did notknow why--the great and always growing love he had for her seemedto surge forward abruptly like a tidal wave, and he was conscious ofsadness and almost of fear. He looked at Rosamund as if he were justgoing to part from her, anxiously, and with a sort of greed of detail. 

"Alone I would never go back to Elis, " he said. "Never. What a powerthings have if they are connected in our hearts with people. It's--it'sawful. "

A clock chimed faintly. 

"I must go. "

He got up and stood for a moment looking down at the dear head loved somuch, at her brow. 

"I don't know why it is, " he said, "but this evening I hate leavingyou. "

"But it's only for a little while. "

There was a tap at the door. 

"Ah! here's my tray. "

The maid came in carrying a woman's meal, and Dion's strange moment wasover. 

When he got to Great Cumberland Place, Daventry, who was to make afourth, had just arrived, and was taking off his coat in the hall. Helooked unusually excited, alert in an almost feverish way, which wassurprising in him. 

"I'm in a case, " he said, "a quite big case. Bruce Evelin's got it forme. I'm going to be junior to Addington; Lewis & Lewis instruct me. Whatd'you think of that?"

Dion clapped him on the shoulder. 

"The way of salvation!"

"Where will it lead me?"

"To Salvation, of course. "

"I'll walk home with you to-night, old Dion. I must yap across the Parkwith you to Hyde Park Corner, and tell you all about the woman fromConstantinople. "

They were going upstairs. 

"The woman----?"

"My client, my client. My dear boy, this is no ordinary case"--he waveda small hand ceremoniously--"it's a _cause celebre_ or I shouldn't havebothered myself with it. "

Lurby opened the drawing-room door. 

"How's Rosamund?" was Beatrice's first question to Dion, as they shookhands. 

"All right. I left her just going to feed from a tray in her littleroom. "

"Rosamund always loved having a meal on a tray, " said Bruce Evelin. "She's a big child still. But enthusiasts never really grow up, luckilyfor them. "

"Dinner is served, sir. "

"Daventry, will you take Beatrice?"

As Dion followed with Bruce Evelin, he said:

"So you've got Daventry a case!"

"Yes. "

Bruce Evelin lowered his voice. 

"He's a good fellow and a clever fellow, but he's got to work. He's beenslacking for years. "

Dion understood. Bruce Evelin wished Beatrice to marry Daventry. 

"He respects you tremendously, sir. If any one can make him work, youcan. "

"I'm going to, " returned Bruce Evelin, with his quiet force. "He's gotremarkable ability, and the slacker--well----"

He looked at Dion with his dark, informed eyes, in which knowledge ofthe world and of men always seemed sitting. 

"I can bear with bad energy almost more easily and comfortably than withslackness. "

During dinner, without seeming to, Dion observed and considered Beatriceand Daventry, imagining them wife and husband. He felt sure Daventrywould be very happy. As to Beatrice, he could not tell. There wasalways in Beatrice's atmosphere, or nearly always, a faint suggestionof sadness which, curiously, was not disagreeable but attractive. Diondoubted whether Daventry could banish it. Perhaps no one could, andDaventry had, perhaps, that love which does not wish to alter, whichsays, "I love you with your little sadness--keep it. "

Daventry was exceptionally animated at dinner. The prospect of actuallyappearing in court as counsel in a case had evidently worked upon himlike a powerful tonic. Always able to be amusing when he chose, he displayed to-night a new something--was it a hint of personaldignity?--which Dion had not hitherto found in him. "Dear old Daventry, "the agreeable, and obviously clever, nobody, who was a sure critic ofothers, and never did anything himself, who blinked at moments with acertain feebleness, and was too fond of the cozy fireside, or the deeparm-chairs of his club, had evidently caught hold of the flying skirtsof his self-respect, and was thoroughly enjoying his capture. He didnot talk very much to Beatrice, but it was obvious that he was at everymoment enjoying her presence, her attention; when she listened earnestlyhe caught her earnestness and it seemed to help him; when she laughed, in her characteristic delicate way, --her laugh seemed almost wholly ofthe mind, --he beamed with a joy that was touching in a man of his typebecause it was so unself-conscious. His affection for Beatrice hadperformed the miracle of drawing him out of the prison of awareness inwhich such men as he dwell. To-night he was actually unobservant. Dionknew this by the changed expression of his eyes. Even Beatrice he wasnot observing; he was just feeling what she was, how she was. For oncehe had passed beyond the narrow portals and had left satire far behindhim. 

When Beatrice got up to go to the drawing-room he opened the door forher. She blushed faintly as she went out. When the door was shut, andthe three men were alone, Bruce Evelin said to Dion:

"Will you mind if Daventry and I talk a little shop to-night?"

"Of course not. But would you rather I went up and kept Beattiecompany?"

"No; stay till you're bored, or till you think Beatrice is bored. Let uslight up. "

He walked slowly, with his gently precise gait, to a cigar cabinet, opened it, and told the young men to help themselves. 

"And now for the Clarke case, " he said. 

"Is that the name of the woman from Constantinople?" asked Dion. 

"Yes, Mrs. Beadon Clarke, " said Daventry. "But she hates the Beadon andnever uses it. Beadon Clarke's trying to divorce her, and I'm on herside. She's staying with Mrs. Chetwinde. Esme Darlington, who's an oldfriend of hers, thinks her too unconventional for a diplomatist's wife. "

Bruce Evelin had lighted his cigar. 

"We mustn't forget that our friend Darlington has always run tame ratherthan wild, " he remarked, with a touch of dry satire. "And now, Daventry, let us go through the main facts of the case, without, of course, telling any professional secrets. "

And he began to outline the Clarke case, which subsequently made a greatsensation in London. 

It appeared that Mrs. Clarke had come first to him in her difficulty, and had tried hard to persuade him to emerge from his retirement and tolead for her defense. He had been determined in refusal, and had advisedher to get Sir John Addington, with Daventry as junior. This she haddone. Now Bruce Evelin was carefully "putting up" Daventry to every movein the great game which was soon to be played out, a game in which awoman's honor and future were at stake. The custody of a much-lovedchild might also come into question. 

"Suppose Addington is suddenly stricken with paralysis in the middle ofthe case, you must be ready to carry it through triumphantly alone, " heobserved, with quietly twinkling eyes, to Daventry. 

"May I have a glass of your oldest brandy, sir?" returned Daventry, holding on to the dinner-table with both hands. 

The brandy was given to him and the discussion of the case continued. Bydegrees Dion found himself becoming strongly interested in Mrs. Clarke, whose name came up constantly. She was evidently a talented and a veryunusual woman. Perhaps the latter fact partially accounted for theunusual difficulties in which she was now involved. Her husband, Councilor to the British Embassy at Constantinople, charged her withmisconduct, and had cited two co-respondents, --Hadi Bey, a Turkishofficer, and Aristide Dumeny, a French diplomat, --both apparently menof intellect and of highly cultivated tastes, and both slightly youngerthan Mrs. Clarke. A curious fact in the case was that Beadon Clarke wasdeeply in love with his wife, and had--so Dion gathered from a remark ofBruce Evelin's--probably been induced to take action against her byhis mother, Lady Ermyntrude Clarke, who evidently disliked, and perhapshonestly disbelieved in, her daughter-in-law. There was one child ofthe marriage, a boy, to whom both the parents were deeply attached. Theelements of tragedy in the drama were accentuated by the power to lovepossessed by accuser and accused. As Dion listened to the discussionhe realized what a driving terror, what a great black figure, almostmonstrous, love can be--not only the sunshine, but the abysmal darknessof life. 

Presently, in a pause, while Daventry was considering some difficultpoint, Dion remembered that Beatrice was sitting upstairs alone. Hercomplete unselfishness always made him feel specially chivalrous towardsher. Now he got up. 

"It's tremendously interesting, but I'm going upstairs to Beattie, " hesaid. 

"Ah, how subtle of you, my boy!" said Bruce Evelin. 

"Subtle! Why?"

"I was just coming to the professional secrets. "

Dion smiled and went off to Beattie. He found her working quietly, almost dreamily, on one of those fairy garments such as he had seengrowing towards its minute full size in the serene hands of hisRosamund. 

"You too!" he said, looking down at the filmy white. "How good you areto us, Beattie!"

He sat down. 

"What's this in your lap?"

The filmy white had been lifted in the process of sewing, and a littleexquisitely bound white book was disclosed beneath it. 

"May I look?"

"Yes, do. "

Dion took the book up, and read the title, "The Kasidah of Haji AbduEl-Yezdi. "

"I never heard of this. Where did you get it?"

"Guy Daventry left it here by mistake yesterday. I must give it to himto-night. "

Dion opened the book, and saw on the title page: "Cynthia Clarke, Constantinople, October 1896, " written in a curiously powerful, veryupright caligraphy. 

"It doesn't belong to Guy. "

"No; it was lent to him by his client, Mrs. Clarke. "

Dion turned some of the leaves of the book, began to read and wasimmediately absorbed. 

"By Jove, it's wonderful, it's simply splendid!" he said in a moment. "Just listen to this:

 "True to thy nature, to thyself, Fame and disfame nor hope, nor fear; Enough to thee the still small voice Aye thundering in thine inner ear. 

 From self-approval seek applause: What ken not men thou kennest thou! Spurn every idol others raise: Before thine own ideal bow. "

He met the dark eyes of Beatrice. 

"You care for that?"

"Yes, very much, " she answered, in her soft and delicate voice. 

"Beattie, I believe you live by that, " he said, almost bruskly. 

Suddenly he felt aware of a peculiar sort of strength in her, in hersoftness, a strength not at all as of iron, mysterious and tenacious. 

"Dear old Beattie!" he said. 

Moisture had sprung into his eyes. 

"How lonely our lives are, " he continued, looking at her now with a sortof deep curiosity. "The lives of all of us. I don't care who it is, man, woman, child, he or she, every one's lonely. And yet----"

A doubt had surely struck him. He sat very still for a minute. 

"When I think of Rosamund I can't think of her as lonely. "

"Can't you?"

"No. Somehow it seems as if she always had a companion with her. "

He turned a few more pages of Mrs. Clarke's book, glancing here andthere. 

"Rosamund would hate this book, " he said presently. "It seems thoroughlyanti-Christian. But it's very wonderful. "

He put the book down. 

"Dear Beattie! Guy cares very much for you. "

"Yes, I know, " said Beatrice, with a great simplicity. 

"If he comes well out of this case, and feels he's on the road tosuccess, he'll be another man. He'll dare as a man ought to dare. "

She went on sewing the little garment for Dion's child. 

"I'll walk across the Park with you, old Dion, " said Daventry thatnight, as they left the house in Great Cumberland Place, "whether you'regoing to walk home or whether you're not, whether you're in a devil ofa hurry to get back to your Rosamund, or whether you're in a mood forfriendship. What time is it, by the way?"

He was wrapped in a voluminous blue overcoat, with a wide collar, immense lapels, and apparently only one button, and that button sominute that it was scarcely visible to the naked eye. From somewhere heextracted a small, abnormally thin watch with a gold face. 

"Only twenty minutes to eleven. We dined early. "

"You really wish to walk?"

"I not only wish to walk, I will walk. "

The still glory of frost had surely fascinated London, had subdued therumbling and uneasy black monster; it seemed to Dion unusually quiet, almost like something in ecstasy under the glittering stars of frost, which shone in a sky swept clear of clouds by the hand of the lingeringwinter. It was the last night of February, but it looked, and felt, likea night dedicated to the Christ Child, to Him who lay on the breast ofMary with cattle breathing above Him. As Dion gazed up at the withdrawnand yet almost piercing radiance of the wonderful sky, instinctively hethought of the watching shepherds, and of the coming of that Child whostands forever apart from all the other children born of women into thisworld. He wished Rosamund were with him to see the stars, and the frostglistening white on the great stretches of grass, and the naked trees inthe mysterious and romantic Park. 

"Shall we take the right-hand path and walk round the Serpentine?" saidDaventry presently. 

"Yes. I don't mind. Rosamund will be asleep, I think. She goes to bedearly now. "

"When will it be?"

"Very soon, I suppose; perhaps in ten days or so. "

Daventry was silent. He wanted and meant to talk about his own affairs, but he hesitated to begin. Something in the night was making him feelvery small and very great. Dion gave him a lead by saying:

"D'you mind my asking you something about the Clarke case?"

"Anything you like. I'll answer if I may. "

"Do you believe Mrs. Clarke to be guilty or innocent?"

"Oh, innocent!" exclaimed Daventry, with unusual warmth. 

"And does Bruce Evelin?"

"I believe so. I assume so. "

"I noticed that, while I was listening to you both, he never expressedany opinion, or gave any hint of what his opinion was on the point. "

"I feel sure he thinks her innocent, " said Daventry, still almost withheat. "Not that it much matters, " he added, in a less prejudiced voice. "The point is, we must prove her to be innocent whether she is nor not. I happen to feel positive she is. She isn't the least the siren type ofwoman, though men like her. "

"What type is she?"

"The intellectual type. Not a blue-stocking! God forbid! I couldn'tdefend a blue-stocking. But she's a woman full of taste, who caresimmensely for fine and beautiful things, for things that appeal to theeye and the mind. In that way, perhaps, she's almost a sensualist. But, in any other way! I want you to know her. She's a very interestingwoman. Esme Darlington says her perceptions are exquisite. Mrs. Chetwinde's backing her up for all she's worth. "

"Then she believes her to be innocent too, of course. "

"Of course. Come with me to Mrs. Chetwinde's next Sunday afternoon. She'll be there. "

"On a night like this, doesn't a divorce case seem preposterous?"

"Well, you have the tongue of the flatterer!"--he looked up--"Butperhaps it does, even when it's Mrs. Clarke's. "

"Are you in love with Mrs. Clarke?"

"Deeply, because she's my first client in a _cause celebre_. "

"Have you forgotten her book again?"

"Her book? 'The Kasidah'? I've got it here. "

He tapped the capacious side pocket of his coat. 

"You saw it then?" he added. 

"Beattie had it when I went upstairs. "

"I wonder what she made of it, " Daventry said, with softness in hisvoice. "Don't ever let Rosamund see it, by the way. It's anythingrather than Christian. Mrs. Clarke gets hold of everything, dives intoeverything. She's got an unresting mind. "

They had come to the edge of the Serpentine, on which there lay anethereal film of baby ice almost like frosted gauze. The leafless trees, with their decoration of filigree, suggested the North and its peculiarromance--nature trailing away into the mighty white solitudes where thePole star reigns over fields of ice. 

"Hyde Park is bringing me illusions to-night, " said Daventry. "Thatwater might be the Vistula. If I heard a wolf howling over there nearthe ranger's lodge, I shouldn't be surprised. "

A lifeguardsman, in a red cloak, and a woman drifted away over the frostamong the trees. 

"I love Mrs. Clarke as a client, but perhaps I love her even morebecause, through her, I hope to get hold of something I've--I've letdrop, " continued Daventry. 

"What's that?"

Daventry put his arm through Dion's. 

"I don't know whether I can name it even to you; but it's something aman of great intelligence, such as myself, should always keep in hisfist. "

He paused. 

"The clergy are apt to call it self-respect, " he at length added, in adry voice. 

Dion pressed his arm. 

"Bruce Evelin wants you to marry Beatrice. "

"He hasn't told you so?"

"No, except by taking the trouble to force you to work. "

Daventry stood still. 

"I'm going to ask her--almost directly. "

"Come on, Guy, or we shall have all the blackbirds round us. Look overthere. "

Not far off, among the trees, two slinking and sinister shadows of menseemed to be intent upon them. 

"Isn't it incredible to practise the profession of a blackmailer out ofdoors on a night like this?" said Dion. "D'you remember when we were inthe night train coming from Burstal? You had a feather that night. "

"Damn it! Why rake up--?"

"And I said how wonderful it would be if some day I were married toRosamund. "

"Is it wonderful?"

"Yes. "

"Very wonderful?"

"Yes. "

"Children too!"

Daventry sighed. 

"One wants to be worthy of it all, " he murmured. "And then"--he laughed, as if calling in his humor to save him from something--"the children, intheir turn, feel they would like to live up to papa. Dion, people can becaught in the net of goodness very much as they can be caught in the netof evil. Let us praise the stars for that. "

They arrived at the bridge. The wide road, which looked to-nightextraordinarily clean, almost as if it had been polished up for thepassing of some delicate procession in the night, was empty. There wereno vehicles going by; the night-birds kept among the trees. The quarterafter eleven chimed from some distant church. Dion thought of Rosamund, as he paused on the bridge, thought of himself as a husband yielding hiswife up to the solitude she evidently desired. He took Daventry for hiscompanion; she had the child for hers. There was suffering of a kindeven in a very perfect marriage, but what he had told Daventry was true;it had been very wonderful. He had learnt a great deal in his marriage, dear lessons of high-mindedness in desire, of purity in possession. If Rosamund were to be cut off from him even to-night he had gainedenormously by the possession of her. He knew what woman can be, andwithout disappointment; for he did not choose to reckon up those small, almost impalpable things which, like passing shadows, had now andthen brought a faint obscurity into his life with Rosamund, asdisappointments. They came, perhaps, from himself. And what where they?He looked out over the long stretch of unruffled water, filmed over withice near the shores, and saw a tiny dark object traveling through itwith self-possession and an air of purpose beneath the constellations;some aquatic bird up to something, heedless of the approaching midnightand the Great Bear. 

"Look at that little beggar!" said Daventry. "And we don't know so verymuch more about it all than he does. I expect he's a Muscovy duck, ordrake, if you're a pedant about genders. "

"He's evidently full of purpose. "

"Out in the middle of the ice-cold Serpentine. He's only a speck now, like our world in space. Now I can't see him. "

"I can. "

"You're longer-sighted than I am. But, Dion, I'm seeing a longish wayto-night, farther than I've seen before. Love's a great business, the greatest business in life. Ambition, and greed, and vanity, andaltruism, and even fanaticism, must give place when it's on hand, whenit harnesses its winged horses to a man's car and swings him away to thestars. "

"Ask her. I think she'll have you. "

A star fell through the frosty clear sky. Dion remembered the fallingstar above Drouva. This time he was swift with a wish, but it was not awish for his friend. 

They reached Hyde Park Corner just before midnight and parted there. Dion hailed a hansom, but Daventry declared with determination that hewas going to walk all the way home to Phillimore Gardens. 

"To get up my case, to arrange things mentally, " he explained. "Bigbrains always work best at night. All the great lawyers toil whenthe stars are out. Why should I be an exception? I dedicate myself toCynthia Clarke. She will have my undivided attention and all my deepestsolicitude. "

"I know why. "

"No, no. "

He put one hand on the apron which Dion had already closed. 

"No, really, you're wrong. I am deeply interested in Mrs. Clarke becauseshe is what she is. I want her to win because I'm convinced she'sinnocent. Will you come to Mrs. Chetwinde's next Sunday and meet her?"

"Yes, unless Rosamund wants me. "

"That's always understood. "

The cab drove away, and the great lawyer was left to think of his caseunder the stars. 

When the cab turned the corner of Great Market Street, Westminster, andcame into Little Market Street, Dion saw in the distance before him twolarge, staring yellow eyes, which seemed to be steadily regardinghim like the eyes of something on the watch. They were the lamps of abrougham drawn up in front of No. 5. Dion's cabman, perforce, pulled upshort before the brown door of No. 4. 

"A carriage in front of my house at this time of night!" thought Dion, as he got out and paid the man. 

He looked at the coachman and at the solemn brown horse between theshafts, and instantly realized that this was the carriage of a doctor. 

"Rosamund!"

With a thrill of anxiety, a clutch at his heart, he thrust his latchkeyinto the door. It stuck; he could not turn it. This had never happenedbefore. He tried, with force, to pull the key out. It would not move. He shook it. The doctor's coachman, he felt, was staring at him fromthe box of the brougham. As he struggled impotently with the key hisshoulders began to tingle, and a wave of acute irritation flooded him. He turned sharply round and met the coachman's eyes, shrewd, observant, lit, he thought, by a flickering of sarcasm. 

"Has the doctor been here long?" said Dion. 

"Sir?"

"This is a doctor's carriage, isn't it?"

"Yes, sir. Doctor Mayson. "

"Well, I say, has he been here long?"

"About an hour, sir, or a little more. "

"Thanks. "

Dion turned again and assaulted the latchkey. 

But he had to ring the bell to get in. When the maid came, lookingexcited, he said:

"I don't know what on earth's the matter with this key. I can't eitherturn it or get it out. "

"No, sir?"

The girl put her hand to the key, and without any difficulty drew it outof the door. 

"I don't know--I couldn't!"

The girl shut the door. 

"What's the matter? Why's the doctor here? It isn't----?"

"Yes, sir, " said the girl, with a sort of intensely femininesignificance. "It came on quite sudden. "

"How long ago?"

"A good while, sir. I couldn't say exactly. "

"But why wasn't I sent for?"

"My mistress wouldn't have you sent for, sir. Besides, we were expectingyou every moment. "

"Ah! and I--and now it's past midnight. "

He had quickly taken off his coat, hat and gloves. Now he ran up theshallow steps of the staircase. There was a sort of tumult within him. He felt angry, he did not know why. His whole body was longing to dosomething strong, eager, even violent. He hated his latchkey, he hatedthe long stroll in Hyde Park, the absurd delay upon the bridge, hispreoccupation with the Muscovy duck, or whatever bird it was, voyagingover the Serpentine. Why had nothing told him not to lose a moment butto hurry home? He remembered that he had been specially reluctant toleave Rosamund that evening, that he had even said to her, "I don't knowwhy it is, but this evening I hate to leave you. " Perhaps, then, he hadbeen warned, but he had not comprehended the warning. As he had lookedat the stars he had thought of the coming of the most wonderful Childwho had ever visited this earth. Perhaps then, too----He tried tosnap off his thought, half confusedly accusing himself of some sort ofblasphemy. At the top of the staircase he turned and looked down intothe hall. 

"The nurse?"

"Sir?"

"Have you managed to get the nurse?"

"Yes, sir; she's been here some time. "

At this moment Doctor Mayson opened the door of Rosamund's room and cameout upon the landing--a tall, rosy and rather intellectual-lookingman, with tranquil gray eyes, and hair thinning above the high knobbyforehead. Dion had never seen him before. They shook hands. 

"I shouldn't go into your wife's room, " said Doctor Mayson in a low bassvoice. 

"Why? Doesn't she wish it?"

"She wished you very much to be in the house. "

"Then why not send for me?"

"She was against it, I understand. And she doesn't wish any one to bewith her just now except the nurse and myself. "

"When do you expect? . . . "

"Some time during the night. It's evidently going to be an easyconfinement. I'm just going down to send away my carriage. It's no usekeeping the horse standing half the night in this frost. I'm very fondof horses. "

"Fond of horses--are you?" said Dion, rather vacantly. 

"Yes. Are you?"

The low bass voice almost snapped out the question. 

"Oh, I dare say. Why not? They're useful animals. I'll come down withyou if I'm not to go into my wife's room. "

He followed the doctor down the stairs he had just mounted. When thecarriage had been sent away, he asked Doctor Mayson to come into his denfor a moment. The pains of labor had come on unexpectedly, but were notexceptionally severe; everything pointed to an easy confinement. 

"Your wife is one of the strongest and healthiest women I have everattended, " Doctor Mayson added; "superb health. It's a pleasure to seeany one like that. I look after so many neurotic women in London. Theygive themselves up for lost when they are confronted with a perfectlynatural crisis. Mrs. Leith is all courage and self-possession. "

"But then why shouldn't I see her?"

"Well, she seems to have an extraordinary sense of duty towards thechild that's coming. She thinks you might be less calm than she is. "

"But I'm perfectly calm. "

Doctor Mayson smiled. 

"D'you know, it's really ever so much better for us men to keep rightout of the way in such moments as these. It's the kindest thing we cando. "

"Very well. I'll do it of course. "

"I never go near my own wife when she's like this. "

Dion stared into the fire. 

"Have you many children?"

"Eleven, " remarked the bass voice comfortably. "But I married veryyoung, before I left Guy's. Now I'll go up again. You needn't be theleast alarmed. "

"I'm not, " said Dion bruskly. 

"Capital!"

And Doctor Mayson went off, not treading with any precaution. It wasquite obvious that his belief in his patient was genuine. 

Eleven children! Well, some people were prepared to take any risks andto face any responsibilities. Was it very absurd to find in the comingof one child a tremendous event? Really, Doctor Mayson had almostsucceeded in making Dion feel a great fool. Just another child in theworld--crying, dribbling, feebly trying to grasp the atmosphere; anotherchild to cut its first tooth, with shrieks, to have whooping-cough, chicken-pox, rose rash and measles; another child to eat of the fruit ofthe tree; another child to combat and love and suffer and die. No, damn it, the matter was important. Doctor Mayson and his rosy face wereunmeaning. He might have eleven, or a hundred and eleven children, buthe had no imagination. 

Dion shut himself into his room, sat down in a big armchair, lit hispipe and thought about the Clarke case. He had just told Doctor Maysona white lie. He was determined not to think about his Rosamund: he darednot do that; so his mind fastened on the Clarke case. Almost ferociouslyhe flung himself upon it, called upon the unknown Mrs. Clarke, the womanwhom he had never seen to banish from him his Rosamund, to interposebetween her and him. For Rosamund was inevitably suffering, and if hethought about that suffering his deep anxiety, his pity, his yearningwould grow till they were almost unendurable, might even lead his feetto the room upstairs, the room forbidden to him to-night. So he calledto Mrs. Clarke, and at last, obedient to his insistent demand, she cameand did her best for him, came, he imagined, from Constantinople, tokeep him company in this night of crisis. 

As Daventry had described her, as Bruce Evelin had, with casualallusions and suggestive hints, built her up before Dion in the talkafter dinner that night, so she was now in the little room: a womanof intellect and of great taste, with an intense love for, and fineknowledge of, beautiful things: a woman who was almost a sensualist inher adoration for fine and rare things. 

"I detest the sensation of sinking down in things!"

Who had said that once with energy in Dion's hearing? Oh--Rosamund, ofcourse! But she must not be admitted into Dion's life in these hours ofwaiting. Mrs. Clarke must be allowed to reign. She had come (in Dion'simagination) all the way from the city of wood and of marble beside theseaway of the Golden Horn, a serious, intellectual and highly cultivatedwoman, whom a cruel fate--Kismet--was now about to present to the worldas a horrible woman. Pale, thin, rather melancholy she was, a reader ofmany books, a great lover of nature, a woman who cared very much forher one child. Why should Fate play such a woman such a trick? Perhapsbecause she was very unconventional, and it is unwise for the bird whichsings in the cage of diplomacy to sing any but an ordinary song. 

Daventry had dwelt several times on Mrs. Clarke's unconventionality;evidently the defense meant to lay stress on it. 

So now Dion sat with a pale, thin, unconventional woman, and she toldhim about the life at Stamboul. She knew, of course, that he had hatedConstantinople. He allowed her to know that. And she pointed out to himthat he knew nothing of the wonderful city, upon which Russia breathesfrom the north, and which catches, too, strange airs and scents andmurmurs of voices from distant places of Asia. What does the passingtourist of a Pera hotel know about the great city of the Turks? Nothingworth knowing. The roar of the voices of the Levant deafens his ears;the glitter of the shop windows in the Grande Rue blinds his eyes. Heknows not the exquisite and melancholy charm, full of nuances and of themost fragile and evanescent subtleties, which Constantinople holds forthose who know her and love her well. 

The defense was evidently going to make much of Mrs. Clarke's passionfor the city on the Bosporus. Daventry had alluded to it more than once, and Bruce Evelin had said, "Mrs. Clarke has always had an extraordinaryfeeling for places. If her husband had accused her of a liaison withEyub, or of an unholy fancy for the forest of Belgrad, we might havebeen in a serious difficulty. She had, I know, a regular romance oncewith the Mosquee Verte at Brusa. "

Evidently she was a woman whom ordinary people would be likely tomisunderstand. Dion sat in his arm-chair trying to understand her. Theeffort would help him to forget, or to ignore if he couldn't forget, what was going on upstairs in the little house. He pulled hard at hispipe, as an aid to his mind; he sat alone for a long while with Mrs. Clarke. Sometimes he looked across the Golden Horn from a bit of wasteground in Pera, near to a small cemetery: it was from there, towardsevening, that he had been able to "feel" Stamboul, to feel it as anunique garden city, held by the sea, wooden and frail, marble andenduring. And somewhere in the great and mysterious city Mrs. Clarke hadlived and been adored by the husband who, apparently still adoring, wasnow trying to get rid of her. 

Sometimes Dion heard voices rising from the crowded harbor of the GoldenHorn. They crept up out of the mystery of the evening; voices from thecaiques, and from the boats of the fishermen, and from the big sailingvessels which ply to the harbors of the East, and from the steamers atrest near the Galata Bridge, and from the many craft of all descriptionsstrung out towards the cypress-crowned hill of Eyub. And Mrs. Clarke, standing beside him, began to explain to him in a low and hoarse voicewhat these strange cries of the evening meant. 

Daventry had mentioned that she had a hoarse voice. 

At a little after three o'clock Dion sat forward abruptly in his chairand listened intently. He fancied he had heard a faint cry. He waited, surrounded by silence, enveloped by silence. There was a low drummingin his ears. Mrs. Clarke had escaped like a phantom. Stamboul, with itsmosques, its fountains, its pigeons and its plane trees, had faded away. The voices from the Golden Horn were stilled. The drumming in Dion'sears grew louder. He stood up. He felt very hot, and a vein in his lefttemple was beating--not fluttering, but beating hard. 

He heard, this time really heard, a cry overhead, and then the muffledsound of some one moving about; and he went to the door, opened it andpassed out into the hall. He did not go upstairs, but waited in thehall until Doctor Mayson came down, looking as rosy and serene andunconcerned as ever. 

"Well, Mr. Leith, " he said, "you're a father. I congratulate you. Youwife has got through beautifully. "

"Yes?"

"By the way, it's a boy. "

"Yes, of course. "

Doctor Mayson looked genuinely surprised. 

"Why 'of course'? I don't quite understand. "

"She knew it was going to be a boy. "

The doctor smiled faintly. 

"Women often have strange fancies at such times. I mean before they areconfined. "

"But you see she was right. It is a boy. "

"Exactly, " returned the doctor, looking at his nails. 

Dion saw the star falling above the hill of Drouva. 

Did the Hermes know?

CHAPTER III

On the following Sunday afternoon Dion was able to fulfil his promiseto Daventry. Rosamund and the baby were "doing beautifully"; he was notneeded at home, so he set out with Daventry, who came to fetch him, tovisit Mrs. Willie Chetwinde in Lowndes Square. 

When they reached the house Daventry said:

"Now for Mrs. Clarke. She's really a wonderful woman, Dion, and she'sgot a delicious profile. "

"Oh, it's that--"

"No, it isn't. "

He gently pushed Mrs. Chetwinde's bell. 

As they went upstairs they heard a soft hum of voices. 

"Mrs. Clarke's got heaps of people on her side, " whispered Daventry. "This is a sort of rallying ground for the defense. "

"Where's her child? Here?"

"No, with some relations till the trial's over. "

The butler opened the door, and immediately Dion's eyes rested onMrs. Clarke, who happened to be standing very near to it with EsmeDarlington. Directly Dion saw her he knew at whom he was looking. Something--he could not have said what--told him. 

By a tall pedestal of marble, on which was poised a marble statuetteof Echo, --not that Echo who babbled to Hera, but she who, after herpunishment, fell in love with Narcissus, --he saw a very thin, very pale, and strangely haggard-looking woman of perhaps thirty-two talking toEsme Darlington. At first sight she did not seem beautiful to Dion. He was accustomed to the radiant physical bloom of his Rosamund. Thiswoman, with her tenuity, her pallor, her haunted cheeks and temples, herlarge, distressed and observant eyes--dark hazel in color under browneyebrows drawn with a precise straightness till they neared the bridgeof the nose and there turning abruptly downwards, her thin and almostwhite-lipped mouth, her cloudy brown hair which had no shine or sparkle, her rather narrow and pointed chin, suggested to him unhealthiness, ahuman being perhaps stricken by some obscure disease which had drainedher body of all fresh color, and robbed it of flesh, had caused tocome upon her something strange, not easily to be defined, which almostsuggested the charnel-house. 

As he was looking at her, Mrs. Clarke turned slightly and glanced up atthe statue of Echo, and immediately Dion realized that she had beauty. The line of her profile was wonderfully delicate and refined, almostethereal in its perfection; and the shape of her small head wasexquisite. Her head, indeed, looked girlish. Afterwards he knew that shehad enchanting hands--moving purities full of expressiveness--and slimlittle wrists. Her expression was serious, almost melancholy, and in herwhole personality, shed through her, there was a penetrating refinement, a something delicate, wild and feverish. She looked very sensitive andat the same time perfectly self-possessed, as if, perhaps, she dreadedFate but could never be afraid of a fellow-creature. He thought:

"She's like Echo after her punishment. "

On his way to greet Mrs. Chetwinde, he passed by her; as he did so shelooked at him, and he saw that she thoroughly considered him, with agrave swiftness which seemed to be an essential part of her personality. Then she spoke to Esme Darlington. Dion just caught the sound of hervoice, veiled, husky, but very individual and very attractive--a voicethat could never sing, but that could make of speech a music frail andevanescent as a nocturne of Debussy's. 

"Daventry's right, " thought Dion. "That woman is surely innocent. "

Mrs. Chetwinde, who was as haphazard, as apparently absent-minded and asshrewd in her own house as in the houses of others, greeted Dion with avague cordiality. Her husband, a robust and very definite giant, with afan-shaped beard, welcomed him largely. 

"Never appear at my wife's afternoons, you know, " he observed, in a fatand genial voice. "But to-day's exceptional. Always stick to an innocentwoman in trouble. "

He lowered his voice in speaking the last sentence, and looked veryhuman. And immediately Dion was aware of a special and peculiaratmosphere in Mrs. Chetwinde's drawing-room on this Sunday afternoon, of something poignant almost, though lightly veiled with the sparklinggossamer which serves to conceal undue angularities, something whichjust hinted at tragedy confronted with courage, at the attempted staband the raised shield of affection. Here Mrs. Clarke was in sanctuary. He glanced towards her again with a deepening interest. 

"Canon Wilton's coming in presently, " said Mrs. Chetwinde. "He'spreaching at St. Paul's this afternoon, or perhaps it's WestminsterAbbey--something of that kind. "

"I've heard him two or three times, " answered Dion, who was on verygood, though not on very intimate, terms with Canon Wilton. "I'd ratherhear him than anybody. "

"In the pulpit--yes, I suppose so. I'm scarcely an amateur of sermons. He's a volcano of sincerity, and never sends out ashes. It's all red-hotlava. Have you met Cynthia Clarke?"

"No. "

"She's over there, echoing my Echo. Would you like----?"

"Very much indeed. "

"Then I'll--"

An extremely pale man, with long, alarmingly straight hair and wanderingeyes almost the color of silver, said something to her. 

"Watteau? Oh, no--he died in 1721, not in 1722, " she replied. "The onlydate I can never remember is William the Conqueror. But of course youcouldn't remember about Watteau. It's distance makes memory. You're toonear. "

"That's the fan painter, Murphy-Elphinston, Watteau's reincarnation, "she added to Dion. "He's always asking questions about himself. Cynthia--this is Mr. Dion Leith. He wishes----" She drifted away, not, however, without dexterously managing to convey Mr. Darlington with her. 

Dion found himself looking into the large, distressed eyes of Mrs. Clarke. Daventry was standing close to her, but, with a glance at hisfriend, moved away. 

"I should like to sit down, " said Mrs. Clarke. 

"Here are two chairs----"

"No, I'd rather sit over there under the Della Robbia. I can see Echofrom there. "

She walked very slowly and languidly, as if tired, to a large and lowsofa covered with red, which was exactly opposite to the statuette. Dion followed her, thinking about her age. He supposed her to be aboutthirty-two or thirty-three, possibly a year or two more or less. She wasvery simply dressed in a gray silk gown with black and white lines init. The tight sleeves of it were unusually long and ended in points. They were edged with some transparent white material which restedagainst her small hands. 

She sat down and he sat down by her, and they began to talk. Unlike Mrs. Chetwinde, Mrs. Clarke showed that she was alertly attending to all thatwas said to her, and, when she spoke, she looked at the person to whomshe was speaking, looked steadily and very unself-consciously. Dionmentioned that he had once been to Constantinople. 

"Did you care about it?" said Mrs. Clarke, rather earnestly. 

"I'm afraid I disliked it, although I found it, of course, tremendouslyinteresting. In fact, I almost hated it. "

"That's only because you stayed in Pera, " she answered, "and went aboutwith a guide. "

"But how do you know?"--he was smiling. 

"Well, of course you did. "

"Yes. "

"I could easily make you love it, " she continued, in an oddly impersonalway, speaking huskily. 

Dion had never liked huskiness before, but he liked it now. 

"You are fond of it, I believe?" he said. 

His eyes met hers with a great deal of interest. 

He considered her present situation an interesting one; there was dramain it; there was the prospect of a big fight, of great loss or greatgain, destruction or vindication. 

In her soul already the drama was being played. He imagined her soul inturmoil, peopled with a crowd of jostling desires and fears, and he wasthinking a great many things about her, and connected with her, almostsimultaneously--so rapidly a flood of thoughts seemed to go by in themind--as he put his question. 

"Yes, I am, " replied Mrs. Clarke. "Stamboul holds me very fast in itscuriously inert grip. It's a grip like this. "

She held out her small right hand, and he put his rather large andsinewy brown hand into it. The small hand folded itself upon his in acurious way--feeble and fierce at the same time, it seemed--and heldhim. The hand was warm, almost hot, and soft, and dry as a fire isdry--so dry that it hisses angrily if water is thrown on it. 

"Now, you are trying to get away, " she said. "And of course you can, but----"

Dion made a movement as if to pull away his hand, but Mrs. Clarkeretained it. How was that? He scarcely knew; in fact he did not know. She did not seem to be doing anything definite to keep him, did notsqueeze or grip his hand, or cling to it; but his hand remained in hersnevertheless. 

"There, " she said, letting his hand go. "That is how Stamboul holds. Doyou understand?"

Mrs. Chetwinde's vague eyes had been on them during this little episode. Dion had had time to see that, and to think, "Now, at such a time, noone but an absolutely innocent woman would do in public what Mrs. Clarkeis doing to me. " Mrs. Chetwinde, he felt sure, full of all worldlyknowledge, must be thinking the very same thing. 

"Yes, " he said. "I think I do. But I wonder whether it could hold melike that. "

"I know it could. "

"May I ask how you know?"

"Why not? Simply by my observation of you. "

Dion remembered the swift grave look of consideration she had given tohim as he came into the room. Something almost combative rose up in him, and he entered into an argument with her, in the course of which hewas carried away into the revelation of his mental comparison betweenConstantinople and Greece, a comparison into which entered a moralsignificance. He even spoke of the Christian significance of theHermes of Olympia. Mrs. Clarke listened to him with a very still, andapparently a very deep, attention. 

"I've been to Greece, " she said simply, when he had finished. 

"You didn't feel at all as I did, as I do?"

"You may know Greece, but you don't know Stamboul, " she said quietly. 

"If you had shown it to me I might feel very differently, " Dion said, with a perhaps slightly banal politeness. 

And yet he did not feel entirely banal as he said it. 

"Come out again and I will show it to you, " she said. 

She was almost staring at him, at his chest and shoulders, not at hisface, but her eyes still kept their unself-conscious and almost oddlyimpersonal look. 

"You are going back there?"

"Of course, when my case is over. "

Dion felt very much surprised. He knew that Mrs. Clarke's husband wasaccredited to the British Embassy at Constantinople; that thescandal about her was connected with that city and with itsneighborhood--Therapia, Prinkipo, and other near places, that both theco-respondents named in the suit lived there. Whichever way the casewent, surely Constantinople must be very disagreeable to Mrs. Clarkefrom now onwards. And yet she was going back there, and apparentlyintended to take up her life there again. She evidently either saw ordivined his surprise, for she added in the husky voice:

"Guilt may be governed by circumstances. I suppose it is full of alarms. But I think an innocent woman who allows herself to be driven out of aplace she loves by a false accusation is merely a coward. But all thisis very uninteresting to you. The point is, I shall soon be settled downagain at Constantinople, and ready to make you see it as it really is, if you ever return there. "

She had spoken without hardness or any pugnacity; there was no defiancein her manner, which was perfectly simple and straightforward. 

"Your moral comparison between Constantinople and Greece--it isn't fair, by the way, to compare a city with a country--doesn't interest me atall. People can be disgusting anywhere. Greece is no better thanTurkey. It has a wonderfully delicate, pure atmosphere; but that doesn'tinfluence the morals of the population. Fine Greek art is the purest artin the world; but that doesn't mean that the men who created it had onlypure thoughts or lived only pure lives. I never read morals into art, although I'm English, and it's the old hopeless English way to dothat. The man who made Echo"--she turned her large eyes towards thestatuette--"may have been an evil liver. In fact, I believe he was. ButEcho is an exquisite pure bit of art. "

Dion thought of Rosamund's words about Praxiteles as they sat beforeHermes. His Rosamund and Mrs. Clarke were mentally at opposite poles;yet they were both good women. 

"My friend Daventry would agree with you, I know, " he said. 

"He's a clever and a very dear little man. Who's that coming in?"

Dion looked and saw Canon Wilton. He told Mrs. Clarke who it was. 

"Enid told me he was coming. I should like to know him. "

"Shall I go and tell him so?"

"Presently. How's your baby? I'm told you've got a baby. "

Dion actually blushed. Mrs. Clarke gazed at the blush, and no doubtthoroughly understood it, but she did not smile, or look arch, or fullof feminine understanding. 

"It's very well, thank you. It's just like other babies. "

"So was mine. Babies are always said to be wonderful, and never are. And we love ours chiefly because they aren't. I hate things with wingsgrowing out of their shoulders. My boy's a very naughty boy. "

They talked about the baby, and then about Mrs. Clarke's son of ten;and then Canon Wilton came up, shook hands warmly with Dion, and wasintroduced by Mrs. Chetwinde to Mrs. Clarke. 

Presently, from the other side of the room where he was standing withEsme Darlington, Dion saw them in conversation; saw Mrs. Clarke's eyesfixed on the Canon's almost fiercely sincere face. 

"It's going to be an abominable case, " murmured Mr. Darlington in Dion'sear. "We must all stand round her. "

"I can't imagine how any one could think such a woman guilty, " saidDion. 

"It has all come about through her unconventionality. " He pulled hisbeard and lifted his ragged eyebrows. "It really is much wiserfor innocent people, such as Cynthia, to keep a tight hold on theconventions. They have their uses. They have their place in the scheme. But she never could see it, and look at the result. "

"But then don't you think she'll win?"

"No one can tell. "

"In any case, she tells me she's going back to live at Constantinople. "

"Madness! Sheer madness!" said Mr. Darlington, almost piteously. "Ishall beg her not to. "

Dion suppressed a smile. That day he had gained the impression that Mrs. Clarke had a will of iron. 

When he went up to say good-by to her, Daventry had already gone; hesaid he had work to do on the case. 

"May I wish you success?" Dion ventured to say, as he took her hand. 

"Thank you, " she answered. "I think you must go in for athleticexercises, don't you?"

Her eyes were fixed on the breadth of his chest, and then traveled tohis strong, broad shoulders. 

"Yes, I'm very keen on them. "

"I want my boy to go in for them. It's so important to be healthy. "

"Rather!"

He felt the Stamboul touch in her soft, hot hand. As he let it go, headded:

"I can give you the address of a first-rate instructor if your boy everwants to be physically trained. I go to him. His name's Jenkins. "

"Thank you. "

She was still looking at his chest and shoulders. The expression ofdistress in her eyes seemed to be deepening. But a tall man, Sir JohnKilligrew, one of her adherents, spoke to her, and she turned to givehim her complete attention. 

"I'll walk with you, if you're going, " said Canon Wilton's strong voicein Dion's ear. 

"That's splendid. I'll just say good-by to Mrs. Chetwinde. "

He found her by the tea-table with three or four men and two very smartwomen. As he came up one of the latter was saying:

"It's all Lady Ermyntrude's fault. She always hated Cynthia, and she hasa heart of stone. "

The case again!

"Oh, are you going?" said Mrs. Chetwinde. 

She got up and came away from the tea-table. 

"D'you like Cynthia Clarke?" she asked. 

"Yes, very much. She interests me. "

"Ah?"

She looked at him, and seemed about to say something, but did not speak. 

"You saw her take my hand, " he said, moved by a sudden impulse. 

"Did she?"

"We were talking about Stamboul. She did it to show me----" He brokeoff. "I saw you felt, as I did, that no one but a through and throughinnocent woman could have done it, just now--like that, I mean. "

"Of course Cynthia is innocent, " Mrs. Chetwinde said, rather coldly andvery firmly. "There's Canon Wilton waiting for you. "

She turned away, but did not go back to the tea-table; as Dion went outof the room he saw her sitting down on the red sofa by Mrs. Clarke. 

Canon Wilton and he walked slowly away from the house. The Canon, whohad some heart trouble of which he never spoke, was not allowed to walkfast; and to-day he was tired after his sermon at the Abbey. He inquiredearnestly about Rosamund and the child, and seemed made happy by thegood news Dion was able to give him. 

"Has it made all life seem very different to you?" he asked. 

Dion acknowledged that it had. 

"I was half frightened at the thought of the change which was coming, "he said. "We were so very happy as we were, you see. "

The Canon's intense gray eyes shot a glance at him, which he felt ratherthan saw, in the evening twilight. 

"I hope you'll be even happier now. "

"It will be a different sort of happiness now. "

"I think children bind people together more often than not. There arecases when it's not so, but I don't think yours is likely to be one ofthem. "

"Oh, no. "

"Is it a good-looking baby?"

"No, really it's not. Even Rosamund thinks that. D'you know, so farshe's marvelously reasonable in her love. "

"That's splendid, " said Canon Wilton, with a strong ring in his voice. "An unreasonable love is generally a love with something rotten at itsroots. "

Dion stood still. 

"Oh, is that true really?"

The Canon paused beside him. They were in Eaton Square, opposite to St. Peter's. 

"I think so. But I hate anything that approaches what I call mania. Religious mania, for instance, is abhorrent to me, and, I should think, displeasing to God. Any mania entering into a love clouds that puritywhich is the greatest beauty of love. Mania--it's detestable!"

He spoke almost with a touch of heat, and put his hand on Dion'sshoulder. 

"Beware of it, my boy. "

"Yes. "

They walked on, talking of other things. A few minutes before theyparted they spoke of Mrs. Clarke. 

"Did you know her before to-day?" asked the Canon. 

"No. I'd never even seen her. How dreadful for her to have to face sucha case. "

"Yes, indeed. "

"The fact that she's innocent gives her a great pull, though. I realizedwhat a pull when I was having a talk with her. "

"I don't know much about the case, " was all that the Canon said. "I hopejustice will be done in it when it comes on. "

Dion thought that there was something rather implacable in his voice. 

"I don't believe Mrs. Clarke doubts that. "

"Did she say so?" asked Canon Wilton. 

"No. But I felt that she expected to win--almost knew she would win. "

"I see. She has confidence in the result. "

"She seems to have. "

"Women often have more confidence in difficult moments than we men. Well, here I must leave you. "

He held out his big, unwavering hand to Dion. 

"Good-by. God bless you both, and the child, whether it's plain ornot. One good thing's added to us when we start rather ill-favored; thechance of growing into something well-favored. "

He gripped Dion's hand and walked slowly, but powerfully, away. 

CHAPTER IV

As Dion had said, the baby was an ordinary baby. "In looks, " the nurseremarked, "he favors his papa. " Certainly in this early stage of hiscareer the baby had little of the beauty and charm of Rosamund. As hishead was practically bald, his forehead, which was wrinkled as if byexperience and the troubles of years, looked abnormally high. His face, full of puckers, was rather red; his nose meant very little as yet; hismouth, with perpetually moving lips, was the home of bubbles. His eyeswere blue, and looked large in his extremely small countenance, whichwas often decorated with an expression of mild inquiry. This expression, however, sometimes changed abruptly to a network of wrath, in whichevery feature, and even the small bald head, became involved. Then theminute feet made feeble dabs, or stabs, at the atmosphere; the tinyfists doubled themselves and wandered to and fro as if in search of theenemy; and a voice came forth out of the temple, very personal and veryintense, to express the tempest of the soul. 

"Hark at him!" said the nurse. "He knows already what he wants and whathe _don't_ want. "

And Rosamund, listening as only a mother can listen, shook her head overhim, trying to condemn the rage, but enjoying the strength of herchild in the way of mothers, to whom the baby's roar perhaps brings thethought, "What a fine, bold man he'll be some day. " If Rosamund had sucha thought the nurse encouraged it with her. "He's got a proud spiritalready, ma'am. He's not to be put upon. Have his way he will, and Idon't altogether blame him. " Nor, be sure, did Rosamund altogetherblame the young varmint for anything. Perhaps in his tiny fisticuffs andstartlingly fierce cries she divined the Doric, in embryo, as it were;perhaps when "little master" shrieked she thought of the columns of theParthenon. 

But Dion told the truth to Canon Wilton when he had said that Rosamundwas marvelously reasonable, so far, in her love for her baby son. Theadmirable sanity, the sheer healthiness of outlook which Dion loved inher did not desert her now. To Dion it seemed that in the very calmnessand good sense of her love she showed its great depth, showed thatalready she was thinking of her child's soul as well as of his littlebody. 

Dion felt the beginnings of a change in Rosamund, but he did not findeither her or himself suddenly and radically changed by the possessionof a baby. He had thought that perhaps as mother and father they wouldboth feel abruptly much older than before, even perhaps old. It was notso. Often Dion gazed at the baby as he bubbled and cooed, sneezed withan air of angry astonishment, stared at nothing with a look of shallowsurmise, or, composing his puckers, slept, and Dion still felt young, even very young, and not at all like a father. 

"I'm sure, " he once said to Rosamund, "women feel much more like motherswhen they have a baby than men feel like fathers. "

"I feel like a mother all over, " she replied, bending above the child. "In every least little bit of me. "

"Then do you feel completely changed?"

"Completely, utterly. "

Dion sat still for a moment gazing at her. She felt his look, perhaps, for she lifted her head, and her eyes went from the baby to him. 

"What is it, Rosamund? What are you considering?"

"Well----" She hesitated. "Perhaps no one could quite understand, but Ifeel a sense of release. "

"Release! From what?"

Again she hesitated; then she looked once more at the child almost as ifshe wished to gain something from his helplessness. At last she said:

"Dion, as you've given me _him_, I'll tell you. Very often in the pastI've had an urgent desire some day to enter into the religious life. "

"D'you--d'you mean to become a Roman Catholic and a nun?" he exclaimed, feeling, absurdly perhaps, almost afraid and half indignant. 

"No. I've never wished to change my religion. There are Anglicansisterhoods, you know. "

"But your singing!"

"I only intended to sing for a time. Then some day, when I felt quiteready, I meant--"

"But you married me?" he interrupted. 

"Yes. So you see I gave it all up. "

"But you said it was the child which had brought you a sensation ofrelease!"

"Perhaps you have never been a prisoner of a desire which threatens todominate your soul forever, " she said, quietly evading his point andlooking down, so that he could not see her eyes. "Look, he's waking!"

Surely she had moved abruptly and the movement had awakened the child. She began playing with him, and the conversation was broken. 

The Clarke trial came on in May, when Robin was becoming almost elderly, having already passed no less than ten weeks in the midst of this wickedworld. On the day before it opened, Daventry made Dion promise to comeinto court at least once to hear some of the evidence. 

"A true friend would be there every day, " he urged--"to back up his oldchum. "

"Business!" returned Dion laconically. 

"What's your real reason against it?"

"Well, Rosamund hates this kind of case. I spoke to her about it theother day. "

"What did she say?"

"That she was delighted you had something to do, and that she hoped, ifMrs. Clarke were innocent, she'd win. She pities her for being draggedthrough all this mud. "

"Yes?"

"She said at the end that she hoped I wouldn't think her unsympatheticif she neither talked about the case nor read about it. She hatesfilling her mind with ugly details and horrible suggestions. "

"I see. "

"You know, Guy, Rosamund thinks--she's told me so more than once--thatthe mind and the soul are very sensitive, and that--that they ought tobe watched over, and--and taken care of. "

Dion looked rather uncomfortable as he finished. It was one thing tospeak of such matters with Rosamund, and quite another to touch on themwith a man, even a man who was a trusted friend. 

"Perhaps you'd rather not come at all?"

"No, no. I'll come once. You know how keen I am on your making a goodstart. "

Daventry took him at his word, and got him a seat beside Mrs. Chetwindeon the third day of the trial, when Mrs. Clarke's cross-examination, begun on the previous day, was continued by Sir Edward Jeffson, BeadonClarke's leading counsel. 

Dion told Rosamund where he was going when he left the house in themorning. 

"I hope it will go well for poor Mrs. Clarke, " she said kindly, butperhaps rather indifferently. 

She had not looked at the reports of the case in the papers, and had notdiscussed its progress with Dion. He was not sorry for that. It was ahorrible case, full of abominable allegations and suggestions such ashe would have hated to discuss with Rosamund. As he stood in the littlehall of their house, which was delicately scented with lavender and litby pale sunshine, bidding her good-by, he realized the impossibility ofsuch a woman as she was ever being "mixed up" in such a trial. Simplythat couldn't happen, he thought. Instinct would keep her far from everysuggestion of a possible impurity. He felt certain that Mrs. Clarkewas innocent, but, as he looked into Rosamund's honest brown eyes, he thought that Mrs. Clarke must have been singularly imprudent. Heremembered how she had held his hand in Mrs. Chetwinde's drawing-room. Wisdom and unwisdom; he compared them: the one was a builder up, theother a destroyer of beauty--the beauty that is in every completely saneand perfectly poised life. 

"Rose, " he said, leaning forward to kiss his wife, "I think you are verywise. "

"Why wise all of a sudden?" she asked, smiling. 

"You keep the door of your life. "

He glanced round at the little hall, simple, fresh, with a few whiteroses in a blue pot, the pale sunshine lying on the polished floor ofwood, the small breeze coming in almost affectionately between snowycurtains. Purity--everything seemed to whisper of that, to imply that;simplicity ruling, complexity ruled out. 

And then he was sitting in the crowded court, breathing bad air, hearingfoul suggestions, watching strained or hateful faces, surrounded bypeople who were attracted by ugly things as vultures are attracted bythe stench of dead and decaying bodies. At first he loathed being there;presently, however, he became interested, then almost fascinated by hissurroundings and by the drama which was being played slowly out in themidst of them. 

Daventry, in wig and gown, looked tremendously legal and almost severein his tense gravity. Sir John Addington, his leader, a man of greatfame, was less tense in his watchfulness, amazingly at his ease with theCourt, and on smiling terms with the President, who, full of worldlyand unworldly knowledge, held the balance of justice with an unwaveringfirmness. The jury looked startlingly commonplace, smug and sleepy, despite the variety of type almost inevitably presented by twelve humanbeings. Not one of them looked a rascal; not one of them looked anactively good man. The intense Englishness of them hit one in the facelike a well-directed blow from a powerful fist. And they had to give theverdict on this complex drama of Stamboul! How much they would haveto tell their wives presently! Their sense of their unusual importancepushed through the smugness heavily, like a bulky man in broadclothshowing through a dull crowd. 

Mrs. Clarke occasionally glanced at them with an air of almostdistressed inquiry, as if she had never seen such cabbages before, andwas wondering about their gray matter. Her life in Stamboul must haveeffected changes in her. She looked almost exotic in this court, despitethe simplicity of her gown, her unpretending little hat; as if her mind, perhaps, had become exotic. But she certainly did not look wicked. Dionwas struck again by the strong mentality of her and by her haggardness. To him she seemed definitely a woman of mind, not at all an animalwoman. When he gazed at her he felt that he was gazing at mind ratherthan at body. Just before she went into the box she met his eyes. Shestared at him, as if carefully and strongly considering him; then shenodded. He bowed, feeling uncomfortable, feeling indeed almost a brute. 

"She'll think I've come out of filthy curiosity, " he thought, lookinground at the greedy faces of the crowd. 

No need to ask why those faces were there. 

He felt still more uncomfortable when Mrs. Clarke was in thewitness-box, and Sir Edward Jeffson took up the cross-examination whichhe had begun late in the afternoon of the previous day. 

Dion had very seldom been in a Court of Justice, and had never beforebeen in the Divorce Court. As the cross-examination of Mrs. Clarkelengthened out he felt as if his clothes, and the clothes of all thehuman beings who crowded about him, were being ruthlessly stripped off, as if an ugly and abominable nakedness were gradually appearing. Theshame of it all was very hateful to him; and yet--yes, he couldn't denyit--there was a sort of dreadful fascination in it, too. 

The two co-respondents, Hadi Bey and Aristide Dumeny of the FrenchEmbassy in Constantinople, were in court, sitting not far from Dion, towhom Mrs. Chetwinde, less vague than, but quite as self-possessed as, usual, pointed them out. 

Both were young men. Hadi Bey, who of course wore the fez, was a finespecimen of the smart, alert, cosmopolitan and cultivated Turk of moderndays. There was a peculiar look of vividness and brightness about him, in his piercing dark eyes, in his red lips, in his healthy and manlyface with its rosy brown complexion and its powerful decided chin. He had none of the sleepiness and fatalistic languor of the fathubble-bubble smoking Turk of caricature. The whole of him lookedaristocratic, energetic, perfectly poised and absolutely self-possessed. Many of the women in court glanced at him without any distaste. 

Aristide Dumeny was almost strangely different--an ashy-pale, dark-eyed, thin and romantic-visaged man, stamped with a curious expression of painand fatalism. He looked as if he had seen much, dreamed many dreams, and suffered not a little. There was in his face something slightlycontemptuous, as if, intellectually, he seldom gazed up at any man. Hewatched Mrs. Clarke in the box with an enigmatic closeness of attentionwhich seemed wholly impersonal, even when she was replying to hideousquestions about himself. That he had an interesting personality wascertain. When his eyes rested on the twelve jurymen he smiled every sofaintly. It seemed to him, perhaps, absurd that they should have powerover the future of the woman in the witness-box. 

That woman showed an extraordinary self-possession which touched dignitybut which never descended to insolence. Despite her obvious clevernessand mental resource she preserved a certain simplicity. She did not poseas a passionate innocent, or assume any forced airs of supreme virtue. She presented herself rather as a woman of the world who was careless ofthe conventions, because she thought of them as chains which preventedfree movement and were destructive of genuine liberty. She acknowledgedthat she had been a great deal with Hadi Bey and Dumeny, that she hadoften made long excursions with each of them on foot, on horseback, incaiques, that she had had them to dinner, separately, on many occasionsin a little pavilion which stood at the end of her husband's garden andlooked upon the Bosporus. These dinners had frequently taken place whenher husband was away from home. Monsieur Dumeny was a good musician andhad sometimes sung and played to her till late in the night. Hadi Beyhad sometimes been her guide in Constantinople and had given to her thefreedom of his strange and mysterious city of Stamboul. With him she hadvisited the mosques, with him she had explored the bazaars, with himshe had sunk down in the strange and enveloping melancholy of the vastTurkish cemeteries which are protected by forests of cypresses. All thisshe acknowledged without the least discomposure. One of her remarks tothe cross-examining counsel was this:

"You suggest that I have been very imprudent. I answer that I am notable to live what the conventional call a prudent life. Such a lifewould be a living death to me. "

"Kindly confine yourself to answering my questions, " retorted Counselharshly. "I suggest that you were far more than imprudent. I suggestthat when you and Hadi Bey remained together in that pavilion onthe Bosporus until midnight, until after midnight, you----" and thenfollowed another hideous accusation, which, gazing with her observanteyes at the brick-red shaven face of her accuser, Mrs. Clarke quietlydenied. She never showed temper. Now and then she gave indications of asort of cold disgust or faint surprise. But there were no outragedairs of virtue. A slight disdain was evidently more natural to thetemperament of this woman than any fierceness of protestation. Once whenCounsel said, "I shall ask the jury to infer"--something abominable, Mrs. Clarke tranquilly rejoined:

"Whatever they infer it won't alter the truth. "

Daventry moved his shoulders. Dion was certain that he considered thisremark ill-advised. The jury, however, at whom Mrs. Clarke gazed in theshort silence which followed, seemed, Dion thought, impressed by herfirmness. The luncheon interval prevented Counsel from saying anythingfurther just then, and Mrs. Clarke stepped down from the box. 

"Isn't she wonderful?"

Dion heard this murmur, which did not seem to be addressed to anyparticular person. It had come from Mrs. Chetwinde, who now got up andwent to speak to Mrs. Clarke. The whole court was in movement. Dion wentout to have a hasty lunch with Daventry. 

"A pity she said that!" Daventry said in a low voice to Dion, hitchingup his gown. "Juries like to be deferred to. "

"I believe she impressed them by her independence. "

"Do you, though? She's marvelously intelligent. Perhaps she knows moreof men, even of jurymen, than I do. "

At lunch they discussed the case. Daventry had had two or three chancesgiven to him by Sir John Addington, and thought he had done quite well. 

"Do you think Mrs. Clarke will win?" said Dion. 

"I know she's innocent, but I can't tell. She's so infernallyunconventional and a jury's so infernally conventional that I can't helpbeing afraid. "

Dion thought of his Rosamund's tranquil wisdom. 

"I think Mrs. Clarke's very clever, " he said. "But I suppose she isn'tvery wise. "

"I'll tell you what it is, old Dion; she prefers life to wisdom. "

"Well, but----" Dion Began. 

But he stopped. Now he knew Mrs. Clarke a little better, from her ownevidence, he knew just what Daventry meant. He looked upon the life ofunwisdom, and he was able to feel its fascination. There were scents init that lured, and there were colors that tempted; in its night therewas music; about it lay mystery, shadows, and silver beams of the moonshining between cypresses like black towers. It gave out a call towhich, perhaps, very few natures of men were wholly deaf. The unwiselife! Almost for the first time Dion considered it with a deepcuriosity. 

He considered it more attentively, more curiously, during the afternoon, when Mrs. Clarke's cross-examination was continued. 

It was obvious that during this trial two women were being presented tothe judge and jury, the one a greedy and abominably secret and cleversensualist, who hid her mania beneath a cloak of intellectuality, theother a genuine intellectual, whose mental appetites far outweighed theappetites of her body, who was, perhaps, a sensualist, but a sensualistof the spirit and not of the flesh. Which of these two women was thereal Cynthia Clarke? The jury would eventually give their decision, but it might not be in accordance with fact. Meanwhile, the horribleunclothing process was ruthlessly proceeded with. But already Dion wasbecoming accustomed to it. Perhaps Mrs. Clarke's self-possession helpedhim to assimilate the nauseous food which was offered to him. 

Beadon Clarke was in court, and had been pointed out to Dion, anintellectual and refined-looking man, bald, with good features, anda gentle, but now pained, expression; obviously a straight andaristocratic fellow. Beside him sat his mother, that Lady Ermyntrudewho, it was said, had forced on the trial. She sat upright, her eyesfixed on her daughter-in-law, a rather insignificant small woman, not very well dressed, young looking, with hair done exactly in QueenAlexandra's way, and crowned with a black toque. 

Dion noticed that she had a very firm mouth and chin. She did notlook actively hostile as she gazed at the witness, but merelyattentive--deeply, concentratedly attentive. Mrs. Clarke never glancedtowards her. 

Perhaps, whatever Lady Ermyntrude had believed hitherto, she was nowbeginning to wonder whether her conception of her son's wife had beena wrong one, was beginning to ask herself whether she had divined thenature of the soul inhabiting the body which now stood up before her. 

About an hour before the close of the sitting the heat in the courtbecame almost suffocating, and the Judge told Mrs. Clarke she mightcontinue her evidence sitting down. She refused this favor. 

"I'm not at all tired, my lord, " she said. 

"She's made of iron, " Mrs. Chetwinde murmured to Dion. "Though shegenerally looks like a corpse. She was haggard even as a girl. "

"Did you know her then?" he whispered. 

"I've known her all my life. "

Daventry wiped his brow with a large pocket-handkerchief, performing theaction legally. One of the jurymen, who was too fat, and had somethingof the expression of a pug dog, opened his mouth and rolled slightlyin his seat. The cross-examination became with every moment moredisagreeable. Beadon Clarke never lifted his eyes from his knees. Allthe women in court, except Mrs. Chetwinde and Mrs. Clarke, were lookingstrangely alive and conscious. Dion had forgotten everything exceptStamboul and the life of unwisdom. Suppose Mrs. Clarke had lived thelife imputed to her by Counsel, suppose she really were a consummatelyclever and astoundingly ingenious humbug, driven, as many human beingsare driven, by a dominating vice which towered over her life issuingcommands she had not the strength to resist, how had it profited her?Had she had great rewards in it? Had she been led down strange waysguided by fascination bearing the torch from which spring colored fires?Good women sometimes, perhaps oftener than many people realize, lookout of the window and try to catch a glimpse of the world of the wickedwomen, asking themselves, "Is it worth while? Is their time so muchbetter than mine? Am I missing--missing?" And they shut the window--forfear. Far away, turning the corner of some dark alley, they have seenthe colored gleam of the torch. 

Rosamund would never do that--would never even want to do that. She wasnot one of the good women who love to take just a peep at evil "becauseone ought to know something of the trials and difficulties of those lessfortunately circumstanced than oneself. "

But, for the moment, Dion had quite forgotten his Rosamund. She wasin England, but he was in Stamboul, hearing the waters of the Bosporuslapping at the foot of Mrs. Clarke's garden pavilion, while Dumenyplayed to her as the moon came up to shine upon the sweet waters ofAsia; or sitting under the plane trees of the Pigeon Mosque, while HadiBey showed her how to write an Arabic love-letter--to somebody in theair, of course. In this trial he felt the fascination of Constantinopleas he had never felt it when he was in Constantinople; but he felt, too, that only those who strayed deliberately from the beaten paths couldever capture the full fascination of the divided city, which looks toEurope and to Asia, and is set along the way of the sea. 

Whether innocent or guilty, Mrs. Clarke had certainly done that. Hewatched her with a growing interest. How very much she must know that hedid not know. Then he glanced at Hadi Bey, who still sat up alertly, whostill looked bright and vivid, intelligent, ready for anything, a mansurely with muscles of steel and a courageous robust nature, and atAristide Dumeny. Upon the latter his eyes rested for a long time. When at last he again looked at Mrs. Clarke he had formed the definiteimpression that Dumeny was corrupt--an interesting man, a clever, probably a romantic as well as a cynical man, but certainly corrupt. 

Didn't that tell against Mrs. Clarke?

She was now being questioned about a trip at night in a caique with HadiBey down the sweet waters of Asia where willows lean over the stream. Mrs. Chetwinde's pale eyes were fastened upon her. Beadon Clarke benthis head a little lower as, in her husky voice, his wife said thathe knew of the expedition, had apparently smiled upon herunconventionalities, knowing how entirely free she was from the uglybias towards vice attributed to her by Counsel. 

Lady Ermyntrude Clarke shot a glance at her son, and her firm mouthbecame firmer. 

The willows bent over the sweet waters in the warm summer night; theAlbanian boatmen were singing. 

"She must have had wonderful times!"

The whisper came from an unseen woman sitting just behind Dion. His mindechoed the thought she had expressed. Now the Judge was rising from thebench and bowing to the Court; Mrs. Clarke was stepping down from thewitness-box; Dumeny, his eyes half closed, was brushing his shining silkhat with the sleeve of his coat; Beadon Clarke was leaning to speak tohis mother. 

The Court was adjourned. 

As Dion got up he felt the heat as if it were heat from a furnace. Hisface and his body were burning. 

"Come and speak to Cynthia, and take us to tea somewhere--can you?" saidMrs. Chetwinde. 

"Of course, with pleasure. "

"Your Rosamund----?"

Her eyes were on him for a moment. 

"She won't expect me at any particular time. "

"Mr. Daventry can come too. "

Dion never forgot their difficult exit from the court. It made him feelashamed for humanity, for the crowd which frantically pressed to stareat a woman because perhaps she had done things which were consideredby all right-minded people to be disgusting. Mrs. Clarke and her littleparty of friends had to be helped away by the police. When at lengththey were driving away towards Claridge's Hotel, Dion was able oncemore to meet the eyes of his companions, and again he was amazed atthe self-possession of Mrs. Clarke. Really she seemed as composed, ascompletely mistress of herself, as when he had first seen her standingnear the statue of Echo in the drawing-room of Mrs. Chetwinde. 

"You haven't been in court before to-day, have you?" she said to Dion. 

"No. "

"Why did you come to-day?"

"Well, I----" He hesitated. "I promised Mr. Daventry to come to-day. "

"That was it!" said Mrs. Clarke, and she looked out of the window. 

Dion felt rather uncomfortable as he spoke to Mrs. Chetwinde and leftfurther conversation with Mrs. Clarke to Daventry; but when they wereall in a quiet corner of the tearoom at Claridge's, a tea-table beforethem and a band playing softly at a distance, he was more at his ease. The composure of Mrs. Clarke perhaps conveyed itself to him. She spokeof the case quite naturally, as a guilty woman surely could not possiblyhave spoken of it--showing no venom, making no attack upon her accusers. 

"It's all a mistake, " she said, "arising out of stupidity, out of themost widespread and, perhaps, the most pitiable and dangerous lack inhuman nature. "

"And what's that?" asked Daventry, rather eagerly. 

"I expect you know. "

He shook his head. 

"Don't you?" she asked of Dion, spreading thinly some butter over apiece of dry toast. 

"I'm afraid I don't. "

"Cynthia means the lack of power to read character, the lack ofpsychological instinct, " drifted from the lips of Mrs. Chetwinde. 

"Three-quarters of the misunderstandings and miseries of the world comefrom that, " said Mrs. Clarke, looking at the now buttered toast. "If mymother-in-law and my husband had any psychological faculty they wouldnever have mistaken my unconventionality, which I shall never give up, for common, and indeed very vulgar, sinfulness. "

"Confusing the pastel with the oleograph, " dropped out Mrs. Chetwinde, looking abstractedly at an old red woman in a turret of ostrich plumes, who was spread out on the other side of the room before a plate ofcakes. 

"You are sure Lady Ermyntrude didn't understand?" said Daventry, with acertain sharp legality of manner. 

"You mean that she might be wicked instead of only stupid?"

"Well, yes. I suppose it does come to that. "

"Believe me, Mr. Daventry, she's a quite honest stupid woman. Shehonestly thinks that I'm a horrible creature. "

And Mrs. Clarke began to bite the crisp toast with her lovely teeth. Mrs. Chetwinde's eyes dwelt on her for a brief instant with, Dionthought, a rather peculiar look which he could not quite understand. Ithad, perhaps, a hint of hardness, or of cold admiration, something ofthat kind, in it. 

"Tell me some more about the baby, " was Mrs. Clarke's next remark, addressed to Dion. "I want to get away for a minute into a happydomestic life. And yours is that, I know. "

How peculiarly haggard, and yet how young she looked as she said that!She added:

"If the case ends as I feel sure it will, I hope your wife and I shallget to know each other. I hear she's the most delightful woman inLondon, and extraordinarily beautiful. Isn't she?"

"I think she is beautiful, " Dion said simply. 

And then they talked about Robin, while Mrs. Chetwinde and Daventrydiscussed some question of the day. Before they parted Dion could nothelp saying:

"I want to ask you something. "

"Yes?"

"Why do you feel sure that the trial will end as it ought to end? Surelythe lack of the psychological instinct is peculiarly abundant--if alack can be abundant!"--he smiled, almost laughed, a littledeprecatingly--"in a British jury?"

"And so you think they're likely to go wrong in their verdict?"

"Doesn't it rather follow?"

She stared at him, and her eyes were, or looked, even more widely openedthan usual. After a long pause she said;

"You wish to frighten me. "

She got up, and began to draw on her dove-colored Swedish kid gloves. 

"Tippie, " she said to Mrs. Chetwinde, "I must go home now and have alittle rest. "

Only then did Dion realize how marvelously she was bearing a tremendousstrain. He began to admire her prodigiously. 

When he said good-by to her under the great porch he couldn't helpasking:

"Are your nerves of steel?"

She leaned forward in the brougham. 

"If your muscles are of iron. "

"My muscles!" he said. 

"Haven't you educated them?"

"Oh--yes. "

"And perhaps I've educated my nerves. "

Mrs. Chetwinde's spirited horses began to prance and show temper. Mrs. Clarke sat back. As the carriage moved away, Dion saw Mrs. Chetwinde'seyes fixed upon him. They looked at that moment not at all vague. Ifthey had not been her eyes, he would have been inclined to think thempiercing. But, of course, Mrs. Chetwinde's eyes could never be that. 

"How does one educate one's nerves, Guy?" asked Dion, as the two friendswalked away. 

"By being defendant in a long series of divorce cases, I should say. "

"Has Mrs. Clarke ever been in another case of this kind?"

"Good heavens, no. If she had, even I couldn't believe in her innocence, as I do now. "

"Then where did she get her education?"

"Where do women get things, old Dion? It seems to me sometimes straightfrom God, and sometimes straight from the devil. "

Dion's mental comment on this was, "What about Mrs. Clarke?" But he didnot utter it. 

Before he left Daventry, he was pledged to be in court on the last dayof the case, when the verdict would be given. He wished to go to thecourt again on the morrow, but the thought of Rosamund decided him notto do this; he would, he knew, feel almost ashamed in telling her thatthe divorce court, at this moment, fascinated him, that he longed, or almost longed, to follow the colored fires of a certain torch downfurther shadowy alleys of the unwise life. He felt quite sure thatMrs. Clarke was an innocent woman, but she had certainly been veryunconventional indeed in her conduct. He remembered the almost sternstrength in her husky voice when she had said "my unconventionality, _which I shall never give up_. " So even this hideous and widelyproclaimed scandal would not induce her to bow in the future before theconventional gods. She really was an extraordinary woman. What wouldRosamund think of her? If she won her case she evidently meant to knowRosamund. Of course, there could be nothing against that. If shelost the case, naturally there could never be any question of such anacquaintance; he knew instinctively that she would never suggest it. Whatever she was, or was not, she was certainly a woman of the world. 

That evening, when he reached home, he found Rosamund sitting in thenursery in the company of Robin and the nurse. The window was partiallyopen. Rosamund believed in plenty of air for her child, and no"cosseting"; she laughed to scorn, but genially, the nurse's prejudiceagainst "the night air. "

"My child, " she said, "must get accustomed to night as well as day, Nurse--and the sooner the better. " So now "Master Robin" was played uponby a little wind from Westminster. He seemed in no way alarmed by it. This evening he was serene, and when his father entered the room heassumed his expression of mild inquiry, vaguely agitated his smallrose-colored fists, and blew forth a welcoming bubble. 

Dion was touched at the sight. 

"Little rogue!" he said, bending over Robin. "Little, little rogue!"

Robin raised his, as yet scarcely defined, eyebrows, stared tremendouslyhard at the nursery atmosphere, pulled out his wet lips and gurgled, atthe same time wagging his head, now nicely covered with silky fair hair, or down, whichever you chose to call it. 

"He knows his papa, ma'am, and that he does, a boy!" said the nurse, who approved of Dion, and had said below stairs that he was "as good ahusband as ever wore shoe-leather. "

"Of course he does, " said Rosamund softly. "Babies have plenty ofintelligence of a kind, and I think it's a darling kind. "

Dion sat down beside her, and they both bent over Robin in the gatheringtwilight, while the nurse went softly out of the room. 

Dion had quite forgotten the Clarke case. 

CHAPTER V

Three days later Daventry called in Little Market Street early, andwas shown into the dining-room where he found Rosamund alone at thebreakfast-table. 

"Do forgive me for bursting in upon the boiled eggs, " he said, lookingunusually excited. "I'm off almost directly to the Law Courts and I wantto take Dion with me. It's the last day of Mrs. Clarke's case. We expectthe verdict some time this evening. I dare say the court will sit late. Where's Dion?"

"He's just coming down. We were both disturbed in the night, so we sleptlater than usual. "

"Disturbed? Burglars? Fire?"

"No; Robin's not at all well. "

"I say! I'm sorry for that. What is it?"

"He's had a very bad throat and been feverish, poor little chap. But Ithink he's better this morning. The doctor came. "

"You'll never be one of the fussy mothers. "

"I hope not, " she said, rather gravely; "I'm not fond of them. Here'sDion. "

Daventry sat with them while they breakfasted, and Dion agreed to keephis promise and go to the court. 

"I told Uncle Biron I must be away from business to hear thesumming-up, " he said. "I'll send a telegram to the office. Do you thinkit will be all right for Mrs. Clarke?"

"She's innocent, but nobody can say. It depends so much on thesumming-up. "

Dion glanced at Rosamund. 

"You mustn't think I'm going to turn into an idler, Rose. This is a veryspecial occasion. "

"I know. Mr. Daventry's first case. "

"Haven't you followed it at all?" Daventry asked. 

She shook her head. 

"No, but I've been wished you well all the same. "

When the two men got up to go, Dion said:

"Rosamund!"

"What is it?"

"If Mrs. Clarke wins and is completely exonerated, I think she wouldlike very much to make your acquaintance. "

Rosamund looked surprised. 

"What makes you think so?"

"Well, she said something to that effect the other day. "

"She's a very interesting, clever woman, " interposed Daventry, withsudden warmth. 

"I'm sure she is. We must see. It's very kind of her. Poor woman! Whatdreadful anxiety she must be in to-day! You'll all be glad when it'sover. "

When the two friends were out in the sunshine, walking towards theStrand, Daventry said:

"Why is your wife against Mrs. Clarke?"

"She isn't. What makes you thinks so?"

"I'm quite sure she doesn't want to know her, even if she gets theverdict. "

"Well, of course all this sort of thing is--it's very far away fromRosamund. "

"You don't mean to say you doubt Mrs. Clarke?"

"No, but----"

"Surely if she's innocent she's as good as any other woman. "

"I know, but----I suppose it's like this: there are different ways ofbeing good, and perhaps Mrs. Clarke's way isn't Rosamund's. In fact, weknow it isn't. "

Daventry said nothing more on the subject; he began to discuss the casein all its bearings, and presently dwelt upon the great power Englishjudges have over the decisions of juries. 

"Mrs. Clarke gave her evidence splendidly on the whole, " he said. "And Hadi Bey made an excellent impression. My one fear is that fellowAristide Dumeny. You didn't hear him, but, of course, you read hisevidence. He was perfectly composed and as clever as he could be in thebox, but I'm sure, somehow, the jury were against him. "

"Why?"

"I hardly know. It may be something in his personality. "

"I believe he's a beast, " said Dion. 

"There!" exclaimed Daventry, wrinkling his forehead. "If the Judgethinks as you do it may just turn things against us. "

"Why did she make a friend of the fellow?"

"Because he's chock-full of talent and knowledge, and she loves both. Dion, my boy, the mind can play the devil with us as well as the body. But I hope--I hope for the right verdict. Anyhow I've done well, andshall get other cases out of this. The odd thing is that Mrs. Clarke'sdrained me dry of egoism. I care only to win for her. I couldn't bear tosee her go out of court with a ruined reputation. My nerves are all onedge. If Mrs. Clarke loses, how d'you think she'll take it?"

"Standing up. "

"I expect you're right. But I don't believe I shall take it standing. Perhaps some women make us men feel for them more than they feel forthemselves. Don't look at me in court whatever you do. "

They had arrived at the Law Courts. He hurried away. 

Dion's place was again beside Mrs. Chetwinde, who looked unusuallyalive, and whose vagueness had been swept away by something--anxietyfor her friend, perhaps, or the excitement of following day after day anunusually emotional _cause celebre_. 

Now, as Sir John Addington stood up to continue his speech on Mrs. Clarke's behalf, begun on the previous day, Mrs. Chetwinde leanedforward and fixed her eyes upon him, closing her fingers tightly on thefan she had brought with her. 

Sir John spoke with an earnestness and conviction which at certainmoments rose almost to passion, as he drew the portrait of a woman whosebrilliant mind and innocent nature had led her into the unconventionalconduct which her enemies now asserted were wickedness. Beadon Clarke'scounsel had suggested that Mrs. Clarke was an abominable woman, brilliantly clever, exquisitely subtle, who had chosen as anarmor against suspicion a bold pretense of simplicity and harmlessunconventionality, but who was the prey of a hidden and ungovernablevice. He, Sir John, ventured to put forward for the jury's carefulexamination a very different picture. He made no secret of the factthat, from the point of view of the ordinary unconventional man orwoman, Mrs. Clarke had often acted unwisely, and, with not too fine asarcasm, he described for the jury the average existence of "a carefuldrab woman" in the watchful and eternally gossiping diplomatic world. Then he contrasted with it the life led by Mrs. Clarke in the wonderfulcity of Stamboul--a life "full of color, of taste, of interest, ofcharm, of innocent, joyous and fragrant liberty. Which of us, " hedemanded, "would not in our souls prefer the latter life to theformer? Which of us did not secretly long for the touch of romance, of strangeness, of beauty, to put something into our lives which theylacked? But we have not the moral courage to break our prison doors andto emerge into the nobler world. "

"The dull, the drab, the platter-faced and platter-minded people, " hesaid, in a passage which Dion was always to remember, "who go foreverbowed down beneath the heavy yoke of convention, are too often apt tothink that everything charming, everything lively, everything unusual, everything which gives out, like sweet incense, a delicate aroma ofstrangeness, must be, somehow, connected with wickedness. Everythingwhich deviates from their pattern must deviate towards the devil, according to them; every step taken away from the beaten path mustbe taken towards ultimate destruction. They have no conception ofintimacies between women and men cemented not by similar lustsand similar vices, but by similar intellectual tastes and similaraspirations towards beauty. In color such people always find blackness, in gaiety wickedness, in liberty license, in the sacred intimaciesof the soul the hateful vices of the body. But you, gentlemen of thejury----"

His appeal to the twelve in the box at this moment was, perhaps, scarcely convincing. He addressed them as if, like Mrs. Clarke andhimself, they were enamored of the unwise life, which is only unwisebecause we live in a world of censorious fools, and as if he knew it. The strange thing was that the jury were evidently impressed if notcarried away, by his appeal. They sat forward, stared at Sir John asif fascinated, and even began to assume little airs which werealmost devil-may-care. But when, with a precise and deliberately coldacuteness, Sir John turned to the evidence adverse to his client, andbegan to tear it to shreds, they stared less, frowned, and showed bytheir expressions their efforts to be legal. 

As soon as Sir John had finished his speech, the Court rose for theluncheon interval. 

"Are you going out?" said Mrs. Chetwinde to Dion. "I've brought somehorrible little sandwiches, and I shan't stir. "

"I'm not hungry. I'll stay with you. "

He sighed. 

"What a crowd!" he said, looking over the sea of hot, staring faces. "How horrid people look sometimes!"

"When they're feeling cruel. "

She began to eat her sandwiches, which were tightly packed in a smallsilver box. 

"Isn't Mrs. Clarke coming to-day?" Dion asked. 

"Yes. I expect her in a moment. Esme Darlington is bringing her. "

"Mr. Darlington?"

"You're surprised?"

"Well, I should hardly have expected somehow that--I don't know. "

"I do. But Esme Darlington's more of a man than he seems. And he'sthoroughly convinced of Cynthia's innocence. Here they are. "

There was a stir in the crowd. Many women present rustled as they turnedin their seats; some stood up and craned forward; people in the galleryleaned over, looking eagerly down; a loud murmur and a wide hiss ofwhispering emphasized the life in the court. The tall, loose-limbedfigure of Esme Darlington, looking to-day singularly dignified andalmost impressive, pushed slowly forward, followed by the woman whosesocial fate was so soon to be decided. 

Mrs. Clarke glanced round over the many faces without any defiance asshe made her way with difficulty to a seat beside her solicitor. Thelack of defiance in her expression struck Dion forcibly. This woman didnot seem to be mentally on the defensive, did not seem to be wishing torepel the glances, fierce with curiosity, which were leveled at her fromall sides. Apparently she had no fear at all of bristling bayonets. Herhaggard face was unsmiling, not cold, but intense with a sort of livingcalm which was surely not a mask. She looked at Mrs. Chetwinde and atDion as she passed near to them, giving them no greeting except with herlarge eyes which obviously recognized them. In a moment she was sittingdown between her solicitor and Esme Darlington. 

"It will quite break Guy Daventry up if she doesn't get the verdict, "said Dion in an uneven voice to Mrs. Chetwinde. 

"Mr. Daventry?" she said, with an odd little stress of emphasis on thename. 

"Of course I should hate it too. Any man who feels a woman isinnocent--"

He broke off. She said nothing, and went on eating her little sandwichesas if she rather disliked them. 

"Mrs. Chetwinde, do tell me. I believe you've got an extraordinaryflair--will she win?"

"My dear boy, now how can I know?"

Dion felt very young for a minute. 

"I want to know what you expect. "

Mrs. Chetwinde closed the small silver box with a soft snap. 

"I fully expect her to win. "

"Because she's innocent?"

"Oh no. That's no reason in a world like this, unfortunately. "

"But, then, why?"

"Because Cynthia always does get what she wants, or needs. She has quiteabnormal will-power, and will-power is _the_ conqueror. If I'm to tellyou the truth, I see only one reason for doubt, I don't say fear, as tothe result. "

"Can you tell me what it is?"

"Aristide Dumeny. "

At this moment the Judge returned to the bench. An hour later he beganto sum up. 

He spoke very slowly and rather monotonously, and at first Dion thoughtthat he was going to be "let down" by this almost cruelly level finaleto a dramatic, sometimes even horrible, struggle between powerfulopposing forces. But presently he began to come under a new fascination, the fascination of a cool and very clear presentation of undressedfacts. Led by the Judge, he reviewed again the complex life atConstantinople, he followed again Mrs. Clarke's many steps away from thebeaten paths, he penetrated again through some of the winding ways intothe shadows of the unwise life. And he began to wonder a little and alittle to fear for the woman who was sitting so near to him waiting forthe end. He could not tell whether the Judge believed her to be innocentor guilty, but he thought he could tell that the Judge considered herindiscreet, too heedless of those conventions on which social relationsare based, too determined a follower after the flitting light of her owndesires. Presently the position of Beadon Clarke in the Constantinople_menage_ was touched upon, and suddenly Dion found himself imagining howit would be to have as his wife a Mrs. Clarke. Suppose Rosamund wereto develop the unconventional idiosyncrasies of a Cynthia Clarke? Herealized at once that he was not a Beadon Clarke; he could never standthat sort of thing. He felt hot at the mere thought of his Rosamundmaking night expeditions in caiques alone with young men--such, forinstance, as Hadi Bey; or listening alone at midnight in a gardenpavilion isolated, shaded by trees, to the music made by a Dumeny. 

Dumeny! The Judge pronounced his name. 

"I come now to the respondent's relation with the second co-respondent, Aristide Dumeny of the French Embassy in Constantinople. "

Dion leaned slightly forward and looked at Dumeny. Dumeny was sittingbolt upright, and now, as the Judge mentioned his name, he folded hisarms, raised his long dark eyes, and gazed steadily at the bench. Did heknow that he was the danger in the case? If he did he did not show anyapprehension. His white face, typically French, with its rather longnose, slightly flattened temples, faintly cynical and ironic lipsand small but obstinate chin, was almost sinister in its completeimmobility. 

"He's certainly a corrupt beast, " Dion said to himself. "But ascertainly he's an interesting, clever, knowledgeable beast. "

Dumeny's very thick, glossy, and slightly undulating dark hair, growingclosely round his low forehead, helped to make him almost romanticallyhandsome, although his features were rather irregular. His white earswere abnormally small, Dion noticed. 

The Judge went with cold minuteness into every detail of Dumeny'sintimacy with Mrs. Clarke that had been revealed in the trial, and dwelton the link of music which, it was said, had held them together. 

"Music stimulates the passions, and may, in highly sensitive persons, generate impulses not easy to control, provided that the situationin which such persons find themselves, when roused and stirred, is propitious. It has been given in evidence that Monsieur Dumenyfrequently played and sang to the respondent till late in the night inthe pavilion which has been described to you. You have seen MonsieurDumeny in the box, and can judge for yourselves whether he was a manlikely to avail himself of any advantage his undoubted talents may havegiven him with a highly artistic and musical woman. "

There was nothing striking in the words, but to Dion the Judge's voiceseemed slightly changed as it uttered the last sentence. Surely a frigidseverity had crept into it, surely it was colored with a faint, butdefinite, contempt. Several of the jury started narrowly at AristideDumeny, and the foreman, with a care and precision almost ostentatious, took a note. 

The Judge continued his analysis of Mrs. Clarke's intimacy with Dumeny. He was scrupulously fair; he gave full weight to the mutual attractionwhich may be born out of common intellectual tastes--an attractionpossibly quite innocent, quite free from desire of anything but food forthe brain, the subtler emotions, and the soul "if you like to callit so, gentlemen. " But, somehow, he left upon the mind of Dion, andprobably upon the minds of many others, an impression that he, theJudge, was doubtful as to the sheer intellectuality of Monsieur Dumeny, was not convinced that he had reached that condition of moral serenityand purification in which a rare woman can be happily regarded as a sortof disembodied spirit. 

When the Judge at length finished with Dumeny and Dumeny's relationswith Mrs. Clarke, Dion felt very anxious about the verdict. The Judgehad not succeeded in making him believe that Mrs. Clarke was a guiltywoman, but he feared that the jury had been made doubtful. It wasevident to him that the Judge had a bad opinion of Dumeny, and hadconveyed his opinion to the jury. Was the unwisdom of Mrs. Clarke toprove her undoing? Esme Darlington was pulling his ducal beard almostnervously. A faint hum went through the densely packed court. Mrs. Chetwinde moved and used her fan for a moment. Dion did not dare to lookat Guy Daventry. He was realizing, with a sort of painful sharpness, howgreat a change a verdict against Mrs. Clarke must make in her life. 

Her boy, perhaps, probably indeed, would be taken from her. She had onlyspoken to him casually about her boy, but he had felt that the casualreference did not mean that she had a careless heart. The woman whosehand had held his for a moment would be tenacious in love. He felt sureof that, and sure that she loved her naughty boy with a strong vitality. 

When the Judge had finished his task and the jury retired to considertheir verdict, it was past four o'clock. 

"What do you think?" Dion said in a low voice to Mrs. Chetwinde. 

"About the summing-up?"

"Yes. "

"It has left things very much as I expected. Any danger there is lies inMonsieur Dumeny. "

"Do you know him?"

"Oh, yes. I stayed with Cynthia once in Constantinople. He took usabout. "

She made no further comment on Monsieur Dumeny. 

"I wonder whether the jury will be away long?" Dion said, after amoment. 

"Probably. I shan't be at all surprised if they can't agree. Then therewill be another trial. "

"How appalling!"

"Yes, it wouldn't be very nice for Cynthia. "

"I can't help wishing----"

He paused, hesitating. 

"Yes?" said Mrs. Chetwinde, looking about the court. 

"I can't help wishing Mrs. Clarke hadn't been unconventional in quitesuch a public way. "

A faint smile dawned and faded on Mrs. Chetwinde's lips and in her paleeyes. 

"The public method's often the safest in the end, " she murmured. 

Then she nodded to Esme Darlington, who presently got up and managed tomake his way to them. He, too, thought the jury would probably disagree, and considered the summing-up rather unfavorable to Mrs. Clarke. 

"People who live in the diplomatic world live in a whispering gallery, "he said, bending down, speaking in an under-voice and lifting andlowering his eyebrows. "I told Cynthia so when she married. I venturedto give her the benefit of my--if I may say so--long and intimateknowledge of diplomatic life and diplomatists. I said to her, 'Rememberyou can _always_ be under observation. ' Ah, well--one can only hopethe jury will take the right view. But how can we expect Britishshopkeepers, fruit brokers, cigar merchants, and so forth to understanda--really, one can only say--a wild nature like Cynthia's? It's a wildmind--I'd say this before her!--in an innocent body, just that. "

He pulled almost distractedly at his beard with bony fingers, andrepeated plaintively:

"A wild mind in an innocent body--h'm, ha!"

"If only Mr. Grundy can be brought to comprehension of such aphenomenon!" murmured Mrs. Chetwinde. 

It was obvious to Dion that his two friends feared for the result. 

The Judge had left the bench. An hour passed by, and the chime of aclock striking five dropped down coolly, almost frostily, to the hot andcurious crowd. Mrs. Clarke sat very still. Esme Darlington had returnedto his place beside her, and she spoke to him now and then. HadiBey wiped his handsome rounded brown forehead with a colored silkhandkerchief; and Aristide Dumeny, with half-closed eyes, ironicallyexamined the crowd, whispered to a member of his Embassy who hadaccompanied him into court, folded his arms and sat looking down. BeadonClarke's face was rigid, and a fierce red, like the red of a blush ofshame, was fixed on his cheeks. His mother had pulled a thick black veilwith a pattern down over her face, and was fidgeting perpetually with achain of small moonstones set in gold which hung from her throat to herwaist. Daventry, blinking and twitching, examined documents, usedhis handkerchief, glanced at his watch, hitched his gown up on hisshoulders, looked at Mrs. Clarke and looked away. 

Uneasiness, like a monster, seemed crouching in the court as in a lair. 

At a quarter-past five, the Judge returned to the bench. He had receiveda communication from the jury, who filed in, to say, through theirforeman, that they could not agree upon a verdict. A parley tookplace between the foreman and the Judge, who made inquiry about theirdifficulties, answered two questions, and finally dismissed them tofurther deliberations, urging them strongly to try to arrive at anunanimous conclusion. 

"I am willing to stay here till nightfall, " he said, in a loud andalmost menacing voice, "if there is any chance of a verdict. "

The jury, looking weary, harassed and very hot, once more disappeared, the Judge left the bench, and the murmuring crowd settled down toanother period of waiting. 

To Dion it seemed that a great tragedy was impending. Already Mrs. Clarke had received a blow. The fact that the jury had publiclyannounced their disagreement would be given out to all the world by thenewspapers, and must surely go against Mrs. Clarke even if she got averdict ultimately. 

"Do you think there is any chance still?" he said to Mrs. Chetwinde. 

"Oh, yes. As I told you, Cynthia always manages to get what she wants. "

"I shouldn't think she can ever have wanted anything so much as shewants the right verdict to-day. "

"I don't know that, " Mrs. Chetwinde replied, with a rather disconcertingdryness. 

She was using her fan slowly and monotonously, as if, perhaps, she weretrying to make her mind calm by the repetition of a physical act. 

"I'm sorry the foreman said they couldn't agree, " Dion said, almost ina whisper. "Even if the verdict is for Mrs. Clarke, I'm afraid that willgo against her. "

"If she wins she wins, and it's all right. Cynthia's not the sort ofwoman who cares much what the world thinks. The only thing that reallymatters is what the world does; and if she gets the verdict the worldwon't do anything--except laugh at Beadon Clarke. "

A loud buzz of conversation rose from the court. Presently the lightbegan to fade, and the buzz faded with it; then some lights were turnedon, and there was a crescendo of voices. It was possible to see moreclearly the multitude of faces, all of them hot, nearly all of themexcited and expressive. A great many people were standing, packedclosely together and looking obstinate in their determined curiosity. Most of them were either staring at, or were trying to stare at Mrs. Clarke, who was now talking to her solicitor. Esme Darlington waseating a meat lozenge and frowning, evidently discomposed by the jury'sdilemma. Lady Ermyntrude Clarke had lifted her veil and was whisperingeagerly to her son, bending her head, and emphasizing her remarks withexcited gestures which seemed to suggest the energy of one alreadyuplifted by triumph. Beadon Clarke listened with the passivity of a manencompassed by melancholy, and sunk deep in the abyss of shame. Aristide Dumeny was reading a letter which he held with long-fingered, waxen-white hands very near to his narrow dark eyes. His close-growingthick hair looked more glossy now that there was artificial light inthe court; from the distance its undulations were invisible, and itresembled a cap of some heavy and handsome material drawn carefully downover his head. Hadi Bey retained his vivid, alert and martial demeanor. He was twisting his mustaches with a muscular brown hand, not nervously, but with a careless and almost a lively air. Many women gazed at himas if hypnotized; they found the fez very alluring. It carried theirthoughts to the East; it made them feel that the romance of the East wasnot very far from them. Some of them wished it very near, and thought ofhusbands in silk hats, bowlers, and flat caps of Harris tweed withthe dawning of a dull distaste. The woman just behind Dion was talkingbusily to her neighbor. Dion heard her say:

"Some women always manage to have a good time. I wish I was one of them. Dick is a dear, but still----" She whispered for a minute or two; thenout came her voice with, "There must be great chances for a woman inthe diplomatic world. I knew a girl who married an _attache_ and wentto Bucharest. You can have no idea what the Roumanians----" whisper, whisper, whisper. 

That woman was envying Mrs. Clarke, it seemed, but surely not envyingher innocence. Dion began to be conscious of faint breaths from thefurnace of desire, and suddenly he saw the gaunt and sickly-smiling headof hypocrisy, like the flat and tremulously moving head of a serpent, lifted up above the court. Only a little way off Robin, now better, butstill "not quite the thing, " was lying in his cozy cot in the nursery ofNo. 5 Little Market Street, with Rosamund sitting beside him. The windowto-day, for once, would probably be shut as a concession to Robin'sindisposition. A lamp would be burning perhaps. In fancy, Dion sawRosamund's head lit up by a gentle glow, her hair giving out littlegleams of gold, as if fire were caught in its meshes. How was it thather head always suggested to him purity; and not only her purity but thepurity of all sweet, sane and gloriously vigorous women--those womenwho tread firmly, nobly, in the great central paths of life? He did notknow, but he was certain that the head of no impure, of no lasciviouswoman could ever look like his Rosamund's. That nursery, holding littleRobin and his mother in the lamplight, was near to this crowded court, but it was very far away too, as far as heaven is from hell. It would begood, presently, to go back to it. 

Chime after chime dropped down frostily into the almost rancid heat ofthe court. Time was sending its warning that night was coming to London. 

An epidemic of fidgeting and of coughing seized the crowd, which wasevidently beginning to feel the stinging whip of an intense irritation. 

"What on earth, " said the voice of a man, expressing the thought whichbound all these brains together, "what on earth can the jury be up to?"

Surely by now everything for and against Mrs. Clarke must have beendiscussed _ad nauseam_. Only the vainest of repetitions could beoccupying the time of the jury. People began positively to hate thosetwelve uninteresting men, torn from their dull occupations to decide awoman's fate. Even Mrs. Chetwinde showed vexation. 

"This is really becoming ridiculous, " she murmured. "Even twelve foolsshould know when to give their folly a rest. "

"I suppose there must be one or two holding out against all argument andpersuasion. Don't you think so?" said Dion, almost morosely. 

"I dare say. I know a great deal about individual fools, but very littleabout them in dozens. The heat is becoming unbearable. "

She sighed deeply and moved in her seat, opening and shutting her fan. 

"She must be enduring torment, " muttered Dion. 

"Yes; even Cynthia can hardly be proof against this intolerable delay. "

Another dropping down of chimes: eight o'clock! A long murmur wentthrough the crowd. Some one said: "They're coming at last. "

Every one moved. Instinctively Dion leant forward to look at Mrs. Clarke. He felt very much excited and nervous, almost as if his own fatewere about to be decided. As he looked he saw Mrs. Clarke draw herselfup till she seemed taller than usual. She had a pair of gloves inher lap, and she now began to pull one of these gloves on, slowly andcarefully, as if she were thinking about what she was doing. The juryfiled in looking feverish, irritable and battered. Three or four of themshowed piteous and injured expressions. Two others had the peculiar lookof obstinate men who have been giving free rein to their vice, indulgingin an orgy of what they call willpower. Their faces were, at the sametime, implacable and ridiculous, but they walked impressively. The Judgewas sent for. Two or three minutes elapsed before he came in. Duringthose minutes there was no coughing and scarcely any moving. The silencein the court was vital. During it, Dion stared hard at the jury andstrove to read the verdict in their faces. Naturally he failed. Nomessage came from them to him. 

The Judge came back to the bench, looking weary and harsh. 

"Do you find that the respondent has been guilty or not guilty ofmisconduct with the co-respondent, Hadi Bey?" said the clerk of thecourt. 

"We find that the respondent has not been guilty of misconduct with HadiBey. "

After a slight pause, speaking in a louder voice than before, the clerkof the court said:

"Do you find that the respondent has been guilty or not guilty ofmisconduct with the co-respondent, Aristide Dumeny?"

"We find that the respondent has not been guilty of misconduct withAristide Dumeny. "

Dion saw the Judge frown. 

Slight applause broke out in the court, but it was fitful and uncertainand almost immediately died away. 

Mrs. Chetwinde said in a low voice, almost as if to herself:

"Cynthia has got what she wants--again. "

Then, after the formalities, the crowd was in movement; the weary andexcited people, their curiosity satisfied at last, began to melt away;the young barristers hurried out, eagerly discussing the rights andwrongs of the case; and Mrs. Clarke's adherents made their way to her tooffer her their congratulations. 

Daventry was triumphant. He shook his client's hand, held it, shookit again, and could scarcely find words to express his excitement anddelight. Even Esme Darlington's usual careful serenity was for themoment obscured by an emotion eminently human, as he spoke into Mrs. Clarke's ear the following words of a ripe wisdom:

"Cynthia, my dear, after this do take my advice and live as others live. In a conventional world conventionality is the line of least resistance. Don't turn to the East unless the whole congregation does it. "

"I shall never forget your self-sacrifice in facing the crowd with meto-day, dear Esme, " was her answer. "I know how much it cost you. "

"Oh, as to that, for an old friend--h'm, ha!"

His voice failed in his beard. He drew forth a beautiful Indianhandkerchief--a gift from his devoted friend the Viceroy of India--andpassed it over a face which looked unusually old. 

Mrs. Chetwinde said:

"I expected you to win, Cynthia. It was stupid of the jury to be soslow in arriving at the inevitable verdict. But stupid people are aslethargic as silly ones are swift. How shall we get to the carriage? Wecan't go out by the public exit. I hear the crowd is quite enormous, andwon't move. We must try a side door, if there is one. "

Then Dion held Mrs. Clarke's hand, and looked down at her haggard butstill self-possessed face. It astonished him to find that she preservedher earnestly observant expression. 

"I'm very glad, " was all he found to say. 

"Thank you, " she replied, in a voice perhaps slightly more husky thanusual. "I mean to stay on in London for some time. I've got lots ofthings to settle"--she paused--"before I go back to Constantinople. "

"But are you really going back?"

"Of course--eventually. "

Her voice, nearly drowned by the noise of people departing from thecourt, sounded to him implacable. 

"You heard the hope of the Court that my husband and I would cometogether again? Of course we never shall. But I'm sure I shall get holdof Jimmy. I know my husband won't keep him from me. " She stared at hisshoulders. "I want you to help me with Jimmy's physical education--Imean by getting him to that instructor you spoke of. "

"To be sure--Jenkins, " he said, marveling at her. 

"Jenkins--exactly. And I hope it will be possible for your wife and meto meet soon, now there's nothing against it owing to the verdict. "

"Thank you. "

"Do tell her, and see if we can arrange it. "

Dumeny at this moment passed close to them with his friend on his wayout of court. His eyes rested on Mrs. Clarke, and a faint smile wentover his face as he slightly raised his hat. 

"Good-by, " said Mrs. Clarke to Dion. 

And she turned to Sir John Addington. 

Dion made his way slowly out into the night, thinking of the unwise lifeand of the smile on the lips of Dumeny. 

CHAPTER VI

That summer saw, among other events of moment, the marriage of Beatriceand Daventry, the definite establishment of Robin as a power in hisworld, and the beginning of one of those noiseless contests which seempeculiar to women, and which are seldom, if ever, fully comprehended inall their bearings by men. 

Beatrice, as she wished it, had a very quiet, indeed quite ahole-and-corner wedding in a Kensington church, of which nobody had everheard till she was married in it, to the great surprise of its vicar, its verger, and the decent widow woman who swept its pews for a moderatewage. For their honeymoon she and Daventry disappeared to the Garden ofFrance to make a leisurely tour through the Chateaux country. 

Meanwhile Robin, according to his nurse, "was growing somethingwonderful, and improving with his looks like nothing I ever see before, and me with babies ever since I can remember anything as you may say, a dear!" His immediate circle of wondering admirers was becoming almostextensive, including, as it did, not only his mother and father, hisnurse, and the four servants at No. 5 Little Market Street, but alsoMrs. Leith senior, Bruce Evelin--now rather a lonely man--and Mr. Thrushof John's Court near the Edgware Road. 

At this stage of his existence, Rosamund loved Robin reasonably but witha sort of still and holy concentration, which gradually impinged uponDion like a quiet force which spreads subtly, affecting those in itsneighborhood. There was in it something mystical and, remembering herrevelation to him of the desire to enter the religious life which hadformerly threatened to dominate her, Dion now fully realized the truthof a remark once made by Mrs. Chetwinde about his wife. She had calledRosamund "a radiant mystic. "

Now changes were blossoming in Rosamund like new flowers coming up ina garden, and one of these flowers was a beautiful selfishness. So Dioncalled it to himself but never to others. It was a selfishness surelydeliberate and purposeful--an unselfish selfishness, if such a thing canbe. Can the ideal mother, Dion asked himself, be wholly without it? Allthat she is, perhaps, reacts upon the child of her bosom, the child wholooks up to her as its Providence. And what she is must surely be atleast partly conditioned by what she does and by all her way of life. The child is her great concern, and therefore she must guard sedulouslyall the gates by which possible danger to the child might strive toenter in. This was what Rosamund had evidently made up her mind to do, was beginning to do. Dion compared her with many of the woman of Londonwho have children and who, nevertheless, continue to lead haphazard, frivolous, utterly thoughtless lives, caring apparently little more forthe moral welfare of their children than for the moral welfare of theirPekinese. Mrs. Clarke had a hatred of "things with wings growing out oftheir shoulders. " Rosamund would probably never wish their son to havewings growing out of his shoulders, but if he had little wings on hissandals, like the Hermes, perhaps she would be very happy. With wingedsandals he might take an occasional flight to the gods. Hermes, ofcourse, was really a rascal, many-sided, and, like most many-sidedpeople and gods, capable of insincerity and even of cunning; but theHermes of Olympia, their Hermes, was the messenger purged, by Praxitelesof very bit of dross--noble, manly, pure, serene. Little Robin bore atpresent no resemblance to the Hermes, or indeed--despite the nurse'sstatements--to any one else except another baby; but already it wasbeginning mysteriously to be possible to foresee the greatadvance--long clothes to short clothes, short clothes to knickerbockers, knickerbockers to trousers. Robin would be a boy, a youth, a man, andwhat Rosamund was might make all the difference in that Trinity. Themystic who enters into religion dedicated her life to God. Rosamunddedicated hers to her boy. It was the same thing with a difference. Andas the mystic is often a little selfish in shutting out cries of theworld--cries sometimes for human aid which can scarcely be referred fromthe fellow-creature to God--so Rosamund was a little selfish, guided bythe unusual temperament which was housed within her. She shut out someof the cries that she might hear Robin's the better. 

Robin's sudden attack of illness during Mrs. Clarke's ordeal had beenovercome and now seemed almost forgotten. Rosamund had encountered thesmall fierce shock of it with an apparent calmness and self-possessionwhich at the time had astonished Dion and roused his admiration. A babyoften comes hardly into the world and slips out of it with the terribleease of things fated to far-off destinies. During one night Robinhad certainly been in danger. Perhaps that danger had taught Rosamundexactly how much her child meant to her. Dion did not know this; hesuspected it because, since Robin's illness, he had become much moresharply aware of the depth of mother-love in Rosamund, of the hoveringwings that guarded the nestling. That efficient guarding impliesshutting out was presently to be brought home to him with a definitenessleading to embarrassment. 

The little interruptions a baby brings into the lives of a marriedcouple were setting in. Dion was sure that Rosamund never thoughtof them as interruptions. When Robin grew much older, when he was introusers, and could play games, and appreciate his father's prowessand God-given capacities in the gymnasium, on the tennis lawn, over theplowland among the partridges, Dion's turn would come. Meanwhile, didhe actually love Robin? He thought he did. He was greatly interested inRobin, was surprised by his abrupt manifestations and almost hypnotizedby his outbursts of wrath; when Robin assumed his individual look ofmild inquiry, Dion was touched, and had a very tender feeling at hisheart. No doubt all this meant love. But Dion fully realized that hisfeeling towards Robin did not compare with Rosamund's. It was lessintense, less profound, less of the very roots of being. His love forRobin was a shadow compared with the substance of his love for Rosamund. How would Rosamund's two loves compare? He began to wonder, evensometimes put to himself the questions, "Suppose Robin were to die, how would she take it? And how would she take it if I were to die?" Andthen, of course, his mind sometimes did foolish things, asked questionsbeginning with, "Would she rather----?" He remembered his talks withRosamund on the Acropolis--talks never renewed--and compared the formerlife without little Robin, with the present life pervaded gently, orvivaciously, or almost furiously by little Robin. Among the mountainsand by the deep-hued seas of Greece he had foreseen and wondered aboutRobin. Now Robin was here; the great change was accomplished. ProbablyRosamund and he, Dion, would never again be alone with their love. Otherchildren, perhaps, would come. Even if they did not, Robin would pervadetheir lives, in long clothes, short skirts, knickerbockers, trousers. Hemight, of course, some day choose a profession which would carry him tosome distant land: to an Indian jungle or a West African swamp. But bythat time his parents would be middle-aged people. And how would theirlove be then? Dion knew that now, when Rosamund and he were still young, both less than thirty, he would give a hundred Robins, even if they wereall his own Robins, to keep his one Rosamund. That was probably quitenatural now, for Robin was really rather inexpressive in the midst ofhis most unbridled demonstrations. When he was calm and blew bubbles hehad charm; when he was red and furious he had a certain power; when hesneezed he had pathos; when he slept the serenity of him might be felt;but he would mean very much more presently. He would grow, and surelyhis father's love for him would grow. But could it ever grow to theheight, the flowering height, of the husband's love for Rosamund? Dionalready felt certain that it never could, that it was his destiny to behusband rather than parent, the eternal lover rather than the eternalfather. Rosamund's destiny was perhaps to be the eternal mother. She hadnever been exactly a lover. Perhaps her remarkable and beautifulpurity of disposition had held her back from being that. Force, energy, vitality, strong feelings, she had; but the peculiar something in whichbody seems mingled with soul, in which soul seems body and body soul, was apparently lacking in her. Dion had perhaps never, with fullconsciousness, missed that element in her till Robin made hisappearance; but Robin, in his bubbling innocence, and almost absurdconsciousness of himself and of others, did many things that were notunimportant. He even had the shocking impertinence to open his father'seyes, and to show him truths in a bright light--truths which, till now, had remained half-hidden in shadow; babyhood enlightened youth, theyouth persisting hardily because it had never sown wild oats. Robin didnot know that; he knew, in fact scarcely anything except when he wantednourishment and when he desired repose. He also knew his mother, knewher mystically and knew her greedily, with knowledge which seemed ofGod, and with an awareness whose parent was perhaps a vital appetite. At other people he gazed and bubbled but with a certain infantiledetachment, though his nurse, of course, declared that she had neverknown a baby to take such intelligent notice of all created thingsin its neighborhood. "He knows, " she asseverated, with the air of oneversed in mysteries, "he knows, does little master, who's who as well asany one, and a deal better than some that prides themselves on this andthat, a little upsy-daisy-dear!"

Mrs. Leith senior paid him occasional visits, which Dion found justthe least bit trying. Since Omar had been killed, Dion had felt moresolicitous about his mother, who had definitely refused ever to haveanother dog. If he had been allowed to give her a dog he would have feltmore easy about her, despite Beatrice's quiet statement of why Omar hadmeant so much. As he might not do that, he begged his mother to comevery often to Little Market Street and to become intimate with Robin. But when he saw her with Robin he was generally embarrassed, althoughshe was obviously enchanted with that gentleman, for whose benefit shewas amazingly prodigal of nods and becks and wreathed smiles. It wasa pity, he thought, that his mother was at moments so apparentlyelaborate. He felt her elaboration the more when it was contrasted withthe transparent simplicity of Rosamund. Even Robin, he fancied, wasat moments rather astonished by it, and perhaps pushed on towards acriticism at present beyond the range of his powers. But Mrs. Leith'scomplete self-possession, even when immersed in the intricacies of ababy-language totally unintelligible to her son, made it impossible togive her a hint to be a little less--well, like herself when at No. 5. So he resigned himself to a faint discomfort which he felt sure wasshared by Rosamund, although neither of them ever spoke of it. But theynever discussed his mother, and always assumed that she was ideal bothas mother-in-law and grandmother. She was Robin's godmother and hadgiven him delightful presents. Bruce Evelin and Daventry were hisgodfathers. 

Bruce Evelin now lived alone in the large house in Great CumberlandPlace. He made no complaint of his solitude, which indeed he might besaid to have helped to bring about by his effective, though speechless, advocacy of Daventry's desire. But it was obvious to affectionate eyesthat he sometimes felt rather homeless, and that he was happy to be inthe little Westminster home where such a tranquil domesticity reigned. Dion sometimes felt as if Bruce Evelin were watching over that home ina wise old man's way, rather as Rosamund watched over Robin, with adeep and still concentration. Bruce Evelin had, he confessed, "agreat feeling" for Robin, whom he treated with quiet common sense asa responsible entity, bearing, with a matchless wisdom, that entity'soccasional lapses from decorum. Once, for instance, Robin chose BruceEvelin's arms unexpectedly as a suitable place to be sick in, withoutdrawing down upon himself any greater condemnation than a quiet, "Howlucky he selected a godfather as his receptacle!"

And Mr. Thrush of John's Court? One evening, when he returned home, Dionfound that old phenomenon in the house paying his respects to Robin. Hewas quite neatly dressed, and wore beneath a comparatively clean collara wisp of black tie that was highly respectable, though his top hat, deposited in the hall, was still as the terror that walketh in darkness. His poor old gray eyes were pathetic, and his long, battered old facewas gently benign; but his nose, fiery and tremendous as ever, stillmade proclamation of his "failing. " Dion knew that Mr. Thrush hadalready been two or three times to see Robin, and had wondered about itwith some amusement. "Where will your cult for Mr. Thrush lead you?"he had laughingly said to Rosamund. And then he had forgotten "thephenomenon, " as he sometimes called Mr. Thrush. But now, when heactually beheld Mr. Thrush in his house, seated on a chair in thenursery, with purple hands folded over a seedy, but carefully brushed, black coat, he genuinely marveled. 

Mr. Thrush rose up at his entrance, quite unself-conscious andself-possessed, and as Dion, concealing his surprise, greeted thevisitor, Rosamund, who was showing Robin, remarked:

"Mr. Thrush has great ideas on hygiene, Dion. He quite agrees with usabout not wrapping children in cotton-wool. "

"Your conceptions are Doric, too, in fact?" said Dion to Thrush, in theslightly rough or bluff manner which he now sometimes assumed. 

"I wouldn't go so far as to say exactly that, sir, " said Mr. Thrush, speaking with a sort of gentleness which was almost refined. "Buthaving been a chemist in a very good way of business--just off HanoverSquare--during the best years of my life, I have my views, foolish orperhaps the reverse, on the question of infants. My motto, so far as Ihave one, is, _Never cosset_. "

He turned towards Robin, who, from his mother's arms, sent him a look ofmild inquiry, and reiterated, with plaintive emphasis, "_Never cosset!_"

"There, Dion!" said Rosamund, with a delicious air of genialappreciation which made Mr. Thrush gently glow. 

"And I'll go further, " pursued that authority, lifting a purple handand moving his old head to give emphasis to his deliverance, "I'llgo further even than that. Having retired from the pharmaceuticalbrotherhood I'll say this: If you can do it, avoid drugs. Chemists"--heleaned forward and emphatically lowered his voice almost to awhisper--"Chemists alone know what harm they do. "

"By Jove, though, and do they?" said Dion heartily. 

"Terrible, sir, terrible! Some people's insides that I know of--used toknow of, perhaps I should say--must be made of iron to deal with all themedicines they put into 'em. Oh, keep your baby's inside free from allsuch abominations!" (He loomed gently over Robin, who continued to stareat him with an expression of placid interrogation. ) "Keep it away fromsuch things as the Sampson Syrup, Mother Maybrick's infant tablets, Price's purge for the nursery, Tinkler's tone-up for tiny tots, AdaLane's pills for the poppets, and above and before all, from ProfessorJeremiah T. Iplock's 'What baby wants' at two-and-sixpence the bottle, or in tabloid form for the growing child, two-and-eight the box. Keephis inside clear of all such, and you'll be thankful, and he'll blessyou both on his bended knees when he comes to know his preservation. "

"He'll never have them, Mr. Thrush, " said Rosamund, with a sober voiceand twinkling eyes. "Never. "

"Bless you, ma'am, for those beautiful words. And now really I must begoing. "

"You'll find tea in the housekeeper's room, Mr. Thrush, as usual, " saidRosamund. 

"And very kind of you to have it there, I'm sure, ma'am!" the oldgentleman gallantly replied as he made his wavering adieux. 

At the door he turned round to face the nursery once more, lifted onehand in a manner almost apostolic, and uttered the final warning "_Nevercosset!_" Then he evaporated, not without a sort of mossy dignity, andmight be heard tremblingly descending to the lower regions. 

"Rose, since when do we have a housekeeper's room?" asked Dion, touchingRobin's puckers with a gentle fore-finger. 

"I can't call it the servants' hall to him, poor old man. And I like togive him tea. It may wean him from----" An expressive look closed thesentence. 

That night, at last, Dion drew from her an explanation of her Thrushcult. On the evening when Mr. Thrush had rescued her in the fog, as theywalked slowly to Great Cumberland Place, he had told her something ofhis history. Rosamund had a great art in drawing from people the storyof their troubles when she cared to do so. Her genial and warm-heartedsympathy was an almost irresistible lure. Mr. Thrush's present fatehad been brought about by a tragic circumstance, the death of his onlychild, a girl of twelve, who had been run over by an omnibus in OxfordCircus and killed on the spot. Left alone with a peevish, nagging wifewho had never suited him, or, as he expressed it, "studied" him in anyway, he had gone down the hill till he had landed near the bottom. Allhis love had been fastened on his child, and sorrow had not strengthenedbut had embittered him. 

"But to me he seems a gentle old thing, " Dion said, when Rosamund toldhim this. 

"He's very bitter inside, poor old chap, but he looks upon us asfriends. He's taken sorrow the wrong way. That's how it is. I'm tryingto get him to look at things differently, and Robin's helping me. "

"Already!" said Dion, smiling, yet touched by her serious face. 

"Yes. He's an unconscious agent. Poor old Mr. Thrush has never learntthe lesson of our dear Greek tombs: farewell! He hasn't been able to saythat simply and beautifully, leaving all in other hands. And so he's thepoor old wreck we know. I want to get him out of it if I can. He cameinto my life on a night of destiny too. "

But she explained nothing more. And she left Dion wondering just how shewould receive a sorrow such as had overtaken Mr. Thrush. Would she beable to submit as those calm and simple figures on the tombs which sheloved appeared to be submitting? Would she let what she loved pass awayinto the shades with a brave and noble, "Farewell"? Would she take thehand of Sorrow, that hand of steel and ice, as one takes the hand of afriend--stern, terrible, unfathomed, never to be fathomed in this world, but a friend? He wondered, but, loving her with that love which neverceased to grow within him, he prayed that he might never know. Sheseemed born to shed happiness and to be happy, and indeed he couldscarcely imagine her wretched. 

It was after the explanation of Mr. Thrush's exact relation to Rosamundthat the silent contest began in the waning summer when London wasrather arid, and even the Thames looked hot between its sluggish banksof mud. 

After the trial of her divorce case was over, Mrs. Clarke had leftLondon and gone into the country for a little while, to rest in a smallhouse possessed by Esme Darlington at Hook Green, a fashionable partof Surrey. At, and round about, Hook Green various well-known personsplayed occasionally at being rural; it suited Mrs. Clarke very well tostay for a time among them under Mr. Darlington's ample and eminentlyrespectable wing. She hated being careful, but even she, admonished byMr. Darlington, realized that immediately after emerging from the shadowof a great scandal she had better play propriety for a time. It reallymust be "playing, " for, as had been proved at the trial, she was athoroughly proper person who hadn't troubled to play hitherto. So sherested at Hook Green, till the season was over, with Miss Bainbridge, anold cousin of Esme's; and Esme "ran down" for Saturdays and Sundays, and"ran up" from Mondays to Saturdays, thus seeing something of the seasonand also doing his chivalrous devoir by "poor dear Cynthia who had hadsuch a cruel time of it. "

The season died, and Mr. Darlington then settled down for a while atPinkney's Place, as his house was called, and persuaded Mrs. Clarke tolengthen her stay there till the end of August. He would invite a few ofthe people likely to "be of use" to her under the present circumstances, and by September things would be "dying down a little, " with all theshooting parties of the autumn beginning, and memories of the pastseason growing a bit gray and moldy. Then Mrs. Clarke could do what sheliked "within reason, of course, and provided she gave Constantinoplea wide berth. " This she had not promised to do, but she seldom madepromises. 

Rosamund had expressed to Daventry her pleasure in the result of thetrial, but in the rather definitely detached manner which had alwaysmarked her personal aloofness from the whole business of the deciding ofMrs. Clarke's innocence or guilt. She had only spoken once again of thecase to Dion, when he had come to tell her the verdict. Then she hadsaid how glad she was, and what a relief it must be to Mrs. Clarke, especially after the hesitation of the jury. Dion had touched on Mrs. Clarke's great self-possession, and--Rosamund had begun to tell himhow much better little Robin was. He had not repeated to Rosamund Mrs. Clarke's final words to him. There was no necessity to do that justthen. 

Mrs. Clarke stayed at Hook Green till the end of August withoutmaking any attempt to know Rosamund. By that time Dion had come to theconclusion that she had forgotten about the matter. Perhaps she hadmerely had a passing whim which had died. He was not sorry, indeed, hewas almost actively glad, for he was quite sure Rosamund had no wish tomake Mrs. Clarke's acquaintance. At the beginning of September, however, when he had just come back to work after a month in camp which hadhardened him and made him as brown as a berry, he received the followingnote:

"CLARIDGE'S HOTEL, 2 September, 1897

"DEAR Mr. LEITH, --What of that charming project of bringing about ameeting between your wife and me? Esme Darlington is always talking ofher beauty and talent, and you know my love of the one and the other. Beauty is the consolation of the world; talent the incentive to actionstirring our latent vitality. In your marriage you are fortunate; inmine I have been unfortunate. You were very kind to me when things weretiresome. I feel a desire to see your happiness. I'm here arrangingmatters with my solicitor, and expect to be here off and on for severalmonths. Perhaps October will see you back in town, but if you happento be in this dusty nothingness now, you might come and see me oneday. --Yours with goodwill, "CYNTHIA CLARKE

"P. S. --My husband and I are separated, of course, but I have my boy agood deal with me. He will be up with me to-morrow. I very much want totake him to that physical instructor you spoke of to me. I forget thename. Is it Hopkins?"

As Dion read this note in the little house he felt the soft warm gripof Stamboul. Rosamund and Robin were staying at Westgate till the end ofSeptember; he would go down there every week from Saturday till Monday. It was now a Monday evening. Four London days lay before him. He putaway the letter and resolved to answer it on the morrow. This he did, explaining that his wife was by the sea and would not be back till theautumn. He added that the instructor's name was not Hopkins but Jenkins, and gave Mrs. Clarke the address of the gymnasium. At the end of hisshort note he expressed his intention of calling at Claridge's, but didnot say when he would come. He thought he would not fix the day and thehour until he had been to Westgate. On a postcard Mrs. Clarke thankedhim for Jenkins's address, and concluded with "Suggest your own day, or come and dine if you like. Perhaps, as you're alone, you'll preferthat. --C. C. "

At Westgate Dion showed Rosamund Mrs. Clarke's letter. As she read ithe watched her, but could gather nothing from her face. She was lookingsplendidly well and, he thought, peculiarly radiant. A surely perfecthappiness gazed bravely out from her mother's eyes, changed in somemysterious way since the coming of Robin. 

"Well?" he said, as she gave him back the letter. 

"It's very kind of her. Esme Darlington turns us all into swans, doesn'the? He's a good-natured enchanter. How thankful she must be that it'sall right about her boy. Oh, here's Robin! Robino, salute your father!He's a hard-bitten military man, and some day--who knows?--he'll haveto fight for his country. Dion, look at him! Now isn't he trying tosalute?"

"And that he is, ma'am!" cried the ecstatic nurse. "He knows, a boy!It's trumpets, sir, and drums he's after already. He'll fight some daywith the best of them. Won't he then, a marchy-warchy-umtums?"

And Robin made reply with active fists and feet and martial noises, assuming alternate expressions of severe decision almost worthy ofa Field-Marshal, and helpless bewilderment that suggested a startledpuppy. He was certainly growing in vigor and beginning to mean a gooddeal more than he had meant at first. Dion was more deeply interestedin him now, and sometimes felt as if Robin returned the interest, was beginning to be able to assemble and concentrate his faculties atcertain moments. Certainly Robin already played an active part in thelives of his parents. Dion realized that when, on the following Monday, he returned to town without having settled anything with regard to Mrs. Clarke. Somehow Robin had always intervened when Dion had drawn near tothe subject of the projected acquaintance between the woman who kept thedoor of her life and the woman who, innocently, followed the flittinglight of desire. There were the evenings, of course, but somehow theywere not propitious for a discussion of social values. Although Robinretired early, he was apt to pervade the conversation. And then Rosamundwent away at intervals to have a look at him, and Dion filled upthe time by smoking a cigar on the cliff edge. The clock struckten-thirty--bedtime at Westgate--before one had at all realized how lateit was getting; and it was out of the question to bother about thingson the edge of sleep. That would have made for insomnia. The questionof Mrs. Clarke could easily wait till the autumn, when Rosamund wouldbe back in town. It was impossible for the two women to know each otherwhen the one was at Claridge's and the other at Westgate. Things wouldarrange themselves naturally in the autumn. Dion never said to himselfthat Rosamund did not intend to know Mrs. Clarke, but he did say tohimself that Mrs. Clarke intended to know Rosamund. 

He wondered a little about that. Why should Mrs. Clarke be so apparentlykeen on making the acquaintance of Rosamund? Of course, Rosamund wasdelightful, and was known to be delightful. But Mrs. Clarke must knowheaps of attractive people. It really was rather odd. He decidedlywished that Mrs. Clarke hadn't happened to get the idea into her head, for he didn't care to press Rosamund on the subject. The week passed, and another visit to Westgate, and he had not been to Claridge's. In thesecond week another note came to him from Mrs. Clarke. 

"CLARIDGE'S, ETC. 

"DEAR Mr. LEITH, --I'm enchanted with Jenkins. He's a trouvaille. Myboy goes every day to the 'gym, ' as he calls it, and is getting onsplendidly. We are both grateful to you, and hope to tell you so. Comewhenever you feel inclined, but only then. I love complete liberty toowell ever to wish to deprive another of it--even if I could. How wise ofyour wife to stay by the sea. I hope it's doing wonders for the baby who(mercifully) isn't wonderful. --Yours sincerely, "CYNTHIA CLARKE"

After receiving this communication Dion felt that he simply must goto see Mrs. Clarke, and he called at the hotel and asked for her aboutfive-thirty on the following afternoon. She was out, and he left hiscard, feeling rather relieved. Next morning he had a note regretting shehad missed him, and asking him, "when" he came again, to let her knowbeforehand at what time he meant to arrive so that she might be in. Hethanked her, and promised to do this, but he did not repeat his visit. By this time, quite unreasonably he supposed, he had begun to feeldecidedly uncomfortable about the whole affair. Yet, when he consideredit fully and fairly, he told himself that he was a fool to imagine thatthere could be anything in it which was not quite usual and natural. He had been sympathetic to Mrs. Clarke when she was passing throughan unpleasant experience; he was Daventry's good friend; he was also afriend of Mrs. Chetwinde and of Esme Darlington; naturally, therefore, Mrs. Clarke was inclined to number him among those who had "stuck toher" when she was being cruelly attacked. Where was the awkwardness inthe situation? After denying to himself that there was any awkwardnesshe quite suddenly and quite clearly realized one evening that suchdenial was useless. There was awkwardness, and it arose simply fromRosamund's passive resistance to the faint pressure--he thought itamounted to that--applied by Mrs. Clarke. This it was which had givenhim, which gave him still, a sensation obscure, but definite, ofcontest. 

Mrs. Clarke meant to know Rosamund, and Rosamund didn't mean to knowMrs. Clarke. Well, then, the obvious thing for him to do was to keep outof Mrs. Clarke's way. In such a matter Rosamund must do as she liked. He had no intention of attempting to force upon her any one, howeversuitable as an acquaintance or even as a friend, whom she didn't wantto know. He loved her far too well to do that. He decided not to mentionMrs. Clarke again to Rosamund when he went down to Westgate; but somehowor other her name came up, and her boy was mentioned, too. 

"Is he still with his mother?" Rosamund asked. 

"Yes. He's nearly eleven, I believe. She takes him to Jenkins forexercise. She's very fond of him, I think. "

After a moment of silence Rosamund simply said, "Poor child!" and thenspoke of something else, but in those two words, said as she had saidthem, Dion thought he heard a definite condemnation of Mrs. Clarke. Hebegan to wonder whether Rosamund, although she had not read a full, or, so far as he knew, any account of the case in the papers, had somehowcome to know a good deal about the unwise life of Constantinople. Friends came to see her in London; she knew several people at Westgate;report of a _cause celebre_ floats in the air; he began to believe sheknew. 

At the end of September, just before Rosamund was to return to Londonfor the autumn and winter, Mrs. Clarke wrote to Dion again. 

"CLARIDGE'S, 28 September, 1897

"DEAR Mr. LEITH, --I'm so sorry to bother you, but I wonder whetheryou can spare me a moment. It's about my boy. He seems to me to havestrained himself with his exercises. Jenkins, as you probably know, hasgone away for a fortnight's holiday, so I can't consult him. I feel alittle anxious. You're an athlete, I know, and could set me right in amoment if I'm making a fuss about nothing. The strain seems to be in theright hip. Is that possible?--Yours sincerely, "CYNTHIA CLARKE"

Dion didn't know how to refuse this appeal, so he fixed an hour, wentto Claridge's, and had an interview with Mrs. Clarke and her son, Jimmy Clarke. When he went up to her sitting-room he felt ratheruncomfortable. He was thinking of her invitation to dinner, and to callagain, of his lack of response. She must certainly be thinking ofthem, too. But when he was with her his discomfort died away before hercompletely natural and oddly impersonal manner. Dinners, visits, seemedfar away from her thoughts. She was apparently concentrated on her boy, and seemed to be thinking of him, not at all of Dion. Had Dion been avain man he might have been vexed by her indifference; as he was notvain, he felt relieved, and so almost grateful to her. Jimmy, too, helped to make things go easily. The young rascal, a sturdy, good-looking boy, with dark eyes brimming over with mischief, tooktremendously to Dion at first sight. 

"I say, " he remarked, "you must be jolly strong! May I?"

He felt Dion's biceps, and added, with a sudden profound gravity:

"Well, I'm blowed! Mater, he's almost as hard as Jenkins. "

His mother gave Dion a swift considering look, and then at once beganto consult him about Jimmy's hip. The visit ended with an application byDion of Elliman's embrocation, for which one of the hotel page-boys wassent to the nearest chemist. 

"I say, mind you come again, Mr. Leith!" vociferated Jimmy, when Dionwas going. "You're better than doctors, you know. "

Mrs. Clarke did not back up her son's frank invitation. She only thankedDion quietly in her husky voice, and bade him good-by with an "I knowhow busy you must be, and how difficult you must find it ever to pay acall. You've been very good to us. " At the door she added, "I've neverseen Jimmy take so much to anyone as to you. " As Dion went down thestairs something in him was gently glowing. He was glad that youngrascal had taken to him at sight. The fact gave him confidence when hethought of Robin and the future. 

It occurred to him, as he turned into the Greville Club, that Mrs. Clarke had not once mentioned Rosamund during his visit. 

CHAPTER VII

When Rosamund, Robin and the nurse came back to London on the last dayof September, Beatrice and Daventry were settled in their home. Theyhad taken a flat in De Lorne Gardens, Kensington, high up on the seventhfloor of a big building, which overlooked from a distance the trees ofKensington Gardens. Their friends soon began to call on them, and oneof the first to mount up in the lift to their "hill-top, " as Daventrycalled their seventh floor, was Mrs. Clarke. A few nights after hercall the Daventrys dined in Little Market Street, and Daventry, whosehappiness had raised him not only to the seventh-floor flat, but alsoto the seventh heaven, mentioned that she had been, and that theywere going to dine with her at Claridge's on the following night. Heenlarged, almost with exuberance, upon her _savoir-vivre_, her knowledgeand taste, and said Beattie was delighted with her. Beatrice did notdeny it. She was never exuberant, but she acknowledged that she hadfound Mrs. Clarke attractive and interesting. 

"A lot of the clever ones are going to-morrow, " said Daventry. Hementioned several, both women and men, among them a lady who was famedfor her exclusiveness as well as for her brains. 

Evidently Mrs. Chetwinde had been speaking by the book when she had saidat the trial, "If she wins, she wins, and it's all right. If shegets the verdict, the world won't do anything, except laugh at BeadonClarke. " No serious impression had apparently been left upon society bythe first disagreement of the jury. The "wild mind in the innocent body"had been accepted for what it was. And perhaps now, chastened by a sadexperience, the wild mind was on the way to becoming tame. Dion wonderedif it were so. After dinner he was undeceived by Daventry, who told himover their cigars that Mrs. Clarke was positively going back to live inConstantinople, and had already taken a flat there, "against every one'sadvice. " Beadon Clarke had got himself transferred, and was to be sentto Madrid, so she wouldn't run against him; but nevertheless she wasmaking a great mistake. 

"However, " Daventry concluded, "there's something fine about herpersistence; and of course a guilty woman would never dare to go back, even after an acquittal. "

"No, " said Dion, thinking of the way his hand had been held in Mrs. Chetwinde's drawing-room. "I suppose not. "

"I wonder when Rosamund will get to know her, " said Daventry, withperhaps a slightly conscious carelessness. 

"Never, perhaps, " said Dion, with equal carelessness. "Often onelives for years in London without knowing, or even ever seeing, one'snext-door neighbor. "

"To be sure!" said Daventry. "One of London's many advantages, ordisadvantages, as the case may be. "

And he began to talk about Whistler's Nocturnes. Dion had neverhappened to tell Daventry about Jimmy Clarke's strained hip and his ownapplication of Elliman's embrocation. He had told Rosamund, of course, and she had said that if Robin ever strained himself she should doexactly the same thing. 

That night, when the Daventrys had gone, Dion asked Rosamund whethershe thought Beattie was happy. She hesitated for a moment, then she saidwith her usual directness:

"I'm not sure that she is, Dion. Guy is a dear, kind, good husband toher, but there's something homeless about Beattie somehow. She's livingin that pretty little flat in De Lorne Gardens, and yet she seems tome a wanderer. But we must wait; she may find what she's looking for. Ipray to God that she will. "

She did not explain; he guessed what she meant. Had she, too, been awanderer at first, and had she found what she had been looking for?While Rosamund was speaking he had been pitying Guy. When she hadfinished he wondered whether he had ever had cause to pity some oneelse--now and then. Despite the peaceful happiness of his married lifethere was a very faint coldness at, or near to, his heart. It came uponhim like a breath of frost stealing up out of the darkness to one who, standing in a room lit and warmed by a glowing fire, opens a window andlets in for a moment a winter night. But he shut his window quickly, andhe turned to look at the fire and to warm his hands at its glow. 

Mrs. Clarke rapidly established a sort of intimacy with the Daventrys. As Daventry had helped to fight for her, and genuinely delighted in herfaculties, this was very natural; for Beatrice, unlike Rosamund, wasapt to take her color gently from those with whom she lived, desiring toplease them, not because she was vain and wished to be thought charming, but because she had an unusually sweet disposition and wished tobe charming. She was sincere, and if asked a direct question alwaysreturned an answer that was true; but she sometimes fell in with anassumption from a soft desire to be kind. Daventry quite innocentlyassumed that she found Mrs. Clarke as delightful as he did. Perhapsshe did; perhaps she did not. However it was, she gently accepted Mrs. Clarke as a friend. 

Dion, of course, knew of this friendship; and so did Rosamund. She nevermade any comment upon it, and showed no interest in it. But her lifethat autumn was a full one. She had Robin; she had the house tolook after, "my little house"; she had Dion in the evenings; she hadquantities of friends and acquaintances; and she had her singing. Shehad now definitely given up singing professionally. Her very shortcareer as an artist was closed. But she had begun to practise diligentlyagain, and showed by this assiduity that she loved music not forwhat she could gain by it, but for its own sake. Of her friends andacquaintances she saw much less than formerly. Many of them complainedthat they never could get a glimpse of her now, that she shut themout, that "not at home" had become a parrot-cry on the lips of herwell-trained parlor-maid, that she cared for nobody now that she hada husband and a baby, that she was self-engrossed, etc. , etc. But theycould not be angry with her; for if they did happen to meet her, or ifshe did happen to be "at home" when they called, they always foundher the genial, radiant, kind and friendly Rosamund of old; full, apparently, of all the former interest in them and their doings, eager to welcome and make the most of their jokes and good stories, sympathetic towards their troubles and sorrows. To Dion she once saidin explanation of her withdrawal from the rather bustling life whichkeeping up with many friends and acquaintances implies:

"I think one sometimes has to make a choice between living deeply in theessentials and just paddling up to one's ankles in the non-essentials. I want to live deeply if I can, and I am very happy in quiet. I can hearonly in peace the voices that mean most to me. "

"I remember what you said to me once in the Acropolis, " he answered. 

"What was that?"

"You said, 'Oh, Dion, if you knew how something in me cares forfreshness and for peace. '"

"You remember my very words!"

"Yes. "

"Then you understand?"

"And besides, " he said slowly, and as if with some hesitation, "you usedto long for a very quiet life, for the religious life; didn't you?"

"Once, but it seems such ages ago. "

"And yet Robin's not a year old yet. "

She looked at him with a sudden, and almost intense, inquiry; he wassmiling at her. 

"Robino maestro di casa!" he added. 

And they both laughed. 

Towards the end of November one day Daventry said to Dion in theGreville Club:

"Beatrice is going to give a dinner somewhere, probably at the Carlton. She thought of the twenty-eighth. Are Rosamund and you engaged thatnight? She wants you, of course. "

"No. We don't go out much. Rose is an early rooster, as she calls it. "

"Then the twenty-eighth would do capitally. "

"Shall I tell Rose?"

"Yes, do. Beattie will write too, or tell Rosamund when she sees her. "

"Whom are you going to have?"

"Oh, Mrs. Chetwinde for one, and--we must see whom we can get. We'll tryto make it cheery and not too imbecile. "

As Daventry was speaking, Dion felt certain that the dinner had anobject, and he thought he knew what that object was. But he only said:

"It's certain to be jolly, and I always enjoy myself at the Carlton. "

"Even with bores?" said Daventry, unable to refrain from pricking abubble, although he guessed the reason why Dion had blown it. 

"Anyhow, I'm sure you won't invite bores, " said Dion, trying to preservea casual air, and wishing, for the moment, that he and his friend weredensely stupid instead of quite intelligent. 

"Pray that Beattie and I may be guided in our choice, " returnedDaventry, going to pick up the "Saturday Review. "

Rosamund said of course she would go on the twenty-eighth and helpBeattie with her dinner. She had accepted before she asked who werethe invited guests. Beattie, who was evidently quite guileless in thematter, told her at once that Mrs. Clarke was among them. Rosamund saidnothing, and appeared to be looking forward to the twenty-eighth. Sheeven got a new gown for it, and Dion began to feel that he had made amistake in supposing that Rosamund had long ago decided not to know Mrs. Clarke. He was very glad, for he had often felt uncomfortable about Mrs. Clarke, who, he supposed, must have believed that his wife did not wishto meet her, as her reiterated desire to make Rosamund's acquaintancehad met with no response. She had, he thought, shown the tact of a ladyand of a thorough woman of the world in not pressing the point, and innever seeking to continue her acquaintance, or dawning friendship, withhim since his wife had come back to town. He felt a strong desire nowto be pleasant and cordial to her, and to show her how charming andsympathetic his Rosamund was. He looked forward to this dinner as heseldom looked forward to any social festivity. 

On the twenty-sixth of November Robin had a cold! On the twenty-seventhit was worse, and he developed a little hard cough which was ratherpathetic, and which seemed to surprise and interest him a good deal. Rosamund was full of solicitude. On the night of the twenty-seventh shesaid she would sit up with Robin. The nurse protested, but Rosamund wassmilingly firm. 

"I want you to have a good night, Nurse, " she said. "You're too devotedand take too much out of yourself. And, besides, I shouldn't sleep. I should be straining my ears all the time to hear whether my boy wascoughing or not. "

Nurse had to give in, of course. But Dion was dismayed when he heard ofthe project. 

"You'll be worn out!" he exclaimed. 

"No, I shan't But even if I were it wouldn't matter. "

"But I want you to look your radiant self for Beattie's dinner. "

"Oh--the dinner!"

It seemed she had forgotten it. 

"Robin comes first, " she said firmly, after a moment of silence. 

And she sat up that night in an arm-chair by the nursery fire, ministering at intervals to the child, who seemed impressed andheartened in his coughings by his mother's presence. 

On the following day she was rather tired, the cough was not abated, andwhen Dion came back from business he learnt that she had telegraphed toBeattie to give up the dinner. He was very much disappointed. But shedid really look tired; Robin's cough was audible in the quiet house; thetelegram had gone, and of course there was nothing more to be done. Diondid not even express his disappointment; but he begged Rosamund to govery early to bed, and offered to sleep in a separate room if his returnlate was likely to disturb her. She agreed that, perhaps, that would bebest. So, at about eleven-thirty that night, Dion made his way to theirspare room, walking tentatively lest a board should creak and awakenRosamund. 

Everybody had missed her and had made inquiries about her, except Mrs. Clarke and Daventry. The latter had not mentioned her in Dion's hearing. But he was very busy with his guests. Mrs. Clarke had apparently notknown that Rosamund had been expected at the dinner, for when Dion, whohad sat next her, had said something about the unfortunate reason forRosamund's absence, Mrs. Clarke had seemed sincerely surprised. 

"But I thought your wife had quite given up going out since her childwas born?" she had said. 

"Oh no. She goes out sometimes. "

"I had no idea she did. But now I shall begin to be disappointed and tofeel I've missed something. You shouldn't have told me. "

It was quite gravely and naturally said. As he went into the spare room, Dion remembered the exact tone of Mrs. Clarke's husky voice in speakingit, the exact expression in her eyes. They were strange eyes, hethought, unlike any other eyes he had seen. In them there was often alook that seemed both intent and remote. Their gaze was very direct butit was not piercing. There was melancholy in the eyes but there was nodemand for sympathy. When Dion thought of the expression in Rosamund'seyes he realized how far from happiness, and even from serenity, Mrs. Clarke must be, and he could not help pitying her. Yet she never posedas _une femme incomprise_, or indeed as anything. She was absolutelysimple and natural. He had enjoyed talking to her. Despite her gravityshe was, he thought, excellent company, a really interesting womanand strongly individual. She seemed totally devoid of the littletiresomenesses belonging to many woman--tiresomenesses which spring outof vanity and affectation, the desire of possession, the uneasy wish to"cut out" publicly other women. Mrs. Clarke would surely never"manage" a man. If she held a man it would be with the listless and yetimperative grip of Stamboul. The man might go if he would, but--would hewant to go?

In thinking of Mrs. Clarke, Dion of course always considered her withthe detached spectator's mind. No woman on earth was of real importanceto him except Rosamund. His mother he did not consciously count amongwomen. She was to him just the exceptional being, the unique and homelymanifestation a devoted mother is to the son who loves her withoutthinking about it; not numbered among women or even among mothers. Shestood to him for protective love unquestioning, for interest in him andall his doings unwavering, for faith in his inner worth undying, for theEternities without beginning or ending; but probably he did not know it. Of Rosamund, what she was, what she meant in his life, he was intensely, even secretly, almost savagely conscious. In Mrs. Clarke he was moreinterested than he happened to be in any of the women who dwelt in thegreat world of those whom he did not love and never could love. 

Had the dinner-party he had just been to been arranged by Daventry inorder that Rosamund and Mrs. Clarke might meet in a perfectly naturalway? If so, it must have been Daventry's idea and not Mrs. Clarke's. Dion had a feeling that Daventry had been vexed by Rosamund's defection. He knew his friend very well. It was not quite natural that Daventryhad not mentioned Rosamund. But why should Daventry strongly wish Mrs. Clarke and Rosamund to meet if Mrs. Clarke had not indicated a desire toknow Rosamund? Daventry was an enthusiastic adherent of Mrs. Clarke's. He had, Dion knew, a chivalrous feeling for her. Having helped to winher case, any slight put upon her would be warmly resented by him. 

Had Rosamund put upon her a slight? Had she deliberately avoided thedinner?

Dion was on the point of getting into the spare-room bed when he askedhimself that question. As he pulled back the clothes he heard a drylittle sound. It was Robin's cough. He stole to the door and opened it. As he did so he saw the tail of Rosamund's dressing-gown disappearingover the threshold of the nursery. The nursery door shut softly behindher, and Dion got into bed feeling heartily ashamed of his suspicion. How low it was to search for hidden motives in such a woman as Rosamund. He resolved never to do that again. He lay in bed listening, but he didnot hear Robin's cough again, and he wondered if the child was alreadyold enough to be what nurses call "artful, " whether he had made use ofhis little affliction to get hold of his providence in the night. 

What a mystery was the relation of mother and little child! He lay fora long while musing about it. Why hadn't he followed Rosamund over thethreshold of the nursery just now? The mystery had held him back. 

Was it greater than the mystery of the relation of man to woman in alove such as his for Rosamund? He considered it, but he was certain thathe could not fathom it. No man, he felt sure, knew or ever could knowhow a mother like Rosamund, that is an intensely maternal mother, regarded her child when he was little and dependent on her; how sheloved him, what he meant to her. And no doubt the gift of the mother tothe child was subtly reciprocated by the child. But just how?

Dion could not remember at all what he had felt, or how he had regardedhis mother when he was nine months old. Presently he recalled Hermes andthe child in that remote and hushed room hidden away in the green wildsof Elis; he even saw them before him--saw the beautiful face of theHermes, saw the child's stretched-out arm. 

Elis! He had been wonderfully happy there, far away in the smilingwilderness. Would he ever be there again? And, if fate did indeed leadhis steps thither, would he again be wonderfully happy? Of one thing hewas certain; that he would never see Elis, would never see Hermes andthe child again, unless Rosamund was with him. She had made the greenwilderness to blossom as the rose. She only could make his life toblossom. He depended upon her terribly--terribly. Always that love ofhis was growing. People, especially women, often said that the love ofa man was quickly satisfied, more quickly than a woman's, that themasculine satisfaction was soon followed by satiety. Love such as thatwas only an appetite, a species of lust. Such a woman as Rosamund couldnot awaken mere lust. For her a man might have desire, but only thedesire that every great love of a man for a woman encloses. And howutterly different that was from physical lust. 

He thought of the maidens upholding the porch of the Erechtheion. HisRosamund descended from them, was as pure, as serene in her goodness, asbeautiful as they were. 

In thinking of the beloved maidens he did not think of them as marble. 

Before he went to sleep Dion had realized that, since Rosamund wasawake, the reason for his coming to the spare room did not exist. Nevertheless he did not go to their bedroom that night. Robin's littledry cough still sounded in his ears. To-night was Robin's kingdom. 

In a day or two Robin was better, in a week he was perfectly well. Ifhe had not chanced to catch cold, would Rosamund have worn that newevening-gown at the Carlton dinner?

On that question Dion had a discussion with Daventry which wasdisagreeable to him. One day Daventry, who had evidently been, insilence, debating whether to speak or not, said to him:

"Oh, Dion, d'you mind if I use a friend's privilege and say something Ivery much want to say, but which you mayn't be so keen to hear?"

"No, of course not. We can say anything to each other. "

"Can we? I'm not sure of that--now. "

"What d'you mean?"

"Oh, well--anyhow, this time I'll venture. Why did Rosamund throw usover the other night at almost the last moment?"

"Because Robin was ill. "

"He's quite well now. "

"Why not. It's ten days ago. "

"He can't have been so very ill. "

"He was ill enough to make Rosamund very anxious. She was up with himthe whole night before your dinner; and not only that, she was up againon the night of the dinner, though she was very tired. "

"Well, coming to our dinner wouldn't have prevented that--only eighttill ten-thirty. "

"I don't think, Guy, you at all understand Rosamund's feeling forRobin, " said Dion, with a sort of dry steadiness. 

"Probably not, being a man. "

"Perhaps a father can understand better. "

"Better? It seems to me one either does understand a thing or onedoesn't understand it. "

There was a not very attractive silence which Daventry broke by saying:

"Then you think if Beattie and I give another dinner at the Carlton--apiece of reckless extravagance, but we are made on entertaining!--Robinwon't be ill again?"

"Another dinner? You'll be ruined. "

"I've got several more briefs. Would Robin be ill?"

"How the deuce can any one know?"

"I'll hazard a guess. He would be ill. "

Dion reddened. There was sudden heat not only in his cheeks but alsoabout his heart. 

"I didn't know you were capable of talking such pernicious rubbish!" hesaid. 

"Let's prove whether it's rubbish or not. Beattie will send Rosamundanother dinner invitation to-morrow, and then we'll wait and see whathappens to Robin's health. "

"Guy, I don't want to have a quarrel with you. "

"A quarrel? What about?"

"If you imply that Rosamund is insincere, is capable of acting a part, we shall quarrel. Robin was really ill. Rosamund fully meant to go toyour dinner. She bought a new dress expressly for it. "

"Forgive me, old Dion, and please don't think I was attacking Rosamund. No. But I think sometimes the very sweetest and best women do have theirlittle bit of insincerity. To women very often the motive seems of moreimportance than the action springing from it. I had an idea that perhapsRosamund was anxious not to hurt some one's feelings. "

"Whose?"

After a slight hesitation Daventry said:

"Mrs. Clarke's. "

"Did Mrs. Clarke know that Rosamund accepted to go to your dinner?"asked Dion abruptly, and with a forcible directness that put the notunastute Daventry immediately on his guard. 

"What on earth has that to do with it?"

"Everything, I should think. Did she?"

"No, " said Daventry. 

"Then how could--?" Dion began. But he broke off, and added morequietly:

"Why are you so anxious that Rosamund should know Mrs. Clarke?"

"Well, didn't Mrs. Clarke ages ago express a wish to know Rosamund ifthe case went in her favor?"

"Oh, I--yes, I fancy she did. But she probably meant nothing by it, andhas forgotten it. "

"I doubt that. A woman who has gone through Mrs. Clarke's ordeal isgenerally hypersensitive afterwards. "

"But she's come out splendidly. Everybody believes in her. She's got herchild. What more can she want?"

"As she's such a great friend of ours I think it must seem very odd toher not knowing Rosamund, especially as she's good friends with you. D'you mind if we ask Rosamund to meet her again?"

"You've done it once. I should leave things alone. Mind, Rosamund hasnever told me she doesn't want to know Mrs. Clarke. "

"That may be another example of her goodness of heart, " said Daventry. "Rosamund seldom or never speaks against people. I'll tell you thesimple truth, Dion. As I helped to defend Mrs. Clarke, and as we wonand she was proved to be an innocent woman, and as I believe in her andadmire her very much, I'm sensitive for her. Perhaps it's very absurd. "

"I think it's very chivalrous. "

"Oh--rot! But there it is. And so I hate to see a relation of my own--Icount Rosamund as a relation now--standing out against her. "

"There's no reason to think she's doing that. "

An expression that seemed to be of pity flitted over Daventry'sintelligent face, and he slightly raised his eyebrows. 

"Anyhow, we won't bother you with another dinner invitation, " he said. 

And so the conversation ended. 

It left with Dion an impression which was not pleasant, and he could nothelp wondering whether, during the conversation, his friend had told hima direct and deliberate lie. 

No more dinners were given by Beattie and Daventry at the Carlton. Robin's health continued to be excellent. Mrs. Clarke was nevermentioned at 5 Little Market Street, and she gave to the Leiths no signof life, though Dion knew that she was still in London and was going tostay on there until the spring. He did not meet her, although she knewmany of those whom he knew. This was partly due, perhaps, to chance; butit was also partly due to deliberate action by Dion. He avoided going toplaces where he thought he might meet her: to Esme Darlington's, to Mrs. Chetwinde's, to one or two other houses which she frequented; he evengave up visiting Jenkins's gymnasium because he knew she continued togo there regularly with Jimmy Clarke, whom, since the divorce case, withhis father's consent, she had taken away from school and given to thecare of a tutor. All this was easy enough, and required but littlemanagement on account of Rosamund's love of home and his love of whatshe loved. Since Robin's coming she had begun to show more and moreplainly her root-indifference to the outside pleasures and attractionsof the world, was becoming, Dion thought, week by week, more cloistral, was giving the rein, perhaps, to secret impulses which marriage hadinterfered with for a time, but which were now reviving within her. Robin was a genuine reason, but perhaps also at moments an excuse. Wasthere not sometimes in the quiet little house, quiet unless disturbed bybabyhood's occasional outbursts, a strange new atmosphere, delicate andsubdued, which hinted at silent walks, at twilight dreamings, at slowlypacing feet, bowed heads and wide-eyed contemplation? Or was all thisa fancy of Dion's, bred in him by Rosamund's revelation of an old andhaunting desire? He did not know; but he did know that sometimes, whenhe heard her warm voice singing at a little distance from him withintheir house, he thought of a man's voice, in some dim and remote chapelwith stained-glass windows, singing an evening hymn in the service ofBenediction. 

In the midst of many friends, in the midst of the enormous City, Rosamund effected, or began to effect, a curiously intent withdrawal, and Dion, as it were, accompanied her; or perhaps it were truer to say, followed after her. He loved quiet evenings in his home, and the love ofthem grew steadily upon him. To the occasional protests of his friendshe laughingly replied:

"The fact is we're both very happy at home. We're an unfashionablecouple. "

Bruce Evelin, Esme Darlington and a few others, including, of course, Dion's mother and the Daventrys, they sometimes asked to come to them. Their little dinners were homely and delightful; but Mr. Darlingtonoften regretted plaintively their "really, if I may say so, almost toodefinite domesticity. " He even said to certain intimates:

"I know the next thing we shall hear of will be that the Leiths havedecided to bury themselves in the country. And Dion Leith will wreck hisnerves by daily journeys to town in some horrid business train. "

At the beginning of January, however, there came an invitation whichthey decided to accept. It was to an evening party at Mrs. Chetwinde's, and she begged Rosamund to be nice to her and sing at it. 

"Since you've given up singing professionally one never hears you atall, " she wrote. "I'm not going to tell the usual lie and say I'm onlyhaving a few people. On the contrary, I'm asking as many as my housewill hold. It's on January the fifteenth. "

It happened that the invitation arrived in Little Market Street by thelast post, and that, earlier in the day, Daventry had met Dion in theClub and had casually told him that Mrs. Clarke was spending the wholeof January in Paris, to get some things for the flat in Constantinoplewhich she intended to occupy in the late spring. Rosamund showed DionMrs. Chetwinde's note. 

"Let's go, " he said at once. 

"Shall we? Do you like these crowds? She says 'as many as my house willhold. '"

"All the better. There'll be all the more to enjoy the result of yourpractising. Do say yes. "

His manner was urgent. Mrs. Clarke would be in Paris. This party wascertainly no ingenuity of Daventry's. 

"We mustn't begin to live like a monk and a nun, " he exclaimed. "We'retoo young and enjoy life too much for that. "

"Do monks and nuns live together? Since when?" said Rosamund, laughingat him. 

"Poor wretches! If only they did, how much--!"

"Hush!" she said, with a smiling pretense of thinking of being shockedpresently. 

She went to the writing-table. 

"Very well, then, we'll go if you want to. "

"Don't you?" he asked, following her. 

She had sat down and taken up a pen. Now she looked up at him with hersteady eyes. 

"I'm sure I shall enjoy it when I'm there, " she answered. "I generallyenjoy things. You know that. You've seen me among people so often. "

"Yes. One would think you reveled in society if one only knew you inthat phase. "

"Well, I don't _really_ care for it one bit. I can't, because I nevermiss it if I don't have it. "

"I believe you _really_ care for very few things and for very fewpeople, " he said. 

"Perhaps that's true about people. "

"How many people, I wonder?"

"I don't think one always knows whom one cares for until somethinghappens. "

"Something?"

"Until one's threatened with loss, or until one actually does losesomebody one loves. I"--she hesitated, stretched out her hand, and drewsome notepaper out of a green case which stood on the table--"I hadabsolutely no idea what I felt for my mother until she died. She diedvery suddenly. "

Tears rushed to her eyes and her whole face suddenly reddened. 

"Then I knew!" she said, in a broken voice. 

Dion had never before seen her look as she was looking now. 

For a moment he felt almost as if he were regarding a stranger. Therewas a sort of heat of anger in the face, which looked rebellious in itsemotion; and he believed it was the rebellion in her face which made himrealize how intensely she had been able to love her mother. 

"Now I must write to Mrs. Chetwinde, " she said, suddenly bending overthe notepaper, "and tell her we'll come, and I'll sing. "

"Yes. "

He stood a moment watching the moving pen. Then he bent down and justtouched her shoulder with a great gentleness. 

"If you knew what I would do to keep every breath of sorrow out of yourlife!" he said, in a low voice. 

Without looking up she touched his hand. 

"I know you would. You could never bring sorrow into my life. "

From that day Dion realized what intensity of feeling lay beneathRosamund's serene and often actively joyous demeanor. Perhaps she caredfor very few people, but for those few she cared with a force surelyalmost abnormal. Her mother had now been dead for many years; neverbefore had Rosamund spoken of her death to him. He understood the reasonof that silence now, and from that day the desire to keep all sorrowfrom her became almost a passion in him. He even felt that its approachto her, that its cold touch resting upon her, would be a hateful andalmost unnatural outrage. Yet he saw all around him people closelycompanioned by sorrow and did not think that strange. Sorrow evenapproached very near to Rosamund and to him in that very month ofJanuary, for Beatrice had a miscarriage and lost her baby. She said verylittle about it, but Dion believed that she was really stricken to theheart. He was very fond of Beatrice, he almost loved her; yet her sorrowwas only a shadow passing by him, not a substance pressing upon him. Andthat fact, which he realized, made him know how little even imaginationand quiet affection can help men feel the pains of others. The heartknoweth only its own bitterness and the bitterness of those whom itdeeply and passionately loves. 

CHAPTER VIII

On January the fifteenth Rosamund put on the gown which had been boughtfor the Carlton dinner but not worn at it. 

Although she had not really wanted to go to Mrs. Chetwinde's party shelooked radiantly buoyant, and like one almost shining with expectation, when she was ready to start for Lowndes Square. 

"You ought to go out every night, " Dion said, as he put her cloak overher shoulders. 

"Why?"

"To enjoy and to give enjoyment. Merely to look at you would make thedullest set of people in London wake up and scintillate. Don't tell meyou're not looking forward to it, because I couldn't believe you. "

"Now that the war-paint is on I confess to feeling almost eager for thefray. How nicely you button it. You aren't clumsy. "

"How could I be clumsy in doing something for you? Where's your music?"

"In my head. Jennie will meet us there. "

Jennie was Rosamund's accompanist, a clever Irish girl who often came toLittle Market Street to go through things with Rosamund. 

"It will be rather delightful singing to people again, " she added in ajoyous voice as they got into the hired carriage. "I hope I've reallyimproved. "

"How you love a thing for itself!" he said, as they drove off. 

"I think that's the only way to love. "

"Of course it is. You know the only way to everything beautiful andsane. What I have learnt from you!"

"Dion, " she said, in the darkness, "I think you are rather a dangerouscompanion for me. "

"How can I be?"

"I'm not at all a piece of perfection. Take care you don't teach me tothink I am. "

"But you're the least conceited--"

"Hush, you encourager of egoism!" she interrupted seriously. 

"I'm afraid you'll find a good many more at Mrs. Chetwinde's. "

Dion thought he had been a true prophet half an hour later when, from alittle distance, he watched and listened while Rosamund was singing herfirst song. Seeing her thus in the midst of a crowd he awakened to thefact that Robin had changed her very much. She still looked splendidlyyoung but she no longer looked like a girl. The married woman and themother were there quite definitely. Even he fancied that he heard themin her voice, which had gained in some way, perhaps in roundness, in mellowness. This might be the result of study; he was inclined tobelieve it the result of motherhood. She was wearing ear-rings--tiny, not long drooping things, they were green, small emeralds; and heremembered how he had loved her better when he saw her wearing ear-ringsfor the first time in Mr. Darlington's drawing-room. How definite shewas in a crowd. Crowds effaced ordinary people, but when Rosamund wassurrounded she always seemed to be beautifully emphasized, to be mademore perfectly herself. She did not take, she gave, and in giving showedhow much she had. 

She was giving now as she sang, "Caro mio ben. "

Towards the end of the song, when Dion was deeply in it and in her whosang it, he was disturbed by a woman's whisper coming from close behindhim. He did not catch the beginning of what was communicated, but he didcatch the end. It was this: "Over there, the famous Mrs. Clarke. "

But Mrs. Clarke was in Paris. Daventry had told him so. Dion lookedquickly about the large and crowded room, but could not see Mrs. Clarke. Then he glanced behind him to see the whisperer, and beheld ahard-faced, middle-aged and very well-known woman--one of those womenwho, by dint of perpetually "going about, " become at length somethingless than human. He was quite sure Mrs. Brackenhurst would not makea mistake about anything which happened at a party. She might fail torecognize her husband, if she met him about her house, because he wasso seldom there; she would not fail to recognize the heroine of aresounding divorce case. Mrs. Clarke must certainly have returned fromParis and be somewhere in that room, listening to Rosamund and probablywatching her. Dion scarcely knew whether this fact made him sorry orglad. He did know, however, that it oddly excited him. 

When "Caro mio ben" was ended people began to move. Rosamund wassurrounded and congratulated, and Dion saw Esme Darlington bending toher, half paternally, half gallantly, and speaking to her emphatically. Mrs. Chetwinde drifted up to her; and three or four young men hoverednear to her, evidently desirous of putting in a word. The success ofher leaped to the eye. Dion saw it and glowed. But the excitement in himpersisted, and he began to move towards the far side of the great roomin search of Mrs. Clarke. If she had just come in she would probablybe near the door by which the pathetic Echo stood on her pedestal ofmarble, withdrawn in her punishment, in her abasement beautiful andwistful. How different was Rosamund from Echo! Dion looked across at herjoyous and radiant animation, as she smiled and talked almost with theeagerness and vitality of a child; and he had the thought, "How goodnesspreserves!" Women throng the secret rooms of the vanity specialists, put their trust in pomades, in pigments, in tinctures, in dyes; and theweariness and the sin become lustrous, perhaps, but never are hiddenor even obscured. His Rosamund trusted in a wholesome life, with airblowing through it, with sound sleep as its anodyne, with purity onguard at its door; and radiance and youth sparkled up in her likefountain spray in the sunshine. And the wholesomeness of her was a lureto the many even in a drawing-room of London. He saw powdered women, women with darkened eyebrows, and touched-up lips, and hair that hadforgotten long ago what was its natural color, looking at her, andhe fancied there was a dull wonder in their eyes. Perhaps they werethinking: "Yes, that's the recipe--being gay in goodness!" And perhapssome of them were thinking, too: "We've lost the power to follow thatrecipe, if we ever had it. " Poor women! With a sort of exultation hepitied them and their husbands. A chord was sounded on the piano. Hestood still. The loud buzz of conversation died down. Was Rosamundgoing to sing again so soon? Perhaps some one had begged for somethingspecially beloved. Jennie was playing a soft prelude as a gentle warningto a few of those who seem ever to find silence a physical difficulty. She stopped, and began to play something Dion did not know, somethingvery modern in its strange atmospheric delicacy, which neverthelessinstantly transported him to Greece. He was there, even before Rosamundbegan to sing in a voice that was hushed, in a far-off voice, notantique, but the voice of modernity, prompted by a mind looking awayfrom what is near to what is afar and is deeply desired. 

 "A crescent sail upon the sea, So calm and fair and ripple-free You wonder storms can ever be;

 A shore with deep indented bays, And o'er the gleaming water-ways A glimpse of Islands in the haze;

 A faced bronzed dark to red and gold, With mountain eyes that seem to hold The freshness of the world of old;

 A shepherd's crook, a coat of fleece, A grazing flock--the sense of peace, The long sweet silence--this is Greece. "

The accompaniment continued for a moment alone, whispering remoteness. Then, like a voice far off in a blue distance, there came again fromRosamund, more softly and with less pressure:

 "----The sense of peace, The long sweet silence--this is Greece! This is Greece!"

It was just then that Dion saw Mrs. Clarke. She had, perhaps, beensitting down; or, possibly, some one had been standing in front of herand had hidden her from him; for she was not far off, and he wonderedsharply why he had not seen her till now, why, till now, she hadrefrained from snatching him away from his land of the early morning. There was to him at this moment something actually cruel and painful inher instant suggestion of Stamboul. Yet she was not looking at him, butwas directing upon Rosamund her characteristic gaze of consideration, in which there was a peculiar grave thoroughness. A handsome, fairyoung man, with a very red weak mouth, stood close to her. Echo wasjust beyond. Without speaking, Mrs. Clarke continued looking at Rosamundintently, when the music evaporated, and Greece faded away into theshining of that distance which hides our dreams. And Dion noted again, with a faint creeping of wonder and of doubt, the strange haggardness ofher face, which, nevertheless, he had come to think almost beautiful. 

The fair young man spoke to her, bending and looking at her eagerly. She turned her head slowly, and as if reluctantly towards him, andwas evidently listening to what he said, listening with that apparentintentness which was characteristic of her. She was dressed in blackand violet, and wore a large knot of violets in her corsage. Round herthroat was clasped an antique necklace of dull, unshining gold, anddim purple stones, which looked beautiful, but almost weary withage. Perhaps they had lain for years in some dim bazaar of Stamboul, forgotten under heaps of old stuffs. Dion thought of them as slumbering, made drowsy and finally unconscious by the fumes of incense and theexhalations from diapered perfume vials. As he looked at Mrs. Clarke, the bare and shining vision of Greece, evoked by the song Rosamund hadjust been singing, faded; the peculiar almost intellectually delicateatmosphere of Greece was gone; and he saw for a moment the umber mysteryof Stamboul, lifted under tinted clouds of the evening beyond the watersof the Golden Horn; the great rounded domes and tapering speary minaretsof the mosques, couchant amid the shadows and the trailing and gauzysmoke-wreaths, a suggestion of dense masses of cypresses, those trees ofthe night which only in the night can be truly themselves, guarding theinnumerable graves of the Turkish cemeteries. 

From that moment he connected Mrs. Clarke in his mind with the cypress. Surely she must have spent very many hours wandering in those enormousand deserted gardens of the dead, where the very dust is poignant, and the cries of the sea come faintly up to Allah's children crumblingbeneath the stone flowers and the little fezes of stone. Mrs. Clarkemust love the cypress, for about her there was an atmosphere whichsuggested dimness and the gathering shadows of night. 

Greece and Stamboul, the land of the early morning and the wonder-cityof twilight; Rosamund and Mrs. Clarke, standing there for a moment, inthe midst of the shifting crowd, Dion traveled, compared, connected andwas alone in the soul's solitude. 

Then Mrs. Chetwinde spoke to him, and he saw Bruce Evelin in thedistance going towards Rosamund. 

Mrs. Chetwinde told him that Rosamund had made a great advance. 

"Now that she's given up singing professionally she's singing betterthan ever. That Grecian song is the distilled essence of Greece felt inour new way. For we've got our new way of feeling things. Rosamund tellsus she repeated the words to Jennie Stileman, and Jennie had them setby a young Athenian who's over here studying English. He catches thebutterfly, lets it flutter for a moment in his hand and go. He doesn'tjab a pin into it as our composers would. Oh, there's Cynthia! I hopeshe heard the last thing. "

"Yes, she did. "

"Ah?"

"I thought Mrs. Clarke was spending January in Paris. "

"She came back to-day, and sent round to ask if she might come. "

Mrs. Chetwinde wandered away, insouciant and observant as ever. Even ather own parties she always had an air of faintly detached indifference, never bothered about how "it" was "going. " If it chose to stop it could, and her guests must put up with it. 

When she left him Dion hesitated. Mrs. Clarke had just seen him and senthim a grave nod of recognition. Should he go to her? But the fair youngman was still at her side, was still, with his weak red mouth, talkinginto her ear. Dion felt a strange distaste as he saw those moving lipsunder the brushed-up, almost ridiculously small, golden mustache; andjust as he was conscious of this distaste Mrs. Clarke got rid of theyoung man, and spoke to a woman. Then she moved forward slowly. Mr. Chetwinde spoke to her, moving his ample fan-shaped beard, which alwayslooked Assyrian, though he was profoundly English and didn't know it. She drew nearer to Dion as she answered Mr. Chetwinde, but in a whollyunconscious manner. To-night she looked more haggard even than usual, no doubt because of the journey from Paris. But Mrs. Chetwinde had oncesaid of her: "Cynthia is made of iron. " Could that be true? She wasquite close to Dion now, and he was aware of a strange faint perfumewhich reminded him of Stamboul; and he realized here in Lowndes Squarethat Stamboul was genuinely fascinating, was much more fascinating thanhe had realized when he was in it. 

Mrs. Clarke passed him without looking at him, and he felt sure quiteunconscious of his nearness to her. Evidently she had forgotten allabout him. Just after she had gone by he decided that of course he oughtto go and speak to her, and that to-night he must introduce Rosamundto her. Not to do so would really be rude. Daventry was not there to bechivalrous. The illness of Beattie, and doubtless his own distress atthe loss of his unborn child, had kept him away. Dion thought that hewould be unchivalrous if he now neglected to make a point of speaking toMrs. Clarke and of introducing his wife to her. 

Having made up his mind on this he turned to follow Mrs. Clarke, and atonce saw that Esme Darlington, that smoother of difficult social places, was before him. A little way off he saw Mr. Darlington, with Rosamundwell but delicately in hand, making for Mrs. Clarke somewhat withthe gait of Agag. In a moment the thing was done. The two women werespeaking to each other, and Rosamund had sent to Mrs. Clarke one of herinquiring looks. Then they sat down together on that red sofa to whichMrs. Clarke had led Dion for his first conversation with her. EsmeDarlington remained standing before it. The full acquaintance was joinedat last. 

Were they talking about the baby? Dion wondered, as for a moment hewatched them, forgetting his surroundings. Rosamund was speaking withher usual swift vivacity. At home she was now often rather quiet, moving, Dion sometimes thought, in an atmosphere of wide serenity; butin society she was always full of sunshine and eager life. Somethingwithin her leaped up responsively at the touch of humanity, and to-nightshe had just been singing, and the whole of her was keenly awake. Thecontrast between her and Mrs. Clarke was almost startling: her radiantvitality emphasized Mrs. Clarke's curious, but perfectly natural, gravity; the rose in her cheeks, the yellow in her hair, the gaietyin her eyes, drew the attention to Mrs. Clarke's febrile and tenserefinement, which seemed to have worn her body thin, to have drainedthe luster out of her hair, to have fixed the expression of observantdistress in her large and fearless eyes. Animal spirits played throughRosamund to-night; from Mrs. Clarke they were absent. Her haggardcomposure, confronting Rosamund's pure sparkle, suggested the comparisonof a hidden and secret pool, steel colored in the depths of a sunlessforest, with a rushing mountain stream leaping towards the sea in atangle of sun-rays. Dion realized for the first time that Mrs. Clarkenever laughed, and scarcely ever smiled. He realized, too, that shereally was beautiful. For Rosamund did not "kill" her; her delicacy ofline and colorless clearness stood the test of nearness to Rosamund'sradiant beauty. Indeed Rosamund somehow enhanced the peculiarlyinteresting character of Mrs. Clarke's personality, which was displayed, but with a sort of shadowy reticence, in her physique, and at the sametime underlined its melancholy. So might a climbing rose, calling to theblue with its hundred blossoms, teach something of the dark truth of thecypress through which its branches are threaded. 

But Mrs. Clarke would certainly never be Rosamund's stairway towardsheaven. 

Some one he knew spoke to Dion, and he found himself involved in a longconversation; people moving hid the two women from him, but presentlythe piano sounded again, and Rosamund sang that first favorite of hersand of Dion's, the "Heart ever faithful, " recalling him to a dear dayat Portofino where, in a cozy room, guarded by the wintry woods and thegray sea of Italy, he had felt the lure of a faithful spirit, and knownthe basis of clean rock on which Rosamund had built up her house oflife. Bruce Evelin stood near to him while she sang it now, and oncetheir eyes met and exchanged affectionate thoughts of the singer, whichwent gladly out of the gates eager to be read and understood. 

When the melody of Bach was finished many people, impelled thereto bythe hearty giant whom Mrs. Chetwinde had most strangely married, wentdownstairs to the black-and-white dining-room to drink champagne and eatsmall absurdities of various kinds. A way was opened for Dion to Mrs. Clarke, who was still on the red sofa. Dion noticed the fair young manhovering, and surely with intention in his large eyes, in the middledistance, but he went decisively forward, took Mrs. Clarke's listlessyet imperative hand, and asked her if she would care to go down withhim. 

"Oh no; I never eat at odd times. "

"Do you ever eat at all?"

"Yes, at my chosen moments. Do find another excuse. "

"For going to eat?"

"Or drink. "

His reply was to sit down beside her. Mrs. Chetwinde's dining-room waslarge. People probably knew that, for the drawing-room emptied slowly. Even the fair young man went away to seek consolation below. Rosamundhad descended with Bruce Evelin and Esme Darlington. There was apleasant and almost an intimate hush in the room. 

"I heard you were to be in Paris this month, " Dion said. 

"I came back to-day. "

"Aren't you tired?"

"No. I want to speak to you about Jimmy, if you don't mind. "

"Please do, " said Dion rather earnestly, struck by a sort of little pangas he remembered the boy's urgent insistence that his visitor was tocome again soon. 

"I'm not quite satisfied with his tutor. "

She began to ask Dion's advice with regard to the boy's bringing up, explaining that her husband had left that matter in her hands. 

"He's very sorry and ashamed now, poor man, about his attacks on me, andtries to make up from a distance by trusting me completely with Jimmy. Idon't bear him any malice, but of course the link between us is smashedand can't ever be resoldered. I'm asking you what I can't ask himbecause he's a weak man. "

The implication was obvious and not disagreeable to Dion. He gaveadvice, and as he did so thought of Robin at ten. 

Mrs. Clarke was a remarkably sensible woman, and agreed with his viewson boys, and especially with his theory, suddenly discovered in thepresent heat of conversation, that to give them "backbone" was of evenmore importance than to develop their intellectual side. She spoke ofher son in a way that was almost male. 

"He mustn't be small, " she said, evidently comprehending both soul andbody in the assertion. "D'you know Lord Brayfield who was talking to mejust now?"

"You mean a fair man?"

"Yes, with a meaningless mouth. Jimmy mustn't grow up into anything ofthat kind. "

The conversation took a decidedly Doric turn as Mrs. Clarke developedher ideas of what a man ought to be. In the midst of it Dion rememberedDumeny, and could not help saying:

"But that type"--they had been speaking of what he considered to beRosamund's type of man, once described by her as "a strong soul in astrong body, and a soft heart but not a softy's heart"--"is almost thedirect opposite of the artistic type of man, isn't it?"

Her large eyes looked "Well?" at him, but she said nothing. 

"I thought you cared so very much for knowledge and taste in a man. "

"So I do. But Jimmy will never have knowledge and taste. He's theboisterous athletic type. "

"And you're glad?"

"Not sorry, at any rate. He'll just be a thorough man, if he's broughtup properly, and that will do very well. "

"I think you're very complex, " Dion said, still thinking of Dumeny. 

"Because I make friends in so many directions?"

"Well--yes, partly, " he answered, wondering if she was reading histhought. 

"Jimmy's not a friend but my boy. I know very well Monsieur Dumeny, forinstance, whom you saw, and I dare say wondered about, at the trial; butI couldn't bear that my boy should develop into that type of man. You'llsay I am a treacherous friend, perhaps. It might be truer to say I wasborn acquisitive and too mental. I never really liked Monsieur Dumeny;but I liked immensely his musical talent, his knowledge, his sure taste, and his power of making almost everything flower into interestingness. Do you know what I mean? Some people take light from your day; othersadd to its light and paint in wonderful shadows. If I went to thebazaars alone they were Eastern shops; if I went with Dumeny they werethe Arabian Nights. Do you understand?"

"Yes. "

"The touch of his mind on a thing gave it life. It stirred. One couldlook into its heart and see the pulse beating. I care to do that, so Icared to go about with Monsieur Dumeny. But one doesn't love people forthat sort of thing. In the people one loves one needs character, theright fiber in the soul. You ought to know that. "

"Why?" he asked, almost startled. 

"I was introduced to your wife just now. "

"Oh!"

There was a pause. Then Dion said:

"I'm glad you have met. "

"So am I, " said Mrs. Clarke, in a voice that sounded more husky eventhan usual. "She sang that Greek song quite beautifully. I've just beentelling her that I want to show her some curious songs I have heard inTurkey, and Asia Minor, at Brusa. There was one man who used to sing tome at Brusa outside the Mosquee Verte. Dumeny took down the melody forme. "

"Did you like the 'Heart ever faithful'?"

"Of course it's excellent in that sledge-hammer sort of way, a superbexample of the direct. Stamboul is very indirect. Perhaps it has coloredmy taste. It's full of mystery. Bach isn't mysterious, except now andthen--in rare bits of his passion music, for instance. "

"I wonder if my wife could sing those Turkish songs. "

"We must see. She sang that Greek song perfectly. "

"But she's felt Greece, " said Dion. "And I think there's something inher that----"

"Yes?"

"I only mean, " he said, with reserve in his voice, "that I think there'ssomething of Greece in her. "

"She's got a head like a Caryatid. "

"Yes, " he said, with much less reserve. "Hasn't she?"

Mrs. Clarke had paid his Rosamund two noble compliments, he thought; andhe liked her way of payment, casual yet evidently sincere, the simpleutterance of two thoughts in a mind that knew. He felt a sudden glow ofreal friendship for her, and, on the glow as it were, she said:

"Jimmy's quite mad about you. "

"Still?" he blurted out, and was instantly conscious of a false step. 

"He's got an extraordinary memory for a biceps, and then Jenkins talksabout you to him. "

As they went on talking people began coming up from the black-and-whitedining-room. Dion said he would come to see Jimmy again, would visit thegymnasium in the Harrow Road one day when Jimmy was taking his lesson. Did Jimmy ever go on a Saturday? Yes, he was going next Saturday atfour. Dion would look in next Saturday. Now Mrs. Clarke and Rosamund hadmet, and Mrs. Clarke evidently admired Rosamund in two ways, Dion feltquite different about his acquaintance with her. If it had already beenagreed that Mrs. Clarke should show Rosamund Turkish songs, there wasno need for further holding back. The relief which had come to him madeDion realize how very uncomfortable he had been about Mrs. Clarke inthe immediate past. He was now thoroughly and cordially at his ease withher. They talked till the big drawing-room was full again, till Rosamundreappeared in the midst of delightful friends; talked of Jimmy's future, of the new tutor who must be found, --a real man, not a mere bloodlessintellectual, --and, again, of Constantinople, to which Mrs. Clarke wouldreturn in April, against the advice of her friends, and in spite of EsmeDarlington's almost frantic protests, "because I love it, and because Idon't choose to be driven out of any place by liars. " Her last remark tohim, and he thought it very characteristic of her, was this:

"Liberty's worth bitterness. I would buy it at the price of all thetears in my body. "

It was, perhaps, also very characteristic that she made the statementwith a perfectly quiet gravity which almost concealed the evidentlytough inflexibility beneath. 

And then, when people were ready to go, Rosamund sung Brahm's"Wiegenlied. "

Dion stood beside Bruce Evelin while Rosamund was singing this. She sangit with a new and wonderful tenderness which had come to her with Robin, and in her face, as she sang, there was a new and wonderful tenderness. The meaning of Robin in Rosamund's life was expressed to Dion byRosamund in this song as it had never been expressed before. Perhapsit was expressed also to Bruce Evelin, for Dion saw tears in his eyesalmost brimming over, and his face was contracted, as if only by astrong, even a violent, effort he was able to preserve his self-control. 

As people began to go away Dion found himself close to Esme Darlington. 

"My dear fellow, " said Mr. Darlington, with unusual abandon, "Rosamundhas made a really marvelous advance--marvelous. In that 'Wiegenlied' shereached high-water mark. No one could have sung it more perfectly. Whathas happened to her?"

"Robin, " said Dion, looking him full in the face, and speaking withalmost stern conviction. 

"Robin?" said Mr. Darlington, with lifted eyebrows. 

Then people intervened. 

In the carriage going home Rosamund was very happy. She confessed to thepleasure her success had given her. 

"I quite loved singing to-night, " she said. "That song about Greece wasfor you. "

"I know, and the 'Wiegenlied' was for Robin. "

"Yes, " she said. 

She was silent; then her voice came out of the darkness:

"For Robin, but he didn't know it. "

"Some day he will know it. "

Not a word was said about Mrs. Clarke that night. 

On the following day, however, Dion asked Rosamund how she had likedMrs. Clarke. 

"I saw you talking to her with the greatest animation. "

"Was I?" said Rosamund. 

"And she told me it had been arranged that she should--no, I don't meanthat; but she said she wanted to show you some wonderful Turkish songs. "

"Did she? What a beautiful profile she has!"

"Ah, you noticed that!"

"Oh yes, directly. "

"Didn't she mention the Turkish songs?"

"I believe she did, but only in passing, casually. D'you know, Dion, I've got an idea that Greece is our country, not Turkey at all. You hateConstantinople, and I shall never see it, I'm sure. We are Greeks, andRobin has to be a Greek, too, in one way--a true Englishman, of course, as well. Do you remember the Doric boy?"

And off went the conversation to the hills of Drouva, and never cameback to Turkey. 

When Friday dawned Dion thought of his appointment for Saturdayafternoon at the gymnasium in the Harrow Road, and began to wish he hadnot made it. Rosamund had not mentioned Mrs. Clarke again, and he beganto fear that she had not really liked her, although her profile wasbeautiful. If Rosamund had not liked Mrs. Clarke, his cordial enthusiasmat Mrs. Chetwinde's--in retrospect he felt that his attitude and mannermust have implied that--had been premature, even, perhaps, unfortunate. He wished he knew just what impression Mrs. Clarke had made uponRosamund, but something held him back from asking her. He had asked heralready once, but somehow the conversation had deviated--was it to Mrs. Clarke's profile?--and he had not received a direct answer. Perhaps thatwas his fault. But anyhow he must go to the gymnasium on the morrow. To fail in doing that after all that had happened, or rather had nothappened, in connexion with Mrs. Clarke would be really rude. He didnot say anything about the gymnasium to Rosamund on Friday, but on theSaturday he told her what had been arranged. 

"Her son, Jimmy Clarke, has taken a boyish fancy to me, it seems. I saidI'd look in and see his lesson just for once. "

"Is he a nice boy?"

"Yes, first-rate, I should think, rather a pickle, and likely to developinto an athlete. The father is awfully ashamed now of what he did--thathorrible case, I mean--and is trying to make up for it. "

"How?" said Rosamund simply. 

"By giving her every chance with the boy. "

"I'm glad the child likes you. "

"I've only seen him once. "

"Twice won't kill his liking, " she returned affectionately. 

And then she went out of the room. She always had plenty to do. Smallthough he was, Robin was a marvelous consumer of his mother's time. 

When Dion got to the gymnasium Mrs. Clarke and Jimmy were already there, and Jimmy, in flannels and a white sweater, his dark hair sticking up indisorder, and his face scarlet with exertion, was performing feats withan exerciser fixed to the wall, while Mrs. Clarke, seated on a hardchair in front of a line of heavy weights and dumb-bells, was lookingon with concentrated attention. Jenkins was standing in front ofJimmy, loudly directing his movements with a stentorian:"One--two--one--two--one--two! Keep it up! No slackening! Put some gutsinto it, sir! One--two--one--two!"

As Dion came in Mrs. Clarke looked round and nodded; Jimmy stared, unable to smile because his mouth and lower jaw were working, and he hadno superfluous force to spare for polite efforts; and Jenkins uttered agruff, "Good day, sir. "

"How are you, Jenkins?" returned Dion, in his most off-hand manner. 

Then he jerked his hand at Jimmy with an encouraging smile, went over toMrs. Clarke, shook her hand and remained standing beside her. 

"Do you think he's doing it well?" she murmured, after a moment. 

"Stunningly. "

"Hasn't he broadened in the chest?"

"Rather!"

She looked strangely febrile and mental in the midst of the manyappliances for developing the body. Rosamund, with her splendid physiqueand glowing health, would have crowned the gymnasium appropriately, have looked like the divine huntress transplanted to a modern citywhere still the cult of the body drew its worshipers. The Arcadianmountains--Olympia in Elis, --Jenkins's "gym" in the HarrowRoad--differing shrines but the cult was the same. Only the conditionsof worship were varied. Dion glanced down at Mrs. Clarke. Never had sheseemed more curiously exotic. Yet she did not look wholly out of place;and it occurred to him that a perfectly natural person never lookswholly out of place anywhere. 

"Face to the wall, sir!" cried Jenkins. 

Jimmy found time for a breathless and half-inquiring smile at Dion as heturned and prepared for the most difficult feat. 

"His jaw always does something extraordinary in this exercise, " saidMrs. Clarke. "It seems to come out and go in again with a click. Jenkinssays it's because Jimmy gets his strength from there. "

"I know. Mine used to do just the same. "

"Jimmy doesn't mind. It amuses him. "

"That's the spirit!"

"He finishes with this. "

"Already?" said Dion, surprised. 

"You must have been a little late. How did you come?"

"On my bicycle. I had a puncture. That must have been it. And there wasa lot of traffic. "

"Keep it up, sir!" roared Jenkins imperatively. "What's the matter withthat left arm?"

Click went Jimmy's lower jaw. 

"Dear little chap!" muttered Dion, full of sympathetic interest. "He'sdoing splendidly. "

"You really think so?"

"Couldn't be better. "

"You understand boys?"

"Better than I understand women, I expect, " Dion returned, with a suddenthought of Rosamund at home and the wonderful Turkish songs Mrs. Clarkewished to show to her. 

Mrs. Clarke said nothing, and just at that moment Jenkins announced:

"That'll do for to-day, sir. "

In a flood of perspiration Jimmy turned round, redder than ever, hischest heaving, his mouth open, and his eyes, but without any conceit, asking for a word of praise from Dion, who went to clap him on theshoulder. 

"Capital! Hallo! What muscles we're getting! Eh, Jenkins?"

"Master Jimmy's not doing badly, sir. He puts his heart into it. That Imust say. "

Jimmy shone through the red and the perspiration. 

"He sticks it, " continued Jenkins, in his loud voice. "Without gritthere's nothing done. That's what I always tell my pupils. "

"I say"--began Jimmy, at last finding a small voice--"I say, Mr. Leith, you haven't hurried over it. "

"Over what?"

"Letting me see you again. Why, it's--"

"Run along to the bath, sir. You've got to have it before you cooldown, " interposed the merciless Jenkins. 

And Jimmy made off with an instant obedience which showed his privateopinion of the god who was training him. 

When he was gone Jenkins turned to Dion and looked him over. 

"Haven't seen much of you, sir, lately, " he remarked. 

"No, I've been busy, " returned Dion, feeling slightly uncomfortable ashe remembered that the reason for his absence from the Harrow Road waslistening to the conversation. 

"Going to have a round with the gloves now you are here, sir?" pursuedJenkins. 

Dion looked at Mrs. Clarke. 

"Well, I hadn't thought of it, " he said, rather doubtfully. 

"Just as you like, sir. "

"Do, Mr. Leith, " said Mrs. Clarke, getting up from the hard chair, andstanding close to the medicine ball with her back to the vaulting-horse. "Jimmy and I are going in a moment. You mustn't bother about us. "

"Well, but how are you going home?"

"We shall walk. Of course have your boxing. It will do you good. "

"You're right there, ma'am, " said Jenkins, with a sort of sternapproval. "Mr. Leith's been neglecting his exercises lately. "

"Oh, I've been doing a good deal in odd times with the Rifle Corps. "

"I don't know anything about that, sir. "

"All right, I'll go and change, " said Dion, who always kept a singletand flannels at the gymnasium. "Then----" he turned to Mrs. Clarke as ifabout to say good-by. 

"Oh, Jimmy will want to see you for a moment after his bath. We'll saygood-by then. "

"Yes, I should like to see him, " said Dion, and went off to the dressingcubicles. 

When he returned ready for the fray, with his arms bared to theshoulder, he found Jimmy, in trousers and an Eton jacket, with stilldamp hair sleeked down on his head, waiting with his mother, but not tosay good-by. 

"We aren't going, " he announced, in a voice almost shrill withexcitement, as Dion came into the gymnasium. "The mater was all for atrot home, but Jenkins wishes me to stay. He says it'll be a good lessonfor me. I mean to be a boxer. "

"Why not?" observed the great voice of Jenkins. "It's the best sport inthe world bar none. "

"There!" said Jimmy. "And if I can't be anything else I'll be a bantam, that's what I'll be. "

"Oh, you'll grow, sir, no doubt. We may see you among the heavy-weightsyet. "

"What's Mr. Leith? Is he a heavy-weight?" vociferated Jimmy. "Just lookat his arms. "

"You'll see him use them in a minute, " observed Jenkins, covering Dionwith a glance of almost grim approval, "and then you can judge foryourself. "

"You can referee us, Jimmy, " said Dion, smiling, as he pulled on thegloves. 

"I say, by Jove, though!" said Jimmy, looking suddenly overwhelmed andvery respectful. 

He shook his head and blushed, then abruptly grinned. 

"The mater had better do that. "

They all laughed except Mrs. Clarke. Even Jenkins unbent, and hisbass "Ha ha!" rang through the large vaulted room. Mrs. Clarke smiledfaintly, scarcely changing the expression of her eyes. She lookedunusually intent and, when the smile was gone, more than usually grave. 

"I hope you don't mind our staying just for a few minutes, " she said toDion. "You see what he is!"

She looked at her boy, but not with deprecation. 

"Of course not, but I'm afraid it will bore you. "

"Oh no, it won't. I like to see skill of any kind. "

She glanced at his arms. 

"I'll get out of your way. Come, Jimmy!"

She took him by the arm and went back to the hard chair, while Dion andJenkins in the middle of the floor stood up opposite to one another. 

"Have you got a watch, Master Jimmy?" said Jenkins, looking over hisshoulder at his pupil. 

"Rather!" piped Jimmy. 

"Well, then, you'd better time us if you don't referee us. "

Jimmy sprang away from his mother. 

"Keep out of our road, or you may chance to get a kidney punch that'llwind you. Better stand here. That's it. Three-minute rounds. Keep youreye on the watch. "

"Am I to say 'Go'?" almost whispered Jimmy, tense with a fearfulimportance such as Caesar and Napoleon never felt. 

"Who else? You don't expect us to order ourselves about, do you?"

After a pause Jimmy murmured, "No" in a low voice. So might a mortalwhisper a reply when interrogated from Olympus as to his readiness to bestarter at a combat of the immortal gods. 

"Now, then, watch in hand and no favoritism!" bellowed Jenkins, whosesense of humor was as boisterous as his firmness was grim. "Are weready?"

Dion and he shook hands formally and lifted their arms, gazing at eachother warily. Mrs. Clarke leaned forward in the chair which stood amongthe dumb-bells. Jimmy perspired and his eyes became round. He had hissilver watch tight in his right fist. Jenkins suddenly turned his headand stared with his shallow and steady blue eyes, looking down fromOlympus upon the speck of a mortal far below. 

"Go!" piped Jimmy, in the voice of an ardent, but awestruck mouse. 

Homeric was that combat in the Harrow Road; to its starter andtimekeeper a contest of giants, awful in force, in skill, in agility, inendurance. Dion boxed quite his best that day, helped by his gallery. Hefought to win, but he didn't win. Nobody won, for there was no knock-outblow given and taken, and, when appealed to for a decision on points, Jimmy, breathing stertorously from excitement, was quite unable to givethe award. He could only stare at the two glorious heroes before him anddrop the silver watch, glass downwards of course, on the floor, whereits tinkle told of destruction. Later on, when he spoke, he was able tosay:

"By Jove!" which he presently amplified into, "I say, mater, byJove--eh, wasn't it, though?"

"Not so bad, sir!" said Jenkins to Dion, after the latter had taken theshower bath. "You aren't as stale as I expected to find you, not near asstale. But I hope you'll keep it up now you've started with it again. "

And Dion promised he would, put his bicycle on the top of a fourwheeler, sent it off to Westminster, and walked as far as Claridge's with Mrs. Clarke and Jimmy. 

The boy made him feel tremendously intimate with Mrs. Clarke. Thehero-worship he was receiving, the dancing of the blood through hisveins, the glow of hard exercise, the verdict of Jenkins on his physicalcondition--all these things combined spurred him to a joyous exuberancein which body and mind seemed to run like a matched pair of horses inperfect accord. Although not at all a conceited man, the feeling thathe was being admired, even reverenced, was delightful to him, and warmedhis heart towards the jolly small boy who kept along by his side throughthe busy streets. He and Jimmy talked in a comradely spirit, whileMrs. Clarke seemed to listen like one who has things to learn. She wasevidently a capital walker in spite of her delicate appearance. To-dayDion began to believe in her iron health, and, in his joy of the body, he liked to think of it. After all delicacy, even in a woman, was afault--a fault of the body, a sort of fretful imperfection. 

"Are you strong?" he said to her, when Jimmy's voice ceased for a momentto demand from him information or to pour upon him direct statement. 

"Oh yes. I've never been seriously ill in my life. Don't I look strong?"she asked. 

"I don't think you do, but I feel as if you are. "

"It's the wiry kind of strength, I suppose. "

"The mater's a stayer, " quoth Jimmy, and forthwith took up the wondroustale with his hero, who began to consult him seriously on the questionof "points. "

"If you'd had to give a decision, Jimmy, which of us would have got it, Jenkins or I?"

Jimmy looked very grave and earnest. 

"It's jolly difficult to tell a thing like that, isn't it?" he said, after a longish pause. "You see, you're both so jolly strong, aren'tyou?"

His dark eyes gazed at the bulk of Dion. 

"Well, which is the quicker?" demanded Dion. 

But Jimmy was not to be drawn. 

"I think you're both as quick as--as cats, " he returned diplomatically, seeking anxiously for the genuine sporting comparison that would beapproved at the ring-side. "Don't you, mater?"

Mrs. Clarke huskily agreed. They were now nearing Claridge's, and Jimmywas insistent that Dion should come in and have a real jam tea withthem. 

"Do, Mr. Leith, if you have the time, " said Mrs. Clarke, but without anypressure. 

"The strawberry they have is ripping, I can tell you!" cried Jimmy, withardor. 

But Dion refused. Till he was certain of Rosamund's attitude he felt hesimply couldn't accept Mrs. Clarke's hospitality. He was obliged to gethome that day. Mrs. Clarke did not ask why, but Jimmy did, and had tobe put off with an evasion, the usual mysterious "business, " which, ofcourse, a small boy couldn't dive into and explore. 

Dion thought Mrs. Clarke was going to say good-by without any mention ofRosamund, but when they reached Claridge's she said:

"Your wife and I didn't decide on a day for the Turkish songs. Youremember I mentioned them to you the other night? I can't recollectwhether she left it to me to fix a time, or whether I left it to her. Can you find out? Do tell her I was stupid and forgot. Will you?"

Dion said he would. 

"I think they'll interest her. Now, Jimmy!"

But Jimmy hung on his god. 

"I say, you'll come again now! You promise!"

What could Dion do?

"You put your honor into it?" pursued Jimmy, with desperate earnestness. "You swear?"

"If I swear in the open street the police will take me up, " said Dionjokingly. 

"Not they! One from the shoulder from you and I bet they lose enoughclaret to fill a bucket. You've given your honor, hasn't he, mater?"

"Of course we shall see him again, " said Mrs. Clarke, staring at Dion. 

"What curious eyes she has!" Dion thought, as he walked homeward. 

Did they ever entirely lose their under-look of distress?

CHAPTER IX

That evening Dion told Rosamund what Mrs. Clarke had said when he partedfrom her at Claridge's. 

"I promised her I'd find out which it was, " he added. "Do you rememberwhat was said?"

After a minute of silence, during which Rosamund seemed to beconsidering something, she answered:

"Yes, I do. "

"Which was it?"

"Neither, Dion. Mrs. Clarke has made a mistake. She certainly spoke ofsome Turkish songs for me, but there was never any question of fixing aday for us to try them over together. "

"She thinks there was. "

"It's difficult to remember exactly what is said, or not said, in themidst of a crowd. "

"But you remember?"

"Yes. "

"Then you'd rather not try them over?"

"After what you've told me about Constantinople I expect I should bequite out of sympathy with Turkish music, " she answered, lightly andsmiling. "Let us be true to our Greek ideal. "

She seemed to be in fun, but he detected firmness of purpose behind thefun. 

"What shall I say to Mrs. Clarke?" he asked. 

"I should just leave it. Perhaps she'll forget all about it. "

Dion was quite sure that wouldn't happen, but he left it. Rosamund haddetermined not to allow Mrs. Clarke to be friends with her. He wishedvery much it were otherwise, not because he really cared for Mrs. Clarke, but because he liked her and Jimmy, and because he hated theidea of hurting the feelings of a woman in Mrs. Clarke's rather unusualsituation. He might, of course, have put his point of view plainly toRosamund at once. Out of delicacy he did not do this. His great love forRosamund made him instinctively very delicate in all his dealings withher; it told him that Rosamund did not wish to discuss her reasons fordesiring to avoid Mrs. Clarke. She had had them, he believed, beforeMrs. Clarke and she had met. That meeting evidently had not lessenedtheir force. He supposed, therefore, that she had disliked Mrs. Clarke. He wondered why, and tried to consider Mrs. Clarke anew. She wascertainly not a disagreeable woman. She was very intelligent, thoroughbred, beautiful in a peculiar way, --even Rosamund thoughtthat, --ready to make herself pleasant, quite free from feminine malice, absolutely natural, interested in all the really interesting things. Beattie liked her; Daventry rejoiced in her; Mrs. Chetwinde was herintimate friend; Esme Darlington had even made sacrifices for her; BruceEvelin----

There Dion's thought was held up, like a stream that encounters abarrier. What did Bruce Evelin think of Mrs. Clarke? He had not goneto the trial. But since he had retired from practise at the Bar he hadnever gone into court. Dion had often heard him say he had had enoughof the Law Courts. There was no reason why he should have been drawnto them for Mrs. Clarke's sake, or even for Daventry's. But what did hethink of Mrs. Clarke? Dion resolved to tell him of the rather awkwardsituation which had come about through his own intimacy--it reallyamounted to that--with Mrs. Clarke, and Rosamund's evident resolve tohave nothing to do with her. 

One day Dion went to Great Cumberland Place and told Bruce Evelin allthe facts, exactly what Mrs. Clarke had said and done, exactly whatRosamund had said and done. As he spoke it seemed to him that he wasdescribing a sort of contest, shadowy, perhaps, withdrawn and full ofreserves, yet definite. 

"What do you think of it?" he said, when he had told the comparativelylittle there was to tell. 

"I think Rosamund likes to keep her home very quiet, don't you?"

"Yes, I do. "

"Even her friends complain that she shuts them out. "

"I know they do. "

"She may not at all dislike Mrs. Clarke. She may simply not wish to addto her circle of friends. "

"The difficulty is, that Mrs. Clarke is such friends with Beattie andGuy, and that I've got to know her quite well. Then there's her boy;he's taken a fancy to me. If Mrs. Clarke and Rosamund could justexchange calls it would be all right, but if they don't it really looksrather as if Rosamund--well, as if she thought the divorce case had lefta slur on Mrs. Clarke. What I mean is, that I feel Mrs. Clarke will takeit in that way. "

"She may, of course. "

"I wonder why she is so determined to make friends with Rosamund, "blurted out Dion abruptly. 

"You think she is determined?" said Bruce Evelin quietly. 

"Yes. Telling you had made me feel that quite plainly. "

"Anyhow, she'll be gone back to Constantinople in April, and then yourlittle difficulty will come to an end automatically. "

Dion looked rather hard at Bruce Evelin. When he spoke to Rosamund ofMrs. Clarke, Rosamund always seemed to try for a gentle evasion. NowBruce Evelin was surely evading the question, and again Mrs. Clarke wasthe subject of conversation. Bruce Evelin was beginning to age ratherdefinitely. He had begun to look older since Beattie was married. Buthis dark eyes were still very bright and keen, and one could not bewith him for even a few minutes without realizing that his intellect wassharply alert. 

"Isn't it strange that she should go back to live in Constantinople?"Dion said. 

"Yes. Not many women in her position would do it. "

"And yet there's reason in her contention that an innocent woman whoallows herself to be driven away from the place she lived in is a bit ofa coward. "

"Beadon Clarke's transferred to Madrid, so Mrs. Clarke's reason--it wasa diplomatic one--for living in Constantinople falls to the ground. "

"Yes, that's true. But of course her husband and she have parted. 

"Naturally. So she has the world to choose from. "

"For a home, you mean? Yes. It's an odd choice, Constantinople. Butshe's not an ordinary woman. "

"No, I suppose not, " said Bruce Evelin. 

Again Dion was definitely conscious of evasion. He got up to go away, feeling disappointed. 

"Then you advise me to do nothing?" he said. 

"What about, my boy?"

"About Mrs. Clarke. "

"What could you do?"

Dion was silent. 

"I think it's better to let women settle these little things amongthemselves. They have a deep and comprehensive understanding of trifleswhich we mostly lack. How's Robin?"

Robin again! Was he always to be the buffer between 5 Little MarketStreet and Mrs. Clarke?

"He's well and tremendously lively, and I honestly think he's growingbetter looking. "

"Dear little chap!" said Bruce Evelin, with a very great tenderness inhis voice. "Dion, we shall have to concentrate on Robin. "

Dion looked at him with inquiry. 

"Poor Beattie, I don't think she'll have a child. "

"Beattie! Not ever?"

"I'm afraid not. "

Dion was shocked and startled. 

"But I haven't heard a word--" he began. 

"No. Both Beattie and Guy feel it terribly. I had a talk with Beattie'sdoctor to-day. "

"How dreadful! I'm sorry. But----" He paused. 

He didn't like to ask intimate questions about Beattie. 

"I'm afraid it is so, " said Bruce Evelin. "You must let us all have ashare in your Robin. "

He spoke very quietly, but there was a very deep, even intense, feelingin his voice. 

"Poor Beattie!" Dion said. 

And that, too, was an evasion. 

He went away from Great Cumberland Place accompanied by a sense ofwalking, not perhaps in darkness, but in a dimness which was notdelicately beautiful like the dimness of twilight, but was rather akinto the semi-obscurity of fog. 

Not a word more was said about Mrs. Clarke between Rosamund and Dion, and the latter never let Mrs. Clarke know about the Turkish songs, neverfulfilled his undertaking to go and see Jimmy again. In a contesthe could only be on Rosamund's side. The whole matter seemed to himunfortunate, even almost disagreeable, but, for him, there could be noquestion as to whether he wished Rosamund's or Mrs. Clarke's will toprevail. Whatever Rosamund's reason was for not choosing to be friendswith Mrs. Clark he knew it was not malicious or petty. Perhaps shehad made a mistake about Mrs. Clarke. If so it was certainly an honestmistake. It was when he thought of his promise to Jimmy that he feltmost uncomfortable about Rosamund's never expressed decision. Jimmy hada good memory. He would not forget. As to Mrs. Clarke, of course she nowfully understood that Mrs. Dion Leith did not want to have anythingto do with her. She continued to go often to Beattie and Daventry, consolidated her friendship with them. But Dion never met her inDe Lorne Gardens. From Daventry he learnt that Mrs. Clarke had beenextraordinarily kind to Beattie when Beattie's expectation of motherhoodhad faded away. Bruce Evelin's apprehension was well founded. Forreasons which Daventry did not enter into Beattie could never now hopeto have a child. Daventry was greatly distressed about it, but ratherfor Beattie's sake than for his own. 

"I married Beattie because I loved her, not because I wanted to become afather, " he said. 

After a long pause he added, almost wistfully. 

"As to Beattie's reasons for marrying me, well, Dion, I haven't askedwhat they were and I never shall. Women are mysterious, and I believeit's wisdom on our part not to try to force the locks and look intothe hidden chambers. I'll do what I can to make up to Beattie for thisterrible disappointment. It won't be nearly enough, but that isn't myfault. Rosamund and you can help her a little. "

"How?"

"She--she's extraordinarily fond of Robin. "

"Extraordinarily?" said Dion, startled almost by Daventry's peculiaremphasis on the word. 

"Yes. Let her see a good deal of Robin if you can. Poor Beattie! She'llnever have a child of her own to live in. "

Dion told Rosamund of this conversation, and they agreed to encourageBeattie to come to Little Market Street as often as possible. Nevertheless Beattie did not come very often. It was obvious that sheadored Robin, who was always polite to her; but perhaps delicacy offeeling kept her from making perpetual pilgrimages to the shrine beforewhich an incense not hers was forever ascending; or perhaps she meta gaunt figure of Pain in the home of her sister. However it was, hervisits were rather rare, and no persuasion availed to make her comeoftener. At this time she and Dion's mother drew closer together, Thetwo women loved and understood each other well. Perhaps between themthere was a link of loneliness, or perhaps there was another link. 

Early in April Dion received one morning the following letter:

"CLARIDGE'S HOTEL 6 April

"DEAR MR. LEITH, --I feel pretty rotten about you. I thought when oncea clever boxer gave his honor on a thing it was a dead cert. The materwouldn't let me write before, though I've been at her over it every dayfor weeks. But now we're going away, so she says I may write and justtell you. If you want to say good-by could you telephone, she says. P'raps you don't. P'raps you've forgotten us. I can tell you Jenkins issick about it all and your never going to the Gim. He said to me to-day, 'I don't know what's come over Mr. Leith. ' No more do I. The mater saysyou're a busy man and have a kid. I say a true friend is never toobusy to be friendly. I really do feel rotten over it, and now we aregoing. --Your affectionate JIMMY. "

Dion showed Rosamund the letter, and telephoned to say he would call onthe following day. Jimmy's voice answered on the telephone and said:

"I say, you have been beastly to us. The mater says nothing, but wethought you liked us. Jenkins says that between boxers there's alwaysa--"

At this point Jimmy was cut off in the flow of his reproaches. 

On arriving at Claridge's Dion found Jimmy alone. Mrs. Clarke was outbut would return in a moment. Jimmy received his visitor not stiffly butwith exuberant and vociferous reproaches, and vehement demands to knowthe why and wherefore of his unsportsmanlike behavior. 

"I've ordered you a real jam tea all the same, " he concluded, with amagnanimity which did him honor, and which, as he was evidently aware, proved him to be a true sportsman. 

"You're a trump, " said Dion, pulling the boy down beside him on a sofa. 

"Oh, well--but I say, why didn't you come?"

He stared with the mercilessly inquiring eyes of boyhood. 

"I don't think I ever said on my honor that I would come. "

"But you did. You swore. "

"No. I was afraid of the policeman. "

"I say, what rot! As if you could be afraid of any one! Why, Jenkinssays you're the best pupil he's ever had. Why didn't you? Don't you likeus?"

"Of course I do. "

"The mater says you're married, and married men have no time to botherabout other people's kids. Is that true?"

"Well, of course there's a lot to be done in London, and I go tobusiness every day. "

"You've got a kid, haven't you?"

"Yes!"

"It's a boy, isn't it?"

"Yes. "

"I say, how old is it?"

"A year and a month old, or a little over. "

Jimmy's face expressed satire. 

"A year and a month!" he repeated. "Is that all? Then it can't be muchgood yet, can it?"

"It can't box or do exercise as you can. You are getting broad. "

"Rather! Box? I should think not! A kid of a year old boxing! I shouldlike to see it with Jenkins. "

He begin to giggle. By the time Mrs. Clarke returned and they sat downto the real jam tea, the ice was in fragments. 

"I believe you were right, mater, and it was all the kid that preventedMr. Leith from sticking to his promise, " Jimmy announced, as he helpedDion to "the strawberry, " with a liberality which betokened an affectionsteadfast even under the stress of blighting circumstances. 

"Of course I was right, " returned his mother gravely. 

Dion was rather glad that she looked away from him as she said it. 

Her manner to him was unchanged. Evidently she was a woman not quick totake offense. He liked that absence of all "touchiness" from her, andfelt that a man could rest comfortably on her good breeding. But thisvery good breeding increased within him a sense of discomfort whichamounted almost to guilt. He tried to smother it by being very jollywith Jimmy, to whom he devoted most of his attention. When tea was overMrs. Clarke said to her son:

"Now, Jimmy, you must go away for a little while and let me have a talkwith Mr. Leith. "

"Oh, mater, that's not fair. Mr. Leith's my pal. Aren't you, Mr. Leith?Why, even Jenkins says--"

"I should rather think so. Why--"

"You shall see Mr. Leith again before he goes. "

He looked at his mother, suddenly became very grave, and went slowly outof the room. It was evident to Dion that Mrs. Clarke knew how to makepeople obey her when she was in earnest. 

As soon as Jimmy had gone Mrs. Clarke rang for the waiter to take awaythe tea-table. 

"Then we shan't be bothered, " she remarked. "I hate people coming in andout when I'm trying to have a quiet talk. "

"So do I, " said Dion. 

The waiter rolled the table out gently and shut the door. 

Mrs. Clarke sat down on a sofa. 

"Do light a cigar, " she said. "I know you want to smoke, and I'll have acigarette. "

She drew out of a little case which lay on a table beside her a Turkishcigarette and lit it, while Dion lighted a cigar. 

"So you're really going back to Constantinople?" he began. "Are youtaking Jimmy with you?"

"Yes, for a time. My husband raises no objection. In a year I shall sendJimmy to Eton. Lady Ermyntrude is furious, of course, and has tried tostir up my husband. But her influence with him is dead. He's terriblyashamed at what she made him do. "

"The action?"

"Yes. It was she who made him think me guilty against his real innerconviction. Now, poor man, he realizes that he dragged me through thedirt without reason. He's ashamed to show his face in the Clubs, andnearly resigned from diplomacy. But he's a valuable man, and they'vepersuaded him to go to Madrid. "

"Why go back to Constantinople?"

"Merely to show I'm not afraid to and that I won't be driven from mypurpose by false accusations. "

"And you love it, of course. "

"Yes. My flat will be charming, I think. Some day you'll see it. "

Dion was silent in surprise. 

"Don't you realize that?" she asked, staring at him. 

"I think it very improbable that I shall ever go back toConstantinople. "

"And I'm sure you will. "

"Why are you sure?"

"That I can't tell you. Why is one sometimes sure that certain thingswill come about?"

"Do you claim to be psychic?" said Dion. 

"I never make verbal claims. Now about Jimmy. "

She discussed for a little while seriously her plans for the boy'seducation while he stayed with her. She had found a tutor, a youngOxford man, who would accompany them to Turkey, but she wanted Dion'sadvice on certain points. He gave it, wondering all the time why sheconsulted him after his neglect of her and of her son, after hisfailure to accept invitations and to fulfil pledges (or to stick to theunderstandings which were almost pledges), after the tacit refusals ofRosamund. Did it not show a strange persistence, even a certain lack ofpride in her? Perhaps she heard the haunting questions which he did notutter, for she suddenly turned from the topic of the boy and said:

"You're surprised at my bothering you with all this when we really knoweach other so slightly. It is unconventional; but I shall never learnthe way to conventionality in spite of all poor Esme's efforts toshepherd me into the path he thinks narrow and I find broad--a way thatleads to destruction. I feel you absolutely understand boys, and know byinstinct the best way with them. That's why I _still_ come to you. "

She paused. She had deliberately driven home her meaning by a stress onone word. Now she sat looking at him, with a wide-eyed and deeplygrave fixity, as if considering what more she should say. Dion murmuredsomething about being very glad if he could help her in any way withregard to Jimmy. 

"You can be conventional, " she remarked. "Well, why not? Most Englishpeople are perpetually playing for safety. "

"I wish you wouldn't go back to Constantinople, " said Dion. 

"Why?"

"I believe it's a mistake. It seems to me like throwing down a defianceto your world. "

"But I never play for safety. "

"But think of the danger you've passed through. "

The characteristic distressed look deepened in her eyes till they seemedto him tragic. Nevertheless, fearlessness still looked out of them. 

"What shall I gain by doing that?" she asked. 

"Esme Darlington once said you were a wild mind in an innocent body. Ibelieve he was right. But it seems to me that some day your wild mindmay get you into danger again and that perhaps you won't escape from itunscathed a second time. "

"How quiet and safe it must be at Number 5!" she rejoined, without anyirony. 

"You wouldn't care for that sort of life. You'd find it humdrum, " saidDion, with simplicity. 

"You never would, " she said, still without irony, without even the hintof a sneer. "And the truth is that the humdrum is created not by a wayof living but by those who follow it. Your wife and the humdrum couldnever occupy the same house. I shall always regret that I didn't seesomething of her. Do give her a cordial 'au revoir' from me. You'll hearof me again. Don't be frightened about me in your kind of chivalrousheart. I am grateful to you for several things. I'm not going to givethe list now. That would either bore you, or make you feel shy. Someday, perhaps, I shall tell you what they are, in a caique on the sweetwaters of Asia or among the cypresses of Eyub. "

With the last sentence she transported Dion, as on a magic carpet, tothe unwise life. Her husky voice changed a little; her face changeda little too; the one became slower and more drowsy; the other lesshaggard and fixed in its expression of distress. This woman had herhours of happiness, perhaps even of exultation. For a moment Dionenvisaged another woman in her. And when he had bidden her good-by, andhad received the tremendous farewells of Jimmy, he realized that she hadmade upon him an impression which, though soft, was certainly deep. Hethought of how a cushion looks when it lies on a sofa in an empty room, indented by the small head of a woman who has been thinking, thinkingalone. For a moment he was out of shape, and Mrs. Clarke had made himso. 

In the big hall, as he passed out, he saw Lord Brayfield standing infront of the bureau speaking to the hall porter. 

"Some day, perhaps, I shall tell you what they are, in a caique on thesweet waters of Asia or among the cypresses of Eyub. "

Dion smiled as he recalled Mrs. Clarke's words, which had been spokenfatalistically. Then his face became very grave. 

Suddenly there dawned upon him, like a vision in the London street, oneof the vast Turkish cemeteries, dusty, forlorn, disordered, yet fullof a melancholy touched by romance; and among the thousands of graves, through the dark thickets of cypresses, he was walking with Mrs. Clarke, who looked exactly like Echo. 

A newsboy at the corner was crying his latest horror--a woman foundstabbed in Hyde Park. But to Dion his raucous and stunted voice soundedlike a voice from the sea, a strange and sad cry lifted up betweenEurope and Asia. 

BOOK III -- LITTLE CLOISTERS

CHAPTER I

More than a year and a half passed away, and in the autumn of 1899 theBoer War broke out and the face of England was changed; for the heart ofEngland began to beat more strongly than usual, and the soul of Englandwas stirred. The winter came, and in many Englishmen a hidden conflictbegan; in their journey through life they came abruptly to a parting ofthe ways, stood still and looked to the right and the left, balancingpossibilities, searching their natures and finding within them strangehesitations, recoils, affirmations, determined nobilities. 

Dion had followed the events which led up to the fateful decision ofWednesday, October the eleventh, with intense interest. As the Octoberdays drew on he had felt the approach of war. It came up, this footfallof an enemy, it paced at his side. Would he presently be tried by thisenemy, would it test him and find out exactly what metal he was made of?He wondered, but from the moment when the first cloud showed itself onthe horizon he had a presentiment that this distant war was going tohave a strong effect on his life. 

On the afternoon of October the eleventh he walked slowly home fromthe City alone. There was excitement in the air. The voices of thenewsvendors sounded fateful in his ears; the faces of the passers-bylooked unusually eager and alert. As he made his way through the crowdhe did not debate the rights and wrongs of the question about tobe decided between Briton and Boer. His mind avoided thoughts aboutpolitics. For him, perhaps strangely, the issue had already narroweddown to a personal question: "What is this war going to mean to me?"

He asked himself this; he put the question again and again. Neverthelessit was answered somewhere within him almost as soon as it was put. Ifthere came a call for volunteers he would be one of the many who wouldanswer it. The call might not come, of course; the war might be short, ahole-and-corner affair soon ended. He told himself that, and, as he didso, he felt sure that the call would come. 

He knew he would not hold back; but he knew also that his was not theeagerness to go of the man assumed by journalists to be the typicalEnglishman. He was not mad to plunge into the great game, reckless ofthe future and shouting for the fray. He was not one of the "hard-bittenraw-boned men with keen eyes and ready for anything" beloved of thejournalists, who loom so large in the public eye when "big things areafoot. " On that autumn evening, as he walked homeward, Dion knew thebunkum that is given out to the world as truth, knew that brave men havesouls undreamed of in newspaper offices. He perceived the figure ofwar just then as a figure terribly austere, grim, cold, harsh--a figurestripped of all pleasant flesh and sweet coloring, of all softness andwarm humanity. It accompanied him like an iron thing which neverthelesswas informed with life. Joy withered beside it, yet it had the power tomake things bloom. Already he knew that as he had not known it before. 

In the crowded Strand the voices of the newsvendors were insistentlyshrill, raucous, almost fierce. As he heard them he faced tests. Manythings were going to be put to the test in the almost immediate future. Among them perhaps would be Rosamund's exact feeling for him. 

Upon the hill of Drouva they had slept in the same tent, husband andwife, more than three years ago; in green and remote Elis they had sattogether before the Hermes, hidden away from the world and hearingthe antique voices; in Westminster Robin was theirs; yet this evening, facing in imagination the tests of war, Dion knew that Rosamund's exactfeeling for him was still a secret from him. If he went to South Africathat secret must surely be revealed. Rosamund would inevitably find outthen the nature of her feeling for him, how much she cared, and even ifshe did not tell him how much she cared he would know, he could not helpknowing. 

He knew with a terrible thoroughness this evening how much he cared forher. 

He considered Robin. 

Robin was now more than two and a half years old; a personage in ajersey and minute knickerbockers, full of dancing energy and spirits, full of vital interest in the smaller problems of life. He was a fidgetand he was a talker. Out of a full mind he poured forth an abundantstream of words, carelessly chosen at times, yet on the whole apt tothe occasion. His intelligence was marked, of course, --what very youngchild's is not?--and he had inherited an ample store of the _joie devivre_ which distinguished his mother. The homeliness of feature whichhad marked him out in the baldhead stage of his existence had givenplace to a dawning of what promised to be later on distinct good looks. Already he was an attractive-looking child, with a beautiful mouth, arather short and at present rather snub nose, freckled on the bridge, large blue eyes, and a forehead, temples and chin which hinted atRosamund's. His hair was now light brown, and had a bold, almost anardent, wave in it. Perhaps Robin's most marked characteristic at thistime was ardor. Occasionally the mildly inquiring expression which Dionhad been touched by in the early days came to his little face. He couldbe very gentle and very clinging, and was certainly sensitive. Oftenimagination, in embryo as it were, was shown by his eyes. But ardorinformed and enveloped him, he swam in ardor and of ardor he was allcompact. Even the freckles which disfigured, or adorned, the bridge ofhis nose looked ardent. Rosamund loved those freckles in a way she couldnever have explained, loved them with a strength and tenderness whichissued from the very roots of her being. To her they were Robin, thedearest part of the dearest thing on earth. Many of her kisses had goneto those little freckles. 

Dion might have to part not only from Rosamund but also from Robin. 

He had become very fond of his little son. The detachment which hadperhaps marked his mental attitude to the baby did not mark hismental attitude to the boy. In the Robin of to-day, the jerseyed andknickerbockered person, with the incessantly active legs, the eagereyes, the perpetually twittering voice, Dion was conscious of the spiritof progress. Already he was able to foresee the small school-boy, whomonly a father could properly help and advise in regard to many aspectsof the life ahead; already he was looking forward to the time when hecould take a hand in the training of Robin. It would be very hard to goaway from that little bit of quicksilver, very hard indeed. 

But the thought which made his heart sink, which brought with it almosta sensation of mortal sickness to his soul, was the thought of partingfrom Rosamund. As he walked down Parliament Street he imagined thegood-by to her on the eve of sailing for South Africa. That acute momentmight never come. This evening he felt it on the way. Whatever happenedit would be within his power to stay with Rosamund, for there was noconscription in England. If he went to South Africa then the actionof leaving her would be deliberate on his part. Was there within himsomething that was stronger than his love for her? There must be, hesupposed, for he knew that if men were called for, and if Rosamundasked, or even begged him not to go, he would go nevertheless. 

Vaporous Westminster, dark and leaning to the great river, for how longhe had not seen it, or realized what it meant to him! Custom had blindedhis eyes and had nearly closed his mind to it. The day's event hadgiven him back sight and knowledge. This evening his familiarity withWestminster bred in him intensity of vision and apprehension. It seemedto him that scales had fallen from his eyes, that for the first timehe really saw Parliament Street, the Houses of Parliament, WestminsterBridge, the river. The truth was, that for the first time he reallyfelt them, felt that he belonged to them and they to him, that theirblackness in the October evening was part of the color of him, that theWestminster sounds, chimes, footfalls, the dull roar of traffic, humanvoices from street, from bridge, from river, harmonized with the voicesin him, in the very depths of him. This was England, this closeness, this harmony of the outer to and with the inner, this was England sayingto one of her sons, "You belong to me and I to you. " The race spoke andthe land, they walked with Dion in the darkness. 

For he did not go straight home. He walked for a long time beside theriver. By the river he kissed Robin and he said good-by to Rosamund, by the river he climbed upon the troopship, and he saw the fading ofEngland on the horizon, and he felt the breath of the open sea. Andin the midst of a crowd of men going southward he knew at last whatloneliness was. The lights that gleamed across the river were the lastlights of England that he would see for many a day, perhaps forever;the chime from the clock-tower was the last of the English sounds. Heendured in imagination a phantom bitterness of departure which seemedabominably real; then suddenly he was recalled from a possible future tothe very definite present. 

He met by the river two men, sleek people in silk hats, with plumphands--hands which looked as if they were carefully fed on verynutritious food every day by their owners--warmly covered. As theypassed him one of those know-alls said to the other:

"Oh, it'll only be a potty little war. What can a handful of peasants doagainst our men? I'll lay you five to one in sovereigns two months willsee it out. "

"I dare say you will, " returned the other, in a voice that was surelysmiling, "but I won't take you. "

"By Jove, what a plunger I am!" thought Dion. "Racing ahead like a horsethat's lost his wits. Ten to one they'll never want volunteers. "

But Westminster still looked exceptional, full of the inner meaning, andsomewhere within him a voice still said, "You will go. " Nevertheless hewas able partly to put off his hybrid feeling, half-dread, half-desire. The sleek people in the silk hats had made their little effect on thestranger. "The man in the street is often right, " Dion said to himself;though he knew that the man in the street is probably there, and remainsthere, because he is so often wrong. 

When he reached Little Market Street Dion told Rosamund there wouldbe war in South Africa, but he did not even hint at his thought thatvolunteers might be called for, at his intention, if they were, to offerhimself. To do that would not only be absurdly premature, but mighteven seem slightly bombastic, an uncalled-for study in heroics. He keptsilence. The battles of Ladysmith, of Magersfontein, of Stormberg, ofColenso, unsettled the theories of sleek people in silk hats. Englandcame to a very dark hour when Robin was playing with a new set of brickswhich his Aunt Beattie had given him. Dion began to understand therightness of his instinct that evening by the river, when Westminsterhad spoken to him and England had whispered in his blood. As he hadthought of things, so they were going to be. The test was very great. Itwas as if already it stood by him, a living entity, and touched himwith an imperious hand. Sometimes he looked at Rosamund and saw greatstretches of sea rolling under great stretches of sky. The barrier! Howwould he be able to bear the long separation from Rosamund? The habit ofhappiness in certain circumstances can become the scourge of a man. Menwho were unhappy at home could go to war with a lighter heart than he. 

Just before Christmas the call for men came, and in Dion a hesitationwas born. Should he go and offer himself at once without tellingRosamund, or should he tell her what he wished to do and ask heropinion? Suppose she were against his going out? He could not ask heradvice if he was not prepared to take it. What line did he wish herto take? By what course of action would such a woman as Rosamund provedepth of love? Wouldn't it be natural for a woman who loved a manto raise objections to his going out to fight in a distant country?Wouldn't she prove her love by raising objections? On the other hand, wouldn't a woman who loved a man in the greatest way be driven by thedesire to see him rise up in an emergency and prove his manhood atwhatever cost to her?

Dion wanted one thing of Rosamund at this moment, wanted it terribly, with longing and with fear, --the proof absolute and unhesitating of herlove for him. 

He decided to volunteer without telling her before hand that he meant todo so. He told no one of his intention except his Uncle Biron, whom hewas obliged to consult as they were partners in business. 

"You're right, my boy, " said his uncle. "We'll get on as best we canwithout you. We shall miss you, of course. Since you've been marriedyour energy has been most praiseworthy, but, of course, the nation comesbefore the firm. What does your mother say?"

Dion was struck with a sense of wonder by this question. Why didn't hisuncle ask him what Rosamund had said?

"I haven't spoken to her, " he answered. 

"She'll wish you to go in spite of all, " said his uncle gravely. 

"I haven't even spoken to Rosamund of my intention to enlist. "

His uncle looked surprised, even for a moment astonished, but he onlysaid:

"She's rather on heroic lines, I should judge. There's somethingspacious in her nature. "

"Yes, " said Dion. 

He pledged his uncle to silence. Then they talked business. 

From that moment Dion wondered how his mother would take his decision. That he had not wondered before proved to himself the absorbingcharacter of his love for his wife. He loved his mother very much, yet, till his uncle had spoken about her in the office, he had only thoughtabout Rosamund in connection with his decision to enlist. The verygreat thing had swallowed up the big thing. There is something ruthless, almost at moments repellent, in the very great thing which rules in aman's life. But his mother would never know. 

That was what he said to himself, unconscious of the fact that hismother had known and had lived alone with her knowledge for years. 

He offered himself for service in South Africa with the City ImperialVolunteers. The doctor passed him. He was informed that he would besworn in at the Guildhall on 4th January. The great step was taken. 

Why had he taken it without telling Rosamund he was going to take it?

As he came out into the dark winter evening he wondered about thatalmost vaguely. He must have had a driving reason, but now he did notknow what it was. How was Rosamund going to take it? Suddenly he feltguilty, as if he had done her a wrong. They were one flesh, and in sucha vital matter he had not consulted her. Wasn't it abominable?

As soon as he was free he went straight home. 

This time, as he walked homeward, Dion held no intercourse withWestminster. If he heard the chimes, the voices, the footfalls, he wasnot conscious of hearing them; if he saw the vapors from the river, the wreaths of smoke from the chimneys, the lights gleaming in the nearhouses and far away across the dark mystery of the water, he did notknow that he saw them. In himself he was imprisoned, and against thegreat city in which he walked he had shut the doors. 

He arrived at his house and put his hand in his pocket to get hislatch-key. Before he was able to draw it forth the green door was openedand Beatrice came out. 

"Dion!" she said, startled. 

"You nearly ran over me!"

"What is it?" she asked. "What have you done?"

"But--"

"I know!" she interrupted. 

She put out her hand and took hold of his coat sleeve. The action wasstartlingly impulsive in Beatrice, who was always so almost plaintive, so restrained, so dim. 

"But you can't!"

"I do. You are going to South Africa. "

He said nothing. How could he tell Beatrice before he told Rosamund?

"When are you going?"

"Is Rosamund in the house, Beattie?" he asked, very gently. 

Beatrice flushed deeply, painfully, and took her hand from his sleeve. 

"Yes. I've been playing with Robin, building castles with the newbricks. Good-by, Dion. "

She went past him and down the small street rather quickly. He stood fora moment looking after her; then he turned into the house. As he shutthe door he heard a chord struck on the piano upstairs in Rosamund'ssitting-room. He took off his coat and hat and came into the littlehall. As he did so he heard Rosamund's voice beginning to sing Brahms's"Wiegenlied" very softly. He guessed that she was singing to an audienceof Robin. The bricks had been put away after the departure of AuntBeattie, and now Robin was being sung towards sleep. How often would hebe sung to by Rosamund in the future when his father would not be thereto listen!

Robin was going to have his mother all to himself, and Rosamund wasgoing to have her little son all to herself. But they did not know thatyet. The long months of their sacred companionship stretched out beforethe father as he listened to the lullaby, which he could only just hear. Rosamund had mastered the art of withdrawing her voice and yet keepingit perfectly level. 

When the song was finished, whispered away into the spaces where musicdisperses to carry on its sweet mission, Dion went up the stairs, openedthe door of Rosamund's room, and saw something very simple, and, to him, very memorable. Rosamund had turned on the music-stool and put herright arm round Robin, who, in his minute green jersey and greenknickerbockers, stood leaning against her with the languid happiness andhalf-wayward demeanor of a child who has been playing, and who alreadyfeels the soothing influence of approaching night with its gift ofprofound sleep. Robin's cheeks were flushed, and in his blue eyes therewas a curious expression, drowsily imaginative, as if he were welcomingdreams which were only for him. With a faint smile on his small rosylips he was listening while Rosamund repeated to him in English thewords of the song she had just been singing. Dion heard her say:

 "Sink to slumber, good-night, And angels of light With love you shall fold As the Christ Child of old. "

"There's Fa!" whispered Robin, sending to Dion a semi-roguish look. 

Dion held up his hand and formed "Hush!" with his lips. Rosamundfinished the verse:

 "While the stars dimly shine May no sorrow be thine. "

She bent and kissed Robin on the top of his head just in the middle, choosing the place, and into his hair she breathed a repetition of thelast words, "May no sorrow be thine. "

And Dion was going to the war. 

Robin slipped from his mother's arm gently and came to his father. 

"'Allo, Fa!" he observed confidentially. 

Dion bent down. 

"Hallo, Robin!"

He picked the little chap up and gave him a kiss. What a small bundleof contentment Robin was at that moment. In South Africa Dion oftenremembered just how Robin had felt to him then, intimate and a mystery, confidential, sleepy with happiness, a tiny holder of the Divine, awilling revelation and a soft secret. So much in so little!

"You've been playing with Aunt Beattie. "

Robin acknowledged it. 

"Auntie's putty good at bricks. "

"Did you meet Beattie, Dion?" asked Rosamund. 

"On the doorstep. "

He thought of Beattie's question. There was no question in Rosamund'sface. But perhaps his own face had changed. 

A tap came to the door. 

"Master Robin?" said nurse, in a voice that held both inquiry and anadmonishing sound. 

When Robin had gone off to bed, walking vaguely and full of theforerunners of dreams, Dion knew that his hour had come. He felt a sortof great stillness within him, stillness of presage, perhaps, or ofmere concentration, of the will to be, to do, to endure, whatevercame. Rosamund shut down the lid of the piano and came away from themusic-stool. Dion looked at her, and thought of the maidens of the porchand of the columns of the Parthenon. 

"Rosamund, " he said, --that stillness within him forbade any preparation, any "leading up, "--"I've joined the City Imperial Volunteers. "

"The City Imperial Volunteers?" she said. 

He knew by the sound of her voice that she had not grasped the meaningof what he had done. She looked surprised, and a question was in herbrown eyes. 

"Why? What are they? I don't understand. And the Artists' Rifles?"

"I've got my transfer from them. I've joined for the war. "

"The war? Do you mean----?"

She came up to him, looking suddenly intent. 

"Do you mean you have volunteered for active service in South Africa?"

"Yes. "

"Without consulting me?"

Her whole face reddened, almost as it had reddened when she spoke to himabout the death of her mother. 

"Yes. I haven't signed on yet, but the doctor has passed me. I'm to besworn in at the Guildhall on the fourth, I believe. We shall sail verysoon, almost directly, I suppose. They want men out there. "

He did not know how bruskly he spoke; he was feeling too much to know. 

"I didn't think you could do such a thing without speaking to me first. My husband, and you----!"

She stopped abruptly, as if afraid of what she might say if she went onspeaking. Two deep lines appeared in her forehead. For the first time inhis life Dion saw an expression of acute hostility in her eyes. She hadbeen angry, or almost angry with him for a moment in Elis, when he brokeoff the branch of wild olive; but she had not looked like this. Therewas something piercing in her expression that was quite new to him. 

"I felt I ought to do it, " he said dully. 

"Did you think I should try to prevent you?"

"No. I scarcely knew what I thought. "

"Have you told your mother?"

"No. I had to tell Uncle Biron because of the business. Nobody elseknows. "

And then suddenly he remembered Beattie. 

"At least I haven't told any one else. "

"But some one else does know--knew before I did. "

"I saw Beattie just now, as I said. I believe she guessed. I didn't tellher. "

"But how could she guess such a thing if you gave her no hint?"

"That's just what I have been wondering. "

Rosamund was silent. She went away from him and stood by the fire, turning her back to him. He waited for a moment, then he went to thehearth. 

"Don't you think perhaps it's best for a man to decide such a thingquite alone? It's a man's job, and each man must judge for himself whathe ought to do in such a moment. If you had asked me not to go I shouldhave felt bound to go all the same. "

"But I should have said 'Go. ' Then you never understood me in Greece?All our talks told you nothing about me? And now Robin is here--youthought I should ask you not to go!"

She turned round. She seemed almost passionately surprised. 

"Perhaps--in a way--I wished to think that. "

"Why? Did you wish to despise me?"

"Rosamund! As if I could ever do that. "

"If you did a despicable thing I should despise you. "

"Don't! I haven't much more time here. "

"I never, never shall be able to understand how you could do thiswithout telling me beforehand that you were going to do it. "

"It wasn't from any want of respect or love for you. "

"I can't talk about it any more just now. "

The flush on her face deepened. She turned and went out of the room. 

Dion was painfully affected. He had never before had a seriousdisagreement with Rosamund. It was almost intolerable to have one nowon the eve of departure from her. He felt like one who had committed anoutrage out of the depths of a terrible hunger, a hunger of curiosity. He knew now why he had volunteered for active service without consultingRosamund. Obscurely his nature had spoken, saying, "Put her to the testand make the test drastic. " And he had obeyed the command. He had wantedto know, to find out suddenly, in a moment, the exact truth of years. And now he had roused a passion of anger in Rosamund. 

Her anger wrapped him in pain such as he had never felt till now. 

The house seemed full of menace. In the little room the atmosphere waschanged. He looked round it and his eyes rested on the Hermes. He wentup to it and stood before it. 

Instantly he felt again the exquisite calm of Elis. The face of theHermes made the thought of war seem horrible and ridiculous. Men hadlearnt so much when Praxiteles created his Hermes, and they knew solittle now. The enigma of their violence was as great as the enigma ofthe celestial calm which the old Greeks had perpetuated to be foreverthe joy and the rest of humanity. And he, Dion, was going to take anactive part in violence. The unchanging serenity of the Hermes, whichbrought all Elis before him, with its green sights and its wonderfulsounds, of the drowsy insects in the sunshine, of the sheep-bells, andof the pines whose voices hold within them all the eternal secrets, increased the intensity of his misery. He realized how unstable are thefoundations of human happiness, and his house of life seemed crumblingabout him. 

Presently he went downstairs to his room and wrote letters to his motherand to Bruce Evelin, telling them what he had done. 

When he had directed and stamped these letters he thought of Beattieand Guy. Beattie knew. What was it which had led her so instantly toa knowledge denied to Rosamund? Rosamund had evidently not noticed anydifference in him when he came in that evening. But, to be sure, Robinhad been there. 

Robin had been there. 

Dion sat before the writing-table for a long while doing nothing. Thena clock struck. He had only half an hour to spare before dinner would beready. Quickly he wrote a few words to Beattie:

"MY DEAR BEATTIE, --You were right. I have volunteered for active serviceand shall soon be off to South Africa. I don't know yet exactly when weshall start, but I expect they'll hurry us off as quickly as they can. Men are wanted out there badly. Lots of fellows are coming forward. I'll tell you more when I see you again. Messages to Guy. --Yoursaffectionately, "DION"

It was not an eloquent letter, but Beattie would understand. Beattie wasnot a great talker but she was a great understander. He went out to putthe three letters into the pillar-box. Then he hurried upstairs to hisdressing-room. For the first time in his life he almost dreaded spendingan evening alone with Rosamund. 

He did not see her till he came into the drawing-room. As he opened thedoor he saw her sitting by the fire reading, in a dark blue dress. 

"I'm afraid I'm late, " he said, as he walked to the hearth. "I wrote tomother, Beattie and godfather to tell them what I was going to do. "

"What you had done, " she said quietly, putting down the book. 

"I haven't actually been sworn in yet, but of course it is practicallythe same thing. "

He looked at her almost surreptitiously. She was very grave, but therewas absolutely nothing hostile or angry in her expression or manner. They went into the dining-room, and talked together much as usual duringdinner. As soon as dinner was over, and the parlor-maid had gone out, having finished her ministrations, which to Dion that night had seemedinnumerable and well-nigh unbearable, he said:

"I'm dreadfully sorry about to-day. I did the wrong thing involunteering without saying anything to you. Of course you were hurt andstartled----"

He looked at her and paused. 

"Yes, I was. I couldn't help it, and I don't think you ought to havedone what you did. But you have made a great sacrifice--very great. Ionly want to think of that, Dion, of how much you are giving up, and ofthe cause--our cause. "

She spoke very earnestly and sincerely, and her eyes looked serious andvery kind. 

"Don't let us go back to anything sad, or to any misunderstanding now, "she continued. "You are doing an admirable thing, and I shall always beglad you had the will to do it, were able to do it. Tell me everything. I want to live in your new life as much as I can. I want you to feel mein it as much as you can. "

"She has prayed over it. While I was writing my letters she was prayingover it. "

Suddenly Dion knew this as if Rosamund had opened her heart to him andhad told it. And immediately something which was like a great lightseemed not only to illumine the present moment but also to throw apiercing ray backwards upon all his past life with Rosamund. In thelight of this ray he discerned a shadowy something, which stood betweenRosamund and him, keeping them always apart. It was a tremendousPresence; his feeling was that it was the Presence of God. Abruptly heseemed to be aware that God had always stood, was standing now, betweenhim and his wife. He remembered the words in the marriage service, "Those whom God hath joined together let no man put asunder. " "But God, "he thought, "did not join us. He stood between us always. He standsbetween us now. " It was an awful thought. It was like a great blasphemy. He was afraid of it. And yet he now felt that it was an old, old thoughtin his mind which only now had he been able to formulate. He had knownwithout knowing consciously, but now he consciously knew. 

He took care at this moment not to look at Rosamund. If he looked, surely she would see in his eyes his terrible thought, the thought hewas going to carry with him to South Africa. Making a great efforthe began to tell her all that he knew about the C. I. V. They discussedmatters in a comradely spirit. Rosamund said many warm-hearted things, showed herself almost eagerly solicitous. They went up to sit by thefire in her little room. Dion smoked. They talked for a long time. Hadany one been there to listen he would probably have thought, "This manhas got the ideal wife. She's a true comrade as well as a wife. " Butall the time Dion kept on saying to himself, "This is the result of herprayers before dinner. She is being good. " Only when it was late, pasttheir usual hour for going to bed, did he feel that the strong humanityin Rosamund had definitely gained ground, that she was being genuinelycarried away by warm impulses connected with dear England, our men, andwith him. 

When they got up at last to go to bed she exclaimed:

"I shall always love what you have done, Dion. You know that. "

"But not the way of my doing it!" trembled on his lips. 

He did not say it, however. Why lead her back even for a moment tobitterness?

That night he lay with his thoughts, and in the darkness the ray waspiercing bright and looked keen like a sharpened sword. 

CHAPTER II

On the fourth of January Dion and about nine hundred other men weresworn in at the Guildhall; on January the seventeenth, eight hundredof them, including Dion, were presented with the Freedom of the Cityof London; on the nineteenth they were equipped and attended a farewellservice at St. Paul's Cathedral, after which they were entertained atsupper, some at Gray's Inn and some at Lincoln's Inn; on the twentieththey entrained for Southampton, from which port they sailed in theafternoon for South Africa. Dion was on board of the "Ariosto. "

Strangely, perhaps, he was almost glad when the ship cast off and theshores of England faded and presently were lost beyond the horizon line. He was alone now with his duty. Life was suddenly simplified. It wasbetter so. In the last days he had often felt confused, beset, had oftenfelt that he was struggling in a sea of complications which threatenedto overwhelm him. There had been too much to do and there had been toomuch to endure; he had been obliged to be practical when he was feelingintensely emotional. The effort to dominate and to conceal his emotionhad sometimes almost exhausted him in the midst of all he had had todo. He had come to the knowledge of the fact that it is the work of thespirit which leaves the whole man tired. He was weary, not from hardenergies connected with his new profession, not from getting up atdawn, marching through dense crowds of cheering countrymen, traveling, settling in on shipboard, but from farewells. He looked back now upon asort of panorama of farewells, of partings from his mother, his uncle, Bruce Evelin, Guy, Beatrice, Robin, Rosamund. 

Quite possibly all these human companions had vanished out of his lifefor ever. It was a tremendous thought, upon which he was resolved not todwell lest his courage and his energies might be weakened. 

Through good-bys a man may come to knowledge, and Dion had, in theselast few days, gone down to the bedrock of knowledge concerning some ofthose few who were intimately in his life--knowledge of them and alsoof himself. Nobody had traveled to Southampton to see him off. He had avery English horror of scenes, and had said all his good-bys in private. With Bruce Evelin he had had a long talk; they had spoken franklytogether about the future of Rosamund and Robin in the event of his notcoming back. Dion had expressed his views on the bringing up of the boy, and, in doing so had let Bruce Evelin into secrets of Greece. The fatherdid not expect, perhaps did not even desire, that the little son shoulddevelop into a paragon, but he did desire for Rosamund's child thestrong soul in the strong body, and the soft heart that was not asofty's heart. 

In that conversation Bruce Evelin had learnt a great deal about Dion. They had spoken of Rosamund, perhaps more intimately than they had everspoken before, and Dion had said, "I'm bothering so much about Robinpartly because her life is bound up with Robin's. "

"Several lives are bound up with that little chap's, " Bruce Evelin hadsaid. 

And a sudden sense of loneliness had come upon Dion. But he had onlymade some apparently casual remark to the effect that he knew BruceEvelin would do his best to see that Robin came to no harm. No absurdand unnecessary promises had been exchanged between the old and theyoung man. Their talk had been British, often seemingly casual, andnearly always touched with deep feeling. It had not opened to Dion newvistas of Bruce Evelin. For a long time Dion had felt that he knewBruce Evelin. But it had given him a definite revelation of the strongfaithfulness, the tenacity of faithfulness in friendship, which wasperhaps the keynote of Bruce Evelin's character. 

The parting from Guy had been less eventful. Nevertheless it had helpedto get rid of certain faint misunderstandings which neither of thefriends had ever acknowledged. Since the Mrs. Clarke episode Dion hadbeen aware that Guy's feeling towards him had slightly changed. Theywere such old and tried friends that they would always care for eachother, but Guy could not help resenting Rosamund's treatment of Mrs. Clarke, could not help considering Dion's acquiescence in it a sign ofweakness. These feelings, unexpressed, but understood by Dion, had setup a slight barrier between the two young men; it had fallen when theysaid good-by. Mrs. Clarke had been forgotten then by Guy, who had onlyremembered the gifts of war, and that possibly this was his final sightof old Dion. All their common memories had been with them when the lasthand-clasp was given, and perhaps only when their hands fell apart hadthey thoroughly tested at last the strength of the link between them. They were friends for life without knowing exactly why. Thousands ofEnglishmen were in the same case. 

Dion had gone to De Lorne Mansions to bid good-by to Beattie, and withher, too, he had talked about Robin. Beattie had known when Dion wascoming, and had taken care to be alone. Always quiet, she had seemedto Dion quieter even than usual in that final hour by the fire, almostsingularly timid and repressed. There had even been moments when she hadseemed to him cold. But the coldness--if really there had been any--hadbeen in her manner, perhaps in her voice, but had been absent from herface. They had sat in the firelight, which Beattie was always fond of, and Dion had not been able to see her quite clearly. If the electriclight had been turned on she might have told him more; but she surelywould not have told him of the quiet indifference which manner and voiceand even inexpressive attitude had seemed to be endeavoring to conveyto him. For Beattie's only half-revealed face had looked eloquent in thefirelight, eloquent of a sympathy and even of a sorrow she had said verylittle about. Whenever Dion had begun to feel slightly chilled he hadlooked at her, and the face in the firelight had assured him. "Beattiedoes care, " he had thought; and he had realized how much he wantedBeattie to care, how he had come to depend upon Beattie's sisterlyaffection and gentle but deep interest in all the course of his life. 

Quickly, too quickly, the moment had come for him to say the last wordto Beattie, and suddenly he had felt shy. It had seemed to him thatsomething in Beattie--he could not have said what--had brought aboutthis unusual sensation in him. He had got up abruptly with a "Well, Isuppose I must be off now!" and had thrust out his hand. He had feltthat his manner and action were almost awkward and hard. Beattie had gotup too in a way that looked listless. 

"Are you well, Beattie?" he had asked. 

"Quite well. "

"Perhaps you are tired?"

"No. "

"I fancied--well, good-by, Beattie. "

"Good-by, Dion. "

That had been all. At the door he had looked round, and had seen Beattiestanding with her back to him and her face to the firelight, stoopingslightly, and he had felt a strong impulse to go to her again, andto--he hardly knew what--to say good-by again, perhaps, in a different, more affectionate or more tender way. But he had not done it. Instead hehad gone out and had shut the door behind him very quietly. It was oddthat Beattie had not even looked after him. Surely people generally didthat when a friend was going away, perhaps for ever. But Beattie wasdifferent from other people, and somehow he was quite sure she cared. 

The three last good-bys had been said to his mother, Robin and Rosamund, in Queen Anne's Mansions and Little Market Street. He had stayed withhis mother for nearly two hours. She had a very bad cold, unbecoming, complicated with fits of sneezing, a cold in the "three handkerchiefs anhour" stage. And this commonplace malady had made him feel very tenderabout her, and oddly pitiful about all humanity, including, of course, himself. While they talked he had thought several times, "It's hard tosee mother in such a state when perhaps I shall never see her again. Idon't want to remember her with a cold. " And the thought, "I shan't behere to see her get well, " had pained him acutely. 

"I'm looking and feeling glazed, dee-ar, " had been her greeting to him. "My nose is shiny and my mind is woolly. I don't think you ought to kissme or talk to me. "

And then he had kissed her, and they had talked, intimately, sincerely. In those last hours mercifully Dion had not felt shy with his mother. But perhaps this was because she was never shy, not even in tendernessor in sorrow. She was not afraid of herself. They had even been able todiscuss the possibility of his being killed in the war, and Mrs. Leithhad been quite simple about it, laying aside all her usual elaborationof manner. 

"The saddest result of such an honorable and noble end would be the lossto Robin, I think, " she had said. 

"To Robin? But he's got such a mother!"

"Do you think he doesn't need, won't need much more later on, the fatherhe's got? Dion, my son, humility is a virtue, no doubt, but I don'tbelieve in excess even in the practice of virtue, and sometimes I thinkyou do. "

"I didn't know it. "

"This going to the war is a splendid thing for you. I wouldn't have youout of it even though----"

Here she had been overcome by a tremendous fit of sneezing from whichshe had emerged with the smiling remark:

"I'm not permitted to improve the occasion. "

"I believe I know what you mean. Perhaps you're right, mother. You'recleverer than I am. Still I can't help seeing that Robin's got a mothersuch as few children have. Look round at all the mothers you know inLondon!"

"Yes. Rosamund was created to be a mother. But just to-day I want tolook at Robin's father. "

And so they had talked of him. 

That talk had done Dion good. It had set his face towards a shiningfuture. If he came back from the war he now felt, through the feelingof his mother, that he would surely come back tempered, tried, betterfitted to Robin's uses, more worthy of any woman's gift of herself. Without preaching, even without being remarkably definite, his motherhad made him see in this distant war a great opportunity, not to win aV. C. Or any splashing honor that would raise him up in the eyes of theworld, but to reach out and grip hold of his own best possibilities. Hadhis mother done even more than this? Had she set before him some othergoal which the war might enable him to gain if he had not already gainedit? Had she been very subtle when seeming to be very direct? Even whenshe held him in her arms--despite the cold!--and gave him the final kissand blessing, he was not sure. If it had been done it had been done withextraordinary delicacy, with the marvelous cunning of clever love whichknows how to avoid all the pitfalls. And it had been done, too, withthe marvelous unselfishness of which, perhaps, only the highest type ofmother-love is capable. 

After he had left his mother, and was just going out of the flat, Dionhad heard through the half-open door a sound, a ridiculous sound, whichhad made him love her terribly, and with the sudden yearning whichis the keenest pain of the heart because it defines all the humanlimitations: she was sneezing again violently. As he shut the frontdoor, "If she were to die while I'm away, and I were to come back!" hadstabbed his mind. Outside in the court he had gazed up at the toweringrows of lighted windows and had said another good-by out there. 

Shutting his eyes for a moment as the "Ariosto" plowed her way onwardsthrough a rather malignant sea, Dion saw again those rows of lightedwindows, and he wondered, almost as earnestly as a child wonders, whether his mother's cold was better. What he had done, volunteeringfor active service and joining the C. I. V. Battalion, had made him feelsimpler than usual; but he did not know it, did not look on at his ownsimplicity. 

And then, last of all, had come the parting from Robin and Rosamund. 

Rosamund and Dion had agreed not to make very much of his departureto Robin. Father was going way for a time, going over the seapicturesquely, with a lot of friends, all men, all happy to be togetherand to see wonderful things in a country quite different from England. Some day, when Robin was a big as his father, perhaps he, too, wouldmake such a voyage with his friends. Robin had been deeply interested, and had shown his usual ardor in comment and--this was moreembarrassing--in research. He had wanted to know a great deal abouthis father's intentions and the intentions of father's numerous malefriends. What were they going to do when they arrived in the extremelyodd country which had taken it into its head to be different fromEngland? How many male friends was father taking with him? Why hadn'tthey all been to "see us?" Was Uncle Guy one of them? Was Mr. Thrushgoing too? Why wasn't Mr. Thrush going? If he was too old to go wasUncle Guy too old? Did Mr. Thrush want to go? Was he disappointed atfather's not being able to take him? Was it all a holiday for father?Would mummy have liked to go? No lies had been told to Robin, butsome of the information he had sought had been withheld. Dion had madeskilful use of Mr. Thrush when matters had become difficult, when Robinhad nearly driven him into a corner. The ex-chemist, though seldom seen, loomed large in Robin's world, on account of his impressive coloring andancient respectabilities. Robin regarded him with awful admiration, andlooked forward to growing like him in some far distant future. Dion hadfrequently ridden off from difficult questions on Mr. Thrush. Even inthe final interview between father and son Mr. Thrush had been muchdiscussed. 

The final interview had taken place in the nursery among Aunt Beattie'sbricks, by which Robin was still obsessed. Dion had sat on the floor andbuilt towers with his boy, and had wondered, as he handled the bricksin the shining of the nursery fire, whether he would come back to helpRobin with his building later on. He was going out to build, for Englandand for himself, perhaps for Robin and Rosamund, too. Would he beallowed to see the fruits of his labors?

The towers of bricks had grown high, and with it Dion had built upanother tower, unknown to Robin, a tower of hopes for the child. So muchardor in so tiny a frame! It was a revelation of the wonder oflife. What a marvel to have helped to create that life and what aresponsibility. And he was going away to destroy life, if possible. The grotesqueness of war had come upon him then, as he had built up thetower with Robin. And he had longed for a released world in which hisboy might be allowed to walk as a man. The simplicity of Robin, hiscomplete trustfulness, his eager appreciation of human nature, hisconstant reaching out after kindness without fear of being denied, seemed to imply a world other than the world which must keep on lettingblood in order to get along. Robin, and all the other Robins, femaleand male, revealed war in its true light. Terrible children whoseunconscious comment on life bites deep like an acid! Terrible Robin inthat last hour with the bricks!

When the tower had become a marvel such as had been seen in no nurserybefore, Dion had suggested letting it be. Another brick and it mustsurely fall. The moment was at hand when he must see the last of Robin. He had had a furtive but strong desire to see the tower he and hisson had built still standing slenderly erect when he went out of thenursery. Just then he had been the man who seeks a good omen. Robin hadagreed with his suggestion after a long moment of rapt contemplation ofthe tower. 

"I wish Mr. Thrush could see it, " he had observed, laying down the brickhe had taken up to add to the tower just before his father had spoken. "He _would_ be pleased. "

The words had been lifted out on a sigh, the sigh of the wonder-workerwho had achieved his mission. And then they had talked of Mr. Thrush, sitting carefully, almost motionless, beside the tower, and speakingsoftly "for fear. " The firelight had danced upon the yellow bricks andupon the cream-colored nursery walls, filtering through the highnursery "guard" which protected Robin from annihilation by fire, andthe whisper, whisper of their voices had only emphasized the quiet. And, with every moment that went by, the lit-up tower had seemed more like asymbol to Dion. Then at last the cuckoo-clock had chimed and the woodenbird, with trembling tail, had made its jerky obeisance. 

"Cuckoo!"

Dion had put his arm round the little figure in the green jersey and thetiny knickerbockers, and had whispered, still governed by the tower:

"I must go now, Robin. "

"Good-by, Fa, " Robin had whispered back, with his eyes on the tower. 

With a very careful movement he had lifted his face to be kissed, andon his soft lips Dion had felt a certain remoteness. Did the tower standbetween him and his little son as he said good-by to Robin?

Just as he had reluctantly let Robin go and, with his legs crossed, hadbeen about to perform the feat of getting up without touching the floorwith his hands, and without shaking the bricks in their places, --movedto this trifling bodily feat by the desire to confront his emotion withan adversary, --the door behind him had been opened. Already in movementhe had instinctively half-turned round. Something had happened, --henever knew exactly what, --something had escaped from his physicalcontrol because his mind had abruptly been deflected from its task ofvigilance; there had been a crash and a cry of "Oh, _Fa_!" from Robin, and he had met Rosamund's eyes as the tower toppled down in ruin. Not somuch as one brick had been left upon another. 

Robin had been greatly distressed. Tears had come into his eyes, andfor a moment he had looked reproachfully at his father. Then, almostimmediately, something chivalrous had spoken within him, admonishinghim, and he had managed a smile. 

"It'll be higher next time, Fa, won't it?" he had murmured, stillevidently fighting a keen disappointment. 

And Dion had caught him up, given him a hug, whispered "My boy!" to him, put him down and gone straight out of the room with Rosamund, who hadnot spoken a word. 

And that had been the last of Robin for his father. 

In the evening, when Robin was asleep, Dion had said good-by toRosamund. The catastrophe of the tower of bricks had haunted his mind. As he had chosen to make of the tower an omen, in its destruction he hadfound a presage of evil which depressed him, which even woke in him uglyfears of the future. He had had a great deal out of life, not all he hadwanted, but still a great deal. Perhaps he was not going to havemuch more. He had not spoken of his fears to Rosamund, but had beenresolutely cheerful with her in their last conversation. Neither of themhad mentioned the possibility of his not coming back. They had talkedof what probably lay before him in South Africa, and of Robin, andpresently Rosamund had said:

"I want to make a suggestion. Will you promise to tell me if you dislikeit?"

"Yes. What is it?"

"Would you mind if I succeeded in letting this house and went into thecountry with Robin to wait for your coming back?"

"Letting it furnished, do you mean?"

"Yes. "

"But won't you be dull in the country, away from mother, and Beattie, and godfather, and all our friends?"

"I could never be dull with Robin and nature, never, and I wouldn't govery far from London. I thought of something near Welsley. "

"So that you could go in to Cathedral service when 'The Wilderness' wassung!"

He had smiled as he had said it, but his own reference to Rosamund'sonce-spoken-of love of the wilderness had, in a flash, brought the hillof Drouva before him, and he had faced man's tragedy--remembered joys ofthe past in a shadowed present. 

"Go into the country, Rose. I only want you to be happy, but"--he hadhesitated, and then had added, almost in spite of himself--"but not toohappy. "

Not too happy! That really was the great fear at his heart now thathe was voyaging towards South Africa, that Rosamund would be too happywithout him. He no longer deceived himself. This drastic change in hislife had either taught him to face realities, or simply prevented himfrom being able to do anything else. He told himself the truth, and itwas this, that Rosamund did not love him at all as he loved her. Shewas fond of him, she trusted him, she got on excellently with him, shebelieved in him, she even admired him for having been able to live as hehad lived before their marriage, but she did not passionately lovehim. He might have been tempted to think that, with all her fine, evensplendid, qualities, she was deprived of the power of loving intenselyif he had not seen her with Robin, if he had not once spoken with herabout her mother. 

If he were killed in South Africa would Rosamund be angry at his death?That was her greatest tribute, anger, directed surely not againstany human being, but against the God Whom she loved and Who, so shebelieved, ruled the world and directed the ways of men. Once Rosamundhad said that she knew it was possible for human beings to hurt God. Shehad doubtless spoken out of the depths of her personal experience. Shehad felt sure that by her anger at the death of her mother she hadhurt God. Such a conviction showed how she thought of God, in what acloseness of relation with God she felt herself to be. Dion knew nowthat she had loved her mother, that she loved Robin, as she did not lovehim. If he were to die she would be very sorry, but she would not bevery angry. No, she would be able to breathe out a "farewell!" simply, with a resignation comparable to that of the Greeks on those tombs whichshe loved, and then--she would concentrate on Robin. 

If he, Dion, were to be shot, and had time for a thought before dying, he knew what his thought would be: that the Boer's bullet had only hit aman, not, like so many bullets fired in war, a man and a woman. And thatthought would add an exquisite bitterness to the normal bitterness ofdeath. 

So Dion, on the "Ariosto, " voyaged towards South Africa, companionedby new and definite knowledge--new at any rate in the light and on thesurface, definite because in the very big moments of life truth becomesas definite as the bayonet piercing to the man who is pierced. 

His comrades were a mixed lot, mostly quite young. The average age wasabout twenty-five. Among them were barristers, law students, dentists, bank clerks, clerks, men of the Civil Service, architects, auctioneers, engineers, schoolmasters, builders, plumbers, jewelers, tailors, StockExchange men, etc. , etc. There were representatives of more than ahundred and fifty trades, and adherents to nine religions, among the menof the C. I. V. Their free patriotism welded them together, the thing theyhad all spontaneously done abolished differences between Baptistsand Jews, Methodists and Unitarians, Catholics and Protestants. Theperfumery manager and the marine engineer comprehended each other'slanguage; the dentist and the insurance broker "hit it off together" atfirst sight; printers and plumbers, pawnbrokers and solicitors, varnishtesters and hop factors--they were all friendly and all cheerfultogether. Each one of them had done a thing which all the rest secretlyadmired. Respect is a good cement, and can stand a lot of testing. In his comrades Dion was not disappointed. Among them were a fewacquaintances, men whom he had met in the City, but there was only oneman whom he could count as a friend, a barrister named Worthington, abachelor, who belonged to the Greville Club, and who was an intimate ofGuy Daventry's. Worthington knew Daventry much better than he knewDion, but both Dion and he were glad to be together and to exchangeimpressions in the new life which they had entered so abruptly, movedby a common impulse. Worthington was a dark, sallow, narrow-faced man, wiry, with an eager intellect, fearless and energetic, one of the mostcheerful men of the battalion. His company braced Dion. 

The second day at sea was disagreeable; the ship rolled considerably, and many officers and men were sea-sick. Dion was well, but Worthingtonwas prostrated, and did not show on deck. Towards evening Dion went downto have a look at him, and found him in his bunk, lead-colored, withpinched features, but still cheerful and able to laugh at his ownmisery. They had a small "jaw" together about people and things at home, and in the course of it Worthington mentioned Mrs. Clarke, whom he hadseveral times met at De Lorne Gardens. 

"You know she's back in London?" he said. "The winter's almostimpossible at Constantinople because of the winds from the Black Sea. "

"Yes, I heard she was in London, but I haven't seen her this winter. "

"I half thought--only half--she'd send me a wire to wish me good luckwhen we embarked, " said Worthington, shifting uneasily in his bunk, andtwisting his white lips. "But she didn't. She's a fascinating woman. Ishould have liked to have had a wire from her. "

"By Jove!" exclaimed Dion. 

"What is it?"

"I've just remembered I got some telegrams when we were going off. Iread one, from my wife, and stuffed the others away. There was such alot to do and think of. I believe they're here. "

He thrust a hand into one of his pockets and brought out four telegrams, one, Rosamund's, open, the rest unopened. Worthington lay staring at himand them, glad perhaps to be turned for a moment from self-contemplationby any incident, however trifling. 

"I'll bet I know whom they're from, " said Dion. "One's from old Guy, one's from Bruce Evelin, and one's from----" He paused, fingering thetelegrams. 

"Eh?" said Worthington, still screwing his lips about. 

"Perhaps from Beattie, my sister-in-law, unless she and Guy have clubbedtogether. Well, let's see. "

He tore open the first telegram. 

"May you have good luck and come back safe and soon. --BEATTIE--GUY. "

He opened the second. It was from Bruce Evelin. 

"May you be a happy warrior. --BRUCE EVELIN. "

Dion read it more than once, and his lips quivered for a second. He shota glance at Worthington, and said, rather bruskly:

"Beatrice and Guy Daventry and Bruce Evelin!"

Worthington gave a little faint nod in the direction of the telegramthat was still unopened. 

"Your mater!"

"No; she wrote to me. She hates telegrams, says they're public property. I wonder who it is. "

He pushed a forefinger under the envelope, tore it and pulled out thetelegram. 

"The forgotten do not always forget. May Allah have you and all bravemen in His hand. --CYNTHIA CLARKE. "

Dion felt Worthington's observant eyes upon him, looked up and met themas the "Ariosto" rolled and creaked in the heavy gray wash of the sea. 

"Funny!" he jerked out. 

Worthington lifted inquiring eyebrows but evidently hesitated to speakjust then. 

"It's from Mrs. Clarke. "

"Beastly of her!" tipped out Worthington. "What--she say?"

"Just wishes me well. "

And Dion stuck the telegram back into the flimsy envelope. 

When he looked at it again that night he thought the woman fromStamboul was a very forgiving woman. Almost he wished that she were lessforgiving. She made him now, she had made him in days gone by, feel asif he had behaved to her almost badly, like a bit of a brute. Of coursethat wasn't true. If he hadn't been married, no doubt they mighthave been good friends. As things were, friendship between them wasimpossible. He did not long for friendship with Mrs. Clarke. His lifewas full. There was no room in it for her. But he slightly regrettedthat he had met her, and he regretted more that she had wished to knowRosamund and him better than Rosamund had wished. He kept her telegram, with the rest of the telegrams he had received on his departure; now andthen he looked at it, and wondered whether its wording was not theleast bit indelicate. It would surely have been wiser if Mrs. Clarke hadomitted the opening six words. They conveyed a reproach; they conveyed, too, a curious suggestion of will power, of quiet persistence. Whenhe read them Dion seemed to feel the touch--or the grip--of Stamboul, listless apparently, yet not easily to be evaded or got rid of. 

That telegram caused him to wonder whether he had made a really strongimpression upon Mrs. Clarke, such as he had not suspected till now, whether she had not, perhaps, liked him a good deal more than sheliked most people. "May Allah have you and all brave men in His hand. "Worthington would have been glad to have had that message. Dion haddiscovered that Worthington was half in love with Mrs. Clarke. Hechaffed Dion about Mrs. Clarke's telegram with a rather persistentgaiety which did not hide a faint, semi-humorous jealousy. One day heeven said, "To him that hath shall be given. It's so like a woman tosent her word of encouragement to the man who's got a wife to encouragehim, and to leave the poor beggar who's got no one out in the cold. It'sa cruel world, and three-quarters of the cruelty in it is the productionof women. " He spoke with a smile, and the argument which followed wasnot serious. They laughed and bantered each other, but Dion understoodthat Worthington really envied him because Mrs. Clarke had thought ofhim at the moment of departure. Perhaps he had been rather stupid inletting Worthington know about her telegram. But Worthington had beenwatching him; he had had the feeling that Worthington had guessed whomthe telegram was from. The matter was of no importance. If Mrs. Clarkehad cared for him, or if he had cared for her, he would have kept hermessage secret; as they were merely acquaintances who no longer meteach other, her good wishes from a distance meant very little, merelya kindly thought, for which he was grateful and about which no mysteryneed be made. 

Of course he must write a letter of thanks to Mrs. Clarke. 

One day, after he had written to Rosamund, to Robin, to his mother, toBeattie and to Bruce Evelin, Mrs. Clarke's turn came. His letter to herwas short and cheery, but he was slow in writing it. There was a noiseof men, a turmoil of activity all about him. In the midst of it he hearda husky, very individual voice, he saw a pair of wide-open distressedeyes looking directly at him. And an odd conviction came to him thatlife would bring Mrs. Clarke and him together again. Then he would comeback from South Africa? He had no premonition about that. What he feltas he wrote his letter was simply that somehow, somewhere, Mrs. Clarkeand he would get to know each other better than they knew each othernow. Kismet! In the vast Turkish cemeteries there were moldering bodiesinnumerable. Why did he think of them whenever he thought of Mrs. Clarke? No doubt because she lived in Constantinople, because much ofher life was passed in the shadow of the towering cypresses. He hadthought of her as a cypress. Did she keep watch over bodies of the dead?

A bugle rang out. He put his letter into the envelope and hastilyscribbled the address. Mrs. Clarke was again at Claridge's. 

* * * * *

Every man who loves very deeply wishes to conquer the woman he loves, toconquer the heart of her and to have it as his possession. Dion had leftEngland knowing that he had won Rosamund but had never conqueredher. This South African campaign had come upon him like a great blowdelivered with intention; a blow which does not stun a man but whichwakes the whole man up. If this war had not broken out his life wouldhave gone on as before, harmoniously, comfortably, with the daily work, and the daily exercise, and the daily intercourse with wife and childand friends. And would he ever have absolutely known what he knew now, what--he was certain of it!--his mother knew, what perhaps Beattie andeven Bruce Evelin knew?

He had surely failed in a great enterprise, but he was resolved tosucceed if long enough life were given to him. He was now awake andwalked in full knowledge. Surely, Rosamund being what she was, the issuelay with himself. If God had stood between them that must be because he, Dion, was not yet worthy of the full happiness which was his greatestearthly desire. Dion was certain that God did not stand between Rosamundand Robin. 

He had dreams of returning to England a different, or perhaps adeveloped, man. The perfect lovers ought to stand together on the samelevel. Rosamund and he had never done that yet. He resolved to gain inSouth Africa, to get a grip on his best possibilities, to go back toEngland, if he ever went back, a bigger soul, freer, more competent, more generous, more fearless. He could never be a mystic. He didnot want to be that. But surely he could learn in this interval ofseparation which, like a river, divided his life from Rosamund's, tomatch her mysticism with something which would be able to call it outof its mysterious understanding. Instead of retreating to God alone shemight then, perhaps, take him with her; instead of praying over him shemight pray with him. If, after he returned from South Africa, Rosamundwere ever again to be deliberately good with him, making such an effortas she had made on that horrible evening in Little Market Street whenhe had told her he was going on active service, he felt that he simplycouldn't bear it. 

He put firmly aside the natural longings for home which often assailedhim, and threw himself heart and soul into his new duties. Already hefelt happier, for he was "out" to draw from the present, from the wholeof it, all the building material it contained, and was resolute to useall that material in the construction of a palace, a future based onmarble, strong, simple, noble, a Parthenon of the future. Only the weakman looks to omens, is governed in his mind, and so in his actions, bythem. That which he had not known how to win in an easy life he mustlearn to win in a life that was hard. This war he would take as a giftto him, something to be used finely. If he fell in it still he wouldhave had his gift, the chance to realize some of his latent and bestpossibilities. He swept out of his mind an old thought, the creepingsurmise that perhaps Rosamund had given him all she had to give inlover's love, that she knew how to love as child and as mother, but thatshe was incapable of being a great lover in man's sense of the term whenhe applies it to woman. 

Madeira was passed on January the twenty-fifth, and the men, staringacross the sea, saw its lofty hills rising dreamily out of the haze, watchers of those who would not stop, who had no time for any eating ofthe lotus. Heat came upon the ship, and there were some who pretendedthat they heard sounds, and smelled perfumes wafted, like messages, fromthe hidden shores on which probably they would never land. Every onewas kept busy, after a sail bath, with drilling, musketry instruction, physical drill, cleaning of accouterments, a dozen things which made thehours go quickly in a buzz of human activities. Some of the men, Dionamong them, were trying to learn Dutch under an instructor who knew themysteries. A call came for volunteers for inoculation, and both Dionand Worthington answered it, with between forty and fifty other men. The prick of the needle was like the touch of a spark; soon after came amystery of general wretchedness, followed by pains in the loins, a riseof temperature and extreme, in Dion's case even intense, weakness. He lay in his bunk trying to play the detective on himself, to standoutside of his body, saying to himself, "This is I, and I am quiteunaffected by my bodily condition. " For what seemed to him a long timehe was fairly successful in his effort; then the body began to showdefinitely the power of its weakness upon the Ego, to asset itself byfeebleness. His will became like an invalid who is fretful upon thepillows. Soon his strong resolutions, cherished and never to be partedfrom till out of them the deeds had blossomed, lost blood and fellupon the evil day of anemia. He had a sensation of going out. When themidnight came he could not sleep, and with it came a thought feeble butpersistent: "If she loves me it's because I've given her Robin. " And inthe creaking darkness, encompassed by the restlessness of the sea, againand again he repeated to himself the words--"it's because I've given herRobin. " That was the plain truth. If he was loved, he was loved becauseof something he had done, not because of something that he was. Towardsdawn he felt so weak that his hold on life seemed relaxing, and at lasthe almost wished to let it go. He understood why dying people do notusually fear death. 

Three days later he was quite well and at work, but the memory of hisillness stayed with him all through the South African campaign. Often atnight he returned to that night on shipboard, and said to himself, "Thedoctor's needle helped me to think clearly. "

The voyage slipped away with the unnoticed swiftness that is the childof monotony. The Southern Cross shone above the ship. When the greatheat set in the men were allowed to sleep on deck, and Dion lay allnight long under the wheeling stars, and often thought of the starsabove Drouva, and heard Rosamund's voice saying, "I can see thePleiades. "

The ship crossed the line. Early in February the moon began to show abenign face to the crowd of men. One night there was a concert which wasfollowed by boxing. Dion boxed and won his bout easily on points. 

This little success had upon him a bracing effect, and gave him acertain prestige among his comrades. He did well also at revolver andmusketry practice--better than many men who, though good enough shots atBisley, found sectional practice with the service rifle a difficult job, were adepts at missing a mark with the revolver, and knew nothing offire discipline. Because he had set an aim before him on which he knewthat his future happiness depended, he was able to put his whole heartinto everything he did. In the simplest duty he saw a means to an endwhich he desired intensely. Everything that lay to hand in the lifeof the soldier was building material which he must use to the bestadvantage. He knew fully, for the first time, the joy of work. 

On a day in the middle of February the "Ariosto" passed the mail-boatfrom the Cape bound for England, sighted Table Mountain, and came toanchor between Robben Island and the docks. On the following morningthe men of the C. I. V. Felt the earth with eager feet as they marched toGreen Point Camp. 

CHAPTER III

"Robin, " said Rosamund, "would you like to go and live in the country?"

Robin looked very serious and, after a moment of silent consideration, remarked:

"Where there's no houses?"

"Some houses, but not nearly so many as here. "

"Would Mr. Thrush be there?"

"Well no, I'm afraid he wouldn't. "

Robin began to look decidedly adverse to the proposition. 

"You see Mr. Thrush has always lived in London, " began Rosamundexplanatorily. 

"But so've we, " interrupted Robin. 

"But we aren't as old as Mr. Thrush. "

"Is he very old, mummie? How old is he?"

"I don't know, but he's a very great deal older than you are. "

"I s'poses, " observed Robin meditatively, slightly wrinkling his littlenose where the freckles were. "Well, mummie?"

"Old people don't generally like to move about much, but I think itwould be very good for you and me to go into the country while father'saway. "

And taking Robin on her knees, and putting her arms round him, Rosamundbegan to tell him about the country, developing enthusiasm as shetalked, bending over the little fair head that was so dear to her--thelittle fair head which contained Robin's dear little thoughts, funny andvery touching, but every one of them dear. 

She described to Robin the Spring as it is in the English country, frailand fragrant, washed by showers that come and go with a waywardnessthat seems very conscious, warmed by sunbeams not fully grown up andtherefore not able to do the work of the sunbeams of summer. She toldhim of the rainbow that is set in the clouds like a promise made froma very great distance, and of the pale and innocent flowers of Spring:primroses, periwinkles, violets, cowslips, flowers of dells in thebudding woods, and of clearings round which the trees stand on guardabout the safe little daisies and wild hyacinths and wild crocuses;flowers of the sloping meadows that go down to the streams of Spring. And all along the streams the twigs are budding; the yellow "lambs'tails" swing in the breeze, as if answering to the white lambs' tailsthat are wagging in the fields. The thrush sings in the copse, and inhis piercing sweet note is the sound of Spring. 

Bending over Robin, Rosamund imitated the note of the thrush, and Robinstared up at her with ardent eyes. 

"Does Mr. Thrush ever do that?"

"I've never heard him do it. "

And she went on talking about the Spring. 

How she loved that hour talking of Spring in the country with her humanSpring in her arms. What was the war to her just then? Robin abolishedwar. While she had him there was always the rainbow, the perfectrainbow, rising from the world to the heavens and falling from theheavens to the world. The showers were fleeting Spring showers, and theclouds were fleecy and showed the blue. 

"Robin, Robin, Robin!" she breathed over her child, when they had livedin the Spring together, the pure and exquisite Spring. 

And Robin, all glowing with the ardor he had caught from her, declaredfor the country. 

A few days later Rosamund wrote to Canon Wilton, who happened to be inresidence at Welsley out of his usual time, and asked him if he knew ofany pretty small house, with a garden, in the neighborhood, where sheand Robin could settle down till Dion came back from the war. In answershe got a letter from the Canon inviting her to spend a night or two athis house in the Precincts. In a P. S. He wrote:

"If you can come next week I think I can arrange with Mr. Soames, ourprecentor, for Wesley's 'Wilderness' to be sung at one of the afternoonservices; but let me know by return what days you will be here. "

Rosamund replied by telegraph. Aunt Beatrice was installed in LittleMarket Street for a couple of nights as Robin's protector, and Rosamundwent down to Welsley, and spent two days with the Canon. 

She had never been alone with him before, except now and then for a fewminutes, but he was such a sincere and plain-spoken man that she hadalways felt she genuinely knew him. To every one with whom he spoke hegave himself as he was. This unusual sincerity in Rosamund's eyes was agreat attraction. She often said that she could never feel at home withpretense even if the intention behind it was kindly. Perhaps, however, she did not always detect it, although she possessed the great gift offeminine intuition. 

She arrived by the express, which reached Welsley Station in theevening, and found Canon Wilton at the station to meet her. His greetingwas:

"The 'Wilderness, ' Wesley, at the afternoon service to-morrow. "

"That's good of you!" she exclaimed, with the warm and radiantcordiality that won her so many friends. "I shall revel in my littlevisit here. It's an unexpected treat. "

The Canon seemed for a moment almost surprised by her buoyantanticipation, and a look that was sad flitted across his face; but shedid not notice it. 

As they drove in a fly to his house in the Precincts she looked out atthe busy provincial life in the narrow streets of the old country town, and enjoyed the intimate concentration of it all. 

"I should like to poke about here, " she said. "I should feel at home asI never do in London. I believe I'm thoroughly provincial at heart. "

In the highest tower of the Cathedral, which stood in the heart ofthe town, the melodious chimes lifted up their crystalline voices, and"Great John" boomed out the hour in a voice of large authority. 

"Seven o'clock, " said the Canon. "Dinner is at eight. You'll be allalone with me this evening. "

"To-morrow too, I hope, " Rosamund said, with a smile. 

"No, to-morrow we shall be the awkward number--three. Mr. Robertson, from Liverpool, is coming to stay with me for a few days. He preacheshere next Sunday evening. "

Rosamund's thought was carried back to a foggy night in London, when shehad heard a sermon on egoism, and a quotation she had never forgotten:_"Ego dormio et cor meum vigilat. "_

"Can you manage with two clergymen?" said Canon Wilton. 

"I'll try. I don't think they'll frighten me, and I've been wishing tomeet Mr. Robertson for a long time. "

"He's a good man, " said Canon Wilton very simply. But the statement ashe made it was like an accolade. 

Rosamund enjoyed her quiet evening with the Canon in the house with thehigh green gate, the elm trees and the gray gables. As they talked, atfirst in the oak-paneled dining-room, later in the Canon's library by abig wood fire, she was always pleasantly conscious of being enclosed, of being closely sheltered in the arms of the Precincts, which held alsothe mighty Cathedral with its cloisters, its subterranean passages, itsancient tombs, its mysterious courts, its staircases, its towers hiddenin the night. The ecclesiastical flavor which she tasted was pleasantto her palate. She loved the nearness of those stones which had beenpressed by the knees of pilgrims, of those walls between which so manyprayers had been uttered, so many praises had been sung. A cosinessof religion enwrapped her. She had a delicious feeling of safety. Theycould hear the chimes where they sat encompassed by a silence which wasnot like ordinary silences, but which to Rosamund seemed impregnatedwith the peace of long meditations and of communings with the unseen. 

"This rests me, " she said to her host. "Don't you love your time here?"

"I'm fond of Welsley, but I don't think I should like to pass all myyear in it. I don't believe in sinking down into religion, or intopractises connected with it, as a soft old man sinks down into a featherbed. And that's what some people do. "

"Do they?" said Rosamund abstractedly. 

Just then a large and murmurous sound, apparently from very far off, hadbegun to steal upon her ears, level and deep, suggestive almost of thevast slumber of a world and of the underthings that are sleepless butkeep at a distance. 

"Is it the organ?" she asked, in a listening voice. 

Canon Wilton nodded. 

"Dickinson practising. "

They sat in silence for a long time listening. In that silence the Canonwas watching Rosamund. He thought how beautiful she was and how good, but he almost disliked the joy which he discerned in her expression, inher complete repose. He rebuked himself for this approach to dislike, but his rebuke was not efficacious. In this enclosed calm of theprecincts of Welsley where, pacing within the walls by the edge ofthe velvety lawns, the watchman would presently cry out the hour CanonWilton was conscious of a life at a distance, the life of a man he hadmet first in St. James's Square. The beautiful woman in the chair by thefire had surely forgotten that man. 

Presently the distant sound of the organ ceased. 

"I love Welsley, " said Rosamund, on a little sigh. "I just love it. Ishould like to live in the Precincts. "

That brought them to a discussion of plans in which Dion was talked ofwith warm affection and admiration by Rosamund; and all the time she wastalking, Canon Wilton saw the beautiful woman in the chair listeningto the distant organ. He knew of a house that was to be let in thePrecincts, but that night he did not mention it. Something prevented himfrom doing so--something against which he struggled, but which he failedto overcome. 

When they separated it was nearly eleven o'clock. As Rosamund tookher silver candlestick from the Canon at the foot of the shallow oakstaircase she said:

"I've had _such_ a happy evening!"

It was a very sweet compliment very sweetly paid. No man could have beenquite indifferent to it. Canon Wilton was not. As he looked at Rosamunda voice within him said:

"That's a very dear woman. "

It spoke undeniable truth. Yet another voice whispered:

"Oh, if I could change her!"

But that was impossible. The Canon knew that, for he was very sincerewith himself; and he realized that the change he wanted to see couldonly come from within, could never be imposed by him from without uponthe mysterious dweller in the Temple of Rosamund. 

That night Rosamund undressed very slowly and "pottered about" in herroom, doing dreamily unnecessary things. She heard the chimes, and sheheard the watchman calling the midnight hour near her window as "GreatJohn" lifted up his voice. In the drawers where her clothes were laidthe Canon's housekeeper had put lavender. She smelt it as she listenedto the watchman's voice, shutting her eyes. Presently she drew asidecurtain and blind and looked out of the window. She saw the outline ofpart of the great Cathedral with the principal tower, the home of "GreatJohn"; she felt the embracing arms of the Precincts; and when she kneltdown to say her prayers she thought:

"Here is a place where I can really pray. "

Nuns surely are helped by their convents and monks by the peace of theirwhitewashed cells. 

"It is only in sweet places of retirement that one can pray as one oughtto pray, " thought Rosamund that night as she lay in bed. 

She forgot that the greatest prayer ever offered up was uttered on across in the midst of a shrieking crowd. 

On the following day she went to the morning service in theCathedral, and afterwards heard something which filled her with joyfulanticipation. Canon Wilton told her there was a house to let in thePrecincts. 

"I'll take it, " said Rosamund at once. "Esme Darlington has found me atenant for No. 5, an old friend of his, or rather two old friends, SirJohn and Lady Tenby. Where is it?"

He took her to see it. 

The house in question had been occupied by the widow of a Dean, who hadrecently been driven by her health to "relapse upon Bournemouth. " It wasa small old house with two very large rooms--one was the drawing-room, the other a bed-room. 

The house stood at right angles to the east end of the Cathedral, fromwhich it was only divided by a strip of turf broken up by fragmentsof old gray ruins, and edged by an iron railing, and by a pavedpassage-way, which led through the Dark Entry from the "Green Court, "where the Deanery and Minor Canons' houses were situated, to thepleasaunce immediately around the Cathedral. To the green lawns of thiswide pleasaunce the houses of the residentiary Canons gave access. Oneprojecting latticed window of the drawing-room of Mrs. Browning's house, another of the big bedroom above it, and the windows of the kitchen andthe servants' quarters looked on to the passage-way and the Cathedral;all the other windows looked into an old garden surrounded by a veryhigh brick wall, a garden of green turf like moss, of elm trees, and, insummer, of gay herbaceous borders, a garden to which the voices of thechimes dropped down, and to which the Cathedral organ sent its message, as if to a place that knew how to keep safely all things that wereprecious. Even the pure and chill voices of the boy choristers founda way to this hidden garden, in which there were straight and narrowpaths, where nuns might have loved to walk unseen of the eyes of men. 

The Dean's widow had left behind all her furniture, and was now adorninga Bournemouth hotel, in which her sprightly invalidism and closeknowledge of the investments of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, and ofthe habits and customs of the lesser clergy, were greatly appreciated. Some of the furniture did not wholly commend itself to Rosamund. Therewere certain settees and back-to-backs, certain whatnots and occasionaltables, which seemed to stamp the character of the Dean's widowas meretricious. But these could easily be "managed. " Rosamund wasenchanted with the house, and went from room to room with Canon Wiltonradiantly curious, and almost as excited as a joyous schoolgirl. 

"I must poke my nose into everything!" she exclaimed. 

And she did it, and made the Canon poke his too. 

Presently, opening the lattice of the second window in the big, low-ceiled drawing-room, she leaned out to the moist and secludedgarden. She was sitting sideways on the window-seat, of which she hadjust said, "I won't have this dreadful boudoir color on _my_ cushions!"Canon Wilton was standing behind her, and presently heard her sighgently, and almost voluptuously, as if she prolonged the sigh and didnot want to let it go. 

"Yes?" he said, with a half-humorous inflection of the voice. 

Rosamund looked round gravely. 

"Did you say something?"

"Only--yes?--in answer to your sigh. "

"Did I? Yes, I must have. I was thinking----"

She hesitated, while he stood looking at her with his strong, steadygray-blue eyes. 

"I was thinking of a life I shall never live. "

He came up to the window-seat. 

"Some of it might have been passed in just such a garden as this withinsound of bells. "

With a change of voice she added:

"How Robin will love it!"

"The life you will never live?" said the Canon, smiling gravely. 

"No, the garden. "

"Then you haven't a doubt?"

"Oh no. When I know a thing there's no room in me for hesitation. Ishall love being here with Robin as I have never loved anything yet. "

The quarter struck in the Cathedral tower. 

"Very different from South Africa!" said Canon Wilton. 

Rosamund knitted her brows for a moment. 

"I wonder whether Dion will come back altered, " she said. 

"D'you wish him to?"

She got up from the window-seat, put out her hand, and softly pulled thelattice towards her. 

"Not in most ways. He's so dear as he is. It would all depend on thealteration. "

She latched the window gently, and again looked at the garden throughit. 

"I may be altered, too, by living here!" she said. "All alone withRobin. I think I shall be. "

Canon Wilton made no comment. He was thinking:

"And when the two, altered, come together again, if they ever do, whatthen?"

He had noticed that Rosamund never seemed to think of Dion's death inSouth Africa as a possibility. When she spoke of him she assumed hisreturn as a matter of course. Did she never think of death, then? Didshe, under the spell of her radiant and splendidly healthy youth, forgetall the tragic possibilities? He wondered, but he did not ask. 

Mr. Robertson arrived at the Canon's house just in time for theafternoon service--"my Wilderness service, " as Rosamund called it. Thebells were ringing as he drove up with his modest luggage, and Rosamundhad already gone to the Cathedral and was seated in a stall. 

"I should like to have half an hour's quiet meditation in church beforethe service begins, " she had remarked to Canon Wilton. And the Canon hadput her in a stall close to where he would presently be sitting, and hadthen hurried back to meet Father Robertson. 

"My Welsley!" was Rosamund's thought as she sat in her stall, quitealone, looking up at the old jeweled glass in the narrow Gothic windows, at the wonderful somber oak, age-colored, of the return stalls andcanopy beneath which Canon Wilton, as Canon-in-Residence, would soon besitting at right angles to her, at the distant altar lifted on high andbacked by a delicate marble screen, beyond which stretched a further, tranquilly obscure vista of the great church. The sound of the bellsringing far above her head in the gray central tower was heard by her, but only just heard, as we hear the voices of the past murmuring ofold memories and of deeds which are almost forgotten. Distant footstepsechoed among the great tombs of stone and of marble, which commemoratedthe dead who had served God in that place in the gray years gone by. In her nostrils there seemed to be a perfume, like an essence ofconcentrated prayers sent up among these stone traceries, these pointedarches, these delicate columns, by generations of believers. She feltwrapped in a robe never woven by hands, in a robe that gave warmth toher spirit. 

A few people began stealing quietly in through the narrow archway inthe great screen which shut out the raised choir from the nave. Onlyone bell sounded now in the gray tower. A faint noise, like an oncomingsigh, above Rosamund's head heralded the organ's awakening, and wasfollowed by the whisper of its most distant voice, a voice which madeher think--she knew not why--of the sea whispering about a coral reef inan isle of the Southern Seas, part of God's world, mysteriously linkedto "my Welsley. " She shut her eyes, seeking to feel more strongly thesensation of unity. When she opened them she saw, sitting close to herin the return stalls, Father Robertson. His softly glowing eyes werelooking at her, and did not turn away immediately. She felt that he knewshe was his fellow-guest, and was conscious of a delicious sensation ofsympathy, of giving and taking, of cross currents of sympathy betweenthe Father and herself. 

"I love this hour--I love all this!" she said to herself. 

If only little Robin were submerged in the stall beside her!

The feet of the slow procession were heard, and the silver wand of thechief verger shone out of the delicate gloom. 

When the anthem was given out Rosamund looked across at Canon Wilton, and her eyes said to him, "Thank you. " Then she stood up, folded herhands on the great cushion in front of her, and looked at the grayvistas and at the dim sparkle of the ancient glass in the narrowwindows. 

"The wilderness and the solitary places . . . "

She had spoken of this to Dion as they looked at Zante together, beforelittle Robin had come, and she had said that if she had committed agreat sin she would like to take her sin into the Wilderness, becausepurification might be found there. And she had meant what she said, had spoken out of her heart sincerely. But now, as she listened to thisanthem, she saw a walled-in garden, with green turf like moss, old elmtrees and straight narrow paths. Perhaps she had been mistaken whenshe had spoken of the sin and the Wilderness, perhaps she would findpurification with fewer tears and less agony in the cloister, within thesound of the bells which called men to the service of God, and of thehuman voices which sang His praises. Saints had fled into the Wildernessto seek God there, but was He not in the Garden between the shelteringwalls, ready there, as in the farthest desert, to receive the submissionof the soul, to listen to the cry, "I have sinned"?

As in Elis the spell of the green wild had been upon Rosamund, sonow the spell of these old Precincts was upon her, and spoke to herinnermost being, and as in Elis Dion had been woven into her dream ofthe Wilderness, so now in Welsley Robin was woven into it. But Dion hadseemed a forerunner, and little Robin seemed That for which she had longwaited, the fulfilment of the root desire of her whole being as appliedto human life. 

When the service was over and the procession had gone out Rosamund satvery still listening to the organ. She believed that Canon Wilton hadgiven the organist a hint that he would have an attentive hearer, for hewas playing one of Bach's greatest preludes and fugues. Father Robertsonstayed on in his place. All the rest of the small congregation driftedaway through the archway in the rood-screen and down the steps to thenave. The fugue was a glorious, sturdy thing, like a great solidbody inhabited by a big, noble, unquestioning soul--a soul free fromhesitations, that knew its way to God and would not be hindered fromtaking it. A straight course to the predestined end--that was good, thatwas glorious! The splendid clamor of the organ above her, growing insonorous force, filled Rosamund with exultation. She longed to openher mouth and sing; the blood came to her cheeks; her eyes shone; shemounted on the waves of sound; she was wound up with the great fugue, and felt herself part of it. The gradual working up thrilled her wholebeing; she was physically and spiritually seized hold of and carriedalong towards a great and satisfying end. At last came the trumpet withits sound of triumphant flame, and the roar of the pedals was like theroaring of the sea. Already the end was there, grandly inherent inthe music, inevitably, desired by all the voices of the organ. All thepowers of the organ thundered towards it, straining to be there. 

It came, like something on the top of the world. 

"If I were a man that's the way I should like to go to God!" saidRosamund to herself, springing up. "That's the way, in a chariot offire. "

Unconscious of what she was doing she stretched out her hands with abig gesture and opened her lips to let out a breath; then, in the graysilence of the now empty Cathedral, she saw Father Robertson's eyes. 

He stepped down from his stall and went out through the archway, andshe followed him. On the steps, just beyond the rood-screen, she meta small, determined-looking man with hot cheeks and shining eyes. Sheguessed at once that he was the organist, went up to him and thanked himenthusiastically. 

The organist was the first person she captivated in Welsley, where shewas to have so many warm adherents very soon. 

Father Robertson went back to Canon Wilton's house while Rosamund talkedto the organist, with whom she walked as far as a high wooden gatelabeled "Mr. Dickinson. "

"You've got a walled garden too!" she remarked, as her companion tookoff his hat with an "I live here. "

The organist looked inquiring. Rosamund laughed. 

"How could you know? It's only that I've been visiting a delicious oldhouse, with a walled garden, to-day. It's to let. "

"Oh, Mrs. Duncan Browning's!" said Mr. Dickinson. "I--I'm sure I hopeyou're going to take it. "

"I may!" said Rosamund. "Good-by, and thank you again for your splendidmusic. It's done me good. "

"My dear!" exclaimed Mr. Dickinson, about a minute later, bursting--rather than going--into his wife's small drawing-room, "I've just met the most delightful woman, a goddess to look at, and ascharming as a siren brought up to be a saint. "

"More epigrams, Henry!" murmured Mrs. Dickinson. 

"She's staying with Canon Wilton. She's a thorough musician such as oneseldom comes across. There's a chance--I hope it materializes--of hertaking--"

"Your tea is nearly cold, Henry. "

"Her name is Mrs. Dion Leith. If she really does come here we must besure to--"

"Scones, Henry?"

Thus urged, Mr. Dickinson's body for the moment took precedence of hissoul. 

Rosamund knew she was going to like Mr. Robertson as she liked very fewpeople. She felt as if already she was his friend, and when they shookhands in Canon Wilton's drawing-room she cordially told him so, andreferred to the Sunday evening when she had heard him preach. The rookswere cawing among the elms in the Canon's garden. She could hear theirvoices in the treetops while she was speaking. A wind was stirringas the afternoon waned, and there came a patter of rain on the loftywindows. And the voices of the rooks, in the windy treetops, the patterof the rain, and the sigh of the wind were delightful to Rosamund, because she was safely within the Precincts, like a bird surrounded bythe warmth of its nest. 

"I'm coming to live here, " she said to Mr. Robertson, as she poured outtea for the two clergymen. "My husband has gone to South Africa with theCity Imperial Volunteers. He's in business, so we live in London. Butwhile he's away I mean to stay here. "

And eagerly almost as a child, she told him about the house of theDean's widow, and described to him the garden. 

"It's like a convent garden, isn't it?" she asked Canon Wilton, whoassented. "That's why I love it. It gives me the feeling of enclosedpeace that must be so dear to nuns. "

Something in her voice and look as she said this evidently struck Mr. Robertson, and when she presently left the room he said to Canon Wilton:

"If I didn't know that sweet woman had a husband I should say she wasborn with the vocation for a religious life. From the first moment Ispoke to her, looked at her, I felt that, and the feeling grows upon me. Can't one see her among sisters?"

"I don't wish to, " said Canon Wilton bluntly. "Shall we go to my study?"

With the composed gentleness that was characteristic of him FatherRobertson assented, and they went downstairs. When they were safelyshut up in the big room, guarded by multitudes of soberly bound volumes, Canon Wilton said:

"Robertson, I want to talk to you in confidence about my guest, who, asyou say, is a very sweet woman. You could do something for her which Icouldn't do. I have none of your impelling gentleness. You know how tostir that which dwells in the inner sanctuary, to start it working foritself; I'm more apt to try to work for it, or at it. Perhaps I canrouse up a sinner and make him think. I've got a good bit of theinstinct of the missioner. But my dear guest there isn't a sinner, except as we all are! She's a very good woman who doesn't quiteunderstand. I think perhaps you might help her to understand. Shepossesses a great love, and she doesn't know quite how to handle it, oreven to value it. "

The clock struck seven when they stopped talking. 

That evening, after dinner, Canon Wilton asked Rosamund to sing. Almosteagerly she agreed. 

"I shall love to sing in the Precincts, " she said, as she went to thepiano. 

Father Robertson, who had been sitting with his back to the piano, moved to the other side of the room. While Rosamund sang he watched herclosely. He saw that she was quite unconscious of being watched, and herunconsciousness of herself made him almost love her. Her great talent heappreciated fully, for he was devoted to music; but he appreciated muchmore the moral qualities she showed in her singing. He was a man whocould not forbear from searching for the soul, from following itsworkings. He had met all sorts and conditions of men, and with fewhe had not been friends. He had known, knew now, scientists for whosecharacters and lives he had strong admiration, and who felt positivethat the so-called soul of man was merely the product of the brain, resided in the brain, and must cease with the dispersal of the brain atdeath. He was not able to prove the contrary. That did not trouble himat all. It was not within the power of anything or of any one to troublethis man's faith. He did not mind being thought a fool. Indeed, beingwithout conceit, and even very modest, he believed himself to besometimes very foolish. But he knew he was not a fool in his faith, which transcended forms, and swore instinctively brotherhood with allhonest beliefs, and even with all honest disbeliefs. In his gentle, sometimes slightly whimsical way, he was as sincere as Canon Wilton; butwhereas the Canon showed the blunt side of sincerity, he usually showedthe tender and winning side. He found good in others as easily and assurely as the diviner finds the spring hidden under the hard earth'ssurface. His hazel twig twisted if there was present only one drop ofthe holy water. 

He discerned many drops in Rosamund. In nothing of her was herenthusiasm for what was noble and clean and sane and beautiful moreapparent than in her singing. Her voice and her talent were in servicewhen she sang, in service to the good. Music can be evil, neurotic, decadent and even utterly base. She never touched musical filth, whichshe recognized as swiftly as dirt on a body or corruption in a soul. 

"We must have Bach's 'Heart ever faithful, '" said Canon Wilton strongly, when Rosamund, after much singing, was about to get up from the piano. 

Almost joyfully she obeyed his smiling command. When at last she shutthe piano she said to Father Robertson:

"That's Dion's--my husband's--best-loved melody. "

"I should like to know your husband, " said Father Robertson. 

"You must, when he comes back. "

"You have no idea, I suppose, how long he will be away?"

"No, nor has he. "

"Then what are you going to do about Mrs. Browning's house?" said theCanon's bass. 

"Oh--well----"

Two lines appeared in her forehead. 

"I thought of taking it for six months, and then I can see. My littlehouse in Westminster is let for six months from the first of March. " Shehad turned to Father Robertson: "I'm only afraid----" She paused. Shelooked almost disturbed. 

"What are you afraid of?" asked Canon Wilton. 

"I'm afraid of getting too fond of Welsley. "

The Canon looked across at Father Robertson on the other side of thefireplace. 

* * * * *

Rosamund went back to Robin and London on the following afternoon. Inthe morning she took Father Robertson to see Mrs. Browning's house. Canon Wilton was busy. After the morning service in the Cathedral he hadto go to a meeting of the Chapter, and later on to a meeting in the Cityabout something connected with education. 

"I shall be in bonds till lunch, " he said, "unless I burst them, as I'mafraid I sometimes feel inclined to do when people talk at great lengthon subjects they know nothing about. "

"Perhaps Mrs. Leith will kindly take me to see her house and garden, "observed Father Robertson. 

Rosamund was frankly delighted. 

"Bless you for calling them mine!" she said. "That's just what I'mlonging to do. "

The wind and the rain were till hanging about in a fashion ratherundecided. It was a morning of gusts and of showers. The rooks swayed inthe elm tops, or flew up under the scudding clouds of a treacheroussky. There was a strong smell of damp earth, and the turf of the widespreading lawns looked spongy. 

"Oh, how English this is!" said Rosamund enthusiastically to the Fatheras they set forth together. "It's like the smell of the soul of England. I love it. I should like to lie on the grass and feel the rain on myface. "

"You know nothing of rheumatism evidently, " said Father Robertson, in avoice that was smiling. 

"No, but I suppose I should if I gave way to my impulse. And the rookswould be shocked. "

"Do you mean the Cathedral dignitaries?"

They were gently gay as they walked along, but very soon Rosamund, in her very human but wholly unconscious way, put her hand on FatherRobertson's arm. 

"There it is!"

"Your house?"

"Yes. Isn't it sweet? Doesn't it look peacefully old? I should like togrow old like that, calmly, unafraid and unrepining. I knew you'd loveit. "

He had not said so, but that did not matter. 

"There's a dear old caretaker, with only one tooth in front and suchnice eyes, who'll let us in. Not an electric bell!"

She gave him a look half confidential, half humorous, and whollygirlish. 

"We have to pull it. That's so much nicer!"

She pulled, and the dear old caretaker, a woman in Cathedral black, withthe look of a verger's widow all over her, showed the tooth in a smileas she peeped round the door. 

"And now the garden!" said Rosamund, in the withdrawn voice of anintense anticipation, half an hour later, when Father Robertson hadseen, and been consulted, about everything from kitchen to attic. 

She turned round to Mrs. Soper, as the verger's widow--indeed she wasthat!--was called. 

"Shall you mind if we stay a good while in the garden, Mrs. Soper? It'sso delightful there. Will it bother you?"

"Most pleased, ma'am! I couldn't wish for anything else. You do hearthe chimes most beautiful from there. But it's very damp. That we mustallow. "

"Are you afraid of the damp, Father?"

"Not a bit. "

"I knew you wouldn't be, " she said, almost exultantly. 

Mrs. Soper took her stand by the drawing-room window and gazed throughthe lattice with the deep interest which seems peculiar to provincialtowns, and which is seldom manifested in capitals, where the curiosityis rather of the surface than of the very entrails of humanity. Sheshowed the tooth as she stood, but not in a smile. She was far toointerested in the lady and the white-haired clergyman to smile. 

"I shouldn't wonder but what they're going to be married!" was herfeminine thought, as she watched them walking about the garden, andpresently pacing up and down one of the narrow paths, to the far-offwall that bordered one end of the Bishop's Palace, and back again to thewall near the Dark Entry. Canon Wilton had not mentioned Rosamund's nameto the verger's widow, who had no evil thoughts of bigamy. Presently thechimes sounded in the tower, and Mrs. Soper saw the two visitors pausein their walk to listen. They both looked upwards towards the Cathedral, and on the lady's face there was a rapt expression which was remarked byMrs. Soper. 

"She do look religious, " murmured that lady to the tooth. "She might bea bishop's lady when she a-stands like that. "

The chimes died away, the visitors resumed their pacing walk, andMrs. Soper presently retired to the kitchen, which looked out on thepassage-way, to cook herself "a bit of something" for the midday stayingof her stomach. 

In the garden that morning Rosamund and Father Robertson became friends. Rosamund had never had an Anglican confessor, though she had sometimeswished to confess, not because she was specially conscious of a burdenof sin, but rather because she longed to speak to some one of thoseinmost thoughts which men and women seldom care to discuss with thosewho are always in their lives. In Father Robertson she had found theexceptional man with whom she would not mind being perfectly frankabout matters which were not for Dion, not for Beattie, not forgodfather--matters which she could never have hinted at even to CanonWilton, whose strong serenity she deeply admired. Had any of her nearestand dearest heard Rosamund's talk with Father Robertson that day, theywould have realized, perhaps with astonishment, how strong was thereserve which underlay her forthcoming manner and capacious franknessabout the ordinary matters of everyday existence. 

"Father, a sermon from you changed my life, I think, " she said, whenthey had paced up and down the path only two or three times; and, without any self-consciousness, she told him of Dion's proposal on thatfoggy afternoon in London, of her visit to St. Mary's, Welby Street, andof the impression the sermon had made upon her. She described herreturn home, and the painful sensation which had beset her when shelost herself in the fog--the sensation of desertion, of a horror ofloneliness. 

"The next day I accepted my husband, " she said. "I resolved to take thepath of life along which I could walk with another. I decided to share. Do you remember?"

She looked at him gently, earnestly, and he understood the allusion tohis sermon. 

"Yes, I remember. But, "--his question came very gently--"in coming tothat decision, were you making a sacrifice?"

"Yes, I was. "

And then Rosamund made a confession such as she had never yet made toany one, though once she had allowed Dion to know a little of whatwas in her heart. She told Father Robertson of the something almostimperious within her which had longed for the religious life. Helistened to the story of a vocation; and he was able to understand itas certainly Canon Wilton could not have understood it. For Rosamund'screeping hunger had been not for the life of hard work among the poorin religion, not for the dedication of all her energies to the lostand unreclaimed, who are sunk in the mire of the world, but for thatpeculiar life of the mystic who leaves the court of the outer things forthe court of the mysteries, the inner things, who enters into prayer asinto a dark shell filled with the vast and unceasing murmur of the voicewhich is not human. 

"I wished to sing in public for a time. Something made me long to usemy voice, to express myself in singing noble music, in helping on itsmessage. But I meant to retire while I was still quite young. And alwaysat the back of my mind there was the thought--'then I'll leave theworld, I'll give myself up to God. ' I longed for the enclosed life ofperpetual devotion. I didn't know whether there was any community in ourChurch which I could join, and in which I could find what I thought Ineeded. I didn't get so far as that. You see I meant to be a singer atfirst. "

"Yes, I quite understand. And the giving up of this mystical dream was agreat sacrifice?"

"Really it was. I had a sort of absolute hunger in me to do eventuallywhat I have told you. "

"I understand that hunger, " said Father Robertson. 

Just then the chimes sounded in the Cathedral, and they stopped on thenarrow path to listen, looking up at the great gray tower which held thevoices sweet to their souls. 

"I understand that hunger, " he repeated, when the chimes died away. "Itcan be fierce as any hunger after a sin. In your case you felt it wasnot free from egoism, this strong desire?"

"Your sermon made me look into my heart, and I did think that perhaps Iwas an egoist in my religious feeling, that I was selfishly intent on myown soul, that in my religion, if I did what I longed presently to do, Ishould be thinking almost solely of myself. "

Rather abruptly Father Robertson put a question:

"There was nothing else which drew you towards marriage?"

"I liked and admired Dion very much. I thought him an exceptional sortof man. I knew he cared for me in a beautiful sort of way. Thattouched me. And"--she slightly hesitated, and a soft flush came to hercheeks--"I felt that he was a good man in a way--I believe, I am almostsure, that very few young men are good in the particular way I mean. Ofall the things in Dion that was the one which most strongly called tome. "

Father Robertson understood her allusion to physical purity. 

"I couldn't have married him but for that, " she added. 

"If I had known you when you were a girl I believe I should not haveexpected you to marry, " said Father Robertson. 

Afterwards, when he had seen Rosamund with Robin, he thought he had beenvery blind when he had said that. 

"You understand me, " she said, very simply. "But I knew you would. "

"You have given up something. Many people, perhaps most people, woulddeny that. But I know how difficult it is"--his voice became lower--"togive up retirement, to give up that food which the soul instinctivelylongs to find, thinks perhaps it only can find, in silence, perpetualmeditation, perpetual prayer, in the world that is purged of theinsistent clamor of human voices. But"--he straightened himself witha quick movement, and his voice became firmer--"a man may wish to drawnear to God in the Wilderness, or in the desert, and may find Him mostsurely in"--and here he hesitated slightly, almost as a few minutesbefore Rosamund had hesitated--"in the Liverpool slums. What a blessingit is, what an unspeakable blessing it is, when one has learnt thelesson that God is everywhere. But how difficult it is to learn!"

They walked together for a long time in the garden, and Rosamund feltstrangely at ease, like one who has entered a haven and has found thedesired peace. She had given up something, but how much had been givento her! In the shelter of the gray towers, and within the enclosingwalls, she would go again to some of her dreams, while the chimes markedthe passing of the quiet hours, and the watchman's voice was lifted upto the stars which looked down on Welsley. 

And Robin would be with her. 

CHAPTER IV

A little more than six months later, when a golden September lay overthe land, Rosamund could scarcely believe that she had ever lived out ofWelsley. Dion was still in South Africa, in good health and "without ascratch. " In his last letter home he had written that he had no idea howlong the C. I. V. 's would be kept in South Africa. The war dragged on, anddespite the English successes which had followed such bitter defeatsno one could say when it would end. There was no immediate reason, therefore, for Rosamund to move back to London. 

She dreaded that return. She loved Welsley and could not now imagineherself living anywhere else. Robin, too was a pronounced, even anenthusiastic, "Welsleyite, " and had practically forgotten "old London, "as he negligently called the greatest city in the world. They werevery happy in Welsley. In fact, the Dean's widow was the only rift inRosamund's lute, that lute which was so full of sweet and harmoniousmusic. 

Rosamund's lease of the house in the Precincts, "Little Cloisters, " asit was deliciously named, had been for six months, from the 1st of Marchtill the 1st of September. As Dion was not coming home yet, and as hewrote begging her to live on at Welsley if she preferred it to London, she was anxious to "renew" for another six months. The question whetherMrs. Duncan Browning would, or would not, renew really tormentedRosamund, and the uncertainty in which she was living, and the misery itcaused her, showed her how much of her heart had been given to Welsley. 

The Dean's widow was capricious and swayed by fluctuations of health. She was "up and down, " whatever that betokened. At one moment she "sawthe sun, "--her poetical way of expressing that she began to feel prettywell, --and thought she had had enough of the "frivolous existence oneleads in an hotel"; at another a fit of sneezing, --"was not the earlymorning sneeze but the real thing, "--a pang of rheumatism, or a touchof bronchitis, made her fear for the damp of Welsley. She would and shewould not, and Rosamund could not induce her to come to a decision, andsuffered agonies at the thought of being turned out of Little Cloisters. When Dion came back, of course, a flitting from Welsley would have to befaced, but to be driven away without that imperative reason would indeedbe gall and wormwood. There were days when Rosamund felt unchristiantowards Mrs. Dean, upon whom she had never looked, but with whom she hadexchanged a great many cordial letters. 

In August, under the influence of a "heavy cold, which seems the worsebecause of the heat, " Mrs. Browning had agreed to let Rosamund stay onfor another month, September; and now Rosamund was anxiously awaitinga reply to her almost impassioned appeal for a six months' extension ofher lease. Canon Wilton was again in residence in the Precincts, andone afternoon he called at Little Cloisters, after the three o'clockservice, to inquire what was the result of this appeal. Beatrice wasstaying with her sister for a few days, and when the Canon was shown inshe was alone in the drawing-room, having just come up from the garden, where she had been playing with Robin, whose chirping high voice wasaudible, floating up from below. 

"Is your sister busy?" asked the Canon, after greeting Beatrice. 

Beatrice smiled faintly. 

"She's in her den. What do you think she is doing?"

The Canon looked hard at her, and he too smiled. 

"Not writing again to Mrs. Browning?"

Beatrice nodded, and sat gently down on the window-seat. 

"Begging and praying for an extension. "

"I've never seen any one so in love with a place as your sister is withWelsley. "

He sat down near Beatrice. 

"But it is attractive, isn't it?" she said. 

She turned her head slowly and looked out of the open window to theenclosed garden which was bathed in mellow sunshine. The sky above thegray Cathedral towers was a clear and delicate, not deep, blue. Abovethe mossy red wall of the garden appeared the ruined arches of thecloisters which gave to the house its name. Among them some doves werecooing. Up in the blue, about the pinnacles of the towers, therooks were busily flying. Robin, in a little loose shirt, greenknickerbockers, and a tiny soft white hat set well on the back ofhis head, was gardening just below the window with the intensity thatbelongs to the dawn. His bare brown legs moved rapidly, as he ran fromplace to place carrying earth, a plant, a bright red watering-pot. Thegardener, a large young man, with whom Robin was evidently on the mostfriendly, and even intimate, terms, was working with him, and apparentlyunder his close and constant supervision. A thrush with very bright eyeslooked on from an adjacent elder bush. Upon the wall, near the end ofthe Bishop's Palace, a black cat was sunning itself and lazily attendingto its toilet. 

"It's the very place for Rosamund, " said Beatrice, after a pause, duringwhich she drank in Welsley. "She seems to know and love every stick andstone in it. "

"And almost every man, woman and child, " said the Canon. "She began bycaptivating the Precincts, --not such an easy task either, for a bishopusually has not the taste of a dean, and minor canons think very lightlyof the praises of an archdeacon, --and she has ended by captivatingthe whole city. Even the wives of the clergy sing her praises with oneaccord. It's the greatest triumph in the history of the church. "

"You see she likes them and is thoroughly interested in all their littleaffairs. "

"Yes, it's genuine sympathy. She makes Welsley her world, and so Welsleythinks the world of her. "

He looked across at Beatrice for a moment meditatively, and then said:

"And when her husband comes back?"

"Dion! Well, then, of course----"

She hesitated, and in the silence the drawing-room door opened andRosamund came in, holding an open letter in her hand, knitting herbrows, and looking very grave and intense. She greeted the Canon withher usual warm cordiality, but still looked grave and preoccupied. 

"I've been writing to Mrs. Browning, about the house, " she saidearnestly. "It _is_ damp, isn't it?"

"Damp?" said the Canon. "I've never noticed it. But then do you thinkthe house is unwholesome?"

"Not for _us_. What I feel is, that for a bronchial person it might be. "

She paused, looking at her letter. 

"I've put just what I feel here, in a letter to Mrs. Browning. I knowthe house is considered damp; by the Precincts, I mean. Mrs. Murry toldme so, and Mrs. Tiling-Smith thinks the same. Even the Bishop--why areyou smiling, Canon Wilton?"

But she began to smile too. 

"What does the Bishop say about the danger to health of LittleCloisters?"

Her lips twitched, but she replied with firm sweetness:

"The Bishop says that all, or nearly all, old houses are apt to be dampin winter. "

"A weighty utterance! But I'm afraid Mrs. Browning--by the way, have youput the Bishop into your letter?"

"I had thought of reading it to you both, but now I shall not. "

She put the letter into an envelope, sealed it up with practicalswiftness, rang the bell for Annie and sent it to the postbox round thecorner. 

"I put the Bishop in, " she added, with a mockery of defiance that wasalmost girlish, when Annie had gone out. 

"That was a mistake, " said the Canon sonorously. 

"Why?"

"Bishops never carry weight with the wives, or widows, of deans. "

"But why not?" asked Rosamund, with a touch of real anxiety. 

"Because the wives of deans always think their husbands ought to bebishops instead of those who are bishops, and the widows of deans alwaysconsider that they ought to be the widows of bishops. They thereforevery naturally feel that bishops are not entitled by merit to thepositions they hold, and could be treated with a delicate disdain. "

"I never thought of that. I wonder if Annie----"

"Too late!" said the Canon. "You'll have to turn out of LittleCloisters, I foresee that. "

Rosamund sat down, leaned towards him with her hands clasped tightlytogether, and, in her absolutely unself-conscious way, began to tell himand Beattie what she felt about Welsley, or something of what she felt. A good deal she could only have told to Father Robertson. When she hadfinished, Canon Wilton said, in his rather abrupt and blunt way:

"Well, but if your husband comes home unexpectedly? You can't stay herethen, can you?"

Beatrice, who was still on the window seat, leaned out, and began tospeak to Robin below her in a quiet voice which could scarcely be heardwithin the room. 

"But Dion sees no prospect of coming home yet. "

"I heard to-day from some one in London that the C. I. V. May be backbefore Christmas. "

"Dion doesn't say so. "

"It mayn't be true. "

"Dion writes that no one out there has any idea when the war will end. "

"Probably not. But the C. I. V. Mayn't be needed all through the war. Most of them are busy men who've given up a great deal out of sheerpatriotism. Fine fellows! They've done admirable work, and the WarOffice may decide that they've done enough. Things out there have takena great turn since Roberts and Kitchener went out. The C. I. V. May comemarching home long before peace is declared. "

He spoke with a certain pressure, a certain intensity, and his eyesnever left Rosamund's face. 

"I'm glad my Dion's one of them, " she said. "And Robin will be glad, too, some day. "

She said nothing more about Mrs. Browning and Little Cloisters. But whenCanon Wilton had gone she said to her sister:

"Beattie, does it ever strike you that Canon Wilton's rather abrupt andunexpected sometimes in what he says?"

"He doesn't beat about the bush, " replied Beatrice. "Do you mean that?"

"Perhaps I do. Now I'm going down to Robin. How strong he's gettinghere! Hark at his voice! Can't you hear even in his voice how much goodWelsley had done him?"

Robin's determined treble was audible as he piped out:

"Oh no, Fipper! Not by the Bish's wall! Why, I say, the slugs alwayscomes there. They do, weally! You come and see! Come quick! I'llshow----"

The voice faded in the direction of the Palace. 

"I must go down and see if it's true about the slugs, " exclaimedRosamund. 

And with beaming eyes she hastened out of the room. 

Beatrice looked after her and sighed. Dion's last letter from SouthAfrica was lying on the writing-table close to her. Rosamund had alreadygiven it to her to read. Now she took it up and read it carefully again. The doves cooed in the cloisters; the bells chimed in the tower; themellow sunshine--already the sunshine not of full summer, but of thedawning autumn, with its golden presage of days not golden, and ofnights heavy with dews and laden with floating leaves, --came in throughthe lattice, and lay over her soft and wistful melancholy, as she readof hardship, and dust, and blood and death, told truthfully, but alwayscheerfully, as a soldier tells a thing to a woman he loves and wishes tobe sincere with. 

Dion was not in the peace. Dear Rosamund! Did she quite realize? Andthen Beattie pulled herself up. A disloyal thought surely leaves a stainon the mind through which it passes. Beattie did not want to have astain on her mind. She cared for it as a delicately refined woman caresfor her body, bathing it every day. 

She put Dion's letter down. 

That evening Rosamund sang at a charity concert in the City Hall. Her music was already a legend in Welsley and the neighborhood. Mr. Dickinson, who always accompanied her singing, declared it emphaticallyto be "great. " The wife of the Bishop, Mrs. Mabberley, pronounced theverdict, "She sings with her soul rather than with her voice, " withoutintention of paying a left-handed compliment. The Cathedral Choir boysaffirmed that "our altos are a couple of squeaks beside her. " Even Mrs. Dickinson, "the cold douche, " as she was named in the Precincts, hadlong ago "come round" about Mrs. Dion Leith, and had been heard tosay of her, "She's got more than a contralto, she's got a heart, and Icouldn't say that of some women in high positions. " This was "aimed"at the Dean's wife, Mrs. Jasper, who gave herself musical airs, andsometimes tried to "interfere with the Precentor's arrangements, " whichmeant falling foul of "Henry. "

As Rosamund looked down upon the rows of friendly and familiar facesfrom the platform, as she heard the prolonged applause which greeted herbefore she sang, and the cries of "Encore!" which saluted her when shefinished, she felt that she had given her heart irrevocably to Welsley, and the thought came to her, "How can I leave it?" This was cozy, and London could never be cozy. She could identify herself with theconcentrated life here, without feeling it a burden upon her. For shewas so much beloved that people even respected her privacy, and fell inwith what she called "my absurd little ways. " In London, however manypeople you knew, you saw strangers all the time, strangers with hard, indifferent eyes and buttoned-up mouths. And one could never say ofLondon "my London. "

When the concert was over she wound a veil about her pale yellow hair, wrapped a thin cloak round her shoulders, took up her music case andasked for Beattie. An eager boy with a smiling round face, one of theCathedral Choristers, darted off to find Mrs. Daventry, the sister of"our Mrs. Leith"; Mr. Dickinson gently, but decisively, took the musiccase from Rosamund's hand with an "I'll carry that home for you"; a thinman, like an early primrose obliged by some inadvertence of spring towork for its living, sidled up and begged for the name of "your mostbeautiful and chaste second encore for our local paper, the 'WelsleyWhisperer'"; and Mrs. Dickinson in a pearl gray shawl, with anartificial pink camellia carelessly entangled in her marvelously smoothmouse-colored hair, appeared to tell Mrs. Leith authoritatively that"Madame Patey _in her heyday_ never sang 'O Rest in the Lord' as we haveheard it sung to-night. "

Then Rosamund, pleasantly surrounded by dear provincial enthusiasts, made her way to the door where Beattie, with more enthusiasts, waswaiting for her; and they all came out into the narrow High Street, and found the September moon riding above their heads to give them agreeting nobly serene and beneficent, and they set out _sans facon_, many of them bare-headed, to walk home down tiny "Archbishop's Lane" tothe Precincts. 

Rosamund walked with Mr. Dickinson on one side of her and the Deanof Welsley and Mrs. Jasper on the other; Canon Wilton, Beattie, theArchdeacon of Welsley and the Precentor were just in front; behindpeacefully streamed minor canons and their wives, young sons anddaughters of the Precincts, and various privileged persons who, thoughnot of the hierarchy, possessed small houses within the sacred pale. Only the Bishop and his consort drove majestically home in "Harrington'sFly. "

What a chatter of voices there was under the projecting eaves of thedear old house! What happy laughter was wafted towards the smiling moon!Mrs. Dickinson, presently "coming up with" Rosamund's party, becameabsolutely "waggish" (the Dean's expression), and made Rosamund laughwith that almost helpless spontaneity which is the greatest complimentto a joke. And then the gate in the ancient archway was opened, and theyall passed into their great pleasaunce, and, with a sensation of joyousproprietorship, heard the gate shut and locked behind them, and saw theCathedral lifting its towers to the moon. Laughter was hushed then, andsome of the voices were silent; feet went more slowly along the edgesof the velvety lawns; the spell of ancient things which are noble, andwhich tell of the noble ideals of humanity, fell upon them; their heartswithin them were lifted up. 

When the Dean bade good-night to Rosamund he said:

"Your music and you mean a great deal to Welsley. "

"Not half as much as Welsley means to me, " she replied with earnestsincerity. 

"We are all looking forward to greeting your gallant, self-sacrificinghusband presently, very soon I hope. Good-night to you. It has been"--hepaused, looked at Rosamund and gently pressed her hand, --"a mostfragrant evening. "

A most fragrant evening! When Beattie and Rosamund had eaten theirsandwiches, and drunk their still lemonade and claret, and when Beattiehad gone to bed, Rosamund slipped out alone into the dear walled garden, and paced up and down in the moonlight. 

Yes, there was something fragrant here, something that infected thesoul, something of old faiths and old holy aspirations, a murmur and aperfume of trust and love. There might be gossip, trickling jealousiesin this little world, mean actions, even, perhaps, ugly desires and uglyfulfilments of desire. Rosamund scarcely noticed, or did not notice, these things. With her people were at their best. That night, whenBeattie was going to bed, Rosamund had said to her:

"I can't think why Mrs. Dickinson is called 'the cold douche. ' I findher so warm-hearted and so amusing!"

And so it was with them all. Rosamund had the magic touch which drewthe best out of every one in Welsley, because she was happy there, andsincerely loved the place. 

"How can I leave Welsley?" she thought now, as she walked up and down inthe garden, and heard presently the chiming of midnight and the voiceof the watchman beyond the Dark Entry. God seemed very near to herin Welsley, God and the happiness of God. In Welsley she felt, or wasbeginning to feel, that she was almost able to combine two lives, thelife she had grasped and the life she had let go. Here she was a motherand at moments she was almost a religious too. She played with her boy, she trained him, watched over his small body and his increasing soul;and she meditated between the enclosing walls, listening to bells andfloating praises, to the Dresden Amen, and to the organ with its manyvoices all dedicated to the service of God. Often, when she walked alonein the garden, or sat alone in some hidden corner under the mossy walls, she felt like a nun who had given up the world forever, and had foundthe true life in God. In imagination, then, she lived the life of whichshe had dreamed as a girl before any man had brought her his love. 

She could never, even in imagination, live that life truly, withouteffort, in London. Welsley had made her almost hate London. She didnot know how she would be able to bear the return to it. Yet, if CanonWilton were right in what he had said to her that afternoon, Dion mightcome back very soon, and therefore very soon she might have to leaveWelsley. 

No. 5 Little Market Street once more; vaporous Westminster leaning tothe dark river!

Rosamund sighed deeply as she looked up again to the towers, and themoon, and turned to go into Little Cloisters. It was difficult toshut out such a night; it would be more difficult to give up the longmeditations, the dreams that came in this sweet retirement sheltered bythe house of God. 

* * * * *

Two days later, at breakfast-time, Rosamund received the followingletter, written on paper scented with "Wood violet":

"HOTEL PALACE-BY-THE-SEA, BOURNEMOUTH, Thursday

"MY DEAR MRS. LEITH, --I have received your two--or is itthree?--charming letters recently written, suggesting a renewal of thelease of Little Cloisters beyond September. At first I hesitated. Theatmosphere of a Cathedral town naturally attracts me and recalls sweetmemories of the past. On the other hand the life of a well-managedhotel, such as this is not without its _agrements_. Frivolous it maybe (though not light); comfortable and restful it undoubtedly is. Theagainst and the for in a nutshell as it were! Your last letter, inwhich you dwell on the dampness inevitable in old houses, and quote theBishop's opinion, would, I think, have left me undisturbed in mind--Ihave recently taken up the 'new mind' cult, which is, of course, notantagonistic to our cherished Anglican beliefs--had it not happened tocoincide with more than a touch of bronchial asthma. The Bishop (quitebetween you and me!) though a very dear man and a very good Christian, is not a person of great intellect. My husband would never enter intocontroversy with him, as he said it was useless to strive in argumentwith a mind not sure of its bearings! An opinion of the Bishop's wouldnot, therefore, weigh much with me. But there is an element of truth inthe contention as to the damp. Old houses _are_ damp at times. LittleCloisters, placed as it is in the shadow of the Cathedral, doubtlesssuffers in some degree from this defect. My doctor here, --_such_ aclever man!--though very reluctant to prevent me from returning home, confessed to-day that he thought my case needed careful watching by someone who _knew_. Now (between you and me), nobody _knows_ in Welsley, and therefore, after weighing pros and cons, and undergoing an hour ofmental treatment--merely the silent encouragement and purification ofthe will--by an expert here, I have decided to remain for the winter. I am willing, therefore, to extend your lease for another six monthson the terms as before. Perhaps you will kindly visit my solicitor, Mr. Collingwood of Cattle Market Lane, --but you are sure to know hisaddress!--who will arrange everything legally with you. --With mykindest regards and all good wishes, believe me, dear Mrs. Leith, alwayssincerely yours, "IMOGENE DUNCAN BROWNING. "

It was Beattie's last morning at Little Cloisters; she had settled togo back to De Lorne Gardens in the afternoon of that day. Rosamundread Mrs. Browning's letter sitting opposite to her sister at thebreakfast-table in the small, paneled dining-room. At the same timeBeattie was reading a letter from Guy. As she finished it she looked upand said:

"Anything interesting?"

"What does Guy say?" replied Rosamund. "Oh, here's a letter fromgodfather! Perhaps he's coming down. "

Rather hastily she tore open another envelope. 

Later on in the morning, when Beattie was doing mysterious things in thegarden with Robin, Rosamund slipped out alone and made her way toCattle Market Lane. She came back just before lunch, looking unusuallypreoccupied. 

The day after Beattie had returned to London, a note from Rosamund toldher that the lease of Little Cloisters had been renewed for another sixmonths, till the end of March, 1901. 

"And if old Dion comes back in the meanwhile, as I fully expect hewill?" said Guy, when Beattie told him of Rosamund's note. 

"I suppose it is possible to sublet a house, " said Beattie, lookingunusually inexpressive, Guy thought. 

"They say at the Clubs the C. I. V. Will be back before Christmas, Beattie, " said Guy. 

"The Tenbys' lease of Number 5 is up. "

"Yes, but do you think Dion can afford to run two houses?"

"Perhaps----" she stopped. 

"I don't believe Rosamund will ever be got out of Welsley, " said Guy. "And I'm pretty sure you agree with me. "

"I must go now, " said Beattie gently. "I'm going to Queen Anne'sMansions to tell the dear mother all about my visit to Welsley. "

"When is she going there?"

"I don't know. She's very lazy about moving. She's not been out ofLondon since Dion sailed. "

"I think she's the most delicate mother-in-law--I don't meanphysically--who has ever been born in the world. "

Beattie looked down, and in a moment went out of the room without sayinganything more. 

"Darling Beattie, " murmured Guy, looking after his wife. "How she bearsher great disappointment. "

For Beattie's sake far more than for his own he longed to have a childin his home, a child of hers and his. But that would never be. And soBeattie gave all the mother-love that was in her to Robin, but muchof it secretly. Guy knew that, and believed he knew the secret of herreticence even with Robin. She loved Robin, as it were, from a distance;only his mother must love him cheek to cheek, lips to lips, heart toheart, and his father as men love the sons they think of as the braveryand strength of the future. 

But even Guy did not know how much his wife loved Robin, how manyburied hopes and dreams stirred in their graves when Robin threw himselfimpulsively into her arms and confidentially hung on her neck andinformed her of the many important details of his life. No man knows allthat a certain type of woman is able to feel about a child. 

When Rosamund had arranged about the renewal of the lease, she tried tofeel the joy which was evidently felt by all her Welsley friends--withone exception which, however, she either did not notice or did not seemto notice. They were frankly delighted and enthusiastic at the prospectof keeping her among them. She was very grateful for their affection, so eagerly shown, but somehow, although she had signed her name in asolicitor's office, and her signature had been witnessed by a neat youngman with a neat bald head, she did not feel quite at ease. She foundherself looking at "my Welsley" with the anxiously loving eyes of onewho gathers in dear details before it is too late for such garnering;she sat in the garden and listened to the beloved sounds from theCathedral with strained attention, like one who sets memory at itsmysterious task. 

The Dean's widow had yielded to the suggestion of inevitable dampness inold houses, but----!

On September 28, towards evening, when Rosamund was in the garden withRobin, Annie, the parlor-maid, came out holding a salver on which lay atelegram. Rosamund opened it and read:

"Coming home. --DION. "

"Any answer, ma'am?"

* * * * *

"Is there any answer, ma'am? Shall I tell the boy to wait?"

"What did you say, Annie?"

"Shall I tell the boy to wait, ma'am?"

"No, thank you, Annie. There's no answer. "

Annie turned and recrossed the garden, looking careful, as if she werethinking of her cap, round which the airs were blowing. 

Rosamund sat for a few minutes almost motionless, with the slip of paperlying in her lap; then the breeze came lightly, as if curious, and blewit away. Robin saw it and ran. 

"I'll catch it, mummie. You see! I'll catch it!"

The little brown legs were amazingly swift, but the telegram was elusivebecause the breeze was naughty. When Robin ran up to his mother holdingit out he was almost breathless. 

"Here it is, mummie. "

His blue eyes and his voice held triumph. 

"I said I would, and I did!"

Rosamund put her arm round him. 

"Who do you think sent this?"

"I dunno. "

"Daddy sent it. "

Robin's eyes became round. 

"Daddy! What for?"

"To tell us he's coming home. "

A deeply serious expression came to Robin's face. 

"Have I growed much?"

"Yes, a great deal. "

"Will daddy see it?"

"Yes, I'm sure he will directly he comes. "

Robin seemed relieved. 

"Is daddy coming here?"

"Yes. "

"Is he goin' to live here with us?"

"We shall see about all that when he comes. "

Annie, evidently still thinking about her cap, reappeared on the gardenpath. 

"The Dean to see you, ma'am. "

Rosamund got up, gave Robin a long kiss on the freckles and said:

"Robin, I believe the Dean has come about Mr. Thrush. "

"Does he know Mr. Thrush?"

"Not yet. I'll tell you something presently. "

And she went slowly into the house. Was a scheme of hers coming tofruition just when----? She tried to close her mind to an approachingthought. 

CHAPTER V

On the 7th of October the C. I. V. Sailed from South Africa for England, on the 19th of October they made St. Vincent; on the 23rd Dion againlooked over the sea at the dreaming hills of Madeira. The sight of thesehills made him realize the change brought about in him by the work hehad done in South Africa. As he gazed at them he suddenly and sharplyremembered the man who had gazed at them nine months before, a manwho was gathering together determination, who was silently makingpreparations for progress, or for what he thought of as progress. Thosehills then had seemed to be calling to him out of the mists of heat, and to himself he had seemed to be defying them, to be thrusting theirvoices from him. For were they not the hills of a land where the lotusbloomed, where a weariness bred of stagnant delights wrapped men in agarment of Nessus, steeped in a subtle poison which drew from them alltheir energies, which brought them not pain but an inertia more deadlyto the soul than pain? Now they had no power over him. He did not needto defy them, because he had gained in strength. Ere they vanished fromhis eyes over the sea he remembered another Island rising out of watersthat gleamed with gold. How far off now seemed to him that eveningwhen he had looked on it as he traveled to Greece! How much he had leftbehind on the way of his life!

The experience of separation and of war had not aged him, but it hadmade him feel older. Nothing of the boy was left in him. He felt himselfof manhood all compact. He had seen men die, had seen how they were ableto die, how they met severe physical suffering; he had silently tried toprepare himself for death, keeping a cheerful countenance; he had known, like most brave men, the cold companionship of fear, and he had got ridof that companionship. Knowing death better, he knew life much betterthan when he had left England. 

On the voyage out he had looked at the hills of Madeira withWorthington. Now Worthington was not with him; he had died of enteric atPretoria in September. Dion was carrying back to England Worthington'slast written message to his people. He was carrying also another letterwritten by an English officer, whose body lay in the earth of Africa, toa woman at home. On the voyage Dion often thought of that dead man andof the living woman to whom he would presently give the letter. He hadpromised to deliver it personally. 

At St. Vincent he had received a welcome by cable from Rosamund, and hadsent a cable to her asking not to be met. He wished to meet her in herhome at Welsley. She had written to him enthusiastic accounts of itspeace and beauty. Her pen had been tipped with love of it. Their firstmeeting, their reunion, must take place there in the midst of thatwonderful peace of green England which she loved so much. After theheat and the dust and the pain of South Africa that would surely be verygood. 

Their reunion!

Dion had escaped death. He had been allowed to return to Rosamund insplendid health, without a wound, though he had been in battle. He hada strong presentiment that he was allowed to return for some definitepurpose. Could he not now be of far more use to his little son than ifhe had never volunteered for active service? Rosamund and he had lookedup together at the columns of the Parthenon and had thought of the childwho might come. Dion felt that he understood the Parthenon better nowthat he had looked death in the face, now that he had been ready togive up his life if it had been required of him. He even had a whimsicalfeeling--he smiled at it seriously to himself--that the Parthenon, if heagain stood before it, would understand him better. He was not proudof himself for what he had done. But in the depths of him he often feltearnestly glad, almost thankful, that he had been able to do it. Thedoing of it had brought a new zest into life, new meanings, a newoutlook. He seemed to feel life like something precious in his hand now;he had not felt it so before, even when he had won Rosamund and had beenwith her in Greece. 

* * * * *

The hills of Madeira faded. Three days later there was a burial at seain the early morning. A private, who had been ill with enteric, had diedin the night. The body sank into the depths, the ship went on herway and ran into a stiff gale. Already England was rousing herself towelcome her returning sons, bruskly but lustily, in her way, which wasnot South Africa's way. Dion loved that gale though it kept him awakeall night. 

Next morning they were off the Start, and heard the voices of the sirensbidding them good day. 

* * * * *

On the last day of October, at about four o'clock in the afternoon, Rosamund was waiting for Dion. He was due by the express which, when upto time, reached Welsley Station at 3. 55. She would naturally have beenat the station to meet him if she had not received a telegram from himbegging her to stay at home. 

"Would much rather meet you first in Little Cloisters, --Dion, " were thelast words of the telegram. 

So Rosamund had stayed at home. 

It was a peculiarly still autumn afternoon. A suggestion--it wasscarcely more than that--of mist made the Precincts look delicately sad, but not to the eyes of Rosamund. She delighted in this season of tawnycolors and of fluttering leaves, of nature's wide-eyed and contemplativemuteness. The beauty of autumn appealed to her because she possessed ahappy spirit, and was not too imaginative. She had imagination, but itwas not of the intensely sensitive and poetic kind which dies with thedying leaves, and in the mists loses all the hopes that were born withthe birth of summer. The strong sanity which marked her, and which hadalways kept her in central paths, far away from the byways in which theneurotic, the decadent, the searchers after the so-called "new" thingsloved to tread, led her to welcome each season in is turn, and torejoice in its special characteristics. 

So she loved the cloistral feeling autumn brought with it to Welsley. Green summer seemed to open the doors, and one rejoiced in a goldenfreedom; tawny autumn seemed softly to close the doors, and one washappy in a sensation of being tenderly guarded, of being kept very safein charge for the coming winter with its fires, and its cosy joys of theinterior. 

Another reason which made Rosamund care very much for the autumn wasthis: in the autumn the religious atmosphere which hung about thePrecincts of Welsley seemed to her to become more definite, moretouching, the ancient things more living and powerful in their message. 

"Welsley always sends out influences, " she had once said to FatherRobertson. "But in certain autumn days it speaks. I hear its voice inthe autumn. "

She heard its voice now as she waited for Dion. 

The lattice window which gave on to the garden was partly open;there was a fire in the wide, old-fashioned grate; vases holdingchrysanthemums stood on the high wood mantelpiece and on thewriting-table; the tea-table had been placed by Annie near the hearth. 

Rosamund listened to the cloistral silence, and looked at two deep, old-fashioned arm-chairs which were drawn up by the tea-table. 

Just how much had she missed Dion?

That question had suddenly sprung up in her mind as she looked at thetwo arm-chairs. 

The first time she had been in Little Cloisters she had spoken to CanonWilton of Dion, had wondered if he would come back from South Africaaltered; and she had said that if she came to live in it Welsley mightalter her. Canon Wilton had made no comment on her remark. She hadscarcely noticed that at the time, perhaps had not consciously noticedit; but her subconscious mind had recorded the fact, and she recalled itnow. 

Welsley, she thought, had changed her a good deal. She was not aself-conscious woman as a rule, but to-day was not like other days, andshe was not quite like herself on other days. Perhaps, for once, shewas what women often call "strung up"; certainly she felt peculiarlyalive--alive specially in the nerves of her body. 

Those two arm-chairs were talking to her; they were telling her ofthe imminent renewal of the life closely companioned, watched over, protected, beloved. They were telling, and they were asking, too. Shefelt absurdly that it was they who were asking how much she had missedDion. 

It would be good to have him back, but she now suddenly realized, in aself-conscious way, that she had managed to be very happy without him. But then she had always looked forward to his eventual return. Supposehe had not come back?

She got up restlessly, went to the window and looked out into thegarden. Robin was not there, nor was he in the house. Obedient to animpulse which she had not understood at the time, Rosamund had arrangeda small, and rather odd, festivity for him which had taken him away fromhome, and would keep him out till five o'clock: he was having tea ina cake-shop near the top of Wesley High Street with his nurse and Mr. Thrush, who, not unexpectedly, had arrived in Welsley. The first meetingbetween his father and mother would not be complicated by his eageryoung presence. 

So the garden was empty to-day. Not even the big young gardener was tobe seen; he only came on four days in the week, and this was not one ofthem. As Rosamund looked down into the garden, she loved its loneliness, its misty, autumnal aspect. It was surely not her fault if she hada natural affection for solitude--not for the hideous solitude of achildless mother, but for the frequent privacy of a mother who wasalone, but who knew that her child was near, playing perhaps, or gonefor a little jaunt with his faithful nurse, or sleeping upstairs. 

As she looked at the garden a faint creeping sense of something almostlike fear came to her. Since Dion had been away she had surely altered, because she had had a new experience; she had, as it were, touched theconfines of that life which she had deliberately renounced when she hadmarried. 

It seemed to her, as she stood there and remembered her long meditationsin that enclosed and ancient garden, that in these months she had drawnmuch nearer to God, and--could it be because of that?--perhaps hadreceded a little from her husband. 

The sense of uneasiness--she could not call it fear--deepened in her. Was the receding then implicit in the drawing near? She began to feelalmost confused. She put up a hand to her face; her cheek was hot. 

The clock in the room struck four; two minutes later the chimes sounded, and then Big John announced the hour. 

Dion might arrive at any moment now. She turned away rather quickly fromthe window. She hated the unusual feeling of self-consciousness whichhad come to her. 

At ten minutes past four the door bell rang. It must be he. She went tothe drawing-room door, opened it and listened. She heard a man's voiceand a bump; then another bump, a creaking, a sort of scraping, and thevoice once more saying, "I'll manage, miss. "

It was Dion's luggage. Harrington's man explained that the gentleman hadsaid he would walk to Little Cloisters. 

Rosamund went back into the drawing-room and shut the door. Now thatDion's luggage was actually in the house everything seemed curiouslydifferent. A period was definitely over; her loneliness with Robinin Little Cloisters was at an end. She sat down in one of the twoarm-chairs by the tea-table, clasped her hands together and looked atthe fire. 

If she had held to her girlish idea? If she had become a "Sister"?But--she shook her head as she sat there alone--Robin! And then shesighed; she had not thought, "But--Dion!" She was almost angry withherself for being so introspective, so mentally observant of herself. All this was surely unnatural in her. Was she going to becomemorbid--she who had such a hatred of morbidity? She tried to forceherself to feel that she had missed Dion tremendously, that his returnwould make things right in Little Cloisters. 

But had they ever been wrong? And, besides, Little Cloisters wouldalmost immediately be only a dear memory of the past. 

Rosamund began almost to hate herself. Was she capable of any sort oftreachery? Swiftly she began to dwell upon all the dear goodness ofDion, upon his love, his admiration, his perpetual thoughtfulness, his unselfishness, his straight purity, his chivalry, his unceasingdevotion. He was a man to trust implicitly. That was enough. She trustedhim and loved him. She thanked God that he was back in England. She hadmissed him more, much more than she had realized; she was quite sure ofthat now that she had recalled things. One happiness is apt to oustthe acute memory of another. That had (quite naturally) happened in hercase. It would indeed have been strange if, living in such a dear placeas "My Welsley, " with Robin the precious one, she had been a miserablewoman! And she had always known--as women know things they do notknow--that Dion would come back after behaving nobly. And that wasexactly what had happened. 

She looked at the arm-chair opposite. 

How splendid it would be to see dear, brave, good, faithful Dionsitting in it in a moment, safe after all his hardships and dangers, comfortable, able to rest at last in his own home. 

For Little Cloisters would be his home even if only for a few days. Andthen----What about Mr. Thrush? What about--oh, so many things?

"I'll find the way all right, " Dion had said at the station, after hehad been assured that it was only ten minutes' walk, "or so, " to LittleCloisters. 

The little walk would be a preparation for the very great event. He onlyknew how great it was when he got out at the Welsley Station. 

He had never seen Welsley before, though its fame had been familiar tohim from childhood. Thousands of pilgrims had piously visited it, comingfrom afar; now yet another pilgrim had come from afar, sensitively eagerto approach a shrine which held something desired by his soul. 

That part of the city which immediately surrounded the station was notattractive, but very soon Dion came into a narrow street and was awareof an ancient flavor, wholly English, and only to be savored thoroughlyby an English palate. In this street he began to taste England. Hepassed an old curiosity shop, black and white, with a projecting upperstorey, lattice windows with tiny panes, a door of black oak upon whichmany people had carved their names. By the door stood a spinning-wheel. In the window were a tea service of spode and a collection of lusterware. There were also some Toby jugs. 

Dion went in quickly and bought one for Robin. He carried it unwrappedin his hand as he walked on. One could do that here, in this intimate, cozy old town of dear England. He enjoyed the light mist, the moisturein the air. He had come to hate aridity and the acrid dryness of dustblown by hot winds across great spaces. The moisture caressed his skin, burnt almost to the color of copper by the African sun. 

He came into the High Street. On its farther side, straight in front ofhim, the narrowest street he had ever seen, a rivulet of a street, withleaning houses which nearly formed an arcade, stretched to a wonderfulgray gateway, immensely massive, with towers at its corners, and rows ofshields above its beetling archway. 

This must be the entrance to the Precincts. 

In the tiny street he met a verger in mufti, an old bent man, with achin-beard and knotty hands, English in every vein, in every sinew ofhis amazingly respectable and venerable body. This worthy he stopped andinquired of him the way to Little Cloisters. 

"Where Mrs. Leith and her boy lives, sir?" mouthed the old man, with akindly gaping smile. 

"That's it. "

"She's a nice lady, " said the verger. "We think a lot of her here, especially we Cathedral folk. "

He went on to explain elaborately where Little Cloisters was, and todescribe minutely two routes, by either of which it might be come at. It was evident that he was one of those who love to listen to themselvesand who take a pride in words. 

Dion decided for the route "round at the back" by Chantrey Lane, throughthe Green Court, leaving the Deanery on the left and the Bishop's Palaceon the right, and so by way of the Prior's Gate and the ruins of theInfirmary through the Dark Entry to Little Cloisters. 

"You can't miss it. The name's writ on the door in the wall, and a rareold wall it is, " said the venerable man. 

Dion thanked him warmly and walked on, while the verger looked afterhim. 

"I shouldn't wonder if that's Mrs. Leith's husband home from the war, "he murmured. "Looks as if he'd been fighting, he does, and burnt prettynear to a cinder by something, the sun as like as not. "

And he walked on down the tiny street towards the muffin which awaitedhim at home, well pleased with his perspicuity, and making mentalpreparations for the astonishing of his wife with a tidbit of news. 

Dion came into the Green Court, and immediately felt Welsley, felt itin the depths of him, and understood Rosamund's love of it so oftenexpressed in her letters. As he looked at the moist green lawn in thecenter, at the gray and brown houses which fronted it, at the Deanerygarden full of the ruddy flowers of autumn behind the iron railings, atthe immense Cathedral with its massive and yet almost tenderly gracefultowers, a history in stone of the faithful work and the progress of men, he knew why Rosamund had come to live here. He stood still. In themisty air he heard the voices of the rooks. The door of a Canon's houseopened, and two clergymen, one of them in gaiters and a shovel hat, cameout, and walked slowly away in earnest conversation. Bells sounded inone of the towers. 

He understood. Here was a sort of essence of ecclesiasticism. It seemedto penetrate the whole atmosphere. Rosamund was at home in it. 

He remembered his terrible thought that God had always stood between hiswife and him, dividing them. 

How would it be now?

Again he looked up at the great house of God, and he felt almost afraid. But he was not the man he had been when he said good-by to Rosamund; hehad gained in force of character, and he knew it. Surely out there inSouth Africa, he had done what his mother had wanted him to do, he hadlaid hold of his best possibilities. At any rate, he had sincerely triedto do that. Why, then, should he be afraid--and of God?

He walked on quickly, and came to Little Cloisters by way of the DarkEntry. 

It was very dark that day, for the autumn evening was already making itsmoist presence felt, and there was a breathing of cold from the old graystones which looked like the fangs of Time. 

Dion shook his broad shoulders in an irresistible shiver as he cameout into the passage-way between Rosamund's garden wall and the ruinedcloisters, immediately beyond which rose the east end of the Cathedral. South Africa had evidently made him sensitive to the dampness and coldof England. 

"Little Cloisters. " The white words showed on a tall green door let intothe wall on his left; and, as the verger had said, it was a rare oldwall. So here it actually was! He was at home. His heart thumped as hepulled at the bell, and unconsciously he gripped the Toby jug hard withhis other hand. 

CHAPTER VI

"Dion! Is it you at last?"

A warm voice called from above, and the blood rushed to his temples. 

"Yes. "

It seemed to him that he took the old staircase in his stride, and hehad a feeling almost such as a man has when he is going into action. 

"Rose!"

He held her in his arms and kissed her. 

"It's--seemed a long time!"

He felt moisture springing to his eyes. The love he felt for her almostoverwhelmed his self-control. Till this moment he had never known howgreat it was. All his deprivation was in that embrace. 

"Years it's seemed!" he said, letting her go with a little laugh, summoned up--he did not know how--to save him from too much emotion. 

She gazed at him. 

"Oh, Dion, how you have altered!"

"Have I?"

"Tremendously. "

How well he knew the kindly glance of her honest brown eyes; a thousandtimes he had called it up before him in South Africa. But this was notthe glance so characteristic of her. In the firelit room her eyes lookedpuzzled, almost wide, with a sort of startled astonishment. 

"You had a lot of the boy in you still when you went away. At least, Iused to think so. "

"Haven't I any left?"

"I can't see any. No, I think you've come back all man. And howtremendously burnt you are. "

"Almost black, I suppose. But I'm so accustomed to it. "

"It's right, " she said. "Your face tells the story of what you've done. Robin"--she paused, then slowly she said--"Robin's got almost a newfather. "

"Where is he? He's sure to have altered more than I have. "

"Oh no. He'll be in about five. I've sent him out to tea with some oneyou know. "

"With whom?"

"Mr. Thrush. "

"Mr. Thrush at Welsley?"

"Yes. I'll explain all that presently. I thought I'd have you all tomyself for half an hour, and then Robin should have his turn. Here comesAnnie. "

When the two arm-chairs were occupied, Dion said:

"And you, Rosamund?"

"What about me?"

"Haven't you altered?"

"If I have, probably you would know it and I shouldn't. "

"Yes, I dare say that's true. You aren't conscious of it, then?"

But she was giving him his tea, and that took her mind away from hisquestion, no doubt. He felt a change in her, but it was not almostfiercely marked like the change in him, on whom a Continent had writtenwith its sun and its wind, and with its battlefields. The body of a manwas graven by such a superscription. And no doubt even a child couldread something of it. But the writing on Rosamund was much fainter, wasfar less easy to decipher; it was perhaps traced on the soul rather thanon the body. The new legend of Dion was perhaps an assertion. But thisstory of Rosamund, what was it? She saw the man in Dion, lean, burnt, strong, ardent, desirous, full of suppressed emotion that was warmly andintensely human; he saw in her, as well as the mother, something thatwas perhaps almost pale, almost elusive, like the still figure anddownbent face of a recluse seen in passing an open window. 

She saw in Dion his actions; he saw in her her meditations. Perhaps thatwas it. All this time he had been living incessantly in the midst ofmen, never alone, nearly always busy, often fiercely active, marching, eating, sleeping in company. And all the time she had been here, in themidst of this cloistral silence, and perhaps often alone. 

"You know everybody here, I suppose?" he asked, drinking his tea withrelish, and eating the toast which seemed to him crisply English, butalways faintly aware of that still figure and of that downbent face. 

"Almost everybody. I've sung a great deal, and got to know them allpartly through that. And they're dear people most of them. They let onealone when they know one wants to be alone. "

"And I expect you can enjoy being alone here. "

"Yes, " she said simply. "At times. It would be difficult to feel lonely, in the miserable, dreadful way, I mean, in the Precincts. We are ratherlike a big family here, each one with his, or her, own private room inthe big family house. "

"I know you've always loved a certain amount of solitude, Rose, " he saidtenderly. "D'you remember that day in London when I burst in upon yoursolitude with Dante, and was actually jealous of the 'Paradiso'?"

"Yes, " she said, smiling. 

"But you forgave me, or I shouldn't be here now. "

He gave her his cup for some more tea. 

"You can't imagine how absolutely wonderful it is to me to be here afterwhat I've been through. "

He lay back in his chair, but he still looked tremendously alert, wiry, powerful even. 

Dion was much more impressive than he had been when he went away. Rosamund felt a faint creeping of something that was almost like shynessin her as she looked at him. 

"After Green Point Camp and Orange River--I shall never forget thedust-storm we had there!--and Springfontein and Kaffir River--oh, theheat there, Rose!--and Kaalfontein and all the rest of it. It was nearKaalfontein that we first came under fire. I shan't forget that. "

He was silent for a moment. She looked at him across the tea-table. Allthat he knew and she did not know now made him seem rather strange toher. The uniting of two different, utterly different, experiences oflife, was more tremendous, more full of meaning and of mystery, than theuniting of two bodies. This, then, was to be a second wedding-day forher and for Dion? All their letters, in which, of course, they had triedto tell each other something of their differing experiences, had reallytold very little, almost nothing. Dion's glance told her more than allhis letters, that and his color, and certain lines in his face, and thealtered shapes of his hands, and his way of holding himself, and his wayof speaking. Even his voice was different. He was an unconscious recordof what he had been through out there; and much of it, she felt sure, hewould never tell to her except unconsciously by being a different Dionfrom the Dion who had gone away. 

"How little one can tell in letters, " she said. "Scarcely anything. "

"You made me feel Welsley in yours. "

"Did I? Why did you walk from the station?"

"I wanted to taste your home, to get into your atmosphere, if I could, before seeing you. Rose, love can make a man almost afraid at times. "

It seemed to her that his dark eyes burned with fires they hadcaptured in South Africa. Sitting in the old room with its homely andecclesiastical look, he had an oddly remote appearance, she thought, asif he belonged to a very different milieu. Always dark, he now lookedalmost gipsy-like; yet he had the unmistakable air of a soldier. But ifthere had ever been anything there was now nothing left of the businessman in Dion. 

"Won't you find it very difficult to settle down again to the life inAustin Friars, Dion?" she said. 

"Perhaps I should, but for one thing. "

"What's that?"

"You and Robin at home when the drudgery is done. "

Rosamund saw Welsley receding from her into darkness, with its familiarfaces and voices, its gray towers, its cloisters, its bells, the DresdenAmen, the secret garden, the dreams she had had in the garden. 

"Number 5 is all ready to go into. It was lucky we only let it for sixmonths, " she said quietly. 

"Uncle Biron has given me a fortnight's holiday, or rather gladly agreedto my taking it. Of course I'm my own master in a way, being a partner, but I want to consider him. He was awfully good about my going away. Mother's looking well. She was at our Thanksgiving Service; Beattie andGuy too. I've had just a glimpse of godfather. "

They talked about family things till Robin came in from his festivitywith Mr. Thrush, who was staying at Little Cloisters, but only till thefollowing day. 

That was a great moment, the moment of Robin's arrival. Mr. Thrush didnot appear with him, but, being a man of delicate perceptions despitehis unfortunate appearance, retired discreetly to the servants' hall, leaving his devoted adherent free for the "family reunion, " as he calledit. 

"Go up quietly, dear, " said the nurse to Robin, "and tap at thedrawing-room door. "

"Shall I tap?" asked Robin earnestly. 

He was looking unusually solemn, his lips were parted, and his eyesalmost stared. 

"Yes, dear. Tap prettily, like a young gentleman as you are, and whenyou hear 'Come in!'----"

"I know then!" interrupted Robin, with an air of decision. 

He walked rather slowly upstairs, lifting one brown leg after the otherthoughtfully from step to step, till he was outside the drawing-roomdoor. Inside he heard the noise of a man's voice, which sounded to himvery tremendous and important, the voice of a brave soldier. 

"That's Fa!" he thought, and he listened for a moment as to the voice ofa god. 

Then he doubled his small fist and gave a bang to the door. Someinstinct told him not to follow nurse's injunction, not to try to bepretty in his tapping. The voice of the soldier ceased inside, there wasa brief sound of a woman's voice, then came a strong "Come in!"

Robin opened the door, went straight up to the very dark and very thinman whom he saw sitting by the fire, and, staring at this man withintensity, lifted up his face, at the same time saying:

"'Ullo, Fa!"

There was a dropped aitch for which nurse, who was very choice in herEnglish, would undoubtedly have rebuked him had she been present. Thedark man did not rebuke Robin, but caught him up and enfolded him in ahug that was powerful but not a bit rough. Robin was quite incapable ofanalyzing a hug, but he loved it as he would not have loved it if it hadbeen rough, or if it had been merely gentle. A sense of great happinessand of great confidence flooded him. From that moment he adored hisfather as he had never adored him before. The new authority of hisfather's love for him captured him. He knew nothing about it and heknew all about it, as is the way with children, those instinctive sparksfresh from the great furnace. 

Long before dinner time Dion knew that he had won something beside theD. C. M. Which he had won in South Africa, something that was wonderfullyprecious to him. He gave Robin the Toby jar and another gift. 

He cared for his little son that night as he had never cared for himbefore. It was as if the sex in Robin spoke to the sex in him for thefirst time with a clear, unmistakable voice, saying, "We're of thecomradeship of the male sex, we're of the brotherhood. " It was not evena child's voice that spoke, though it spoke in a little child. Dionblessed South Africa that night, felt as if South Africa had given himhis son. 

That gift would surely be a weapon in his hands by means of which, orwith the help of which, he would conquer the still unconquered mystery, Rosamund's whole heart. South Africa had done much for Dion. Out therein that wonderful atmosphere he had seen very clearly, his vision hadpierced great distances; he saw clearly still, in England. War, itseemed, was so terribly truthful that it swept a man clean of lies; Dionwas swept clean of lies. He did not feel able any longer even to tellthem occasionally to himself. He knew that Rosamund's greeting to him, warm, sweet, sincere though it had been, had lacked something which hehad found in Robin's. But he felt that now he had got hold of Robin soinstantly, and so completely, the conquest of the woman he had only wonmust be but a question of time. That was not pride in him but instinct, speaking with that voice which seems a stranger to the brain of man, buta friend to something else; something universal of which in every man afragment is housed, or by which every man is mysteriously penetrated. 

A fortnight's holiday--and then?

On that first evening it had been assumed that as soon as Dion went backto business in Austin Friars, No. 5 Little Market Street would receiveits old tenants again, be scented again with the lavender, made musicalwith Rosamund's voice, made gay with the busy prattle and perpetualactivities of Robin. 

For two days thereafter no reference was made by either Rosamund orDion to the question of moving. Dion gave himself up to Welsley, to holiday-making. With a flowing eagerness, not wholly free fromundercurrents, Rosamund swept him sweetly through Welsley's delights. She inoculated him with Welsley, or at any rate did her best toinoculate him, secretly praying with all her force that the wonderfulpreparation might "take. " Soon she believed that it was "taking. " It wasevident that Dion was delighted with Welsley. On his very first day theywent together to the afternoon service in the Cathedral, and when theanthem was given out it proved to be "The Wilderness. " Rosamund'squick look at Dion told him that this was her sweet doing, and that sheremembered their talk on the hill of Drouva. He listened to that anthemas he had never listened to an anthem before. After the service CanonWilton, who, though no longer in residence as "three months' Canon, " wasstill staying on at his house in the Precincts for a few days, came upto welcome him home. Then Mr. Dickinson appeared, full of that modestywhich is greedy for compliments. Mrs. Dickinson, too, drifted up thenave in a casual way which scarcely concealed her curiosity about Mrs. Dion's husband; when, later, Rosamund told Dion of her Precincts' name, "the cold douche, " he could not see its applicability. 

"I thought her an observant but quite a warm-hearted woman, " he said. 

"She is warm-hearted; in fact she's a dear, and I'm very fond of her, "said Rosamund. 

"Every one here seems very fond of you, " he replied. 

Indeed, he was struck by Welsley's evident love of Rosamund. It was likea warm current flowing about her, and about him now, because he was herhusband. He was greeted with cordial kindness by every one. 

"It is jolly to be received like this, " he said to Rosamund. "It doesa fellow good when he's just come home. It makes him feel that there isindeed no place like England. But it's all owing to you. "

But she protested. 

"They all admire and respect you for what you've done, " she said. "You've brought the best introductions here, your own deeds. They speakfor you. "

He shook his head, loving her perfectly sincere modesty. 

"You may be a thousand things, " he told her, "but one thing you'll neverbe--vain or conceited. "

The charm of her, which was compounded of beauty and goodness, mixedwith an extraordinary hold upon, and joy in, the simple and healthythings of life, came upon him with a sort of glorious newness after hisabsence in South Africa. He loved other people's love of her and thesplendid reasons for it so apparent in her. But for Robin he mightnevertheless have felt baffled and sad even in these moments dedicatedto the joys of reunion, he might have felt acutely that the completenessand perfection of reunion depended upon the exact type of union itfollowed upon. Robin saved him from that. He hoped very much in Robin, who had suddenly given him a confidence in himself which he had neverknown till now. This was a glorious possession. It gave him force. People in Welsley were decidedly impressed by Mrs. Leith's husband. Mrs. Dickinson remarked to her Henry over griddle cakes after the threeo'clock service:

"I call Mr. Leith a very personable man. Without having Mrs. Leith'swonderful charm--what man could have?--he makes a distinct impression. He has suppressed force, and that's what women like in a man. "

Henry took another griddle cake, and wondered whether he was wise inlooking so decided. Perhaps he ought to suppress his undoubted force;perhaps all his life, without knowing it, he had hovered on the verge ofthe blatant. 

Canon Wilton also was struck by the change in Dion, and said something, but not just then all, of what he felt. 

"You know the phrase, 'I'm my own man again, ' Leith, don't you?" hesaid, in his strong bass voice, looking steadily at Dion with his kindlystern eyes. (He always suggested to Dion a man who would be very sternwith himself. )

"Yes, " said Dion. "Why?"

"I think South Africa's made you your own man. "

Dion looked tremendously, but seriously, pleased. 

"Do you? And what about the again?"

"Cut it out. I don't think you'd ever been absolutely your own manbefore you went away. "

"I wonder if I am now, " Dion said, but without any weakness. 

He had been through one war and had come out of it well; now he had comehome to another. The one campaign had been but a stern preparation forthe other perhaps. But Rosamund did not know that. Nevertheless, itseemed to him that already their relation to each other was slightlyaltered. He felt that she was more sensitive to him than formerly, moreclosely observant of what he was and what he did, more watchful of himwith Robin, more anxious about his opinion on various matters. 

For instance, there was the matter of Mr. Thrush. 

Dion had not seen Mr. Thrush on the evening of his first day at Welsley. He had been kept so busy by Rosamund, had done and seen so much, thathe had quite forgotten the ex-chemist. In the evening, however, beforedinner, he suddenly remembered him. 

"What's become of Mr. Thrush?" he asked. "And, by the way, what is hedoing down here? You never told me, Rose, and even Robin's not said aword. "

"I asked him not to, " said Rosamund, with her half-shrewd, half-softlook. "The fact is----" She broke off, then continued, with herconfidential air, "Dion, when you see Mr. Thrush I want you to tell mesomething truthfully. Will you?"

"I'll try to. What is it?"

"I want you to look at his nose--"

"Rosamund!"

"No, really, " she pursued, with great earnestness. "And I want you totell me whether you think, honestly think, it--better. "

"But why?"

"It's very important for Mr. Thrush that it should look better. He'sdown here to be seen. "

Her voice had become almost mysterious. 

"To be seen? By whom? Is he on show in the town?"

"No--don't laugh. It's really important for his future. I must tell yousomething. He's taken the modified pledge. "

Her look said, "There! what d'you think of that?"

"Modified!" said Dion, rather doubtfully. 

"Never between meals--never. "

"At any rate that's a step in the right direction. "

"Isn't it? I took it with him. "

"The modified pledge?"

"Yes, " she said, with great seriousness. 

"But you never----! To help him, of course. "

"Yes. "

"And has it made a difference to the nose?"

"I think it's made a considerable difference. But I want your opinion. "

"I'll give it you for what it's worth. But who's going to see Mr. Thrush?"

"The Dean. 

"The Dean! Why on earth?"

"Almost directly there's going to be a vacancy among the vergers, andthe Dean has promised me faithfully that if Mr. Thrush seems suitable heshall have the post. "

"Mr. Thrush a verger! Mr. Thrush carry a poker before a bishop!"

"Not a poker, only a white wand. I've been making him practise here inthe garden, and he does it quite admirably already. "

She spoke now with almost defiant emphasis. Dion loved her for thedefiance and for its deliciously absurd reason. 

"The Dean is away, but he's coming back to-morrow, so I begin to feelrather anxious. Of course, he'll see at once that Mr. Thrush is aneducated man. I'm not afraid about that. It's only--well, the littlefailing. It would mean so much for Mr. Thrush to get the post. He'll beprovided for for life. I've set my heart on it. "

Annie came in. 

"Oh, Annie, is it Mr. Thrush?"

"Yes, ma'am. "

"Please ask him to come in. "

With a very casual air, as of one doing a thing for no particular reasonand almost without thought, she lowered the wick of the lamp whichilluminated the room. 

"We don't want it to flare, " she said, as she came away from it. "Oh, Mr. Thrush, here's my husband back again!"

With a certain unostentatious dignity Mr. Thrush stepped into the room. He was most respectably dressed in a neat black suit, the coat ofwhich looked rather like either a frock coat which was in course ofdiminishing gradually into what tailors call "a morning coat, " or amorning coat which was in course of expanding gently into a frock coat;a speckless collar with points appeared above a pair of dark worstedgloves, and a hat which resembled a square bowler half-way on the roadto top hatdom. 

Dion felt touched by his appearance and his gait, which seemed to hintat those rehearsals in the garden, and especially touched by the factthat he had bought a new hat. 

"Welcome home, sir!" he said at once to Dion. "I'm sure the country isproud of you. "

He paid the compliment with so much sincerity that Dion did not feelembarrassed by it. 

"Do sit down, Mr. Thrush, " said Rosamund, after hands had beencordially shaken. "No, not there!"--as he was about to sit full in thelamplight--"This chair will be more comfortable. Now I'll leave you tohave a little talk with my husband. "

With an inquiring look at Dion she went out of the room. 

Before she came back Mr. Thrush had told Dion all his hopes and fearswith regard to the Dean, and had dwelt on his overwhelming desire tobecome a verger. Quite unself-conscious in his simplicity he rose almostto dignity. He frankly confessed his "failing, " and alluded to thetaking of the modified pledge. 

"We took it together, sir, your kind lady and I, we both pledgedourselves never to touch a drop of liquor between meals whatever theoccasion. "

"Quite right!" said Dion, with firmness, almost with bruskness. 

"I'm glad you think so, sir. But a verger can't be too careful. He'sheld up as an example to the whole city by his position, walking sooften in procession as he does before the eyes of all men. Even achemist scarcely takes so much upon himself. In respect of the body hemay, I'll allow you, --for no verger has to do with prussic acid, iodine, cascara and all such-like, --but in respect of what I might all theuplifting of the soul not a doubt of it but that the verger comes farbefore any chemist. It's a solemn thing to think of, and I hope, if sobe as I'm elected, I shall be worthy of the position. I see Mr. Deanto-morrow, sir, at eleven o'clock. I trust I shall make a favorableimpression. I lived just off Hanover Square for more years than some canremember, and that, I hope, with a Very Reverend will tell in my favor. None of them vergers here, though I'm sure they're a splendid body ofmen, --any one who has seen them walking before his Lordship, the Bishop, the Canons and what not, as I did last Sunday morning, would say thesame, --but none of the vergers here can say as much. I've made inquiry, but of course with all discretion. As to the duties, sir, I think I canfulfil them. The carrying of the wand I may say I am almost perfect inalready. I've been at it in the garden with your kind good lady since Icame. I found it a bit difficult at first, sir. There's what you mightcall a knack to it, though from the congregation it looks simple enough. But there, what does a congregation know of the things a verger hasto master any more than it does of what is required of a good chemist?Often and often when I was just off Hanover Square----"

He was still flowing on with imperturbable volubility when Rosamund cameback and sent another, more inquiring, glance to Dion. 

When Mr. Thrush had retired she at once said anxiously:

"Well?"

"He's a nice old chap. "

"Yes, isn't he? But what did you really think?"

"About the nose?"

"Yes. "

"The lamp was turned rather low, but I really believe the modifiedpledge has--"

"There! What did I say?" she interrupted triumphantly. "I knew you'dnotice the difference. It's really very much like yours or mine now, andI'm sure--"

But here Dion broke in decisively. 

"No, Rosamund, I can't let that pass. It's not like yours yet. I saynothing about mine. But I honestly think it's modified and I hope theDean will pass it. "

"The Dean and I are great cronies!" she murmured doubtfully. "My onlyfear is that after he is a verger Mr. Thrush may--may lapse if I'mnot----"

She stopped, looking at Dion, and again he thought that she was moresensitive to his opinion, to his wishes, than she had formerly been. Herslightly changed attitude made Dion gladly aware of change in himself. He meant more to Rosamund now than he had meant when he left England. 

CHAPTER VII

Three days had slipped by. Dion had been accepted as one of the bigWelsley family, had been made free of the Precincts. During those threedays he had forgotten London, business, everything outside of Welsley. It had seemed to him that he had the right to forget, and he hadexercised it. Robin had played a great part in those three days. His newadoration of his father was obvious to every one who saw them together. The soldier appealed to the little imagination. Robin's ardor wasconcentrated for the moment in his pride of possession. He owned afather who--his own nurse had told him so--was not as other fathers, notas ordinary fathers such as stumped daily about the narrow streets ofWelsley, rubicund and, many of them, protuberant in the region of thewatch-chain. They were all very well; Robin had nothing against them;many of them were clergymen and commanded his respect by virtue oftheir office, their gaiters, the rosettes and cords that decorated theirwide-winged hats. But they were not like "Fa. " They had not become lean, and muscular, and dark, and quick-limbed, and keen-eyed, and spry, inthe severe service of their country. They had not--even the Archdeacon, Robin's rather special pal, had not--ever killed any wicked men who didnot like England, or gone into places where wicked men who did not likeEngland might have killed them. Some of them did not know much aboutguns, did not seem to take any interest in guns. It was rather pitiable. Since his father had come back Robin had had an opportunity of soundingthe Archdeacon on the subject of an advance in open order. The resulthad not been satisfactory. The Archdeacon, Robin thought, had takenthe matter with a lightness, almost a levity, which one could not havelooked for from a man in his position, and when questioned as to hismethods of taking over had frankly said that he had none. 

"I like him, " Robin said ruefully. "But he'll never be a good scout, will he, Fa?"

To which Dion replied with discretion. 

"There are plenty of good scouts, old boy, who would never make goodarchdeacons. "

"Is there?" said Robin. "Why not? I know what scouts does, but what doesarchdeacons does?"

And with that he had his father stumped. Dion had not been long enoughat Welsley to dive into all its mysteries. 

On the evening of the third day Dion told Rosamund that he must go toLondon on the following morning. 

"I've got something I must do and I want to tell you about it, " he said. "You remember Mrs. Clarke?"

"Yes, " said Rosamund. 

"It must be more than two years since I've seen her. She lives a greatdeal in Constantinople, you know. But she sometimes comes to London inthe winter. It's abominably cold in Constantinople in winter. There areperpetual winds from the Black Sea. "

"Yes, I know there are. Esme Darlington has told me about them. "

"Mrs. Clarke's in London now. "

"Did you see her when you passed through?"

"No, but I want to see her to-morrow. Rose, I'm going to tell yousomething which nobody else must know. I was asked to keep it entirelyto myself, but I refused. I was resolved to tell you, because I don'tbelieve in secrets between husband and wife--about their doings, Imean. " (Just then he had happened to think of Mrs. Clarke's farewelltelegram to him when he had sailed for South Africa. )

"I know how frank and sincere you always are, Dion, " she said gently. 

"I try to be. You remember that party at Mrs. Chetwinde's where yousang? You met Mrs. Clarke that night. "

"Of course I remember. We had quite an interesting talk. "

"She's clever. Lord Brayfield was there, too, that night, a fair man. 

"I saw him. He wasn't introduced to me. "

"Brayfield was shot in the war. Did you know it?"

"No. I thought I had read everything. But I didn't happen to see it. "

"And I didn't mention it when I wrote. I thought I'd tell you if I camehome. Brayfield, poor fellow, didn't die immediately. He suffereda great deal, but he was able to write two or three letters--lastmessages--home. One of these messages was written to Mrs. Clarke. Hegave it to me and made me promise to convey it to her personally, not toput it in the post. "

"Was Lord Brayfield in the C. I. V. ?" asked Rosamund. 

"Oh no. He was a captain in the 5th Lancers. We were brigaded with themfor a bit and under fire at the same time. Brayfield happened to see me. He knew I was an acquaintance of Mrs. Clarke's, and when he was shot heasked that I should be allowed to come to him. Permission was given. Iwent, and he asked me if I'd give Mrs. Clarke a letter from him when Igot home. It seems none of his brother officers happened to know her. He might have given the letter to one of them. It would have been morenatural. But"--Dion hesitated--"well, he wanted to say a word or two tosome one who knew her, I suppose. "

Rosamund quite understood there were things Dion did not care to telleven to her. She did not want to hear them. She was not at all a curiouswoman. 

"I'm glad you are able to take the letter, " she said. 

And then she began to talk about something else. Mr. Thrush's prospectswith the Dean, which were even yet not quite decided. 

By the quick train at nine o'clock Dion left Welsley next morning; hewas in London by half-past ten. He had of course written to Mrs. Clarkeasking if he could see her. She had given him an appointment forthree o'clock at the flat she had taken for a few months in ParkSide, Knightsbridge. Dion went first to the City, and after doing somebusiness there, and lunching with his uncle at the Cheshire Cheese, gotinto a cab and drove to Knightsbridge. 

Mrs. Clarke's flat was on the first floor of a building which faced thestreet on one side and Hyde Park on the other. Dion rang at a large, very solid oak door. In two or three minutes the door was opened by anelderly maid, with high cheek-bones and long and narrow light grayeyes, who said, with a foreign accent, that Mrs. Clarke was at home. Afterwards Dion knew that this woman was a Russian and Mrs. Clarke's ownmaid. 

She showed Dion into a long curving hall in which a fire was burning. Here he left his hat and coat. While he was taking the coat off hehad time to think, "What an original hall this is!" From it he got animpression of warmth and of a pleasant dimness. He had really no timeto look carefully about, but a quick glance told him that there wereinteresting things in this hall, or at any rate interestingly combined. He was conscious of the stamp of originality. 

The Russian maid showed him into a drawing-room and went away to tell"Madame. " She did not go out by the hall, but walked the whole length ofthe long narrow drawing-room, and passed through a small doorway at itsfarther end. Through this doorway there filtered into the drawing-room acurious blue light. All the windows of the drawing-room looked into HydePark, on to the damp grass, the leafless trees, the untenanted spaces ofautumn. 

Dion went to the fireplace, which faced the far doorway. There was nota sound in the room; not a sound came to it just then from without. Hecould scarcely believe he was in Knightsbridge. Not even a clock wasticking on the mantelpiece above the fire, in which ship logs wereburning. The flames which came from them were of various shades of blue, like magical flames conjured up by a magician. He looked round. He hadnever seen a room like this before. It was a room to live in, tohear strange music in; it was not a reception-room. Not crowded withfurniture it was not at all bare. Its "note" was not austere but quitethe contrary. It was a room which quietly enticed. Dion was not one ofthose men who know all about women's dresses, and combinations of color, and china, and furniture, but he was observant; as a rule he noticedwhat he saw. Fresh from South Africa, from a very hard life out ofdoors, he looked at this room and was almost startled by it. Therefinement of it was excessive in his eyes and reminded him of somethingoverbred, of certain Italian greyhounds, for instance. Strange blues andgreens were dexterously combined through the room, in the carpet, the curtains, the blinds, the stuffs which covered the chairs, sofas, divans, cushions--blues and greens innumerable. He had never before seenso many differing shades of the two colors; he had not known that somany shades existed. In the china these colors were repeated. The doorby which he had come in was of thick glass in a frame of deep blue woodand, by means of a mysterious light in the hall, was made mistily blue. All along the windows, lilies were growing, or seemed to be growing, in earth closely covered with green moss. There were dwarf trees, likeminute yew trees, in green and blue china pots. 

And always the ship logs in the fire gave out the magical blue flames. 

Certainly the general effect of the room was not only luxuriouslycomfortable, but also strangely beautiful, though there was nothing init which a lover of antiques would have given his eyes for. ToDion, fresh from South Africa, the room looked too comfortable, tooingeniously beautiful. It struck him as ultra modern, ahead of anythinghe had ever yet seen, and almost as evil. But certainly it enticed. 

He heard the distant sound of a woman's dress and saw Mrs. Clarke comingslowly in from the room beyond (another blue and green room perhaps), and he thought of Brayfield dying. He thrust a hand into thebreast-pocket of his coat and brought out the dead man's letter. 

Mrs. Clarke came up to the fire and greeted him. She did not look amoment older than when he had seen her last at Claridge's, or indeedthan when he had first seen her standing under the statue of Echo inMrs. Chetwinde's drawing-room. The same feverish refinement still waswith her, belonged to her; she looked as before, wasted as if bysome obscure disease, haunted, almost distressed, and yet absolutelyself-controlled, mistress of herself and unconscious of criticalobservation. Not even for a moment, seeing her thus again after a longinterval of time, did Dion hesitate about her beauty. Undoubtedly shehad beauty. The shape of her head was lovely, and her profile was like adelicate vision seen in water. The husky sound of her voice in her firstwords to him took him back to the Divorce Court. 

"You haven't changed, " she said, staring intently at him in her oddlyimpersonal way, which appraised and yet held something of inwardness. 

"But people say I have changed very much. "

"People?"

"Well--my people. "

"I don't call natural development change. I saw in you very plainly whenwe first met what you are now. You have got there. That's all. "

Her lips were very pale. How strangely unshining her hair was. 

"Yes, she looked punished!" he thought. "It's that look of punishmentwhich sets her quite apart from all other women. "

She glanced at the letter he was holding and sat down on a very broadgreen divan. There were many cushions upon it; she did not heap thembehind her, but sat quite upright. She did not ask him to sit down. Hewould do as he liked. Absurd formalities of any kind did not enter intoher scheme of life. 

"How is Jimmy?" he asked. 

"Brilliantly well. He's been at Eton for a long time, doing dreadfullyat work--he's a born dunce--and splendidly at play. How he wouldappreciate you as you are now!"

She spoke with a gravity that was both careless and intense. He sat downnear her. In his letter asking to see her he had not told her thathe had a special object in writing to visit her. By her glance atBrayfield's letter he knew that she had gathered it. 

They talked of Jimmy for a few minutes; then Dion said:

"My regiment was brigaded with Lord Brayfield's for a time in SouthAfrica. I was in the action in which he was shot, poor chap. He saw meand remembered that I was a--a friend of yours. When he was dying hewanted to see me. I was sent for, and he gave me this letter for you. Heasked me to give it to you myself if I came back. "

He bent down to her with the letter. 

"Thank you, " she said, and she took it without looking at all surprised, and with her habitual composed gravity. "There are Turkish cigarettes inthat ivory box, " she added, looking at a box on a table close by. 

"Thank you. "

As Dion turned to get a cigarette he heard her tearing Brayfield'senvelope. 

"Will you give me one?" said the husky voice. 

Without saying anything he handed to her the box, and held a lightedmatch to her cigarette when it was between the pale lips. She smokedgently as she opened and read Brayfield's letter. When she had finishedit--evidently it was not a long letter--she put it back into theenvelope, laid it down on the green divan and said:

"What do you think of this room? It was designed and arranged byMonsieur de Vaupre, a French friend of mine. "

"By a man!" said Dion, irrepressibly. 

"Who hasn't been in the South African War. Do you like it?"

"I don't think I do, but I admire it a good deal. "

He was looking at the letter lying on the divan, and Brayfield wasbefore him, tormented and dying. He had always disliked the look ofBrayfield, but he had felt almost a sort of affection for him when hewas dying. Foolishly perhaps, Dion wanted Mrs. Clarke to say somethingkind about Brayfield now. 

"If you admire it, why don't you like it?" she asked. "A person--I couldunderstand; but a room!"

He looked at her and hesitated to acknowledge a feeling at which he knewsomething in her would smile; then he thought of Rosamund and of LittleCloisters and spoke out the truth. 

"I think it's an unwholesome-looking room. It looks to me as if ithad been thought out and arranged by somebody with a beastly, thoughartistic, mind. "

"The inner room is worse, " she said. 

But she did not offer to show it to him, nor did she disagree with hisview. He even had the feeling that his blunt remark had pleased her. 

He asked her about Constantinople. She lived there, she told him, allthrough the spring and autumn, and spent the hottest months on theBosphorus. 

"People are getting accustomed to my temerity, " she said. "Of courseEsme Darlington is still in despair, and Lady Ermyntrude goes aboutspreading scandal. But it doesn't seem to do much harm. She hasn't anymore influence over my husband. He won't hear a word against me. Like agood dog, I suppose, he loves the hand which has beaten him. "

"You've got a will of iron, I believe, " said Dion. 

She changed the subject. 

"I don't ask you to tell me about South Africa, " she said. "Because youtold me the whole story as soon as I came into the room. But what areyou going to do now? Settle down in the Church's bosom at Welsley?"

There was no sarcasm in her voice. 

"Oh--I'm going back to business in a few days. "

"You'll run up and down, I suppose. "

"It's too far, an hour and a half each way. I shall have to be inLondon. "

He spoke rather indecisively. 

"I'm taking a fortnight's holiday, and then we shall settle down. "

"I've been in Welsley, " said Mrs. Clarke. "It's beautiful but, to me, stifling. It has an atmosphere which would soon dry up my mind. Allthe petals would curl up and go brown at the edges. I'm glad you're notgoing to live there. But after South Africa you couldn't. "

"I don't know. I find it very attractive, " he said, instinctively on thedefensive because of Rosamund, who had not been attacked. "The cozinessand the peace of it are very delightful after all the--well, of course, it was a pretty stiff life in South Africa. "

Again he looked at Brayfield's letter. He wanted to tell Mrs. Clarkeabout Brayfield, but it seemed she had no interest in the dead man. While he was thinking this she quietly put out her hand, took theletter, got up and dropped it into the fire among the blue flames fromthe ship logs. 

"I seldom keep letters, " she said, "unless I have to answer them. "

She turned round. 

"I've kept yours, " she said. 

"The one I--it was awfully good of you to send me that telegram. "

"So Allah had you in His hand. "

"I don't know why when so many much better fellows----" He broke off, and then he plunged into the matter of Brayfield. He could not gowithout telling her, though hearing, perhaps, would not interest her. 

All the time he was speaking she remained standing by the fire, withher lovely little head slightly bending forward and her profile turnedtowards him. The emaciation of her figure almost startled him. She worea black dress. It seemed to him a very simple dress. She could have toldhim that such simplicity only comes from a few very good dressmakers, and is only fully appreciated by a very few women. 

Brayfield, though he was dying, had been very careful in what he hadsaid to Dion. In his pain he had shown that he had good blood in him. Hehad not hinted even at any claim on Mrs. Clarke. But he had spoken of afriendship which had meant very much to him, and had asked Dion, if heever had the opportunity, to tell Mrs. Clarke that when he was dying shewas the woman he was thinking about. He had not spoken interestingly;he was not an interesting man; but he had spoken with sincerity, withgenuine feeling. 

"She's a woman in a thousand, " he had said. "Tell her I thought so tillthe last. Tell her if she had been free I should have begged her tomarry me. "

And he had added, after a pause:

"Not that she'd ever have done it. I'm pretty sure of that. "

When Dion had finished, still standing by the fire, Mrs. Clarke said:

"Thank you for remembering it all. It shows your good heart. "

"Oh--please!"

Why didn't she think about Brayfield?

She turned round and fixed her distressed eyes on him. 

"Which is best, to be charitable or to be truthful?" she said, withoutany vibration of excitement. "_De Mortuis_--it's a kindly saying. A trueTurk, one of the old Osmanlis, might have said it. If you hadn't broughtme that letter and the message I should probably never have mentionedBrayfield to you again. But as it is I am going to be truthful. I cansay honestly peace to Brayfield's ashes. His death was worthy. Couragehe evidently had. But you mustn't think that because he liked me I everliked him. Don't make a mistake. I'm not a nervous suspicious fool of awoman anxiously defending, or trying to defend, her honor--not attacked, by the way. If Lord Brayfield had ever been anything to me I shouldjust be quiet, say nothing. But I didn't like him. If I had liked him Ishouldn't have burnt his letter. And now"--to Dion's great astonishmentshe made slowly the sign of the Cross--"_requiescat in pace_. "

After a long pause she added:

"Now come and see the other room. I'll give you Turkish coffee there. "

CHAPTER VIII

It had been understood between Rosamund and Dion that he should spendthat night in London. He had several things to see to after his longabsence, had to visit his tailor, the dentist, the bootmaker, to lookout some things in Little Market Street, to have an interview withhis banker, et cetera. He would go back to Welsley on the followingafternoon. In the evening of that day he dined in De Lorne Gardenswith Beatrice and Guy Daventry and his mother, and again, as inKnightsbridge, something was said about the Welsley question. Diongathered that Rosamund's devotion to Welsley was no secret in "thefamily. " The speedy return to Little Market Street was assumed;nevertheless he was certain that his mother, his sister-in-law, andGuy were secretly wondering how Rosamund would be able to endure thedeparture from Welsley. Beatrice had welcomed him back very quietly, buthe had felt more definitely than ever before the strong sympathy whichexisted between them. 

"I quite love Beatrice, " he said to his mother in the jobbed broughamwith the high stepping, but slow moving, horse which conveyed them toQueen Anne's Mansions after the dinner. 

"She is worth it, " said Mrs. Leith. "Beatrice says very little, but shemeans very much. "

"Yes. I wonder--I wonder how much of her meaning I thoroughlyunderstand, mater. "

"Perhaps about five per cent of it, dee-ar, " observed Mrs. Leith in hersweetest voice. 

And then she began to talk about Esme Darlington. 

That night Dion stayed at Queen Anne's Mansions, and slept in his oldroom. 

In her room his mother lay awake because she wished to lie awake. Insleep she would have lost the precious sense of her boy's nearness toher. So she counted the hours and she thanked God; and twice in thenight she slipped out into the hall, with her ample dressing-gown foldedabout her, and she looked at her boy's coat hanging on its hook, andshe listened just outside his door. Once she felt certain she heard hisquiet breathing, and then, shutting her eyes, for a moment she was againthe girl mother with little Dion. 

Little, little Dion! The soldier, burnt and hardened and made wholly aman by South Africa, was still that to his mother, more than ever thatsince he had been to the war. 

That question of Welsley!

Going down in the train next day Dion thought about it a great deal. With his return the old longing, almost an old need it was, to giveRosamund whatever she wanted, or cared at all for, had come to himagain. But something fought it, the new longing to dominate and the wishto give Rosamund chances. Besides, how could they possibly live on inWelsley? He could not spend from three to four hours every day in thetrain. He might get away from London on Fridays and stay at Welsleyevery week till Monday morning, but that would mean living alone inLittle Market Street for four days in the week. If he seemed willing todo that, would Rosamund consent to it?

Another test! He remembered his test before the war. 

Mrs. Clarke's allusion to Welsley had left a rather strong impressionupon him. He did not know whether he had a great respect for her, buthe knew that he had a great respect for her mind. Like Beattie, but ina very different way, she meant a great deal. He no longer doubted thatshe liked him very much, though why he honestly did not know. When withher he felt strongly that he was not an interesting man. Dumeny wasa beast, he felt sure, but he also felt sure that Dumeny was aninteresting man. 

Mrs. Clarke's wild mind attracted something in him. Through her eyes hewas able to see the tameness of Welsley, a dear tameness, safe, cozy, full of a very English charm and touched with ancient beauty, butstill----! Would the petals of Rosamund ever curl up and go brown atthe edges from living at Welsley? No, he could not imagine that everhappening. A dried-up mind she could never have. 

He would not see Welsley through the eyes of Mrs. Clarke. 

Nevertheless when he got out of the train at Welsley Station, and sawRobin's pal, the Archdeacon, getting out too, and a couple of minorcanons, who had come up for the evening papers or something, greetinghim with an ecclesiastical heartiness mingled with just a whiff ofprofessional deference, Mrs. Clarke's verdict of "stifling" recurred tohis mind. 

Stamboul and Welsley--Mrs. Clarke and Rosamund!

The dual comparison made him at once see the truth. Stamboul and Welsleywere beautiful; each possessed an enticing quality; but the one enticedby its grandiose mystery, by its sharp contrasts of marble stabilityand matchboard frailty, by its melancholy silences and spaces, by itsobscure peace and its dangerous passion; the other by its delightfulsimplicity, its noble homeliness, its dignity and charm of an old faithand a smiling unworldliness, its harmonies of gray and of green, ofstone and verdure, its serenity lifted skywards by many bells. 

But at the heart of Stamboul the dust lay thick, and there was dew atthe heart of Welsley. 

Perhaps green Elis, with its sheep-bells, the eternal voices of its pinetrees, the celestial benignity of its Hermes, was more to be desiredthan either Stamboul or Welsley. But for the moment Welsley was verydesirable. 

Dion gave his bag to an "outside porter, " and walked to the Precinctswith the Archdeacon. 

He found Rosamund uplifted and triumphant; Mr. Thrush had finallycaptivated the Dean, and had been given the "situation" which Rosamundhad desired for him. Her joy was almost ebullient. She could talk ofnothing else. Mr. Thrush was to be installed on the following Sunday. 

"Installed?" said Dion. "Is the Archbishop coming down to conduct theceremony?"

"No, no! What I mean is that Mr. Thrush will walk in the procession forthe first time. Oh, I shall be so nervous! If only he carries the wandas I've taught him! I don't know what Mr. Thrush would do without me. Heseems to depend on me for everything now, poor old gentleman. "

"I'm afraid he'll miss you dreadfully, " said Dion. 

"Miss me? When?"

Before he could answer she said quickly:

"Oh, by the way, Dion, while you've been away I've done something foryou. "

"What is it, Rose?"

She was looking gaily mysterious, and almost cunning, but in adelightful way. 

"I don't want you to be bored during your holiday. "

"Bored! Don't you realize that this is an earthly Paradise for me? Youand Robin and peace after South Africa. "

She looked very shrewd. 

"That's all very well, but a man, especially a soldier man, wantssport. "

She laid a strong and happy emphasis on the last word, and then shedisclosed the secret. A brother of "the cold douche, " a gentleman farmerwho had land some four miles from Welsley, and who was "a greatfriend" of Rosamund's--she had met him three times at the organist'shouse--hearing of Dion's arrival, had written to say that he had somepartridges which needed "keeping down. " He himself was "laid by" with abad leg, but he would be very glad if Mr. Leith would "take his chanceamong the birds" any day, or days, he liked while at Welsley. Thegentleman farmer could not offer much, just the ground, most of itstubble, and a decent lot of birds. 

"Dear Mrs. Dickinson knew through me how fond of shooting you are. Weowe it all to her, " said Rosamund, in conclusion. "I've written to thankhim, and to say how glad you'll be. "

"But you must come too, " he said. "You shot in Greece, you must shootagain here. "

"I don't think I will here, " said Rosamund, confidentially and rathermysteriously. 

"Why not?"

"Well, I don't think the Dean would approve of it. And he's been sobricky about Mr. Thrush that I shouldn't like to hurt him. "

"I can't go alone. I shall take Robin then. "

He spoke half-laughingly. 

"Robin?"

"Yes, why not? I'm sure he'd love to go. "

"Of course he would. But how could his little legs walk over stubble?He's not four years old yet. "

"Robin's got to be Doric. He can't begin too soon. "

She smiled, then looked at him seriously. 

"Dion, do you know that you've come back much more Doric than you werewhen you went out?"

"Have I, Rose?"

"Much more. "

"Do you like me less because of that?"

She blushed faintly. 

"No, " she said. 

That faint blush made Dion's heart bound, he scarcely knew why. But heonly said soberly:

"I'm glad of that. And now about Robin. You're right. He can't walk overstubble with me, but why shouldn't I stick him on a pony?"

"Oh--a pony! How he would love it!"

"Can't I get hold of one?"

"But Job Crickendon's got one!"

"Job Crick-- . . . ?"

"Mrs. Dickinson's brother who's lending you the partridges. Don't sayanother word, Dion. I'll arrange it all. Robin will be in the seventhheaven. "

"And you must come with us. "

Rosamund was about to speak quickly. Dion saw that. Her eyes shone; sheopened her lips. But something, some sudden thought, stopped her. Aftera minute she said quietly:

"We'll see. "

And she gave Dion a curious, tender look which he did not quiteunderstand. Surely she was keeping some delicate secret from him, oneof those dear secrets which perhaps will never be told, but which aresometimes happily guessed. 

Dion could not help seeing that Rosamund eagerly wanted to attach him toWelsley. He felt that she had not honestly and fully faced the prospectof returning to live in London. Her plan--he saw it plainly; thepartridge shooting was part of it--was to make Welsley so delightful tohim that he would not want to give up the home at Little Cloisters. What was to be done? He disliked, he almost hated, the thought that hisreturn would necessitate an unpleasant change in Rosamund's life. Yetsomething within him told him that he ought to be firm. He was obligedto live in London, and therefore it was only natural and right thatRosamund and Robin should live in London too. After this long separationhe ought not to have to face a semi-bachelor life; three days of theweek at Little Cloisters and four days alone in Little Market Street. Hemust put Rosamund to the test. That faint blush, which he would not soonforget, made him hope that she would come out of the test triumphantly. 

If she did, how splendid it would be. His heart yearned at the thoughtof a Rosamund submissive to his wish, unselfish out of the depthof--dared he think of it as a new growth of love within her, tendingtowards a great flowering which would bring a glory into two lives? Butif she yielded at once to his wish, without a word of regret, if shetook the speedy return to London quite simply as a matter of course, hewould feel almost irresistibly inclined to take her in his arms and tosay, "No, you shall stay on at Little Cloisters. We'll manage somehow. "Perhaps he could stand three hours daily in the train. He could readthe papers. A man must do that. As well do it in the train as in anarm-chair at home. 

But at any rate he would put her to the test. On that he was resolved. 

At dinner that night Rosamund told him she had already written to "dear, kind Job Crickendon" about the pony. 

"You might shoot on Monday, " she said. 

"Right you are. When we hear about the pony we'll tell Robin. "

"Yes. Not till it's all delightfully settled. Robin on horseback!"

Her eyes shone. 

"I can see him already with a gun in his hand old enough to shootwith you, " she added. "We must bring him up to be a thorough littlesportsman; like that Greek boy Dirmikis. "

They talked about Robin's future till dinner was over. Dion loved theirtalk, but he could not help seeing that in Rosamund's forecast town lifeheld no place at all. In everything, or in almost everything, thatshe said the country held pride of place. There was not one word aboutJenkins's gymnasium, or the Open Air Club with its swimming facilities, or riding in the Park, or fencing at Bernardi's. Rosamund seemed tacitlyto assume that everything which was Doric was connected with countrylife. 

On the following morning she hastened out "to buy riding gaiters forRobin. " She had his "size" with her. 

Not a word had been said about Dion's visit to Mrs. Clarke. Rosamund'slack of all curiosity in regard to Mrs. Clarke and himself gave him themeasure of her faith in him. Few women, he thought, would be ableto trust a man so completely. And this trust was the more remarkablebecause he felt positive that Rosamund distrusted Mrs. Clarke. She hadnever said so, but he considered that by her conduct she had proved herdistrust. 

It was a great virtue in Rosamund, that power she had to trust wheretrust was deserved. 

Dear, kind Job Crickendon wrote that Master Robin could ride his pony, Jane, and welcome. The letter arrived on Saturday. Rosamund read italoud to Dion. 

"The people about here are the dearest people I've ever come across, "she said. "So different from people in London. "

"Why, what's the matter with people in London?" asked Dion. 

"Oh, I don't know; they're more artificial. They think so much aboutclothes, and hats, and the way their hair's done. "

"The men!"

"I was talking of the women. "

"But is Job Crickendon a woman?"

"Don't be absurd, Dion. You know what I mean. The country brings out thebest that is in people. "

"That's a bad look out for me, who've lived nearly all my life inLondon. "

"You would be yourself anywhere. Now about Robin. I've got the gaiters. They're not exactly riding gaiters--they don't make them for such littleboys--but they'll do beautifully. But I don't want to tell Robintill Monday morning. You see he's got a very exciting day before himto-morrow, and I think to know about Monday on top of it might be almosttoo much for him. "

"But what excitement is there to-morrow?"

She looked at him reproachfully. 

"Mr. Thrush!"

"Oh, of course. And is Robin coming to the Cathedral?"

"Yes, for once. It's a terribly long service for a child, but Robinwould break his heart if he didn't see Mr. Thrush walk in the processionfor the first time. "

"Then we won't tell him till Monday morning. I'll hire a dog-cart and wecan all drive out together. "

Again she gave him the tender look, but she did not then explain what itmeant. 

That evening they dined with Canon Wilton, who had a surprise in storefor them. Esme Darlington had come down to stay with him over Sunday, and to have a glimpse of his dear young friends in Little Cloisters. 

The dinner was a delightful one. Mr. Darlington was benignly talkativeand full of kindly gossip; Canon Wilton almost beamed upon his guests;after dinner Rosamund sang song after song while the three men listenedand looked. She sang her very best for them, and when she was windinga lace shawl about her hair preparatory to the little walk home, CanonWilton thanked her in a way that brought the blood to her cheeks. 

"You've made me very happy to-night, " he said finally. And his strongbass voice was softer than usual. 

"I'm glad. "

"Not only by your singing, " he added. 

She looked at him inquiringly. His eyes had gone to Dion. 

"Not only by that. "

And then he spoke almost in a murmur to her. 

"He's come back worth it, " he said. "Good night. God bless you both. "

The following day was made memorable by the "installation" of Mr. Thrushas a verger of Welsley Cathedral. 

The Cathedral was not specially crowded for the occasion, but there wasa very fair congregation when Rosamund, Dion and Robin (in a sailor suitwith wide blue trousers) walked in together through the archway in therood-screen. One of the old established vergers, a lordly person witha "presence" and the air of a high dignitary, met them as they steppedinto the choir, and wanted to put them into stalls; but Rosamund beggedfor seats in a pew just beyond the lectern, facing the doorway by whichthe procession came into the choir. 

"Robin would be swallowed up in a stall, " she whispered to Dion. 

And they both looked down at the little chap tenderly, and met his blueeyes turned confidingly, yet almost anxiously too, up to them. He waswondering about all this whispering with the verger, and hoping thatnothing had happened to Mr. Thrush. 

They found perfect seats in a pew just beyond the deanery stalls. Farup in the distance above them one bell, the five minutes' bell, waschiming. Its voice recalled to Rosamund the "ping-ping" of the bellof St. Mary's Church which had welcomed her in the fog. How much hadhappened since then! Robin was nestling against her. He sat between herand his father, and was holding his father's hand. By dividing Dion fromher he united her with Dion. She thought of the mystery of the Trinity, and then of their mystery, the mystery of father, mother and child. To-day she felt very happy, and happy in an unusual way. In herhappiness she know that, in a sort of under way, she had almost dreadedDion's return. She had been so peacefully content, so truly at rest anddeeply serene in the life at Welsley with Robin. In her own heart shecould not deny that she had loved having her Robin all to herself;and she had loved, too, the long hours of solitude during which, in day-dreams, she had lived the religious life. A great peace hadenveloped those months at Welsley. In them she had mysteriously growninto a closer relation with her little son. She had often felt in thosemonths that this mysterious nearness could never have become quite whatit had become to her unless she had been left alone with Robin. It wastheir solitude which had enabled her to concentrate wholly on Robin, andit was surely this exclusive concentration on Robin which had drawn himso very close to her. All the springs of his love had flowed towardsher. 

She had been just a wee bit frightened about Dion's return. 

And that was why at this moment, when the five minutes' bell wasringing, she felt so happy. For Dion's return had not made anydifference; or, if it had made a difference, she did not actively regretit. The child's new adoration of his father had made her care more forDion, and even more for Robin; for she felt that Robin was unconsciouslyloving in his father a strength and a nobility which were new in Dion, which had been born far away across the sea. War destroys, and all thetime war is destroying it is creating. Robin was holding a little bit ofwhat the South African War had created as he held his father's hand. Forare not the profound truths of the soul conveyed through all its temple?

"Happiness is a mystery, " thought Rosamund. 

And then she silently thanked God that this mystery was within herself, and that she felt it in Robin and in Dion. 

She looked down at her little son, and as she met his soft and yetardent eyes, --full of innocent anxiety, and almost of awe, about Mr. Thrush, --she blessed the day when she had decided to marry Dion, whenshe had renounced certain dreams, when she had taken the advice of theman who was now her friend and had resolved to tread that path of lifein which she could have a companion. 

Her companion had given her another companion. In the old grayCathedral, full of the silent voices of men who had prayed and beengathered to their rest long since, Rosamund looked down the way ofhappiness, and she could not see its end. 

The five minutes' bell stopped and Robin sat up very straight in thepew. The Bishop's wife proceeded to her stall with a friend. Robinstared reverently, alert for the tribute to Mr. Thrush. Miss Piperglided in sideways, holding her head down as if she were searching fora dropped pin on the pavement. She, too, was an acquaintance of Robin's, and he whispered to his mother:

"Miss Piper's come to see Mr. Thrush. "

"Yes, darling. "

What a darling he was in his anxiety for his old friend! She looked atthe freckles on the bridge of his little nose and longed to kiss them. This was without doubt the most wonderful day in Robin's life so far. She looked ahead and saw how many wonderful days for Robin! And over hisfair hair she glanced at Dion, and she felt Dion's thought hand in handwith hers. 

A long sigh came from the organ, and then Mr. Dickinson was at workpreluding Mr. Thrush. Distant steps sounded on the pavement behindthe choir screen coming from some hidden place at the east end of theCathedral. The congregation stood up. All this, in Robin's mind, wasfor Mr. Thrush. Still holding his father's hand tightly he joined in thecongregation's movement. The solemnly pacing steps drew nearer. Robinfelt very small, and the pew seemed very deep to him now that he wasstanding up. There was a fat red footstool by his left leg. He peeped athis father and whispered:

"May I, Fa?"

Dion bent down, took him under the arms and lifted him gently on to thefootstool just as the vergers appeared with their wands, walking noblyat the head of the procession. 

At Welsley the ordinary vergers did not march up the choir to the returnstalls, but divided and formed up in two lines at the entrance, makinga dignified avenue down which the choristers and the clergy passed withcalm insouciance into the full view of the waiting congregation. Onlytwo picked men, with wands of silver, preceded the dignitaries to theirmassive stalls. Mr. Thrush was--though not in Robin's eyes--anordinary verger. He would not therefore penetrate into the choir. But, mercifully, he with one other had been placed in the forefront of theprocession. He led the way, and Robin and his parents had a full andsatisfying view of him as the procession curved round and made for thescreen. In his dark and flowing robe he came on majestical, holdinghis wand quite perfectly, and looking not merely self-possessed but--asRosamund afterwards put it--"almost uplifted. "

Robin began to breathe hard as he gazed. From Mr. Thrush's shoulders therobe swung with his lordly movements. He reached the entrance. It seemedas if nothing could prevent him from floating on, in all the pride anddignity of his new office, to the very steps of the Dean's stall. Butdiscipline held him. He stood aside; he came to rest with his wandbefore him; he let the procession pass by, and then, almost mystically, he evaporated with his brother vergers. 

Rosamund sent a quick look to Dion, a look of subdued and yet brighttriumph. Then she glanced down at Robin. She had been scarcely lessexcited, less strung up, than he. But she had seen the fruit of herrehearsals and now she was satisfied. Robin, she saw, was more thansatisfied. His eyes were round with the glory of it all. 

That was the happiest Sunday Dion had ever spent, and it was fated toclose in a happiness welling up out of the very deeps of the heart. 

Canon Wilton and Esme Darlington came in to tea, and Mr. Thrush wasentertained at a sumptuous repast in the nursery "between the services. "Robin presided at it with anxious rapture, being now just a little inawe of his faithful old friend. His nurse, who approved of Mr. Thrush, and was much impressed by the fact that after two interviews with theDean he had been appointed to a post in the Cathedral, sat down to ittoo; and Rosamund and Dion looked in to congratulate Mr. Thrush, and totell him how delighted they were with his bearing in the processionand his delicately adroit manipulation of his wand. Mr. Thrush receivedtheir earnest congratulations with the quiet dignity of one who feltthat they did not spring from exaggeration of sentiment. Like all greatartists he knew when he had done well. But when Rosamund and Dion wereabout to retire, and to leave him with Robin and the nurse to the teaand well-buttered toast, he suddenly emerged into an emotion which didhim credit. 

"Madame!" He said to Rosamund, in a rather hoarse and tremulous voice. 

"Now don't trouble to get up again, dear Mr. Thrush. Yes, what is it?"

Mr. Thrush looked down steadily at the "round" which glistened on hisplate. Something fell upon it. 

"Oh, Mr. Thrush----!" began Robin, and paused in dismay, looking up athis mother. 

"Madame, " said Mr. Thrush again, still looking at the "round, " "Ihaven't felt as I do now since I stood behind my counter just offHanover Square, respected. Yes, " he said, and his old voice quaveredupwards, gaining in strength, "respected by all who knew me. _She_was with me then, and now she isn't. But I feel--I feel--I'm respectedagain. "

Something else fell upon the toast. 

"And it's all your doing, madam. I--all I can say is that I--all I cansay----" His voice failed. 

Rosamund put her hand on his shoulder. 

"There, Mr. Thrush, there! I know, I know just how it is. "

"Madame, " said Mr. Thrush, with quavering emphasis, "one can depend uponyou, a man can depend upon you. What you undertake you carry through, even if it's only the putting on his feet of--of--I never thought to bea verger, never. I never could have looked up to such a thing but foryou. But Mr. Dean he said to me, 'Mr. Thrush, when Mrs. Leith speaks upfor a man, even an archbishop has to listen. '"

"Thank you, Mr. Thrush. Robin, give Mr. Thrush the brown sugar. Healways likes brown sugar in his tea. "

"It's more nourishing, madam, " said Mr. Thrush, with a sudden changefrom emotion to quiet self-confidence. "It does more work for thestomach. A chemist knows. "

"Dear old man!" said Rosamund, when she and Dion were outside in thepassage. "To say all that before nurse--it was truly generous. "

And she frankly wiped her eyes. A moment later she added:

"I pray he doesn't fall back into his little failing!"

She looked at Dion interrogatively. He looked at her, understanding, hebelieved, the inquiry in her eyes. Before he could say anything the kindand careful voice of Mr. Darlington was heard below, asking:

"Is Mrs. Dion Leith at home?"

Mr. Darlington was delighted with Little Cloisters. He said it had a"flavor which was quite unique, " and was so enthusiastic that Rosamundbecame almost excited. Dion saw that she counted Mr. Darlington as anally. When Mr. Darlington's praises sounded she could not refrain fromglancing at her husband, and when at length their guests got up togo "with great reluctance, " she begged them to come and dine on thefollowing night. 

Mr. Darlington raised his ragged eyebrows and looked at Canon Wilton. 

"I'm by way of going back to town to-morrow afternoon, " he begantentatively. 

"Stay another night and let us accept, " said Canon Wilton heartily. 

"But I'm dining with dear Lavinia Berkhamstead, one of my oldestfriends. It's not a set dinner, but I should hardly like--"

"For once!" pleaded Rosamund. 

Mr. Darlington wavered. He looked round the room and then at Rosamundand Dion. 

"It's most attractive here, " he murmured, "and Lady Berkhamstead livesin the Cromwell Road, at the far end. I wonder--"

"It's settled!" Rosamund exclaimed. "Dinner at half-past seven. We keepearly hours here, and Dion goes shooting to-morrow with Robin and mayget sleepy towards ten o'clock. "

After explanations about Robin, Mr. Darlington gracefully yielded. Hewould wire to dear Lavinia Berkhamstead and explain matters. 

As he and Canon Wilton walked back to the Canon's house he said;

"What dear people those are!"

"Yes, indeed, " said the Canon. 

"Happiness has brought out the very best in them both. Leith is a fineyoung fellow, and she, of course, is unique, a piece of radiance, as herbeautiful mother was. It does one good to see such a happy household. "

He gently glowed, and presently added:

"You and I, dear Canon, have missed something. "

After a moment the Canon's strong voice came gravely out of the winterdarkness:

"You think great happiness the noblest education?"

Mr. Darlington began to pull his beard. 

"You mean, my dear Wilton----?"

"Do you think the education of happiness is the education most likely tobring out the greatest possibilities of the soul?"

This was the sort of very definite question that Mr. Darlingtonpreferred to get away from if possible, and he was just preparing to"hedge, " when, fortunately, they ran into the Dean, and the conversationdeviated to a discussion concerning the effect the pursuit of scientificresearch was likely to have upon religious belief. 

After supper that evening--supper instead of dinner on Sundays was thegeneral rule in Welsley--Dion lit his pipe. It had been a very happyday. He wished the happiness to last till sleep came to Rosamund andto him; nevertheless he was resolved to take a risk, and to take it nowbefore they went to bed, while they still had two quiet hours beforethem. He looked at Rosamund and reluctance surged up in him, but he beatit back. Something told him that he had been allowed to come back fromSouth Africa in order that he might build firm foundations. The perfectfamily life must be set upon rock. He meant to get through to the rockif possible. Rosamund and he were beginning again. Now surely was theday of salvation if he played the man, the man instead of merely thelover. 

"This has been one of the happiest days of my life, " he said. 

He was standing by the fire. Rosamund was sitting on a low chair doingsome embroidery. Gold thread gleamed against a rough cream-coloredground in her capable hands. 

"I'm so thankful you like Welsley, " she said. 

"Won't you hate leaving Welsley?" he asked. 

Rosamund went on quietly working for a moment. Perhaps she bent a littlelower over the embroidery. 

"I've made a great many friends here, " she said at length, "and----"

She paused. 

"Yes--do tell me, Rose. "

"There's something here that I care for very much. "

"Is it the atmosphere of religion? There's a great deal here thatsuggests the religious life. "

"Yes; it's what I care for. "

"I was almost afraid of meeting you here when I came back, Rose. Iremembered what you had once told me, that you had had a great longingto enter the religious life. I was half afraid that, living here allalone with Robin, you might have become--I don't know exactly how toput it--become cloistral. I didn't want to find you a sort of nun when Icame back. "

He spoke with a gentle lightness. 

"It might have been so, mightn't it?"

She remembered her dreams in the walled-in garden almost guiltily. 

"No, " she said steadily--and as she spoke she felt as if she were firmlyputting those dreams behind her forever. "Motherhood changes a womanmore than men can ever know. "

"I--I know it's all right. Then you won't hate me for taking you bothback to Little Market Street in a few days?"

He saw the color deepen in her face. For an instant she went on working. Then she put the work down, sat back in the low chair, and looked up athim. 

"No, of course we must go back. And I was very happy in Little MarketStreet. "

And then quickly, before he could say anything, she began to recallthe pleasant details of their life in Westminster, dwelling upon everyhousehold joy, and everything that though "Londony" had been delightful. Having conquered, with an effort which had cost her more than even Dionknew, a terrible reluctance she gave herself to her own generous impulsewith enthusiasm. Rosamund could not do things by halves. She mightobstinately refrain from treading a path, but if once she had set herfeet on it she hurried eagerly along it. Something to-night had made herdecide on treading the path of unselfishness, of generosity. When Dionlit his pipe she had not known she was going to tread it. It seemed toher almost as if she had found herself upon the path without knowing howshe had got there. Now without hesitation she went forward. 

"It was delightful in Westminster, " she concluded, "and it will bedelightful there again. "

"And all your friends here? And Mr. Thrush?"

"I don't know what Mr. Thrush will do, " she said, with a change to deepgravity. 

The two lines showed in her pure forehead. 

"I'm so afraid that without me he will fall back. But perhaps I can rundown now and then just for the day to keep him up to his promise, poordear old man. "

"And your friends?"

"Oh, well--of course I shall miss them. But I suppose there is alwayssomething to miss. There must be a crumpled rose leaf. I am far morefortunate than almost any woman I know. "

Dion put down his pipe. 

"I simply can't do it, " he said. 

"What?"

"Take you away from here. It seems your right place. You love it; Robinloves it. What's to be done? Shall I run up and down?"

"You can't. It's too far. "

"I have to read the papers somewhere. Why not in the train?"

"Three hours or more! It's impossible. If only Welsley were nearerLondon! But, then, it wouldn't be Welsley. "

"Now I know you'll go I can't take you away. "

"Did you--what did you think I should do?"

"How could I tell?"

He sat down and took her hands. 

"Rose, you've made this the happiest day of my life. "

"Do you mean because----?"

She stopped. Her face became very grave, almost severe. She looked athim, but he felt that she was really looking inward upon herself. Whenat last he let go her hands she said:

"Dion, you are very different from what you were when you went to thewar. If I seem different, too, it's because of that, I think. "

"War changes women, perhaps, as well as men, " he said tenderly. 

They sat by the fire in the quiet old room and talked of the futureand of all the stages of Robin: as schoolboy, as youth, as buddingundergraduate, as man. 

"Perhaps he'll be a soldier-man as his father has been, " said Rosamund. 

"Do you wish it?"

She looked at him steadily for a moment. Then she said:

"Yes, if it helps him as I think it has helped you. I expect when men goto fight for their country they go, perhaps without knowing it, to fightjust for themselves. "

"I believe everything we do for others, without any thought ofourselves, we do for ourselves, " he said, very seriously. 

"Altruism! But then I ought to live in London for you, and you inWelsley for me. "

They both laughed. Nothing had been absolutely decided; and yet itseemed as if through that laughter a decision had been reached abouteverything really important. 

CHAPTER IX

A dogcart from Harrington's had been ordered to be "round" the nextday at noon. Dion had decided against a long day's shooting on Robin'saccount. He must not tire the little chap. In truth it would beimpossible to take the shooting seriously, with Robin there all thetime, clinging on to Jane and having to be looked after. 

"It's going to be Robin's day, " Dion said the next morning. "When areyou going to tell him?"

"Directly after breakfast. By the way, Dion, "--she spoke carelessly, andwas opening a letter while she spoke, --"I'm not coming. "

"Oh, but you must!"

"No; I'll stay quietly here. I have lots of things to do. "

"But Robin's first day as a sportsman!"

"He isn't going to shoot, " she said with a mother's smile. 

"Why won't you come? You've got some very special reason. "

"Perhaps I have, but I'm not going to tell it. Women aren't wantedeverywhere. Sometimes a couple of men like to be alone. "

"Robin's a man now?"

"Yes, a little man. I do hope the gaiters will fit him. I haven't daredto try them on yet. And I've got him the dearest little whip you eversaw. "

"Jane will have to look to her paces. I'm sorry you're not coming, Rose. "

But he did not try to persuade her. He believed that she had a verysweet reason behind her abstention. She had had Robin all to herself formany months; perhaps she thought the father ought to have his turn now, perhaps to-day she was handing over her little son to his father for theeducation which always comes from a man. Her sudden unselfishness--Dionbelieved it was that--touched him to the heart. But it made him long todo something, many things, for her. 

"I'm determined that you and Welsley shan't part from each otherforever, " he said. "We'll hit on some compromise. This house is on ourhands, anyhow, till the spring. "

"Perhaps we could sublet it, " said Rosamund, trying to speak with briskcheerfulness. 

"We'll talk it over again to-night. "

"And now for Robin's gaiters!"

They fitted perfectly; "miraculously" was Rosamund's word for the waythey fitted. 

"His legs might a-been poured into them almost, a-dear, " was nurse'sadmirably descriptive comment on the general effect produced. 

Robin looked at his legs with deep solemnity. When the great projectfor this day of days had been broken to him he had fallen upon awe. Hisprattling ardors had subsided, stilled by a greater joy than any thathad called them forth in his complex past of a child. Now he gazed athis legs, which were stretched out at right angles to his body on anursery chair, as if they were not his. Then he looked up at his mother, his father, nurse; then once more down at his legs. His eyes wereinquiring. They seemed to say, "Can it be?"

"Bless him! He can't hardly believe in it!" muttered nurse. "And nowonder. "

A small sigh came from Robin. To his father and mother it came like thewhisper of happiness, that good fairy which men cannot quite get ridof, try as they may. Two small hands went down to the little gaitersand felt them carefully. Then Robin looked up again, this time at hisfather, and smiled. Instinctively he connected his father with thesewonderful appurtenances, although his mother had bought them and putthem on him. With that smile he gave the day to his father, and Diontook it with just a glance at Rosamund--a glance which deprecated andwhich accepted. 

When the dogcart was announced by Annie, with beaming eyes, Dion gothis gun, Robin received his whip, --a miniature hunting-crop with a hornhandle, --his cap was pulled down firmly on his head by Rosamund, andthey set forth to the Green Court. Here they found Harrington's mostfiery horse harnessed to quite a sporting dogcart and doing his verybest to champ his bit. From the ground Robin looked up at him withsolemn eyes. The occasion was almost too great. His father with a gun, his own legs in gaiters, the whip which he felt in his hand, the packetof sandwiches thrust tenderly by nurse into the pocket of his littlecovert coat, and now this glorious animal and this high and unusualcarriage gleaming with light-colored wood between its immense wheels!There was almost too much of meaning, too much of suggestion in it all. No words came to him. He could only feel and gaze. 

A stableman with hard lips stood sentinel in front of the fiery horse, and put up a red forefinger on the right side of his temple to give themgreeting. 

"I'll get in first, " said Dion to Rosamund, "and then you can hand me upRobin. "

He put in his gun and took the reins, while Robin instinctively extendedhis arms so that his mother could take hold of him under them. 

"Up we go!" cried Dion. 

And he mounted lightly to the high seat. 

"Now, Robin!"

Rosamund took hold of Robin, whose short arms were still solemnlyoutstretched. She was about to lift him into the cart, but, overcome byan irresistible impulse, she paused, put one arm under the little legsin the gaiters, drew him to her and pressed her lips on the freckledbridge of his tiny nose. 

"You darling!" she whispered, so that only he could hear. "I love you inyour gaiters better than I ever loved you before. " Then she handed himup to his father as if he were a dear little parcel. 

"That's it, " said Dion. "Put your arm round here, boy. Hold on tight!Let him go!"

The hard-lipped man stood to one side and the horse--well, moved. Robingazed down at his mother with the faint hint of an almost shy smile, Dion saluted her with his whip, and the glorious day was fairly begun. Traveling with a sort of rakish deliberation the dogcart skirted thevelvet lawn of the Green Court and disappeared from sight beneath theancient archway. 

Rosamund sighed as she turned to walk back to Little Cloisters. Shehad made a real sacrifice that day in giving up Robin to his father andstaying at home. Secretly she had longed to go with her "men-folk" uponthe great expedition, to be present at Robin's initiation into the Doriclife. But something very dear in Dion had prompted her to be unselfish. Dion was certainly much more impressive to her since his return fromthe war. Even the dear things in him meant more. There seemed to be moremuscle in them than there had been when he went away. 

"Even our virtues can be weak or strong, I suppose, " Rosamund thought, as she turned into the walled garden which she loved so much, and therefollowed the thought:

"I wonder which mine are. "

She meant to spend that day in saying good-by to Welsley. Dion had saidthey would talk things over again that night; probably he would be readyto fall in with any desire of hers, but she felt almost sure that shewould not tell him how much she wished to stay on at Little Cloisters. 

An obscure feeling had come to her that perhaps it was not quite safefor her to remain any longer here in the arms of the Precincts. Lookingbackward to that which has been deliberately renounced is surely an actof weakness. 

Even the imaginative effort to live a life that has been put aside is afeeble concession to an inclination at least partially morbid. Rosamundwas in fact a mother, and yet here in Welsley, she had, as it were, sometimes played at being one of those "Sisters" who are content tobe brides of heaven and mothers of the poor. For her own sake it wasdoubtless best to renounce Welsley at once. The new meaning of Dionwould help her to do that bravely. He had often been unselfish for her;she would try to counter his unselfishness with hers. 

When she was in the house again she had a colloquy with the cookabout the dinner for that evening. As Esme Darlington had given up anengagement in London to come to Little Cloisters, her dinner mustbe something special. She told the cook so in her cordial, almostconfidential, way, and they "put their heads together" and devised amenu full of attractions. That done she had the day to herself. Dionand Robin would come home some time in the afternoon, and they were allgoing to have tea together up in the nursery. It might be at half-pastfour, it might be at half-past five. Till then she was free. 

For a moment she thought of going to see some of her friends, of tellingMrs. Dickinson and other adherents of hers that her days in Welsley werenumbered. But a reluctance seized her. She felt a desire to be alone. What if instead of saying good-by to Welsley, she said good-by to herdreams in Welsley? She summoned Annie and told her not to let any onein. 

"I'm going to spend a quiet day, Annie, " she said. 

"Yes, ma'am, " said Annie, with an air of intelligent comprehension. 

"Though what else any one ever does in old Welsley I'm sure I couldn'tsay, " she afterwards remarked to the cook. 

"You're a cockney at 'eart, Annie, " repeated that functionary. "Thecountry says nothing to you. You want the parks, that's what you want. "

"Well, I was brought up in 'em, as you may say, " said Annie, whosefather had been a park-keeper, and whose mother and grandmother werenatives of Westbourne Grove. 

By a quiet day Rosamund meant a day lived through in absolute solitude, a day of meditation in the cloistered garden. She would not have anylunch. Then she would have a better appetite for the nursery tea atwhich Robin would relate to her all the doings of the greatest day ofhis life. Precious, precious Robin!

She went down into the garden. 

It was a mistily bright day of November. The sun shone through adelicate veil. The air was cold but not sharp. Neither autumn nor winterruled. It seemed like a day which had slipped into an interstice betweentwo seasons, a day that was somehow rare and exceptional, holding afaint stillness that was strange. There was in it something of the faraway. If a fairy day can be cold, it was like a fairy day. On such a dayone treads lightly and softly and at moments feels almost as if out ofthe body. 

Lightly and softly Rosamund went to and fro between the high and mossywalls of the garden, keeping to the straight paths. When the bellschimed in the tower of the Cathedral they sounded much farther awaythan usual; the song of the thrush somewhere in the elder bush near thegarden door was curiously remote; the caw-caw of the rooks droppeddown as if from an immeasurable distance. Through the mist the sunshinefiltered, lightly pale and pure, a sensitive sunshine which would surelynot stay very long in Rosamund's garden. 

A sort of thin stillness had fallen upon the world. 

And so another chapter of life was closing, the happy chapter ofWelsley!

Something of sadness accompanied Rosamund along the straight paths, thedelicate melancholy which attends the farewells of one who has regretbut who has hope. 

With the new Dion and with the old Robin, the Robin blessedly unchanged, she could not be really unhappy. Yet it was sad to give up the deargarden and all the dreams which belonged to it. Far down in her--sheknew it--there was certainly a recluse. She could see the black figure, the sheltered face, the eyes looking down, the praying hands. It wouldhave been very natural to her long ago to seek God in the way of therecluse. But not now!

Hermes and the child came before her. In the stillness of Welsley it wasas if she heard the green stillness of Elis. She was quite alone in thatinner room where stood the messenger with the wings on his sandals. Dionhad stayed outside. He had been unselfish that day as to-day she hadbeen unselfish. For she had wanted to go with the little gaiters. Shecould see the smiling look of eternity upon the face of the messenger. He had no fear for the child. He had mounted on winged feet to theregion where no fear is. How his benign and eternal calm had sunk intoRosamund's soul that day in Elis. Far off she had seen through the frameof the Museum doorway a bit of the valley in which the Hermes had dwelt, and stretching across it a branch of wild olive. She had looked at itand had thought of the victor's Crown, a crown which had even been wonby a boy at the games. 

Already then a fore-knowledge of Robin had been in her. 

She had gazed at the branch and loved it. Certainly she had beendreaming, as she had afterwards told Dion, and in her dream had beenHermes and the child, and surely another child for whose future themessenger would not fear. The branch of wild olive had, perhaps, enteredinto the dream. Into a crown she had wound it to set upon the littlefair head. And that was why she had suffered, had really suffered, whena cruel hand had come into Elis and had torn down the wild olive branch. Dion's hand!

That action had been like a murder. She remembered even now her feelingof anger and distress. She had been startled. She had been ruthlesslytorn away from the exquisite calm in which, with the Hermes, she hadbeen celestially dreaming. Dion had torn her away, Dion who loved her somuch. 

Why had he done it? Even now she did not know. 

He had taken her out of that dream, and now he was going to take heraway from Welsley. 

The misty brightness was already fading from the garden; the song of thethrush was no longer audible: he had flown away from the elder bushand from Rosamund. The coldness and silence of the day seemed to deepenabout her. Welsley was fading out of her life. She felt that. She wasgoing to begin again. But as she had carried Elis with her when sheleft it, and the dear tombs and temples of Greece, when she had biddengood-by to the bare and beautiful land whose winds and whose waters arenot as the winds and the waters of any other region, so she would carryaway with her Welsley, this garden with its seclusion, its old religiousatmosphere, the music of the chimes, even the thrush's song from theelder bush. "Farewell!" She must say that. But she had her preciouspossession. Another page of the book of life would be turned. That wasall. 

That was all? She sighed. A painful sense of the impermanence of thethings of this world came suddenly upon her. Like running water lifewas slipping by; its joys, the shining bubbles poised upon the surface, drifted into the distance and--how quickly!--were out of reach. 

Perhaps the great attraction, the lure of the religious life, was thesense felt by those who led it of having a close grip upon that whichwas permanent. The joys of the world--even the natural, healthy, allowedjoys--were shut out, but there was the great compensation, companionshipwith that to which no "farewell" would ever have to be said, with thatto which death only brought the human being nearer. 

Rosamund stopped in her walk, and looked up at the great Cathedral whichtowered above the wall of the garden. She had been pacing to and frofor a long time. She did not feel tired, but she was beset by anunaccustomed sensation of weariness, mental and spiritual rather thanphysical. 

After a minute she went into the house, found a rug and a book, cameback into the garden, and sat down on a bench in a corner hidden fromobservation. This bench was close to the wall which divided the gardenfrom the "Dark Entry. " It was separated from the lawn and the view ofthe house by a belt of shrubs. Rosamund was fond of this nook and hadvery often sat in it, sometimes alone, sometimes with Robin. She hadtold the maids never to look for her there; if any visitor came andshe was not seen in that part of the garden which was commanded by thewindows of the house, they were to conclude that she was "out. " Here, then, she was quite safe, and could turn the last page of the chapter ofWelsley in her book of life. 

She wrapped herself up in the big and heavy rug. The sun was gone, themist had become slightly more dense, the air was colder. 

Presently Dion and Robin would come back; there would be tea in the warmold-fashioned nursery, gay talk, the telling of wonderful deeds. 

If only Robin did not fall off Jane! But Dion would take care of that. Dion certainly loved Robin very much. The bond between father and sonhad evidently been strengthened by the intervention of the war, whichhad broken off their intercourse for a time, and given Robin a fatherchanged by contact with hard realities. 

For a few minutes in imagination Rosamund followed the two figures overthe stubble, the thin strong walking figure, and the little darlingfigure on pony back. Would Robin quite forget her in the midst of hisproud and triumphant joy? She wondered. Even if he did, she would notreally mind. She wanted him to be very happy indeed without her--justfor a short time: that he could not be happy without her for long sheknew very well. 

Oddly, her sensation of weariness persisted. She recognized it nowas wholly unphysical. She was certainly feeling what people call"depressed. " No doubt this unusual depression--for she had been bornwith a singularly cheerful spirit--was caused by the resolution she hadtaken to give up Welsley. Perhaps Welsley meant more to her even thanshe had supposed. But it was absurd--wasn't it?--to be so dominated byplaces. People, certain people, might mean everything in the life of awoman; many women lived, really lived, only in and through their lovers, their husbands, their children; but what woman lived in and through thelife of the place? She had only to compare mentally the loss of Welsleywith--say--the loss of Dion, the new Dion, to realize how little Welsleyreally meant to her. Certainly she loved it as a place, but probably awoman can only love a place with a bit of her. 

And yet to-day, she certainly felt depressed. Even the thought of thenursery tea did not drive the depression from her. 

She opened the book she had brought from the house. It was a volumeof Browning's poems. She had opened it at hap-hazard, and now her eyesrested on these words, words loved almost above all others by one of thegreatest souls that ever spent itself for England:

 "I go to prove my soul! I see my way as birds their trackless way I shall arrive! What time, what circuit first I ask not; but unless God send His Hail Or blinding fire-balls, sleet, or stifling snow, In some time, His good time!--I shall arrive: He guides me and the bird. In His good time!"

She read the lines three--four times. Then she laid the book down on herknees and sat very still. Consciously she tried to withdraw herself, topass into meditation carrying the poem with her. 

 "I see my way as birds their trackless way--I shall arrive!"

Rosmund was gazing downward at a coping of worn brick on which shehad set her feet, but she did not see it now. She saw migratory birdstraveling steadily through a vast expanse of gray sky; birds that weregoing, at the appointed time, to some far-distant place, in search ofa golden climate, in search of the sun. Inevitably they would comeinto the golden climate, inevitably they would find the sun which theyneeded. Like them she was traveling through a vast gray expanse, thelife of the world. Robin and Dion were with her. They were seeking thesun which they needed. Surely, like the birds, they would find the sunat last. She had thought to seek her way deliberately. When she wasquite a girl it had seemed to her that the human being had the power, and was therefore almost under the obligation, to find the way to Godfor herself. When she had contemplated entering the religious life thethought at the back of her mind had perhaps been something like this:"I'll conquer the love and the mercy of God by my own exertions; I'llfind the way to God by my own ingenuity and determination in searchingit out. " Possibly she had never quite simply and humbly said in hersoul, with Newman, "Be Thou my Guide. " Now, as she sat in the garden, with the image of the migratory birds in her mind, she thought, "Thebirds do that. They give themselves to the sky, and God does the rest. He knows the way by which each human soul can best go back to that fromwhich once it issued forth. " Perhaps as a Sister, leading the hiddensecluded life, she could not have found the way; perhaps she had tofind it in the world, through Dion with whom she had united herself, orthrough Robin to whom she had given birth. 

Through Robin! Yes, surely that was her way to God. "A little childshall lead them. " The words started up in her mind without theircontext, and she realized that, though people believe it is the motherwho teaches the child, nevertheless the mother learns the greatesttruths from the child. Who living on the earth could keep her from sinas surely as her Robin? How could she be evil when Robin looked to heras the embodiment of goodness. What would she not do, what would she notgive up, to increase Robin's love for her, to give him more reason forregarding her with innocent confidence and simple reverence?

Yes, Robin was surely her way to God. 

And now, withdrawn into the very depths of meditation, and hearingno longer the distant voices of the rooks as they wheeled about theelm-tops near Canon Wilton's house, she went onwards down the way chosenfor her by God, the "Robin-way. "

Now Robin was a young child, and naturally looked up to her as a kind ofProvidence. Presently he would be a lad; inevitably he would reach theage when the growing mind becomes critical. Young animals gnaw hardthings to test the strength of their teeth; so do young growing mindsgnaw the bones that come in their way. Even the mother comes in for muchsecret criticism from the son who loves her. Rosamund's time for beingcriticized by Robin would come in the course of the years. She must tryto get ready against that time; she must try to be worthy of Robin'slove when he was able to be critical. And so onwards down the way acrossthe gray expanse, guided, like the birds!

Rosamund saw herself now as the mother of a tall son, hardened alittle by public-school life, a cricketer, a rower, a swimmer; perhapsintellectual too, the winner of a scholarship. There were so many heartsand minds that the mother of a son must learn to keep, to companion, toinfluence, to go forward with: the heart and the mind of the child, theschoolboy, the undergraduate, the young man out in the world taking uphis life-task--a soldier perhaps, or a man of learning, a pioneer, acarver of new ways for the crowd following behind. 

It was a tremendous thing to be a mother; it was a difficult way to God. But it was the most beautiful way of all the ways, and Rosamund wasvery thankful that she had been guided to take it. Robin, she knew, hadtaught her already very much, but how little compared with all that hewas destined to teach her in the future! Even when her hair was whiteno doubt she would still be learning from him, would still be trying tolift herself a little higher lest he should ever have to look downwardto see her. 

For a long time she meditated on these things, for a very long while. The sun never came back to the garden as she dreamed of the sun whichthe birds were seeking, of the sun which she and Dion and Robin wereseeking; the afternoon hours passed on in a gray procession; the chimessounded many times, but she did not hear them. She had forgotten Welsleyin remembering how small a part Welsley must play in her mother-life, inremembering how very small were the birds in the immense expanse of thesky. 

In Meditation she had entered into Vastness. 

The sound of the organ in the Cathedral recalled her. It was fouro'clock. The afternoon service was just beginning. She sat still andlistened. It was growing dark now, but she had no wish to move. Probablyin half an hour Robin and Dion would come back from the shooting. Fromto-day she would think of Robin in a different way. He would be evendearer to her, even more sacred, her little teacher. What did it matterwhere she lived if her little teacher was with her. The sting hadgone out of her unselfishness; she was glad she had been able to beunselfish, to put Dion before herself. 

The organ ceased. They were praying now in the Cathedral. Presently sheheard them singing the psalms faintly. The voices of the boys came toher with a sort of vague sweetness through the gathering darkness andthe mist. They died away; the Magnificat followed, then silence, thenthe Nunc Dimittis, then another silence, presently the anthem. Finallyshe heard the organ alone in a Fugue of Bach. 

The quarter to five chimed in the tower. Dion and Robin were a littlelate. 

She got up, and carried the rug into the house. 

"Annie!" she called. 

Annie came. 

"When Mr. Leith and Robin come back, --they'll be here directly, --willyou ask them to give me a call? I shall be in the garden. "

"Very well, ma'am. "

Again Rosamund paced up and down the paths. Now she was very consciousof herself and of her surroundings. The long night of early winter wasfalling upon Welsley. Five o'clock struck, a quarter-past five, then thehalf-hour. She stood still on the path, beginning to wonder. How latethey were! Robin would surely be very tired. It would be too much forhim. Directly he had had his tea he must be put to bed. Or perhaps itwould be best to put him to bed at once. He would be disappointed, butthey could easily have tea in the night nursery. She smiled, conjuringup a picture of Robin under the bedclothes being fed pieces of cake. Hewould enjoy that. And she would hold his cup for him while he drank, sothat the bed might be safe. Meals in bed are often dangerous to the bed. How delightful were all the little absurd things she did for Robin!

When the chimes told her that it was a quarter to six she began to feelpuzzled, and just the least little bit anxious. It had been quite darkfor a little while now. Job Crickendon's farm was only about fourmiles from Welsley. Harrington's horse might not be an exceptionallyfast-goer, but surely he could cover six miles in an hour. Dion andRobin could get back in forty minutes at the most. They must have stayedon at Job Crickendon's till past five o'clock. Could they have had teathere? No, she was sure they would not have done that, when they knewshe was waiting for them, was looking forward eagerly to tea in thenursery. 

When six o'clock struck and they had not returned she felt reallyuneasy, although she was not at all a nervous mother, and seldom, ornever, worried about her little son. She could not doubt any longer thatsomething unexpected had occurred. They were dining at half-past seventhat night. In an hour's time at the latest she and Dion would have todress. The hopes she had set on the family tea were vanishing. In heruneasiness she began to feel almost absurdly disappointed about the tea. She was hungry, too; she had had no lunch just because of the tea. Itwas to be a sort of family revel, and she had wished to enjoy it inevery way, to make of it a real meal. Her abstention from lunch nowseemed to her almost pitiful. Disappointment became acute in her. Yeteven now her uneasiness, though definite, was not strong. If it had beenshe would not have been able to feel so disappointed, even so sorry forherself. She had given up the day to Dion. The nursery tea was to havebeen her little reward. Now she would be deprived of it. For a momentshe felt hurt, almost the least bit angry. 

As the words formed themselves in her mind she heard the quarter-pastsix chime out in the tower. She stood still on the path. What hadhappened? Perhaps Robin had fallen off Jane and hurt himself, or perhapsthere had been an accident when they were driving home. Harrington'shorse was probably a crock. He might have fallen down. The dogcart was ahigh one----

She pulled herself up. She had always secretly rather despised thetypical "anxious mother, " had always thought that the love which showsitself in perpetual fear was a silly, poor sort of affection. Even whenRobin, as a baby, had once been seriously ill, at the time of the Clarkedivorce case, she had been calm, had shown complete self-control. Shehad even surprised people by her fearlessness and quiet determination. 

They did not know how she had prayed, and almost agonized in secret. Shehad drawn the calm at which they had wondered from prayer. She had askedGod to let Robin get well, and she had felt that her prayer had beenheard, and that God would grant her the life of her child. 

Perhaps she had exaggerated to herself the danger he was in. But he wasill--for a short time he was very ill, and a baby's hold on life is butfrail. 

Now she remembered her self-control during Robin's illness, andresolutely she banished her anxiety. There was no doubt some perfectlysimple explanation which presently would account to her for their notcoming at the tea hour. 

"Ma'am!" cried a respectable voice. "Ma-a-am!"

"What is it, Nurse. They haven't come back?"

Nurse was coming down the path gingerly, with a shawl over her cap. 

"No, ma'am. Whatever can have happened? _Something's_ a-happened, that'scertain. "

"Nonsense, Nurse!"

"But whatever should keep them out till late into the night, ma'am?"

"It's only a little after six. It isn't night at all. "

"But the tea, ma'am! And Master Robin's so regular in his habits. He'llbe fair famished, ma'am, that he will. I----Well, ma'am, if I may sayit, I really don't hold with all this shooting, and sport, and what notfor such young children. "

"It's only just for once, Nurse. Go in now. You'll catch cold. "

"But yourself, ma'am?"

"I'm quite warm. I'd rather stay out. "

Nurse stared anxiously for a moment, then turned away and went gingerlyback to the house. Her white shawl faded against the background ofdarkness. With its fading Rosamund entered into--not exactly darkness, but into deep shadows. She supposed that nurse's fear had communicateditself to her; she had caught the infection of fear from nurse. But whenwas nurse not afraid? She was an excellent woman and absolutely devotedto Robin, but she was not a Spartan. She leaped at sight of a mouse, andimagined diseases to be for ever floating Robinwards on all the breezes. Rosamund had strictly forbidden her ever to talk nonsense about illnessto Robin, and she had obeyed. But that was her one fault; she had atimorous nature. 

Rosamund wished nurse had not come out into the garden to infect herwith foolish fear. 

Nurse's invitation to her to come into the house had made her suddenlyknow that to be shut in would be intolerable to her. Why was that? Shenow knew that lately, while she had been walking in the garden, she hadbeen straining her ears to hear the sound of wheels in the Green Court. She knew she would be able to hear them in the garden. In the housethat would be impossible. Therefore she could not go into the house tillRobin came back. 

All her fear was for Robin. He was so young, so tiny. Perhaps she oughtnot to have allowed him to go. Perhaps nurse was right, and such anexpedition ought to have been ruled out as soon as it was suggested. Perhaps Dion and she had been altogether too Doric. She began to thinkso. But then she thought: "Robin's with his father. What harm could cometo him with his father, and such a competent father too?" That thoughtof Dion's strength, coolness, competency reassured her; she dwelt on it. Of course with Dion Robin must be all right. 

Presently, leaving the path in front of the house, she went again to theseat hidden away behind the shrubs against the wall which separated thegarden from the Dark Entry. This dark entry was an arched corridor ofstone which led directly from the Green Court to the passage-way onwhich the main door of the garden opened. It was paved with worn slabsof stone upon which the feet of any one passing rang with a mournful andhollow sound. A tiny path skirted the garden wall, running between thehidden seat and the small belt of shrubs which shut out a view of thehouse. Just before she turned into this path Rosamund looked back at theold house, and saw a lamp gleaming in the lattice window of the nursery. She did not sit down on the seat. She had thought to do that and tolisten. But the mist had made the wood very wet, and she had left therug in the house. If she walked softly up and down the little path shewould be sure to hear the hoofs of Harrington's horse, the wheels of thedogcart directly the wanderers drove into the Green Court. There theywould get down, and would walk home through the Dark Entry. She intendedto call out to them when she heard their footsteps ringing on the oldstones. That would surprise them. She tried to enjoy the thought oftheir surprise when they heard her voice coming out of the darkness. HowRobin would jump at the sound of mummy!

She stood just in front of the seat for two or three minutes, listeningintently in the misty darkness. She heard nothing except for a moment arustling which sounded like a bird moving in ivy. Then she began to walksoftly up and down passing and repassing the seat. When she came up tothe seat for the fourth time in her walk, an ugly memory--she knew notwhy--rose in her mind like a weed in a pool; it was the memory of astory which she had long ago read and disliked. She had read it, sheremembered, in a railway train on a long journey. She had had a book, something interesting and beautiful, with her, but she had finishedit. A passenger, who had got out of the carriage, had left behind him apaper-covered volume of short stories. She had taken it up and had readthe first story, which now, after an interval of years, recurred to hermind. 

There was in the story a very commonplace business man, middle-aged, quite unromantic and heavy, the sort of man who does not know what"nerves" means, who thinks suggestion "damned nonsense, " and psychicalresearch, occultism, and so forth, absurdities fit only to take up thetime of "a pack of silly women. " This worthy person lived in the suburbsof London in a semi-detached villa with a long piece of garden at theback. On the other side of the fairly high garden wall was the garden ofhis next-door neighbor, another business man of the usual suburbantype. Both men were busy gardeners in their spare time. Number one hadconceived the happy idea of putting up a tea-house in the angle ofthe wall at the bottom of his lawn. Number two, having heard of thisachievement, and not wishing to be outdone, put up a very similartea-house in the corresponding angle on his side of the wall. Thetwo tea-houses stood therefore back to back with nothing but the wallbetween them. Now, one warm summer evening Mr. Jenkins-Smith--Rosamundcould remember his name, though she had not thought of him foryears--had been busy watering his flowers and mowing his lawn. He hadworked really hard, and when the evening began to close in he thoughthe would go into the tea-house and have a rest. On each side of thecurly-legged tea-table of unpolished wood stood a wicker arm-chair. Intoone of these chairs Mr. Jenkins-Smith sank with a sigh of content. Thenhe lighted his pipe, stretched out his short legs, and, gazing athis beautifully trimmed garden, prepared to enjoy a delicious hour ofwell-earned repose. Things were going well with him; money was easy; hishealth was good; when he sat down in the wicker chair and put his pipeinto his mouth he was, perhaps, as happy a man as you could find in allSurbiton. 

But presently, in fact very soon, he became conscious of a disagreeablefeeling. A curious depression began to come upon him. He smokedsteadily, he gazed out at his garden green with turf and gay withflowers, but his interest and pleasure in it were gone from him. Hewondered why. Presently he turned his head and looked over his shoulder. What he was looking for he did not know; simply he felt obliged to dowhat he did. He saw, of course, nothing but the curved wooden back ofthe tea-house. He listened, he strained his ears, but he heard nothingexcept the faint "ting-ting" of a tram-bell, and voices of some childrenplaying in a distant garden. His pipe had gone out. As he lit a matchand held it to his pipe bowl he saw that his hand was shaking. Whateverhad come to him? He was no drinker; he had always been a temperate man, proud of his clear eyes and steady limbs, yet now he was shaking like adrunkard. Perspiration burst out upon his forehead. He was seized by anintense desire to get away from the tea-house, to get out into the open, and he half rose from his chair, holding on to the arms and droppinghis pipe on the wooden floor. The tiny noise it made set his nerves ina turmoil. He was afraid. But of what? He took his hands from the chairand sat back, angry with himself, almost ashamed. That he should feelafraid, here in his own garden, in his own cozy tea-house! It wasabsurd, monstrous; it was like a sort of madness come upon him. But hewas determined not to give way to such nonsense. Just because he waslonging to go out of the tea-house he would remain in it. Let thedarkness come; he did not mind it; he was going to smoke his pipe. 

Again he stared over his shoulder, and the sweat ran down his face. Hadnot he heard something in the tea-house of his neighbor on the otherside of the wall? It seemed to him that he had rather felt a sound thanactually heard it. Nausea came upon him. He got up trembling. But stillhe was ashamed of himself, and he would not go out of the tea-house. Instead he went behind the table, stood close to the wooden wall, puthis ear to it and listened intently. He heard nothing; but when he wasstanding against the wall his horror and fear increased until he couldno longer combat them. He turned sharply, knocked over a chair, andhurried out into the garden. There for a moment he stood still. Underthe sky he felt better, but not himself; he did not feel himself atall. After a pause for consideration he put on his jacket, --he had beengardening in his shirt-sleeves, --went into his house, out into the road, and then up to the door of his neighbor. There he rang the bell andknocked. A maid came. "Is your master in?" he asked. "Yes, sir, he'ssitting in the summer-house at the end of the garden. " "How long's hebeen there?" "About half an hour, sir, as near as I can reckon. " "CouldI see him?" "Certainly, sir. " "Perhaps you'd--perhaps you'd show me tothe summer-house. " "Yes, sir. "

Mr. Jenkins-Smith and the maid went to the end of the garden, and there, in the summer-house, they found the corpse of a suicide hanging from abeam in the roof. 

This was the ugly story which had come into Rosamund's mind as shestood by the seat close to the garden wall. On the other side of Mr. Jenkins-Smith's wall had been the summer-house of his neighbor; on theother side of her wall there was the Dark Entry. She stood consideringthis fact and thinking of the man's terror in his garden. He had beensubject surely to an emanation. A mysterious message had been sent tohim by the corpse which dangled from the beam on the other side of thewall. 

She went nearer to the wall of the garden and listened attentively. Hadshe not heard a sound in the Dark Entry? It seemed to her that some onehad come into the stone corridor while she had been walking up anddown on the path, and was now standing there motionless. But how veryunlikely it was that any one would do such a thing! It must be quiteblack there now, and very cold on the stone pavement, between the stonewalls, under the roof of stone. Of course no one was there. 

Nevertheless she went on listening with a sort of painful attention. Anddistress came upon her. It began in a sort of physical malaise out ofwhich a mental dread, such as she had never yet experienced, was born. She felt now quite certain that some one was standing still in the DarkEntry, very close to her, but separated from her by two walls of brickand stone; and something of this unseen person, of his attention, orhis anger, or his terror, or his criminal intent, in any case somethingtremendously powerful, pierced the walls and came upon her and envelopedher. She opened her lips, not knowing what she was going to say, andfrom them came the cry:

"Dion!"

Silence followed her cry. 

"Dion! Dion!" she called again. 

Immediately after the third cry she heard a slow step on the stonesof the Dark Entry, passing close to her but muffled by the interveningwalls. It went on very slowly indeed; it was a dragging footfall; thesound of it presently died away. 

Then she sat down on the bench close to the wall. She still feltdistressed, even afraid. Whoever it was--that loiterer in the DarkEntry--he had left the corridor by the archway near Little Cloisters; hehad not gone into the Green Court. 

She sat waiting in the darkness. 

* * * * *

That afternoon, while Rosamund was in the garden, Mr. Esme Darlingtonwas paying a little visit to his old friend and crony, the Dean ofWelsley. He had known the Dean--well, almost ever since he couldremember, and the Dean's wife ever since she had married the Dean. Hisdelay in returning to town, caused by Rosamund's attractive invitation, enabled him to spend an hour at the Deanery, where he had tea in thegreat drawing-room on the first floor, which looked out on the GreenCourt. So pleasant were the Dean and his wife, so serenely flowed theconversation, that the hour lengthened out into two hours, and theCathedral chimes announced that it was a quarter to seven before Mr. Darlington uncrumpled his length to go. Even then Mrs. Dean begged himto stay on a little longer. 

"It's such a treat to hear all the interesting gossip of London, " shesaid, almost wistfully. "When Dickie"--Dickie was the Dean, --"whenDickie was at St. Peter's, Eaton Square, we knew everything that wasgoing on, but here in Welsley--well, I often feel rather rusty. "

Mr. Darlington paid the appropriate compliment, not in a banal way, and then mentioned that at half-past seven he was dining in LittleCloisters. 

"That delightful creature Mrs. Dion Leith!" exclaimed Mrs. Dean. "Dickie's hopelessly in her toils. "

"My dear!" began the Dean, in pleased protestation. 

But she interrupted him. 

"I assure you, " she went on to Mr. Darlington, "he is always makingexcuses to see her. She has even influenced him to appoint a new verger, a most extraordinary old person, called Thrush, with a nose!"

Mr. Darlington cocked an interrogative eyebrow. 

"My darling!" said the Dean. "He's a good old man, very deserving, andhas recently taken the pledge. "

"He's a modified teetotaler!" said his wife to Mr. Darlington, pattingher husband's arm. "You see what Dickie's coming to. If it goes on hewill soon be a modified Dean. "

It was past seven when they finished talking about Rosamund and Dion, when Mr. Darlington at length tore himself delicately away from theirdelightful company, and, warmly wrapped in an overcoat lined withunostentatious sable, set out on the short walk to Canon Wilton's house. To reach the Canon's house he had to pass through the Dark Entry andskirt the garden wall of Little Cloisters. 

Now, as he came out of the Dark Entry and stepped into the passage-way, which led by the wall and the old house into the great open space ofgreen lawns and elm trees round which the dwellings of the canons showedtheir lighted windows to the darkness of the November evening, he wasstopped by a terrible sound. It came to him from the garden of LittleCloisters. It was short, sharp and piercing, so piercing that for aninstant he felt as if literally it had torn the flesh of his body. Hehad never before heard any sound at all like it; but, when he was ableto think, he thought, he felt almost certain, that it had come froman animal. He shuddered. Always temperamentally averse from any fiercedemonstrations of feeling, always instinctively restrained, careful andintelligently conventional, he was painfully startled and moved by thisterrible outcry which could only have been caused by intense agony. Ashe believed that the cry had come from an animal, he naturally supposedthat the agony which had caused it was physical. He was a very humaneman, and as soon as he had mastered the feeling of cold horror whichhad for a moment held him rigid, he hastened on to the door of LittleCloisters and pulled the bell. After a pause which seemed to him longthe door was opened by Annie, Rosamund's parlor-maid. She presented toMr. Darlington's peering gaze a face full of ignorance and fear. 

"What is the matter?" he asked, in a hesitating voice. 

"Sir?" said Annie. 

"What has happened in the garden?"

"Nothing, sir, that I know of. I have been in the house. " She paused, then added, with a sort of timorous defiance: "I'm not one as wouldlisten, sir. "

"Then you didn't hear it?"

"Hear what, sir?"

Her question struck upon Mr. Darlington's native conventionality, andmade him conscious of the fact that, perhaps almost indiscreetly, hewas bandying words with a maid-servant. He put up one hand to his beard, pulled at it, and then said, almost in his usual voice:

"Is Mrs. Leith in?"

"She's in the garden, sir. "

"In the garden?"

"Yes, sir. "

"Is--is Mr. Leith at home?"

"He's just come home, sir, and gone to Mrs. Leith in the garden. "

Mr. Darlington stood for a moment pulling his beard and raising andlowering his eyebrows. Then he said doubtfully:

"Thank you. I won't disturb them now. I shall be here with Canon Wiltonat half-past seven. "

Annie stood staring at him in silence. 

"They--Mr. And Mrs. Leith expect us, I believe?" added Mr. Darlington. 

"They haven't said anything to the contrary, sir. "

"No?"

Slowly Mr. Darlington turned away, slowly he disappeared into thedarkness; his head was bent, and he looked older than usual. Annie gazedafter him. Once she opened her lips as if she were going to call himback, but no sound came from them. 

"Annie! Annie!" cried a voice in the house behind her. 

She turned sharply and confronted Robin's nurse. 

"Where's Master Robin?" said the nurse, almost fiercely. 

"I don't know. He hasn't come back with master. "

"I'm going into the garden, " said the nurse. 

"For God's sake, don't!" said Annie. 

"Why not?" asked the nurse. 

Suddenly Annie began to cry. The nurse pulled her in and shut the doorof the house. 

CHAPTER X

Rosamund did not know how long she sat in the garden after she had heardthe footfall in the Dark Entry. Perhaps five minutes, perhaps many morehad slipped by before she was aware of feeling cold. A chill had gonethrough her mind when she heard the footfall; now her body was chilled. She shivered and got up. She must go into the house. 

It was now very dark. The path was a pale grayish blur at her feet. Onher left the shrubs which concealed the house from her showed as a heavymorose blackness against the softer and more mysterious blackness ofthe night. The dampness which rose in the garden was like the drearywhispering of sad earth voices. 

She shivered again. 

Then she heard a faltering step on the path beyond the shrubs. It wascertainly Dion's step. At last they had come back!

With a movement of her shoulders she tried to throw off her depression, as if it were something heavy resting upon her, something which aphysical effort could get rid of. Then she called out in a brisk andcheerful voice:

"Dion, I'm here. How late you are! What have you shot?"

It was too late now for the nursery tea, but they had come back and allwas well. 

"Dion!"

The step had stopped on the path and no voice answered her. Neverthelessshe was certain that it was Dion who had come into the garden. PerhapsRobin was with him, perhaps they were going to give her a surprise. She waited for an instant. Something within her was hesitating. Sheconquered it, not without an effort, and went round the angle of thepath. Beyond the shrubs, but not far from them, a man was standing. Itwas Dion. He was alone. It was so dark that Rosamund could not see himclearly, but she noticed at once that the outline of his figure lookedstrange. His body seemed to be all awry as if he were standing in anunnatural position. She stopped and stared at this body. 

"Is anything wrong, Dion?" she asked. "What's the matter? Why do youstand like that?"

After her last quick question she heard a long-drawn quivering breath. 

"Where's Robin?" she said sharply. 

He did not answer. She meant to go up to him; but she did not move. 

"Why are you so late? Where's Robin?" he repeated. 

"Rosamund--"

"Don't move! Stand there, and tell me what it is. "

"Haven't I--always tried to make you happy?"

The words came from the body before her, but she did not know the voice. It was Dion's voice, of course. It must be that. But she had never heardit before. 

"Don't come nearer to me. What have you done?"

"Robin--I have--I have--Robin--my gun----"

The voice failed in the darkness. Rosamund shut her eyes. She had seenan angry hand tear down a branch of wild olive. Suddenly she knew. Itseemed to her that ever since that day long ago in Elis some part of herhad always prophetically known that Dion was fated to bring terror andruin into her life. This was not true, but now she felt it to be true. 

"You've killed Robin, " she said, quietly and coldly. 

Her brain and heart seemed to stand still, like things staring into animmense voice. They had come to the end of their road. 

"You've killed Robin, " she said again. 

"Rosamund----"

The body in front of her moved to come towards her. Then she uttered thefearful cry which was heard by Mr. Darlington on his way home from theDeanery, and she fled from the body which had slain Robin. 

That purely instinctive action was the beginning of Dion's punishment. A cry, the movement of a body, and everything which meant life to him, everything for which he had lived, was gone. But he followed Rosamundwith a sort of blind obstinacy, driven as she was by instinct. Dimly heknew that he was a man who only merited compassion, all the compassionof the world. He had no horror of himself, but only a horror of thatFate to which mortals have to submit and which had overtaken him in ashining moment of happiness. The gun accident of which his little sonhad been the victim presented itself to his erring mind as a terrificstroke from above, or from beyond, falling equally upon father andchild. He was not responsible for it. The start of a frightened pony, its sudden attempt to bolt, the pulling of a rein which had brought theanimal against him just as he was lifting his gun to fire at a risingbird--what were those things? Only the clumsy machinery used byimplacable Fate to bring about that which had been willed somewhere, faroff in the dark and the distance. 

He must tell Rosamund, he must tell Rosamund. 

* * * * *

Annie and the nurse came out to the edge of the broad path which ranalong the front of the house and peered into the darkness. Annie wascrying and holding on to the nurse, whose almost fierce determinationfaded as she confronted the mystery of the night which hid her masterand mistress. 

"H'sh, Annie, " she whispered. "Where can they be? Listen, I tell you!"

Annie strove to choke down her sobs. 

"I can hear--some one, " whispered the nurse, after a moment. "Don't you. Listen, I tell you! Right over by the wall near the Bishop's!"

The sound of steps indeed came to them through the darkness. Annie brokeaway from the nurse. 

"I'm frightened! I'm frightened! I don't know what's come to them, " shewhispered through her teeth, resisting the impulse to cry out. "Come in, Nurse, for God's sake!"

She shrank into the house. The nurse stood where she was for a moment, but when she heard the steps a little nearer to her she, too, wasovercome by fear and followed Annie trembling, shutting the door behindher. 

Exactly at half-past seven Mr. Darlington and Canon Wilton were outsidethe door of Little Cloisters and Mr. Darlington pulled the bell. Alwaysthe most discreet of men, he had not mentioned to his host the terriblecry he had heard in the Leiths' garden, or his short colloquy withAnnie. He was seriously disturbed in mind, but, being a trained man ofthe world and one who prided himself upon his powers of self-control, hehad concealed this unpleasant fact from the Canon, and had talked quiteagreeably during their little walk between the two houses. The sound ofthat dreadful cry still seemed to shudder through his flesh, but it wasnot for him to pry into the private lives of others, even of those whomhe knew intimately, and had a great regard for. He hoped all waswell with his dear young friends, There might be some quite simpleexplanation of that cry. He fervently hoped there was. In any case itwas not for him to ask questions, or to--

"They're a long while answering the bell, " said Canon Wilton, inhis strong, earnest voice. "Hadn't you better give it another tug, Darlington?"

Mr. Darlington started. 

"H'm--ha!"

He raised his hand and pulled the bell a second time. 

"That's better, " said the Canon, as he heard inside the house a longtinkle. "Annie's bound to come now. As a rule she's very quick inanswering the door. Among her many virtues, Mrs. Leith counts that ofbeing a first-rate housewife. She trains her maids well. "

"Does she?" murmured Mr. Darlington abstractedly, bending forward tillhe seemed almost to be listening at the door. "Does she? I hear some onecoming. H'm!"

He straightened himself. The door opened and Annie appeared. When shesaw the two men she drew back quickly to let them pass in. Canon Wiltonsaid kindly: "Good evening, Annie. "

"Oh, sir, " said Annie, and began to cry audibly. 

"What's the matter?" asked the Canon, surprised. 

They were now in the little oak paneled hall, and by the light of thelamp they could see the tears running down the flushed face of the maid. "Is anything wrong?" said the Canon. 

"Oh, sir, I'm so glad you've come! Oh, we don't know what it is!"

At this moment Robin's nurse showed herself on the staircase. 

"For God's sake, sir, " she said, with trembling lips, "do go into thegarden!"

"Why?" said Canon Wilton, in a loud, firm voice. 

"Mr. And Mrs. Leith are both there, sir. They've been there this longtime. Mr. Leith he's come back from the shooting without Master Robin. Oh, there's something wrong, sir, there's something wrong!"

"Stay here for a moment, Darlington, " said the Canon, with a sudden, almost fiery, decision. "I'll go at once and see what's the matter. "

But Mr. Darlington laid a bony hand on his friend's arm. 

"I'll come with you, Wilton. I'm--I'm afraid it's something very bad. "

He lowered his voice almost to a whisper in saying the last words. 

The Canon formed "Why?" with his lips. 

"Just now, as I was passing the garden here coming back from theDeanery, I heard a most dreadful cry. I thought at the time that it camefrom an animal, but--now----"

The Canon stared at him almost sternly. 

"We'd better not waste time, " he said. "I wish you'd gone in then. "

And he turned bruskly. He had opened the door, and was about to step onto the broad path which divided the front of the house from the lawn, when he heard steps approaching swiftly on the gravel. 

"Some one coming!" he said. "Stop where you are, Darlington. I believeits . . . "

Before he could finish his sentence Rosamund came upon him out ofthe darkness. Her face was distorted, so distorted that he scarcelyrecognized it. It seemed to have shrunk and sharpened, and it had thelook of fierceness which is characteristic of the faces of starvingpeople. She put out both her hands as she came up to him, pushed himwith violence into the house, and followed him. 

"Lock the door!" she whispered. "Lock it! Lock it!"

"But----"

Her voice rose. She seemed savage with fear. 

"Lock it, I tell you!"

A long arm shot out and a bony hand turned the key in the door. 

"It's the only thing to be done for the moment, " said Mr. Darlington tothe Canon. "She's mad with fear. "

Both the maids had disappeared, terrified by the face of their mistress. Rosamund caught hold of the stair-rail and began to hurry upstairs, butMr. Darlington followed her and seized her by the arm. 

"Rosamund! Rosamund! What is it?"

She turned. 

"I'm going to find Robin. That man's killed Robin! Keep him out! Keephim away from me!"

A dreadful surreptitious expression made her face hideous. She leanedforward, nodding her head, and whispered in Mr. Darlington's ear:

"_You_ keep him away from me while I find Robin. He's killed Robin!"

Her whole body began to shake. Mr. Darlington put one arm round her. 

"But, Rosamund----"

Below, the handle of the door leading to the garden was turned, the doorwas shaken, and there came a knocking on the wood. 

Then Mr. Darlington heard again the cry which had come to him thatevening as he passed the garden of Little Cloisters. His arm dropped. 

Rosamund went frantically up the stairs and disappeared on the darklanding above. 

BOOK IV -- THE UNKNOWN GOD

CHAPTER I

In June of the following year two young Englishmen, who were making aswift tour of the near East, were sitting one evening in a public gardenat Pera. The west wind, which had been blowing all day, had gone downwith the coming of night. The air was deliciously warm, but not sultry. The travelers had dined well, but not too well, and were ready tobe happy, and to see in others the reflection of their own contentedholiday mood. It was delightful to be "on the loose, " withoutresponsibilities, and with a visit to Brusa to look forward to inthe immediate future. They sat under the stars, sipped their coffee, listened to the absurd music played by a fifth-rate band in agarishly-lighted kiosk, and watched with interest the coming and goingof the crowd of Turks and Perotes, with whom mingled from time to timeforeign sailors from ships lying off the entrance to the Golden Hornand a few tourists from the hotels of Pera. Just behind them sat theirguide, a thin and eager Levantine, half-Greek and half-Armenian, who, for some inscrutable reason, declared that his name was John. 

There was little romance in this garden set in the midst of the noisyEuropean quarter of Constantinople. The music was vulgar; Greek waiterswith dissipated faces ran to and fro carrying syrups and liqueurs;corpulent Turks sat heavily over glasses of lager beer; overdressedyoung men of enigmatic appearance, with oily thick hair, shifty eyes, and hands covered with cheap rings, swaggered about smoking cigarettesand talking in loud, ostentatious voices. Some women were there, fat andgarish for the most part, liberally powdered and painted, and crownedwith hats at which Paris would have stared almost in fear. There werealso children, dark, even swarthy, with bold eyes, shrill voices, immodest bearing, who looked as if they had long since received the uglyfreedom of the streets, and learned lessons no children ought to know. 

Presently the band stopped playing and there was a general movement ofthe crowd. People got up from the little tables and began to disperse. "John" leaned forward to his employers, and in a quick and rattlingvoice informed them that a "fust-rate" variety entertainment was aboutto take place in another part of the garden. Would they come to seeit? There would be beautiful women, very fine girls such as can only begazed on in Constantinople, taking part in the "show. "

The young men agreed to "have a look at it, " and followed John toa place where many round tables and chairs were set out before aramshackle wooden barrack of a theatre, under the shade of somepepper trees, through whose tresses the stars peeped at a throng and aperformance which must surely have surprised them. 

The band, or a portion of it, was again at work, playing an inanemelody, and upon the small stage two remarkably well-developed andaquiline-featured women of mature age, dressed as very young childrenin white socks, short skirts which displayed frilled drawers, and muslinbonnets adorned with floating blue and pink ribbons, swayed to and froand joined their cracked voices in a duet, the French words of whichseemed to exhale a sort of _fade_ obscenity. While they swayed andjigged heavily, showing their muscular legs to the staring audience, they gazed eagerly about, seeking an admiration from which they mightdraw profit when their infantile task was over. Presently they retired, running skittishly, taking small leaps into the air, and aimlesslyblowing kisses to the night. 

"Very fine girls!" murmured John to his young patrons. "They make muchmoney in Pera. "

One of the young men shrugged his shoulders with a smile. 

"Get us two Turkish coffees, John!" he said. Then he turned to hiscompanion. "I say, Ellis, have you noticed an English feller--at leastI take him to be English--who's sitting over there close to the stage, sideways to us?"

"No; where is he?" asked his companion. 

"You see that old Turk with the double chin?"

"Rather. "

"Just beyond him, sitting with a guide who's evidently Greek. "

"I've got him. "

"Watch him. I never saw such a face. "

A blowzy young woman, in orange color and green, with shorttinsel-covered skirts, bounded wearily on to the stage, smiling, andbegan to sing:

 "Je suis une boite de surprises! O la la! O la la! Je suis une boite de surprises. "

Ellis looked across at the man to whom his attention had been drawn. This man was seated by a little table on which were a siphon, a bottleof iced water, and a tall tumbler nearly half-full of a yellow liquid. He was smoking a large dark-colored cigar which he now and then tookfrom his mouth with a hand that was very thin and very brown. His facewas dark and browned by the sun, but looked startlingly haggard, as ifit were pale or even yellowish under the sunburn. About the eyesthere were large wrinkles, spraying downwards over the cheek bones andinvading the cheeks. He wore a mustache, and was well-dressed in a tweedsuit. But his low collar was not very fresh, and his tie was arranged ina slovenly fashion and let his collar stud be seen. He sat with hislegs crossed, staring at the grimacing woman on the stage with a sort ofhorribly icy intentness. The expression about his lips and eyes was morethan bitter; it showed a frozen fierceness. 

On the other side of the table was seated a lean, meager guide, obviously one of those Greeks who haunt the quays of Constantinopleon the look out for arriving travelers. Now and then this Greek leanedforward and, with a sort of servile and anxious intelligence, spoke tohis companion. He received no reply. The other man went on smoking andstaring at the _boite de surprises_ as if he were alone. And somehow heseemed actually to be alone, encompassed by a frightful solitude. 

"A tragic face, isn't it?" said the man who had first spoken. 

"By Jove it is!" returned the officer. "I wonder that woman can go onsinging so close to it. "

"Probably she hasn't seen him. How many years do you give him?"

"Thirty-eight or forty. "

"He isn't out for pleasure, that's certain. "

"Pleasure! One would suppose he'd been keeping house with Medusaand--the deuce, she's seen him!"

At this moment the singer looked towards the stranger, quavered, faltered, nearly broke down, then, as if with an effort, raised hervoice more shrilly and defiantly, exaggerated her meaningless gesturesand looked away. A moment later she finished her song and turned tostrut off the stage. As she did so she shot a sort of fascinated glanceat the dark man. He took his cigar from his mouth and puffed the smoketowards her, probably without knowing that he did so. With a startledjerk she bounded into the wings. 

At this moment John returned with two cups of coffee. 

"You know everything, John. Tell us who that man over there is, " saidEllis, indicating the stranger. 

John sent a devouring glance past the old Turk's double chin, a glancewhich, as it were, swallowed at one gulp the dark man, his guide, thesiphon, the water-bottle and the glass partially full of the yellowliquid. 

"I dunno him. He is noo. "

"Is he English?"

"Sure!" returned John, almost with a sound of contempt. 

He never made a mistake about any man's nationality, could even tella Spanish Jew from a Portuguese Jew on a dark night at ten yards'distance. 

"I tell you who he is later. I know the guide, a damned fool and a rogueof a Greek that has been in prison. He robs all his people what takehim. "

"You needn't bother, " said Ellis curtly. 

"Of course not. Shut up, John, and don't run down your brothers incrime. "

"That man my brother!"

John upraised two filthy ringed hands. 

"That dirty skunk my brother! That son of--"

"That'll do, John! Be quiet. "

"To-morrow I till you all about the gentleman. Here is another finegirl! I know her very well. "

A languid lady, with a face painted as white as a wall, large scarletlips, eyes ringed with bluish black, and a gleaming and trailing blackgown which clung closely to her long and snake-like body, writhed on tothe stage, looking carefully sinister. 

The dark man swallowed his drink, got up and made his way to the exitfrom the garden. He passed close to the two young men, followed byhis Greek, at whom John cast a glance of scowling contempt, mingled, however, with very definite inquiry. 

"By Jove! He's almost spoilt my evening, " said Ellis. "But we made amistake, Vernon. He isn't anything like forty. "

"No; more like thirty under a cloud. "

"By the look of things I should guess there are plenty of people undera cloud in Pera. But that English feller stands out even here. This girlis certainly a first-class wriggler, if she's nothing else. "

They did not mention the stranger again that night. But John had notforgotten him, and when he arrived at their hotel next day he at onceopened his capacious mouth and let out the following information:

"The gentleman's name is Denton, his other name is Mervyn, he is threedays in Constantinople, he lives in Hughes's Hotel in Pera, a very poorhouse where chic people they never goes, he is out all day and alwayswalkin', he will not take a carriage, and he is never tired, NicholasGounaris--the Greek guide--he is droppin' but the gentleman he does notmind, he only sayin' if you cannot walk find me another guide what can, every night he is out, too, and he is goin' to Stamboul when it is dark, he is afraid of nothin' and goin' where travelers they never go, onenight Gounaris he had to show the traveler--"

But at this point Ellis shut John up. 

"That'll do, " he observed. "You're a diligent rascal, John. One mustsay that. But we aren't a couple of spies, and we don't want to hear anymore about that feller. "

And John, without bearing any malice, went off to complete hisarrangements for the journey to Brusa. 

Two days later, Mrs. Clarke, who was at Buyukderer in a villa she hadtaken for the summer months, but who had come into Constantinople to dosome shopping, saw "Mervyn Denton" in a side street close to the BritishEmbassy. Those distressed eyes of hers were very observant. There weremany people in the street, and "Denton, " who was alone, was severalyards away from her, and was walking with his back towards her; but sheimmediately recognized him, quickened her steps till she was close tohim, and then said:

"Dion Leith!"

Dion heard the husky voice and turned round. He did not say anything, but he took off the soft hat he was wearing. Mrs. Clarke stared at himwith the unself-conscious directness which was characteristic of her. She saw Dion for the first time since the tragedy which had changed hislife, but she had written to him more than once. Her last letter hadcome from Buyukderer. He had answered it, but he had not told her wherehe was, had not even hinted to her that he might come to Constantinople. Nevertheless, she did not now show any surprise. She just looked at himsteadily, absorbed all the change in him swiftly, and addressed herselfto the new man who stood there before her. 

"Come with me to the Hotel de Paris. I'm spending the night there, andgo back to-morrow to Buyukderer. I had something to do in town. "

She had not given him her hand, and he did not attempt to take it. Heput on his hat, turned and walked at her side. Neither of them spokea word until they had come into the uproar of the Grande Rue, whichsurrounded them with a hideous privacy. Then Mrs. Clarke said;

"Where are you staying?"

"At Hughes's Hotel. "

"I never heard of it. "

"It's in Brusa Street. It's cheap. "

"And horrible, " she thought. 

But she did not say so. 

"I have only been here three days, " Dion added. 

"Do you remember that I once said to you I knew you would come back toConstantinople?"

For a moment his face was distorted. When she saw that she looked awaygravely, at the glittering shops and at the Perotes who were passingby with the slow and lounging walk which they affect in the Grande Rue. Presently she heard him say:

"You were right. It was all arranged. It was all planned out. Even thenI believe I knew it would be so, that I should come back here. "

"Why have you come?"

"I don't know, " he answered, and his voice, which had been hard andfierce, became suddenly dull. 

"He really believes that, " she thought. 

"Here is the hotel, " she said. "I'm all alone. Jimmy has been out, buthas had to go back to Eton. I wish you had seen him. "

"Oh no!" said Dion, almost passionately. 

They went up in a lift, worked by a Montenegrin boy with a big roundforehead, to her sitting-room on the second floor. It was large, bareand clean, with white walls and awnings at the windows. She rang thebell. A Corsican waiter came and she ordered tea. The roar of the streetnoises penetrated into the shadowy room through the open windows, and came to Dion like heat. He remembered the silence of Claridge's. Suddenly his head began to swim. It seemed to him that his life, all ofit that he had lived till that moment, was spinning round him, and that, as it spun, it gave out a deafening noise and glittered. He sat down ona chair which was close to a small table, laid his arms on the table, and hid his face against them. Still the deafening noise continued. Thesum of it was surely made up of the uproar of the Grand Rue with theuproar of his spinning life added to it. He saw yellow balls ringed withpale blue rapidly receding from his shut eyes. 

Mrs. Clarke looked at him for a moment; then she went into the adjoiningbedroom and shut the door behind her. She did not come back till thewaiter knocked and told her that tea was ready. Then she opened thedoor. She had taken off her hat and gloves, and looked very white andcool, and very composed. 

Dion was standing near the windows. The waiter, who had enormously thickmustaches, and who evidently shaved in the evening instead of in themorning, was going out at the farther door. He shut it rather loudly. 

"Every one makes a noise in Pera. It's _de rigueur_, " said Mrs. Clarke, coming to the tea-table. 

"Do you know, " said Dion, "I used to think _you_ looked punished?"

"Punished--I!"

There was a sudden defiance in her voice which he had never heard in itbefore. He came up to the table. 

"Yes. In London I used to think you had a punished look and even ahaunted look. Wasn't that ridiculous? I didn't know then what it meantto be punished, or to be haunted. I hadn't enough imagination to know, not nearly enough. But some one or something's seen to it that I shallknow all about punishment and haunting. So I shall never be absurd aboutyou again. "

After a pause she said:

"I wonder why you thought that about me?"

"I don't know. It just came into my head. "

"Well, sit down and let us have our tea. "

Dion sat down mechanically, and Mrs. Clarke poured out the tea. 

"I wish it was Buyukderer, " she said. 

"Oh, I like the uproar. "

"No, you don't--you don't. Pera is spurious, and all its voices arespurious voices. To-morrow morning, before I go back, you and I will goto Eyub. "

"To the dust and the silence and the cypresses--O God!" said Dion. 

He got up from his chair. He was beginning to tremble. Was it comingupon him at last then, the utter breakdown which through all thesemonths he had--somehow--kept at a distance? Determined not to shake, he exerted his will violently, till he felt as if he were with dreadfuldifficulty holding, keeping together, a multitude of living, strugglingthings, which were trying to get away out of his grasp. And these livingthings were the multitudinous parts of the whole which was himself. 

All that now was had been foreshadowed. There had been writing on thewall. 

"I am grateful to you for several things. I'm not going to give you thelist now. Some day, perhaps, I shall tell you what they are . . . Amongthe cypresses of Eyub. "

She had said that to him in London, and her voice had been fatalistic asshe spoke; and in the street that same day, on his way home, the voiceof the boy crying the last horror had sounded to him like a voice fromthe sea, a strange and sad cry lifted up between Europe and Asia. Andnow----

"How did you know?" he said. "How did you know that we should be heretogether some day?"

"Sit down. You must sit down. "

She put her languid and imperative hand on his wrist, and he sat down. He took her hand and put it against his forehead for a moment. But thatwas no use. For her hand seemed to add fever to his fever. 

"I have seen you standing amongst graves in the shadow of cypresstrees, " he said. "In England I saw you like that. But--how did youknow?"

"Drink your tea. Don't hurry. We've got such a long time. "

"I have. I have all the days and nights--every hour of them--at my owndisposal. I'm the freest man on earth, I suppose. No work, no ties. "

"You've given up everything?"

"Oh, of course. That is, the things that were still left to me to giveup. They didn't mean much. "

"Eat something, " she said, in a casual voice, pushing a plate ofdelicious little cakes towards him. 

"Thank you. "

He took one and ate. He regained self-control, but he knew that at anymoment, if anything unusual happened, or if he dared to think, or totalk, seriously about the horror of his life, he would probably go downwith a crash into an abyss in which all of his manhood, every scrap ofhis personal dignity, would be utterly lost. And still almost blindlyhe held on to certain things in the blackness which encompassed him. He still wished to play the man, and though in bitterness he had triedsometimes to sink down in degradation, his body--or so it had seemed tohim--had resisted the will of the injured soul, which had said to it, "Go down into the dirt; seek satisfaction there. Your sanity and yourpurity of life have availed you nothing. From them you have had noreward. Then seek the rewards of the other life. Thousands of men enjoythem. Join that crowd, and put all the anemic absurdities of so-calledgoodness behind you. "

He had almost come to hate the state he conceived of as goodness; yetthe other thing, its opposite, evil, he instinctively rebelled againstand even almost feared. The habit of a life-time was not to be broken ina day, or even in many days. Often he had thought of himself as walkingin nothingness, because he rejected evil. 

Goodness had ruthlessly cast him out; and so far he had made no otherfriend, had taken no other comrade to his bruised and bleeding heart. 

Mrs. Clarke began to talk to him quietly. She talked abut herself, andhe knew that she did this not because of egoism, but because delicatelyshe wished to give him a full opportunity for recovery. She had seenjust where he was, and she had understood his recoil from the abyss. Nowshe wished, perhaps, to help him to draw back farther from it, to drawback so far that he would no longer see it or be aware of it. 

So she talked of herself, of her life at Buyukderer in the summer, andin Pera in the autumn and spring. 

"I don't go out to Buyukderer till the middle of May, " she said, "and Icome back into town at the end of September. "

"You manage to stand Pera for some months every year?" said Dion, listening at first with difficulty, and because he was making adetermined effort. 

"Yes. An Englishwoman--even a woman like me--can't live in Stamboul. And Pera, odious as it is, is in Constantinople, in the city which has aspell, though you mayn't feel it yet. "

She was silent for a moment, and they heard the roar from the GrandeRue, that street which is surely the noisiest in all Europe. Hearingit, Dion thought of the silence of the Precincts at Welsley. That sweetsilence had cast him out. Hell must be full of roaring noises andof intense activities. Then Mrs. Clarke went on talking. There wassomething very feminine and gently enticing in her voice, whichresembled no other voice ever heard by Dion. He felt kindness at theback of her talk, the wish to alleviate his misery if only for amoment, to do what she could for him. She could do nothing, of course. Nevertheless he began to feel grateful to her. She was surely unlikeother women, incapable of bearing a grudge. For he had not been very"nice" to her in the days when he was happy and she was in difficulties. At this moment he vaguely exaggerated his lack of "niceness, " andperhaps also her pardoning temperament. In truth, he was desperatelyin need of a touch from the magic wand of sympathy. Believing, or evenperhaps knowing, that to the incurably wounded man palliatives are of nolasting avail, he had deliberately fled from them, and gone among thosewho had no reason to bother about him. But now he was grateful. 

"Go on talking, " he said once, when she stopped speaking. And shecontinued talking about her life. She said nothing more about Jimmy. 

The Corsican waiter came and took away the tea things noisily. Her spellwas broken. For a moment Dion felt dazed. 

He got up. 

"I ought to go, " he said. 

"Must you?"

"Must!--Oh no! My time is my own, and always will be, I suppose. "

"You have thrown up everything?"

"What else could I do? The man who killed his own son! How could I stayin London, go among business men who knew me, talk about investments toclients? Suppose you had killed Jimmy!"

There was a long silence. Then he said:

"I've given up my name. I call myself Mervyn Denton. I saw the name in anovel I opened on a railway bookstall. "

She got up and came near to him quietly. 

"This is all wrong, " she said. 

"What is?"

"All you are doing, the way you are taking it all. "

"What other way is there of taking such a thing?"

"Will you come with me to Eyub to-morrow?"

"It was written long ago that I am to go there with you. I'm quite sureof that. "

"I'll tell you what I mean there to-morrow. "

She looked towards the window. 

"It's like the roar of hell, " he said. 

And he went away. 

That night Mrs. Clarke dined alone downstairs in the restaurant. Thecooking at the Hotel de Paris was famous, and attracted many men fromthe Embassies. Presently Cyril Vane, one of the secretaries at theBritish Embassy, came in to dine. He had with him a young Turkishgentleman, who was called away by an agent from the Palace in the middleof dinner. Vane, thus left alone, presently got up and came to Mrs. Clarke's table. 

"May I sit down and talk to you for a little?" he said, with a mannerthat testified to their intimacy. "My guest has deserted me. "

"Yes, do. Tell the waiter to bring the rest of your dinner here. "

"But I have finished. "

"Light your cigar then. "

"If you don't mind. "

They talked for a few minutes about the things of every day and thelittle world they both lived in on the Bosporus; then Mrs. Clarke said:

"I met a friend from England unexpectedly to-day. "

"Did you?"

"A man called Dion Leith. "

"Dion Leith?" repeated Vane. 

He looked at her earnestly. 

"Now wait a moment!"

His large, cool blue eyes became meditative. 

"It's on the edge of my mind who that is, and yet I can't remember. Idon't know him, but I'm sure I know of him. "

"He fought in the South African War. "

Suddenly Vane leaned forward. He was frowning. 

"I've got it! He fought, came back with the D. C. M. , and only a few daysafterwards killed his only child, a son, out shooting. I remember thewhole thing now, the inquest at which he was entirely exonerated and therumors about his wife. She's a beautiful woman, they say. "

"Very beautiful. "

"She took it very badly, didn't she?"

"What do you mean by very badly?"

"Didn't she bear very hard on him?"

"She couldn't endure to see him, or to have him near her. Is that verywonderful?"

"You stand up for her then?"

"She was first and foremost a mother. "

"Do you know, " Vane said rather dryly, "you are the only woman Inever hear speak against other women. But when the whole thing was anaccident?"

"We can't always be quite fair, or quite reasonable, when a terribleshock comes to us. "

"It's a problem, a terrible problem of the affections, " Vane said. "Hadshe loved her husband? Do you know?"

"I know that he loved her very much, " said Mrs. Clarke. "He is hereunder an assumed name. "

Vane looked openly surprised and even, for a moment, rather disdainful. 

"But then----" He paused. 

"Why did I give him away?"

"Well--yes. "

"Because I wish to force him to face things fully and squarely. It's hisonly chance. "

"Won't he be angry?"

"But I don't mind that. "

"You've had a reason in telling me, " said Vane quietly. "What is it?"

"Come up to my sitting-room. We'll have coffee there. "

"Willingly. I feel your spell even when you're weaving it for anotherman's sake. "

Mrs. Clarke did not reject the compliment. She only looked at Vane, andsaid:

"Come. "

CHAPTER II

In the morning Mrs. Clarke sent a messenger to Hughes's Hotel askingDion to meet her at the landing-place on the right of the Galata Bridgeat a quarter to eleven. 

"We will go to Eyub by caique, " she wrote, "and lunch at a Turkish caféI know close to the mosque. "

She drove to the bridge. When she came in sight of it she saw Dionstanding on it alone, looking down on the crowded water-way. He wasleaning on the railing, and his right cheek rested on the palm of hisbrown hand. Mrs. Clarke smiled faintly as she realized that this man whowas waiting for her had evidently forgotten all about her. 

She dismissed the carriage, paid the toll and walked on to the bridge. As usual there was a crowd of pedestrians passing to and fro from Galatato Stamboul and from Stamboul to Galata. She mingled with it, went up toDion and stood near him without uttering a word. For perhaps two minutesshe stood thus before he noticed her. Then he turned and sent her ahard, almost defiant glance before he recognized who his companion was. 

"Oh, I didn't know it was----Why didn't you speak? Is it time to go? Imeant to be at the landing. "

He spoke like a man who had been a long way off, and who returned wearyand almost dazed from that distance. He looked at his watch. 

"Please forgive me for putting you to the trouble of coming to find me. "

"You needn't ever ask me to forgive you for anything. Don't let usbother each other with all the silly little things that worry the fools. We've got beyond all that long ago. There's my caique. "

She made a signal with her hand. Two Albanians below saluted her. 

"Shall we go at once? Or would you rather stay here a little longer?"

"Let us go. I was only looking at the water. "

He turned and sent a long glance to Stamboul. 

"Your city!" he said. 

"I shall take you. "

For the first time that day he looked at her intimately, and his looksaid:

"Why do you trouble about me?"

They went down, got into the caique, and were taken by the turmoil ofthe Golden Horn. Among the innumerable caiques, the steamboats, thecraft of all kinds, they went out into the strong sunshine, guardedon the one hand by the crowding, discolored houses of Galata rising toPera, on the other hand by the wooden dwellings and the enormous mosquesof Stamboul. The voices of life pursued them over the water and they satin silence side by side. Dion made no social attempt to entertain hiscompanion. Had she not just said to him that long ago they had gonebeyond all the silly little things that worry the fools? In the midstof the fierce activity and the riot of noise which marks out theGolden Horn from all other water-ways, they traveled towards emptiness, silence, the desolation on the hill near the sacred place of the Turks, where each new Sultan is girded with the sword of Osman, and where thestandard-bearer of the Prophet sleeps in the tomb that was seen in avision. 

In the strong heat of noon they left the caique and walked slowlytowards the hill which rises to the north-east, where the dark towers ofthe cypresses watch over the innumerable graves. Mrs. Clarke had put upa sun umbrella. Her face was protected by a thin white veil. She wore alinen dress, pale gray in color, with white lines on it, and longloose gloves of suede. She looked extraordinarily thin. Her unshining, curiously colorless hair was partly covered by a small hat of burntstraw, turned sharply and decisively up on the left side and trimmedwith a broad riband of old gold. Dion remembered that he had thought ofher once as a vision seen in water. Now he was with her in the staringdefinite clearness of a land dried by the heats of summer and giving tothem its dust. And she was at home in this aridity. In the dust he wasaware of the definiteness of her. Since the blackness had overtaken himpeople had meant to him less than shadows gliding on a wall mean to ajoyous man. Often he had observed them, even sharply and with a sort ofobstinate persistence; he had been trying to force them to become realto him. Invariably he had failed in his effort. Mrs. Clarke was real tohim as she walked in silence beside him, between the handsome railed-inmausoleums which line the empty roads from the water's edge almost tothe mosque of the Conqueror. A banal phrase came to his lips, "You arein your element here. " But he held it back, remembering that they walkedin the midst of dust. 

Leaving the mosque they ascended the hill and passed the Tekkeh of thedancing dervishes. All around them were the Turkish graves with theirleaning headstones, or their headstones fallen and lying prone in thelight flaky earth above the smoldering corpses of the dead. Here andthere tight bunches of flowers were placed upon the graves. Gauntshadows from old cypresses fell over some of them, defining thesunlight. Below was the narrowing sea, the shallow north-west arm of theGolden Horn, which stretches to Kiathareh, where are the sweet waters ofEurope, and to Kiahat Haneh. 

"We'll sit here, " said Mrs. Clarke presently. 

And she sat down, with the folding ease almost of an Oriental, on thewarm earth, and leaned against the fissured trunk of a cypress. 

Casually she had seemed to choose the resting-place, but she had chosenit well. More times than she could count she had come to that exactplace, had leaned against that cypress and looked down the GoldenHorn to the divided city, one-half of which she loved as she loved fewthings, one-half of which she endured for the sake of the other. 

"From here, " she said to Dion, "I can feel Stamboul. "

He had lain down near to her sideways and rested his cheek on his hand. The lower half of his body was in sunshine, but the cypress threw itsshadow over his head and shoulders. As Mrs. Clarke spoke he lookeddown the Golden Horn to the Turkish city, and his eyes were held bythe minarets of its mosques. Seldom had he looked at a minaret withoutthinking of prayer. He thought of prayer now, and then of his deadchild, of the woman he had called wife, and of the end of his happiness. The thought came to him:

"I was kept safe in the midst of the dangers of war for a reason; andthat reason was that I might go back to England and kill my son. "

And yet every day men went up into these minarets and called upon othermen to bow themselves and pray. 

God is great. . . . 

In the sunlit silence of the vast cemetery the wheels of Dion's lifeseemed for a moment to cease from revolving. 

God is great--great in His power to inflict misery upon men. And so prayto Him! Mount upon the minarets, go up high, till you are taken by theblue, till, at evening, you are nearer to the stars than other men, and pray to Him and proclaim His glory. For He is the repository of thepower to cover you with misery as with a garment, and to lay you evenwith the dust. Pray then--pray! Unless the garment is upon you, unlessthe dust is already about you!

Dion lay on the warm earth and looked at the distant minarets, andsmiled at the self-seeking slave-instinct in men, which men sought toglorify, to elevate into a virtue. 

"Why are you smiling?" said a husky voice above. 

He did not look up, but he answered:

"Because I was looking at those towers of prayer. "

"The minarets. "

She was silent for a few minutes; after a while she said:

"You remember the first time you met me?"

"Of course. "

"I was in difficulties then. They culminated in the scandal of mydivorce case. Tell me, how did you think I faced all that trouble?"

"With marvelous courage. "

"In what other way can thoroughbred people face an enemy? Suppose I hadlost instead of won, suppose Jimmy had been taken from me, do you thinkit would have broken me?"

"I can't imagine anything breaking you, " said Dion. "But I don't believeyou ever pray. "

"What has that to do with it?"

"I believe the people who pray are the potential cowards. "

"Do you pray?"

"Not now. That's why I was smiling when I looked at the minarets. But Idon't make a virtue of it. I have nothing to pray for. "

"Well then, if you have put away prayer, that means you are going torely on yourself. "

"What for?"

"For all the sustaining you will need in the future. The people commonlycalled good think of God as something outside themselves to which theycan apply in moments of fear, necessity and sorrow. If you have reallygot beyond that conception you must rely on yourself, find in yourselfall you need. "

"But I need nothing--you don't understand. "

"You nearly told me yesterday. "

"Perhaps if you hadn't gone out of the room I should have been obligedto tell you, but not because I wished to. "

"I understood that. That is why I went out of the room and left youalone. "

For the first time Dion looked up at her. She had lifted her veil, andher haggard, refined face was turned towards him. 

"Thank you, " he said. 

At that moment he liked her as he had never liked her in the past. 

"Can you tell me now because you wish to?"

"Here among the graves?"

"Yes. "

Again he looked at the distant minarets lifted towards the blue near theway of the sea. But he said nothing. She shut her sun umbrella, laid iton the ground beside her, pulled off her gloves and spread them out onher knees slowly. She seemed to be hesitating; for she looked down andfor a moment she knitted her brows. Then she said;

"Tell me why you came to Constantinople. "

"I couldn't. "

"If I hadn't met you in the street by chance, would you have come to seeme?"

"I don't think I should. "

"And yet it was I who willed you to come here. "

Dion did not seem surprised. There was something remote in him whichperhaps could not draw near to such a simple commonplace feeling in thatmoment. He had gone out a long way, a very long way, from the simpleordinary emotions which come upon, or beset, normal men living normallives. 

"Did you?" he asked. "Why?"

"I thought I could do something for you. I began last night. "

"What?"

"Doing something for you. I told an acquaintance of mine called Vane, who is attached to the British Embassy, that you were here. "

A fierce flush came into Dion's face. 

"I said you would probably come out to Buyukderer, " she continued, "andthat I wanted to bring you to the summer Embassy and to introduce you tothe Ambassador and Lady Ingleton. "

Dion sat up and pressed his hands palm downwards on the ground. 

"I shall not go. How could you say that I was here? You know I haddropped my own name. "

"I gave it back to you deliberately. "

"I think that was very brutal of you, " he said, in a low voice, tensewith anger. 

"You wanted to be very kind to me when I was in great difficulties. Circumstances got rather in the way. That doesn't matter. The intentionwas there, though you were too chivalrous to go very far in action. "

"Chivalrous to whom?"

"To her. "

His face went pale under its sunburn. 

"What are you doing?" he said, in a low voice that was almost terrible. "Where are you taking me?"

"Into the way you must walk in. Dion--"--even in calling him byhis Christian name for the first time her voice sounded quiteimpersonal--"you've done nothing wrong. You have nothing, absolutelynothing, to be ashamed of. Kismet! We have to yield to fate. If youslink through the rest of your years on earth, if you get rid of yourname and hide yourself away, you will be just a coward. But you aren'ta coward, and you are not going to act like one. You must accept yourfate. You must take it right into your heart bravely and proudly, or, ifyou can't do that, stoically. I should. "

"If you had killed Jimmy?"

She was silent. 

"If you had killed Jimmy?" he repeated, in a hard voice. 

"I should never hide myself. I should always face things. "

"You haven't had the blow I have had. I know I am not in fault. I know Ihave nothing to blame myself for. I wasn't even careless with my gun. IfI had been I could never have forgiven myself. But I wasn't. "

"It was the pony. I know. I read the account of the inquest. You wereabsolutely exonerated. "

"Yes. The coroner and the jury expressed their deep sympathy with me, "he said, with intense bitterness. "They realized how--how I loved mylittle boy. But the woman I loved more even than my boy, whom I hadloved for ever since I first saw her--well, she didn't feel at all asthe coroner and the jury did. "

"Where is she? I hear now and then from Beatrice Daventry, but she nevermentions her sister. "

"She is in Liverpool doing religious work, I believe. She has givenherself to religion. "

"What does that mean exactly?"

"People give themselves to God, don't they, sometimes?"

"Do they?" said Mrs. Clarke, with her curious grave directness, whichseemed untouched by irony. 

"It seems a way out of--things. But she always had a tendency that way. "

"Towards the religious life?"

"Yes. She always cared for God a great deal more than she cared for me. She cared for God and for Robin, and she seemed to be just beginning tocare for me when I deprived her of Robin. Since then she has hated me. "

He spoke quietly, sternly. All the emotion of which she had beenconscious on the previous afternoon had left him. 

"I didn't succeed in making her love me!" he continued. "I thought Ihad gained a good deal in South Africa. When I came back I felt I wasstarting again, and that I should carry things through. Robin felt thedifference in me directly. He would have got to care for me very much, and I could have done a great deal for him when he had got older. ButGod didn't see things that way. He had planned it all out differently. When I was with her in Greece, one day I tore down a branch of wildolive and stripped the leaves from it. She saw me do it, and itdistressed her very much. She had been dreaming over a child, and myaction shattered her dream, I suppose. Women have dreams men can't quiteunderstand--about children. She forgave me for that almost directly. She knew I would never have done anything to make her unhappy even fora moment, if I had thought. Now I have broken her life to pieces, andthere's no question of forgiveness. If there were, I should not speak ofher to you. We are absolutely parted forever. She would take the hand ofthe most dreadful criminal rather than my hand. She has a horror of me. I'm the thing that's killed her child. "

He looked down at the dilapidated graves, and then at the lonely waterwhich seemed trying to hide itself away in the recesses of the bareland. 

"That's how it is. Robin forgave me. He was alive for a moment--after, and I saw by his eyes he understood. Yes, he understood--he understood!"

Suddenly his body began to shake and his arms jerked convulsively. Instinctively, but quite quietly, Mrs. Clarke put out her hand as if shewere going to lay hold of his right arm. 

"No--don't!" he said. "Yesterday your hand made me worse. "

She withdrew her hand. Her face did not change. She seemed whollyunconscious of any rudeness on his part. 

"Let's move--let's walk!" he said. 

He sprang up. When he was on his feet he regained control of his body. 

"I don't know what's the matter with me, " he said. "I'm not ill. "

"My friend, it will have to come, " she said, getting up too. 

"What?"

But she did not reply. 

"I've never been like this till now, " he added vaguely. 

She knew why, but she did not tell him. She was a woman who knew how towait. 

They wandered away through that cemetery above the Golden Horn, amongthe cypresses and the leaning and fallen tombstones. Now and then theysaw veiled women pausing beside the graves with flowers in their hands, or fading among the cypress trunks into sunlit spaces beyond. Now andthen they saw a man praying. Once they came to a tomb where childrenwere sitting in a circle chanting the Koran with a sound like the soundof bees. 

Before they went down to the Turkish cafe, which is close to the holymosque, they stood for a long while together on the hillside, lookingat distant Stamboul. The cupolas of the many mosques and the tall andspeary minarets gave their Eastern message--that message which, even toProtestant men from the lands of the West, is as the thrilling sound ofa still, small voice. And the voice will not be gainsaid; it whispers, "In the East thou shalt find me if thou hast not found me in the West. "

"Why do you care for Stamboul so much?" Dion asked his companion. "Ithink you are utterly without religion. I may be wrong, but I think youare. And Stamboul is full of calls to prayer and of places for men toworship in. "

"Oh, there is something, " she answered. "There is the Unknown God. "

"The Unknown God?" he repeated, with a sort of still bitterness. 

"And His city is Stamboul--for me. When the _muezzin_ calls I bow myselfin ignorance. What _He_ is, I don't know. All I know is that men cannotexplain Him to me, or teach me anything about Him. But Stamboul haslures for me. It is not only the city of many prayers, it is also thecity of many forgetfulnesses. The old sages said, 'Eat not thy heartnor mourn the buried Past. ' Stay here for a time, and learn to obey thatcommand. Perhaps, eventually, Stamboul will help you. "

"Nothing can help me, " he answered. 

They went down the hill by the Tekkeh of the Dancing Dervishes. 

* * * * *

Mrs. Clarke did not go back to her villa at Buyukderer that day. It wasalready late in the afternoon when her caique touched the wharf at thefoot of the Galata bridge. 

"I shall stay another night at the hotel, " she said to Dion. "Will youdrive up with me?"

He assented. When they reached the hotel he said:

"May I come in for a few minutes?"

"Of course. "

When they were in the dim, rather bare room with the white walls, between which the fierce noises from the Grande Rue found a home, hesaid:

"I feel before I leave I must speak about what you did last night, themessage you gave to Vane of our Embassy. I dare say you are rightand that I ought to face things. But no one can judge for a man in mysituation, a man who's had everything cut from under him. I haven'tended it. That proves I've got a remnant of something--you needn't callit strength--left in me. Since you've told my name, I'll take it back. Perhaps it was cowardly to give it up. I believe it was. Robin mightthink so, if he knew. And he may know things. But I can't meet casualpeople. "

"I'm afraid I did what I did partly for myself, " she said, taking offher little hat and laying it, with her gloves, on a table. 

"For yourself? Why?"

"I'll explain to-morrow. I shall see you before I go. Come for me atten, will you, and we'll drive to Stamboul. I'll tell you there. "

"Please tell me now, if you're not tired after being out all day. "

"I'm never tired. "

"Once Mrs. Chetwinde told me that you were made of iron. "

Mrs. Clarke sent him a curious keen glance of intense and almost lambentinquiry, but he did not notice it. The strong interest that noticesthings was absent from him. Would it ever be in him again?

"I suppose I have a great deal of stamina, " she said casually. "Well, sit down, and I'll try to explain. "

She lit a cigarette and sat on a divan in the far corner of the largeroom, between one of the windows and the door which led into thebedroom. Dion sat down, facing her and the noise from the Grande Rue. Hewondered for a moment why she had chosen a place so close to the window. 

"I had a double reason for doing what I did, " she said. "One partunselfish, the other not. I'll be very frank. I willed that you shouldcome here. "

"Why did you do that?"

"I wanted to see you. I wanted to help you. You don't think I, or anyone, can do that. You think everything is over for you--"

"I know it is, " he interrupted, in a voice which sounded cold and dulland final. 

"You think that. Any man like you, in your situation, would think that. Let us leave it for the moment. I wished you to come here, and willedyou to come here. For some reason you have come. You didn't let me knowyou were here, but, by chance as it seems, we met. I don't mean to losesight of you. I intend that you shall come either to Buyukderer, or tosome place on the Bosporus not far off that's endurable in the summer, and that you shall stay there for a time. "

"Why?"

"I want to find out if I can be of any good to you. "

"You can't. I don't even know why you wish to. But you can't. "

"We'll leave that, " she said, with inflexible composure. "I don't muchcare what you think about it. I shan't be governed, or affected even, by that. The point is, I mean you to come. How are you to come, surreptitiously or openly, sneaking in by-ways, your real nameconcealed, or treading the highway, your real name known? For your ownsake it must be openly and with your own name, and for my sake too. Youneed to face your great tragedy, to stand right up to it. It's your onlychance. A man is always pursued by what he runs away from; he can alwaysmake a friend of what he stands up to. "

"A friend?"

His voice broke in with the most piercing and bitter irony through themany noises in the room--sounds of cries, of carriage wheels, of horses'hoofs ringing on an uneven pavement, of iron shutters being pulledviolently down over shop fronts, of soldiers marching, of distant buglescalling, of guitars and mandolins accompanying a Neapolitan song. 

"Yes, a friend, " said the husky and inflexible, but very feminine voice, which resembled no other voice of woman that he had ever heard. "So muchfor my thought of you. And now for my thought of myself. I am a womanwho has faced a great scandal and come out of it the winner. Iwas horribly attacked, and I succeeded in what the papers callreestablishing my reputation. You and I know very well what that means. I know by personal experience, you by the behavior of your own wife. "

Dion moved abruptly like a man in physical pain, but Mrs. Clarkecontinued:

"I don't ask you to forgive me for hurting you. You and I must be frankwith each other, or we can be of no use to each other. After what hashappened many women might be inclined to avoid me as your wife did. Fortunately I have so many friends who believe in me that I am in afairly strong position. I don't want to weaken that position on accountof Jimmy. Now, if you came to Buyukderer under an assumed name, Icouldn't introduce you to any one, or explain you without telling lies. Gossip runs along the shores of the Bosporus like fire along a hayrick. How can I be seen perpetually with a man whom I never introduce to anyof my friends, who isn't known at his own Embassy? Both for your ownsake and for mine we must be frank about the whole thing. "

"But I never said I should come to Buyukderer, " he said. 

And there was a sort of dull, lifeless obstinacy in his voice. 

"You have come to Constantinople and you will come to Buyukderer, " shereplied quietly. 

He looked at her across the room. The light was beginning to fade, butstill the awnings were drawn down beyond the windows, darkeningthe large bare room. He saw her as a study in gray and white, withcolorless, unshining hair, a body so thin and flexible that it wasdifficult to believe it contained nerves like a network of steel andmuscles capable of prolonged endurance, a face that was haggard in itswhite beauty, eyes that looked enormous and fixed in the twilight. Thewhole aspect of her was melancholy and determined, beautiful and yetalmost tragic. He felt upon him the listless yet imperative grasp whichhe had first known in Mrs. Chetwinde's drawing-room, the grasp whichresembled Stamboul's. 

"I suppose I shall go to Buyukderer, " he said slowly. "But I don't knowwhy you wish it. "

"I have always liked you. "

"Yes, I think you have. "

"I don't care to see a man such as you are destroyed by a good woman. "

He got up. 

"No one is destroying me, " he said, with a dull and hopeless defiance. 

"Dion, don't misunderstand me. It wouldn't be strange if you thought Ibore your wife a grudge because she didn't care about knowing me. But, honestly, I am indifferent to a great many things that most women fussabout. I quite understood her reluctance. Directly I saw her I knew thatshe had ideals, and that she expected all those who were intimately inher life to live up to them. Instead of accepting the world as it hasbeen created, such women must go one better than the Creator (if thereis one), and invent an imaginary world. Now I shouldn't be at home inan imaginary world. I'm not good enough for that, and don't want to be. Your wife is very good, but she lives for herself, for her own virtuesand the peace and happiness she gets out of them. "

"She lived for Robin, " he interrupted. 

"Robin was a part of herself, " Mrs. Clarke said dryly. "Women like thatdon't know how to love as lovers, because they care for the virtues inmen rather than for the men themselves. They are robed in ideals, andthey are in mortal fear of a speck of dust falling on the robe. The dustof my scandal was upon me, so your wife avoided me. That I was innocentdidn't matter. I had been mixed up with something ugly. Your chivalrywas instinctively on the side of justice. Her virtue inclined to theother side. Her virtue is destructive. "

He was silent. 

"Now it has driven you out like a scapegoat into the wilderness!"

"No, no!" he muttered, without conviction. 

"But don't let it destroy you. I would rather deliberately destroymyself than let any one destroy me. In the one case there's strength ofa kind, in the other there's no strength at all. I speak very plainly, but I'm not a woman full of ideals. I accept the world just as it is, men just as they are. If a speck of dust alights on me, I don't thinkmyself hopelessly befouled; and if some one I loved made a slip, Ishould only think that it is human to err and that it's humanity Ilove. "

"Humanity!" he repeated, looking down. "Ah!" He sighed deeply. 

He raised his head. 

"And if some one you loved killed your Jimmy?"

"As you----?"

"Yes--yes?"

"I should love him all the more because of the misery added to him, " shesaid firmly. "There's only one thing a really great love can't forgive. "

"What is it?"

"The deliberate desire and intention to hurt it and degrade it. "

"I never had that. "

"No. "

"Then--then you think she never loved me at all?"

But Mrs. Clarke did not answer that question. 

The daylight was rapidly failing. She seemed almost to be fading away inthe dimness and in the noises of evening which rose from the Grande Rue. Yet something of her remained and was very definite, so definite thateven Dion, broken on the wheel and indifferent to casual influencesas few men are ever indifferent, felt it almost powerfully--theconcentration of her will, the unyielding determination of her mind, active and intense behind the pale mask of her physical body. 

He turned away and went to the window farthest from her. He leaned outto the Grande Rue. Above his head was the sloping awning. It seemed tohim to serve as a sounding-board to the fierce noises of the mongrelcity. 

"Start again!"

Surely among the voices of the city now filling his ears there was ahusky voice which had said that. 

Had Mrs. Clarke spoken?

"Start again. "

But not on the familiar road! To do that would be impossible. If therewere indeed any new life for him it must be an utterly different lifefrom any he had known. 

He had tried the straight life of unselfishness, purity, fidelity anddevotion--devotion to a woman and also to a manly ideal. That life hadconvulsively rejected him. Had he still within him sufficient energy ofany kind to lay hold on a new life?

For a moment he saw before him under the awning Robin's eyes as they hadbeen when his little son was dying in his arms. 

He drew back from the street. The sitting-room was empty, but the doorbetween it and the bedroom was open. No doubt Mrs. Clarke had gone inthere to put away her hat. As he looked at the door the Russian maid, whom he had seen at Park Side, Knightsbridge, came from the inner room. 

"Madame hopes Monsieur will call to see her to-morrow before she startsto Buyukderer, " she said, with her strong foreign accent. 

"Thank you, " said Dion. 

As he went out the maid shut the bedroom door. 

CHAPTER III

Two days later Mrs. Clarke sat with the British Ambassadress in theBritish Palace at Therapia, a building of wood with balconies lookingover the Bosporus. She was alone with Lady Ingleton in the latter'ssitting-room, which was filled with curious Oriental things, withflowers, and with little dogs of the Pekinese breed, who lay about invarious attitudes of contentment, looking serenely imbecile, and as ifthey were in danger of water on the brain. 

Lady Ingleton was an old friend of Mrs. Clarke, and was a woman whollyindifferent to the prejudices which govern ordinary persons. She hadspent the greater part of her life abroad, and looked like a wearyItalian, though she was half English, a quarter Irish, and a quarterFrench. She was very dark, and had large, dreamy dark eyes which knewhow to look bored, a low voice which could say very sharp things attimes, and a languid manner which concealed more often than it betrayedan intelligence always on the alert. 

"What is it, Cynthia?" said Lady Ingleton. "But first tell me if youlike this Sine carpet. I found it in the bazaar last Thursday, andit cost the eyes out of my head. Carey, of course, has said for thehundredth time that I am ruining him, and bringing his red hair insorrow to the tomb. Even if I am, it seems to me the carpet is worthit. "

Mrs. Clarke studied the carpet for a moment with earnest attention. She even knelt down to look closely at it, and passed her hands over itgently, while Lady Ingleton watched her with a sort of dark and stilladmiration. 

"It's a marvel, " she said, getting up. "If you had let it go I shouldalmost have despised you. "

"Please tell that to Carey when he comes to you to complain. And now, what is it?"

"You remember several months ago the tragedy of a man called Dion Leith, who fought in the South African War, came home and almost immediatelyafter his return killed his only son by mistake out shooting?"

"Yes. You knew him, I think you said. He was married to that beautifulRosamund Everard who used to sing. I heard her once at TippieChetwinde's. Esme Darlington was a great admirer or hers, of course_pour le bon motif_. "

"Dion Leith's here. "

"In Therapia?"

"No, in a hideous little hotel in Constantinople. "

"Why?"

"I don't think he knows. His wife has given him up. She was a mother, not a lover, so you can imagine her feelings about the man who killedher child. It seems she was _une mere folle_. She has left him and, according to him, has given herself to God. He's in a most peculiarcondition. He was a model husband, absolutely devoted and entirelyirreproachable. Even before marriage, I should think he had kept out ofthe way of--things. The athlete with ideals--he was that, one supposes. "

"How extraordinarily attractive!" said Lady Ingleton, in a lazy andrather drawling voice. 

"So he had a great deal to fasten on the woman who has cast him out. Just now, like the coffin of Mohammed, he's suspended. That's theimpression I get from him. "

"Do you want to bring him down to earth?"

"All he's known and cared for in life has failed him. He was travelingunder an assumed name even, for fear people should point him out as theman who killed his own son. All that sort of thing is no use. I gave hissecret away deliberately to young Vane, and asked him to speak to theAmbassador. And now I've come to you. I want you to have him here onceor twice and be nice to him. Then I can see something of him, poorfellow, and do something for him. "

A faint smile curved Lady Ingleton's sensitive lips. 

"Of course. Then he's coming to the Bosporus?"

"He'll probably spend some time at Buyukderer. He must face his fate andtake up life again. "

"He doesn't intend to do what his wife has done?"

Lady Ingleton was still smiling faintly. 

"I should say his experience rather inclines him to take an oppositedirection. "

"Is he good-looking?"

"What he has been through has ravaged his face. "

"That probably makes him much handsomer than he ever was before. "

"He hates the thought of meeting any one. But if you will have him hereonce or twice, and people know it, it will make things all right. "

"Will he come?"

"Yes. "

"You know I always do what you want. "

"I never want you to do dull things. "

"That's true. The dogs don't come into play against the people you bringhere. "

It was a legend in Constantinople in Embassy circles that Lady Ingletonalways "set the dogs" at bores. Even at official dinners, when she hadas much as she could stand of the heavy bigwigs whom she was obligedto invite, she surreptitiously touched a bell. This was a signal tothe footman to bring in the dogs, who were trained to yap at and toinvestigate closely visitors. The yapping and the investigations createda feeling of general restlessness and an almost inevitable movement, which invariably led to the speedy departure of the unwelcome guests;who went, as Lady Ingleton said, "not knowing why. " Enough that theywent! The dogs were rewarded with lumps of sugar as are the canineperformers in a circus. Sir Carey complained that it was baddiplomacy, but he was devoted to his wife, and even secretly loved hercharacteristic selfishness. 

"Let Dion Leith come and I'll cast my mantle over him--for your sake, Cynthia. You are a remarkable woman. "

"Why?"

But Lady Ingleton did not say why. There were immense reticences betweenher and Cynthia Clarke. 

Dion left Hughes's Hotel and went to Buyukderer. 

He had not consciously known why he did this. Until he met Mrs. Clarkenear the British Embassy he had scarcely been aware how sordid and uglyand common under its small ostentations Hughes's Hotel was. She madehim see the dreariness of his surroundings, although she had never seenthem; she made him again aware of things. That she was able to affecthim strongly, although he did not care for her, he knew by the suddenapproach to the brink of a complete emotional breakdown which she hadbrought about in him at their first meeting. He remembered the handhe had taken and had put against his forehead. There had been nocool solace in it for the fever within him. Why, then, did he go toBuyukderer? Certainly he did not go in hope. He was dwelling in a regionfar beyond where hope can live. 

But here was some one who was far away from the land that had seen histragedy, and who meant something in connexion with him, who intendedsomething which had to do with him. In England his mother had beenpowerless to help him; Beattie had been powerless to help him. CanonWilton had tried to use his almost stern power of manly sincerity onbehalf of the soul of Dion. He and Dion had had a long interview afterthe inquest on the little body of Robin was over, and he had drawnnearer to the inmost chamber than any one else had, though Bruce Evelin, even in his almost fierce grief for Robin, had been wonderfully kindand understanding. But even Canon Wilton had utterly failed to be of anyreal use. Perhaps he had known Rosamund too well. 

Till now Mrs. Clarke was the one human being who had succeeded in makinga definite impression on Dion since Robin's death and Rosamund's fearfulreception of the news of it. He felt her will, and perhaps he feltsomething else in her without telling himself that he did so: herknowledge of a life absolutely different from the life he had hithertoknown, absolutely different, too, from the life known to, and lived by, those who had been nearest to him and with whom he had been most closelyintimate. The old life with all its associations had cast him out. Thatwas his feeling. Possibly, without being aware of it, and driven by thenecessity that is within man to lay hold of something, to seekafter refuge in the blackest moments of existence, he was feebly andinstinctively feeling after an unknown life which was represented tohis imagination by the pale beauty of Mrs. Clarke. She had describedhis situation as one of suspension between the heaven and the earth. His heaven had certainly rejected him. Possibly, without knowing it, andwithout any hope of future happiness or even of future peace, he faintlydescried her earth; possibly, in going to Buyukderer, he was making anunconscious effort to gain it. 

He wondered about this afterwards, but not at all in the moment of hisgoing. Things were not clear to him then. He was still in the vague, but he was not to walk in vagueness forever. Fate which, by its malignaction, had caused him to inflict a frightful injury upon the good womanhe loved still held in reserve for him new and tremendous experience. Hethought that in Welsley he had reached the ultimate depths which a mancan sound. It was not so. 

Dion came to Buyukderer on a breezy blue day, a day which seemed fullof hope and elation, which was radiant with sunlight and dancing waters, and buoyant with ardent life. Gone were those delicate dreamy influenceswhich sometimes float over the Bosporus even in the noontides of summer, when the winds are still, and the long shores of Asia seem to liewrapped in a soft siesta, holding their secrets of the Orient closelyhidden from the eyes of Europe. Europe gazes at Asia, but Asia isgravely indifferent to Europe; she listens only to the voices which cometo her from her own depths, and, like an Almeh reclining, is stirredonly by music unknown to the West. 

As the steamer on which he traveled voyaged towards the Black Sea, Dionpaced up and down the deck and looked always at the shore of Asia. Thatline of hills represented to him the unknown. If he could only losehimself in Asia and forget! But there was nothing passionate in hislonging. It was only a gray desire born in a broken mind and a brokennature. 

Once during the voyage he thought of Robin. Did Robin know where he was, whither he was going? Since Rosamund had utterly rejected him, strangelyhis dead boy and he had at moments seemed to Dion to be near to eachother encompassed by the same thick darkness. Even once he had seemedto see Robin groping, like one lost and vainly seeking after light. Hisvagueness was broken upon sometimes by fantastic visions. But to-dayhe had no consciousness at all of Robin. The veil of death which hungbetween him and the child he had slain seemed to be of stone, absolutelyimpenetrable. And all his visions had left him. 

Palaces and villas came into sight and vanished; Yildiz upon its hillscattered among the trees of its immense park; Dolmabaghcheh stretchedout along the water's edges, with its rose-beds before it; and itsgravely staring sentinels; Beylerbey Serai on the Asian shore, with itsmarble quay and its terraced gardens, not far from Kandili and the sweetwaters of Asia. Presently the Giant's Mountain appeared staring acrossthe water at Buyukderer. The prow of the steamer was headed for theEuropean shore. Dion saw the bay opening to receive them under itswooded hills which are pierced by the great valley. It stretched itsarms as if in welcome, and very calm was the water between them. Herethe wind failed. Along the shore were villas, and gardens risingin terraces, where roses, lemon trees, laurels grew in almost rankabundance. Across the water came the soft sound of music, a song ofGreece lifted above the thrumming of guitars. And something in theaspect of this Turkish haven, sheltered from the winds of that Black Seawhich had come into sight off Kirech Burnu, something in the song whichfloated over the water, struck deep into Dion's heart. Abruptly hewas released from his frozen detachment; tears sprang into his eyes, memories surged up in his mind--memories of a land not very far fromthis land; of the maidens of the Porch; of the hill of Drouva kept bythe stars and the sleeping winds; of Zante dreaming of the sunset; ofHermes keeping watch over the child in the green recesses of Elis. 

"Why do I come here? What have I to do here, or in any place dedicatedto beauty and to peace?"

His brown face twitched, and the wrinkles which sprayed out from hiseyelids over his thin cheeks worked till the network of them seemed tohold an independent and furious life. 

"If I were a happy traveler as I once was!"

The thought pierced him, and was followed immediately by the remembranceof some words spoken by Mrs. Clarke:

"My friend, it will have to come. "

That which had to come, would it come here, in this sheltered place, where the song died away like a thing enticed by the long valley tobe kept by the amorous trees? Mrs. Clarke's voice had sounded full ofinflexible knowledge when she had spoken these words, and she had lookedat him with eyes that were full of knowledge. It was as if those eyeshad seen the weeping of many men. 

The steamer drew near to the shore. The bright bustle of the quay wasapparent. Dion made his effort and conquered himself. But he felt almostafraid of Buyukderer. In the ugly roar of the Grande Rue he had surelybeen safer than he would be here in this place which seemed planned forintimate happiness. 

The steamer came alongside the pier. 

When Dion stepped on to the quay a tall young Englishman with broadshoulders, rather a baby face, and large intelligent blue eyesimmediately walked up to him. 

"Are you Mr. Dion Leith?"

Dion, startled, was about to say "No" with determined hostility when heremembered Mrs. Clarke. He had come here; he was, he supposed, going tostay here for some days at least; of course he must face things. 

"Yes, " he said gruffly. 

In an easy, agreeable manner the stranger explained that he was CyrilVane, second secretary of the British Embassy, and a friend of Mrs. Clarke's, and that he had come down at her request to meet Dion, and totell him that there was a charming room reserved for him at the BelgradHotel. 

"I'll walk up with you if you like, " he added, in a casual voice. "It'sno distance. That your luggage?"

He put it in the charge of a porter from the hotel. 

"I'm over at Therapia just now. The Ambassador hopes to see you. He's adelightful fellow. "

He talked pleasantly, and looked remarkably unobservant till theyreached the hotel, where he parted from Dion. 

"I dare say I shall see you soon. Very glad to do anything I can foryou. Mrs. Clarke lies at the Villa Hafiz. Any one can tell you where itis. "

He walked coolly away in the sun, looking like an immense fair baby inhis thin, light-colored clothes. 

"Does he know?" thought Dion, looking after him. 

Then he went up into his bedroom which looked out upon the sea. When theluggage had been brought in and the door was shut, he sat down on theedge of the bed and stared at the polished uncarpeted floor. 

"Why have I come here? What have I to do here?" he thought. 

He missed the uproar of Pera. It had exercised a species of pressureupon his soul, a deadening influence. 

Ever since Robin's death he had lived in towns, and had walked aboutstreets. He had been for a time in Paris, then in Marseilles, where hehad stayed for more than two months haunted by an idea of crossing overto Africa and losing himself in the vastness of the lands of thesun. But something had held him back, perhaps a dread of the immenseloneliness which would surely beset him on the other side of the sea;and he had gone to Geneva, then to Zurich, to Milan, Genoa, Naples, Berlin and Budapest. From Budapest he had come to Constantinople. He hadknown the loneliness of cities, but an instinct had led him to avoidthe loneliness of the silent and solitary places. There had beenan atmosphere of peace in quiet Welsley. He was afraid of such anatmosphere and had sought always its opposite. 

"Why have I come here?" he thought again. 

In this small place he felt exposed, almost as if he were naked andcould be seen by strangers. In Pera at least he was covered. 

"I shall have to go away from here, " he thought. 

He got up from the bed and began to unpack. As he did this, theuselessness of what he was doing, the arid futility of every bit of theweb of small details which, in their sum, were his life, flowed uponhis soul like stagnant water forced into movement by some horriblemachinery. He was like something agitating in a vast void, somethingwhose incessant movements produced no effect, had no sort of relationto anything. In his loneliness of the cities he had begun to lose thatself-respect which belongs to all happy Englishmen of his type. Mrs. Clarke had immediately noticed that certain details in his dress showeda beginning of neglect. Since he had met her he had rectified them, almost unconsciously. But now suddenly the burden of detail seemedunbearable. 

It was only by an almost fierce exercise of the will that he forcedhimself to finish unpacking, and to lay his things out neatly in drawersand on the dressing-table. Then he took off his boots and his jacket, stretched himself out on the bed with his arms behind him and his handsgrasping the bedstead, and shut his eyes. 

There was something shameful in his flaccid idleness, in the aimlessnessof his whole life now, devoid of all work, undirected towards anyeffort. But that was not his fault. He had worked with energy inbusiness, with equal energy in play, worked for self's sake, for love'ssake, and for country's sake. And for all he had done, for his effort ofpurity as a boy and a youth, for his effort of love as a husband and afather, for his effort of valor as a soldier, he had been rewardedwith the most horrible punishment which can fall upon a man. Effort, therefore, on his part was useless; it was worse than useless, it wasgrotesque. Let others make their efforts, his were done. 

He wished that he could sleep. 

* * * * *

The dreadful inertia of Dion did not seem to be dreadful to Mrs. Clarke. Perhaps she was more intelligent than most women, and generated withinherself so much energy of some kind that she was not driven to seek forit in others; or perhaps she was more sympathetic, more imaginative, than most women, and pardoned because she understood. At any rate, sheaccepted Dion as he was, and neither criticized him, attempted to bullyhim, nor seemed to wish to change him. 

She had indeed insisted that he must face his fate and had ruthlesslygiven him back his name; she had also deliberately set about to entanglehim in the silken cords of a social relation. But he knew within acouple of days of his arrival at Buyukderer that he did not fear her. No woman perhaps ever lived who worried a man less in friendship, or whogave, without any insistence upon it, a stronger impression of loyalty, of tenacity in affection to those for whom she cared. Although oftenalmost delicately blunt in words, in action she was full of tact. Shewas one of those rare women who absolutely understand men, and who knowhow to convey to men instantly the fact of their understanding. Suchwomen are always attractive to men. Even if they are plain, and nototherwise specially clever, they possess for men a lure. 

Mrs. Clarke had told Dion in Constantinople that she meant him to cometo Buyukderer. This was an almost insolent assertion of will-power. Butwhen he was there she let him alone. On the day of his arrival therehad come no message from the Villa Hafiz to his hotel. He had, perhaps, expected one; he knew that he was relieved not to receive it. Late inthe afternoon he went for a solitary walk up the valley, avoiding themany people who poured forth from the villas and hotels to take theirair, as the sun sank low behind Therapia, and the light upon the waterlost in glory and gained in magic. Gay parties embarked in caiques. Some people drove in small victorias drawn by spirited, quick-trottinghorses; others rode; others strolled up and down slowly by the edge ofthe sea. A gay brightness of sociable life made Buyukderer intimatelymerry as evening drew on. Instinctively Dion left the laughter and thevoices behind him. 

His wandering led him to the valley of roses, where he sat down by thestream, and for the first time tasted something of the simplicity andcharm of Turkish country life. It did not charm him, but in a dim wayhe felt it, was faintly aware of a soothing influence which touched himlike a cool hand. For a long time he stayed there, and he thought, "If Iremain at Buyukderer I shall often visit this place beside the stream. "Once he was disturbed by the noise of a cantering horse in the laneclose by, but otherwise he was fortunate that day; few people cameto his retreat, and none of them were foreigners. Two or three Turksstrolled by, holding their beads; and once some veiled women came, escorted by a eunuch, threw some petals of flowers upon the surface ofthe tinkling water, and walked on up the narrow valley, chattering inchildish voices, and laughing with a twitter that was like the twitterof birds. 

In the soft darkness he walked slowly back to his hotel. And that nighthe slept better than he had ever slept in Pera. 

On the following day there was still no message from the Villa Hafiz, and he did not see Mrs. Clarke. He took a row boat, with a big Albanianboatman for company, and rowed out on the Bosporus till they came insight of the Black Sea. The wind got up; Dion stripped to his shirt andtrousers, rolled his shirt sleeves up to the shoulders, and had a longpull at the oars. He rowed till the perspiration ran down his lean body. The boatman admired his muscles and his strength. 

"Inglese?" he asked. 

Dion nodded. 

"Les Inglesi tres forts, molto forte!" he observed, mixing French withItalian to show his linguistic accomplishments, "Moi tres fort aussi. "

Dion talked to the man. When he left the boat at the quay he saidhe would take it again on the morrow. The intention to go away fromBuyukderer, to drown himself again in the uproar of Pera, was alreadyfading out of his mind. Mrs. Clarke's silence had, perhaps, reassuredhim. The Villa Hafiz did not summon him. He could seek it if he would. Evidently it was not going to seek him. 

Again he felt grateful to Mrs. Clarke. Her silence, her neglect of him, increased his faith in her friendship for him. 

His second day in Buyukderer dawned; in the late afternoon of it, nowsure of his freedom, he went to the Villa Hafiz. 

He did not know that Mrs. Clarke was rich. Indeed he had heard in Londonthat she only had a small income, but that she "did wonders" with it. In London he had seen her at Claridge's and at the marvelous flatin Knightsbridge. Now, at Buyukderer, he found her in a small, butbeautifully arranged and furnished, villa with a lovely climbing gardenbehind it. Evidently she could not live in ugly surroundings or amongcheap and unbeautiful things. He saw at a glance that the rugs andcarpets on the polished floors of the villa were exquisite, that thefurniture was not merely graceful and in place but really choice andvaluable, and that the few ornaments and pieces of china scatteredabout, with the most deft decision as to the exactly right place foreach mirror, bowl, vase and incense holder, were rarely fine. Yet in theairy rooms there was no dreary look of the museum. On the contrary, theyhad an intimate, almost a homely air, in spite of their beauty. Booksand magazines were allowed their place, and on a grand piano, almostin the middle of the largest room, which opened by long windows into anadroitly tangled rose garden where a small fountain purred amongst bluelilies, there was a quantity of music. The whole house was stronglyscented with flowers. Dion was greeted at its threshold by a wave ofdelicious perfume. 

Mrs. Clarke received him in her most casual, most impersonal manner, andmade no allusion to the fact that she knew he had already been for twodays in Buyukderer without coming near her. She asked him if his room atthe hotel was all right, and when he thanked her for bothering about himsaid that Cyril Vane had seen to it. 

"He's a kind, useful sort of boy, " she added, "and often helps me withlittle things. "

That day she said nothing about the Ambassador and Lady Ingleton, andshowed no disposition to assume any proprietorship over Dion. She tookhim over the house, and also into the garden. 

Upon the highest terrace of the latter, far above the house, between twomagnificent cypresses, there stood a pavilion. It was made of the woodof the plane tree, was painted dull green, had trees growing thickly atits back, and was partially concealed by a luxuriant creeper with deeporange-colored flowers, not unlike orange-colored jasmine, which Mrs. Clarke had seen first in Egypt and had acclimatized in Turkey. Thecenter of the front of this pavilion was open to the terrace, but couldbe closed by sliding doors which, when pushed back, fitted into thehollow walls on either side. The interior was furnished with bookcases, divans covered with cushions and embroideries, coffee tables, andEastern rugs. Antique bronze lamps hung by chains from the paintedceiling, which was divided into lozenges alternately dull green and dullgold. The view from this detached library was very beautiful. Over theroof of the villa, beyond the broad white road and the quay, the longbay stretched out into the Bosporus. Across its tranquil waters, and thewaters beaten up into waves by the winds from the Black Sea, rose theshores of Asia, Beikos, Anadoli Kavak, Anadoli Fanar, with lines ofhills and the Giant's Mountain. Immediately below, and stretching awayto right and left, were the curving shores of Europe, with the villasand palaces of Buyukderer held between the blue sea and the tree-coveredheights of Kabatash; the park of the Russian Palace, the summer homeof Russia's representative at the Sublime Porte, gardens of many richmerchants of Constantinople and of Turkish, Greek and Armenian magnates, and the fertile and well-watered country extending to Therapia, Staniaand Bebek on the one hand, and to Rumili Kavak, with the great Belgradforest behind it, and to Rumili Fanar, where the Bosporus flows into theBlack Sea, on the other. 

"Come up here whenever you like, " Mrs. Clarke said to Dion. "You canring at the side gate of the garden, and come up without entering thehouse or letting me know you are here. I have my own sitting-room on thefirst floor of the villa next to my bedroom, the little blue-and-greenroom I showed you just now. The books I'm reading at present are there. No one will bother you, and you won't bother any one. "

He thanked her, not very warmly, perhaps, but with a genuine attemptat real gratitude, and said he would come. They walked up and down theterrace for a little while, in silence for the most part. Before theywent down he mentioned that he had been out rowing. 

"I ride for exercise, " said Mrs. Clarke. "You can easily hire a goodhorse here, but I have one of my own, Selim. Nearly every afternoon Iride. "

"Were you riding the day before yesterday?" Dion asked. 

"Yes, in the Kesstane Dereh, or Valley of Roses, as many people callit. "

"Were you alone?"

"Yes. "

Dion had thought of the cantering horse which he had heard in the laneas he sat beside the stream. He felt sure it was Selim he had heard. Mrs. Clarke did not ask the reason for his questions. She seemed to hima totally incurious woman. Presently they descended to the house, andhe wished her good-by. She did not ask him to stay any longer, did notpropose any expedition, or any day or hour for another meeting. She justlet him go with a grave, and almost abstracted good-by. 

When he was alone he realized something; she had assumed that he wasgoing to make a long stay in Buyukderer. Once, in speaking of thefoliage, she had said, "You will notice in September----" Why was sheso certain he would stay on? There was nothing to prevent him from goingaway by the steamer on the morrow. She did nothing to curb his freedom;she seemed almost indifferent to the fact of his presence there; yetshe had told him he would come, and was evidently certain that he wouldstay. 

He wondered a little, but only a little, about her will. Then his mindreturned to an old haunt in which continually it wandered, obsessed bya horror that seemed already ancient, the walled garden at Welsley inwhich he had searched in the dark for a fleeing woman. Perpetually heheard the movement of that woman's dress as she disappeared into thedarkness, and the sound of a door, the door of his own home, beinglocked against him to give her time to escape from him. That sound hadcut his life in two. He saw, as he had seen many times in the past, thefalling downwards of edges that bled, the edges of his severed life. 

And he forgot the garden of the Villa Hafiz, the pavilion which stood onthe hill looking over the sea to Asia, the grave woman who had told him, indifferently, that he could go to it when he would. 

Nevertheless on the following day he found himself at the gardengate; he rang the bell; he was admitted by Osman, the placidly smilinggardener, and he ascended to the pavilion. No one was there. He stayedfor three hours, and nobody came to interrupt him. Down below the woodenvilla held closely the secret of its life. Once, as he gazed down onit, he wondered for a moment about Mrs. Clarke, how she passed herhours without a companion, which she was doing just then. The siren ofa steamer sounded in the bay. He went into the pavilion. On one of thecoffee-tables he found lying a small thin book bound in white vellum. Hetook it up and read the name in gold letters: "The Kasidah of Haji AbduEl-Yezdi. " It was the book he had found Beattie reading on the nightwhen Robin was born, on the night when Bruce Evelin and Guy haddiscussed Mrs. Clarke's divorce case and Mrs. Clarke. He shuddered inthe warmth of the pavilion. Then resolutely he picked the book up. At the beginning, after some blank pages, there was a portrait of SirRichard Burton. Dion looked at the strong, tragic face, with its burningexpression, for a long time. Then he stretched himself on one of thedivans and began to read the book. 

Down below, in the villa, Mrs. Clarke was sitting in the green-and-blueroom in the first floor with Lady Ingleton, and they were talking aboutDion. 

"He's here now, " said Mrs. Clarke to her friend. 

"Where?"

"In the garden. I haven't seen him, but Osman tells me he has gone up tothe pavilion. "

"We can stroll up there later on, and then you can introduce him if youwant to. "

"No. "

Lady Ingleton did not look surprised on receiving this brusk negative. 

"Shall I get Carey to see him first?" she asked, in her lazy voice. "Cyril Vane has prepared the way before him, and Carey is all sympathyand readiness to do what he can. The Greek tragedy of the situationappeals to him tremendously, and of course he has a hundredfold moretact than I have. "

"Mr. Leith must go to the Embassy. But what he has been through hasdeveloped in him a sort of wildness that is almost like that of ananimal. If he saw an outstretched hand he would probably bolt. "

"And yet he's sitting in your pavilion. "

"Because he knows he won't see any outstretched hand there. He was herefor two days without coming near me, and even then he only came becauseI had taken no notice of him. "

"I know. You spread the food outside, go indoors and close the shutters, and then, when no one is looking, it creeps up, takes the food, andvanishes. "

"A very great grief eats away the conventions, and beneath theconventions there is always something strongly animal. "

For a moment Lady Ingleton looked at Mrs. Clarke and was silent. Thenshe said, very quietly and simply:

"Does he realize yet how cruel you are?"

"He isn't thinking about me. "

"But he will. "

Mrs. Clarke stared at the wall for a minute. Then she said:

"Ask the Ambassador if he will ride with me to-morrow afternoon, willyou, unless he's engaged?"

"At what time?"

"Half-past four. Perhaps he'll dine afterwards. "

"Very well. And now I'm going up to the pavilion. "

But she did not go, although she was genuinely curious about the man whohad killed his son and had been cast out by the woman he loved. SecretlyLady Ingleton was much more softly romantic than Mrs. Clarke was. Shewas hard on bores, and floated in an atmosphere of delicate selfishness, but she could be very kind if her imagination was roused, and thoughalmost strangely devoid of prejudices she had instincts that were notunsound. 

That evening she gave Mrs. Clarke's message to her husband. 

"To-morrow--to-morrow?" he said, in his light tenor voice, inquiringly. "Yes, I can go. As it happens, I'm breakfasting with Borinsky atthe Russian Palace, so I shall be on the spot. John can meet me withFreddie. "

Freddie was the Ambassador's favorite horse. 

"But can Borinsky put up with you till half-past four?"

"Cynthia Clarke won't mind if I turn up before my time. "

"No. She's devoted to you, and you know it, and love it. "

Sir Carey smiled. He and his wife were happy people, and he never wishedto stray from his path of happiness, not even with Mrs. Clarke. Buthe had been a beautiful youth, whom many women had loved, and wasa remarkably handsome man, although his red hair was turning gray. Honestly he liked to be admired by women, and to feel that hisfascination for them was still intact. And he did not actively objectto the fact of his wife's being aware of it. For he loved her very much, and he knew that a woman does not love a man less because other womenfeel his power. 

He appreciated Mrs. Clarke, and thought her full of intelligence, ofnuances, and _tres fine_. Her husband had been his right-hand man atthe Embassy, but he had taken Mrs. Clarke's part when the divorceproceedings were initiated, and had stood up for her ever since. LikeEsme Darlington he believed that she was a wild mind in an innocentbody. 

On the following day he rode with her towards Rumili Kavak, andpresently, returning, to the four cross-roads at the mouth of the Valleyof Roses. A Turkish youth was standing there. Mrs. Clarke spoke to himin Turkish and he replied. She turned to the Ambassador. 

"You do want a cup of coffee, don't you?"

"If you tell me I do. "

"By the stream just beyond the lane. And I'll ride home. I've orderedall the things you like best for dinner. Ahmed Bey and Madame Davrouloswill make a four. "

"And Delia and Cyril Vane a two!"

"You must try to control your very natural jealousy. "

"I will. "

He dismounted and gave the reins to the Turkish youth. 

Sitting very erect on her black Arab horse, Mrs. Clarke watched himdisappear down the lane in which Dion had heard the cantering feet of ahorse as he sat alone beside the stream. 

Then she rode back to Buyukderer. 

CHAPTER IV

Whether Mrs. Clarke had put "The Kasidah" in a conspicuous place in thepavilion with a definite object, or whether she had been reading it andby chance had laid it down, Dion could not tell. He believed, however, that she had intended that this book should be read by him at thiscrisis in his life. She had frankly acknowledged that she wished torouse him out of his inertia; she was a very mental woman; a book was aweapon that such a woman would be likely to employ. 

At any rate, Dion felt her influence in "The Kasidah. "

The book took possession of him; it burnt him like a flame; even it madehim for a short time forget. That was incredible, yet it was the fact. 

It was an antichristian book. A woman's love of God had made Dion in hisbitterness antichristian. It was an enormously vital book, and called tothe vitality which misery had not killed within him. There were passagesin it which seemed to have been written specially for him--passages thatwent into him like a sword and drew blood from out of the very depths ofhim. 

"Better the worm of Izrail than Death that walks in form of life"--thatwas for him. He had substituted for death, swift, easy, a mere nothing, the long, slow terrific something. Death that walks in form of life. Deliberately he had chosen that. 

 "On thought itself feed not thy thought; nor turn From Sun and Light to gaze At darkling cloisters paved with tombs where rot The bones of bygone days----"

What else had he done since he had wandered in the wilderness?

 "There is no Good, there is no Bad, these be The whims of mortal will: What works me weal that call I 'good, ' what harms And hurts I hold as 'ill. '"

These words drove out the pale Fantasy he had fallen down and worshiped. It had harmed and hurt him. Haji Abdu El-Yezdi bade him henceforth holdit as "ill. " If he could only do that, would not gates open before him, would not, perhaps, the power to live again in a new way arise withinhim?

 "Do what thy Manhood bids thee do, from None but self expect applause; He noblest lives and noblest dies who makes And keeps his self-made laws. 

 All other Life is living Death, a world where None but Phantoms dwell, A breath, a wind, a sound, a voice, a tinkling Of the Camel bell. "

He had lived the other life, for he had lived for another; he had livedto earn the applause of affection from Rosamund; he had striven alwaysto fit his life into her pattern; now he was alone with the result. 

 "Pluck the old woman from thy breast: be Stout in woe, be stark in weal-- . . . . . . . Spurn Bribe of Heav'n and threat of Hell. "

He had chosen the death that walks in the form of life; now somethingpowerful, stirred from sleep by the influence of one not dead, rose upin him to reject that death. And it was the same thing that long agohad enabled him to be pure before his marriage, the same thing which hadenabled him to put England before even Rosamund, the same thing whichhad held him up in many difficult days in South Africa, and had kept himcheerful and bravely gay through the long separation from all he caredfor, the same thing which had begun to dominate Rosamund during thosefew short days at Welsley, the brief period of reunion in happinesswhich had preceded the crash into the abyss; it was the fiery sparkof Dion's strength which not all his weakness had succeeded inextinguishing, a strength which had made for good in the past, astrength which might make for evil in the future. 

Did Mrs. Clarke know of this strength, and was she subtly appealing toit?

"Pluck the old woman from thy breast. "

Again and again Dion repeated those words to himself, and he sawhimself, an ineffably tragic, because a weak figure, feebly driftingwith his black misery through cities which knew him not, wanderingalone, sitting alone, peering at the lives of others, watching theirvices without interest, without either approval or condemnation, staringwith dull eyes at their fetes and their funerals, their affections, their cruelties, their passions, their crimes. He saw himself in agarden at Pera staring at painted women, neither desiring them norturning from them with any disgust. He saw himself--as an old woman. Asmoldering defiance within him sent out a spurt of scorching flame. 

* * * * *

Sitting alone by the stream in the Valley of Roses Dion heard thesound of steps, and presently saw a slight, very refined-looking manin riding-breeches, with a hunting-crop in his hand, coming down to thebank. He sat down on a rough wooden bench under a willow tree, lit acigar and gazed into the water. He had large, imaginative gray eyes. There was something military and something poetic in his manner andbearing and in his whole appearance. Almost directly from a littlerustic cafe close by a Greek lad came, carrying a wooden stool. On it heplaced a steaming brass coffee pot, a cup and saucer, sugar, a stick ofburning incense in a tiny vase, and a rose with a long stalk. Then hewent swiftly away, looking very intelligent. The stranger--obviouslyan Englishman--picked up the rose, held it, smelt it, laid it down andbegan to sip his coffee. Then in a very casual, easy-going way, like aman who was naturally sociable, and who enjoyed having a word with anyone whom he came across, he began to speak to Dion. 

When that day died Dion stood alone looking down into the stream. Helooked till he saw in it the face of night. Broken stars quivered in thewater; among them for a moment he perceived the eyes of a child, of achild who had been able to love him as a woman had not been able to lovehim, and to forgive him as a woman could not forgive him. 

When Dion walked back to his hotel the candlelight glimmered over thedining-table at the Villa Hafiz where Mrs. Clarke sat with herthree guests--the Ambassador, Madame Davroulos, the wife of a Greekmillionaire whose home was at Smyrna, and Ahmed Bey, one of the Sultan'sadjutants. 

Hadi Bey had long ago passed out of her life. 

That evening the Ambassador got up to go rather early. His caique waslying against the quay. 

"Come out by the garden gate, won't you?" said Mrs. Clarke to him, andshe led the way to the tangled rose garden, where sometimes she sat andread the poems of Hafiz. 

Madame Davroulos was smoking a large cigar in a corner of thedrawing-room and talking volubly to Ahmed Bey, who was listening asonly a Turk can listen, with a smiling and immense serenity, twisting astring of amber beads in his padded fingers. 

"He was there?" said Mrs. Clarke, in her quietest and most impersonalmanner. 

"Yes--he was there. "

The Ambassador paused by the fountain, and stood with one foot on themarble edge of the basin, gazing down on the blue lilies whose colorlooked dull and almost black in the night. 

"He was there. I talked with him for quite half an hour. He seemed gladto talk; he talked almost fiercely. "

Mrs. Clarke's white face looked faintly surprised. 

"Eventually I told him who I was, and he told his name to me, watchingme narrowly to see how I should take it. My air of complete serenityover the revelation seemed to reassure him. I said I knew he was afriend of yours and that my wife and I would be very glad to see him atTherapia, and at the Embassy in Pera later on. He said he would come toTherapia to-morrow. "

This time Mrs. Clarke looked almost strongly surprised. 

"What did you talk about?" she asked. 

"Chiefly about a book he seems to have been reading recently, RichardBurton's 'Kasidah. ' You know it, of course?"

"I remember Omar Khayyam much better. "

"He spoke strangely, almost terribly about it. Perhaps you knowhow converts to Roman Catholicism talk in the early days of theirconversion, as if they alone understood the true meaning of being safein sunlight, cradled and cherished in the blaze, as it were. Well, hespoke like one just converted to a belief in the all-sufficiency ofthis life if it is thoroughly lived; and, I confess, he gave me theimpression of being cradled and cherished in thick darkness. "

Sir Carey was silent for a moment. Then he said:

"What was this man, Leith?"

"Do you mean----?"

"Before his married life came to an end?"

"The straight, athletic, orthodox young Englishman; very sane andsimple, healthily moral; not perhaps particularly religious, but fullof sentiment and trust in a boyish sort of way. I remember he readChristian morals into Greek art. "

Sir Carey raised his eyebrows. 

"One could sum him up by saying that he absolutely believed in andexclusively adored a strong religious, beautiful, healthy-mindedand healthy-bodied Englishwoman, who has now, I believe, entered asisterhood, or something of the kind. She colored his whole life. Hesaw life through her eyes, and believed through her faith. At least, Ishould think so. "

"Then he's an absolutely different man from what he was. "

"The strong religious, beautiful, healthy-minded and bodied Englishwomanhas condemned as a crime a mere terrible mistake. She has taken herselfaway from her husband and given herself to God. She cared for thechild. "

Mrs. Clarke laid a curious cold emphasis on the last sentence. 

"Horrible!" said Sir Carey slowly. "And so now he turns from theProtestant's God to Destiny playing with the pawns upon the greatchessboard. But if he's a man of sentiment, and not an intellectual, he'll never find this life all-sufficient, however he lives it. Thedarkness will never be enough for him. "

"It has to be enough for a great many of us, " said Mrs. Clarke. 

There was a long pause, which she broke by saying, in a lighter voice:

"As he's going to visit you, I can go on having him here. You'll letpeople know, won't you?"

"That he's a friend of ours? Of course. "

"That will make things all right. "

"You run your unconventionalities always on the public race-course, insight of the grand stand packed with the conventionalities. "

"What else can I do? Besides, secret things are always found out. "

"You never went in for them. "

"And yet my own husband misunderstood me. "

"Poor Beadon! He was an excellent councilor. "

"And an excellent husband. "

"But he made a great fool of himself. "

"Yes, " said Mrs. Clarke, without any animus. "And so Mr. Leith made asad impression upon you?"

"A few men can be tormented. He is one of them. He has gone down intothe dark places. Perhaps the Furies are with him there, the attendantsof the Goddess of Death. "

He glanced at his companion. She was standing absolutely still, gazingdown into the water. Her white face looked beautiful, but strangelyhaggard and implacable in the night. And for a moment his mind dwelt onthe image conjured up by his last words, and he thought of her as theGoddess of Death. 

"Well, " he said, "I must go, or Delia will be wondering. She knows yourpower. "

"And knows I am too faithful to her not to resist yours. "

He pressed her hand, then said rather abruptly:

"Are you feverish to-night?"

"No, " said Mrs. Clarke, almost with the hint of a sudden irritation. "Iam never feverish. "

Sir Carey went away to his caique. 

When he had gone Mrs. Clarke stood alone by the fountain for a moment, frowning, and with her thin lips closely compressed, almost, indeed, pinched together. She gazed down at her hands. They were lovely hands, small, sensitive, refined; they looked clever, too, not like taperingfools. She knew very well how lovely they were, yet now she looked atthem with a certain distaste. Betraying hands! Abruptly she extendedthem towards the fountain, and let the cool silver of the water sprayover them. And as she watched the spray she thought of the wrinklesabout Dion's eyes. 

"Ah, ma chere, qu'est que vous faites la toute seule? Vous prenez unbain?"

The powerful contralto of Madame Davroulos flowed out from thedrawing-room, and her alluring mustache appeared at the lighted Frenchwindows. 

Mrs. Clarke dried her hands with a minute handkerchief, and, withouttroubling about an explanation, turned away from the rose garden. Butwhen her two guests were gone she told her Greek butler to bring out anarm-chair and a foot-stool, and the Russian maid, whom Dion had seen, tobring her a silk wrap. Then she sent them both to bed, lit a cigaretteand sat down by the fountain, smoking cigarette after cigarette quickly. Not till the freshness of dawn was in the air, and a curious livinggrayness made the tangled rose bushes look artificial and the fountainstrangely cold, did she get up to go to bed. 

She looked very tired; but she always looked tired, although shescarcely knew what physical fatigue was. The gray of dawn grew about herand emphasized her peculiar pallor, the shadows beneath her large eyes, the haunted look about her cheeks and her temples. 

As she went into the house she pulled cruelly at a rose bush. A whiterose came away from its stalk in her hand. She crushed its petals andflung them away on the sill of the window. 

While Mrs. Clarke was sitting by the fountain in the garden of the VillaHafiz, Dion was sleepless in his bedroom at the Hotel Belgrad. He wasconsidering whether he should end his life or whether he should changethe way of his life. He was not conscious of struggle. He did not feelexcited. But he did feel determined. The strength he possessed wasasserting itself. It had slumbered within him; it had not died. 

Either he would die now or he would genuinely live, would lay a grip onlife somehow. 

If he chose to die how would Mrs. Clarke take the news of his death? Heimagined some one going to the Villa Hafiz from the Hotel Belgrad witha message: "The English gentleman Mr. Vane took the room for has justkilled himself. What is to be done with the body?" What would Mrs. Clarke say? What would she look like? What would she do? He rememberedthe sign of the cross she had made in the flat in Knightsbridge. Withthat sign she had dismissed the soul of Brayfield into the eternities. Would she dismiss the soul of Dion Leith with the sign of the cross?

If she heard of his death, Rosamund would of course be unmoved, orwould, perhaps, feel a sense of relief. And doubtless she would offerup to God a prayer in which his name would be mentioned. Women who lovedGod were always ready with a prayer. If it came too late, never mind! Itwas a prayer, and therefore an act acceptable to God. 

But Mrs. Clarke? Certainly she would not pray about it. Dion had afeeling that she would be angry. He had never seen her angry, but hefelt sure she could be enraged in a frozen, still, terrible way. If hedied perhaps a thread would snap, the thread of her design. For she hadsome purpose in connexion with him. She had willed him to come to thisplace; she was willing him to remain in it. Apparently she wished toraise him out of the dust. He thought of Eyub, of Mrs. Clarke walkingbeside him on the dusty road. She had seemed very much at home in thedust. But she was not like Rosamund; she was not afraid of a speck ofdust falling upon the robe of her ideals. What was Mrs. Clarke's purposein connexion with him? He did not pursue that question, but dismissedit, incurious still in his misery, which had become more active sincehis strength had stirred out of sleep. If he did not die how was hegoing to live? He had lived by the affections. Could he live by thelusts? He had no personal ambitions; he had no avarice to prompt him toenergy; he was not in love with himself. Suddenly he realized the valueof egoism to the egoist, and that he was very poor because he was reallynot an egoist by nature. If he had been, if he were, perhaps thingswould have gone better for him in the past, would be more endurable now. But he had lived not to himself but to another. 

He told himself that to do that was the rankest folly. At any rate hewould never do that again. But the unselfishness of love had become ahabit with him. Even in his extreme youth he had instinctively savedup, moved, no doubt, by an inherent desire to have as large a gift aspossible ready when the moment for giving came. 

If he lived on he must live for himself; he must reverse all his rulesof conduct; he must fling himself into the life of self-gratification. He had come to believe that the men who trample are the men who succeedand who have the happiest lives. Sensitiveness does not pay; lovingconsideration of others brings no real reward; men do not get what theygive. It is the hard and the passionate man who is the victor in life, not the man who is tender, thoughtful, even unselfish in the midstof his passion. Self-control--what a reward Dion had received for theself-control of his youth!

If he lived he would cast it away. 

He sat at his window till dawn, till the sea woke and the hills of Asiawere visible under a clear and delicate sky. He leaned out and felt theatmosphere of beginning that is peculiar to the first hour of daylight. Could he begin again? It seemed impossible. Yet now he felt he couldnot deprive himself of life. Suicide is a cowardly act, even thougha certain kind of courage must prompt the pulling of the trigger, theinsertion of the knife, or the pouring between the lips of the poison. Dion had not the courage of that cowardice, or the cowardice of thatcourage. Perhaps, without knowing it, in deciding to live he was onlytaking one more step on the road whose beginning he had seen in Elis, as he waited alone outside of the house where Hermes watched over thechild; was saving the distant Rosamund from a stroke which would piercethrough her armor even though she knelt before the throne of God. But hewas conscious only of the feeling that he could not kill himself, thoughhe did not know why he could not. The capacity for suicide evidentlywas not contained in his nature. He rejected the worm of Izrail; herejected, too, the other death. He must, then, live. 

He washed and lay down on his bed. And directly he lay down he wonderedwhy he had been sitting up and mentally debating a great question. Forin the Valley of Roses he had surely decided it before he spoke to SirCarey Ingleton. When he said he would visit Lady Ingleton he must havedecided. That visit would mean the return to what is called normal life, the exit from the existence of a castaway, the entrance into relationswith his kind. He dreaded that visit, but he meant to pay it. In payingit he would take his first step away from the death that walks in formof life. 

He could not sleep, and soon he got up again and went to the window. Agust of wind came to him from the sea. It seemed to hint at a land thatwas cold, and he thought of Russia, and then again of the distant placesin which he might lose himself, places in which no one would know who hewas, or trouble about the past events of his life. There before him wasAsia rising out of the dawn. He had only to cross a narrow bit of seaand a continent was ready to receive him and to hide him. So he hadthought of Africa on many a night as he sat in the Hotel des Colonies atMarseilles. But he had not crossed to Africa. 

The wind died away. It had only been a capricious gust, a wanderingguest of the morning. Down below in the Bay of Buyukderer the waterswere quiet; the row boats lay still at the edge of the quay; the smallyachts, with their sails furled, slept at their moorings. The wind hadbeen like a summons, a sudden tug at him as of a hand saying, with itsbones, its muscles, its nerves, its sinews, "Come with me!"

Once before he had felt something like that in a London Divorce Court, but it had been fainter, subtler and perhaps warmer. The memory of hiscuriosity about the unwise life returned to him, somehow linked with thewandering wind. In his months of the living death he had often looked onat it in the cities through which he had drifted, but he had never takenpart in it. He had been emptied of the force to do that by his misery. Now he was conscious of force though his misery was not lessened, seemedto him even to have increased. He had often been dulled by grief; now hefelt cruelly alive. 

He went down to the sea, found the Albanian boatman with whom he hadrowed on his first day at Buyukderer, took his boat out and bathed fromit. The current beyond the bay was strong. He had a longing to let ittake him whither it would. If only he could find an influence to whichhe could give himself, an influence which would sweep him away!

If only he could get rid of his long fidelity!

When he climbed dripping, and with his hair plastered down on hisforehead, into the boat, the Albanian stared at him as if in surprise. 

"What's the matter?" said Dion in French, when he was dry and gettinginto his clothes. 

But the man only replied:

"Monsieur tres fort molto forte, moi aussi tres fort. Monsieur venezsempre con moi!"

And he smiled with the evident intention of being agreeable to avaluable client. Dion did not badger him with any more questions. As theboat touched the quay he told the man to be ready to start for Therapiathat day at any time after three o'clock. 

When he reached the summer villa of the Ambassador he was informed by atall English footman that Lady Ingleton was at home. She received Dionin the midst of the little dogs, but after he had been with her for avery few minutes she rang for a servant and banished them. Secretly shewas deeply interested in this man who had killed his son, but she gaveDion no reason to suppose that she was concentrating on him. Her lazy, indifferent manner was perfectly natural, but perhaps now and then shewas more definitely kind than usual; and she managed somehow to showDion that she was ready to be his friend. 

"If you stay long we must take you over one day on the yacht to Brusa, "she said presently. "Cynthia loves Brusa, and so does my husband. Wewent over there once with Pierre Loti. Cynthia and poor Beadon Clarkewere of the party, I remember. We had a delightful time. "

"Why do you say poor Beadon Clarke?" asked Dion abruptly. 

That day he was at a great parting of the ways. He was concentrated uponhimself and his own decision, so concentrated that the conventionsmeant little to him. He was totally unaware of the bruskness of such aquestion asked of a woman whom he had never seen before. 

"One pities a thoroughly good fellow who does a thoroughly foolishthing. It was a very, very foolish thing to do to attack Cynthia. "

"I was in court during part of the trial. "

"Well, then, you know how foolish it was. Some people can't be attackedwith impunity. "

The inflexion of Lady Ingleton's voice at that moment made Dion think ofMrs. Chetwinde. Once or twice Mrs. Chetwinde's voice had sounded almostexactly like that when she had spoken of Mrs. Clarke. 

"Especially people who are innocent, " he said. 

"Naturally, as Cynthia was. Beadon Clarke made a terrible mistake, poorfellow. "

When Dion got up to go she again alluded to his staying on atBuyukderer, with an "if" attached to the allusion, and her dark eyes, which looked like an Italian's, rested upon him with a soft, but veryintelligent, scrutiny. He had an odd feeling that she had taken a likingto him, and yet that she did not wish him to stay on in Buyukderer. 

"I don't quite know what I am going to do, " he said. 

As he spoke the hideous freedom of his empty life seemed to gatheritself together, and to flow stealthily upon him like a filthy wavebearing refuse upon its surface. 

"I'm a free agent, " he added, looking hard at Lady Ingleton. "I have noties. "

He shook her hand and went away. 

That evening she said to her husband:

"I have felt sorry for myself occasionally, and for other people in myChristian moments, but I have never in the past felt so sorry for anyone as I feel now for Mr. Leith. "

"Because of the tragedy which has marred his life?"

"It isn't only that. He's on the edge of so much. "

"You don't mean----?"

Sir Carey paused. 

"No, no, " Lady Ingleton said, almost impatiently. "Life hasn't done withthat man yet. I could almost find it in my heart to wish it had. Shallwe take him to Brusa on the yacht? That would advertise our acquaintancewith him to all the gossips on the Bosporus. I promised Cynthia I wouldthrow my mantle over him. "

"I'm always ready for a visit to your only rival, " said Sir Carey. 

"La Mosquee Verte! I'll think about it. We might go for three or fourdays. "

Her warm voice sounded rather reluctant; yet her husband knew that shewished to go. 

"It would be an excellent way of showing your mantle to the gossips, " heremarked. "But you always think of excellent ways. "

Two days later the Embassy yacht, the "Leyla, " having on board Sir Careyand Lady Ingleton, Mrs. Clarke, Cyril Vane, Dion, and Turkish Jane, thedoyenne of the Pekinese, sailed for Mudania on the sea of Marmora, whichis the Port of Brusa. 

CHAPTER V

On the day after the return of the "Leyla" from Mudania, Mrs. Clarkeasked Dion if he would dine with her at the Villa Hafiz. She asked himby word of mouth. They had met on the quay. It was morning, and Dion wasabout to embark in the Albanian's boat for a row on the Bosporus whenhe saw Mrs. Clarke's thin figure approaching him under a white umbrellalined with delicate green. She was wearing smoked spectacles, whichmade her white face look strange and almost forbidding in the strongsunlight. 

"I can't come, " he said. 

And there was a sound almost of desperation in his voice. 

"I can't. "

She said nothing, but she stood there beside him looking veryinflexible. Apparently she was waiting for an explanation of hisrefusal, though she did not ask for it. 

"I can't be with people. It's no use. I've tried it. You didn't know--"

"Yes, I did, " she interrupted him. 

"You did know?"

He stood staring blankly at her. 

"Surely I--I tried my best. I did my utmost to hide it. "

"You couldn't hide it from me. "

"I must go away, " he said. 

"Come to-night. Nobody will be there. "

"It isn't a party?"

"We shall be alone. "

"You meant to ask people?"

"I won't. I'll ask nobody. Half-past eight?"

"I'll come, " he said. 

She turned away without another word. 

Just after half-past eight he rang at the door of the villa. 

As he went into the hall and smelt the strong perfume of flowers hewondered that he had dared to come. But he had been with Mrs. Clarkewhen she was in horrible circumstances; he had sat and watched her whenshe was under the knife; he had helped her to pass through a crowd ofpeople fighting to stare at her and making hideous comments upon her. Then why, even to-night, should he dread her eyes? His remembrance ofher tragedy made him feel that hers was the one house into which hecould enter that night. 

As he walked into the drawing-room he recollected walking into Mrs. Chetwinde's drawing-room, full of interest in the woman who was insanctuary, but who was soon to be delivered up, stripped by a man ofthe law's horrible allegations, to the gaping crowd. Now she was livingpeacefully among her friends, the custodian of her boy, a woman who hadwon through; and he was a wanderer, a childless father, the slayer ofhis son. 

Mrs. Clarke kept him waiting for a few minutes. He stood at the Frenchwindow and listened to the fountain. In the fall of the water therewas surely an undertune. He seemed to know that it was there and yet hecould not hear it; and he felt baffled as if by a thin mystery. 

Then Mrs. Clarke came in and they went at once to dinner. 

During dinner they talked very little. She spoke when the Greek butlerwas in the room, and Dion did his best in reply; nevertheless theconversation languished. Although Dion had so few words to give to hishostess he felt abnormally alive. The whole of him was like a quiveringnerve. 

When dinner was over Mrs. Clarke said to the butler:

"Osman will make the coffee for us. He knows about it. We shall have itin the pavilion. "

The butler, who, although a Greek, looked at that moment almostincredibly stolid, moved his rather pouting lips, no doubt in assent, and was gone. They saw him no more that night. 

They walked slowly from terrace to terrace of the climbing garden tillthey came to the height on which the pavilion stood guarded by thetwo mighty cypresses. There was no moon, and the night was a very darkpurple night, with stars that looked dim and remote, like lost stars inthe wilderness of infinity. From the terraces came the scent of flowers. In the pavilion one hanging lamp gave a faint light which emphasized theobscurity. It shone through colored panes and drew thick shadows onthe floor and on sections of the divans. The heaps of cushions werecolorless, and had a strange look of unyielding massiveness, as ifthey were blocks of some hard material. Osman stood beside one of thecoffee-tables. 

As soon as his mistress appeared he began to make the coffee. Dionstayed upon the terrace, and Mrs. Clarke went into the pavilion and satdown. 

The cypresses were like dark towers in the night. Dion looked upat them. Their summits were lost in the brooding purple darkness. Cypresses! Why had he thought of cypresses in England in connexion withMrs. Clarke? Why had he seen her standing among cypresses, seen himselfcoming to her and with her in the midst of the immense shadows theycast? No doubt simply because he knew she lived much in Turkey, the landof the cypress. That must have been the reason. Nevertheless now he wasoppressed by a weight of mystery somehow connected with those dark andgigantic trees; and he remembered the theory that the past, the presentand the future are simultaneously in being, and that those who are saidto read the future in reality possess only the power of seeing whatalready is on another plane. Had he in England, however vaguely, howeverdimly, seen as through a crack some blurred vision of what was alreadyin existence? He felt almost afraid of the cypresses. Nevertheless, ashe stood looking up at them, his sense almost of fear tempted himto make an experiment. He remained absolutely still, and strove toconcentrate all his faculties. After a long pause he shut his eyes. 

"If the far future is even now in being, " he said mentally, "let me lookupon it now. "

He saw nothing; but immediately he heard the sound of wind among pinetrees, as he had heard it with Rosamund in the green valley of Elis. Itrose in the silent night, that long murmur of eternity, and presentlyfaded away. 

He shuddered and turned sharply towards the pavilion. 

Osman had gone, and Mrs. Clarke was pouring the coffee into the tinycups. 

"There's no wind, is there--is there?" he asked her. 

She looked up at him. 

"But not a breath!" she said. 

After a pause she added:

"Why do you ask such a thing?"

"I heard wind in--in the tops of trees, " he almost stammered. 

"That's impossible. "

"But I say I did!" he exclaimed, with violence. "In pine trees. "

"There are no pine trees here, " she said, in her husky voice. "Sit downand have your coffee. "

He obeyed her and sat down quickly, and quickly he took the coffee-cupfrom her. 

"Have a little _mastika_ with it, " she said. 

And she pushed a tall liqueur-glass full of the colorless liquid towardshim. 

"Yes, " he said. 

As he drank he looked out sideways through the wide opening in thepavilion. There was not a breath of wind. 

"I can't understand why I heard the noise of wind in pine trees, " heforced himself to say. 

"Seemed to hear it, " she corrected him. "Perhaps you were thinking ofit. "

"But I wasn't!"

A jeweled gleam from the lamp fell upon one side of her face. She moved, and the light dropped away from her. 

"What were you thinking of?" she asked. 

"Of the future. "

"Ah!"

"That's why it is inexplicable. "

"I don't understand. "

"Don't let us talk about it any more, " he said, in an almost terriblevoice. "I must have had an hallucination. "

"Have you ever before thought you were the victim of an hallucination?"she asked. 

"Yes. Several times I have seen the eyes of my little boy. I saw thema few nights ago in the stream that flows through the Valley of Roses, just after Sir Carey had left me. "

"Don't look into water again except in daylight. It is the night thatbrings fancies with it. If you gaze very long at anything in a dim lightyou are sure to see something strange or horrible. "

"But an hallucination of sound! I must go away from here! Perhaps insome other place--"

But she interrupted him inflexibly. 

"Going away would be absolutely useless. A man can't travel away fromhimself. "

"But I can't lead a normal life. It's impossible. Those horrible nightson the 'Leyla'----"

He stopped. The effort he had made during the trip to Brusa seemedto have exhausted the last remnants of any moral force he had stillpossessed when he started on that journey. 

"I had made up my mind to begin again, to lay hold on some sort of reallife, " he continued, after a pause. "I was determined to face things. Icalled at Therapia. I accepted Lady Ingleton's invitation. I've doneall I can to make a new start. But it's no use. I can't keep it up. Ihaven't the force for it. It was hell--being with happy people. "

"You mean the Ingletons. Yes, they are very happy. "

"And Vane, who's just engaged to be married. I saw her photograph inhis cabin. They were all--all very kind. Lady Ingleton did everything tomake me feel at ease. He's a delightful fellow--the Ambassador, I mean. But I simply can't stand mingling my life with lives that are happy. SoI had better go away and be alone again. "

"And lives that are unhappy?"

"What do you mean?"

"Can't you mingle your life with them, or with one of them?"

He was silent, looking towards her. She was wearing a very dark bluetea-gown of some thin material in which her thin body seemed lost. He saw the dark folds of it flowing over the divan on which she wasleaning, and trailing to the rug at her feet. Her face was a faintwhiteness under her colorless hair. Her eyes were two darknesses in it. He could not see them distinctly, but he knew they were looking intentand distressed. 

"Haven't you told me I look punished?" said the husky voice. 

"Are you unhappy?" he asked. 

"Do you think I have much reason to be happy?"

"You have your boy. "

"For a few weeks in the year. I have lost my husband in a horrible way, worse than if he had died. I live entirely alone. I can't marry again. And yet I'm not at all old, and not at all finished. But perhaps youhave never really thought about my situation seriously. After all, whyshould you? Why should any one? I won my case, and so of course it's allright. "

"Are _you_ unhappy, then?"

"What do you suppose about me?"

"I know you've gone through a great deal. But you have your boy. "

There was a sound almost of dull obstinacy in his voice. 

"Some women are not merely mothers, or potential mothers!" said analmost fierce voice. "Some women are just women first and motherssecond. There are women who love men for themselves, not merely becausemen are possible child-bringers. To a real and complete woman no childcan ever be the perfect substitute for a husband or a lover. Even naturehas put the lover first and the child second. I forbid you to say thatI have my boy, as if that settled the question of my happiness. I forbidyou. "

He heard her breathing quickly. Then she added:

"But how could you be expected to understand women like me?"

The intensity of her sudden outburst startled him as the strength of thecurrent in the Bosporus had startled him when he plunged into the seafrom the Albanian's boat. 

"You have been brought up in another school, " she continued slowly, andwith a sort of icy bitterness. "I forgive you. "

She got up from the divan and went out upon the terrace, leaving himalone in the pavilion, which seemed suddenly colder when she had leftit. 

He did not follow her. A breath from a human furnace had scorchedhim--had scorched the nerve, and the nerve quivered. 

"You have been brought up in a different school. " Welsley andStamboul--Rosamund and Mrs. Clarke. Once, somewhere, he had made thatcomparison. As he sat in the pavilion it seemed to him that for a momenthe heard the cool chiming of bells in a gray cathedral tower, the faintsound of the Dresden Amen. But he looked out through the opening in thepavilion, and far down below he saw lights on the Bay of Buyukderer, the vague outlines of hills; and the perfume that came to him out of thenight was not the damp smell of an English garden. 

An English garden! In the darkness of a November night he stood withinthe walls of an English garden; he heard a cry, saw the movement of awoman's body, and knew that his life was in ruins. The woman fled, buthe followed her blindly; he sought for her in the dark. He wanted totell her that he had been but the instrument of Fate, that he was not toblame, that he needed compassion more than any other man living. Butshe eluded him in the darkness, and presently he heard a key grind in alock. A friend had locked the door of his home against him in order thathis wife might have time to escape from him. 

Then he heard a husky voice say, "My friend, it will have to come. " And, suddenly it came. 

He broke down absolutely, threw himself on his face on the divan withhis arms stretched out beyond his head, grasped the cushions and sobbed. His body shook and twitched; his face was contorted; his soul writhed. A storm that came from within him broke upon him. He crashed intothe abyss. Down, down he went, till the last faint ray from above wasutterly blotted out. She whom he had loved so much sent him down, shewho far away had given herself to God. He felt her ruthless hands--thehands of a good woman, the hands of a loving mother--pressing himdown. Let her have her will. He would go into the last darkness. Then, perhaps, she would be more at ease; then, perhaps, she would know thetrue peace of God. He would pay to the uttermost farthing both forhimself and for her. 

Outside, just hidden from him by the pavilion wall, Mrs. Clarke stoodin the shadow of one of the cypresses, and listened. The trip on the"Leyla" had served two purposes. It was better so. When a thing mustbe, the sooner it is over the better. And she had waited for a very longtime. She drew her brows together as she thought of the long time shehad waited. Then she moved and walked away down the terrace. She hadheard enough. 

She went to the far end of the terrace. A wooden seat was placed therein the shadow of a plane tree. She sat down on it, rested her pointedchin in the palm of her right hand, with her elbow on her knee, andremained motionless. She was giving him time; time to weep away the pastand the good woman who had ruined his life. Even now she knew how to bepatient. In a way she pitied him. If she had not had to be patient forsuch a long time she would have pitied him much more. But he had oftenhurt her; and, as Lady Ingleton had said, she was by nature a cruelwoman. Nevertheless she pitied him for being, or for having been, soexclusive in love. And she wondered at him not a little. 

Lit-up caiques glided out on the bay far beneath her. A band was playingon the quay. She wished it would stop, and she glanced at a little watchwhich Aristide Dumeny had given her, and which was pinned among the darkblue folds of her gown. But she could not see its face clearly, and shelit a match. A quarter-past ten. The band played till eleven. She lit acigarette and stared down the hill at the moving lights in the bay. 

She had made many water excursions at night. Some of them--two or threeat least--had been mentioned in the Divorce Court. She had had a narrowescape that summer in London. It had given her a lesson; but she stillhad much to learn before she could be considered a past mistress in theschool of discretion. Almost ever since she could remember she hadbeen driven by the reckless spirit within her. But she had been givena compensation for that in the force of her will. That force had donewonders for her all through her life. It had even captured and retainedfor her many women friends. Driven she had been, and no doubt wouldalways be, but she believed that she would always skirt the precipicesof life, and would never fall into the abysses. 

The timorous and overscrupulous women were the women who missed theirfooting, because, when they made a false step, they made it in fear andtrembling, with the shadow of regret always dogging their heels. Andyet, now Jimmy was getting a big boy, even she knew moments of fear. 

She moved restlessly. The torch was luring her on, and yet now, foran instant, she was conscious of holding back. August was not far off;Jimmy was coming out to her for his holidays. Suppose, after all, shegave it up? A word from her--or merely a silence--and that man in thepavilion close by would go away from Buyukderer and would probably nevercome back. If, for once in her life, she played for safety?

The sound of the band on the quay--there had been a short interval ofsilence--came up to her again. Forty minutes more! She would give thatman in the pavilion and herself forty minutes. She could see thelights which outlined the kiosk. When they went out she would come toa decision. Till then, sitting alone, she could indulge in a mentaldebate. The mere fact that, at this point, she debated the questionwhich filled her mind proved Jimmy's power over her. As she thought thatshe began to resent her boy's power. And it would grow; inevitably itwould grow. She moved her thin shoulders. Then she sat very still. 

If only she didn't love Jimmy so much! Suppose she had lost her case inthe Divorce Case and Jimmy had been taken away from her? Even now sheshuddered when she thought of the risk she had run. She remembered againthe period of waiting when the jury could not come to an agreement. Whattorture she had endured, though no one knew it, or, perhaps, ever wouldknow it! Had not that torture been a tremendous warning to her againstthe unwise life? Why go into danger again? But perhaps there was nodanger any more. A man who has tried to divorce his wife once, and hasfailed, is scarcely likely to try again. Nevertheless she was full ofhesitation to-night. 

This fact puzzled and almost alarmed her, for she was not given tohesitation. She was a woman who thought clearly, who knew what shewanted and what she did not want, and who acted promptly and decisively. Perhaps she hesitated now because she had been forced to remain inactivein this particular case for such a long time; or perhaps she hadreceived an obscure warning from something within her which knew whatshe--the whole of her that was Cynthia Clarke--did not consciously know. 

The leaves of the plane tree rustled above her head, and she sighed. Asshe sat there in the purple darkness she looked like a victim; and for amoment she thought of herself as a victim. 

Even that man in the pavilion who was agonizing had said to her that shelooked "punished. " She had been surprised, almost startled, by his flashof discernment. But she was sure he thought that matter only a questionof coloring, of emaciation, of the shapes of features, and of the wayeyes were set in the head. 

When would the lights far below go out? She hated her indecision. It wasnew to her, and she felt it to be a weakness. Whatever she had been tillnow, she had certainly never been a weak woman, except perhaps fromthe absurd point of view of the Exeter Hall moralist. Scruples had beenstrangers to her, a baggage she had not burdened herself with on herjourney. 

Jimmy! That night Dion Leith had told her that he had seen the eyes ofhis boy in the stream that flowed through the Kesstane Dereh. She lookedout into the purple night, and somewhere in the dim vastness full ofmysteries and of half revelations she saw the frank and merciless eyesof a young Eton boy. 

Should she be governed by them? Could she submit to the ignorantdomination of a child who knew nothing of the complications of humanlife, nothing of the ways in which human beings are driven by imperiousdesires, or needs, which have perhaps been sown in ground of flesh andblood by dead parents, or by ancestors laid even with the dust? Couldshe immolate herself before the altar of the curious love which grewwithin her as Jimmy grew?

She was by nature perverse, and it was partly her love for Jimmy whichpushed her towards the man who killed his son. But she had not told thateven to herself. And she never told her secrets to other people, noteven when they were women friends!

The lights on the kiosk on the quay went out. Mrs. Clarke was startledby the leaping up of the darkness which seemed to come from the sea. For her ears had been closed against the band, and she had forgotten thelimit she had mentally put to her indecision. Eleven o'clock already!She got up from her seat. But still she hesitated. She did not knowwhat she was going to do. She stood for a moment. Then she walked softlytowards the pavilion. When she was near to it she stopped and listened. She did not hear any sound from within. There was nothing to prevent herfrom descending to the villa, from writing a note to Dion Leith askinghim to leave Buyukderer on the morrow, and from going up to her bedroom. He would find the note in the hall when he came down; he would go away;she need never see him again. If she did that it would mean a new lifefor her, free from complications, a life dedicated to Jimmy, a lifedeliberately controlled. 

It would mean, too, the futile close of a long pursuit; the crushing ofan old and hitherto frustrated desire; the return, when Jimmy went backto England after the holidays, to an empty life which she hated, more than hated, a life of horrible restlessness, a life in which theimagination preyed, like a vulture, upon the body. It would mean thewise, instead of the unwise, life. 

She stood there. With one hand she felt the little watch which Dumenyhad given her. It was cold to the touch of her dry, hot hand. She feltthe rough emerald set in the back of it. She and Dumeny had found thatin the bazaars together, in those bazaars which Dumeny changed fromEastern shops into the Arabian Nights. Dion Leith could never do such athing for her. But perhaps she could do it for him. The thought of thatlured her. She stood at the street corner; it was very dark and still;she knew that the strange ways radiated from the place where she stood, but there was no one to go with her down them. She waited--waited. Andthen she saw far off the gleam of the torch from which spring coloredfires. It flitted through the darkness; it hovered. The gleam of it litup, like a goblin light, the beginnings of the strange ways. She sawshadowy forms slipping away stealthily into their narrow and windingdistances; she saw obscure stairways, leaning balconies full of softblackness. She divined the rooms beyond. And whispering voices came toher ears. 

All the time she was feeling the watch with its rough uncut emerald. 

Government came upon her. She felt, as often before, a great hand catchher in a grip of iron. She ceased to resist. 

Still holding the watch, she went to the opening in the pavilion. 

The hanging lamp had gone out. For a moment she could only see darknessin the interior. It looked empty. There was no sound within. Could theman she had been thinking about, debating about, have slipped away whileshe was sitting under the plane tree? She had been thinking so deeplythat she had not heard the noise of the band on the quay; she might nothave heard his footsteps. While she had been considering whether sheshould leave him perhaps he had fled from her. 

This flashing thought brought her back at once to her true andirrevocable self, and she was filled instantly with fierce determinationand a cold intense anger. Jimmy was forgotten. He was dead to her atthat moment. She leaned forward, peering into the darkness. 

"Dion!" she said. "Dion!"

There was no answer, but she saw something stir within, something lowdown. He was there--or something was there, something alive. She wentinto the pavilion, and knelt down by it. 

"Dion!" she said. 

He raised himself on the divan, and turned on his side. 

"Why are you kneeling down?" he said. "Don't kneel. I hate to see awoman kneeling, and I know _you_ never pray. Get up. "

He spoke in a voice that was new to her. It seemed to her hot and hard. She obeyed him at once and got up from her knees. 

"What did you mean just now when you asked me whether I couldn't minglemy life with an unhappy life? Sit here beside me. "

She sat down on the edge of the divan very near to him. 

"What do you suppose I meant?"

"Do you mean to say you like me in that way?"

"Yes. "

"That you care about me?"

"Yes. "

"You said you willed me to come out to Constantinople. Was it for thatreason?"

She hesitated. She had an instinctive understanding of men, but she knewthat, in one way, Dion was not an ordinary man; and even if he had been, the catastrophe in his life might well have put him for the time beyondthe limits of her experience, wide though they were. 

"No, " she said, at last. "I didn't like you in that way till I met youin the street, and saw what she had done to you. "

"Then it was only pity?"

"Was it? I knew your value in England. "

She paused, then added, in an almost light and much more impersonalvoice:

"I think I may say that I'm a connoisseur of values. And I hate to see agood thing flung away. "

"I'm not a good thing. Perhaps I might have become one. I believe I wason the way to becoming worth something. But now I'm nothing, and I wishto be nothing. "

"I don't wish you to be anything but what you are. "

"Once you telegraphed to me--'May Allah have you in His hand. '"

"I remember. "

"It's turned out differently, " he said, almost with brutality. 

"We don't know that. You came back. "

"Yes. I was kept safe for a very good reason. I had to kill my child. I've accomplished that mission, and now, perhaps, Allah will let mealone. "

She could not see his face or the expression in his eyes clearly, butnow she saw his body move sharply. It twisted to the right and backagain. She put out her hand and took his listlessly, almost as she hadtaken it in Mrs. Chetwinde's drawing-room when she had met him for thefirst time. 

"Your hand is like fire, " he whispered. 

"Do you think I am ice?" she whispered back, huskily. 

"Once I tried to take my hand away from yours. "

"Try to take it away now, if you wish. "

As she spoke she closed her hand tenaciously upon his. Her littlefingers felt almost like steel on his hand, and he thought of thecurrent of the Bosporus which had pulled at his swimming body. 

To be taken and swept away! That at least would be better thandrifting, better than death in the form of life, better than slinking inloneliness to watch the doings of others. 

"I don't wish to take it away, " he said. 

And with the words mentally he bade an eternal farewell to Rosamund andto all the aspirations of his youth. From her and from them he turnedaway to follow the gleam of the torch. It flickered through thedarkness; it wavered; it waited--for him. He had tried the life ofwisdom, and it had cast him out; perhaps there was a place for him inthe unwise life. He felt spiritually exhausted; but there was withinhim a physical fever which answered to the fever in the hand which hadclosed on his. 

"Let the spirit die, " he thought, "that the body may live!"

He put one arm round his companion. 

"If you want me----" he whispered, on a deep breath. 

His voice died away in the darkness between the giant cypresses, thosetrees which watch over the dead in the land of the Turk. 

_She_ had said once that the human being can hurt God. 

Obscurely he wished to do that. 

CHAPTER VI

Mrs. Clarke looked up from a letter written in a large boyish hand whichhad just been brought out on the terrace of the fountain by the butler. 

"Jimmy will be here on Thursday--that is, in Constantinople. The trainought to be in early in the morning. "

Her eyes rested on Dion for a moment; then she looked down again at theletter from Eton. 

"He's in a high state of spirits at the prospect of the journey. Butperhaps I oughtn't to have had him out; perhaps I ought to have gone toEngland for his holidays. "

"Do you mean because of me?" said Dion. 

"I was thinking of cricket, " she replied impassively. 

He was silent. After a moment she continued:

"There are no suitable companions for him out here. I wish the Ingletonshad a son. Of course there is riding, swimming, boating, and we can makeexcursions. You'll be good to him, won't you?"

She folded the letter up and put it into the envelope. 

"I always keep all Jimmy's letters, " she said. 

"Look here!" Dion said in a hard voice. "I think I'd better go. "

"Why?"

"You know why. "

"Have I asked you to go?"

"No, but I think I shall clear out. I don't feel like acting a part to aboy. I've never done such a thing, and it isn't at all the sort of thingI could do well. "

"There will be no need to act a part. Be with Jimmy as you were inLondon. "

"Look at me!" he exclaimed with intense bitterness. "Am I the man I wasin London?"

"If you are careful and reasonable, Jimmy won't notice any difference. Hero worship doesn't look at things through a microscope. Jimmy's gothis idea of you. It will be your fault if he changes it. "

"Did you tell him I should be here during the holidays?"

"Yes. "

"I can't help that, " he said, almost brutally. 

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that you answered for me before you knew where I should be. "

He got up from the straw chair on which he was sitting, almost as if hemeant to go away from her and from Buyukderer at once. 

"Dion, you mustn't go, " she said inflexibly. "I can't let you. For ifyou go, you will never come back. "

"How do you know that?"

"I do know it. "

They looked at each other across the fountain; his eyes fell at lastalmost guiltily before her steady glance. 

"And you know it too, " she said. 

"I may go, nevertheless. Who is to prevent me?"

She got up, went to the other side of the fountain, and put her handbehind his arm, after a quick glance round to make sure that no eyeswere watching her. She pushed her hand down gently and held his wrist. 

"Do you realize how badly you sometimes treat me?" she said. 

"Yes. "

She pulled his soft cuff with her little fingers. 

"I do realize it, but I can't help it. I have to do it. "

"If I didn't know that I should mind it much more, " she said. 

"I never thought I had it in me to treat a woman as I sometimes treatyou. I used--to be so different. "

"You were too much the other way. But yours is a nature of extremes. That's partly why I----"

She did not finish the sentence. 

"Then you don't resent my beastliness to you?" he asked. 

"Not permanently. Sometimes you are nice to me. But if you were everto treat me badly when Jimmy was with me, I don't think I could everforgive you. "

"I dread his coming, " said Dion. "I had much better go. If you don't letme go, you may regret it. "

In saying that he acknowledged the power she had already obtained overhim, a power from which he did not feel sure that he could break away, although he was acutely aware of it and sometimes almost bitterlyresented it. Mrs. Clarke knew very well that most men can only be heldwhen they do not know that they are held, but Dion, in his presentcondition, was not like any other man she had known. More than once inthe earliest stages of their intimacy she had had really to fight tokeep him near her, and so he knew how arbitrary she could be when hernature was roused. 

Sometimes he hated her with intensity, for she had set herself todestroy the fabric of his spirit, which not even Rosamund had been ableentirely to destroy by her desertion of him. Sometimes he felt a sort ofugly love of her, because she was the agent through whom he was learningto get rid of all that Rosamund had most prized in him. It was as if hecalled out to her, "Help me to pull down, to tear down, all that I builtup in the long years till not one stone is left upon another. What Ibuilt up was despised and rejected. I won't look upon it any more. I'llraze it to the ground. But I can't do that alone. Come, you, and helpme. " And she came and she helped in the work of destruction, and in anugly, horrible way he loved her for it sometimes, as a criminal mightlove an assistant in his crime. 

But from such a type of love there are terrible reactions. During thesereactions Dion had treated Cynthia Clarke abominably sometimes, showingthe hatred which alternated with his ugly love, if love it couldproperly be called. He hated her in such moments for the fierce lure shehad for the senses, a lure which he felt more and more strongly ashe left farther behind him the old life of sane enjoyments and of thewisdom which walks with restraint; he hated her for the perversity whichhe was increasingly conscious of as he came to know her more intimately;he hated her because he had so much loved the woman who would not makea friend of her; he hated her because he knew that she was drawing himinto a path which led into the center of a maze, the maze of hypocrisy. 

Hitherto Dion had been essentially honest and truthful, what men call"open and above-board. " He had walked clear-eyed in the light; he hadhad nothing dirty to hide; what his relations with others had seemedto be that they had actually been. But since that first night in thepavilion Cynthia Clarke had taught him very thoroughly the hypocrisy aman owes to the woman with whom he has a secret liaison. 

He still believed that till that night she had been what the world calls"a straight woman. " She did not ape a rigid morality for once betrayedby passion, or pretend to any religious scruples, or show any fears ofan eventual punishment held in reserve for all sinners by an implacablePower; she did not, when Dion was brutal to her, ever reproach him withhaving made of her a wicked or even a light woman. But she made him feelby innumerable hints and subtleties that for him she had exchanged asafe life for a life that was beset with danger, the smiled-on life ofa not too conventional virtue for something very different. She seemedsometimes uneasy in her love, as if such a love were an error new to herexperience. 

Jimmy was her chief weapon against Dion's natural sincerity. Dionrealized that she was passionately attached to her boy, and thatshe would make almost any sacrifice rather than lose his respect andaffection. Nevertheless, she was ready to take great risks. The risksshe was not prepared to take were the smaller risks. And in connexionwith them her call for hypocrisy was incessant. If Dion ever tried toresist her demands for small lies and petty deceptions, she would lookat him, and say huskily:

"I have to do these things now because of Jimmy. No one must ever havethe least suspicion of what we are to each other, or some day Jimmymight get to know of it. It isn't my husband I'm afraid of, it's Jimmy. "

If Dion had been by nature a suspicious man, or if he had had a widerexperience with women, Mrs. Clarke's remarkable ingenuity in hypocrisywould almost certainly have suggested to him that she was no novice inthe life of deception. Her appearance of frankness, even of bluntness, was admirable. To every one she presented herself as a woman of strongwill and unconventional temperament who took her own way openly, havingnothing to conceal, and therefore nothing to fear. She made a featureof her friendship with the tragic Englishman; she even dwelt upon itand paraded it for the pretense of blunt and Platonic friendship was thecloud with which she concealed the fire of their illicit relation. Thetrip on the "Leyla" to Brusa had tortured Dion. Since the episode inthe pavilion a more refined torment had been his. Mrs. Clarke had notallowed him to escape from the social ties which were so hateful to him. She had made him understand that he must go among her acquaintancesnow and then, that he must take a certain part in the summer lifeof Therapia and Buyukderer, that the trip to Brusa had been only abeginning. More than once he had tried to break away, but he had notsucceeded in his effort. Her will had been too strong for his, notmerely because she did not fear at moments to be fierce and determined, but because behind her fierceness and determination was an unutteredplea which his not dead chivalry heard; "For you I have become what Iwas falsely accused of being in London. " He remembered the wonderfulfight she had made then; often her look and manner, when they were alonetogether, implied, "I couldn't make such a fight now. " She never saidthat, but she made him float in an atmosphere of that suggestion. 

He believed that she loved him. Sometimes he compared her love with theaffection which Rosamund had given him, and then it seemed to his notvery experienced heart that perhaps intense love can only show itselfby something akin to degradation, by enticements which a genuinelypure nature could never descend to, by perversities which the grandsimplicity and wholesomeness of goodness would certainly abhor. Then adistortion of love presented itself to his tragic investigation asthe only love that was real, and good and evil lost for him their truesignificance. He had said to himself, "Let the spirit die that the bodymay live. " He had wished, he still wished, to pull down. He had a sortof demented desire for ruins and dust. But he longed for action, onthe grand scale. Small secrecies, trickeries, tiptoeing through themaze--all these things revolted that part of his nature which was, perhaps, unchangeable. They seemed to him unmanly. In his presentcondition he could quite easily have lain down in the sink of Pera'siniquity, careless whether any one knew; but it was horribly difficultto him to dine with the Ingletons and Vane at the Villa Hafiz, to say"Good night" to Mrs. Clarke before them, to go away, leaving them inthe villa, and then, very late, to sneak back, with a key, to the gardengate, when all the servants were in bed, and to creep up, like a thief, to the pavilion. Some men would have enjoyed all the small deceptions, would have thought them good fun, would have found that they added asharp zest to the pursuit of a woman. Dion loathed them. 

And now he was confronted with something he was going to loathe farmore, something which would call for more sustained and elaboratedeception than any he had practised yet. He feared the eyes of anEnglish boy more than he feared the eyes of the diplomats and thecosmopolitans of varying types who were gathered on the Bosporus duringthe months of heat. He detested the idea of playing a part to a boy. Howcould a mother lay plots to deceive her son? And yet Mrs. Clarke adoredJimmy. 

Rosamund and Robin started up in his mind. He saw them before him as hehad seen them one night in Westminster when Rosamund had been singingto Robin. Ah, she had been a cruel, a terribly cruel, wife, but she hadbeen an ideal mother! He saw her head bent over her child, the curve ofher arm round his little body. A sensation of sickness came upon him, ofsoul-nausea; and again he thought, "I must get away. "

The night before the day on which Jimmy was due to arrive, Mrs. Clarkewas in Constantinople. She had gone there to meet Jimmy, and had startedearly in the morning, leaving Dion at Buyukderer. When she was gone hetook the Albanian's boat and went out on the Bosporus for a row. The manand he were both at the oars, and pulled out from the bay. When they hadgone some distance--they had been rowing for perhaps ten minutes--theman asked:

"Ou allons-nous, Signore?"

"Vers Constantinople, " replied Dion. 

"Bene!" replied the man. 

That night Mrs. Clarke had just finished dinner when a waiter tapped ather sitting-room door. 

"What is it?" she asked. 

"A gentleman asks if he can see you, Madame. "

"A gentleman? Have you got his card?"

"No, Madame; he gave no card. "

"What is he like?"

"He is English, I think, very thin and very brown. He looks verystrong. "

The waiter paused, then added:

"He has a hungry look. "

Mrs. Clarke stared at the man with her very wide-open eyes. 

"Go down and ask him to wait. "

"Yes, Madame. "

The man went out. When he had shut the door Mrs. Clarke called:

"Sonia!"

Her raised voice was rather harsh. 

The bedroom door was opened, and the Russian maid looked into thesitting-room. 

"Sonia, " said Mrs. Clarke rapidly in French, "some one--a man--hascalled and asked for me. He's waiting in the hall. Go down and see whoit is. If it's Mr. Leith you can bring him up. "

"And if it is not Monsieur Leith?"

"Come back and tell me who it is. "

The maid came out of the bedroom, shut the door, crossed thesitting-room rather heavily on flat feet, and went out on to thelanding. 

"Shut the door!" Mrs. Clarke called after her. 

When the sitting-room door was shut she sat waiting with her foreheaddrawn to a frown. She did not move till the sitting-room door was openedby the maid and a man walked in. 

"Monsieur Leith, " said the maid. 

And she disappeared. 

"Come and sit down, " said Mrs. Clarke. "Why have you come to Pera?"

"I wanted to speak to you. "

"How tired you look! Have you had dinner?"

"No, I don't want it. "

"Did you come by steamer?"

"No, I rowed down. "

"All the way?"

He nodded. 

"Where are you staying?"

"I haven't decided yet where I shall stay. Not here, of course. "

"Of course not. Dion, sit down. "

He sat down heavily. 

"If you haven't decided about an hotel, where is your luggage?"

"I haven't brought any. "

She said nothing, but her distressed eyes questioned him. 

"I started out for a row. The current set towards Constantinople, so Icame here. "

"I'm glad, " she said. 

But she did not look glad. 

"We can spend a quiet evening together, " she added nonchalantly. 

"I didn't come for that, " he said. 

He began to get up, but she put one hand on him. 

"Do sit still. What is it, then? Whatever it is, tell me quietly. "

He yielded to her soft but very imperative touch, and sat back in hischair. 

"Now, what is it?"

"I'm sure you know. It's Jimmy. "

She lowered her eyelids, and her pale forehead puckered. 

"Jimmy! What about Jimmy?"

"I don't want to be at Buyukderer while he's with you. "

"And you have rowed all the way from Buyukderer to Constantinople, without even a brush and comb, to tell me that!"

"I told you at Buyukderer. "

"And we decided that it would be much jollier for Jimmy to have youthere for his holidays. I depend upon you to make things tolerablefor Jimmy. You know how few people there are near us who would troublethemselves about a boy. You will be my stand-by with Jimmy all throughhis holidays. "

She spoke serenely, even cheerfully, but there was a decisive sound inher voice, and the eyes fixed upon him were full of determination. 

"I can't understand how you can be willing to act a lie to your own boy, especially when you care for him so much, " said Dion, almost violently. 

"I shall not act a lie. "

"But you will. "

"Sometimes you are horribly morbid, " she said coldly. 

"Morbid! Because I want to keep a young schoolboy out of--"

"Take care, Dion!" she interrupted hastily. 

"If you--you don't really love Jimmy, " he said. 

"I forbid you to say that. "

"I will say it. It's true. "

And he repeated with a cruelly deliberate emphasis:

"You don't really love Jimmy. "

Her white face was suddenly flooded with red, which even covered herforehead to the roots of her hair. She put up one hand with violence andtried to strike Dion on the mouth. He caught her wrist. 

"Be quiet!" he said roughly. 

Gripping her wrist with his hard, muscular brown fingers he repeated:

"You don't love Jimmy. "

"Do you wish me to hate you?"

"I don't care. I don't care what happens to me. "

She sat looking down. The red began to fade out of her face. Presentlyshe curled her fingers inwards against his palm and smiled faintly. 

"I am not going to quarrel with you, " she said quietly. 

He loosened his grip on her; but now she caught and held his hand. 

"I do love Jimmy, and you know it when you aren't mad. But I care foryou, too, and I am not going to lose you. If you went away while Jimmywas out here I should never see you again. You would disappear. Perhapsyou would cross over to Asia. "

Her great eyes were fixed steadily upon him. 

"Ah, you have thought of that!" she said, almost in a whisper. 

He was silent. 

"Women would get hold of you. You would sink; you would be ruined, destroyed. I know!"

"If I were it wouldn't matter. "

"To me it would. I can't risk it. I am not going to risk it. "

Dion leaned forward. His brown face was twitching. 

"Suppose you had to choose between Jimmy and me!"

He was thinking of Robin and Rosamund. A child had conquered him once. Now once again a child--for Jimmy was no more than a child as yet, although he thought himself important and almost a young man--intrudedinto his life with a woman. 

"I shall not have to choose. But I have told you that a child is notenough for the happiness of a woman like me. You know what I am, and youmust know I am speaking the truth. "

"Did you love your husband?" he asked, staring into her eyes. 

"Yes, " she replied, without even a second of hesitation. "I did till hesuspected me. "

"And then----"

"Not after that, " she said grimly. 

"I wonder he let you do all you did. "

"What do you mean?"

She let his hand go. 

"I would never have let you go about with other men, however innocently. I thought about that at your trial. "

"I should never let any one interfere with my freedom of action. If aman loves me I expect him to trust me. "

"You don't trust me. "

"Sometimes you almost hate me. I know that. "

"Sometimes I hate everybody, myself most of all. But I should miss you. You are the only woman in all the world who wants me now. "

Suddenly a thought of his mother intruded into his mind, and he added:

"Wants me as a lover. "

She got up quickly, almost impulsively, and went close to him. 

"Yes, I want you, I want you as a lover, and I can't let you go. That iswhy I ask you, I beg you, to stay with me while Jimmy's here. "

She leaned against him, and put her small hands on his shoulders. 

"How can a child understand the needs of a woman like me and of a manlike you? How can he look into our hearts or read the secrets of ournatures--secrets which we can't help having? You hate what you calldeceiving him. But he will never think about it. A boy of Jimmy's agenever thinks about his mother in that way. "

"I know. That's just it!"

"What do you mean?"

But he did not explain. Perhaps instinctively he felt that her naturalsubtlety could not be in accord with his natural sincerity, felt that indiscussing certain subjects they talked in different languages. She puther arms round his neck. 

"I need the two lives, " she said, in a very low voice. "I need Jimmy andI need you. Is it so very wonderful? Often when a woman who isn't oldloses her husband and is left with her child people say, 'It's allright for her. She has got her child. ' And so she's dismissed to hermotherhood, as if that must be quite enough for her. Dion, Dion, theworld doesn't know, or doesn't care, how women suffer. Women don't speakabout such things. But I am telling you because I don't want to havesecrets from you. I have suffered. Perhaps I have some pride in me. Anyhow, I don't care to go about complaining. You know that. You musthave found that out in London. I keep my secrets, but not from you. "

She put her white cheek against his brown one. 

"It's only the two lives joined together that make life complete fora woman who is complete, who isn't lopsided, lacking in somethingessential, something that nature intends. I am a complete woman, and I'mnot ashamed of it. Do you think I ought to be?"

She sighed against his cheek. 

"You are a courageous woman, " he said; "I do know that. "

"Don't _you_ test my courage. Perhaps I'm getting tired of beingcourageous. "

She put her thin lips against his. 

"It's acting--deception I hate, " he murmured. "With a boy especially Ilike always to be quite open. "

Again he thought of Robin and of his old ideal of a father's relationto his son; he thought of his preparation to be worthy of fatherhood, worthy to guide a boy's steps in the path towards a noble manhood. And aterrible sense of the irony of life almost overcame him. For a momenthe seemed to catch a glimpse of the Creator laughing in darkness at theaspiration of men; for a moment he was beset by the awful convictionthat the world is ruled by a malign Deity. 

"All the time Jimmy is at Buyukderer we'll just be friends, " said thehusky voice against his cheek. 

The sophistry of her remark struck home to him, but he made no commentupon it. 

"There are white deceptions, " she continued, "and black deceptions, asthere are white and black lies. Whom are we hurting, you and I?"

"Whom are we hurting?" he said, releasing himself from her. 

And he thought of God in a different way--in Rosamund's way. 

"Yes?"

He looked at her as if he were going to speak, but he said nothing. Hefelt that if he answered she would not understand, and her face made himdoubtful. Which view of life was the right one, Rosamund's or CynthiaClarke's? Rosamund had been pitiless to him and Cynthia Clarke wasmerciful. She put her arms round his neck when he was in misery, shewanted him despite the tragedy that was his perpetual companion. Perhapsher view of life was right. It was a good working view, anyhow, and wasno doubt held by many people. 

"We can base our lives on truth, " she continued, as he said nothing. "Onbeing true to ourselves. That is the great truth. But we can't alwaystell it to all the casual people about us, or even to those who areclosely in our lives, as for instance Jimmy is in mine. They wouldn'tunderstand. But some day Jimmy will be able to understand. "

"Do you mean----"

"I mean just this: if Jimmy were twenty-one I would tell himeverything. "

He looked down into her eyes, which never fell before the eyes ofanother. 

"I believe you would, " he said. 

She continued looking at him, as if tranquilly waiting for something. 

"I'll--I'll go back to Buyukderer, " he said. 

CHAPTER VII

In his contrition for the attack which he had made upon the honor of hiswife at his mother's instigation, Beadon Clarke had given up allclaims on his boy's time. Actually, though not legally, Mrs. Clarke hadcomplete control over Jimmy. He spent all his holidays with her, andseldom saw his father, who was still attached to the British Embassy inMadrid. He had never been allowed to read any reports of the famous casewhich had been fought out between his parents, and was understood tothink that his father and mother had, for some mysterious reason, foundit impossible to "hit it off together, " and had therefore decidedto live apart. He was now rather vaguely fond of his father, whom heconsidered to be "quite a good sort, " but he was devoted to his mother. Mrs. Clarke's peculiar self-possession and remarkably strong will made agreat impression on Jimmy. "It's jolly difficult to score my mater off, I can tell you, " he occasionally remarked to his more intimate chums atschool. He admired her appearance, her elegance, and the charm of herway of living, which he called "doing herself jolly well"; even herunsmiling face and characteristic lack of what is generally calledvivacity won his approval. "My mater's above all that silly gushing andgiggling so many women go in for, don't you know, " was his verdict onMrs. Clarke's usually serious demeanor. Into her gravity boyishly heread dignity of character, and in his estimation of her he set her veryhigh. Although something of a pickle, and by nature rather recklessand inclined to be wild, he was swiftly obedient to his mother, partlyperhaps because, understanding young males as well as she understoodmale beings of all ages, she very seldom drew the reins tight. He knewvery well that she loved him. 

On the evening of his arrival at Buyukderer for the summer holidaysJimmy had a confidential talk with his mother about "Mr. Leith, " whomhe had not yet seen, but about whom he had been making many anxiousinquiries. 

"I'll tell you to-night, " his mother had replied. And after dinner shefulfilled her promise. 

"You'll see Mr. Leith to-morrow, " she said. 

"Well, I should rather think so!" returned Jimmy, in an injured voice. "Where is he?"

"He's living in rooms in the house of a Greek not far from here. "

"I thought he was in the hotel. I say, mater, can't I have a cigarettejust for once?"

"Yes, you may, just for once. "

Jimmy approached the cigarette box with the air of a nonchalantconqueror. As he opened it with an apparently practised forefinger heremarked:

"Well, mater?"

"He's left the hotel. You know, Jimmy, Mr. Leith has had greatmisfortunes. "

Jimmy had heard of the gun accident and its terrible result, and he nowlooked very grave. 

"I know--poor chap!" he observed. "But it wasn't his fault. It was thelittle brute of a pony. Every one knows that. It was rotten bad luck, but who would be down on a fellow for bad luck?"

"Exactly. But it's changed Mr. Leith's life. His wife has left him. He'sgiven up his business, and is, consequently, less well off than he was. But this isn't all. "

Jimmy tenderly struck a match, lighted a cigarette, and, withhalf-closed eyes, blew forth in a professional manner a delicate cloudof smoke. He was feeling good all over. 

"First-rate cigarettes!" he remarked. "The very best! Yes, mater?"

"He's rather badly broken up. "

"No wonder!" said Jimmy, with discrimination. 

"You'll find him a good deal changed. Sometimes he's moody and evenbad-tempered, poor fellow, and he's fearfully sensitive. I'm trying mybest to buck him up. "

"Good for you, mater! He's our friend. We're bound to stand by him. "

"And that's exactly what I'm trying to do. When he's a little difficult, doesn't take things quite as one means them--you know?"

"Rather! Do I?"

"I put it down to all the trouble he's been through. I never resent it. Now I ought really to have got out a holiday tutor for you. "

"Oh, I say, after I've swotted my head off all these months! A chapneeds some rest if he's to do himself justice, hang it, mater, now!"

"I know all about that!"

She looked at him shrewdly, and he smiled on one side of his mouth. 

"Go on, mater!"

"But having Mr. Leith here I thought I wouldn't do that. Mr. Leith'sawfully fond of boys, and it seemed to me you might do him more goodthan any one else could. "

"Well, I'm blowed! D'you really think so?"

Jimmy came over and sat on the arm of her chair, blowing rings of smokecleverly over her lovely little head. 

"Put me up to it, mater, there's a good girl. I'm awfully keen on Mr. Leith, as you know. He's got the biggest biceps I ever saw, and I'mjolly sorry for him. What can I do? Put me up to it. "

And Mrs. Clarke proceeded to put Jimmy up to it. She had told Dion thatJimmy wouldn't see the difference in him. Now she carefully preparedJimmy to face that difference, and gave him his cue for the part shewished him to play. Jimmy felt very important as he listened to herexplanations, trifling seriously with his cigarette, and looking veryworldly-wise. 

"I twig!" he interrupted occasionally, nodding his round young head, which was covered with densely thick, rather coarse hair. "I've got it. "

And he went off to bed very seriously, resolved to take Mr. Leith inhand and to do his level best for him. 

So it was that when Dion and he met next day he was not surprised atthe change in Dion's appearance and manner. Nor were his young eyesmerciless in their scrutiny. Just at first, perhaps, they stared withthe unthinking observation of boyhood, but almost immediately Jimmy hadtaken the cue his mother had given him, and had entered into his part ofa driver-away of trouble. 

He played it well, with a tact that was almost remarkable in so younga boy; and Dion, ignorant of what Mrs. Clarke had done on the night ofJimmy's arrival, was at first surprised at the ease with which theygot on together. He had dreaded Jimmy's coming, partly because of thesecrets he must keep from the boy, but partly also because of Robin. A boy's hands would surely tear at the wound which was always open. Sometimes Dion felt horribly sad when he was in contact with Jimmy'slight-hearted and careless gaiety; sometimes he felt the gnawingdiscomfort of one not by nature a hypocrite forced into a passivehypocrisy; nevertheless there were moments when the burden of his lifewas made a little lighter on his shoulders by the confidence his youngcompanion had in him, by the admiration for him showed plainly by Jimmy, by the leaping spirits which ardently summoned a reply in kind. 

The subtlety of Mrs. Clarke, too, helped Dion at first. 

Since her son's arrival, without ostentation she had lived for him. Sheentered into all Jimmy's plans, was ready to share his excitements andto taste, with him, those pleasures which were possible to a woman aswell as to a boy. But she was quick to efface herself where she sawthat she was not needed or might even be in the way. As a mother she wasdevoid of jealousy, was unselfish without seeming to be so. She didnot parade her virtue. Her reticence was that of a perfectly finishedartist. When she was wanted she was on the spot; when she was notwanted she disappeared. She sped Dion and Jimmy on their way to boating, shooting, swimming expeditions, with the happiest grace, and neverassumed the look and manner of the patient woman "left behind. "

Not once, since Jimmy's arrival, had she shown to Dion even a trace ofthe passionate and perverse woman he now knew her to be under her palemask of self-controlled and very mental composure. At the hotel inConstantinople she had said to Dion, "All the time Jimmy's at Buyukdererwe'll just be friends. " Now she seemed utterly to have forgotten thatthey had ever been what the world calls lovers, that they had beeninvolved in scenes of passion, and brutality, and exhaustion, that theyhad torn aside the veil of reticence behind which women and men hidefrom each other normally the naked truth of what they can be. Shetreated Dion casually, though very kindly, as a friend, and never, evenby the swift glance or a lingering touch of her fingers, reminded him ofthe fires that burned within her. Even when she was alone with him, whenJimmy ran off, perhaps, unexpectedly in the wake of a passing caprice, she never departed from her role of the friend who was before all thingsa mother. 

So perfect was her hypocrisy, so absolutely natural in itsmanifestation, that sometimes, looking at her, Dion could scarcelyforbear from thinking that she had forgotten all about their illicitconnexion; that she had put it behind her forever; that she was oneof those happy people who possess the power of slaying the past andblotting the murder out of their memories. 

That scene between them in Constantinople on the eve of Jimmy'sarrival--had it ever taken place? Had she really ever tried to strikehim on the mouth? Had he caught her wrist in a grip of iron? It seemedincredible. 

And if he was involved in a great hypocrisy since the boy's arrival hewas released from innumerable lesser hypocrisies. His life at presentwas what it seemed to be to the little world on the Bosporus. 

Just at first he did not realize that though Mrs. Clarke genuinely lovedher son she was not too scrupulous to press his unconscious services inaid of her hypocrisy. 

The holiday tutor whom she ought to have got out from England to improvethe shining hour on Jimmy's behalf was replaced by Dion in the eyes ofMrs. Clarke's world. 

One day she said to Dion:

"Will you do me a good turn?"

"Yes, if I can. "

"It may bore you. "

"What is it?"

"Read a little bit with Jimmy sometimes, will you? He's abominablyignorant, and will never be a scholar, but I should like him just tokeep up his end at school. "

"But I haven't got any school-books. "

"I have. He's specially behindhand with his Greek. His report tells methat. If you'll do a little Greek grammar and construing with him in themornings now and them, I shall be tremendously grateful. You see, owing to my miserable domestic circumstances, Jimmy is practicallyfatherless. "

"And you ask me to take his father's place!" was in Dion's mind. 

But she met his eyes so earnestly and with such sincerity that he onlysaid:

"Of course I'll read with him in the mornings. "

Despite the ardent protests to Jimmy Dion kept his promise. Soon Mrs. Clarke's numerous acquaintances knew of the morning hours of study. Shehad happened to tell Sir Carey Ingleton about Jimmy's backwardness inbook-learning and Mr. Leith's kind efforts to "get him on during theholidays. " Sir Carey had spoken of it to Cyril Vane. The thing "gotabout. " The name of Dion Leith began to be connected rather with JimmyClarke than with Mrs. Clarke. Continually Dion and Jimmy were seen abouttogether. Mrs. Clarke, meanwhile, often went among her friends alone, and when they asked about Jimmy she would say:

"Oh, he's gone off somewhere with Mr. Leith. I don't know where. Mr. Leith's a regular boy's man and was a great chum of Jimmy's in London;used to show him how to box and that sort of thing. It's partly forJimmy that he came to Buyukderer. They read together in the mornings. Mr. Leith's getting Jimmy on in Greek. "

Sometimes she would add:

"Mr. Leith loves boys, and since his own child died so sadly I thinkhe's taken to Jimmy more than ever. "

Soon people began to talk of Dion Leith as "Jimmy Clarke's holidaytutor. " Once, when this was said in Lady Ingleton's drawing-room atTherapia, she murmured:

"I don't think it quite amounts to that. Mr. Leith has never been aschoolmaster. "

And there she left it, with a faint smile in which there was just thehint of an almost cynical sadness. 

Since the trip to Brusa on the "Leyla" she had thought a great dealabout Dion Leith, and she was very sorry for him in a rather unusualway. Out of her happiness with her husband she seemed to draw aninstinctive knowledge of what such a nature as Dion Leith's wanted andof the extent of his loss. Once she said to Sir Carey, with a sort ofintensity such as she seldom showed:

"Good women do terrible things sometimes. "

"Such as----?" said Sir Carey, looking at her almost with surprise inhis eyes. 

"I think Mrs. Leith has done a terrible thing to her husband. "

"Perhaps she loved the child too much. "

"Even love can be almost abominable, " said Lady Ingleton. "If we had achild, and you had done what poor Dion Leith has done, do you think Ishould have cast you out of my life?"

"But--are you a good woman?" he asked her, smiling. 

"No, or you should never have bothered about me. "

He touched her hand. 

"When you do that, " Lady Ingleton said, "I could almost cry over poorDion Leith. "

Sir Carey bent down and kissed her with a very tender gallantry. 

"You and I are secretly sentimentalists, Delia, " he said. "That is whywe are so happy together. "

"Why doesn't Dion Leith go to England?" she exclaimed, almost angrily. 

"Perhaps England seems full of his misery. Besides, his wife is there. "

"He ought to go to her. He ought to force her to see the evil she isdoing. "

"Leith will never do that, I feel sure, " said Sir Carey gravely. "And inhis place I don't know that I could. "

Lady Ingleton looked at him with an almost sharp impatience such as sheseldom showed him. 

"When a man has right on his side he ought to browbeat a woman!" sheexclaimed. "And even if he is in the wrong it's the best way to makea woman see things through his eyes. Dion Leith is too delicate withwomen. "

After a moment she added:

"At any rate with some women, the first of whom is his own wife. A manshould always put up a big fight for a really big thing, and Dion Leithhasn't done that!"

"He fought in South Africa for England. "

"Ah, " she said, lifting her chin, "that sort of thing is so different. "

"Tell him what you think, " said the Ambassador. 

"I know him so little. But perhaps--who knows--some day I shall. "

She said no more on that subject. 

Meanwhile Dion was teaching Jimmy, who was really full of the happiestignorance. Jimmy's knowledge of Greek was a minus quantity, and he saidfrankly that he considered all that kind of thing "more or less rot. "Nevertheless, Dion persevered. One morning when they were going to getto work as usual in the pavilion, --chose by Mrs. Clarke as the suitableplace for his studies, --taking up the Greek Grammar Dion opened itby chance. He stood by the table from which he had picked the book upstaring down at the page. By one of those terrible rushes of which themind is capable he was swept back to the famous mound which fronts theplain of Marathon; he saw the curving line of hills, the sea intenselyblue and sparkling, empty of ships, the river's course through thetawny land marked by the tall reeds and the sedges; he heard the distantlowing of cattle coming from that old battlefield, celebrated by poetsand historians. And then he heard, as if just above him, the dry crackleof brushwood--Rosamund moving in the habitation of Arcady. And heremembered the cry, the intense human cry which had echoed in therecesses of his soul on that day long--how long--ago in Greece, "Whither? Whither am I and my great love going? To what end are wejourneying?"

He heard again that cry of his soul in the pavilion at Buyukderer, andbeneath the sunburn his lean cheeks went lividly pale. 

Reluctantly Jimmy was getting an exercise book and a pen and ink out ofthe drawer of a table, which Mrs. Clarke had had specially made for thelessons by a little Greek carpenter who sometimes did odd jobs for her. He found the ink bottle almost empty. 

"I say, " he began. 

He looked up. 

"I say, Mr. Leith----"

His voice died away and he stared. 

"What's wrong?" he managed to bring out at last. 

He thrust out a hand and laid hold of the grammar. Dion let it go. 

His eyes searched the page. 

"What's up, Mr. Leith?"

He looked frankly puzzled and almost afraid. He had never seen any onelook just like that before. 

There was a moment of silence. Then, with a sudden change of manner, Dion exclaimed:

"Come on, Jimmy! I don't feel like doing lessons this morning. I votewe go out. I'm going to ask your mother if we can ride to the Belgradforest. Perhaps she'll come with us. "

He was suddenly afraid to remain alone with the boy, and he felt thathe could not stay in that pavilion full of the atmosphere of feverishpassion, of secrecy, of betrayal. Yes, of betrayal! For there he hadbetrayed the obstinate love, which he had felt at Marathon as a sort ofecstasy, and still felt, but now like a wound, within him in spite ofRosamund's rejection of him. Not yet had the current taken him and swepthim away from all the old landmarks. Perhaps it never would. And yet hehad given himself to it, he had not tried to resist. 

Jimmy jumped up with alacrity, though he still looked rather grave andastonished. They went down the terraced garden to the villa. 

"Run up and ask your mother, " said Dion. "Probably she's in hersitting-room. I'll wait here to know what she says. "

"Right you are!"

He went off, looking rather relieved. 

Robin at fifteen! Dion shut his eyes. 

Jimmy was away for more than ten minutes. Then he came back to say thathis mother would come with them to the forest and would be ready in anhour's time. 

"I'll go back to my rooms, change my breeches, and order the horses, "said Dion. 

He was longing to get away from the scrutiny which at this moment Jimmycould not forego. He knew that Jimmy had been talking about him to Mrs. Clarke, had probably been saying how "jolly odd" he had been inthe pavilion. For once the boy's tact had failed him, and Dion'ssensitiveness tingled. 

An hour later they were on horseback and rode into the midst of theforest. At the village of Belgrad they dismounted, left the horses inthe care of a Turkish stableman, and went for a walk among the trees. It was very hot and still, and presently Mrs. Clarke said she would sitdown and rest. 

"You and Jimmy go on if you want to, " she said. 

But Jimmy threw himself down on the ground. 

"I'm tired. It's so infernally hot. "

"Take a nap, " said his mother. 

The boy laid his head on his curved arms sideways. Mrs. Clarke leaneddown and put his panama hat over his left cheek and eye. 

"Thank you, mater, " he murmured. 

He lay still. 

Dion had stood by with an air of hesitation during this little talkbetween mother and son. Now he looked away to the forest. 

"You go, " Mrs. Clarke said to him. "You'll find us here when you comeback. The Armenians call the forest _Defetgamm_. Perhaps you will comeunder its influence. "

"_Defetgamm_! What does that mean?"

"Dispeller of care. "

He stood looking at her for a moment; then, without another word, heturned quickly away and disappeared among the trees. 

Jimmy slept with his face hidden, and Mrs. Clarke, with wide-open eyes, sat motionless staring into the forest. 

When they reached the Villa Hafiz late in the afternoon Dion helpedMrs. Clarke to dismount. As she slid down lightly from the saddle shewhispered, scarcely moving her lips:

"The pavilion to-night eleven. You've got the key. "

She patted Selim's glossy black neck. 

"Come, Jimmy!" she said. "Say good night to Mr. Leith. I'm sure he'stired and has had more than enough of us for to-day. We'll give him arest from us till to-morrow. "

And Jimmy bade Dion good-by without any protest. 

As Dion rode off Mrs. Clarke did not turn to look after him. She hadnot troubled even to question him with her eyes. She had assumed that hewould do what she wanted. Would he do that?

At first he believed that he would not go. He had been away in theforest with his misery for nearly two hours, struggling among theshadows of the trees. Jimmy had seen in the pavilion that morning thathis "holiday tutor" was strangely ill at ease, and had discussed thematter with his mater, and asked her why on earth the sight of a pageof Greek grammar should make a fellow stand staring as if he wereconfronted by a ghost. But Jimmy had no conception of what Dion hadbeen through in the forest, where happy Greeks and Armenians were lazilyenjoying the empty hours of summer, forgetting yesterday, and serenelycareless of to-morrow. 

In the forest Dion had fought with an old love of which he began to beangrily ashamed, with a love which was now his greatest enemy, a thingcontemptible, inexplicable. In the pavilion that morning it had suddenlyrisen up before him strong, intense, passionate. It seemed irresistible. But he was almost furiously resolved not merely to resist it, but tocrush it down, to break it in pieces, or to drive it finally out of hislife. 

And he had fought with it alone in the forest which the Armenians call_Defetgamm_. And in the forest something--some adherent, it seemed--hadwhispered to him, "To kill your enemy you must fill your armory withweapons. The woman who came to you when you were neither in one worldnor in the other is a weapon. Why have you ceased to use her?"

And now, as if she had heard the voice of that adherent, and had knownof the struggle in the forest, the woman herself had suddenly brokenthrough the reserve she had imposed upon them both since the coming ofher son. 

In a hideous way Dion wanted to see her, and yet he shrank from goingback to her secretly. The coming of Jimmy, his relations with the boy, the boy's hearty affection for him and admiration for him, had rousedinto intense activity that part of his nature which had always loved, which he supposed always must love, the straight life; the life withmorning face and clear, unfaltering eyes; the life which the Hermessuggested, immune from the fret and fever of secret vices and passions, lifted by winged sandals into a region where soul and body were inperfect accord, and where, because of that, there was peace; not a peaceof stagnation, but a peace living and intense. But that part of hisnature had led him even now instinctively back to the feet of Rosamund. And he revolted against such a pilgrimage. 

"The pavilion to-night eleven; you've got the key. "

Her face had not changed as she whispered the words, and immediatelyafterwards she had told a lie to her boy, or had implied a lie. She hadmade Jimmy believe the thing that was not. Loving Jimmy, she did notscruple to play a part to him. 

Dion ate no dinner that night. After returning to his rooms and gettingout of his riding things into a loose serge suit he went out again andwalked along the quay by the water. He paced up and down, ignoring themany passers-by, the boatmen and watermen who now knew him so well. 

He was considering whether he should go to the pavilion at the appointedhour or whether he should leave Buyukderer altogether and not return toit. This evening he was in the mood to be drastic. He might go down toConstantinople and finally cast his burden away there, never to take itup again--the burden of an old love whose chains still hung about him;he might plunge into the lowest depths, into depths where perhaps theremembrance of Rosamund and the early morning would fade away from him, where even Mrs. Clarke would not care to seek for him, although her willwas persistent. 

He fully realized now her extraordinary persistence, the fierce firmnessof character that was concealed by her quiet and generally impersonalmanner. Certainly she had the temperament of a ruler. He remembered--itseemed to him with a bizarre abruptness--the smile on Dumeny's lips inthe Divorce Court when the great case had ended in Mrs. Clarke's favor. 

Did he really know Cynthia Clarke even now?

He walked faster. Now he saw Hadi Bey before him, self-possessed, firm, with that curiously vivid look which had attracted the many women inCourt. 

And Jimmy believed in his mother. Perhaps, until Dion's arrival inBuyukderer, the boy had had reason in his belief--perhaps not. Dion wasvery uncertain to-night. 

A sort of cold curiosity was born in him. Until now he had accepted Mrs. Clarke's presentment of herself to the world, which included himself, as a genuine portrait; now he began to recall the long speech of BeadonClarke's counsel. But the man had only been speaking according to hisbrief, had been only putting forth all the ingenuity and talent whichenabled him to command immense fees for his services. And Mrs. Clarkehad beaten him. The jury had said that she was not what he had assertedher to be. 

Suppose they had made a mistake, had given the wrong verdict, whyshould that make any difference to Dion? He had definitely done with thegoodness of good women. Why should he fear the evil of a woman who wasbad? Perhaps in the women who were called evil by the respectable, or bythose who were temperamentally inclined to purity, there was more warmhumanity than the women possessed who never made a slip, or steppedout of the beaten path of virtue. Perhaps those to whom much must beforgiven were those who knew how to forgive. 

If Mrs. Clarke really were what Beadon Clarke's counsel had suggestedthat she was, how would it affect him? Dion pondered that question onthe quay. Mrs. Clarke's pale and very efficient hypocrisy, which he hadbeen able to observe at close quarters since he had been at Buyukderer, might well have been brought into play against himself, as it had beenbrought into play against the little world on the Bosporus and againstJimmy. 

Dion made up his mind that he would go to the pavilion that night. Thecold curiosity which had floated up to the surface of his mind enticedhim. He wanted to know whether he was among the victims, if they couldreasonably be called so, of Mrs. Clarke's delicate hypocrisy. He wasstill thinking of Mrs. Clarke as a weapon; he was also thinking thatperhaps he did not yet know exactly what type of weapon she was. He mustfind that out to-night. Not even the thought of Jimmy should deter him. 

At a few minutes before eleven he went back to his rooms, unlocked hisdespatch box, and drew out the key of the gate of Mrs. Clarke's garden. He thrust it into his pocket and set out on the short walk to the VillaHafiz. The night was dark and cloudy and very still. Dion walked quicklyand surreptitiously, not looking at any of the people who went by himin the darkness. All the windows of the villa which faced the sea wereshuttered and showed no lights. He turned to the right, stood before thegarden gate and listened. He heard no sound except a distant singing onthe oily waters of the Bay. Softly he put his key into the gate, gentlyunlocked it, stepped into the garden. A few minutes later he was on thehighest terrace and approached the pavilion. As he did so Mrs. Clarkecame out of the drawing-room of the villa, passed by the fountain, andbegan to ascend the garden. 

She was dressed in black and in a material that did not rustle. Her thinfigure did not show up against the night, and her light slow footfallwas scarcely audible on the paths and steps as she went upward. Jimmyhad gone to bed long ago, tired out with the long ride in the heat. She had just been into his bedroom, without a light, and had heard hisregular breathing. He was fast asleep, and once he was asleep he neverwoke till the light of day shone in at the window. It was a comfort thatone could thoroughly rely on the sleeping powers of a healthy boy offifteen. 

She sighed as she thought of Jimmy. The boy was going to complicateher life. She was by nature an unusually fearless woman, but she wasbeginning to realize that there might come a time when she would knowfear--unless she could begin to live differently as Jimmy began togrow up. But how could she do that? There are things which seem to beimpossible even to strong wills. Her will was very strong, but she hadalways used it not to renounce but to attain, not to hold her desires incheck but to bring them to fruition. And it was late in the day to beginreversing the powerful engine of her will. She was not even sure thatshe could reverse it. Hitherto she had never genuinely tried to do that. She did not want to try now, partly--but only partly--because she hatedto fail in anything she undertook. And she had a suspicion, which shewas not anxious to turn into a certainty, that she who had ruled manypeople was only a slave herself. Perhaps some day Jimmy would force herto a knowledge of her exact condition. 

For the first time in her life she was half afraid of that mysteriousenergy which men and women call love; she began to understand, witha sort of ample fulness of comprehension, that of all loves the mostdetermined is the love of a mother for her only son. A mother may, perhaps, have a son and not love him; but if once she loves him sheholds within her a thing that will not die while she lives. 

And if the thing that was without lust stood up in battle against thething that was full of lust--what then?

The black and still night seemed a battlefield. 

Softly she stepped upon the highest terrace and stood for a moment underthe great plane tree, where was the wooden seat on which she had waitedfor Dion to weep away the past and the good woman who had ruined hislife. To-night she was invaded by an odd uncertainty. If she went to thepavilion and Dion were not there? If he did not come? Would some partof her, perhaps, be glad, the part that in a mysterious way was one withJimmy? She stared into the darkness, looking towards the pavilion. DionLeith had once said she looked punished. Perhaps when he had said thathe had shown that he had intuition. 

Was he there? It was past eleven now. She had assumed that he wouldcome, and she was inclined to believe that he had come. If so she neednot see him even now. There was still time for her to go back to thevilla, to shut herself in, to go to bed, as Jimmy had gone to bed. Butif she did that she would not sleep. All night long she would lie wideawake, tossing from side to side, the helpless prey of her past life. 

She frowned and slipped through the darkness, almost like a fluid, tothe pavilion. 

CHAPTER VIII

She came so silently that Dion heard nothing till against the backgroundof the night he saw a shadow, her thin body, a faint whiteness, herface, motionless at the opening of the pavilion; from this shadow andthis whiteness came a voice which said:

"Did you come under the influence of _Defetgamm_?"

"It's impossible that you see me!" he said. 

"I see you plainly with some part of me, not my eyes. "

He got up from the divan where he had been sitting in the dark and wentto the opening of the pavilion. 

"Did you come under the influence of _Defetgamm_?" she repeated. 

"You know I didn't. "

He paused, then added:

"I nearly didn't come to-night. "

"And I nearly went down, after I had come up here, without seeing you. And yet--we are together again. "

"Why do you want to see me here? We agreed--"

"Yes, we agreed; but after to-day in the forest that agreement had to bebroken. When you left me under the trees you looked like a man who wasthinking of starting on a very long journey. "

She spoke with a peculiar significance which at once conveyed her fullmeaning to him. 

"No, I shall never do that, " he said. "If I had been capable of it, Ishould have done it long ago. "

"Yes? Let me in. "

He moved. She slipped into the pavilion and sat down. 

"How can you move without making any sound?" he asked somberly. 

There had been in her movement a sort of perfection of surreptitiousnessthat was animal. He noticed it, and thought that she must surely beaccustomed to moving with precaution lest she should be seen or heard. Rosamund could not move like that. A life story seemed to him to befaintly traced in Mrs. Clarke's manner of entering the pavilion and ofsitting down on the divan. 

He stood beside her in the dark. She returned no answer to his question. 

"You spoke of a journey, " he said. "The only journey I have thoughtof making is short enough--to Constantinople. I nearly started on itto-night. "

"Why do you want to go to Constantinople?"

He was silent. 

"What would you do there?"

"Ugly things, perhaps. "

"Why didn't you go? What kept you?"

"I felt that I must ask you something. "

He sat down beside her and took both her hands roughly. They were dryand burning as if with fever. 

"You trick Jimmy, " he said. "You trick the Ingletons, Vane, all thepeople here--"

"Trick!" she interrupted coldly, almost disdainfully. "What do youmean?"

"That you deceive them, take them in. "

"What about?"

"You know quite well. "

After a pause, which was perhaps--he could not tell--a pause ofastonishment, she said:

"Do you really expect me to go about telling every one that I, a lonelywoman, separated from my husband, unable to marry again, have met a manwhom I care for, and that I've been weak enough--or wicked enough, ifyou like--to let him know it?"

Dion felt his cheeks burn in the darkness. Nevertheless, something drovehim on, forced him to push his way hardily through a sort of quicksethedge of reluctance and shame. 

"No, I don't expect absurdities. I am not such a fool. But--but you doit so well!"

"Do what well?"

"Everything connected with deception. You are such a mistress of it. "

"Well?"

"Isn't that rather strange?"

"Do you expect a woman like me, a woman who can't pretend to stupidity, and who has lived for years in the diplomatic world, to blunder in whatshe undertakes?"

"No, I don't. But you are too competent. "

He spoke with hard determination, but his cheeks were still burning. 

"It's impossible to be too competent. If I make up my mind that a thingmust be done I resolve to do it thoroughly and to do it well. I despiseblunderers and women who are afraid of what they do. I despise those whogive themselves and others away. I cared for you. I saw you needed meand I gave myself to you. I am not sorry I did it, not a bit sorry. Ihad counted the cost before I did it. "

"Counted the cost? But what cost is there? Neither of us losesanything. "

"I risk losing almost everything a woman cares for. I don't want todwell upon it. I detest women who indulge in reproaches, or who tryto make men value them by pointing out how much they stand to lose bygiving themselves. But you are so strange to-night. You have attackedme. I don't know why. "

"I've been walking on the quay and thinking. "

"What about?"

"You!"

"Go on. "

"I've been thinking that, as you take in Jimmy and all the people hereso easily, there is no reason why you shouldn't be taking me in too. "

In the dark a feeling was steadily growing within him that his companionwas playing with him as he knew she had played with others. 

"I'm forced to deceive the people here and my boy. My relation with youobliges me to do that. But nothing forces me to deceive you. I have beensincere with you. Ever since I met you in the street in Pera I've beensincere, even blunt. I should think you must have noticed it. "

"I have. In some ways you are blunt, but in many you aren't. "

"What is it exactly that you wish to know?"

For a moment Dion was silent. In the darkness of the pavilion he sawDumeny's lips smiling faintly, Hadi Bey's vivid, self-possessed eyes, the weak mouth of Brayfield and his own double. Was he a member of anugly brotherhood, or did he stand alone? He wanted to know, yet he feltthat he could not put such a hideous question to his companion. 

"Tell me exactly what it is, " she said. "Don't be afraid. I wish to bequite sincere with you, though you think I don't. It is no pleasureto me to deceive people. What I do in the way of deception I do inself-defense. Circumstances often push us into doing what we don't enjoydoing. But you and I ought to be frank with one another. "

Her hands tightened on his. 

"Go on. Tell me. "

"I've been wondering whether your husband ought to have won his case, "said Dion, in a low voice. 

"Is that all?" she said, very simply and without any emotion. 

"All?"

"Yes. Do you suppose, when I gave myself to you, I didn't realize thatmy doing it was certain to make you doubt my virtue? Dion, you don'tknow how boyish you still are. You will always be in some ways a boy. I knew you would doubt me after all that had happened. But what is thegood of asking questions of a women whom you doubt? If I am what yoususpect, of course I shall tell lies. If I am not, what is the good ofmy telling you the truth? What is to make you believe it?"

He was silent. She moved slightly and he felt her thin body against hisside. What sort of weapon was she? That was the great question forhim. Since his struggle in the forest of _Defetgamm_ he had come tothe resolve to strike fierce and reiterated blows on that disabling andsurely contemptible love of his, that love which had confronted him likea specter when he was in the pavilion with Jimmy. He was resolved atlast upon assassination, and he wanted a weapon that could slay, not aweapon that would bend, or perhaps break, in his hand. 

"I don't want to believe I am only one among many, " he said at last. 

The sound of his voice gave her the cue to his inmost feeling. She hadbeen puzzled in the forest, she had been half afraid, seeing that hehad arrived at an acute emotional crisis and not understanding what hadbrought him to it. She did not understand that now, but she knew that hewas asking from her more than he had ever asked before. He had beencast out and now he was knocking hard on her door. He was knocking, butlingering remnants of the influence of the woman who had colored hisformer life hung about him like torn rags, and his hands instinctivelyfelt for them, pulled at them, to cover his nakedness. Still, while heknocked, he looked back to the other life. Nevertheless--she knew thiswith all there was of woman in her--he wanted from her all that the goodwoman had never given to him, was incapable of giving to him or to anyone. He wanted from her, perhaps, powers of the body which would sufficefinally for the killing of those powers of the soul by which he wasnow tormented ceaselessly. The sound of his voice demanded from hersomething no other man had ever demanded from her, the slaughter in himof what he had lived by through all his years. Nevertheless he was stilllooking back to all the old purities, was still trying to hear all theold voices. He required of her, as it were, that she should be good inher evil, gentle while she destroyed. Well, she would even be that. Arare smile curved her thin lips, but he did not see it. 

"Suppose I told you that you were one of many?" she said. "Would yougive it all up?"

"I don't know. Am I?"

"No. Do you think, if you were, I should have kept my women friends, Tippie Chetwinde, Delia Ingleton and all the rest?"

"I suppose not, " he said. 

But he remembered tones in Mrs. Chetwinde's voice when she had spoken of"Cynthia Clarke, " and even tones in Lady Ingleton's voice. 

"They stuck to me because they believed in me. What other reason couldthey have?"

"Unless they were very devoted to you. "

"Women aren't much given to that sort of thing, " she said dryly. 

"I think you have an unusual power of making people do what you wish. It is like an emanation, " he said slowly. "And it seems not to beinterfered with by distance. "

She leaned till her cheek touched his. 

"Dion, I wish to make you forget. I know how it is with you. You sufferabominably because you can't forget. I haven't succeeded with you yet. But wait, only wait, till Jimmy goes, till the summer is over and we canleave the Bosporus. It's all too intimate--the life here. We are all toonear together. But in Constantinople I know ways. I'll stay there allthe winter for you. Even the Christmas holidays--I'll give them up foronce. I want to show you that I do care. For no one else on earth wouldI give up being with Jimmy in his holidays. For no one else I'd riskwhat I'm risking to-night. "

"Jimmy was asleep when you came?"

"Yes, but he might wake. He never does, but he might wake justto-night. "

"Suppose he did! Suppose he looked for you in your room and didn't findyou! Suppose he came up here!"

"He won't!"

She spoke obstinately, almost as if her assertion of the thing'simpossibility must make it impossible. 

"And yet there's the risk of it, " said Dion--"the great risk. "

"There are always risks in connection with the big things in life. Weare worth very little if we won't take them. "

"If it wasn't for Jimmy would you come and live with me? Would you dropall this deception? Would you let your husband divorce you? Would yougive up your place in society for me? I am an outcast. Would you comeand be an outcast with me?"

"Yes, if it wasn't for Jimmy. "

"And for Jimmy you'd give me up for ever in a moment, wouldn't you?"

"Why do you ask these questions?" she said, almost fiercely. 

"I want something for myself, something that's really mine. Thenperhaps----"

He stopped. 

"Perhaps what?"

"Perhaps I could forget--sometimes. "

"And yet when you knew Jimmy was coming here you wanted to go away. Youwere afraid then. And even to-day--"

"I want one thing or the other!" he interrupted desperately. "I'm sickof mixing up good and bad. I'm sick of prevarications and deceptions. They go against my whole nature. I hate struggling in a net. It saps allmy strength. "

"I know. I understand. "

She put her arm round his neck. 

"Perhaps I ought to give you up, let you go. I've thought that. But Ihaven't the courage. Dion, I'm lonely, I'm lonely. "

He felt moisture on his cheek. 

"About you I'm absolutely selfish, " she said, in a low, swift voice. "Even if all this hypocrisy hurts you I can't give you up. I've told youa lie--even you. "

"When?"

"I said to you on _that_ night----"

She waited. 

"I know, " he said. 

"I said that I hadn't cared for you till I met you in Pera, and sawwhat _she_ had done to you. That was a lie. I cared for you in England. Didn't you know it?"

"Once or twice I wondered, but I was never at all sure. "

"It was because I cared that I wanted to make friends with your wife. I had no evil reason. I knew you and she were perfectly happy together. But I wanted just to see you sometimes. She guessed it. That was why sheavoided me--the real reason. It wasn't only because I'd been involvedin a scandal, though I told you once it was. I've sometimes lied to youbecause I didn't want to feel myself humiliated in your eyes. But nowI don't care. You can know all the truth if you want to. You pushedme away--oh, very gently--because of her. Did you think I didn'tunderstand? You were afraid of me. Perhaps you thought I was a nuisance. When I came back from Paris on purpose for Tippie Chetwinde's partyyou were startled, almost horrified, when you saw me. I saw it all soplainly. In the end, as you know, I gave it up. Only when you went tothe war I had to send that telegram. I thought you might be killed, andI wanted you to know I was remembering you, and admiring you for whatyou had done. Then you came with poor Brayfield's letter----"

She broke off, then added, with a long, quivering sigh:

"You've made me suffer, Dion. "

"Have I?"

He turned till he was facing her in the darkness. 

"Then at last you were overtaken by your tragedy, and she showed you hercruelty and cast you out. From that moment I was resolved some dayto let you know how much I cared. I wanted you in your misery. But Iwaited. I had a conviction that you would come to me, drawn, withoutsuspecting it, by what I felt for you. Well, you came at last. And nowyou ask me whether you are one of many. "

"Forgive me!" he whispered. 

"But of course I shall always forgive you for everything. Women who carefor men always do that. They can't help themselves. And you--will youforgive me for my lies?"

He took her in his arms. 

"Life's full of them. Only don't tell me any more, and make me forget ifyou can. You've got so much will. Try to have the power for that. "

"Then help me. Give yourself wholly to me. You have struggled against mefurtively. You thought I didn't know it, but I did. You look back to theold ways. And that is madness. Turn a new page, Dion. Have the courageto hope. "

"To--hope!"

Her hot hands closed on him fiercely. 

"You shall hope. I'll make you. Cut out the cancer that is in you, andcut away all that is round it. Then you'll have health again. She neverknew how to feel in the great human way. She was too fond of God ever tocare for a man. "

Let that be the epitaph over the tomb in which all his happiness wasburied. 

In silence he made his decision, and Cynthia Clarke knew it. 

The darkness covered them. 

* * * * *

Down below in the Villa Hafiz Jimmy was sleeping peacefully, tired bythe long ride to and from the forest in the heat. He had gone to bedvery early, almost directly after dinner. His mother had not advisedthis. Perhaps indeed, if she had not been secretly concentrated onherself and her own desires that evening, she would have made Jimmy stayup till at least half-past ten, even though he was "jolly sleepy. "He had slept for at least two hours in the forest. She ought to haveremembered that, but she had forgotten it, and when, at a quarter tonine, on an enormous yawn, Jimmy had announced that he thought he would"turn in and get between the sheets, " she had almost eagerly acquiesced. She wanted her boy asleep, soundly asleep that night. When the clock hadstruck nine he had already traveled beyond the land of dreams. 

The night was intensely hot and airless. No breath of wind came from thesea. Drops of perspiration stood on the boy's forehead as he slept, withnothing over him but a sheet. He lay on his side, with his face towardsthe open window and one arm outside the sheet. 

People easily fall into habits of sleeping. Jimmy was accustomed tosleep for about eight hours "on end, " as he put it. When he had had hiseight hours he generally woke up. If he was not obliged to get up heoften went to sleep again after an interval of wakefulness, but heseldom slept for as much as nine hours without waking. 

On this night between two o'clock and three it seemed as if a layer ofsleep were gently lifted from him. He sighed, stirred, turned over andbegan to dream. 

He dreamed confusedly about Dion, and there were pain and apprehensionin his dream. In it Dion seemed to be himself and yet not himself, to benear and at the same time remote, to be Jimmy's friend and yet, in somestrange and horrible way, hostile to Jimmy. No doubt the boy was hauntedin his sleep by an obscure phantom bred of that painful impression ofthe morning, when his friend had suddenly been changed in the pavilion, changed into a tragic figure from which seemed to emanate impalpablethings very black and very cold. 

In the dream Jimmy's mother did not appear as an active figure; yet thedreamer seemed somehow to be aware of her, to know faintly that she wasinvolved in unhappy circumstances, that she was the victim of distresseshe could not fathom. And these distresses weighed upon him like aburden, as things weigh upon us in dreams, softly and heavily, and witha sort of cloudy awfulness. He wanted to strive against them for hismother, but he was held back from action, and Dion seemed to havesomething to do with this. It was as if his friend and enemy, DionLeith, did not wish his mother to be released from unhappiness. 

Jimmy moved, lay on his back and groaned. His eyelids fluttered. Something from without, something from a distance, was pulling at him, and the hands of sleep, too inert, perhaps, for any conflict, relaxedtheir hold upon him. Thoughts from two minds in a dark pavilion werestealing upon him, were touching him here and there, were whispering tohim. 

Another layer of sleep was softly removed from him. 

He clenched his large hands--he had already the hands and feet almostof the man he would some day grow into--and his eyes opened wide for amoment. But they closed again. He was not awake yet. 

At three o'clock he woke. He had slept for six hours in the villa andfor two hours in the forest. He lay still in the dark for a few minutes. A faint memory of his dream hung about him like a tattered mist. He feltanxious, almost apprehensive, and strained his ears expectant of somesound. But the silence of the airless night was deep and large all abouthim. He began to think of his mother. What had been the matter withher? Who, or what, had persecuted her? He realized now that he had beendreaming, said to himself, with a boy's exaggeration, that he had had "abeastly nightmare!" Nevertheless his mother still appeared to him as thevictim of distresses. He could not absolutely detach himself from theimpressions communicated to him in his dream. He was obliged to think ofhis mother as unhappy and of Dion Leith as not wholly friendly either toher or to himself. And it was all quite beastly. 

Presently, more fully awake, he began to wonder about the time and tofeel tremendously thirsty, as if he could "drink the jug. "

He stretched out a hand, found the matches and struck a light. It wentout with a sort of feeble determination. 

"Damn!" he muttered. 

He struck another match and lit the candle. His silver watch laybeside it, and marked five minutes past three. Jimmy was almost angrilyastonished. Only that! He now felt painfully wide awake, as if his sleepwere absolutely finished. What was to be done? He remembered that he hadslept in the forest. He had had his eight hours. Perhaps that was thereason of his present wakefulness. Anyhow, he must have a drink. He thrust away the sheet, rolled out of bed, and went to thewashhand-stand. There was plenty of water in his bottle, but when hepoured it into the tumbler he found that it was quite warm. He wascertain warm water wouldn't quench his ardent thirst. Besides, heloathed it. Any chap would! How beastly everything was!

He put down the tumbler without drinking, went to the window and lookedout. The still hot darkness which greeted him made him feel again theobscure distress of his dream. He was aware of apprehension. Dawn couldnot be so very far off; yet he felt sunk to the lips in the heavy night. 

If only he could have a good drink of something very cold! This wishmade him think again of his mother. He knew she did not require muchsleep, and sometimes read during part of the night; he also knew thatshe kept some iced lemonade on the table beside her bed. Now the thoughtof his mother's lemonade enticed him. 

He hesitated for a moment, then stuck his feet into a pair of redTurkish slippers without heels, buttoned the jacket of his pyjamas, which he had thrown open because of the heat, took his candle inhand, and shuffled--he always shuffled when he had on the ridiculousslippers--to the door. 

There he paused. 

The landing was fairly wide. It looked dreary and deserted in thedarkness defined by the light from his candle. He could see the headof the staircase, the shallow wooden steps disappearing into the emptyblackness in which the ground floor of the house was shrouded; he couldsee the door of his mother's bedroom. As he stared at it, consideringwhether his thirst justified him in waking her up--for, if she wereasleep, he felt pretty sure she would wake however softly he crept intoher room--he saw that the door was partly open. Perhaps his mother hadfound the heat too great, and had tried to create a draught by openingher door. There was darkness in the aperture. She wasn't reading, then. Probably she was asleep. He was infernally thirsty; the door was open;the lemonade was almost within reach; he resolved to risk it. Carefullyshading the candle with one hand he crept across the landing, adroitlyabandoned his slippers outside the door, and on naked feet entered hismother's room. 

His eyes immediately rested on the tall jug of lemonade, which stood ona small table, with a glass and some books, beside the big, low bed. He stole towards it, always shielding the candle with his hand, and notlooking at the bed lest his glance might, perhaps, disturb the sleeperhe supposed to be in it. He reached the table, and was about to lay adesirous hand upon the jug, when it occurred to him that, in doing this, he would expose the candle ray. Better blow the candle out! He locatedthe jug, and was on the edge of action--his lips were pursed for thepuff--when the dead silence of the room struck him. Could any one, even his remarkably quiet mother, sleep without making even the tiniestsound? He shot a glance at the bed. There was no one in it. He bentdown. It had not been slept in that night. 

Jimmy stood, with his mouth open, staring at the large, neat, unruffledbed. What the dickens could the mater be up to? She must, of course, besitting up in her small sitting-room next door to the bedroom. Evidentlythe heat had made her sleepless. 

He took a pull at the lemonade, went to the sitting-room door and softlyopened it, at the same time exclaiming, "I say, mater----"

Darkness and emptiness confronted him. 

He shut the door rather hurriedly, and again stood considering. Something cracked. He started, and the candle rattled in his hand. Adisagreeable sensation was stealing upon him. He would not, of course, have acknowledged that an unpleasant feeling of loneliness, almost ofdesertion. The servants slept in a small wing of the villa, shut offfrom the main part of the house by double doors. Mrs. Clarke detestedhearing the servants at night, and had taken good care to make suchhearing impossible. Jimmy began to feel isolated. 

Where could the mater be? And what could she be doing?

For a moment he thought of returning to his room, shutting himself inand waiting for the dawn, which would change everything--would makeeverything seem quite usual and reasonable. But something in the depthsof him, speaking in a disagreeably distinct voice, remarked, "That'sright! Be a funk stick!" And his young cheeks flushed red, although hewas alone. Immediately he went out on to the landing, thrust his feetagain into the red slippers, and boldly started down the stairs into theblack depths below. Holding the candle tightly, and trying to shufflewith manly decision, he explored the sitting-rooms and the dining-room. All of them were empty and dark. 

Now Jimmy began to feel "rotten. " Horrid fears for his mother bristledup in his mind. His young imagination got to work and summoned upugly things before him. He saw his mother ravished away from himby unspeakable men--Turks, Armenians, Greeks, Albanians--God knowswhom--and carried off to some unknown and frightful fate; he saw herdead, murdered; he saw her dead, stricken by some sudden and horribleillness. His heart thumped. He could hear it. It seemed to be beatingin his ears. And then he began to feel brave, to feel an intrepidity ofdesperation. He must act. That was certain. It was his obvious businessto jolly well get to work and do something. His first thought was torush upstairs, to rouse the servants, to call up Sonia, his mother'sconfidential maid, to--the pavilion!

Suddenly he remembered the pavilion, and all the books on its shelves. His mother might be there. She might have been sleepless, might havefelt sure she couldn't sleep, and so have stayed up. She might bereading in the darkness. She was afraid of nothing. Darkness andsolitude wouldn't hinder her from wandering about if the fancy to wandertook her. She wouldn't, of course, go outside the gates, but--he nowfelt sure she was somewhere in the garden. 

He looked round. He was standing by the grand piano in the drawing-room, and he now noticed for the first time that the French window which gaveon to the rose garden was open. That settled it. He put the candle down, hurried out into the garden and called, "Mater!"

No voice replied except the fountain's voice. The purring water rosein the darkness and fell among the lilies, rose and fell, active andindifferent, like a living thing withdrawn from him, wrapped in its ownmystery. 

"Mater!" he called again, in a louder, more resolute, voice. "Mater!Mater!"

* * * * *

In an absolutely still night a voice can travel very far. On the highestterrace of the garden in the blackness of the pavilion Mrs. Clarke movedsharply. She sat straight up on the divan, rigid, with her hands pressedpalm downwards on the cushions. Dion had heard nothing, and did notunderstand the reason for her abrupt, almost violent, movement. 

"Why . . . ?" he began. 

She caught his wrist and held it tightly, compressing her fingers on itwith a fierce force that amazed him. 

"Mater!"

Had he really heard the word, or had he imagined it?

"Mater!"

He had heard it. 

"It's Jimmy!"

She had her thin lips close to his ear. She still held his wrist in agrip of iron. 

"He's at the bottom of the garden. He'll come up here. He won't wait. Godown and meet him. "

"But----"

"Go down! I'll hide among the trees. Let him come up here, or bring himup. He must come. Be sure he comes inside. While you go I'll light thelamp. I can do it in a moment. You couldn't sleep. You came here toread. Of course you know nothing about me. Keep him here for five orten minutes. You can come down then and help him to look for me. Go atonce. "

She took away her hand. 

"My whole future depends upon you!"

Dion got up and went out. As he went he heard her strike a match. 

Scarcely knowing for a moment what he was doing, acting mechanically, in obedience to instinct, but always feeling a sort of terrible drivingforce behind him, he traversed the terrace on which the pavilion stood, passed the great plane tree and the wooden seat, and began to descend. As he did so he heard again Jimmy's voice crying:

"Mater!"

"Jimmy!" he called out, in a loud voice, hurrying on. 

As the sound died away he knew it had been nonchalant. Surely she hadmade it so!

"Jimmy!" he called again. "What's up. What's the matter?"

There was no immediate reply, but in the deep silence Dion heardhurrying steps, and then:

"Mr. Leith!"

"Hallo!"

"Mr. Leith--it is you, is it?"

"Yes. What on earth's the matter?"

"Stop a sec! I----"

The feet were pounding upward. Almost directly, in pyjamas and theslippers, which somehow still remained with him, Jimmy stood by Dion inthe dark, breathing hard. 

"Jimmy, what's the matter? What has happened?"

"I say, why are you here?"

"I couldn't sleep. The night was so hot. I had nothing to read in myrooms. Besides they're stuck down right against the quay. You know yourmother's kind enough to let me have a key of the garden gate. I thoughtI might get more air on the top terrace. I was reading in the pavilionwhen I thought I heard a call. "

"Then the mater isn't there?"

"Your mother?"

"Yes!"

"Of course not. Come on up!"

Dion took the boy by the arm with decision, and slowly led him upwards. 

"What's this about your mother? Do you mean she isn't asleep?"

"Asleep? She isn't in her bedroom! She hasn't been there!"

"Hasn't been there?"

"Hasn't been to bed at all! I've been to her sitting-room--you know, upstairs--she isn't there. I've been in all the rooms. She isn'tanywhere. She must be somewhere about here. "

They had arrived in front of the pavilion backed by trees. Looking in, Dion saw a lighted lamp. The slide of jeweled glass had been removedfrom it. A white ray fell on an open book laid on a table. 

"I was reading here"--he looked--"a thing called 'The Kasidah. ' Sitdown!" He pulled the boy down. "Now what is all this? Your mother mustbe in the house. "

"But I tell you she isn't!"

Dion had sat down between Jimmy and the opening on to the terrace. Itoccurred to him that he ought to have induced the boy to sit with hisback to the terrace and his face turned towards the room. It was toolate to do that now. 

"I tell you she isn't!" Jimmy repeated, with a sort of almost fiercedefiance. 

He was staring hard at Dion. His hair was almost wildly disordered, andhis face looked pale and angry in the ray of the lamp. Dion felt thatthere was suspicion in his eyes. Surely those eyes were demanding of himthe woman who was hiding among the trees. 

"Where have you looked?" he said. 

"I tell you I've looked everywhere, " said Jimmy, doggedly. 

"Did you mother go to bed when you did?"

"No. I went very early. I was so infernally sleepy. "

"Where did you leave her?"

"In the drawing-room. She was playing the piano. But what's the good ofthat? What time did you come here?"

"I! Oh, not till very late indeed. "

"Were there any lights showing when you came?"

"Lights! No! But it was ever so much too late for that. "

"Did you go on to the terrace by the drawing-room?"

"No. I came straight up here. It never occurred to me that any onewould be up at such an hour. Besides, I didn't want to disturb any one, especially your mother. "

"Well, just now I found the drawing-room window wide open, and mater'sbed hasn't been touched. What do you make of that?"

Before Dion could reply the boy abruptly started up. 

"I heard something. I know I did. "

As naturally as he could Dion got between Jimmy and the opening on tothe terrace, and, forestalling the boy, looked out. He saw nothing; hecould not have said with truth that any definite sound reached hisears; but he felt that at that exact moment Mrs. Clarke escaped from theterrace, and began to glide down towards the house below. 

"There's nothing! Come and see for yourself, " he said casually. 

Jimmy pushed by him, then stood perfectly still, staring at the darknessand listening intently. 

"I don't hear it now!" he acknowledged gruffly. 

"What did you think you heard?"

"I _did_ hear something. I couldn't tell you what it was. "

"Have you looked all through the garden?"

"You know I haven't. You heard me calling down at the bottom. You musthave, because you answered me. "

"We'd better have a good look now. Just wait one minute while I put outthe lamp. I'll put away the book I was reading, too. "

"Right you are!" said the boy, still gruffly. 

He waited on the terrace while Dion went into the pavilion. As Dion tookup "The Kasidah" he glanced down at the page at which Mrs. Clarke hadchanced to set the book open, and read:

 "Do what thy manhood bids thee do, from None but self expect applause----"

With a feeling of cold and abject soul-nausea he shut the book, putit away on a bookshelf in which he saw a gap, and went to turn out thelamp. As the flame flickered and died out he heard Jimmy's foot shift onthe terrace. 

"Do what thy manhood bids thee do----"

Dion stood for a moment in the dark. He was in a darkness greater thanany which reigned in the pavilion. His soul seemed to him to be pressingagainst it, to be hemmed in by it as by towering walls of iron. Foran instant he shut his eyes. And when he did that he saw, low down, alittle boy's figure, two small outstretched hands groping. 

Robin!

"Aren't you coming, Mr. Leith? What's the matter?"

"I was just seeing that the lamp was thoroughly out. "

"Well----"

Dion came out. 

"We'll look all over the garden. But if your mother had been in it shemust have heard you calling her. I did, although I was inside therereading. "

"I know. I thought of that too, " returned Jimmy. 

And Dion fancied that the boy's voice was very cold; Dion fancied thisbut he was not sure. His conscience might be tricking him. He hoped thatit was tricking him. 

"We'd better look among the trees, " he said. "And then we'll go to theterrace below. "

"It's no use looking among the trees, " Jimmy returned. "If she was uphere she must have heard us talking all this time. "

Abruptly he led the way to the steps near the plane tree. Dion followedhim slowly. Was it possible that Jimmy had guessed? Was it possible thatJimmy had caught a glimpse of his mother escaping? The boy's manner wassurely almost hostile. 

They searched the garden in silence, and at length found themselves bythe fountain close to the French window of the drawing-room. 

"You mother must be in the house, " said Dion firmly. 

"But I know she isn't!" Jimmy retorted, with a sort of dull fixedobstinacy. 

"Did you rouse the servants?"

"No. "

"Where do they sleep?"

"Away from us, by themselves. "

"You'd better go and look again. If you can't find your mother perhapsyou'd better wake the servants. "

"I know, " said Jimmy, in a voice that had suddenly changed, becomebrighter, more eager--"I'll go to Sonia. "

"Your mother's maid? That's it. She may know something. I'll wait downhere at the window. Got a candle?"

"Yes. I left it in there by the piano. "

He felt his way in and, almost immediately, struck a light. The candleflickered across his face and his disordered hair as he disappeared. 

Dion waited by the fountain. 

Where would Mrs. Clarke be? How would she explain matters? Would shehave had time to----? Oh yes! She would have had time to be ready withsome quite simple, yet quite satisfactory, piece of deception. Jimmywould find her, and she would convince him of all that it was necessaryhe should be convinced of. 

Dion's chin sank down and his head almost drooped. He felt mortallytired as he waited here. Already a very faint grayness of the comingdawn was beginning to filter in among the darknesses. 

Another day to face! How could he face it? He had, he supposed, beenwhat is called "true" to the woman who had given herself to him, but howdamnably false he had been to himself that night!

Meanwhile Jimmy went upstairs, frowning and very pale. He went again tohis mother's bedroom and found it empty. The big bed, turned down, hadheld no sleeper. Nothing had been changed in the room since he hadbeen away in the garden. He did not trouble to look once more in theadjoining sitting-room, but hurried towards the servants' quarters. Thedouble doors were shut. Softly he opened them and passed through intoa wooden corridor. At the far end of it were two rooms sacred to Sonia, the Russian maid. The first room she slept in; the second was a largeairy chamber lined with cupboards. In this she worked. She was a veryclever needlewoman, expert in the mysteries of dressmaking. 

As Jimmy drew near to the door of Sonia's workroom he heard a low murmurof voices coming from within. Evidently Sonia was there, talking to someone. He crept up and listened. 

Very tranquil the voices sounded. They were talking in French. One washis mother's, and he heard her say:

"Another five minutes, Sonia, and perhaps I shall be ready for bed. Atlast I'm beginning to feel as if I might be able to sleep. If onlyI were like Jimmy! He doesn't know anything about the torments ofinsomnia. "

"Poor Madame!" returned Sonia, in her rather thick, but pleasantly soft, voice. "Your head a little back. That's better!"

Jimmy was aware of an odd, very faint, sound. He couldn't make out whatit was. 

"Mater!" he said. 

And he tapped on the door. 

"Who's that?" said Sonia's voice. 

"It's Jimmy!"

The door was opened by the maid, and he saw his mother in a long, verythin white dressing-gown, seated in an arm-chair before a mirror. Hercolorless hair flowed over the back of the chair, against which herlittle head was leaning, supported by a silk cushion. Her face lookedvery white and tired, and the lids drooped over her usually wide-openeyes, giving her a strange expression of languor, almost of drowsiness. Sonia held a silver-backed brush in each hand. 

"Monsieur Jimmy!" she said. 

"Jimmy!" said Mrs. Clarke. "What's the matter?"

She lifted her head from the cushion, and sat straight up. But she stilllooked languid. 

"What is it? Are you ill?"

"No, mater! But I've been looking for you everywhere!"

There was a boyish reproach in his voice. 

"Looking for me in the middle of the night! Why?"

Jimmy began to explain matters. 

"At last I thought I'd look in the garden. I shouted out for you, andwho should answer but Mr. Leith?" he presently said. 

His mother--he noticed it--woke up fully at this point in the narrative. 

"Mr. Leith!" she said, with strong surprise. "How could he answer you?"

"He was up in the pavilion reading a book. "

Mrs. Clarke looked frankly astonished. Her eyes traveled to Sonia, whosebroad face was also full of amazement. 

"At this hour!" said Mrs. Clarke. 

"He couldn't sleep either, " said Jimmy, quite simply. "He's waiting outthere now to know whether I've found you. "

Mrs. Clarke smiled faintly. 

"What a to do!" she said, with just a touch of gentle disdain. "And allbecause I suffer from insomnia. Run down to him, Jimmy, and tell himthat as I felt it was useless to go to bed I sat by the fountain till Iwas weary, then read in my sitting-room, and finally came to Sonia to bebrushed into sleep. Set his mind at rest about me if you can. "

She smiled again. 

Somehow that smile made Jimmy feel very small. 

"And go back to bed, dear boy. "

She put out one hand, drew him to her, and gave him a gentle kiss withlips which felt very calm. 

"I'm sorry you were worried about me. "

"Oh, that's all right, mater!" said Jimmy, rather awkwardly. "I didn'tknow what to think. You see--"

"Of course you couldn't guess that I was having my hair brushed. Nowgo straight to bed, after you've told Mr. Leith. I'm coming too in aminute. "

As Jimmy left the room Sonia was again at work with the twohair-brushes. 

A moment later Jimmy reappeared at the French window of thedrawing-room. Dion lifted his head, but did not move from the placewhere he was standing close to the fountain. 

"It's all right, Mr. Leith, " said Jimmy. "I've found mater. "

"Where was she?"

"In Sonia's room having her hair brushed. "

Dion stared towards him but said nothing. 

"She told me I was to set your mind at rest. "

"Did she?"

"Yes. I believe she thought us a couple of fools for kicking us such adust about her. "

Dion said nothing. 

"I don't know, but I've an idea girls and women often think they canlaugh at us, " added Jimmy. "Anyhow, it'll be a jolly long time beforeI put myself in a sweat about the mater again. I thought--I don't knowwhat I thought, and all the time she was half asleep and having her hairbrushed. She made me feel ass number one. Good night. "

"Good night. "

The boy shut the window, bent down and bolted it on the inside. 

Dion looked at the gray coming of the new day. 

CHAPTER IX

Liverpool has a capacity for looking black which is perhaps, onlysurpassed by Manchester's, and it looked its blackest on a day at theend of March in the following year, as the afternoon express from Londonroared into the Lime Street Station. The rain was coming down; it wassmall rain, and it descended with a sort of puny determination; it wassad rain without any dash, any boldness; it had affinities withthe mists which sweep over stretches of moorland, but its power ofsaturation was remarkable. It soaked Liverpool. It issued out ofblackness and seemed to carry a blackness with it which descended intothe very soul of the city and lay coiled there like a snake. 

Lady Ingleton was very sensitive to her surroundings, and as she liftedthe rug from her knees, and put away the book she had been reading, she shivered. A deep melancholy floated over her and enveloped her. Shethought, "Why did I come upon this adventure? What is it all to dowith me?" But then the face of a man rose up before her, lean, brown, wrinkled, ravaged, with an expression upon it that for a long time hadhaunted her, throwing a shadow upon her happiness. And she felt thatshe had done right to come. Impulse, perhaps, had driven her; sentimentrather than reason had been her guide. Nevertheless, she did not regrether journey. Even if nothing good came of it she would not regret it. She would have tried for once at some small expense to herself to do aworthy action. She would for once have put all selfishness behind her. 

A white-faced porter, looking anxious and damp, appeared at the door ofthe corridor. Lady Ingleton's French maid arrived from the second classwith Turkish Jane on her arm. 

"Oh, Miladi, how black it is here!" she exclaimed, twisting her pointedlittle nose. "The black it reaches the heart. "

That was exactly what Lady Ingleton was thinking, but she said, in avoice less lazy than usual. 

"There's a capital hotel, Annette. We shall be very comfortable. "

"Shall we stay here long, Miladi?"

"No; but I don't know how long yet. Is Jane all right?"

"She has been looking out of the window, Miladi, the whole way. She isin ecstasy. Dogs have no judgment, Miladi. "

When Lady Ingleton was in her sitting-room at the Adelphi Hotel, and hadhad the fire lighted and tea brought up, she asked to see the managerfor a moment. He came almost immediately, a small man, very smart, verytrim, self-possessed as a attache. 

"I hope you are quite comfortable, my lady, " he said, in a thin voicewhich held no note of doubt. "Can I do anything for you?"

"I wanted to ask you if you knew the address of some one I wish to senda note to--Mr. Robertson. He's a clergyman who--"

"Do you mean Father Robertson, of Holy Cross, Manxby Street, my lady?"

"Of Holy Cross; yes, that's it. "

"He lives at--"

"Wait a moment. I'll take it down. "

She went to the writing-table and took up a pen. 

"Now, please!"

"The Rev. George Robertson, Holy Cross Rectory, Manxby Street, my lady. "

"Thank you very much. "

"Can I do anything more for you, my lady?"

"Please send me up a messenger in twenty minutes. Mr. Robertson is inLiverpool, I understand?"

"I believe so, my lady. He is generally here. Holidays and pleasure arenot much in his way. The messenger will be up in twenty minutes. "

He looked at the clock on the mantelpiece and went softly out, holdinghimself very erect. 

Lady Ingleton sat down by the tea-table. Annette was unpacking in theadjoining bedroom, and Turkish Jane was reposing in an arm-chair nearthe hearth. 

"What would Carey think of me, if he knew?" was her thought, as shepoured out the tea. 

Sir Carey was at his post in Constantinople. She had left him and cometo England to see her mother, who had been very ill, but who was nowmuch better. When she had left Constantinople she had not known she wascoming to Liverpool, but she had known that something was intruding uponher happiness, was worrying at her mind. Only when she found herselfonce more in England did she understand that she could not return toTurkey without making an effort to do a good deed. She had very littlehope that her effort would be efficacious, but she knew that she had tomake it. 

It was quite a new role for her, the role of Good Samaritan. She smiledfaintly as she thought that. How would she play it?

After tea she wrote this note:

"ADELPHI HOTEL, Tuesday

"DEAR MR. ROBERTSON, --As you will not know who I am, I must explainmyself. My husband, Sir Carey Ingleton, is Ambassador at Constantinople. Out there we have made acquaintance with Mr. Dion Leith, who had theterrible misfortune to kill his little boy nearly a year and a half ago. I want very much to speak to you about him. I will explain why when Isee you if you have the time to spare me an interview. I would gladlywelcome you here, or I could come to you. Which do you prefer? I amtelling the messenger to wait for an answer. To be frank, I have come toLiverpool on purpose to see you. --Yours sincerely, "DELIA INGLETON"

The messenger came back without an answer. Father Robertson was out, butthe note would be given to him as soon as he came home. 

That evening, just after nine o'clock, he arrived at the hotel, and sentup his name to Lady Ingleton. 

"Please ask him to come up, " she said to the German waiter who hadmispronounced his name. 

As she waited for her visitor she was conscious of a faint creeping ofshyness through her. It made her feel oddly girlish. When had she lastfelt shy? She could not remember. It must have been centuries ago. 

The German waiter opened the door and a white-haired man walked in. Directly she saw him Lady Ingleton lost her unusual feeling. As shegreeted him, and made her little apology for bothering him, and thankedhim for coming out at night to see a stranger, she felt glad that shehad obeyed her impulse and had been, for once, a victim to altruism. When she looked at his eyes she knew that she would not mind saying tohim all she wanted to say about Dion Leith. They were eyes which shonewith clarity; and they were something else--they were totally incuriouseyes. Perhaps from perversity Lady Ingleton had always rebelled againstgiving to curious people the exact food they were in search of. 

"He won't be greedy to know, " she thought. "And so I shan't mind tellinghim. "

Unlike a woman, she came at once to the point. Although she could bevery evasive she could also be very direct. 

"You know Mrs. Dion Leith, " she said. "My friend Tippie Chetwinde, Mrs. Willie Chetwinde, told me she was living here. She came here soon afterthe death of her child, I believe. "

"Yes, she did, and she has been here ever since. "

"Do you know Dion Leith, Mr. Robertson?" she asked, leaning forward inher chair by the fire, and fixing her large eyes, that looked like anItalian's, upon him. 

"No, I have never seen him. I hoped to, but the tragedy of the childoccurred so soon after his return from South Africa that I never had anopportunity. "

"Forgive me for correcting you, " she said, gently but very firmly. "Butit is not the tragedy of a child. It's the tragedy of a man. I am goingto talk very frankly to you. I make no apology for doing so. I am whatis called"--she smiled faintly--"a woman of the world, and you, Ithink, are an unworldly man. Because I am of the world, and you, inspirit"--she looked at him almost deprecatingly--"are not of it, I cansay what I have come here to try to say. I couldn't say it to a man ofthe world, because I could never give a woman away to such a man. Tellme though, first, if you don't mind--do you care for Mrs. Dion Leith?"

"Very much, " said Father Robertson, simply and warmly. 

"Do you care for her enough to tell her the truth?"

"I never wish to tell her anything else. "

Suddenly Lady Ingleton's face flushed, her dark eyes flashed and thenfilled with tears, and she said in a voice that shook with emotion:

"Dion Leith killed a body by accident, the body of his little boy. Sheis murdering a soul deliberately, the soul of her husband. "

She did not know at all why she was so suddenly and so violently moved. She had not expected this abrupt access of feeling. It had rushed uponher from she knew not where. She was startled by it. 

"I don't know why I should care, " she commented, as if half ashamed ofherself. 

Then she added, with a touch of almost shy defiance:

"But I do care, I do care. That's why I've come here. "

"You are right to care if it is so, " said Father Robertson. 

"Such lots of women wouldn't, " she continued, in a quite different, almost cynical, voice. "But that man is an exceptional man--not inintellect, but in heart. And I'm a very happy woman. Perhaps you wonderwhat that has to do with it. Well sometimes I see things through myhappiness, just because of it; sometimes I see unhappiness through it. "

Her voice had changed again, had become much softer. She drew her chaira little nearer to the fire. 

"Do you ever receive confessions, Mr. Robertson--as a priest, I mean?"she asked. 

"Yes, very often. "

"They are sacred, I know, even in your church. "

"Yes, " he said, without emphasis. 

His lack of emphasis decided her. Till this moment she had beenundecided about a certain thing, although she herself perhaps was notfully aware of her hesitation. 

"I want to do a thing that I have never yet done, " she said. "I want tobe treacherous to a friend, to give a friend away. Will you promise tokeep my treachery secret forever? Will you promise to treat what I amgoing to tell you about her as if I told it to you in the confessional?"

"If you tell it to me I will. But why must you tell it to me? I don'tlike treachery. It's an ugly thing. "

"I can't help that. I really came here just for that--to betreacherous. "

She looked into the fire and sighed. 

"I've covered a great sin with my garment, " she murmured slowly, "and Irepent me!"

Then, with a look of resolve, she turned to her white-haired companion. 

"I've got a friend, " she said--"a woman friend. Her name is CynthiaClarke. (I'm in the confessional now!) You may have heard of her. Shewas a _cause celebre_ some time ago. Her husband tried to divorce her, poor man, and failed. "

"No, I never heard her name before, " said Father Robertson. 

"You don't read _causes celebres_. You have better things to do. Well, she's my friend. I don't exactly know why. Her husband was Councillor inmy husband's Embassy. But I knew her before that. We always got on. Shehas peculiar fascination--a sort of strange beauty, a very intelligentmind, and the strongest will I have ever known. She has virtues of akind. She never speaks against other women. If she knew a secret of mineI am sure she would never tell it. She is thoroughbred. I find her avery interesting woman. There is absolutely no one like her. She's awoman one would miss. That's on one side. On the other--she's a cruelwoman; she's a consummate hypocrite; she's absolutely corrupt. Youwonder why she's my friend?"

"I did not say so. "

"Nor look it. But you do. Well, I suppose I haven't many scruples exceptabout myself. And I have been trained in the let-other-people-alonetradition. Besides, Cynthia Clarke never told me anything. No one hastold me. Being a not stupid woman, I just know what she is. I'll putit brutally, Mr. Robertson. She is a huntress of men. That is what shelives for. But she deceives people into believing that she is a purelymental woman. All the men whom she doesn't hunt believe in her. Evenwomen believe in her. She has good friends among women. They stick toher. Why? Because she intends them to. She has a conquering will. Andshe never tells a secret--especially if it is her own. In her lastsin--for it is a sin--I have been a sort of accomplice. She meant me tobe one and"--Lady Ingleton slightly shrugged her shoulders--"I yieldedto her will. I don't know why. I never know why I do what CynthiaClarke wishes. There are people like that; they just get what they want, because they want it with force, I suppose. Most of us are rather weak, I think. Cynthia Clarke hunted Dion Leith in his misery, and I helpedher. Being an ambassadress I have social influence on the Bosporus, andI used it for Cynthia. I knew from the very first what she was about, what she meant to do. Directly she mentioned Dion Leith to me and askedme to invite him to the Embassy and be kind to him I understood. ButI didn't know Dion Leith then. If I had thoroughly known him I shouldnever have been a willing cat's-paw in a very ugly game. But once I hadbegun--I took them both for a yachting trip--I did not know how toget out of it all. On that yachting trip--I realized how that man wassuffering and what he was. I have never before known a man capable ofsuffering so intensely as Dion Leith suffers. Does his wife know how heloves her? Can she know it? Can she ever have known it?"

Father Robertson was silent. As she looked at his eyelids--his eyes nolonger met hers with their luminous glowing sincerity--Lady Ingletonrealized that he was the Confessor. 

"Sometimes I have been on the verge of saying to him, 'Go back toEngland, go to your wife. Tell her, show her what she has done. Put upa big fight for the life of your soul. ' But I have never been able todo it. A grief like that is holy ground, isn't it? One simply can't setfoot upon it. Besides, I scarcely ever see Dion Leith now. He's gonedown, I think, gone down very far. "

"Where is he?"

"In Constantinople. I saw him by chance in Stamboul, near Santa Sophia, just before I left for England. Oh, how he has changed! Cynthia Clarkeis destroying him. I know it. Once she told me he had been an athletewith ideals. But now--now!"

Again the tears started into her eyes. Father Robertson looked up andsaw them. 

"Poor, poor fellow!" she said. "I can't bear to see him destroyed. Somemen--well, they seem almost entirely body. But he's so different!"

She got up and stood by the fire. 

"I have seen Mrs. Leith, " she said. "I once heard her sing in London. She is extraordinarily beautiful. At that time she looked radiant. Whatdid you say?"

"Please go on, " Father Robertson said, very quietly. 

"And she had a wonderful expression of joyous goodness which marked herout from other women. You have a regard for her, and you are good. Butyou care for truth, and so I'm going to tell you the truth. She may be agood woman, but she has done a wicked action. Can't you make her see it?Or shall I try to?"

"You wish to see her?"

"I am ready to see her. "

Father Robertson again looked down. He seemed to be thinking deeply, to be genuinely lost in thought. Lady Ingleton noticed this and did notdisturb him. For some minutes he sat without moving. At last he lookedup and put a question to Lady Ingleton which surprised her. He said:

"Are you absolutely certain that your friend Mrs. Clarke and Dion Leithhave been what people choose to call lovers?"

"Have been and are--absolutely certain. I could not prove it, but I knowit. He lives in Constantinople only for her. "

"And you think he has deteriorated?"

"Terribly. I know it. The other day he looked almost degraded; as menlook when they let physical things get absolute domination over them. It's an ugly subject, but--you and I know of these things. "

In her voice there was a sound of delicate apology. It was her tributeto the serene purity of which she was aware in this man. 

Again he seemed lost in thought. She trusted in his power of thought. Hewas a man--she was certain of it--who would find the one path which ledout of the maze. His unself-conscious intentness was beautiful in itsunconventional simplicity, and was a tribute to her sincerity which shewas subtle enough to understand, and good woman enough to appreciate. Hewas concentrated not upon her but upon the problem which was troublingher. 

"I am very glad you have come to Liverpool, " he said at length. "Veryglad. "

He smiled, and she, without exactly knowing why, smiled back at him. Andas she did so she felt extraordinarily simple, almost like a child. 

"How long are you going to stay?"

"Till I know whether I can do any good, " she said, "till I have done it, if that is possible. "

"Without mentioning any names, may I, if I think it wise, tell Mrs. Leith of the change in her husband?"

"Oh, but would it be wise to say exactly what the nature of the changeis? I've always heard that she is a woman with ideals, an exceptionallypure-natured woman. She might be disgusted, even revolted, perhaps, if--"

"Forgive me!" Father Robertson interrupted, rather abruptly. "What wasyour intention then? What did you mean to tell Mrs. Leith if you sawher?"

"Of his great wretchedness, of his broken life--I suppose I--I shouldhave trusted to my instinct what to do when I saw her. "

"Ah!"

"But I can leave it to you, " she said, but still with a faint note ofhesitation, of doubt. "You know her. "

"Yes, I know her. "

He paused. Then, with an almost obstinate firmness, a sort of pressure, he added, "Have I your permission--I may not do it--to tell Mrs. Leith that her husband has been unfaithful to her with some one inConstantinople?"

Lady Ingleton slightly reddened; she looked down and hesitated. 

"It may be necessary if your purpose in coming here is to be achieved, "said Father Robertson, still with pressure. 

"You may do whatever you think best, " she said, with a sigh. 

He got up to go. 

"Would you mind very much staying on here for two or three days, evenfor a week, if necessary?"

"No, no. "

He smiled. 

"A whole week of Liverpool!" he said. 

"How many years have you been here?"

"A good many. I'm almost losing count. "

When he was gone Lady Ingleton sat for a long while before the fire. 

The sad influence of the blackness of rainy Liverpool had lifted fromher. Her impulse had received a welcome which had warmed her. 

"I love that man, " she thought. "Carey would love him too. "

He had said very little, and how loyal he had been in his silence, howloyal to the woman she had attacked. In words he had not defended her, but somehow he had conveyed to Lady Ingleton a sense of his protectivelove and immense pity for the woman who had been bereft of her child. How he had conveyed this she could not have said. But as she sat therebefore the fire she was aware that, since Father Robertson's visit, shefelt differently about Dion Leith's wife. Mysteriously she began to feelthe sorrow of the woman as well as, and side by side with, the sorrow ofthe man. 

"If it had been my child?" she thought. "If my husband had done it?"

CHAPTER X

[Page missing in original book. ]

Since the death of Robin and Rosamund's arrival in Liverpool, FatherRobertson had made acquaintance with her sister and with the mother ofDion. And both these women had condemned Rosamund for what she had done, and had begged him to try to bring about a change in her heart. Both ofthem, too, had dwelt upon the exceptional quality of Dion's love forhis wife. Mrs. Leith had been unable to conceal the bitterness of herfeeling against Rosamund. The mother in her way, was outraged. BeatriceDaventry had shown no bitterness. She loved and understood her sistertoo well to rage against her for anything that she did or left undone. But this very love of her sister, so clearly shown, had made hercondemnation of Rosamund's action the more impressive. And her pityfor Dion was supreme. Through Beatrice Father Robertson had gained aninsight into Dion's love, and into another love, too; but of that hescarcely allowed himself even to think. There are purities so intensethat, like fire, they burn those who would handle them, howevertenderly. About Beatrice Father Robertson felt that he knew somethinghe dared not know. Indeed, he was hardly sincere about that matter withhimself. Perhaps this was his only insincerity. 

With his friend, Canon Wilton, too, he had spoken of Rosamund, and hadfound himself in the presence of a sort of noble anger. Now, in hislittle room, as he knelt in meditation, he remembered a saying of theCanon's, spoken in the paneled library at Welsley: "Leith has a greatheart. When will his wife understand its greatness?"

Father Robertson pressed his thin hands upon his closed eyes. He longedfor guidance and he felt almost distressed. Rosamund had submittedherself to him, had given herself into his hands, but tacitly she hadkept something back. She had never permitted him to direct her in regardto her relation with her husband. It was in regard to her relation withGod that she had submitted herself to him. 

How grotesque that was!

Father Robertson's face burned. 

Before Rosamund had come to him she had closed the book of her marriedlife with a frantic hand. And Father Robertson had left the book closed. He saw his delicacy now as cowardice. In his religious relation withRosamund he had been too much of a gentleman! When Mrs. Leith, Beatrice, Canon Wilton had appealed to him, he had said that he would do what hecould some day, but that he felt time must be given to Rosamund, a longtime, to recover from the tremendous shock she had undergone. He hadwaited. Something imperative had kept him back from ever going fullywith Rosamund into the question of her separation from her husband. Hehad certainly spoken of it, but he had never discussed it, had never gotto the bottom of it, although he had felt that some day he must be quitefrank with her about it. 

Some day! No doubt he had been waiting for a propitious moment, thatmoment which never comes. Or had his instinct told him that anything hecould say upon that subject to Rosamund would be utterly impotent, thatthere was a threshold his influence could not cross? Perhaps really hisinstinct had told him to wait, and he was not a moral coward. For tostrive against a woman's deep feeling is surely to beat against thewind. When men do certain things all women look upon them with aninevitable disdain, as children being foolish in the dark. 

Had he secretly feared to seem foolish in Rosamund's eyes?

He wondered, genuinely wondered. 

On the following morning he wrote to Rosamund and asked her to come tothe vicarage at any hour when she was free. He had something importantto say to her. She answered, fixing three-thirty. Exactly at that timeshe arrived in Manxby Street and was shown into Father Robertson'sstudy. 

Rosamund had changed, greatly changed, but in a subtle rather than afiercely definite way. She had not aged as many women age when overtakenby sorrow. Her pale yellow hair was still bright. There was no gray init and it grew vigorously upon her classical head as if intensely alive. She still looked physically strong. She was still a young and beautifulwoman. But all the radiance had gone out from her. She had been full ofit; now she was empty of it. 

In the walled garden at Welsley, as she paced the narrow walks andlistened to the distant murmur of the organ, and the faint sound of theDresden Amen, in her joy she had looked sometimes almost like a nun. She had looked as if she had the "vocation" for religion. Now, in her"sister's" dress, she had not that inner look of calm, of the spiritlying still in Almighty arms, which so often marks out those who havedefinitely abandoned the ordinary life of the world for the dedicatedlife. Rosamund had taken no perpetual vows; she was free at any momentto withdraw from the Sisterhood in which she was living with manydevoted women who labored among the poor, and who prayed, as some peoplework, with an ardor which physically tired them. But nevertheless shehad definitely retired from all that means life to the average woman ofher type and class, with no intention of ever going back to it. She hadtaken a step towards the mystery which many people think of casually onappointed days, and which many people ignore, or try to ignore. Yet nowshe did not look as if she had the vocation. When she had lived in theworld she had seemed, in spite of all her _joie de vivre_, of all heranimation and vitality, somehow apart from it. Now she seemed, somehow, apart from the world of religion, from the calm and laborious world inwhich she had chosen to dwell. She looked indeed almost strangelypure, but there was in her face an expression of acute restlessness, perpetually seen among those who are grasping at passing pleasures, scarcely ever seen among those who have deliberately resigned them. 

This was surely a woman who had sought and who had not found, who wasuneasy in self-sacrifice, who had striven, who was striving still, todraw near to the gates of heaven, but who had not come upon the pathwhich led up the mountain-side to them. Sorrow was stamped on the face, and something else, too--the seal of that corrosive disease of the soul, dissatisfaction with self. 

This was not Rosamund; this was a woman with Rosamund's figure, face, hair, eyes, voice, gestures, movements--one who would be Rosamund butfor some terrible flaw. 

She was alone in the little study for a few minutes before FatherRobertson came. She did not sit down, but moved about, looking now atthis thing, now at that. In her white forehead there were two verticallines which were never smoothed out. An irreligious person, looking ather just then, might have felt moved to say, with a horrible irony, "Andcan God do no more than that for the woman who dedicates her life to Hisservice?"

The truth of the whole matter lay in this: that whereas once God hadseemed to stand between Rosamund and Dion, now Dion seemed to standbetween Rosamund and God. 

But even Father Robertson did not know this. 

Presently the door opened and the Father came in. 

Instantly Rosamund noticed that he looked slightly ill at ease, almost, indeed, embarrassed. He shook hands with her in his gentle way and madea few ordinary remarks about little matters in which they were mutuallyinterested. Then he asked her to sit down, sat down near her and wassilent. 

"What is it?" she said, at last. 

He looked at her, and there was something almost piercing in his eyeswhich she had never noticed in them before. 

"Last night, " he said, "when I came home I found here a note from astranger, asking me to visit her at the Adelphi Hotel where she wasstaying. She wrote that she had come to Liverpool on purpose to seeme. I went to the hotel and had an interview with her. This interviewconcerned you. "

"Concerned me?" said Rosamund. 

Her voice did not sound as if she were actively surprised. There was alack of tone in it. It sounded, indeed, almost dry. 

"Yes. Did you ever hear of Lady Ingleton?"

After an instant of consideration Rosamund said:

"Yes. I believe I met her somewhere once. Isn't she married to anambassador?"

"To our Ambassador at Constantinople. "

"I think I sang once at some house where she was, in the days when Iused to sing. "

"She has heard you sing. "

"That was it then. But what can she want with me?"

"Your husband is in Constantinople. She knows him there. "

Rosamund flushed to the roots of her yellow hair. When he saw thatpainful wave of red go over her face Father Robertson looked away. Allthe delicacy in him felt the agony of her outraged reserve. Her body hadstiffened. 

"I must speak about this, " he said. "Forgive me if you can. But even ifyou cannot, I must speak. "

She looked down. Her face was still burning. 

"You have let me know a great deal about yourself, " he went on. "Thatfact doesn't give me any right to be curious. On the contrary! But Ithink, perhaps, your confidence has given me a right to try to help youspiritually even at the cost of giving you great mental pain. For a longtime I have felt that perhaps in my relation to you I have been morallya coward. "

Rosamund looked up. 

"You could never be a coward, " she said. 

"You don't know that. Nobody knows that, perhaps, except myself. Howeverthat may be, I must not play the coward now. Lady Ingleton met yourhusband in Turkey. She brings very painful news of him. "

Rosamund clasped her hands together and let them lie on her knees. Shewas looking steadily at Father Robertson. 

"His--his misery has made such an impression upon her that she feltobliged to come here. She sent for me. But her real object in coming wasto see you, if possible. Will you see her?"

"No, no; I can't do that. I don't know her. "

"I think I ought to tell you what she said. She asked me if you had everunderstood how much your husband loves you. Her exact words were, 'Doeshis wife know how he loves her? Can she know it? Can she ever have knownit?'"

All the red had died away from Rosamund's face. She had become verypale. Her eyes were steady. She sat without moving, and seemed to belistening with fixed, even with strained, attention. 

"And then she went on to tell me something which might seem to a greatmany people to be quite contradictory of what she had just said--and shesaid it with the most profound conviction. She told me that your husbandhas fallen very low. "

"Fallen----?" Rosamund said, in a dim voice. 

"Just before she left Constantinople she saw him in Stamboul by chance. She said that he had the dreadful appearance that men have when they areentirely dominated by physical things. "

"Dion!" she said. 

And there was sheer amazement in her voice now. 

After an instant she added:

"I don't believe it. It wasn't Dion. "

"I must tell you something more, " said Father Robertson painfully. "LadyIngleton knows that your husband has been unfaithful to you; sheknows the woman with whom he has been unfaithful. That unfaithfulnesscontinues. So she affirms. And in spite of that, she asks me whether youcan know how much your husband loves you. "

While he had been speaking he had been looking down. Now he heard amovement, a rustling. He looked up quickly. Rosamund was going towardsthe door. 

"Please--don't--don't!" she whispered, turning her face away. 

And she went out. 

Father Robertson did not follow her. 

Early in the following morning he received this note:

"ST. MARY'S SISTERHOOD, LIVERPOOL, Thursday

"DEAR FATHER ROBERTSON, --I don't think I can see Lady Ingleton. I amalmost sure I can't. Perhaps she has gone already. If not, how long doesshe intend to stay here?

"R. L. "

The Father communicated with Lady Ingleton, and that evening letRosamund know that Lady Ingleton would be in Liverpool for a few moredays. 

When Rosamund read his letter she wished, or believed that she wished, that Lady Ingleton had gone. Then this matter which tormented her wouldbe settled, finished with. There would be nothing to be done, andshe could take up her monotonous life again and forget this strangeintrusion from the outside world, forget this voice from the near Eastwhich had told such ugly tidings. Till now she had not even known whereDion was. She knew he had given up his business in London and had leftEngland; but that was all. She had refused to have any news of him. Shehad made it plainly understood long ago, when the wound was fresh in hersoul, that Dion's name was never to be mentioned in letters to her. Shehad tried by every means to blot his memory out of her mind as she hadblotted his presence out of her life. In this effort she had totallyfailed. Dion had never left her since he had killed Robin. In the fleshhe had pursued her in the walled garden at Welsley on that dark nightof November when for her the whole world had changed. In anotherintangible, mysterious guise he had attended her ever since. He had beenabout her path and about her bed. Even when she knelt at the altar inthe Supreme Service he had been there. She had felt his presence as shetouched the water, as she lifted the cup. Through all these months shehad learnt to know that there are those whom, once we have taken themin, we cannot cast out of our lives. 

Since the death of Robin, in absence Dion had assumed a place inher life which he had never occupied in the days of their happiness. Sometimes she had bitterly resented this; sometimes she had tried toignore it; sometimes, like a cross, she had taken it up and tried tobear it with patience or with bravery. She had even prayed against it. 

Never were prayers more vain than those which she put up against thisstrange and terrible possession of herself by the man she had triedto cast out of her life. Sometimes even it seemed to her that whenshe prayed thus Dion's power to affect her increased. It was as ifmysteriously he drew nearer to her, as if he enveloped her with aninfluence from which she could not extricate herself. There were hoursin the night when she felt afraid of him. She knew that wherever hewas, however far off, his mind was concentrated upon her. She grew torealize, as she had never realized before, what mental power is. She hadseparated her body from Dion's, but his mind would not leave her alone. Often she was conscious of hostility. When she strove to give herselfabsolutely and entirely to the life of religion and of charity shewas aware of a force holding her back. This force--so it seemed toher--would not permit her to enter into the calm and the peace of thededicated life. She was like some one looking in at a doorway, desirousof entering a room. She saw the room clearly; she saw others enjoyingits warmth and its shelter and its serene and guarded tranquillity; butshe was unable to cross the threshold. 

That warm and sheltered room was not for her. And it was Dion's forcewhich held her back from entering it and from dwelling in it. 

She could not give herself wholly to God because of Dion. 

Of her struggle, of her frustration, of her mental torment in thisconnexion she had never spoken to Father Robertson. Even in confessionshe had been silent. He knew of her mother-agony; he did not know of thestranger, more subtle agony beneath it. He did not know that whereas theone agony with the lapse of time was not passing away--it would neverdo that--but was becoming more tender, more full of tears and of sweetrecollections, the other agony grew harsher, more menacing. 

Rosamund had gradually come to feel that Robin had been taken out of herarms for some great, though hidden, reason. And because of this feelingshe was learning to endure his loss with a sort of resignation. Sheoften thought that perhaps she had been allowed to have this consolationbecause she had made an immense effort. When Robin died she had drivenDion, who had killed her child, out of her life, but she had succeededin saying to God, "Thy will be done!" She had said it at first as a mereformula, had repeated it obstinately again and again, without meaningit at all, but trying to mean it, meaning to mean it. She had made aprodigious, a truly heroic effort to conquer her powerfully rebelliousnature, and, in this effort, she had been helped by Father Robertson. Heknew of the anger which had overwhelmed her when her mother had died, ofhow she had wished to hurt God. He knew that, with bloody sweat, she haddestroyed that enemy within her. She had wished to submit to the will ofGod when Robin had been snatched from her, and at last she had actuallysubmitted. It was a great triumph of the spirit. But perhaps it hadleft her exhausted. At any rate she had never been able to forgive God'sinstrument, her husband. And so she had never been able to know thepeace of God which many of these women by whom she was surrounded knew. In her misery she contemplated their calm. To labor and to pray--thatseemed enough to many of them, to most of them. She had known calm inthe garden at Welsley; in the Sisterhood she knew it not. 

The man who was always with her assassinated calm. She felt strangelyfrom a distance the turmoil of his spirit. She knew of his miseryoccultly. She did not deduce it from her former knowledge of what hewas. And his suffering made her suffer in a terrible way. He was hervictim and she was his. 

_Those whom God hath joined together let no man put asunder. _

In the Sisterhood Rosamund had learnt, always against her will anddespite the utmost effort of her obstinacy, the uselessness of thatcommand; she had learnt that those whom God hath really joined togethercannot be put asunder by man--or by woman. Dion had killed her child, but she had not been able to kill what she was to Dion and what Dion wasto her. Through the mingling of their two beings there had been born amystery which was, perhaps, eternal like the sound of the murmur in thepine trees above the Valley of Olympia. 

She could not trample it into nothingness. 

At first, after the tragedy of which Robin had been the victim, Rosamundhad felt a horror of Dion which was partly animal. She had fled from himbecause she had been physically afraid of him. He had been changed forher from the man who loved her, and whom she loved in her different way, into the slayer of her child. She knew, of course, quite well that Dionwas not a murderer, but nevertheless she thought of him as one thinks ofa murderer. The blood of her child was upon his hands. She trembled atthe thought of being near him. Nevertheless, because she was not mad, in time reason asserted itself within her. Dion disappeared out of herlife. He did not put up the big fight for the big thing of which LadyIngleton had once spoken to her husband. His type of love was far toosensitive to struggle and fight on its own behalf. When he had heard thekey of his house door turned against him, when, later, Mr. Darlingtonwith infinite precautions had very delicately explained to him why ithad been done, Rosamund had attained her freedom. He had waited on fora time in England, but he had somehow never been able really to hope forany change in his wife. His effort to make her see the tragedy in itstrue light had exhausted itself in the garden at Welsley. Her franticevasion of him had brought it to an end. He could not renew it. Even ifhe had been ready to renew it those about Rosamund would have dissuadedhim from doing so. Every one who was near her saw plainly that "for thepresent"--as they put it--Dion must keep out of her life. 

And gradually Rosamund had lost that half-animal fear of him, graduallyshe had come to realize something of the tragedy of his situation. Achange had come about in her almost in despite of herself. And yet shehad never been able to forgive him for what he had done. Her reason knewthat she had nothing to forgive; her religious sense, her conception ofGod, obliged her to believe that Dion had been God's instrument whenhe had killed his child; but something within her refused him pardon. Perhaps she felt that pardon could only mean one thing--reconciliation. And now had come Lady Ingleton's revelation. Instinctively as Rosamundleft Father Robertson's little room she had tried to hide her face. Shehad received a blow, and the pain of it frightened her. She was startledby her own suffering. What did it mean? What did it portend? She had noright to feel as she did. Long ago she had abandoned the right to such afeeling. 

The information Lady Ingleton had brought outraged Rosamund. Anger and asort of corrosive shame struggled for the mastery within her. 

She felt humiliated to the dust. She felt dirty, soiled. 

Dion had been unfaithful to her. 

With whom?

The white face of Mrs. Clarke came before Rosamund in the murky street, two wide-open distressed and intent eyes started into hers. 

The woman was Mrs. Clarke. 

Mrs. Clarke--and Dion. Mrs. Clarke had succeeded in doing what long agoshe had designed to do. She had succeeded in taking possession of Dion. 

"Because I threw him away! Because I threw him away!"

Rosamund found herself repeating those words again and again. 

"I threw him away, I threw him away. Otherwise----"

She reached the Sisterhood and went to her little room. How shegot through the remaining duties of that day she never rememberedafterwards. The calmness of routine flagellated her nerves. She feltundressed and feared the eyes of the sisters. After the evening servicein the little chapel attached to the Sisterhood she was unable either tomeditate, to praise, or to pray. During the long pause for silent prayershe felt like one on a galloping horse. In the intense silence her earsseemed to hear the beating of hoofs on an iron road. And the furioushorse was bearing her away into some region of darkness and terror. 

There was a rustling movement. The sisters slowly rose from their knees. Again Rosamund was conscious of feeling soiled, dirty, in the midst ofthem. As they filed out, she with them, a burning hatred came to her. She hated the woman who was the cause of her feeling dirty. She wantedto use her hands, to tear something away from her body--the dirt, thefoulness. For she felt it actually on her body. Her physical purity wasdesecrated by--she wouldn't think of it. 

When she was alone in her little sleeping-room, the door shut, onecandle burning, her eyes went to the wooden crucifix beneath which everynight before getting into her narrow bed she knelt in prayer, and shebegan to cry. She sat down on the bed and cried and cried. All her fleshseemed melting into tears. 

"My poor life! My poor life!"

That was the interior cry of her being, again and again repeated--"Mypoor life--stricken, soiled, crushed down in the ooze of a namelessfilth. "

Childless and now betrayed! How terrible had been her happiness on theedge of the pit! The days in Greece--Robin--Dion's return from the war!And she had wished to live rightly; she had loved the noble things; shehad had ideals and she had tried to follow them. Purity before all shehad----

She sickened; her crying became violent. Afraid lest some of the sistersshould hear her, she pressed her hands over her face and sank down onthe bed. 

Presently she saw Mrs. Clarke before her, the woman whom she had thoughtto keep out of her life--the fringe of her life--and who had found theway into the sacred places. 

She cried for a long while, lying there on the bed, with her facepressed against her hands, and her hands pressed against the pillow; butat least she ceased from crying. She had poured out all the tears of herbody. 

She sat up. It was long past midnight. The house was silent. Slowly shebegan to undress, hating her body all the time. She bathed her faceand hands in cold water, and, when she felt the water, shivered at thethought of the stain. When she was ready for bed she looked again at thecrucifix. She ought to pray, she must pray. She went to the crucifix andstood in front of it, but her knees refused to bend. Her pride of womanhad received a terrific blow that day, and just because of that she feltshe could not humble herself. 

"I cannot pray--I won't pray, " she whispered. 

And she turned away, put out the light and got into bed. 

That Dion should have done that, should have been able to do that!

And she remembered what it was she had first loved in Dion, the thingwhich had made him different from other men; she remembered the days andthe nights in Greece. She saw two lovers in a morning land descendingthe path from the hill of Drouva, going down into the green recesses ofquiet Elis. She saw Hermes and the child. 

All that night she lay awake. In the morning she sent the note to FatherRobertson. 

She could not see Lady Ingleton and yet she dreaded her departure. Shewanted to know more, much more. A gnawing hunger of curiosity assailedher. This woman had been with Dion--since. This woman knew of hisinfidelity; yet she affirmed his love for his wife. But the oneknowledge surely gave the lie to the other. 

Why did she care? Why did she care so much? Rosamund asked herself thequestion almost with terror. 

She found no answer. 

But she could not pray. Whenever she tried to pray Mrs. Clarke camebefore her, and a man--could it be Dion?--stamped with the hideousimprint of physical lust. 

* * * * *

Father Robertson was startled by the change in Rosamund's appearancewhen she visited him two days after she had sent him the note. Shelooked physically ill. Her color had gone. Her eyes were feverish andsunken, and the skin beneath them was stained with that darkness whichbetokens nights without sleep. Her lips and hands twitched with anervousness that was painful. But that which distressed him more thanany other thing was the expression in her face--the look of shame and ofself-consciousness which altered her almost horribly. Even in her mostfrantic moments of grief for Robin there had always been somethingof directness, of fearlessness, in her beauty. Now something furtiveliterally disfigured her, and she seemed trying to cover it with adogged obstinacy which suggested a will stretched to the uttermost, vibrating like a string in danger of snapping. 

"Has Lady Ingleton gone?" she asked, directly she was inside the room. 

"No, not yet. You remember I wrote to you that she would stay on for afew days. "

"But she might have gone unexpectedly. "

"She is still here. "

"I believe I shall have to see her, " Rosamund said, with a sort of hardabruptness and determination. 

"Go to see her, " said Father Robertson firmly. "Perhaps she was senthere. "

"Sent here?" said Rosamund, with a sharpness of sudden suspicion. 

"Oh, my child, "--he put his hand on her arm, and made her sitdown, --"not by a human being. "

Rosamund looked down and was silent. 

"Before you go, if you are going, " Father Robertson continued, sittingdown by the deal table on which he wrote his letters, "I must do what Iought to have done long ago; I must speak to you about your husband. "

Rosamund did not look up, but he saw her frown, and he saw a movement ofher lips; they trembled and then set together in a hard line. 

"I know what he was, not from you but from others; from his mother, from your sister, and from Canon Wilton. I'm going to tell you somethingWilton said to me about you and him after you had separated from him. "

Father Robertson stopped, and fidgeted for a moment with the paperslying in disorder on his table. He hated the task he had set himselfto do. All the tenderness in him revolted against it. He knew what thiswoman whom he cared for very much had suffered; he divined what shewas suffering now. And he was going to add to her accumulated misery bystriking a tremendous blow at the most sacred thing, her pride of woman. Would she be his enemy after he had spoken? It was possible. Yet he mustspeak. 

"He said to me--'Leith has a great heart. When will his wife understandits greatness?'"

There was a long silence. Then, without changing her position or liftingher head, Rosamund said in a hard, level voice:

"Canon Wilton was right about my husband. "

"He loved you. That's a great deal. But he loved you in a very beautifulway. And that's much more. "

"Who told you--about the way he loved me?"

"Your sister, Beatrice. "

"Beattie! Yes, she knew--she understood. "

She bent her head a little lower, then added:

"Beattie is worth more than I am. "

"You are worth a great deal, but--but I want to see you rise to theheights of your nature. I want to see you accomplish the greatest taskof all. "

"Yes?"

"Conquer the last citadel of your egoism. _Ego dormio et cor meumvigilat_--Send the insistent I to sleep. I said it to you long agobefore I knew you. I say it to you now when I do know you, when I knowthe deep waters you have passed through, and the darkness that has besetyou. Fetter your egoism. Release your heart and your spirit in one greataction. Don't let him go down forever because of you. I believeyour misery has been as nothing in comparison with his. If he hasfallen--such a man--why is it?"

"I know why, " she almost whispered. 

"You can never mount up while you are driving a soul downwards. Do youremember those words in the Bible: 'Where thou goest I will go'?"

"Yes. "

"Perhaps they might be changed in respect of you and the man who lovedyou so much and in such a beautiful way. You were linked; can the linkever be broken? You have tried to break it, but have you succeeded? Andif not, wouldn't it be true, drastically true, if you said--Where thougoest I _must_ go? If he goes down because of you I think you'll go downwith him. "

Rosamund sat absolutely still. When Father Robertson paused again therewas not a sound in the little room. 

"And one thing more, " he said, not looking towards her. "There's thechild, your child and his. Is it well with the child?"

Rosamund moved and looked up. Then she got up from her chair. 

"But--but--Robin's----"

She stopped. Her eyes were fixed on Father Robertson. He looked up andmet her eyes, and she saw plainly the mystic in him. 

"What do we know?" he said. "What do we know of the effects of ouractions? Can we be certain that they are limited to this earth? Is itwell with the child? I say we don't know. We dare not affirm that weknow. He loved his father, didn't he?"

Rosamund looked stricken. He let her go. He could not say any more toher. 

That evening Lady Ingleton called in Manxby Street and asked for FatherRobertson. He happened to be in and received her at once. 

"I've had a note from Mrs. Leith, " she said. 

"I am not surprised, " said Father Robertson. "Indeed I expected it. "

"She wishes to see me to-morrow. She writes that she will come to thehotel. How have you persuaded her to come?"

"I don't think I have persuaded her though I wish her to see you. But Ihave told her of her husband's infidelity. "

"You have told her----!"

Lady Ingleton stopped short. She looked unusually discomposed, evennervous and agitated. 

"I said you might, " she murmured. 

"It was essential. "

"If Cynthia knew!" said Lady Ingleton. 

"I mentioned no name. "

"She must have guessed. It's odd, when I told you I didn't feeltreacherous--not really! But now I feel a brute. I've never doneanything like this before. It's against all my code. I've come here, done all this, and now I dread meeting Mrs. Leith. I wish you could bethere when she comes. "

She sent him a soft glance out of her Italian eyes. 

"You make me feel so safe, " she added. 

"You and she must be alone. Remember this! Mrs. Leith must go out toConstantinople. "

"Leave the Sisterhood! Will she ever do that?"

"You came here with the hope of persuading her, didn't you?"

"A hope was it? A forlorn hope, perhaps. "

"Bring it to fruition. "

"But Cynthia! If she ever knows!"

Suddenly Father Robertson looked stern. 

"If what you told me is true----"

"It is true. "

"Then she is doing the devil's work. Put away your fears. They aren'tworthy of you. "

As she took his hand in the saying of good-by she said:

"Your code is so different from ours. We think the only possible thingto do--where a friend is concerned--is to shut the eyes and the lips, and to pretend, and to keep on always pretending. We call that beinghonorable. "

"Poor things!" said Father Robertson. 

But he pressed her hand as he said it, and there was an almost tendersmile on his lips. 

"But your love of truth isn't quite dead yet, " he added, on thethreshold of the door, as he let her out into the rain. "You haven'tbeen able to kill it. It's an indomitable thing, thank God. "

"I wish I--why do you live always in Liverpool?" she murmured. 

She put up her little silk umbrella and was gone. 

There was a fire in her sitting-room on the following-morning. The daywas windy and cold, for March was going out resentfully. Before the firelay Turkish Jane on a cushion, blinking placidly at the flames. Alreadyshe had become reconciled to her new life in this unknown city. Herecstasy of the journey had not returned, but the surprise which hadsucceeded to it was now merged in a stagnant calm, and she felt noobjection to passing the remainder of her life in the Adelphi Hotel. Shesupposed that she was comfortably settled for the day when she heard hermistress call for Annette and give the most objectionable order. 

"Please take Jane away, Annette, " said Lady Ingleton. 

"Miladi!"

"I don't want her here this morning. I'm expecting a visitor, and Janemight bark. I don't wish to have a noise in the room. "

Annette, who looked decidedly sulky, approached the cushion, bent down, and rather abruptly snatched the amazed doyenne of the Pekinese from hervoluptuous reveries. 

"We shall probably leave here to-morrow, " Lady Ingleton added. 

Annette's expression changed. 

"We're going back to London, Miladi?"

"I think so. I'll tell you this afternoon. "

She glanced at her watch. 

"I don't wish to be disturbed for an hour. Don't leave Jane in mybedroom. Take her away to yours. "

"Very well, Miladi. "

Annette went out looking inquisitive, with Turkish Jane on her arm. 

When she was gone Lady Ingleton took up "The Liverpool Mercury" andtried to read the news of the day. The March wind roared outside andmade the windows rattle. She listened to it and forgot the chronicle ofthe passing hour. She was a women who cared to know the big things thatwere happening in the big world. She had always lived among men who werehelping to make history, and she was intelligent enough to understandtheir efforts and to join in their discussions. Her husband had oftenconsulted her when he was in a tight place, and sometimes he had toldher she had the brain of a man. But she had the nerves and the heart ofa woman, and at this moment public affairs and the news of the day didnot interest her at all. She was concentrated on woman's business. Into her hands she had taken a tangled love skein. And she was almostfrightened at what she had ventured to do. Could she hope to be of anyuse, of any help, in getting it into order? Was there any chance for theman she had last seen in Stamboul near Santa Sophia? She almost dreadedRosamund Leith's arrival. She felt nervous, strung up. The roar of thewind added to her uneasiness. It suggested turmoil, driven things, theangry passions of nature. Beyond the Mersey the sea was raging. She hada stupid feeling that nature and man were always in a ferment, that itwas utterly useless to wish for peace, or to try to bring about peace, that destinies could only be worked out to their appointed ends indarkness and in fury. She even forgot her own years of happiness for alittle while and saw herself as a woman always anxious, doubtful, andenvisaging untoward things. When a knock came on the door she startedand got up quickly from her chair. Her heart was beating fast. Howridiculous!

"Come in!" she said. 

A waiter opened the door and showed in Rosamund

CHAPTER XI

Lady Ingleton looked swiftly at the woman coming in at the doorway cladin the severe, voluminous, black gown and cloak, and black and whiteheadgear, which marked out the members of the Sisterhood of St. Mary's. Her first thought was "What a cold face!" It was succeeded immediatelyby the thought, "But beautiful even in its coldness. " She met Rosamundnear the door, took her hand, and said:

"I am glad you were able to come. I wanted very much to meet you. Icame here really with the faint hope of seeing you. Let me take yourumbrella. What a day it is! Did you walk?"

"I came most of the way by tram. Thank you, " said Rosamund, in acontralto voice which sounded inflexible. 

Lady Ingleton went to "stand" the umbrella in a corner. In doingthis she turned away from her visitor for a moment. She felt moreembarrassed, more "at a loss" than she had ever felt before; she evenfelt guilty, though she had done no wrong and was anxious only to doright. Her sense of guilt, she believed, was caused by the fact thatin her heart she condemned her visitor, and by the additional, moreunpleasant fact that she knew Rosamund was aware of her condemnation. 

"It's hateful--so much knowledge between two women who are strangers toeach other!" she thought, as she turned round. 

"Do sit down by the fire, " she said to Rosamund, who was standing nearthe writing-table immediately under a large engraving of "Wedded. "

She wished ardently that Rosamund wore the ordinary clothes of awell-dressed woman of the world. The religious panoply of the "sister's"attire, with its suggestion of a community apart, got on her nerves, andseemed to make things more difficult. 

Rosamund went to a chair and sat down. She still looked very cold, butshe succeeded in looking serene, and her eyes, unworldly and pure, didnot fall before Lady Ingleton's. 

Lady Ingleton sat down near her and immediately realized that she hadplaced herself exactly opposite to "Wedded. " She turned her eyes awayfrom the large nude arms of the bending man and met Rosamund's gazefixed steadily upon her. That gaze told her not to delay, but to gostraight to the tragic business which had brought her to Liverpool. 

"You know of course that my husband is Ambassador at Constantinople, "she began. 

"Yes, " said Rosamund. 

"You and I met--at least we were in the same room once--at TippieChetwinde's, " said Lady Ingleton, almost pleading with her visitor. "Iheard you sing. "

"Yes, I remember. I told Father Robertson so. "

"I dare say you think it very strange my coming here in this way. "

In spite of the strong effort of her will Lady Ingleton was feeling withevery moment more painfully embarrassed. All her code was absolutelyagainst mixing in the private concerns of others uninvited. She had asort of delicate hatred of curiosity. She longed to prove to the womanby the fire that she was wholly incurious now, wholly free from thetaint of sordid vulgarity that clings to the social busybody. 

"I've done it solely because I'm very sorry for some one, " shecontinued; "because I'm very sorry for your husband. "

She looked away from Rosamund, and again her eyes rested on theengraving of "Wedded. " The large bare arms of the man, his bending, amorous head, almost hypnotized her. She disliked the picture ofwhich this was a reproduction. Far too many people had liked it; theiraffection seemed to her to have been destructive, to have destroyed anyvalue it had formerly had. Yet now, as she looked almost in despite ofherself, suddenly she saw through the engraving, through the symbol, to something beyond; to the prompting conception in the painter's mindwhich had led to the picture, to the great mystery of the patheticattempt of human beings who love, or who think they love, to unitethemselves to each other, to mingle body with body and soul with soul. She saw a woman in the dress of a "sister, " the woman who was with her;she saw a man in an Eastern city; and abruptly courage came to her onthe wings of a genuine emotion. 

"I don't know how to tell you what I feel about him, Mrs. Leith, " shesaid. "But I want to try to. Will you let me?"

"Yes. Please tell me, " said Rosamund, in a level, expressionless voice. 

"Remember this; I never saw him till I saw him in Turkey, nor did myhusband. We were not able to draw any comparison between the unhappy manand the happy man. We were unprejudiced. "

"I quite understand that; thank you. "

"It was in the summer. We were living at Therapia on the Bosporus. Hecame to stay in a hotel not far off. My husband met him in a valleywhich the Turks call Kesstane Dereh. He--your husband--was sitting therealone by a stream. They talked. My husband asked him to call at oursummer villa. He came the next day. Of course I--I knew something ofhis story"--she hurried on--"and I was prepared to meet a man who wasunhappy. (Forgive me for saying all this. )"

"But, please, I have come to hear, " said Rosamund, coldly and steadily. 

"Your husband--I was alone with him during his first visit--made anextraordinary impression upon me. I scarcely know how to describe it. "She paused for a moment. "There was something intensely bitter in hispersonality. Bitterness is an active principle. And yet somehow heconveyed to me an impression of emptiness too. I remember he said to me, 'I don't quite know what I am going to do. I'm a free agent. I have noties. ' I shall never forget his look when he said those words. I neverknew anything about loneliness--anything really--till that moment. Andafter that moment I knew everything. I asked him to come on the yacht toBrusa, or rather to Mudania; from there one goes to Brusa. He came. You may think, perhaps, that he was eager for society, for pleasure, distraction. It wasn't that. He was making a tremendous, a terribleeffort to lay hold on life again, to interest himself in things. He waspushed to it. "

"Pushed to it!" said Rosamund, still in the hard level voice. "Whopushed him?"

"I can only tell you it was as I say, " said Lady Ingleton, quickly andwith embarrassment. "We were very few on the yacht. Of course I saw agood deal of your husband. He was absolutely reserved with me. Healways has been. You mustn't think he has ever given me the least bitof confidence. He never has. I am quite sure he never would. We are onlyacquaintances. But I want to be a friend to him now. He hasn't a friend, not one, out there. My husband, I think, feels rather as I do about him, in so far as a man can feel in our sort of way. He would gladly be moreintimate with your husband. But your husband doesn't make friends. He'sbeyond anything of that kind. He tried, on the yacht and at Brusa. Hedid his utmost. But he was held back by his misery. I must tell you(it's very uninteresting)"--her voice softened here, and her faceslightly changed, became gentler, more intensely feminine--"that myhusband and I are very happy together. We always have been; we alwaysshall be; we can't help it. Being with us your husband had to--tocontemplate our happiness. It--I suppose it reminded him----"

She stopped; she could not bring herself to say it. Again her eyesrested upon "Wedded, " and, in spite of her long conviction of itsessential banality--she classed it with "The Soul's Awakening, ""Harmony, " and all the things she was farthest away from--she felt whatit stood for painfully, almost mysteriously. 

"One day, " she resumed, speaking more slowly, and trying to banishemotion from her voice, "I went out from the hotel where we stayed atBrusa, quite alone. There's a mosque at Brusa called Jeshil Jami, the Green Mosque. It stands above the valley. It is one of the mostbeautiful things I know, and quite the most beautiful Osmanli building. I like to go there alone. Very often there is no one in the mosque. Well, I went there that day. When I went in--the guardian was on theterrace; he knows me and that I'm the British Ambassadress, and neverbothers me--I thought at first the mosque was quite empty. I sat downclose to the door. After I had been there two or three minutes I feltthere was some one else in the mosque. I looked round. Before the Mihrabthere was a man. It was your husband. He was kneeling on the matting, but--but he wasn't praying. When I knew, when I heard what he was doing, I went away at once. I couldn't--I felt that----"

Again she paused. In the pause she heard the gale tearing at thewindows. She looked at the woman in the sister's dress. Rosamund wassitting motionless, and was now looking down. Lady Ingleton positivelyhated the sister's dress at that moment. She thought of it as a sortof armor in which her visitor was encased, an armor which rendered herinvulnerable. What shaft could penetrate that smooth black and white, that flowing panoply, and reach the heart Lady Ingleton desired topierce? Suddenly Lady Ingleton felt cruel. She longed to tear away fromRosamund all the religion which seemed to be protecting her; she longedto see her naked as Dion Leith was naked. 

"I didn't care to look upon a man in hell, " she said, in a voice whichhad become almost brutal, a voice which Sir Carey would scarcely haverecognized if he had heard it. 

Rosamund said nothing, and, after a moment, Lady Ingleton continued:

"With us on the yacht was one of my husband's secretaries of Embassy, Cyril Vane, who had just become engaged to be married. He is marriednow. In his cabin on the yacht he had a photograph of the girl. Onenight he was walking up and down on deck with your husband, and yourhusband--I'd just told him about Vane's engagement--congratulated him. Vane invited Mr. Leith into the cabin and showed him the photograph. Vane told me afterwards that he should never forget the look on yourhusband's face as he took the photograph and gazed at it. When he put itdown he said to Vane, 'I hope you may be happy. She looks very kind, andvery good, too; but there's no cruelty on earth like the cruelty of agood woman. '" (Did the sister's dress rustle faintly?) "Vane--he's onlya boy--was very angry for a moment, though he's usually imperturbable. I don't know exactly what he said, but I believe he made a rather strongprotest about knowing his fiancee's character _au fond_. Anyhow, yourhusband took hold of his arm and said to him, 'Don't love very muchand you may be happy. That's the only chance for a man--not to love thewoman very much. ' Vane came to me and told me. I remember it was late atnight and my husband was there. When Vane was leaving us Carey said tohim, 'Forget the advice that poor fellow gave you. Love her as muchas you can, my boy. Dion Leith speaks out of the bitterness that isdestroying him. But very few men can love as he can, and very few menhave been punished by their love as he has been punished by his. Hissorrow is altogether exceptional, and has made him lose the power ofmoral vision. His soul has been poisoned at the source. ' My husband wasright. "

"You came here to tell me that?" said Rosamund, lifting her head andspeaking coldly and very clearly. 

"I didn't know what I was going to tell you. At the time I am speakingof I had no thought of ever trying to see you. That thought came to melong afterwards. "

"Why?"

"I'm a happy woman. In my happiness I've learnt to respect love verymuch, and I've learnt to recognize it at a glance. Your husband is thevictim of a great love, Mrs. Leith. I feel as if I couldn't stand by andsee him utterly destroyed by it. "

"Father Robertson tells me----" said Rosamund. 

And then she was silent. All this time she was struggling almostfuriously against pride and an intense reserve which seemed trying tosuffocate every good impulse within her. She held on to the thought ofFather Robertson (she was unable to hold on to the thought of God);she strove not to hate the woman who was treading in her sanctuary, andwhose steps echoed harshly and discordantly to its farthest, its holiestrecesses; but she felt herself to be hardening against her will, to becongealing, turning to ice. Nevertheless she was resolute not to leavethe room in which she was without learning all that this woman had totell her. 

"Yes?" said Lady Ingleton. 

And the thought went through her mind:

"Oh, how she is hating me!"

"Father Robertson told me there was someone else. "

"Yes, there is. Otherwise I might never have come here. I'm partly toblame. But I--but I can't possibly go into details. You mustn't ask mefor any details, please. Try to accept the little I can say as truth, though I'm not able to give you any proof. You must know that women whoare intelligent, and have lived long in the--well, in the sort of worldI've lived in, are never mistaken about certain things. They don't needwhat are called proofs. They know certain things are happening, or nothappening, without holding any proofs for or against. Your husband hasgot into the wrong hands. "

"What do you mean by that?" said Rosamund steadily, even obstinately. 

"In his misery and absolute loneliness he has allowed himself to betaken possession of by a woman. She is doing him a great deal of harm. In fact she is ruining him. "

She stopped. Perhaps she suspected that Rosamund, in defiance of herown denial of proofs, would begin asking for them; but Rosamund saidnothing. 

"He is going down, " Lady Ingleton resumed. "He has already deterioratedterribly. I saw him recently by chance in Stamboul (he never comes tous now), and I was shocked at his appearance. When I first met him, inspite of his bitterness and intense misery I knew at once that I waswith a man of fine nature. There was something unmistakable, the rareimprint; that's fading from him now. You know Father Robertson verywell. I don't. But the very first time I was with him I knew he wasa man who was seeking the heights. Your husband now is _seeking_ thedepths, as if he wanted to hide himself and his misery in them. Perhapshe hasn't found the lowest yet. I believe there is only one human beingwho can prevent him from finding it. I'm quite sure there is only onehuman being. That's why I came here. "

She was silent. Then she added:

"I've told you now what I wished to tell you, all I can tell you. "

In thinking beforehand of what this interview would probably be likeLady Ingleton had expected it to be more intense, charged with greatersurface emotion than was the case. Now she felt a strange coldness inthe room. The dry rattling of the window under the assault of the galewas an interpolated sound that was in place. 

"Your husband has never mentioned your name to me, " she said, influencedby an afterthought. "And yet I've come here, because I know that theonly hope of salvation for him is here. "

Again her eyes went to "Wedded, " and then to the sister's dress andclose-fitting headgear which disguised Rosamund. And suddenly theimpulsiveness which was her inheritance from her Celtic and Latinancestors took complete possession of her. She got up swiftly and wentto Rosamund. 

"You hate me for having come here, for having told you all this. Youwill always hate me, I think. I've intruded upon your peaceful life inreligion--your peaceful, comfortable, sheltered life. "

Her great dark eyes fixed themselves upon the cross which lay onRosamund's breast. She lifted her hand and pointed to it. 

"You've nailed _him_ on a cross, " she said, with almost fierceintensity. "How can you be happy in that dress, worshiping God with alot of holy women?"

"Did I tell you I was happy?" said Rosamund. 

She got up and stood facing Lady Ingleton. Her face still preservedsomething of the coldness, but the color had deepened in the cheeks, andthe expression in the eyes had changed. They looked now much less likethe eyes of a "sister" than they had looked when she came into the room. 

"Take off that dress and go to Constantinople!" said Lady Ingleton. 

Rosamund flushed deeply, painfully; her mouth trembled, and tears cameinto her eyes, but she spoke resolutely. 

"Thank you for telling me, " she said. "You were right to come here andto tell me. If I hate you, as you say, that's my fault, not yours. "

She paused. It was evident that she was making a tremendous effort toconquer something; she even shut her eyes for a brief instant. Then sheadded in a very low voice;

"Thank you!"

And she put out her hand. 

Tears started into Lady Ingleton's eyes as she took the hand. Rosamundturned and went quickly out of the room. 

Some minutes after she had gone Lady Ingleton heard rain beating uponthe window. The sound reminded her of the umbrella she had "stood"in the corner of the room when Rosamund came in. It was still there. Impulsively she went to the corner and took it up; then, realizing thatRosamund must already be on her way, she laid it down on the table. Shestood for a moment looking from "Wedded" to the damp umbrella. 

Then she sat down on the sofa and cried impetuously. 

CHAPTER XII

It was the month of May. Already there had been several unusually hotdays in Constantinople, and Mrs. Clarke was beginning to think about thevilla at Buyukderer. She was getting tired of Pera. She had fulfilledher promise to Dion Leith. She had given up going to England for Jimmy'sChristmas holidays and had spent the whole winter in Constantinople. Butnow she had had enough of it for the present, indeed more than enough ofit. 

She was feeling weary of the everlasting diplomatic society, of the_potins_ political and social, of the love affairs and intrigues of heracquaintances which she knew of or divined, of the familiar voicesand faces. She wanted something new; she wanted to break away. Therestlessness that was always in her, concealed beneath her pale aspectof calm, was persecuting her as the spring with its ferment drew near tothe torrid summer. 

The spring had got into her veins and had made her long for novelty. 

One morning when Sonia came into Mrs. Clarke's bedroom with the coffeeshe brought a piece of news. 

"Miladi Ingleton arrived at the Embassy from England yesterday, " saidSonia, in her thick, soft voice. 

The apparent recovery of Lady Ingleton's mother had been a deception. She had had a relapse almost immediately after Lady Ingleton's returnfrom Liverpool to London; an operation had been necessary, and LadyIngleton had been obliged to stay on in England several weeks. During this time Mrs. Clarke had had no news from her. Till Sonia'sannouncement she had not known the date fixed for her friend's return. She received the information with her usual inflexibility, and merelysaid:

"I'll go to see her this afternoon. "

Then she took up a newspaper which Sonia had brought in with her andbegan to sip the coffee. 

As soon as she was dressed she sent a note to the British Embassy to askif her friend would be in at tea-time. 

Lady Ingleton drew her brows together when she read it. She wasdelighted to be again in Constantinople, for she had missed Carey quiteterribly, but she wished that Cynthia Clarke was anywhere else. Eversince her visit to Liverpool she had been dreading the inevitablemeeting with the friend whose secret she had betrayed. Yet the meetingmust take place. She would be obliged some day to look once more intoCynthia Clarke's earnest and distressed eyes. When that happenedwould she hate herself very much for what she had done? She had oftenwondered. She wondered now, as she read the note written in her friend'slarge upright hand, as she wrote a brief answer to say she would be inafter five o'clock that day. 

She was troubled by the fact that her visit to Liverpool had not yieldedthe result she had hoped for. Rosamund Leith had not sought her husband. But she had taken off the sister's dress and had given up living in thenorth. 

Lady Ingleton knew this from Father Robertson, with whom shecorresponded. She had never seen Rosamund or heard from her since theinterview in the Adelphi Hotel. And she was troubled, although shehad recently received from Father Robertson a letter ending with thesewords:

"Pressure would be useless. I have found by experience that one cannothurry the human soul. It must move at its own pace. You have done yourpart. Try to leave the rest with confidence in other hands. Through youshe knows the truth of her husband's condition. She has given up theSisterhood. Surely that means that she has taken the first step on theroad that leads to Constantinople. "

But now May was here with its heat, and its sunshine, and its dust, andLady Ingleton must soon meet the eyes of Cynthia Clarke, and the man shehad striven to redeem was unredeemed. 

She sighed as she got up from her writing-table. Perhaps perversely shefelt that she would mind meeting Cynthia Clarke less if her treacheryhad been rewarded by the accomplishment of her purpose. A uselesstreachery seemed to her peculiarly unpardonable. She hated having donea wrong without securing a _quid pro quo_. Even if Father Robertson wasright, and Rosamund Leith's departure from the Sisterhood were the firststep on the road to Constantinople, she might arrive too late. 

Although she was once more with Carey, Lady Ingleton felt unusuallydepressed. 

Soon after five the door of her boudoir was opened by a footman, andMrs. Clarke walked slowly in, looking Lady Ingleton thought, eventhinner, even more haggard and grave than usual. She was perfectlydressed in a gown that was a marvel of subtle simplicity, and wore a hatthat drew just enough attention to the lovely shape of her small head. 

"Certainly she has the most delicious head I ever saw, " was LadyIngleton's first (preposterous) thought. "And the strongest will I everencountered, " was the following thought, as she looked into her friend'slarge eyes. 

After they had talked London and Paris for a few minutes Lady Ingletonchanged the subject, and with a sort of languid zest, which was intendedto conceal a purpose she desired to keep secret, began to speak ofPera and of the happenings there while she had been away. Variousacquaintances were discussed, and presently Lady Ingleton arrived, strolling, at Dion Leith. 

"Mr. Leith is still here, isn't he?" she asked. "Carey hasn't seen himlately but thinks he is about. "

"Oh yes, he is still here, " said Mrs. Clarke's husky voice. 

"What does he do? How does he pass his time?"

"I often wonder, " replied Mrs. Clarke, squeezing a lemon into her cup, which was full of clear China tea. 

She put the lemon, thoroughly squeezed, down on its plate, lookingsteadily at her friend, and continued:

"You remember last summer when I asked you to be kind to him, and toldyou why I was interested in him, poor fellow?"

"Oh yes. "

"I really thought at that time it would be possible to assist him to getback into life, what we understand by life. You helped me like a truefriend. "

"Oh, I really did nothing. "

"You enabled me to continue my acquaintance with him here, " said Mrs. Clarke inflexibly. 

Lady Ingleton was silent, and Mrs. Clarke continued:

"You know what I did, my efforts to interest him in all sorts of things. I even got Jimmy out because I knew Mr. Leith was fond of him, threwthem together, even tried to turn Mr. Leith into a sort of holidaytutor. Anything to take him out of himself. Later on, when Jimmy wentback to England, I though I would try hard to wake up Dion Leith'smind. "

"Did you?" said Lady Ingleton, in her most languid voice. 

"I took him about in Stamboul. I showed him all the interesting thingsthat travelers as a rule know nothing about. I tried to make him feelStamboul. I even spent the winter here chiefly because of him, though, of course, nobody must know that but you. "

"Entendu, ma chere!"

"But I've made a complete failure of it all. "

"You meant that Mr. Leith can't take up life again?"

"He simply doesn't care for the things of the mind. He has very fewmental resources. I imagined that there was very much more in himto work upon than there is. If his heart receives a hard blow, anintellectual man can always turn for consolation to the innumerablethings of art, philosophy, literature, that are food for the mind. But Mr. Leith unfortunately isn't an intellectual man. And anotherthing----"

She had been speaking very quietly; now she paused. 

"Yes?" said Lady Ingleton. 

"Jimmy came out for the Easter holidays. It was absurd, because they'reso short, but I had to see him, and I couldn't very well go to England. Well, Jimmy's taken a violent dislike to Mr. Leith. "

"I thought Jimmy was very fond of him. "

"He was devoted to him, but now he can't bear him. In fact, Jimmy won'thave anything to do with Dion Leith. I suppose--boys of that age areoften very sharp--I suppose he sees the deterioration in Mr. Leith andit disgusts him. "

"Deterioration!" said Lady Ingleton, leaning forward, and speaking moreimpulsively than before. 

"Yes. It is heart-rending. "

"Really!"

"And it makes things difficult for me. "

"I'm sorry for that. "

There was a moment of silence; then, as Mrs. Clarke did not speak, butsat still wrapped in a haggard immobility, Lady Ingleton said:

"When do you go to Buyukderer?"

"I shall probably go next week. I've very tired of Pera. "

"You look tired. "

"I didn't mean physically. I'm never physically tired. "

"Extraordinary woman!" said Lady Ingleton, with a faint, unhumoroussmile. "Come and see some Sevres I picked up at Christie's. Carey isdelighted with it, although, of course, horrified at the price I paidfor it. "

She got up and went with Mrs. Clarke into one of the drawing-rooms. DionLeith was not mentioned again. 

That evening the Ingletons dined alone. Sir Carey said he must insiston a short honeymoon even though they were obliged to spend it in anEmbassy. They had dinner in Bohemian fashion on a small round table inLady Ingleton's boudoir, and were waited upon by Sir Carey's valet, amiddle-aged Italian who had been for many years in his service and whohad succeeded, in the way of Italian servants, in becoming one of thefamily. The Pekinese lay around solaced by the arrival of their mistressand of their doyenne. 

When dinner was over and Sir Carey had lit his cigar, he breathed a sighof contentment. 

"At last I'm happy once more after all those months of solitude!"

He looked across at his wife, and added:

"But are you happy at being with me again?"

She smiled. 

"Yes, " he said, "I know, of course. "

"Then why do you ask?"

"Well, I'm a trained observer, like every competent diplomatist, and--there's something. I see in the lute of your happiness a tiny rift. It's scarcely visible, but--I see it. "

"I'm not quite happy to-night. "

"And you won't tell me why, on our honeymoon?"

"I want to tell you but I can't. I have no right to tell you. "

"You only can judge of that. "

"I've done something that even you might think abominable, somethingtreacherous. I had a great reason--but still!" She sighed. "I shallnever be able to tell you what it is, because to do that would increasemy sin. To-night I'm realizing that I'm not at all sorry for what Ihave done. And that not being sorry--as well as something else--makes meunhappy in a new way. It's all very complicated. "

"Like Balkan politics! Shall we"--he looked round the roommeditatively--"shall we set the dogs at it?"

She smiled. 

"Even they couldn't drive my _tristesse_ quite away. You have more powerwith me than many dogs. Read me something. Read me 'Rabbi ben Ezra. '"

Sir Carey went to fetch the exorcizer. 

The truth was that Lady Ingleton's interview with Cynthia Clarke hadmade her realize two things: that since she had come to know FatherRobertson, and had betrayed to him the secret of her friend's life, anygenuine feeling of liking she had had for Cynthia Clarke had died; andthat Cynthia Clarke was tired of Dion Leith. 

That day Mrs. Clarke's hypocrisy had, perhaps, for the first time, absolutely disgusted, and even almost horrified, Lady Ingleton. Foryears Lady Ingleton had known of it, but for years she had almostadmired it. The cleverness, the subtlety, the competence of it hadentertained her mind. She had respected, too, the courage which neverfailed Mrs. Clarke. But she was beginning to see her with new eyes. Perhaps Father Robertson had given his impulsive visitor a new moralvision. 

During the conversation that afternoon at certain moments Lady Ingletonhad almost hated Cynthia Clarke--when Cynthia had spoken of trying towake up Dion Leith's mind, of his not being an intellectual man, ofJimmy Clarke's shrinking from him because of his deterioration. And whenCynthia had said that deterioration was "heart-rending" Lady Ingletonhad quite definitely detested her. This feeling of detestation hadpersisted while, in the drawing-room, Cynthia was lovingly appreciatingthe new acquisition of Sevres. Lady Ingleton sickened now when shethought of the lovely hands sensitively touching, feeling, the thinchina. There really was something appalling in the delicate mentality, in the subtle taste, of a woman in whom raged such devastating physicalpassions. 

Lady Ingleton shuddered as she remembered her conversation with her"friend. " But it had brought about something. It had driven away anylingering regret of hers for having spoken frankly to Father Robertson. Cynthia was certainly tired of Dion Leith. Was she about to sacrificehim as she had sacrificed others? Lady Ingleton dreaded the future. Forduring the interview at the Adelphi Hotel she had realized Rosamund'sinnate and fastidious purity. To forgive even one infidelity would bea tremendous moral triumph in such a woman as Rosamund. But if CynthiaClarke threw Dion Leith away, and he fell into promiscuous degradation, then surely Rosamund's nature would rise up in inevitable revolt. Evenif she came to Constantinople then it would surely be too late. 

Lady Ingleton had seen clearly enough into the mind of Cynthia Clarke, but there was hidden from her the greater part of a human drama not yetcomplete. 

Combined with the ugly passion which governed her life, Mrs. Clarke hadan almost wild love of personal freedom. As much as she loved to fettershe hated to be fettered. This hatred had led her into many difficultiesduring the course of her varied life, difficulties which had alwaysoccurred at moments when she wanted to get rid of people. Ever since shehad grown up there had been recurring epochs when she had been tormentedby the violent desire to rid herself of some one whom she had formerlylonged for, whom she had striven to bind to her. Until now she hadalways eventually succeeded in breaking away from those who werebeginning to involve her in weariness or to disgust her. There hadsometimes been perilous moments, painful scenes, bitter recriminations. But by the exercise of her indomitable power of will, helped by herexceptional lack of scruple, she had always managed to accomplish herpurpose. She had always found hitherto that she was more pitiless, and therefore more efficient, than anyone opposed to her in a severestruggle of wills. But Dion Leith was beginning to cause her seriousuneasiness. She had known from the beginning of their acquaintance thathe was an exceptional man; since his tragedy she had realized that theexceptional circumstances of his life had accentuated his individuality. In sorrow, in deterioration, he had broken loose from restraint. She hadhelped to make him what he had now become, the most difficult man shehad ever had to deal with. When he had crossed the river to her hehad burnt all the boats behind him. If he had sometimes been weak ingoodness, in those former days long past, in what he consideredas evil--Mrs. Clarke did not see things in white and black--he haddeveloped a peculiar persistence and determination which were very likestrength. 

Looking back, Mrs. Clarke realized that the definite change in Dion, which marked the beginning of a new development, dated from the night inthe garden at Buyukderer when Jimmy had so nearly learnt the truth. Onthat night she had forced Dion to save her reputation with her childby lying and playing the hypocrite to a boy who looked up to him andtrusted in him. Dion had not forgotten his obedience. Perhaps he hatedher because of it in some secret place of his soul. She was sure thathe intended to make her pay for it. He had obeyed her in what sheconsidered as a very trifling matter. (For of course Jimmy had to bedeceived. ) But since then he had often shown a bitter, even sometimes abrutal, disposition to make her obey him. She could not fully understandthe measure of his resentment because she had none of his sense of honorand did not share his instinctive love of truth. But she knew he hadsuffered acutely in tricking and lying to Jimmy. 

On that night, then, he had burnt his boats. She herself had told himto do it when she had said to him, "Give yourself wholly to me. " She wasbeginning to regret that she had ever said that. 

At first, in her perversity, she had curiously enjoyed Dion's misery. Ithad wrapped him in a garment that was novel. It had thrown about hima certain romance. But now she was becoming weary of it. She had hadenough of it and enough of him. That horrible process, which she knewso well, had repeated itself once more: she had wanted a thing; she hadstriven for it; she had obtained it; she had enjoyed it (for she knewwell how to enjoy and never thought that the game was not worth thecandle). And then, by slow, almost imperceptible degrees, her power ofenjoyment had begun to lessen. Day by day it had lost in strength. Shehad tried to stimulate it, to deceive herself about its decay, but thetime had come, as it had come to her many times in the past, when shehad been forced to acknowledge to herself that it was no longer livingbut a corpse. Dion Leith had played his part in her life. She wished nowto put him outside of her door. She had made sacrifices for him; forhim she had run risks. All that was very well so long as he had hadthe power to reward her. But now she was beginning to brood over thoserisks, those sacrifices, with resentment, to magnify them in her mind;she was beginning to be angry as she dwelt upon that which distortedlyshe thought of as her unselfishness. 

After Jimmy had left Turkey to go back to Eton, and the summer had died, Mrs. Clarke had fulfilled her promise to Dion. She had settled at Perafor the winter, and she had arranged his life for him. From the momentof Jimmy's departure Dion had given himself entirely to her. He hadeven given himself with a sort of desperation. She had been aware of hisfierce concentration, and she had tasted it with a keenness of pleasure, she had savored it deliberately and fully in the way of an epicure. Theforce of his resolution towards evil--it was just that--had acted uponher abominably sensitive temperament as a strong tonic. That period hadbeen the time when, to her, the game was worth the candle, was worth awhole blaze of candles. 

Already, then, Dion had begun to show the new difficult man whom she, working hand in hand with sorrow, had helped to create within him;but she had at first enjoyed his crudities of temper, his occasionaloutbursts of brutality, his almost fierce roughness and the hardnesswhich alternated with his moments of passion. 

She had understood that he was flinging away with furious hands all thebaggage of virtue he had clung to in the past, that he was readjustinghis life, was reversing all the habits which had been familiar andnatural to him in the existence with Rosamund. So much the better, shehad thought. The fact that he was doing this proved to her her powerover him. She had smiled, in her unsmiling way, upon his efforts to dowhat she had told him to do, to cut away the cancer that was in him andto cut away all that was round it. Away with the old moralities, theold hatred of lies and deceptions, the old love of sanity and purity oflife. 

But away, too, with the old reverence for, and worship of, the womanpossessed. 

Dion had taken to heart a maxim once uttered to him by Mrs. Clarke inthe garden at Buyukderer. Mention had been made of the very foolishand undignified conduct of a certain woman in Pera society who had beenbadly treated by a young diplomat. In discussing the matter Dion hadchanced to say:

"But if she does such things how can any man respect her?"

Mrs. Clarke's reply, spoken with withering sarcasm, had been:

"Women don't want to be _respected_ by men. "

Dion had not forgotten that saying. It had sunk deep into his heart. He had come to believe it. Even when he thought of Rosamund still hebelieved it. He had respected her, and had shown his respect in themost chivalrous way at his command, and she had never really loved him. Evidently women were not what he had thought they were. Mrs. Clarke knewwhat they were and a thousand things that he did not know. He graspedat her cynicism, and he often applied it, translated through hispersonality, to herself. He even went farther in cynicism than she hadever gone, behaving like a convert to a religion which had the charmof novelty. He praised her for her capacities as a liar, a hypocrite, asubtle trickster, a thrower of dust in the eyes of her world. One of hisfavorite names for her was "dust-thrower. " Sometimes he abused her. Shebelieved that at moments he detested her. But he clung to her and he didnot mean to give her up. And she knew that. 

After that horrible night when Jimmy had waked up she had succeeded inmaking Dion believe that he was deeply loved by her. She had really hadan ugly passion for him, and she had contrived easily enough to dressit up and present it as love. And he clung to that semblance of love, because it was all that he had, because it was a weapon in his hand, andbecause he had made for it a sacrifice. He had sacrificed the truth thatwas in him, and he had received in part payment the mysterious dislikeof the boy who had formerly looked up to him. 

Jimmy had never been friendly with Dion since the night of their searchfor his mother in the garden. 

His manner towards his mother had changed but little. He was slightlymore reserved with her than he had been. Her faint air of sarcasm when, in Sonia's room, he had shown her his boyish agitation, had made aconsiderable impression upon him. He was unable to forget it. And he wasa little more formal with his mother; showed her, perhaps, more respectthan before. But the change was trifling. His respect for Dion, however, was obviously dead. Indeed he had begun to show a scarcely veiledhostility towards Dion in the summer holidays, and in the recent Easterholidays, spent by him in Pera, he had avoided Dion as much as possible. 

"That fellow still here!" he had said, with boyish gruffness, when hismother had first mentioned Dion's name immediately after his arrival. And when he had seen Dion he had said straight out to his mother that hecouldn't "stand Leith at any price now. " She had asked him why, fixingher eyes upon him, but the only reply she had succeeded in getting hadbeen that he didn't trust the fellow, that he hadn't trusted Leith for along time. 

"Since when?" she had said. 

"Can't remember, " had been the non-committal answer. 

It seemed as if Jimmy had seen through Dion's insincerity in the gardenat Buyukderer. Yet there was nothing to show that he had not acceptedhis mother's insincerity in Sonia's room at its face value. Even Mrs. Clarke had not been able to understand exactly what was in her boy'smind. But Jimmy's hostility to Dion had troubled her obscurely, and hadadded to her growing weariness of this intrigue something more vital. Her intelligence divined, rather than actually perceived, the cominginto her life of a definite menace to her happiness, if happiness itcould be called. She felt as if Jimmy were on the track of her secret, and she was certain that Dion was the cause of the boy's unpleasant newalertness. In the past she had taken risks for Dion. But she had hadthe great reason of what she chose to call passion. That reason was gonenow. She was resolved not to take the greatest of all risks for a manwhom she wanted to get rid of. 

She was resolved; but she encountered now in Dion a resolve which shehad not suspected he was capable of, and which began to render herseriously uneasy. 

Lady Ingleton's remark, "you look tired, " had struck unpleasantly onMrs. Clarke's ears, and she came away from the Embassy that day withthem in her mind. She was on foot. As she came out through the greatgateway of the Embassy she remembered that she had been coming from iton that day in June when she had seen Dion Leith for the first time inPera. A sharp thrill had gone through her that day. He had come. He hadobeyed the persistent call of her will. What she had desired for solong would be. And she had been fiercely glad for two reasons; one anordinary reason, the other less ordinary. A mysterious reason of themind. If her will had played her false for once, had proved inadequate, she would have suffered strangely. When she knew it had not she hadtriumphed. But now, as she walked onward slowly, she wished she hadnever seen Dion Leith in Pera, she wished that her will had playedher false. It would have been better so, for she was in a difficultsituation, and she foresaw that it was going to become more difficult. She was assailed by that recurring desire which is the scourge of thesensualist, the desire to rid herself violently, abruptly and foreverof the possession she had schemed and made long efforts to obtain. Hertorch was burnt out. She wished to stamp out the flame of another torchwhich still glowed with a baleful fire. 

"And Delia has noticed something!" she thought. 

The thought was scarcely out of her mind when she came face to face withDion Leith. He stopped before her. 

"Have you been to the Embassy?" he said. 

"Yes. Delia Ingleton came back yesterday. You aren't going to callthere?"

"Of course not. I happened to see you walking in that direction, so Ithought I would wait for you. "

With the manner of a man exercising a right he turned to walk backwith her. A flame of irritation scorched her, but she did not show anyemotion. She only said quietly:

"You know I am not particularly fond of being seen with men in theGrande Rue. "

"Very well. If you like, I'll come to your flat by a round-about way. I'll be there five minutes after you are. "

Before she had time to say anything he was gone, striding through thecrowd. 

Mrs. Clarke walked on and came into the Grande Rue. 

She lived in a flat in a street which turned out of the Grande Rue onthe left not very far from the Taxim Garden. As she walked on slowly shewas trying to make up her mind to force a break with Dion. She hadgreat courage and was naturally ruthless, yet for once she was besetby indecision. She did not any longer feel sure that she could dominatethis man. She had bent him to her will when she took him; but could shedo so when she wished to get rid of him?

When she reached the house, on the second floor of which was her flat, she found him there waiting for her. 

"You must have walked very quickly, Dion, " she said. 

"No, I didn't, " he replied bruskly. "You walked very slowly. "

"I feel tired to-day. "

"I thought you were never tired. "

"Every woman is tired sometimes. "

They began to ascend the staircase. There was no lift. 

"Are you going out to-night?" she heard him say behind her. 

"No. I shall go to bed early. "

"I'll stay till then. "

"You know you can't stay very late here. "

She heard him laugh. 

"When you've just said you are going to bed early!"

She said nothing more till they reached the flat. He followed her in andput his hat down. 

"Will you have tea?"

"No, thanks; nothing. "

"Go into the drawing-room. I'll come in a moment. "

She left him and went into her bedroom. 

He waited for her in the drawing-room. At first he sat down. The roomwas full of the scent of flowers, and he remembered the strong floweryscent which had greeted him when he visited the villa at Buyukdererfor the first time. How long ago that seemed--aeons ago! A few minutespassed, registered by the ticking of a little clock of exquisite bronzework on the mantelpiece. She did not come. He felt restless. He alwaysfelt restless in Constantinople. Now he got up and walked about theroom, turning sharply from time to time, pausing when he turned, thenresuming his walk. Once, as he turned, he found himself exactly oppositeto a mirror. He stared into it and saw a man still young, but lined, with sunken eyes, a mouth drooping and bitter, a head on which the darkhair was no longer thick and springy. His hair had retreated from thetemples, and this fact had changed his appearance, had lessened his goodlooks, and at the same time had given to his face an odd suggestionof added intellectuality which was at war with the plain stamp ofdissipation imprinted upon it. Even in repose his face was almosthorribly expressive. 

As he stared into the glass he thought:

"If I cut off my mustache I should look like a tragic actor who was athorough bad lot. "

He turned away, frowning, and resumed his walk. Presently he stood stilland looked about the room. He was getting impatient. Irritability creptthrough him. He almost hated Mrs. Clarke for keeping him waiting solong. 

"Why the devil doesn't she come?" he thought. 

He stood trying to control his nervous anger, clenching his muscularhands, and looking from one piece of furniture to another, from oneornament to another ornament, with quickly shifting eyes. 

His attention was attracted by something unusual in the room which hehad not noticed till now. On a writing-table of ebony near one of thewindows he saw a large photograph in a curious frame of ruddy arbutuswood. He had never before seen a photograph in any room lived in by Mrs. Clarke, and he had heard her say that photographs killed a room, andmight easily kill, too, with their staring impotence, any affection onefelt for the friends they represented. Whose photograph could this bewhich triumphed over such a dislike? He walked to the table, bent downand saw a standing boy in flannels, bare-headed, with thick, disorderedhair and bare arms, holding in his large hands a cricket bat. It wasJimmy, and his eyes looked straight into Dion's. 

A door clicked. There was a faint rustling. Mrs. Clarke walked into theroom. 

Dion turned round. 

"What's this photograph doing here?" he asked roughly. 

"Doing?"

"Yes. You hate photographs. I've heard you say so. "

"Jimmy gave it to me on my birthday just before he left for England. It's quite a good one. "

"You are going to keep it here?"

"Yes. I am going to keep it here. Come and sit down. "

He did not move. 

"Jimmy loathes me, " he said. 

"Nonsense. "

"He does. Through you he has come to loathe me, and you keep hisphotograph here----"

"I don't allow any one to criticize what I do in my own drawing-room, "she interrupted. "You are really childish to-day. "

His intense irritability had communicated itself to her. She feltan almost reckless desire to get rid of him. His look of embitteredwretchedness tormented her nerves. She wondered how it had ever beenable to interest her, even to lure her. She was amazed at her ownperversity. 

"I cannot allow you to come here if you are going to try to interferewith my arrangements, " she added, with a sort of fierce coldness. 

"I have a right to come here. "

"You have not. You have no rights over me, none at all. I have made agreat many sacrifices for you, far too many, but I shall never sacrificemy complete independence for you or for any one. "

"Sacrifices for me!" he exclaimed. 

He snatched up the photograph, held it with both his hands, exerted hisstrength, smashed the glass, broke the frame, tore the photograph inhalf, and threw it, the fragments of red wood and the bits of glass onthe table. 

"You've made your boy hate me, and you shan't have him there, " he saidsavagely. 

"How dare you!" she exclaimed, in a low, hoarse voice. 

She flung out her hands. In snatching at the ruined photograph shepicked up with it a fragment of glass. It cut her hand slightly, and athin thread of blood ran down over her white skin. 

"Oh, your hand!" exclaimed Dion, in a changed voice. "It's bleeding!"

He pulled out his handkerchief. 

"Leave it alone! I forbid you to touch it!"

She put the fragments of the photograph inside her dress, gently, tenderly even. Then she turned and faced him. 

"To-morrow I shall telegraph to England for another photograph to besent out, and it will stand here, " she said, pointing with her bleedinghand at the writing-table. "It will always stand on my table here and inthe Villa Hafiz. "

Then she bound her own handkerchief about her hand and rang the bell. Sonia came. 

"I've stupidly cut my hand, Sonia. Come and tie it up. Mr. Leith isgoing in a moment, and then you shall bathe it. "

Sonia looked at Dion, and, without a word, adjusted the handkerchiefdeftly, and pinned it in place with a safety-pin which she drew out ofher dress. Then she left the room with her flat-footed walk. As she shutthe door Dion said doggedly:

"You'd better let her bathe it now, because I'm not going in a moment. "

"When I ask you to go you will go. "

"Sit down. I must speak to you. "

He pointed to a large sofa. She went very deliberately to a chair andsat down. 

"Why don't you sit on the sofa?"

"I prefer this. "

He sat on the sofa. 

"I must speak to you about Jimmy. "

"Well?"

"What's the matter with him? What have you been up to with him?"

"Nothing. "

"Then why should he turn against me and not against you?"

"I don't understand what you mean. "

"You do. It's since that night in the garden when you made me lie tohim. Ever since that night he's been absolutely different with me. Youknow it. "

"I can't help it. "

"He believed your lies to him, apparently. Why doesn't he believe mine?"

"Of course he believed what you told him. "

"He didn't, or he wouldn't have changed. He hates your having anythingto do with me. He's told you so. I'm sure of it. "

"Jimmy would never dare to do that. "

"Anyhow, you know he does. "

She did not deny it. 

"Remember this, " Dion said, looking straight at her, "I'm not going tobe sacrificed a second time on account of a child. "

After a long pause, during which Mrs. Clarke sat without moving, herlovely head leaning against a cushion which was fastened near the top ofthe back of the chair, she said:

"What do you mean exactly by being sacrificed, Dion?"

Her manner had changed. The hostility had gone out of it. Her huskyvoice sounded gentle almost, and she looked at him earnestly. 

"I mean just this: my life with the woman I once cared for was smashedto pieces by a child, my own dead child. I'm not going to allow mylife with you to be smashed to pieces by Jimmy. Isn't a man more than achild? Can't he feel more than a child feels, give more than a child cangive? Isn't a thing full grown as valuable, as worth having as a thingthat's immature?"

He spoke with almost passionate resentment. 

"D'you mean to tell me that a man's love always means less to a womanthan a child's love means?"

Silently, while he spoke, she compared the passion she had had for DionLeith with the love she would always have for Jimmy. The one was dead;the other could not die. That was the difference between such things. 

"The two are so different that it is useless to compare them, " shereplied. "Surely you could not be jealous of a child. "

"I could be jealous of anything that threatened me in my life with you. It's all I've got now, and I won't have it interfered with. "

"But neither must you attempt to interfere with my life with my child, "she said, very calmly. 

"You dragged me into your life with Jimmy. You have always used Jimmy asa means. It began long ago in London when you were at Claridge's. "

"There is no need--"

"There is need to make you see clearly why I have every right to take astand now against--against----"

"Against what?"

"I feel you're changing. I don't trust you. You are not to be trusted. Since Jimmy has been here again I feel that you are different. "

"I am obliged to be specially careful now the boy is beginning to growup. He notices things now he wouldn't have noticed a year or two ago. And it will get worse from year to year. That isn't my fault. "

His sunken eyes looked fixedly at her from the midst of the network ofwrinkles which disfigured his face. 

"Now what are you trying to lead up to?" he said. 

"It's very foolish of you to be always suspicious. Only stupid peopleare always suspecting others of sharp practise. "

"I'm stupid compared with you, but I'm not so stupid that I haven'tlearnt to know you better than other people know you, better, probably, than any one else on earth knows you. It is entirely through you thatJimmy has got to hate me. I'm not going to let you use his hatred ofme as a weapon against me. I've been wanting to tell you this, but Ithought I'd wait till he had gone. "

"Why should I want to use a weapon against you?"

"I don't know. It isn't always easy to know why you want things. You'resuch an inveterate liar, and so tricky that you'd puzzle the devilhimself. "

"Do you realize that all you are saying to-day implies something? Itimplies that in your opinion I am not a free agent, that you consideryou have a right to govern my actions. But I deny that. "

She spoke firmly, but without any heat. 

"Do you mean to say that what we are to each other gives me no morerights over you than mere acquaintances have?"

"It gives you no more rights over me than mere acquaintances have. "

He sat looking at her for a minute. Then he said:

"Cynthia, come and sit here, please, beside me. "

"Why should I?"

"Please come. "

"Very well. "

She got up, came to the sofa with a sort of listless decision, and satdown beside him. He took her uninjured hand. His hand was burning withheat. He closed and unclosed his fingers as he went on speaking. 

"What is there in such a relation as ours if it carries no rights?You have altered my whole life. Is that nothing? I live out here onlybecause of you. I have nothing out here but you. All these months, eversince we left Buyukderer, I've lived just as you wished. I went intosociety at Buyukderer because you wished me to. When you didn't care anymore about my doing that I lived in the shade in Galata. I've fallenin with every deception you thought necessary, I've told every lie youwished me to tell. Ever since you made me lie to Jimmy I haven't caredmuch. But you'll never know, because you can't understand such things, what the loss of Jimmy's confidence and respect has meant to me. However, that's all past. I'm as much of a hypocrite as you are; I'mas false as you are; I'm as rotten as you are--with other people. Butdon't, for God's sake, let's be rotten with each other. That would betoo foul, like thieves falling out. "

"I've always been perfectly straight with you, " she said coldly. "I havenothing to reproach myself with. "

The closing of his fingers on her hand, and their unclosing, irritatedher whole body. To-day she disliked his touch intensely, so intenselythat she could scarcely believe she had ever liked it, longed for it, schemed for it. 

"Please keep your hand still!" she said. 

"What?"

"It makes me nervous your doing that. Either hold my hand or don't holdit. "

"I don't understand. What was I doing?"

"Oh, never mind. I've always been straight with you. I don't know whyyou are attacking me. "

"I feel you are changing towards me. So I thought I'd tell you that Idon't intend to be driven out a second time by a child. It's better youshould know that. Then you won't attempt the impossible. "

She looked into his sunken eyes. 

"Jimmy has got to dislike you, " she said. "It's unfortunate, but itcan't be helped. I don't know exactly why it is so. It may be becausehe's older, just at the age when boys begin to understand about men andwomen. You're not always quite so careful before him as you might be. I don't mean in what you say, but in your manner. I think Jimmy fanciesyou like me in a certain way. I think he probably took it into his headthat you were hanging about the garden that night because perhaps youhoped to meet me there. A very little more and he might begin to suspectme. You have been frank with me to-day. I'll be frank with you. I wantyou to understand that if there ever was a question of my losing Jimmy'slove and respect I should fight to keep them, sacrifice anything tokeep them. Jimmy comes first with me, and always will. It couldn't beotherwise. I prefer that you should know it. "

He shot a glance at her that was almost cunning. She had been preparedfor a perhaps violent outburst, but he only said:

"Jimmy won't be here again for some time, so we needn't bother abouthim. "

She was genuinely surprised, but she did not show it. 

"It was you who brought up the question, " she said. 

"Never mind. Don't worry about it. If Jimmy comes out for the summerholidays----"

"He will, of course. "

"Then I can go away from Buyukderer just for those few weeks. "

"I----" She paused; then went on: "I must tell you that you mustn't cometo Buyukderer again this summer. "

"Then you won't go there?"

"Of course I must go. I have the villa. I am going there next week. "

"If you go, then I shall go. But I'll leave when Jimmy comes, as you areso fussed about him. "

She could scarcely believe that it was Dion who was speaking to her. Often she had heard him speak violently, irritably, even cruelly andrudely. But there was a sort of ghastly softness in his voice. His handstill held hers, but its grasp had relaxed. In his touch, as in hisvoice, there was a softness which disquieted her. 

"I'm sorry, but I can't let you come to Buyukderer this summer, " shesaid. "Once did not matter. But if you came again my reputation wouldsuffer. "

"Then I'll stay at some other place on the Bosporus and come over. "

"That would be just as bad. "

"Do you seriously mean that we are to be entirely separated during thewhole of this summer?"

"I must be careful of my reputation now Jimmy's growing up. The Bosporusis the home of malicious gossip. "

"Do answer my question. Do you mean that we are to be separated duringthe summer?"

"I don't see how it can be helped. "

"It can be helped very easily. Don't go to Buyukderer. "

"I must. I have the villa. "

"Let it. "

"I couldn't possibly stand Constantinople in the summer. "

"There's no need to do that. There are other places besidesConstantinople and Buyukderer. You might go to one of them. Or you mighttravel. "

She sat down for a moment looking down. 

"Do you mean that I might travel with you?" she said, at last. 

"Not with me. But I could happen to be where you are. "

"That's not possible. Some one would get to know of it. "

"How absurdly _ingenue_ you have become all of a sudden!" he said, withsoft, but scathing, irony. 

And he laughed, let out a long, low, and apparently spontaneous laugh, as if he were genuinely amused. 

"Really one would hardly imagine that you were the heroine of the famousdivorce case which interested all London not so very long ago. WhenI remember the life you acknowledged you had lived, the life you werequite defiant about, I can't help being amused by this sudden accessof conventional Puritanism. You declared then that you didn't chooseto live a dull, orthodox life. One would suppose that the leopard couldchange his spots after all. "

While he was speaking she lifted her head and looked fixedly at him. 

"It's just that very divorce case which has made me alter my way ofliving, " she said. "Any one who knew anything of the world, any one buta fool, could see that. "

"Ah, but I am a fool, " he returned doggedly. "I was a fool when I ranstraight, and it seems I'm a fool when I run crooked. You've got to makethe best of me as I am. Take your choice. Go to Buyukderer if you like. If you do I shall stay on the Bosporus. Or travel if you like, and I'llhappen to be where you are. It's quite easy. It's done every day. Butyou know that as well as I do. I can't give you points in the game ofthrowing dust in the eyes of the public. "

"It's too late now to let the villa, even if I cared to. And I can'tafford to shut it up and leave it standing empty while I wander about inhotels. I shall go to Buyukderer next week. "

"All right. I'll go back to the rooms I had last year, and we can liveas we did then. Give me the key of the garden gate and I can use thepavilion as my sitting-room again. It's all quite simple. "

A frown altered her white face. His mention of the pavilion had suddenlyrecalled to her exactly what she had felt for him last year. Shecompared it with what she felt for him now. With an impulsive movementshe pulled her hand away from his. 

"I shall not give you the key. I can't have you there. I will not. People have begun to talk. "

"I don't believe it. They never see us together here. You have takengood care of that in the last few months. Why, we've met like thieves inthe night. "

"Here, yes. In a great town one can manage, but not in a place likeBuyukderer. "

He leaned forward and said, with dogged resolution:

"One thing is certain--I will not be separated from you during thesummer. Do whatever you like, but remember that. Make your own plans. Iwill fall in with them. But I shall pass the summer where you pass it. "

"I--really I didn't know you cared so much about me, " she murmured, witha faint smile. 

"Care for you!"

He stared into her face and the twinkles twitched about his eyes. 

"How should I not care for you?"

He gripped her hand again. 

"Haven't you taught me how to live in the dust? Haven't you shown me thefolly of being honorable and the fun of deceiving others? Haven't youled me into the dark and made me able to see in it? And there's sucha lot to see in the dark! Why, good God, Cynthia, you've made a man inyour own image and then you're surprised at his worshipping you. Where'syour cleverness?"

"I often believe you detest me. "

"Oh, as for that, a woman such as you are can be loved and hated almostat the same time. But she can't be given up. No!"

As she looked at him she saw the red gleam of the torch he carried. Hershad long ago died out into blackness. 

"Is it possible that you really wish to ruin my reputation?"

"Not a bit of it! You're so clever that you can always guard againstthat. "

"Yes, I can when I'm dealing with gentlemen, " she said, with sudden, vicious sharpness. "But you are behaving like a cad. Of all the men I--"

She stopped. A sort of nervous fury possessed her. It had nearly drivenher to make a false step. And yet--would it be a false step? As shepaused, looking at Dion, marking the hard obstinacy in his eyes, feelingthe hard, hot grip of his hand, it occurred to her that perhaps she hadblundered upon the one way out, the way of escape. Amid the wreckage ofhis beliefs she knew that Dion still held to one belief, which had beenshaken once, but which her cool adroitness had saved and made firm in acritical moment. If she destroyed it now would he let her go? Just howlow had he fallen through her? She wished she knew. But she did notknow, and she waited, looking at him. 

"Go on!" he said. "Of all the men you--what?"

"How low down is he? How low down?" she asked herself. 

"Can you go on?" he said harshly. 

"Of all the men who have cared for me you are the only man who has everdared to interfere with my freedom, " she said. 

Her voice had become almost raucous, and a faint dull red strangelydiscolored and altered her face. 

"I will not permit it. I shall go to Buyukderer, and I forbid you tofollow me there. Now it's getting late and I'm tired. Please go away. "

"Men who have cared for you!"

"Yes. Yes. "

"What d'you mean by that? D'you mean Brayfield?"

"Yes. "

"Have there been many others who have cared as Brayfield did?"

"Yes. "

"Hadi Bey was one of them, I suppose?"

"Yes. "

"And Dumeny was another?"

"Yes. "

"Poor fellows!"

His lips were smiling, but his eyes looked dreadfully intent andsearching. 

"You made them suffer and gave them no reward. I can see you doing itand enjoying it. "

"That's untrue. "

"What is untrue?"

"To say that I gave them no reward. "

At this moment there was a tap on the door. 

"Come in!" said Mrs. Clarke, in her ordinary voice. 

Sonia opened the door and came in. 

"Excuse me, Madame, " she said, "but you told me I was to bathe yourhand. If it is not bathed it will look horrible to-morrow. I have thewarm water all ready. "

She stood in front of her mistress, broad, awkward and yet capable. Dionfelt certain this woman meant to get rid of him because she was awarethat her mistress wanted him to go. He had always realized that Soniaknew Mrs. Clarke better than any other woman did. As for himself--shehad never shown any feeling towards him. He did not know whether sheliked him or disliked him. But now he knew that he disliked her. 

He looked almost menacingly at her. 

"Your mistress can't go at present, " he said. "Her hand is all right. Itwas only a scratch. "

Sonia looked at her mistress. 

"Sonia is quite right, " said Mrs. Clarke, getting up. "And as the wateris warm I will go. Good-by. "

"I will stay here till you have finished, " he said, still looking atSonia. 

"It's getting very late. We might finish our talk to-morrow. "

"I will stay. "

After a slight pause Mrs. Clarke, whose face was still discolored withred, turned to the maid and said:

"Go away, Sonia. "

Sonia went away very slowly. At the door she stopped for a moment andlooked round. Then she disappeared, and the door closed slowly and as ifreluctantly behind her. 

"Now what did you mean?" Dion said. 

He got up. 

"What did you mean?"

"Simply this, that my husband ought to have won his case. "

"Ah!"

He stood with his hands hanging at his sides, looking impassive, withhis head bent and the lids drooping over his eyes. She waited--for herfreedom. She did not mind the disgust which she felt like an emanationin the darkening room, if only it would carry him far enough in hatredof her. Would it do that?

There was a very long silence between them. During it he remainedmotionless. With his hanging hands and his drooping head he looked, shethought, almost as much like a puppet as like a man. His whole body hada strange aspect of listlessness, almost of feebleness. Yet she knew howmuscular and powerful he still was, although he had long ago ceased fromtaking care of his body. The silence lasted so long, and he stood soabsolutely still, that she began to feel uneasy, even faintly afraid. The nerves in her body were tingling. They could have braced themselvesto encounter violence, but this immobility and dumbness tormented them. She wanted to speak, to move, but she felt obliged to wait for him. At last he looked up. He came to her, lifted his hands and laid themheavily on her emaciated shoulders. 

"So that's what you are!"

He stared into her haggard face. She met his eyes resolutely. 

"That's what you are!"

"Yes. "

"Why have you told me this to-day?"

"Of course you knew it long ago. "

"Answer me. Why have you told me to-day?"

"I don't know. "

"I do. You have told me to-day because you have had enough of me. Youmeant to use Jimmy to get rid of me as you once used him to get to knowme more intimately. When you found that wouldn't serve your turn, youmade up your mind to speak a word or two of truth. You thought you woulddisgust me into leaving you. "

"Of course you knew it long ago, " she repeated in a dull voice. 

"I didn't know it. I might have suspected it. In fact, once I did, andI told you so. But you drove out my suspicion. I don't know exactly how. And since then--after you got your verdict in London I saw Dumeny smileat you as he went out of the Court. I have never been able to forgetthat smile. Now I understand it. One by one you've managed to get ridof them all. And now at last you've arrived at me, and you've said toyourself, 'It's his turn to be kicked out now. ' Haven't you?"

"Nothing can last forever, " she murmured huskily. 

"No. But this time you're not going to scrawl 'finis' exactly when youwant to. "

"It's getting dark, and I'm tired. My hand is hurting me. "

He gripped her shoulders more firmly. 

"If you meant some day to get rid of me, to kick me out as you've kickedout the others, " he said grimly, "you shouldn't have made me come toyou that night when Jimmy was at Buyukderer. That was a mistake on yourpart. "

"Why?" she asked, almost in a whisper. 

"Because that night through you I lost something; I lost the last shredof my self-respect. Till that night I was still clinging on to it. Youstruck my hands away and made me let go. Now I don't care. And that'swhy I'm not going to let you make the sign of the cross over me anddismiss me into hell. Your list closes with me, Cynthia. I'm not goingto give you up. "

She shook slightly under his hands. 

"Why are you trembling?"

"I'm not trembling; but I'm tired; let me alone. "

"You can go to Sonia now if you like, and have your hand bathed. "

He lifted his hands from her shoulders, but she did not move. 

"What are you going to do?" she asked. 

"I shall wait for you here. "

"Wait for me?"

"Yes. We'll dine together to-night. "

"Where?" she said helplessly. 

"Here, if you like. "

"There's scarcely anything to eat. I didn't intend----"

"I'll take you out somewhere. It's going to be a dark night. We'llmanage so that no one sees us. We'll dine together and, afterdinner----"

"I must come home early. I'm very tired. "

"After dinner we'll go to those rooms you found so cleverly near thePersian Khan. "

She shuddered. 

"Now go and bathe your hand, and I'll wait here. Only don't be too longor I shall come and fetch you. And don't send Sonia to make excuses, forit will be no use. "

He sat down on the sofa. 

She stood for a moment without moving. She put her bandaged hand up toher discolored face. Then she went slowly out of the room. 

He sat waiting for her to come back, with his elbows on his knees andhis face hidden in his hands. 

He felt like a man sunk in mire. He felt the mire creeping up to histhroat. 

* * * * *

Almost at that same hour beside a platform at Victoria Station in Londona long train with "Dover" placarded on it was drawn up. Before the doorof a first-class carriage two women in plain traveling dresses werestanding with a white-haired clergyman. Presently the shorter of the twowomen said to the other:

"I think I'll get in now, and leave you to last words. "

She held out her hand to the clergyman. 

"Good-by, Father Robertson. "

He grasped her hand warmly, and looked at her with a great tendernessshining in his eyes. 

"Take good care of her. But you will, I know, " he said. 

Beatrice Daventry got into the carriage, and stood for a moment at thedoor. There were tears in her eyes as she looked at the two figures nowpacing slowly up and down on the platform; she wiped them away quickly, and sat down. She was bound on a long journey. And what would be theend? In her frail body Beatrice had a strong soul, but to-night shewas stricken with a painful anxiety. She said to herself that shecared about something too much. If the object of this journey were notattained she felt it would break her heart. She shut her eyes, and sheconjured up a child whom she had loved very much and who was dead. 

"Come with us, Robin!" she whispered. "Come with us to your father. "

And the whisper was like a prayer. 

"Beattie!"

Rosamund's voice was speaking. 

"We are just off. "

"Are we?"

"Take your seats, please!" shouted a loud bass voice. 

There was a sound of the banging of doors. 

Rosamund leaned out of the window. 

"Good-by, Father!"

The train began to move. 

"Good-by. _Cor meum vigilat_. "

Rosamund pulled down her veil quickly over her face. 

She was weary of rebellion. Yet she knew that deep down within her dweltone who was still a rebel. She was starting on a great journey but shecould not foresee what would happen at its end. For she no longer knewwhat she was capable of doing, and what would be too great a task forher poor powers. She was trying; she would try; that was all she knew. 

As the train pushed on through the fading light she said to herselfagain and again:

"_La divina volontate! La divina volontate!_"

CHAPTER XIII

A week had passed, and the Villa Hafiz had not yet opened its door toreceive its mistress. The servants, with the exception of Sonia, hadarrived. The Greek butler had everything in order downstairs. Abovestairs the big, low bed was made, and there were flowers in the vasesdotted about here and there in the blue-and-green sitting-room. Osman, the gardener, had trimmed the rose-bushes, had carefully cleaned thegarden seats, and had swept straying leaves from the winding paths. Thefountain sang its under-song above the lilies. On the highest terrace, beyond the climbing garden, the pavilion waited for the woman and manwho had hidden themselves in it to go down into the darkness. But no oneslept in the big, low bed, or sat in the blue-and-green room; the gardenwas deserted; by night no feet trod softly to the pavilion. 

For the first time in her life Cynthia Clarke was in the toils. She wholoved her personal freedom almost wildly no longer felt free. She darednot go to Buyukderer. 

She looked back to that night when she had told Dion Leith the truth, and it stood out among all the nights of her life, more black and fatalthan any of them, because on it she had been false to herself, hadbeen weak. She had not followed up her strength in words by strength inaction! She had allowed Dion Leith to dominate her that night, to makeof her against her will his creature. In doing that she had taken a stepdown--a step away from the path in which hitherto she had always walked. And that departure from inflexible selfishness seemed strangely to haveweakened her will. 

She was afraid of Dion because she felt that he was ungovernable by her, that her will no longer meant anything to him. He did not brace himselfto defy it; simply, he did not bother about it. He seemed to have passedinto a region where such a trifle as a woman's will faded away from hisperception. 

His serpent had swallowed up hers. 

She ought to have defied him that night, to have risked a violentscene, to have risked everything. Instead, she had come back to thedrawing-room, had gone out into the night with him, had even gone tothe rooms near the Persian Khan. She had put off, had said to herself"To-morrow"; she had tried to believe that Dion's desperate mood wouldpass, that he needed gentle handling for the moment, and that, iftreated with supreme tact, he would eventually be "managed" into lettingher have her will. 

But now she had no illusions. Her distressed eyes saw quite clearly, and she knew that she had made a fatal mistake in being obedient to Dionthat night. She felt like one at the beginning of an inclined plane thatwas slippery as ice. She had stepped upon it, and she could not stepback. She could only go forward and downward. 

Dion was reckless. Appeals to reason, to chivalry, to pity, had noeffect upon him. He only laughed at them, took them as part of hergame of hypocrisy. In her genuine and growing fear and distress she hadbecome almost horribly sincere, but he would not believe in, or heed, her sincerity. She knew her increasing hatred of him was matched by hissecret detestation of her. Yes, he detested her with all that was mostcharacteristic in him, with all those inherent qualities of which, dowhat he would he was unable to rid himself. And yet there was a linkwhich bound them together--the link of a common degradation of body. She longed to smash that link which she had so carefully and sedulouslylabored to forge. But he wished to make it stronger. By her violent willshe had turned him to perversity, and now he was actually more perversethan she was. She saw herself outdistanced on the course towards theultimate blackness, saw herself forced to follow where he led. 

She dared not got to Buyukderer. She could not, she knew, keep him awayfrom there. He would follow her from Constantinople, would resume hislife of last summer, would perhaps deliberately accentuate his intimacywith her instead of being careful to throw over it a veil. In his hatredand recklessness he might be capable even of that, the last outragewhich a man can inflict upon a woman, to whose safety and happinesshis chivalrous secrecy is essential. His clinging to her in hatred wasterrible to her. She began to think that perhaps he had in his mindabominable plans for the destruction of her happiness. 

One day he told her that if she went to Buyukderer he would not onlyfollow her there, but he would remain there when Jimmy came out for thesummer holidays. 

"Jimmy must learn to like me again, " he said. "That is necessary. "

She shuddered when she realized the tendency of Dion's mind. Fear madeher clairvoyant. There were moments when she seemed to look into thatmind as into a room through an open window, to see the thoughts asliving things going about their business. There was something appallingin this man's brooding desire to strike her in the heart combined withhis determination to continue to be her lover. It affected her as shehad never been affected before. By torturing her imagination it madehavoc of her will-power. Her situation rendered her almost desperate, and she could not find an outlet from it. 

What was she to do? If she went to Buyukderer she felt certain therewould be a scandal. Even if there were not, she could not now dare torisk having Jimmy out for his holidays. Jimmy and Dion must not meetagain. She might travel in the summer, as Dion had suggested, but ifshe did that she would be forced to endure a solitude _a deux_ with himuntempered by any social distractions. She could not endure that. To bealone with his bitterness, his misery, and his monopolizing hatred ofher would be unbearable. And the problem of Jimmy's holidays would notbe solved by travel. Unless she traveled to England!

A gleam of hope came to her as she thought of England. Dion had fledfrom England. Would he dare to go back there, to the land which had seenhis tragedy, and where the woman lived who had cast him out? Mrs. Clarkewondered, turning the thought of England over and over in her mind. 

The longer she thought on the matter the more convinced she became thatshe had hit upon a final test, by means of which it would be possiblefor her to ascertain Dion's exact mental condition. If he was readyto follow her even to England, to show himself there as her intimatefriend, if not as her lover, than the man whom she had known in Londonwas dead indeed beyond hope of resurrection. 

She resolved to find out what Dion's feeling about England was. 

Since the evening when she had told him the truth she had seen him--hehad obliged her to see him--every day, but he had not come again to herflat. They had met in secret, as they had been meeting for many months. For the days when they had wandered about Stamboul together, when shehad tried to play to him the part Dumeny had once played to her, werelong ago over. 

On the day when the thought of England occurred to Mrs. Clarke as apossible place of refuge she had promised to meet Dion late in theevening at their rooms near the Persian Khan. She loathed going to thoserooms. They reminded her painfully of all she had felt for Dion and feltno longer. They spoke to her of the secrecy of a passion that was dead. She was afraid of them. But she was still more afraid of seeing Dionin her flat. Nevertheless, now the gleam of hope which had come to hersuddenly woke up in her something of her old recklessness. Since theservants had gone to the Villa Hafiz she had been living in the flatwith Sonia, who was an excellent cook as well as a capital maid. Sheresolved to ask Dion to dinner that night, and to try her fortune oncemore with him. England must be horrible to him. Then she would go toEngland. And if he followed her there he would at least be punished forhis persecution of her. 

Already she called his determination not to break their intriguepersecution. She had a short memory. 

After a talk with Sonia she summoned a messenger and sent Dion a note, asking him to dinner that night. He replied that he would come. Hisanswer ended with the words: "We can go to the rooms later. "

As Mrs. Clarke read them her fingers closed on the paper viciously, andshe said to herself:

"I'll not go. I'll never go to them again. "

She told Sonia about the dinner. Then she dressed and went out. 

It was a warm and languid day. She took a carriage and told the coachmanto drive to Stamboul--to drive on till she gave him the direction whereto go in Stamboul. She had no special object in view. But she longed tobe out in the air, to drive, to see people about her, the waterway, the forest of shipping, the domes and the minarets, the cypresses, theglades stretching towards Seraglio Point, the long, low hills of Asia. She longed, too, to hear voices, hurrying feet, the innumerable soundsof life. She hoped by seeing and hearing to fortify her will. The spiritof adventure was the spirit that held her, was the most vital partwithin her, and such a spirit needed freedom to breathe in. She wasfettered. She had been a coward, or almost a coward, false, perhaps, toher fortunate star. Hitherto she had always followed Nietzsche's adviceand had lived perilously. Was she now to be governed by fear? Even tokeep Jimmy's respect and affection could she endure such dominion? Asthe sun touched her with his fingers of gold, and the air, full of astrangely languid vitality, whispered about her, as she heard the criesfrom the sea, and saw human beings, vividly egoistic, going by on theirpilgrimage, she said to herself, "Not even for Jimmy!" The clamorouscity, with its fierce openness and its sinister suggestions of hiddenthings, woke up in her the huntress, and, for the moment, lulled themother to sleep. 

"Not even for Jimmy!" she thought. "I must be myself. I cannot beotherwise. I must live perilously. To live in any other way for me wouldbe death. "

And the line in "The Kasidah" which Dion had pondered over came to her, and she thought of the "death that walks in form of life. "

As the carriage went upon the bridge she looked across to Stamboul, andwas faced by the Mosque of the Valideh. So familiar to her was the sightof its facade, of its cupolas and minarets, that she seldom now eventhought of it when she crossed the bridge; but to-day, perhaps becauseshe was unusually strung up, was restive and almost horribly alert, shegazed at it and was intensely conscious of it. She had once said to Dionthat Stamboul was the City of the Unknown God, and now suddenly she feltthat she was nearing His altars. A strange, perverse desire to pray cameto her; to go up into one of the mosques of this mysterious city whichshe loved, and to pray for her release from Dion Leith. 

She smiled faintly as this idea came into her mind. The Unknown God hadsurely made her as she was, had made her a huntress. Well, then, surelyshe had the right to pray to Him to give her a free course for hertemperament. 

"Santa Sophia!" she called to the coachman. 

He cracked his whip and drove furiously on to Stamboul. In less thana quarter of an hour he pulled up his horses before the vast Church ofSanta Sophia. 

Mrs. Clarke sat still in the carriage for a moment looking up at theugly towering walls, covered with red and white stripes. Her face washaggard in the sunshine, and her pale lips were set together in a hardline. A beggar with twisted stumps instead of arms whined a petition toher, but she neither saw him nor heard him. As she stared at the wallson which the sun blazed she was wondering about her future. The loveof life was desperately strong within her that day. The longing for newexperiences tormented her physically. She felt as if she could not wait, could not be patient any more. If Dion to-night refused again to giveher her freedom she must do something desperate. She must get awaysecretly and hide herself from him, take a boat to Greece or Rumania, orslip into the Orient express and vanish over the tracks of Europe. 

But first she must go into the church and pray to the Unknown God. 

She got out of the carriage. The beggar thrust one of his diseasedstumps in front of her face. She turned on him with a malignant look, and the whining petition died on his lips. Then she made her way tothe Porta Basilica and passed into the church. But as its great spacesopened out before her a thought, childishly superstitious, came to her, and she turned abruptly, went out, made her way to the beggar who hadworried her, gave him a coin and said something kind to him. His almostsoprano voice, raised in clamorous benediction, followed her as shereturned to the church, moving slowly with horrible loose slippersprotecting its floor from her Christian feet. She always laughed inher mind when she wore those slippers and thought of what she was. Thissanctuary of the unknown God must, it seemed, be protected from herbecause she was a Christian!

There were a good many people in the church, but it looked almost emptybecause of its immense size. She knew it very well, better perhaps thanshe knew any other sacred building, and she cared for it very much. She was fond of mosques, delighting in their airy simplicity, in theircasual holiness which seemed to say to her, "Worship in me if you will. If you will not, never mind; dream in me with open eyes, or, if youprefer it, go to sleep in a corner of me. When you wake you can mutter aprayer, or not, just as you please. "

Santa Sophia did not, perhaps, say that, though it had now for longyears been in use as a mosque, and always seemed to Mrs. Clarke morelike a mosque than like a church. It was richly adorned, and somethingof Christianity still lingered within it. In it there seemed, evento Mrs. Clarke, to be something impelling which asked of each one whoentered it more than mere dreams, more than those long meditations whichare like prayers of the mind separated from the prayers of the heartand soul. But it possessed the air of freedom which is characteristicof mosques, did not seize those who entered it in a clutch of tenacioussanctity; but seemed to let them alone, and to influence them by justbeing wonderful, beautiful, unself-consciously sacred. 

At first Mrs. Clarke wandered slowly about the church, without anypurpose other than that of gathering to herself some of its atmosphere. During the last few days she had been feeling really tormented. Dion hadonce said she looked punished. Now he had made her feel punished. Andshe sought a moment of peace. It could not come to her from mysticism, but it might come to her from great art, which suggests to its votariesmystery, the something beyond, untroubled and shiningly serene. 

Presently Mrs. Clarke felt the peace of Santa Sophia, and she felt it ina new way, because she had recently suffered, indeed was suffering stillin a new way; she felt it as something desirable, which might be ofvalue to her, if she were able to take it to herself and to fold itabout her own life. Had she made a mistake in living perilously throughmany years? Her mind went to the woman who had abandoned Dion andentered a Sisterhood to lead a religious life. She seldom thought aboutRosamund except in relation to Dion. She had scarcely known her, andsince her first few interviews with Dion in this land of the cypress hehad seldom mentioned his wife. She neither liked, nor actively disliked, Rosamund, whose tacit rejection of her acquaintance had not stirred inher any womanly hatred; for though she was a ruthless woman she was notvenomous towards other women. She did not bother about them enough forthat. But now she considered that other woman with whom she had sharedDion Leith, or rather who, not knowing it doubtless, had shared DionLeith with her. And she wondered whether Rosamund, in her Sisterhood, was happier than she was in the world. In the Sisterhood there mustsurely be peace--monotony, drudgery, perhaps, but peace. 

Santa Sophia, with its vast spaces, its airy dome, its great arches andgalleries, its walls of variegated marble, its glittering mosaicsand columns of porphyry, to-day made her realize that in her life ofadventure and passion she was driven, as if by a demon with a whip, and that her horrible situation with Dion was but the culmination ofa series of horrible situations. She had escaped from them only afterdevastating battles, in which she had had to use all her nervous energyand all her force of will. Was it worth while? Was the game she wasalways playing worth the candles she was always burning? Would it not bewiser to seek peace and ensue it? As she drove to Santa Sophia she hadlonged fiercely to be free so that she might begin again; might againhave adventures, might again explore the depths of human personalities, and satisfy her abnormal curiosities and desires. Now she was full ofunusual hesitation. Suppose she did succeed in getting rid of Dion bygoing to England, suppose her prayer--she had not offered it up yet, butshe was going to offer it up in a moment--to the Unknown God received afavorable answer, might it not be well for her future happiness if sheretired from the passionate life, with its perpetual secrecies, andintrigues, and lies, and violent efforts, into the life of the idealmother, solely devoted to her only child?

She felt that the struggle with Dion, the horrible scenes she had hadwith him, the force of her hatred of him and his hatred of her, thenecessity of yielding to him in hatred that which should never be givensave with desire, had tried her as nothing else had ever tried her. She felt that her vitality was low, and she supposed that out of thatlowered vitality had come her uncharacteristic desire for peace. She hadalmost envied for a moment the woman whom she had replaced in the lifeof Dion. Even now--she sighed; a great weariness possessed her. Was shegoing to be subject to a weakness which she had always despised, theweakness of regret?

She paused beside a column not very far from the raised tribune on theleft of the dome which is set apart for the use of the Sultan, and iscalled the Sultan's seat. Her large eyes stared at it, but at firstshe did not see it. She was looking onward upon herself. Then, in somedistant part of the mosque, a boy's voice began to sing, loudly, almostfiercely. It sounded fanatical and defiant, but tremendously believing, proud in the faith which it proclaimed to faithful and unfaithful alike. It echoed about the mosque, raising a clamor which nobody seemed toheed; for the few ulemas who were visible continued reading the Koranaloud on the low railed-in platforms which they frequent; a Dervish ina pointed hat slept peacefully on, stretched out in a corner; beforethe prayer carpet of the Prophet, not far from the Mihrab, a half-nakedBedouin, with a sheep-skin slung over his bronzed shoulders, preservedhis wild attitude of savage adoration; and here and there, in thedistance, under the low hanging myriads of lamps, the figures of Turkishsoldiers, of street children, of travelers, moved noiselessly to andfro. 

The voice of this boy, heedless and very powerful, indeed almostimpudent, stirred Mrs. Clarke. It brought her back to her worship offorce. One must worship something, and she chose force--force of will, of temperament, of body, of brain. Now she saw the Sultan's tribune, andit made her think of an opera box and of the worldly life. The boy sangon, catching at her mind, pulling her towards the East. The curiouspeace of any religious life was certainly not for her, yet to-day shefelt weary of the life in her world. And she wished she could havein her existence peace of some kind; she wished that she were not aperpetual wanderer. She remembered some of those with whom from time totime, she had linked herself--her husband, Hadi Bey, Dumeny, Brayfield, Dion Leith. Now she was struggling, and so far in vain, to thrust Dionout of her life. If she succeeded--what then? Where was stability in herexistence? Her love for Jimmy was the only thing that lasted, and thatoften made her afraid now. She was seized by an almost sentimentaldesire to lose herself in a love for a man that would last as her lovefor Jimmy had lasted, to know the peace of an enduring and satisfieddesire. 

The voice of the boy died away. She turned in the direction of theMihrab to offer up her prayer to the Unknown God, as the pious Mussulmanturns in the direction of the Sacred City when he puts up his prayer toAllah. 

Her eyes fell upon the Bedouin. 

As she looked at him, this man of the desert come up into the City, withthe fires of the dunes in his veins, the vast spaces mirrored inhis eyes, the passion for wandering in his soul, she felt that in amysterious and remote way she was akin to him, despite all her culture, her subtle mentality, the difference of her life from his. For she hadher wildness of nature, dominant and unceasing, as he had his. He wasforever traveling in body and she in mind. He sought fresh, and everfresh, camping-places, and so did she. The black ashes of burnt-outfires marked his progress and hers. She looked at him as she uttered herprayer to the Unknown God. 

And she prayed for a master, that she might meet a man who would be ableto dominate her, to hold her fast in the grip of his nature. At thismoment Dion dominated her in an ugly way, and she knew it too well. Butshe needed some one whom she would willingly obey, whom she would lustto obey, because of love. The restlessness in her life had been causedby a lack; she had never yet found the man who could be not her tyrantfor a time, but her master while she lived. Now she prayed for that, theonly peace that she really wanted. 

While she prayed she was conscious always of the attitude of theBedouin, which suggested the fierce yielding of one who could never beafraid of the God he worshiped. Nor could she be afraid. For she wasnot ashamed of what she was, though she hid what she was from motive ofworldly prudence and for the sake of her motherhood. She believed thatshe was born into the world not in order to be severely educated, but inorder that she might live to the uttermost, according to the dictates ofher temperament. Now at last she knew what that temperament needed, what it had been seeking, why it had never been able to cease from itsjourneying. Santa Sophia had told her. 

Her knowledge roused in her a sort of fury of longing for release fromDion Leith. She saw the Bedouin riding across the sands in the freedomhe had captured, and she ached to be free that she might seek hermaster. Somewhere there must be the one man who had the power to fastenthe yoke on her neck. 

"Let me find him!" she prayed, almost angrily, and using her will. 

She had forgotten Jimmy. Her whole nature was concentrated in the desirefor immediate release from Dion Leith in order that she might be freeto pursue consciously the search which till this moment she had pursuedunconsciously. 

The Bedouin did not move. His black, bird-like eyes were wide open, buthe seemed plunged in a dream as he gazed at the Sacred Carpet. Hewas absolutely unaware of his surroundings and of Mrs. Clarke'sconsideration of him. There was something animal and something royal inhis appearance and his supreme unconsciousness of others. He looked asif he were a law unto himself, even while he was adoring. How differenthe was from Dion Leith. 

She shut her eyes as she prayed that Dion might be removed from herlife, somehow, anyhow, by death if need be. In the dark she created forherself she saw the minarets pointing to the sky as she and Dion hadseen them together from the hill of Eyub as they sat under the giantcypress. Then she had wanted Dion; now she prayed:

"Take him away! Let me be free from him! Let me never see him again!"

And she felt as if the Unknown God were listening to her somewhere faroff, knew all that was in her mind. 

A stealthy movement quite near to her made her open her eyes. TheBedouin had risen to his feet and was approaching her, moving with alittle step over the matting on his way out of the church. As he passedMrs. Clarke he enveloped her for a moment in an indifferent glance offire. He burnt her with his animal disdain of her observation of him, adisdain which seemed to her impregnated with flame. She felt the sandsas he passed. When he was gone a sensation of loneliness, even ofdesolation, oppressed her. 

She hesitated for a moment; then she turned and followed him slowly. Hewent before her, wrapped in his supreme indifference, through the PortaBasilica, and came out into the blaze of the sunshine. As she emerged, she saw him standing quite still. He seemed--she was just behind him--tobe staring at a very fair woman who, accompanied by a guide, was comingtowards the church. Mrs. Clarke, intent on the Bedouin, was aware ofthis woman's approach, but felt no sort of interest in her until she wasquite close; then something, some dagger-thrust of the mind, coming fromthe woman, pierced Mrs. Clarke's indifference. 

She looked up and met the sad, pure eyes of Rosamund Leith. 

For a moment she stood perfectly still gazing into those eyes. 

Rosamund had stopped, but she made no gesture of recognition and did notopen her lips. She only looked at Mrs. Clarke, and as she looked a deepflush slowly spread over her face and down to her throat. 

The Greek guide said something to her; she moved, lowered her eyes andwent on into the church without looking back. 

The Bedouin strode slowly away into the blaze of the sunshine. 

Mrs. Clarke remained where she was, motionless. For the first timeperhaps in her life she was utterly amazed by an event. Rosamund Leithhere in Constantinople! What did that mean?

Mrs. Clarke knew the arrival of Rosamund meant something that might betremendously important to herself. As she stood there before the churchshe was groping to find this something; but her mental faculties seemedto be paralyzed, and she could not find it. Rosamund Leith's eyes hadtold Mrs. Clarke something, that Rosamund knew of Dion's unfaithfulnessand who the woman was. What did the fact of Rosamund's coming toConstantinople in possession of that knowledge mean?

From the minaret above her head the _muezzin_ in a piercing and nasalvoice began the call to prayer. His cry seemed to tear its way throughMrs. Clarke's inertia. Abruptly she was in full possession of herfaculties. That Eastern man up there, nearer to the blue than she was, cried, "Come to prayer!" But she had already uttered her prayer, andsurely Rosamund Leith was the answer. 

As she drove away towards the Golden Horn she passed the Bedouinstriding along in the sun. 

She looked at him, but he took no notice of her; the indifference of thedesert was about him. 

CHAPTER XIV

Mrs. Clarke was in her bedroom with the door open that evening when sheheard a bell sound in the flat. She had fixed eight for the dinner hour. It was now only half-past six. Nevertheless she felt sure that it wasDion who had just rung. She went swiftly across the room and shut thebedroom door. Two or three minutes later Sonia came in. 

"Mr. Leith has come already, Madame, " she said, looking straight at hermistress. 

"I expected him early, Sonia. You can tell him I will come almostdirectly. "

"Yes, Madame. "

"Sonia, wait a minute! How am I looking this evening?"

"How?" said Sonia, with rather heavy emphasis. 

"Yes. I feel--feel as if I were looking unlike my usual self. "

Sonia stared hard at Mrs. Clarke. Then she said:

"So you are, Madame. "

"In what way?"

"You look almost excited and younger than usual. "

"Younger!"

"Yes, as if you were expecting something, almost as a girl expects. Inever saw you just like this before. "

Mrs. Clarke looked at herself in a mirror earnestly, and for a longtime. 

"That's all, Sonia, " she said, turning round. "You can tell Mr. Leith. "

Sonia went out. 

Mrs. Clarke followed her ten minutes later. When she came into thelittle hall she saw lying on a table beside Dion's hat several letters. She stopped by the table and looked down at them. They lay there ina pile held together by an elastic band, and she could only see thewriting on the envelope which was at the top. It was addressed to Dionand had been through the post. She wondered whether among those lettersthere was one from Rosamund. Had she written to the husband whom she hadcast out to tell him of the great change which had led her to give upthe religious life, to come out to the land of the cypress?

Mrs. Clarke glanced round; then she bent down noiselessly, picked upthe packet, slipped off the elastic band and examined the letters one byone. She had never chanced to see Rosamund's handwriting, but she feltsure she would know at once if she held in her hand the letter whichmight mean her own release. She did not find it; but on two envelopesshe saw Beatrice's delicate handwriting, which she knew very well. Shelonged to know what Beatrice had written. With a sigh she slipped theelastic band back into its place, put the packet down and went into thedrawing-room. 

Directly she saw Dion she was certain that he knew nothing of the changein Rosamund's life. There was no excitement in his thin and wrinkledbrown face; no expectation lit up his sunken eyes making them youthful. He looked hard, wretched and strangely old, but ruthless and forceful ina kind of shuttered and ravaged way. She thought of a ruined house witha cold strong light in the window. He was sitting when she came in, leaning forward, with his hands hanging down between his knees. When hesaw her he got up slowly. 

"I was near here and had nothing to do, so I came early, " he said, notapologetically, but carelessly. 

He looked at her and added:

"What's happened to you to-day?"

"Nothing. What an extraordinary question!"

"Is it? You look different. There's a change. "

A suspicious expression made his face ugly. 

"Have you met any one?"

"Of course. How can one go out in Constantinople without meetingpeople?"

"Any one new, I meant. "

"No. "

"You look as if you had. "

"Do I?" she said, with indifference. 

"Yes. You look--I don't know----"

He paused. 

"I think it's younger, " he added. "You never are tired or ill, but yougenerally look both. To-day you don't. "

"Please don't blame me for looking moderately well for once in my life. "

"Why did you ask me to dinner here?"

The sound of his voice was as suspicious as the expression on his face. 

"Oh, I don't know. Once in a while it doesn't matter. And all theservants have gone away to Buyukderer. "

"Then you are going there?"

"I'm not sure if I shall be able to stay there for more than a few daysif I do go. "

"Why not?" he said slowly. 

"It's just possible I may have to go over to England on business. Something's gone wrong with my money matters, not the money my husbandallows me, but my own money. I had a letter from my lawyer. "

"When?"

"To-day. "

He stood before her in silence. 

"By the way, " she added, "I saw all those letters for you on the halltable. Why don't you read them?"

"Going to England, are you?" he said, frowning. 

"I may have to. "

"Surely you must know from your lawyer's letter whether it will benecessary or not. "

"I expect it will be necessary. "

He turned slowly away from her and went to the window, where he stoodfor a moment, apparently looking out. She sat down on the sofa andglanced at the clock. How were they to get through a long eveningtogether? She wished she could bring about a crisis in their relationsabruptly. Dion turned round. He had his hands in his pockets. 

"I wish you'd let me look at that lawyer's letter, " he said. 

"It wouldn't interest you. "

"If it's about money matters I might be able to help you. You know theyused to be my job. Even now anything to do with investments----"

"Oh, I won't bother you, " she said coolly. "I always do business throughsome one I can pay. "

"Well, you can pay me. "

"No, I can't. "

"But I say you can. "

"How?" she said. 

And instantly she regretted having asked the question. 

He looked at her in silence for a minute, then he said:

"By sticking always to me, by proving yourself loyal. "

Her mouth twitched. The intense irony in the last word made her feelinclined to laugh hysterically. 

"But you don't always behave in such a way as to make me feel loyal, "she said, controlling herself. 

"I'm going to try to be more clever with you in the future. "

She got up abruptly. 

"I didn't expect you quite so early, and I've got a letter to write toJimmy--"

"And a letter to your lawyer!" he interrupted. 

"No, that can wait till to-morrow. I must think things over. But I mustwrite to Jimmy now. "

"Give him a kind message from me. "

"What will you do while I am writing?"

"I'll sit here. "

"But do something! Why not read your letters?"

"Yes, I may as well look at them. There was quite a collection waitingfor me at the British Post Office. I haven't been there for months. "

"Why don't you go more regularly?"

"Because I've done with the past!" he exclaimed, with sudden savagery. "And letters from home only rake it up. "

She looked at him narrowly. 

"But have we ever done with the past?" she said, with her eyes upon him. "If we think so isn't that a stupidity on our part?"

"You're talking like a parson!"

"Even a parson may hit upon a truth now and then. "

"It depends upon oneself. I say I have done with the past. "

"And yet you're afraid to read letters from England. "

"I'm not. "

"And you never go to England. "

"There's nothing to prevent me from going to England. "

"Except your own feelings about things. "

"One gets over feelings with the help of Time. I'm not such a sensitivefool as I used to be. Life has knocked all that sort of rot out of me. "

She sat down at the writing-table from which Jimmy's photograph hadvanished. 

"Read your letters, or read a book, " she said. 

And she picked up a pen. 

She did not look at him again, and she tried hard to detach her mindfrom him. She took a sheet of writing-paper, and began to write toJimmy, but she was painfully aware of Dion's presence in the room, ofevery slightest movement that he made. She heard him sit down and movesomething on a table, then sigh; complete silence followed. She felt asif her whole body were flushing with irritation. Why didn't he get hisletters? She was positive Beatrice had written to tell him that Rosamundhad left the Sisterhood, and she was longing to know what effect thatnews would have upon him. 

Presently he moved again and got up, and she heard him go over to thewindow. She strove, with a bitter effort, to concentrate her thoughts onJimmy, but now the Bedouin came between her and the paper; she saw himstriding indifferently through the blaze of sunshine. 

"About the summer holidays this year--I am not quite sure yet what myplans will be----" she wrote slowly. 

Dion was moving again. He came away from the window, crossed the roombehind her, and opened the door. He was going to fetch his letters. Shewrote hurriedly on. He went out into the little hall and returned. 

"I'm going to have a look at my letters, " he said, behind her. 

She glanced round. 

"What did you say? Oh--your letters. "

"They look pretty old, " he said, turning them over. 

She saw Beatrice's handwriting. 

"Here's one from Beatrice Daventry, " he added, in a hard voice. 

"Does she often write to you?"

"She hasn't written for a long time. "

He thrust a finger under the envelope. Mrs. Clarke turned and again bentover her letter to Jimmy. 

* * * * *

"Dinner is ready, Madame!"

Mrs. Clarke looked up from the writing-table at Sonia standing squarelyin the doorway, then at the clock. 

"Dinner! But it's only a quarter-past seven. "

"I thought you ordered it for a quarter-past seven, Madame, " repliedSonia, with quiet firmness. 

"Oh, did I? I'd forgotten. "

She pushed away the writing-paper and got up. 

"D'you mind dining so early?" she asked Dion, looking at him for thefirst time since he had read his letters. 

"No, " he replied, in a voice which had no color at all. His face was setlike a mask. 

"Do you want to wash your hands? If so, Sonia will bring you some hotwater to the spare room. "

"Thanks, I'll go; but I prefer cold water. "

He went out of the room carrying the opened letters with him. After amoment Sonia came back. 

"I hope I didn't do wrong about dinner, Madame, " she said. "I thought asMonsieur Leith came so early Madame would wish dinner earlier. "

Mrs. Clarke put her hand on her servant's substantial arm. 

"You always understand things, Sonia, " she said. "I'm tired. I mean togo to bed very early to-night. "

"But will he----?"

She raised her heavy eyebrows. 

"I must rest to-night, " said Mrs. Clarke. "I must, I must. "

"Let me tell him, then, if he--"

"No, no. "

Mrs. Clarke put one hand to her lips. She heard Dion in the hall. Whenhe came in she saw at once that he had been dashing cold water on hisface. His eyes fell before hers. She could not divine what he had foundin his letters or what was passing in his mind. 

"Come to dinner, " she said. 

And they went at once to the dining-room. 

During the meal they talked because Mrs. Clarke exerted herself. She washelped, perhaps, by her concealed excitement. She had never before feltso excited, so almost feverishly alert in body and mind as she felt thatnight, except at the climax of her divorce case. And she was waiting nowfor condemnation or acquittal as she had waited then. It was horrible. She was painfully conscious of a desperate strength in Dion. It was asif he had grown abruptly, and she had as abruptly diminished. His savageassertion about the past had impressed her disagreeably. It might betrue. He might really have succeeded in slaying his love for his wife. If so, what chance had the woman who had taken him of regaining herfreedom of action. She was afraid to play her last card. 

When dinner was over Dion said:

"Shall we be off?"

She did not ask where they were going; she had no need to ask. After amoment's hesitation she said:

"Not just yet. Come into the drawing-room. You can smoke, and if youlike I'll play you something. "

"All right. "

They went into the drawing-room. It was dimly lighted. Blinds andcurtains were drawn. Dion sank down heavily in a chair. 

"The cigarettes are there!"

"Yes, I see. Thanks. "

A strange preoccupation seemed to be descending upon him and to becovering him up. Sonia came in with coffee. Dion put his cup, full, downbeside him on a table. He did not sip the coffee, nor did he light acigarette. While Mrs. Clarke was drinking her coffee he sat withoututtering a word. 

She went to the piano. She played really well. Otherwise she would nothave played to him, or to any one. She was specially at home in themusic of Chopin, and had studied minutely many of the "Etudes. " Nowshe began to play the Etude in E flat. As she played she felt thatthe intense nervous irritation which had possessed her was diminishingslightly, was becoming more bearable. She played several of the Etudes, and presently began the one in Thirds and Sixths which she had oncefound abominably difficult. She remembered what a struggle she had hadwith it before she had conquered it. She had been quite a girl then, but already she had been a worshipper of will-power, and had resolved tocultivate and to increase her own will. And she had used this Etude asa means of testing herself. Over and over again, when she had almostdespaired of ever overcoming its difficulties, she had said to herself, "Vouloir c'est pouvoir;" and at last she had succeeded in playing theexcessively difficult music as if it were quite easy to her. That hadbeen the first stepping upwards towards power. 

She remembered that now and she set her teeth. "Vouloir c'est pouvoir. "She had proved the saying true again and again; she must prove it trueto-night. She willed her release; she would somehow obtain it. 

Directly she finished the Etude she got up from the piano. 

"You play that wonderfully well, " Dion said, with a sort of hardrecognition of her merit, but with no enthusiasm. "Do you know thatthere's something damnably competent in you?"

She stood looking down on him. 

"I'm very glad there is. I don't care to bungle what I undertake. "

"I believe I knew that the first time I saw you, standing by Echo. Youheld my hand that day. Do you remember?"

He laughed faintly. 

"No, I don't remember. "

"The hand of Stamboul was upon me then. By God, we are under the yoke. It was fated then that you should destroy me. "

"Destroy you?"

"Yes. What's the good of what lies between us? You've destroyed me. That's why you want to get rid of me. Your instinct tells you the workis done, and you're right. But you must stick to the wreckage. Afterall, it's your wreckage. "

"No. A man can only destroy himself, " she said, with cold defiance. 

"Don't let's argue about it. The thing's done--done!"

In his voice there was a sound of almost wild despair, but his facepreserved its hard, mask-like look. 

"And there's no returning from destruction, " he added. "Those who try tofancy there is are just fools. "

He looked up at her as she stood before him, and seemed suddenly struckby the expression on her face. 

"Who's to be the one to destroy you?" he said. "D'you think the UnknownGod has singled me out for the job? Or do you really expect to escapescot-free after making the sign of the cross over so many lost souls. "

"The sign of the cross?"

"Yes. Don't you remember when I told you of Brayfield's death? You'venever given him a thought since, I suppose. But I'll make you keep onthinking about me. "

"What has happened to-night?" she asked sharply. 

"Happened?"

"To make you talk like this?"

"Nothing has happened. "

"That's not true. Since you came into the house you've quite changed. "

"Merely because I've been reckoning things up, taking stock of theamount of damage that's been done. It'll have to be paid for, I suppose. Everything's paid for in the end, isn't it? When are you going toEngland?"

"I didn't say it was absolutely decided. "

"No; but it is. I want to know the date, so that I may pack up toaccompany you. It will be jolly to see Jimmy again. I shall run down toEton and take him out. "

"I am not going to allow you to do me any harm. Because lately I'vegiven in to you sometimes, you mustn't think you can make a slave ofme. "

"And you mustn't think you'll get rid of me in one way if you can't inanother. This English project is nothing but an attempt to give me theslip. You thought I couldn't face England, so you chose England as theplace you would travel to. You've never had a letter from your lawyer, and there's no reason why you should go to England on business. But Ican face England. I've never done anything _there_ that I'm ashamed of. My record there is a clean one. "

Suddenly he thrust his hand into his jacket and pulled out the lettershe had brought from the British Post Office. 

"And apart from that, you made a mistake in reckoning on mysensitiveness. "

"Honestly, I don't know what you mean by that, " she said, with frigidcalm. 

"Yes, you do. You thought I wouldn't follow you to England because Ishould shrink from facing my mother, perhaps, and my wife's relatives, and all the people who know what I've done. I don't shrink from meetingany one, and I'll prove it to you. "

He pulled a letter out of its envelope. 

"This is from Beatrice Daventry. In it she tells me a piece of news. "(He glanced quickly over the sheets. ) "My wife has got tired of leadinga religious life and has left the Sisterhood in which she was, and goneto live in London. Here it is: 'Rosamund is living once more in GreatCumberland Place with my guardian. She never goes into society, butotherwise she is leading an ordinary life. I am quite sure she willnever go back to Liverpool. '--So if I go to London I may run across mywife any day. Why not?"

"You wife has left the Sisterhood!" said Mrs. Clarke slowly, forcing asound of surprise into her husky voice. 

"I've just told you so. You and I may meet her in London. If we do, Ishould think she'll be hard put to it to recognize me. Now put on yourthings and we'll be off. "

"I shall not go out to-night. I intend----"

She paused. 

"What do you intend?"

"I don't mean ever to go to those rooms again. "

"Indeed. Why not?" he asked, with cold irony. 

"I loathe them. "

"You found them. You chose the furniture for them. Your perfect tastemade them what they are. "

"I tell you I loathe them!" she repeated violently. 

"We'll change them, then. We can easily find some others that will dojust as well. "

"Don't you understand that I loathe them because I meet you in them?"

"I understood that a good while ago. "

"And yet you--"

"My dear!" he interrupted her. "Didn't I tell you you had destroyed me?The man I was might have bothered about trifles of that kind, the man Iam simply doesn't recognize them. Jimmy hates me too, but I haven't donewith Jimmy yet, nevertheless. "

"You shall never meet Jimmy again. I shall prevent it. "

"How can you?"

"You're not fit to be with him. "

"But you have molded me into what I am. He must get accustomed to hisown mother's handiwork. "

"Jimmy can't bear you. He told me so when he was last here. He detestsyou. "

"Ah!" said Dion, with sudden savagery, springing up from his chair. "Soyou and he have talked me over! I was sure of it. And no doubt you toldJimmy he was right in hating me. "

"I never discussed the matter with him at all. I couldn't prevent histelling me what he felt about you. "

Dion had become very pale. He stood for a moment without speaking, clenching his hands and looking at her with blazing eyes. For a momentshe thought that perhaps he was going to strike her. He seemed to bestruggling desperately with himself, to be striving to conquer somethingwithin him. At last he turned away from her. She heard him twice mutterthe name of her boy, "Jimmy! Jimmy!" Then he went away from her to thefar end of the room, where the piano was, and stood by it. She saw hisbroad shoulders heaving. He held on to the edge of the piano with bothhands, leaning forward. She stayed where she was, staring at him. Sherealized that to-night he might be dangerous to her. She had set out todefy him. But she was not sure now whether, perhaps, gentleness and anair of great sincerity might not be the only effective weapons againsthim in his present abnormal condition. Possibly even now it was not toolate to use them. She crossed the room and came to him swiftly. 

"Dion!" she said. 

He did not move. 

"Dion!" she repeated, putting her hand on his shoulder. 

He turned round. His pale face was distorted. She scarcely recognizedhim. 

"Dion, let us look things in the face. "

"Oh, God--that is what I'm doing, " he said. 

His lips twisted, his face was convulsed. She looked at him in silence, wondering what was going to happen. For a moment she was almostphysically afraid. Something in him to-night struck hard upon herimagination and she felt as if it were trembling. 

"Come and sit down, " he said, at last. 

And she saw that for the moment he had succeeded in regainingself-control. 

"Very well. "

She went to sit down; he sat opposite her. 

"You hate me, don't you?" he said. 

She hesitated. 

"Don't you?" he repeated. 

"We needn't use ugly words, " she said at last. 

"For ugly things? I believe it's best. You hate me and I hate you. D'youknow why I hate you? Not because you deliberately made me care foryou with my body, in the beastly, wholly physical way, but because youwouldn't let the other thing alone. "

"The other thing?"

"Haven't we got something else as well as the body? Look here--beforeI ever knew you I was always trying to build. At first I tried to buildfor a possible future which might never come. Well, it did come, and Iwas glad I'd stuck to my building--sometimes when it was difficult. ThenI tried to build for--for my wife--and then my child came and I tried tobuild for him, too. So it went on. I was always building, or trying to. In South Africa I was doing it, and I came back feeling as if I'd gotsomething to show, not much, but something, for my work. Then the crashcame, and I thought I knew sorrow and horror down to the bones. But Ididn't. I've only got to know them to the bones here. You've mademe know them. If you'd loved me I should never have complained, haveattacked you, been brutal to you; but when I think that you've nevercared a rap about me, never cared for anything but my body, andthat--that----" his voice broke for a moment; then he recovered himselfand went on, more harshly, --"and that merely from desire, or whateveryou choose to call it, you've sent the last stones of my building todust, I sometimes feel as if I could murder you. If you meant to kickme out and be free of me when you had had enough of me, you shouldnever have brought Jimmy into the matter; for in a way you could neverunderstand Jimmy was linked up with my boy, with Robin. When you mademe earn Jimmy's hatred by being utterly false to all I really was, youseparated me from my boy. I killed him, but till then I wassometimes near him. Ever since that night of lying and dirty pretensehe's--he's--I've lost him. You've taken my boy from me. Why should Ileave you yours?"

"But you're mad--when my boy's alive and--"

"And so's mine!"

She stared at him in silence. 

"You can't give him back to me. Jimmy shrinks from me not because ofwhat I've done, but because of what I've become, and my boy feels asJimmy does. He--he----"

Mrs. Clarke pushed back her chair bruskly. She was now feeling reallyafraid. She longed to call in Sonia. She wished the other servants werein the flat instead of at Buyukderer. 

"You boy's dead, " she said, dully, obstinately. "Jimmy has nothing to dowith him--never had anything to do with him. And as for me, I have neverinterfered between you and your child. "

She got up. So did he. 

"Never, never!" she repeated. "But your mind is warped and you don'tknow what you're saying. "

"I do. But we won't argue about it. You're a materialist and you can'tunderstand the real things. "

His own words seemed suddenly to strike upon him like a great blow. 

"The real things!" he exclaimed. "I've lost them all for ever. But I'llkeep what I've got. I'll keep what I've got. You hate me and I hate you, but we belong to each other and we'll stick together, and Jimmy mustmake up his mind to it. Once you said that if he was twenty-one you'dtell him all about it. If you're going to England I'll go there too, andwe can enlighten Jimmy a little sooner. Now let us be off to the rooms. As you've taken a dislike to them we'll give them up. But we must pay alast visit to them, a visit of good-bye. "

She shuddered. The thought of being shut up alone with him horrified herimagination. She waited a moment; then she said:

"Very well. I'll go and put on my things. "

And she went out of the room. She wanted to gain time, to be alone for amoment. 

When she was in her bedroom she did not summon Sonia, who was inthe kitchen washing up. Slowly she went to get out a wrap and a hat. Standing before the glass she adjusted the hat on her head carefully, adroitly; then she drew the wrap around her shoulders and picked up apair of long gloves. After an instant of hesitation she began to pullthem on. The process took several minutes. She was careful to smooth outevery wrinkle. While she did so she was thinking of Rosamund Leith. 

All through the evening she had been on the verge of telling Dion thathis wife was in Constantinople, but something had held her back. Andeven now she could not make up her mind whether to tell him or not. Shewas afraid to risk the revelation because she did not know at all how hewould take it. When he knew she might be free. There was the possibilityof that. He must realize, he would surely be obliged to realize, thathis wife could have but one purpose in deliberately traveling out tothe place where he was living. She must be seeking a reconciliation, inspite of the knowledge which Mrs. Clarke had read in her eyes that day. But would Dion face those eyes with the hard defiance of one irreparablyaloof from his former life? If he were really ready and determined toshow himself in London as the lover of another woman would he not beready to do the same thing here in Constantinople?

To tell him seemed to Mrs. Clarke the one chance of escape for her now, but she was afraid to tell him because she was afraid to know that whatseemed the only possible avenue to freedom was barred against her. Shehad said to herself at the piano "Vouloir c'est pouvoir, " and she haddetermined to be free, but again Dion's will of a desperate man hadtowered up over hers. It was the fact that he was desperate which gaveto him this power. 

At last the gloves lay absolutely smooth on her hands and arms, and shewent back to the drawing-room. Till she opened the door of it she didnot know what she was going to do. 

"So you're dressed!" Dion said as she came in. "That's right. Let's beoff. "

"What is the good of going? You have said we hate each other. How canthis sort of thing go on in hatred? Dion, let us give it all up. "

"Why have you put on your things?"

"I don't know. Let us say good-by to-night, and not in anger. We werenot suited to be together for long. We are too different. "

"How many men have you said all this to already? Come along!"

He took her firmly by the wrist. 

"Wait, Dion!"

"Why should we wait?"

"There's something I must tell you before we go. "

He kept his hand on her wrist. 

"Well? What is it?"

"I went to Santa Sophia to-day. "

As she spoke the Bedouin came before her again. She saw hisbronze-colored arms and his bird-like eyes. 

"Santa Sophia! Did you go to pray?"

She stared at him. His lips were curled in a smile. 

"No, " she said. "But I like to go there sometimes. As I was coming awayI met some one. "

"Well?"

"Some one you know--a woman. "

"A woman? Lady Ingleton?"

"No; your wife. "

The fingers which held her wrist became suddenly cold, but they stillpressed firmly upon her flesh. 

"That's a lie!" he said hoarsely. 

"It isn't!"

"How dare you tell me such a lie?"

He bent and gazed into her eyes. 

"Liar! Liar!"

But though his lips made the assertion, his eyes, in agony, seemed to beasking a question. He seized her other wrist. 

"What's your object in telling me such a lie? What are you trying togain by it? Do you think you'll get rid of me for to-night, and thatto-morrow, by some trick, you'll escape from me forever? D'you thinkthat?"

"I met your wife to-day just outside Santa Sophia, " she said steadily. "When she saw me she stopped. We looked at each other for a minute. Neither of us spoke a word. But she told me something. "

"Told you . . . ?"

"With her eyes. She knows about you and me. "

His hands fell from her wrists. By the look in his eyes she saw that hewas beginning to believe her. 

"She knows, " Mrs. Clarke repeated. "And yet she had come here. What doesthat mean?"

"What does that mean?" he repeated, in a muttering voice. 

"Do you believe what I say?"

"Yes; she is here. "

A fierce wave of red went over his face. For a moment his eyes shone. Then a look of despair and horror made him frightful, and stirred evenin her a sensation of pity. 

He began to tremble. 

"Don't! Don't!" she said, putting out her hands and moving away. 

"She can't know!" he said, trembling more violently. 

"She does know. "

"She wouldn't have come. She doesn't know. She doesn't know. "

"She does know. Now I'm ready, if you want to go to the rooms. "

Dion went white to the lips. He came towards her. His eyes were somenacing that she felt sure he was going to do her some dreadful injury;but when he was close to her he controlled himself and stood still. Forwhat seemed to her a very long time he stood there, looking at her as aman looks at the heap of his sins when the sword has cloven a way intothe depths of his spirit. Then he said:

"You're free. "

He went out of the room, leaving the door open. A moment later Mrs. Clarke heard the front door shut, and his footsteps on the stone stairsoutside. They died away. 

Then she began to sob. She felt shaken and frightened almost like achild. But presently her sobs ceased. She took off her hat and wrap andher gloves, lay down on the sofa, put her hands behind her small head, and, motionless, gazed at the pale gray wall of the room. It seemed tofade away after she had gazed at it for two or three minutes; a worldopened out before her, and she saw a barrier, like a long deep trench, stretching into a far distance. On one side of this trench stood a boywith densely thick hair and large hands and frank, observant eyes; onthe other stood a Bedouin of the desert. 

Then she shuddered. Dion had told her she was free. But was she free?Could she ever be free now?

Suddenly she broke into a passion of tears. She was inundated withself-pity. She had prayed to the Unknown God. He had answered herprayer, but nevertheless, he had surely cursed her. For love and lustwere at merciless war within her. She was tormented. 

That night she knew she had run up a debt which she would be forced topay; she knew that her punishment was beginning. 

CHAPTER XV

When Dion came out into the street he stood still on the pavement. Itwas between ten and eleven o'clock. Stamboul, the mysterious city, wasplunged in darkness, but Pera was lit and astir, was full of blatantand furtive activities. He listened to its voices as he stood under thestars, and presently from them the voice of a woman detached itself, andsaid clearly and with a sort of beautifully wondering slowness, "I cansee the Pleiades. "

Tears started into his eyes. He was afraid of that voice and yet hiswhole being longed desperately to hear it again. The knowledge thatRosamund was here in Constantinople, very near to him--how it hadchanged the whole city for him! Every light that gleamed, every soundthat rose up, seemed to hold for him a terrible vital meaning. And heknew that all the time he had been living in Constantinople it had beento him a horrible city of roaring emptiness, and he knew that now, in amoment, it had become the true center of the world. He was amazed and hewas horrified by the power and intensity of the love within him. In thismoment he knew it for an undying thing. Nothing could kill it, no actof Rosamund's, no act of his. Even lust had not suffocated the purityof it, even satiety of the flesh had not lessened the yearning of it, oravailed to deprive it of its ardent simplicity, of its ideal character. In it there was still the child with his wonder, the boy with hisstirring aspirations towards life, the man with his full-grown passion. He had sought to kill it and he had not even touched it. He knew thatnow and was shaken by the knowledge. Where did it dwell then, this thingthat governed him and that he could not break? He longed to get at it, to seize it, hold it to some fierce light, examine it. And then? Wouldhe wish to cast it away?

"I can see the Pleiades. "

For a moment the peace of Olympia was about him, and he heard thevoices of Eternity whispering among the pine trees. Then the irreparableblotted out that green beauty, that message from the beyond; realityrushed upon him. He turned and looked at the building he had just left. It towered above him, white, bare, with its rows of windows. He knewthat he would never go into it again, that he had done forever with thewoman in there who hated him. Yes, he had done with her insomuch as aman can finish with any one who has been closely, intimately, for goodor for evil, in his life. As he watched her windows for a moment hismind reviewed swiftly his connection with her, from the moment when shehad held his hand indifferently, yet with intention, in Mrs. Chetwinde'sdrawing-room, till the moment, just past, when he had said to her, "Youare free. " And he knew that from the first moment when she had seen himshe had made up her mind that some day he should be her lover. He hatedher, and yet he knew now that in some strange and obscure way he almostrespected her, for her determination, her unscrupulous courage, her willto live as she chose to live. She at any rate possessed a kind of evilstrength. And he----?

Slowly he turned away from that house. He did not know where Rosamundwas staying, but he thought she was probably at the Hotel de Byzance, and he walked almost mechanically towards it. He was burning withexcitement, and yet there was within him something cold, capable andrelentless, which considered him almost as a judge considers acriminal, which seemed to be probing into the rotten part of his nature, determined to know once and for all just how rotten it was. Rosamundsurely was strong in her goodness as Mrs. Clarke was strong in herevil. He had known the cruelty of both those strengths. And why? Surelybecause he himself had never been really strong. Intensity of feelinghad constantly betrayed him into weakness. And even now was it notweakness in him, this inability to leave off loving Rosamund after allthat had happened? Perhaps the power of feeling intensely was the greatbetrayer of a man. 

He descended the Grande Rue, moving in the midst of a press of humanity, but strongly conscious only of Rosamund's nearness to him, until at lasthe was in front of the Hotel de Byzance. He stood on the opposite sideof the way, looking at the lighted windows, at the doorway through whichpeople came and went. Was she in there, close to him? Why had she cometo Constantinople?

She must have come there because of him. There could not surely be anyother reason for her traveling so far to the city where she knew he wasliving. But then she must have repented of her cruelty after the deathof Robin, have thought seriously of resuming her married life. It mustbe so. Inexorably Dion's reason led him to that conclusion. Havingreached it he looked at himself, and again his own weakness confrontedhim like a specter which would not leave him, which dogged himrelentlessly down all the ways of his life. Prompted, governed by thatweakness, which he had actually mistaken madly for strength, for anassertion of his manhood, he had raised up between Rosamund and himselfperhaps the only barrier which could never be broken down, the barrierof a great betrayal. What she had most cared for in him he had trampledinto the dirt; he had slain the purity which had drawn her to him. 

Mrs. Clarke had said that Rosamund knew of their connexion. He believedher. He could not help trusting her horrible capacity to read such atruth in another woman's eyes. It must be so. Rosamund surely could onlyhave learned in Constantinople the horrible truth which would foreverdivide them. She must have traveled out with the intention of seeing himagain, of telling him that she repented of what she had done, and thenin the city which had seen his degradation she must have found out whathe was. 

He saw her outraged, bitterly ashamed of having made the long journey toseek a man who had betrayed her; he saw her wounded in the soul. She hadwounded him in the soul, but at this moment he scarcely thought of that. The knowledge that she was near to him seemed to have suddenly renewedthe pure springs of his youth. When Cynthia Clarke had said, "Now I'mready if you want to go to the rooms, " she had received her freedom fromthe Dion who had won Rosamund, not from the withered and embittered manupon whom she had perversely seized in his misery and desolation. 

That Rosamund should travel to him and then know him for what he was!All his intense bitterness against her was swept away by the flood ofhis hatred of himself. 

Suddenly the lights of the city seemed to fade before his eyes and thevoices of the city seemed to lose their chattering gaiety. Darknessand horrible mutterings were about him. He heard the last door closingagainst him. He accounted himself from henceforth among the damned. Lifting his head he stared for a moment at the Hotel de Byzance. Now hefelt sure that she was there. He knew that she was there, and he badeher an eternal farewell. Not she--as for so long he had thought--but hehad broken their marriage. She had sinned in the soul. But to-nighthe did not see her sin. He saw only his black sin of the body, theirreparable sin he had committed against her shining purity to which hehad been united. 

How could he have committed that sin?

He turned away from the hotel, and went down towards his lodgings inGalata; he felt as he walked, like one treading a descent which led downinto eternal darkness. 

How had he come to do what he had done?

Already he saw Cynthia Clarke as something far away, an almostmeaningless phantom. He wondered why he had felt power in her; hewondered what it was that had led him to her, had kept him besideher, had bound him to her. She was nothing. She had never really beenanything to him. And yet she had ruined his life. He saw her pale andhaggard face, her haunted cheeks and temples, the lovely shape of herhead with its cloud of unshining hair, her small tenacious hands. He sawher distinctly. But she was far away, utterly remote from him. She hadmeant nothing to him, and yet she had ruined him. Let her go. Her workwas done. 

It was near midnight when he went at last to his lodgings, which were ina high house not far from the Tophane landing. From his windows he couldsee the Golden Horn, and the minarets and domes of Stamboul. His tworooms, though clean, were shabbily furnished and unattractive. He had aGreek servant who came in every day to do what was necessary. He neverreceived any visitors in these rooms, which he had taken when he gave upgoing into the society of the diplomats and others, to whom he had beenintroduced at Buyukderer. 

His feet echoed on the dirty staircase so he mounted slowly up till hestood in front of his own door. Slowly, like one making an effort thatwas almost painful to him he searched for his key and drew it out. Hishand shook as he inserted the key into the keyhole. He tried to steadyhis hand, but he could not control its furtive and perpetual movement. When the door was open he struck a match, and lit a candle that stood ona chair in the dingy and narrow lobby. Then he turned round wearilyto shut the door. He was possessed by a great fatigue, and wonderedwhether, if he fell on his bed in the blackness, he would be able tosleep. As he turned, he saw, lying on the matting at his feet, a squarewhite envelope. It was lying upside down. Some one must have pushed itunder the door while he was out. 

He stood looking at it for a minute. Then he shut the door, bent down, picked up the envelope, turned it over and held it near the candleflame. He read his name and the handwriting was Rosamund's. 

After a long pause he took the candle and carried the letter into hissitting-room. He set the candle down on the table on which lay "TheKasidah" and a few other books, laid the letter beside it, withtrembling hands drew up a chair and sat down. 

Rosamund had written to him. When? Before she had learnt the truth orafterwards?

For a long time he sat there, leaning over the table, staring at theaddress which her hand had written. And he saw her hand, so differentfrom Mrs. Clarke's, and he remembered its touch upon his, absolutelyunlike the touch of any other hand ever felt by him. Something quiveredin his flesh. The agony of the body rushed upon him and mingled withthe agony of the soul. He bent down, laid his hot forehead against theletter, and shut his eyes. 

A clock struck presently. He opened his eyes, lifted his head, took upthe envelope, quickly tore it, and unfolded the paper within. 

"HOTEL DE BYZANCE, CONSTANTINOPLE, Wednesday evening

"I am here. I want to see you. Shall I come to you to-morrow? I can comeat any time, or I can meet you at any place you choose. Only tell me thehour and how to go if it is difficult. 

"ROSAMUND. "

Wednesday evening! It was now the night of Wednesday. Then Rosamundhad written to him after she had been to Santa Sophia and had met Mrs. Clarke. She knew, and yet she wrote to him; she asked to see him; sheeven offered to come to his rooms. The thing was incomprehensible. 

He read the note again. He pored over every word in it almost like achild. Then he held it in his hand, sat back in his chair and wondered. 

What did Rosamund mean? Why did she wish to see him? What could sheintend to do? His intimate knowledge of what Rosamund was companionedhim at this moment--that knowledge which no separation, which no hatredeven, could ever destroy. She was fastidiously pure. She could never beanything else. He could not conceive of her ever drawing near to, andassociating herself deliberately with, bodily degradation. He thought ofher as he had known her, with her relations, her friends, with himself, with Robin. Always in every relation of life a radiant purity had beenabout her like an atmosphere; always she had walked in rays of the sun. Until Robin had died! And then she had withdrawn into the austere purityof the religious life. He felt it to be absolutely impossible that sheshould seek him, even seek but one interview with him, if she knew whathis life had been during the last few months. And, feeling that, he wasnow forced to the conclusion that Mrs. Clarke's intuition had gone foronce astray. If Rosamund knew she would never have written that note. Again he looked at it, read it. It must have been written in completeignorance. Mrs. Clarke had made a mistake. Perhaps she had been betrayedinto error by her own knowledge of guilt. And yet such a lapse wasvery uncharacteristic of her. He compared his knowledge of her with hisknowledge of Rosamund. It was absolutely impossible that Rosamund hadwritten that letter to him with full understanding of his situation inConstantinople. But she might have heard rumors. She might have resolvedto clear them up. Having traveled out with the intention of seekinga reconciliation she might have thought it due to him to acceptevil tidings of him only from his own lips. Always, he knew, she hadabsolutely trusted in his loyalty and faithfulness to her. Perhaps then, even though she had put him out of her life, she was unable to believethat he had tried to forget her in unfaithfulness. Perhaps that was thetrue explanation of her conduct. 

Could he then save himself from destruction by a great lie?

He sat pondering that problem, oblivious of time. Could he lie toRosamund? All his long bitterness against her for the moment was gone, driven out by his self-condemnation. A great love must forgive. Itcannot help itself. It carries within it, as a child is carried in thewomb, the sweet burden of divinity, and shares in the attributes ofGod. So it was with Dion on that night as he sat in his dingy room. Andpresently his soul rejected the lie he had abominably thought of. Heknew he could not tell Rosamund a life. Then what was he to do?

He drew out of a drawer a piece of letter paper, dipped a pen in ink. He had a mind to write the horrible truth which he could surely neverspeak. 

"I have received your letter, " he wrote, in a blurred and unsteadyhandwriting. Then he stopped. He stared at the paper, pushed it awayfrom him, and got up. He could not write the truth. He went to thewindow and looked out into the dark night. Here and there he saw faintlights. But Stamboul was almost hidden in the gloom, a city rathersuggested by its shadow than actually visible. The Golden Horn was atangled mystery. There were some withdrawn stars. 

Should he not reply to Rosamund's letter? If she had heard rumors abouthis life would not his silence convey to her the fact that they weretrue? He had perhaps only to do nothing and Rosamund would understandand--would leave Constantinople. 

The blackness which shrouded Stamboul suddenly seemed to him to becomemore solid, impregnable. He felt that his own life would be drowned inblackness if Rosamund went away. And abruptly he knew that he must seeher. Whatever the cost, whatever the shame and bitterness, he must seeher at once. He would tell her, or try to tell her, what he had beenthrough, what he had suffered, why he had done what he had done. Possibly she would be able to understand. If only he could find thewords that would give her the inner truth perhaps they might reachher heart. Something intense told him that he must try to make herunderstand how he had loved her, through all his hideous attempts toslay his love of her. Could a woman understand such a thing? Desperatelyhe wondered. Might not his terrible sincerity perhaps overwhelm herdoubts?

He left the window, sat down again at the table, and wrote quickly. 

"I have your letter. Will you meet me to-morrow at Eyub, in the cemeteryon the hill? I will be near the Tekkeh of the dancing Dervishes. I willbe there before noon, and will wait all day. 

"DION"

When he began to write he knew that he could not make his confession toRosamund within the four walls of his sordid and dingy room. Her powerto understand would surely be taken from her there. Might it not bereleased under the sky of morning, within sight of those minarets whichhe had sometimes feared, but which he had always secretly, in someobscure way, loved even in the most abominable moments of his abominablelife, as he had always secretly, beneath all the hard bitterness of hisstricken heart, loved Rosamund? From them came the voice which would notbe gainsaid, the voice which whispered, "In the East thou shalt find meif thou hast not found me in the West. " Might not that voice help himwhen he spoke to Rosamund, help her to understand him, help her perhapseven to----

But there he stopped. He dared not contemplate the possibility of herbeing able to accept the man he had become as her companion. And yet nowhe felt himself somehow closely akin to the former Dion, flesh of thatman's flesh, bone of his bone. It was as if his sin fell from him whenhe so utterly repented of it. 

Slowly he put the note he had written into an envelope, sealed it andwrote the address--"Mrs. Dion Leith, Hotel de Byzance. " He blotted it. Then he fetched his hat and stick. He meant to take the note himself tothe Hotel de Byzance. The night might be made for sleep, but he knew hecould not sleep till he had seen Rosamund. When he was out in the air, and was walking uphill towards Pera, he realized that within him, inspite of all, something of hope still lingered. Rosamund's letter tohim had wrought already a wonderful change in his tortured life. Theknowledge that he would see her again, be with her alone, even if onlyfor an hour, even if only that he might tell her what would alienateher from him forever, thrilled through him, seemed even to shed a fiercestrength and alertness through his body. Now that he was going to seeher once more he knew what the long separation from her had meant tohim. He had known the living death. Within a few hours he would haveat least some moments of life. They would be terrible moments, shameful--but they would take him back into life. Fiercely, passionately, he looked forward to them. 

He left his letter at the hotel, giving it into the hands of a wearyAlbanian night porter. Then he returned to his rooms, undressed, washedin cold water, and lay down on his bed. And presently he was praying inthe dark, instinctively almost as a child prays. He was praying forthe impossible. For he believed that it was absolutely impossible theRosamund could ever forgive him for what he had done, and yet he prayedthat she might forgive him. And he felt as if he were praying with allhis body as well as with all his soul. 

In the dawn he was tired. But he did not sleep at all. 

About ten o'clock he went out to take the boat to Eyub. 

CHAPTER XVI

At a few minutes past eleven Dion was in the vast cemetery on thehill. It was a gray morning, still and hot. Languor was in the air. The grayness, the silence, the oily waters, suggested a broodingresignation. The place of the dead was almost deserted. He wanderedthrough it, and met only two or three Turks, who returned his glanceimpassively. After the sleepless night he had come out feeling painfullyexcited and scarcely master of himself. In Galata and on the boat he hadnot dared to look into the eyes of those who thronged about him. He hadfelt transparent, as if all his thoughts and his tumultuous feelingsmust be visible to any one who regarded him with attention. But now hewas encompassed by a sensation of almost dull calmness. He looked at thegrayness and at the innumerable graves, he was conscious of thestagnant heat, he seemed to draw into himself the wide silence, and theexcitement faded out of him, was replaced by a curious inertia. Bothhis mind and his body felt tired and resigned. The gravestones suggesteddeath, the end of the early hopes, aspirations, yearnings and despairsof men. A few bones and a headstone--to that he was traveling. And yetall through the night he had been on fire with longing, and with a fearthat had seemed almost red hot. Now he thought he perhaps understood thefatalism of the Turk. Whatever must be must be. All was written surelyfrom the beginning. It was written that to-day he should be alone in thecemetery of Eyub, and it was written that Rosamund should come to himthere, or not come to him. 

If she did not come?

He remembered the exact wording of his letter to her, and he realizedfor the first time that in her letter she had asked him to tell her howto go to their meeting-place "if it is difficult, " and he had not toldher what she had to do in order to come to Eyub. 

But of course she had a dragoman, and he would bring her. She could notpossibly come alone. 

Perhaps, however, she would not come. 

Long ago she had opened and read his letter and had taken her decision. If she was coming, probably she was already on the way. He forcedhimself to imagine the whole day passed by him alone in the cemetery, the light failing as the evening drew on, the darkness of nightswallowing up Stamboul, the knowledge forced upon him that Rosamund hadabandoned the idea of seeing him again. He imagined himself returning toConstantinople in the night, going to the Hotel de Byzance and learningthat she had left by the Orient express of that day for England. 

What would he feel?

A handful of bones and a headstone! Whatever happened to-day, and inthe future, he was on his way to just that. Then, why agonize, why allowhimself to be riven and tormented by longings and fears that seemedborn out of something eternal? Perhaps, indeed, there was nothing atall after this short life was ended, nothing but the blank grayness ofeternal unconsciousness. If so, how little even his love for Rosamundmeant. It must be some bodily attraction, some imperious call to hisflesh which he had mistaken for a far greater thing. Men, perhaps, aremerely tricked by those longings of theirs which seem defiant of time, by those passionate tendernesses in which eternity seems breathing. Allthat they think they live by may be illusion. 

Mechanically, as the minutes drew on towards noon, he walked towards theTekkeh of the Dervishes. Once he had come here to meet Cynthia Clarke, and now he had deliberately chosen the same place for the terribleinterview with his wife. It could only be terrible. He did not know whathe was going to do and say when she came (if she did come), but hedid know that somehow he would tell her the whole truth about himself, without, of course, mentioning the name of a woman. He would lay barehis soul. It was fitting that he should confess his sin in the placeof its beginnings. He had begun to sin against the woman whom he couldnever unlove here in this wilderness of the dead, when he had spokenagainst her to the woman who had long ago resolved some day to makehim sin. (He told himself now that he had definitely spoken againstRosamund. ) In this sad place of disordered peace, under the gray, andwithin sight of the minarets lifted to the Unknown God, he had openedthe book of evil things; in this place he would close it forever--ifRosamund came. He felt now that there was something within him which, despite all his perversity, all that he had given himself to in the furyof the flesh, was irrevocably dedicated to that which was sane, cleanand healthy. By this he was resolved to live henceforth, not becauseof any religious feeling, not because of any love of that Unknown Godwho--so he supposed--had flung him into the furnace of suffering asrefuse may be flung into a fire, but because he now began to understandthat this dedicated something was really Him, was of the core of hisbeing, not to be rooted out. He had left Cynthia Clarke. In a shorttime--before the gray faded over the minarets of Stamboul--Rosamundwould have done with him forever. He faced complete solitude, thewilderness without any human soul, good or bad, to keep him company; buthe faced it with a sort of hard and final resignation. By nightfall hewould have done with it all. And then--the living Death? Yes, no doubtthat would be his portion. He smiled faintly as he thought of hisfurious struggle against just that. 

"It was written, " he thought. "Everything is written. But we are trickedinto a semblance of vigorous life and energy by our great delusion thatwe possess free will. "

He sat down beneath a cypress and remained quite still, looking downwardtowards the water, downward along the path by which, if Rosamund came, she would ascend the hill towards him. 

It was nearly noon when he saw below him on this path the figure of awoman walking slowly. She was followed by a man. 

Dion got up. He could not really see who this woman was, but he knew whoshe was. Instantly he knew. And instantly all the calm, all the fatalismof which for a moment he had believed himself possessed, all thebrooding resignation of the man who says to his soul, "It is written!"was swept away. He stood there, bare of his pretenses, and he knewhimself for what he was, just a man who was the prisoner of a greatlove, a man shaken by the tempest of his feeling, a man who would, whomust, fight against the living Death which, only a moment before, he hadbeen contemplating even with a smile. 

She had come, and with her life. 

He put one arm against the seamed trunk of the cypress. Mechanically, and unaware what he was doing, he had taken off his hat. He held it inhis hand. All the change which sorrow and excess had wrought upon himwas exposed for Rosamund to see. She had last seen him plainly as hedrove away with little Robin from the Green Court of Welsley on thatmorning of fate. Now at last she was to see him again as she had remadehim. 

She came on slowly. Presently she turned to her Greek dragoman. 

"Where's the Tekkeh? Is it much farther?"

"No, Madame. "

He pointed. As he did so Rosamund saw Dion's figure standing against thecypress. She stood still. Her face was white and drawn, but full ofan almost flaming resolution. The mysticism which at moments Dion haddetected in her expression, in her eyes, during the years passed withher, a mysticism then almost evasive, subtly withdrawn, shone now, likea dominating quality which scorned to hide itself, or perhaps couldnot hide itself. She looked like a woman under the influence of a fixedpurpose, fascinated, drawn onward, almost in ecstasy, and yet somehow, somewhere, tormented. 

"Please go back to the foot of the hill, " she said to the Greek who waswith her. 

"But, Madame, I dare not leave you alone here. "

"I shall not be alone. "

The Greek looked surprised. 

"Some one is waiting for me, up there, by that cypress--a--a friend. "

"Oh--I see, Madame. "

With a look of intense comprehension he turned to go. 

"At the foot of the hill, please!" said Rosamund. 

"Certainly, Madame. "

The dragoman was smiling as he walked away. Rosamund stood stillwatching him till he was out of sight. Then she turned. The figure of aman was still standing motionless under the old cypress tree among thegraves. She set her lips together and went towards it. Now that she sawDion, even though he was in the distance, she felt again intensely, asif in her flesh, the bodily wrong he had done to her. She strove not tofeel this. She told herself that, after her sin against him, she had noright to feel it. In her heart she knew that she was the greater sinner. She realized now exactly the meaning of what she had done. She had nomore illusions about herself, about her conduct. She condemned herselfutterly. She had come to that place of the dead absolutely resolved toask forgiveness of Dion. And yet now that she saw his body the sense ofpersonal outrage woke in her, gripped her. She grew hot, she tingled. Afierce jealousy of the flesh tormented her. And suddenly she was afraidof herself. Was her body then more powerful than her soul? Was she, who had always cared for the things of the soul hopelessly physical? Itseemed to her that even now she might succumb to what she supposed wasan overwhelming personal pride, that even now she might be unable to dowhat she had come all the long way from England to do. But she forcedherself to go onward up the path. She looked down; she would not seethat body of a man which had belonged to her and to which she hadbelonged; but she made herself go towards it. 

Presently she felt that she was drawing near to it; then that she wasclose to it. Then she stopped. Standing still for a moment she prayed. She prayed that she might be able in this supreme crisis of her life togovern the baser part of herself, that she might be allowed, might behelped, to rise to those heights of which Father Robertson had spokento her, that she might at last realize the finest possibilities of hernature, that she might be able to do the most difficult thing, to behumble, to forget any injury which had been inflicted upon herself, andto remember only the tremendous injury she had inflicted upon another. When her prayer was finished she did not know whether it had beenheard, whether, if it had been heard, it had been accepted and would begranted. She did not know at all what she would be able to do. But shelooked up and saw Dion. He was close to her, was standing just in frontof her, with one arm holding the cypress trunk, trembling slightly andgazing at her, gazing at her with eyes that were terrible because theyrevealed so much of agony, of love and of terror. She looked into thoseeyes, she looked at the frightful change written on the face that hadonce been so familiar to her, and suddenly an immense pity inundatedher. It seemed to her that she endured in that moment all the sufferingwhich Dion had endured since the tragedy at Welsley added to her ownsuffering. She stood there for a moment looking at him. Then she saidonly:

"Forgive me, oh, forgive me!"

Tears rushed into her eyes. She had been able to say it. It had not beendifficult to say. She could not have said anything else. And her soulhad said it as well as her lips. 

"Forgive me! Forgive me!" she repeated. 

She went up to Dion, took his poor tortured temples, from which thehair, once so thick, had retreated, in her hands, and whispered again inthe midst of her tears:

"Forgive me!"

"I've been false to you, " he said huskily. "I've broken my vow to you. I've lived with another woman--for months. I've been a beast. I'vewallowed. I've gone right down. Everything horrible--I've--I've doneit. Only last night I meant to--to--I only broke away from it all lastnight. I heard you were here and then I--I----"

"Forgive me!"

She felt as if God were speaking in her, through her. She felt as ifin that moment God had taken complete possession of her, as if forthe first time in her life she was just an instrument, formed for thecarrying out of His tremendous purposes, able to carry them out. Awewas upon her. But she felt a strange joy, and even a wonderful sense ofpeace. 

"But you don't hear what I tell you. I have been false to you. I havesinned against you for months and months. "

"Hush! It was my sin. "

"Yours? Oh, Rosamund!"

She was still holding his temples. He put his hands on her shoulders. 

"Yes, it was my sin. I understand now how you love me. I neverunderstood till to-day. "

"Yes, I love you. "

"Then, " she said, very simply. "I know you will be able to forgive me. Don't tell me any more ever about what you have done. It's blotted out. Just forgive me--and let us begin again. "

She took away her hands from his temples. He did not kiss her, buthe took one of her hands, and they stood side by side looking towardsStamboul, towards the City of the Unknown God. His eyes and hers were onthe minarets, those minarets which seem to say to those who have come tothem from afar, and whose souls are restless:

"In the East thou shalt find me if thou hast not found me in the West. "

After a long silence Rosamund pressed Dion's hand, and it seemed to himthat never, in the former days of their union--not even in Greece--hadshe pressed it with such tenderness, with such pulse-stirring intimacyand trust in him. Then, still with her eyes upon the minarets, she saidin a low voice:

"I think Robin knows. "

CHAPTER XVII

Not many days later, when the green valley of Olympia was wrapped in thepeace of a sunlit afternoon, and a faint breeze drew from the pine treeson the hills of Kronos a murmur as of distant voices whispering themessage of Eternity, the keeper of the house of the Hermes was disturbedin a profound reverie by the sound of slow footfalls not far from hisdwelling. He stirred, lifted his head and stared vaguely about him. Notravelers had come of late to the shrine he guarded. Hermes had beenalone with the child upon his arm, dreaming of its unclouded future withthe serenity of one who had trodden the paths where the gods walk, andwho could rise at will above the shadowed ways along which men creepin anxiety, dreading false steps and the luring dangers of their fates. Hermes had been alone with his happy burden, forgotten surely by theworld which his delicate majesty ignored without disdain. But nowpilgrims, perhaps from a distant land, were drawing near to look uponhim, to spend a little while in the atmosphere of his shining calm, perhaps to learn something of the message he had to give to those whowere capable of receiving it. 

A man and a woman, moving slowly side by side, came into the patch ofstrong sunshine which made a glory before the house, paused there andstood still. 

From the shadow in which he was sitting the guardian examined them withthe keen eyes of one who had looked upon travelers of many nations. Heknew at once that the woman was English. As for the man--yes, probablyhe was English too, Dark, lean, wrinkled, he was no doubt an Englishmanwho had been much away from his own country, which the guardianconceived of as wrapped in perpetual fogs and washed by everlastingrains. 

The guardian stared hard at this man, then turned his bright eyes againupon the woman. As he looked at her some recollection began to stir inhis mind. 

Not many travelers came twice to the green recesses of Elis. He wasaccustomed to brief acquaintanceships, closed by small gifts of money, and succeeded by farewells which troubled his spirit not at all. Butthis woman seemed familiar to him; and even the man----

He got up from his seat and went towards them. 

As he came into the sunlight the woman saw him and smiled. And, when shesmiled, he knew he had seen her before. The deep gravity of her face asshe approached had nearly tricked his memory, but now he remembered allabout her. She was the beautiful fair Englishwoman who had camped onthe hill of Drouva not so many years ago, who had gone out shooting withthat young rascal, Dirmikis, and who had spent solitary hours wraptin contemplation of the statue whose fame doubtless had brought her toElis. 

Not so many years ago! But was this the man the husband who had beenwith her then, and who had evidently been deeply in love with her?

It seemed to the guardian that there was some puzzling change in thebeautiful woman. As to the man----Still wondering, the guardian took offhis cap politely and uttered a smiling welcome in Greek. Then theman smiled too, faintly, and still preserving the under-look of deepgravity, and the guardian knew him. It was indeed the husband, but grownto look very much older, and different in some almost mysterious way. 

The woman made a gesture towards the museum. The guardian bowed, turnedand moved to lead the way through the vestibule into the great room ofthe Victory. But the woman spoke behind him and he paused. He did notunderstand what she said, but the sound of her voice seemed to pleadwith him--or to command him. He looked at her and understood. 

She was gazing at him steadily, and her eyes told him not to go beforeher, told him to stay where he was. 

He nodded his head, slightly pursing his small mouth. She knew the wayof course. How should she not know it?

Gently she came up to him and just touched his coat sleeve--to thankhim. Then she went on slowly with her companion, traversed the room ofthe Victory, looking neither to right nor left, crossed the threshold ofthe smaller chamber beyond it and disappeared. 

For a moment the guardian stood at gaze. Then he went back to his seat, sat down and sighed. A faint sense of awe had come upon him. He did notunderstand it, and he sighed again. Then, pulling himself together, hefelt for a cigarette, lit it and began to smoke, staring at the patch ofsunlight outside, and at the olive tree which grew close to the doorway. 

* * * * *

Within the chamber of the Hermes for a long time there was silence. Rosamund was sitting before the statue. Dion stood near to her, but notclose to her. The eyes of both of them were fixed upon Hermes and thechild. Once again they were greeted by the strange and exquisite hushwhich seems, like a divine sentinel, to wait at the threshold of thatshrine in Elis; once again the silence seemed to come out of the marbleand to press softly against their two hearts. But they were changed, and so the great peace of the Hermes seemed to them subtly changed. Theyknew now the full meaning of torment--torment of the body and of thesoul. They knew the blackness of rebellion. But they knew also, orat least were beginning to know, the true essence of peace. And thisbeginning of knowledge drew them nearer to the Hermes than they had beenin the bygone years, than they had ever been before the coming of littleRobin into their lives, and before Robin had left them, obedient to thecall from beyond. 

The olive branch was gone from the doorway. Something beautiful wasmissing from the picture of Elis which had reminded Rosamund of theglimpse of distant country in Raphael's "Marriage of the Virgin. " Andthey longed to have it there, that little olive branch--ah, how theylonged! There was pain in their hearts. But there was no longer thecruel fierceness of rebellion. They were able to gaze at the child onwhom Hermes was gazing, if not with his celestial serenity yet witha resignation that was even subtly mingled with something akin togratitude. 

"Shall we reach that goal and take a child with us?"

Long ago that had been Dion's thought in Elis. And long ago Rosamund hadbroken the silence within that room by the words:

"I'm trying to learn something here, how to bring _him_ up if he evercomes. "

And now God had given them a child, and God had taken him from them. Robin had gone from all that was not intended, but that, for someinscrutable reason, had come to be. Robin was in the released world. 

As the twilight began to fall another twilight came back flooding withits green dimness the memories of them both. And at last Rosamund spoke. 

"Dion!"

"Yes. "

"Come a little nearer to me. "

He came close to her and stood beside her. 

"Do you remember something you said to me here? It was in thetwilight----"

She paused. Tears had come into her eyes and her voice had trembled. 

"It was in the twilight. You said that it seemed to you as if Hermeswere taking the child away, partly because of us. "

Her voice broke. 

"I--I disliked your saying that. I told you I couldn't feel that. "

"I remember. "

"And then you explained exactly what you meant. And we spoke of thehuman fear that comes to those who look at a child they love and think, 'what is life going to do to the child?' This evening I want to tellyou that in a strange way I am able to be glad that Robin has gone, gladwith some part of me that is more mother than anything else in me, Ithink. Robin is--is so safe now. "

The tears came thickly and fell upon her face. She put out a hand toDion. He clasped it closely. 

"God took him away, and perhaps because of us. I think it may havebeen to teach us, you and me. Perhaps we needed a great sorrow. Perhapsnothing else could have taught us something we had to learn. "

"It may be so, " he almost whispered. 

She got up and leaned against his shoulder. 

"Whatever happens to me in the future, " she said, "I don't think I shallever distrust God again. "

He put his arm round her and, for the first time since their reunion, hekissed her, and she returned his kiss. 

Over Elis the twilight was falling, a green twilight, sylvan and veryethereal, tremulous in its delicate beauty. It stole through the greendoors, and down through the murmuring pine trees. The sheep-bells wereringing softly; the flocks were going homeward from pasture; and thechime of their little bells mingled with the wide whispering of theeternities among the summits of the pine trees. Music of earth mingledwith the music from a distance that knew what the twilight knew. 

Presently the two marble figures in the chamber of the Hermes began tofade away gradually, as if deliberately withdrawing themselves from thegaze of men. At last only their outlines were visible to Rosamund and toDion. But even these told of the Golden Age, of the age of long peace. 

"FAREWELL!"

Some one had said it within that chamber, and a second voice had echoedit. 

As the guardian of the Hermes watched the two pilgrims walking slowlyaway down the valley he noticed that the man's right arm clasped thewoman's waist. And, so, they passed from his sight and were taken by thegreen twilight of Elis.