 STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR

 BY

 MRS. BELLOC LOWNDES

 (Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes)

 _Short Story Index Reprint Series_

 BOOKS FOR LIBRARIES PRESS FREEPORT, NEW YORK

 First Published 1913

 PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

CONTENTS

 PAGE

 PRICE OF ADMIRALTY 1

 THE CHILD 99

 ST. CATHERINE'S EVE 131

 THE WOMAN FROM PURGATORY 187

 WHY THEY MARRIED 227

PRICE OF ADMIRALTY

 "O mort, vieux capitaine, il est temps! levons l'ancre! Ce pays nous ennuie, O mort! Appareillons!"

I

Claire de Wissant, wife of Jacques de Wissant, Mayor of Falaise, stoodin the morning sunlight, graceful with a proud, instinctive grace ofpoise and gesture, on a wind-blown path close to the edge of the cliff. 

At some little distance to her left rose the sloping, mansard roofs ofthe Pavillon de Wissant, the charming country house to which her husbandhad brought her, a seventeen year old bride, ten long years ago. 

She was now gazing eagerly out to sea, shielding her grey, heavy-liddedeyes with her right hand. From her left hand hung a steel chain, towhich was attached a small key. 

A hot haze lay heavily over the great sweep of deep blue waters. Itblotted out the low grey line on the horizon which, on the majority ofeach year's days, reminds the citizens of Falaise how near England is toFrance. 

Jacques de Wissant had rejoiced in the _entente cordiale_, if onlybecause it brought such a stream of tourists to the old seaport town ofwhich he was now Mayor. But his beautiful wife thought of the English asgallant foes rather than as friends. Was she not great-granddaughter tothat admiral who at Trafalgar, when both his legs were shattered bychain-shot, bade his men place him in a barrel of bran that he might goon commanding, in the hour of defeat, to the end?

And yet as Claire stood there, her eyes sweeping the sea for an as yetinvisible craft, her heart seemed to beat rhythmically to the last verseof a noble English poem which the governess of her twin daughters hadmade them recite to her that very morning. How did it run? Aloud shemurmured:

 "Yet this inconstancy is such, As you too shall adore--"

and then she stopped, her quivering lips refusing to form the twoconcluding lines. 

To Claire de Wissant, that moving cry from a man's soul was not dulledby familiarity, or hackneyed by common usage, and just now it found anintolerably faithful echo in her sad, rebellious heart, intensifying theanguish born of a secret and very bitter renunciation. 

With an abrupt, restless movement she turned and walked on till her wayalong the path was barred by a curious obstacle. This was a smallred-brick tower, built within a few feet of the edge of the cliff. Itwas an ugly blot on the beautiful stretch of down, all the uglier thatthe bricks and tiles had not yet had time to lose their hardness of lineand colour in the salt wind. 

On the cliff side, the small circular building, open to wind, sky andsea, formed the unnatural apex of a natural stairway which led steeply, almost vertically, down to a deep land-locked cove below. The irregularsteps carved by nature out of the chalk had been strengthened, and arough protection added by means of knotted ropes fixed on either side ofthe dangerous descent. 

In the days when the steps had started sheer from a cleft in the cliffpath, Jacques de Wissant had never used this way of reaching a spotwhich till last year had been his property, and his favouritebathing-place; and he had also, in those same quiet days which nowseemed so long ago, forbidden his daughters to use that giddy way. ButClaire was a fearless woman; and she had always preferred thedangerous, ladder-like stairs which seemed, when gazed at from below, tohang 'twixt sky and sea. 

Now, however, she rarely availed herself of the right retained by herhusband of using one of the two keys which unlocked the door set in thenew brick tower, for the cove--only by courtesy could it be called abay--had been chosen, owing to its peculiar position, naturally remoteand yet close to a great maritime port, to be the quarters of theNorthern Submarine Flotilla. 

Jacques de Wissant--and it was perhaps the only time in their joint lifethat his wife had entirely understood and sympathized with any action ofher husband's--had refused the compensation his Government had offeredhim; more, in his cold, silent way, he had shown himself a patriot in asense comparatively few modern men have the courage to be, namely, inthat which affected both his personal comfort and his purse. 

 * * * * *

After standing for a moment on the perilously small and narrow platformwhich made the floor of the tower, Claire grasped firmly a strand of theknotted rope and began descending the long steps cut in the cliff side. She no longer gazed out to sea, instead she looked straight down intothe pale green, sun-flecked waters of the little bay, where seven out ofthe nine submarines which composed the flotilla were lyinghalf-submerged, as is their wont in harbour. 

A landsman, coming suddenly upon the cliff-locked pool, might havethought that the centuries had rolled back, and that the strange sightbefore him was a school of saurians lazily sunning themselves in theplacid waters of a sea inlet where time had stood still. 

But no such vision came to Claire de Wissant. As she went down thecliff-side her lovely eyes rested on these sinister, man-createdmonsters with a feeling of sisterly, possessive affection. She hadbecome so familiarly acquainted with each and all of them in the lastfew months; she knew with such a curious, intimate knowledge where theydiffered, both from each other and also from other submarine craft, notonly here, in these familiar waters, but in the waters of France's greatrival on the sea. .. . 

It ever gave her a thrill of pride to remember that it was France whichfirst led the way in this, the most dangerous as also the mostadventurous new arm of naval warfare: and she rejoiced as fiercely, asexultantly as any of her sea-fighting forbears would have done in theterrible potentialities of destruction which each of these strange, grotesque-looking craft bore in their narrow flanks. 

It was now the hour of the crews' midday meal; there were fewer menstanding about than usual; and so, after she had stepped down on thesandy strip of shore, and climbed the ladder leading to the oldNapoleonic hulk which served as workshop and dwelling-place of theofficers of the flotilla, Madame de Wissant for a few moments stoodsolitary, and looked musingly down into the waters of the bay. 

Each submarine, its long, fish-like shape lying prone in the almoststill, transparent water, differed not only in size, but in make, fromits fellows, and no two conning towers even were alike. 

Lying apart, as if sulking in a corner, was an example of the old"Gymnote" type of under-sea boat. She went by the name of the _Carp_, and she was very squat, small and ugly, her telescopic conning towerbeing of hard canvas. 

To Claire, the _Carp_ always recalled an old Breton woman she had knownas a girl. That woman had given thirteen sons to France, and of thethirteen five had died while serving with the colours--three at sea andtwo in Tonkin--and a grateful country had given her a pension of tenfrancs a week, two francs for each dead son. 

Like that Breton woman, the ugly, sturdy little _Carp_ had borne heroesin her womb, and like her, too, she had paid terrible toll of her sonsto death. 

Occasionally, but very seldom now, the _Carp_ was taken out to sea, andthe men, strange to say, liked being in her, for they regarded her as alucky boat; she had never had what they called a serious accident. 

Sunk deeper in the water was the broad-backed _Abeille_, significantlynamed "La Pétroleuse, " the heroine of four explosions, no favourite witheither crews or commanders; and, cradled in a low dock on the fartherstrip of beach, was stretched the _Triton_, looking like a huge fishwhich had panted itself to death. The _Triton_ also was not a luckyboat; she had been the theatre of a terrible mishap when, for someinexplicable cause, the conning tower had failed to close. Claire wasalways glad to see her safe in dock. 

Out in the middle of the bay was _La Glorieuse_, a submarine of thelatest type. Had she not lain so low, little more than her flying bridgebeing above the water, she would have put her elder sisters to shame, soexquisitely shaped was she. Everything about _La Glorieuse_ was madedelicately true to scale, and she could carry a crew of over twenty men. But somehow Claire de Wissant did not care for this miniature leviathanas she did for the older kind of submarine, and, with more reason forhis prejudice, the officer in charge of the flotilla shared her feeling. Commander Dupré thought _La Glorieuse_ difficult to handle under water. But he had had the same opinion of the _Neptune_, one of the twosubmarines which were out this fine August morning. .. . 

An eager "Bonjour, madame, " suddenly sounded in Claire de Wissant's ear, and she turned quickly to find one of the younger officers at her elbow. 

"The _Neptune_ is a few minutes late, " he said smiling. "I hope yoursister has enjoyed her cruise!" He was looking with admiring andgrateful eyes at the young wife of the Mayor of Falaise, for Claire deWissant and her widowed sister, Madeleine Baudoin, were very kind andhospitable to the officers of the submarine flotilla. 

The life of both officers and men who volunteer for this branch of theservice is grim and arduous. And if this is generally true of them all, it was specially so of those who served under Commander Dupré. By atacit agreement with their chief, they took no part in the summergaieties of the watering-place which has grown up round the old port ofFalaise, and out of duty hours they would have led dull lives indeed hadit not been for the hospitality shown them by the owners of the Pavillonde Wissant, and for the welcome which awaited them in the freer, gayeratmosphere of Madame Baudoin's villa, the Châlet des Dunes. 

Madeleine Baudoin was a lively, cheerful woman, younger in nature if notin years than her beautiful sister, and so she was naturally morepopular with the younger officers. They had felt especially flatteredwhen Madame Baudoin had allowed herself to be persuaded to go out for acouple of hours in the _Neptune_; till this morning neither of thesisters had ever ventured out to sea in a submarine. 

And now 'twas true that the _Neptune_ had been out longer than hercommander had said she would be, but no touch of fear brushed Claire deWissant; she would have trusted what she held most precious in theworld--her children--to Commander Dupré's care, and a few moments afterher companion had spoken she suddenly saw the little tricolor, for whichher keen eyes had for long swept the sea, bravely riding the waves, andmaking straight for the bay. 

The flag moving swiftly over the surface of the blue water was acurious, almost an uncanny sight; one which never failed to fill Clairewith a kind of spiritual exaltation. For the tiny strip of waving colourwas a symbol of the gallantry, of the carelessness of danger, lyingunder the dancing, sun-flecked ripples which alone proved that thetricolor was not some illusion of sorcery. 

And then, as if the submarine had been indeed a sentient, living thing, the _Neptune_ lifted her great shield-like back up out of the sea andglided through the narrow neck of the bay, and so close under the longdeck on which Madame de Wissant and her companion were standing. 

The eager, busy hum of work slackened--discipline is not perhaps quiteso taut in the French as it is in the British Navy--for both men andofficers were one and all eager to see the lady who had ventured out inthe _Neptune_ with their commander. Only those actually on board hadseen Madame Baudoin embark; there was a long, rough jetty close to herhouse, the lonely Châlet des Dunes, and it was from there the submarinehad picked up her honoured passenger. 

But when Commander Dupré's stern, sun-burnt face suddenly appeared abovethe conning tower, the men vanished as if by enchantment, while theeager, busy hum began again, much as if a lever, setting this humanmachinery in motion, had been touched by some titanic finger. 

The officers naturally held their ground. 

There was a look of strain in the Commander's blue eyes, and his mouthwas set in hard lines; a thoughtful onlooker would have suspected thatthe exciting, dangerous life he led was trying his nerves. His men knewbetter; still, though they had no clue to the cause which had changedhim, they all knew he had changed greatly of late; to them individuallyhe had become kinder, more human, and that heightened their regret thathe was now quitting the Northern Flotilla. 

Commander Dupré had asked to be transferred to the Toulon SubmarineStation; some experiments were being made there which he was anxious towatch. He was leaving Falaise on the morrow. 

Claire de Wissant reddened, and a gleam leapt into her eyes as she metthe naval officer's grave, measuring glance. But very soon he lookedaway from her, for now he was bending down, putting out a hand to helphis late passenger to step from the conning tower. 

Smiling, breathless, a little dishevelled, her grey linen skirtcrumpled, Madame Baudoin looked round her, dazed for the moment by thebright sunlight. Then she called out gaily:

"Well, Claire! Here I am--alive and very, very hot!"

And as she jumped off the slippery flank of the _Neptune_, she gaveherself and her crumpled gown a little shake, and made a slight, playfulgrimace. 

The bright young faces round her broke into broad grins--those officerswho volunteer for the submarine services of the world are chosen young, and they are merry boys. 

"You may well laugh, messieurs, "--she threw them all a livelychallenging glance--"when I tell you that to-day, for the first time inmy life, I acknowledge masculine supremacy! I think that you will admitthat we women are not afraid of pain, but the discomfort, the--thestuffiness? Ah, no--I could not have borne much longer the horriblediscomfort and stuffiness of that dreadful little _Neptune_ of yours!"

Protesting voices rose on every side. The _Neptune_ was notuncomfortable! The _Neptune_ was not stuffy!

"And I understand"--again she made a little grimace--"that it is quitean exceptional thing for the crew to be consoled, as I was to-day, byan ice-pail!"

"A most exceptional thing, " said the youngest lieutenant, with a sigh. His name was Paritot, and he also had been out with the _Neptune_ thatmorning. "In fact, it only happens in that week which sees fourThursdays--or when we have a lady on board, madame!"

"What a pity it is, " said another, "that the old woman who left a legacyto the inventor who devises a submarine life-saving apparatus didn'tleave us instead a cream-ice allowance! It would have been a far morepractical thing to do. "

Madame Baudoin turned quickly to Commander Dupré, who now stood silent, smileless, at her sister's side. 

"Surely you're going to try for this extraordinary prize?" she cried. "I'm sure that you could easily devise something which would gain theold lady's legacy. "

"I, madame?" he answered with a start, almost as if he were wrenchinghimself free from some deep abstraction. "I should not think of tryingto do such a thing! It would be a mere waste of time. Besides, there isno real risk--no risk that we are not prepared to run. " He lookedproudly round at the eager, laughing faces of the youngsters who were, till to-morrow night, still under his orders. 

"The old lady meant very well, " he went on, and for the first time sincehe had stepped out of the conning tower Commander Dupré smiled. "And Ihope with all my heart that some poor devil will get her money! But Ithink I may promise you that it will not be an officer in the submarineservice. We are too busy, we have too many really important things todo, to worry ourselves about life-saving appliances. Why, the firstthing we should do if pressed for room would be to throw ourlife-helmets overboard!"

"Has one of the life-helmets ever saved a life?"

It was Claire who asked the question in her low, vibrating voice. 

Commander Dupré turned to her, and he flushed under his sunburn. It wasthe first time she had spoken to him that day. 

"No, never, " he answered shortly. And then, after a pause, he added, "the conditions in which these life-helmets could be utilized only occurin one accident in a thousand----"

"Still, they would have saved our comrades in the _Lutin_, " objectedLieutenant Paritot. 

The _Lutin_? There was a moment's silence. The evocation of thattricksy sprite, the Ariel of French mythology, whose name, by anironical chance, had been borne by the most ill-fated of all submarinecraft, seemed to bring the shadow of death athwart them all. 

Madeleine Baudoin felt a sudden tremor of retrospective fear. She wasglad she had not remembered the _Lutin_ when she was sitting, eatingices, and exchanging frivolous, chaffing talk with Lieutenant Paritot inthat chamber of little ease, the drum-like interior of the _Neptune_, where not even she, a small woman, could stand upright. 

"Well, well! We must not keep you from your _déjeuner_!" she cried, shaking off the queer, disturbing sensation. "I have to thank youfor--shall I say a very interesting experience? I am too honest to sayan agreeable one!"

She shook hands with Commander Dupré and Lieutenant Paritot, theofficers who had accompanied her on what had been, now that she lookedback on it, perhaps a more perilous adventure than she had realized. 

"You're coming with me, Claire?" She looked at her sister--it was atender, anxious, loving look; Madeleine Baudoin had been the eldest, andClaire de Wissant the youngest, of a Breton admiral's family of threedaughters and four sons; they two were devoted to one another. 

Claire shook her head. "I came to tell you that I can't lunch with youto-day, " she said slowly. "I promised I would be back by half-pasttwelve. "

"Then we shall not meet till to-morrow?"

Claire repeated mechanically, "No, not till to-morrow, dear Madeleine. "

"May I row you home, madame?" Lieutenant Paritot asked Madeleineeagerly. 

"Certainly, _mon ami_. "

And so, a very few minutes later, Claire de Wissant and Commander Dupréwere left alone together--alone, that is, save for fifty inquisitive, ifkindly, pairs of eyes which saw them from every part of the bay. 

At last she held out her hand. "Good-bye, then, till to-morrow, " shesaid, her voice so low as to be almost inaudible. 

"No, not good-bye yet!" he cried imperiously. "You must let me take youup the cliff to-day. It may be--I suppose it is--the last time I shallbe able to do so. "

Hardly waiting for her murmured word of assent, he led the way up thesteep, ladder-like stairway cut in the cliff side; half-way up therewere some very long steps, and it was from above that help could best begiven. He longed with a fierce, aching longing that she would allow himto take her two hands in his and draw her up those high, precipitoussteps. But of late Claire had avoided accepting from him, her friend, this simple, trifling act of courtesy. And now twice he turned and heldout a hand, and twice she pretended not to see it. 

At last, within ten feet of the top of the cliff, they came to thesteepest, rudest step of all--a place some might have thought verydangerous. 

Commander Dupré bent down and looked into Claire's uplifted face. "Letme at least help you up here, " he said hoarsely. 

She shook her head obstinately--but suddenly he felt her tremulous lipstouch his lean, sinewy hand, and her hot tears fall upon his fingers. 

He gave a strangled cry of pain and of pride, of agony and of rapture, and for a long moment he battled with an awful temptation. How easy itwould be to gather her into his arms, and, with her face hidden on hisbreast, take a great leap backwards into nothingness. .. . 

But he conquered the persuasive devil who had been raised--women do notknow how easy it is to rouse this devil--by Claire's moment of piteousself-revelation. 

And at last they stood together on the narrow platform where she, lessthan an hour ago, had stood alone. 

Sheltered by the friendly, ugly red walls of the little tower, they wereas remote from their kind as if on a rock in the midst of the sea. More, she was in his power in a sense she had never been before, for she hadherself broken down the fragile barrier with which she had hithertoknown how to keep him at bay. But he felt rather than saw that it washerself she would despise if now, at the eleventh hour, he tookadvantage of that tremulous kiss of renunciation, of those hot tears ofanguished parting--and so--"Then at eleven o'clock to-morrow morning?"he said, and he felt as if it was some other man, not he himself, whowas saying the words. He took her hand in farewell--so much he couldallow himself--and all unknowing crushed her fingers in his strong, convulsive grasp. 

"Yes, " she said, "at eleven to-morrow morning Madeleine and I will bewaiting out on the end of the jetty. "

He thought he detected a certain hesitancy in her voice. 

"Are you sure you still wish to come?" he said gravely. "I would notwish you to do anything that would cause you any fear--or anydiscomfort. Your sister evidently found it a very trying experienceto-day----"

Claire smiled. Her hand no longer hurt her; her fingers had become quitenumb. 

"Afraid?" she said, and there was a little scorn in her voice. And then, "Ah me! I only wish that there were far more risk than there is aboutthat which we are going to do together to-morrow. " She was in adangerous mood, poor soul--the mood that raises a devil in men. Butperhaps her good angel came to help her, for suddenly, "Forgive me, " shesaid humbly. "You know I did not mean that! Only cowards wish fordeath. "

And then, looking at him, she averted her eyes, for they showed herthat, if that were so, Dupré was indeed a craven. 

"_Au revoir_, " she whispered; "_au revoir_ till to-morrow morning. "

When half-way through the door, leading on to the lonely stretch ofdown, she turned round suddenly. "I do not want you to bring any icesfor me to-morrow. "

"I never thought of doing so, " he said simply. And the words pleasedClaire as much as anything just then could pleasure her, for they provedthat her friend did not class her in his mind with those women who feardiscomfort more than danger. 

It had been her own wish to go out with Commander Dupré for his lastcruise in northern waters. She had not had the courage to deny herselfthis final glimpse of him--they were never to meet again afterto-morrow--in his daily habit as he lived. 

II

At nine o'clock the next morning Jacques de Wissant stood in his wife'sboudoir. 

It was a strange and beautiful room, likely to linger in the memory ofthose who knew its strange and beautiful mistress. 

The walls were draped with old Persian shawls, the furniture was of redChinese lacquer, a set acquired in the East by some Norman sailing manunnumbered years ago, and bought by Claire de Wissant out of her ownslender income not long after her marriage. 

Pale blue and faded yellow silk cushions softened the formal angularityof the wide cane-seated couch and low, square chairs. There was a deepcrystal bowl of midsummer flowering roses on the table, laden withbooks, by which Claire often sat long hours reading poetry and volumeswritten by modern poets and authors of whom her husband had onlyvaguely heard and of whom he definitely disapproved. 

The window was wide open, and there floated in from the garden, whichsloped away to the edge and indeed over the crumbling cliff, fragrant, salt-laden odours, dominated by the clean, sharp scent thrown from hugeshrubs of red and white geraniums. The balls of blossom set against thebelt of blue sea, formed a band of waving tricolor. 

But Jacques de Wissant was unconscious, uncaring of the beauty roundhim, either in the room or without, and when at last he walked forwardto the window, his face hardened as his eyes instinctively sought outthe spot where, if hidden from his sight, he knew there lay the deeptransparent waters of the little bay which had been selected asproviding ideal quarters for the submarine flotilla. 

He had eagerly assented to the sacrifice of his land, and, what meantfar more to him, of his privacy; but now he would have given much--andhe was a careful man--to have had the submarine station swept away, transferred to the other side of Falaise. 

Down there, out of sight of the Pavillon, and yet but a few minutes away(if one used the dangerous cliff-stairway), dwelt Jacques de Wissant'ssecret foe, for the man of whom he was acutely, miserably jealous wasCommander Dupré, of whose coming departure he as yet knew nothing. 

The owner of the Pavillon de Wissant seldom entered the room where henow stood impatiently waiting for his wife, and he never did so withoutlooking round him with distaste, and remembering with an odd, wistfulfeeling what it had been like in his mother's time. Then "le boudoir demadame" had reflected the tastes and simple interests of anold-fashioned provincial lady born in the year that Louis Philippe cameto the throne. Greatly did the man now standing there prefer the room asit had been to what it was now!

The heavy, ugly furniture which had been there in the days of his lonelyyouth, for he had been an only child, was now in the schoolroom wherethe twin daughters of the house, Clairette and Jacqueline, did theirlessons with Miss Doughty, their English governess. 

Clairette and Jacqueline? Jacques de Wissant's lantern-jawed, expressionless face quickened into feeling as he thought of his twolittle girls. They were the pride, as well as the only vivid pleasure, of his life. All that he dispassionately admired in his wife was, so hesometimes told himself with satisfaction, repeated in his daughters. Clairette and Jacqueline had inherited their mother's look of race, herfastidiousness and refinement of bearing, while fortunately lackingClaire's dangerous personal beauty, her touch of eccentricity, and herdiscontent with life--or rather with the life which Jacques de Wissant, in spite of a gnawing ache and longing that nothing could still orassuage, yet found good. 

The Mayor of Falaise looked strangely out of keeping with his presentsurroundings, at least so he would have seemed to the eye of anyforeigner, especially of any Englishman, who had seen him standingthere. 

He was a narrowly built man, forty-three years of age, and hisclean-shaven, rather fleshy face was very pale. On this hot Augustmorning he was dressed in a light grey frock-coat, under which he wore ayellow waistcoat, and on his wife's writing-table lay his tall hat andlemon-coloured gloves. 

As mayor of his native town--a position he owed to an historic name andto his wealth, and not to his very moderate Republican opinions--hisduties included the celebration of civil marriages, and to-day, it beingthe 14th of August, the eve of the Assumption, and still a Frenchnational fête, there were to be a great many weddings celebrated in theHôtel de Ville. 

Jacques de Wissant considered that he owed it to himself, as well as tohis fellow-citizens, to appear "correctly" attired on such occasions. Hehad a deep, wordless contempt for those of his acquaintances who dressedon ceremonial occasions "à l'anglaise, " that is, in loose lounge suitsand straw hats. 

 * * * * *

Suddenly there broke on his ear the sound of a low, full voice, singing. It came from the next room, his wife's bedroom, and the mournfulpassionate words of an old sea ballad rang out, full of a desolate painand sense of bitter loss. 

The sound irritated him shrewdly, and there came back to him a fragmentof conversation he had not thought of for ten years. During a discussionheld between his father and mother in this very room about their adoredonly son's proposed marriage with Claire de Kergouët, his father hadsaid: "There is one thing I do not much care for; she is, they say, verymusical, and Jacques, even as a baby, howled like a dog whenever heheard singing!" And his mother had laughed, "_Mon ami_, you cannotexpect to get perfection, even for our Jacques!" And Claire, so he nowadmitted unwillingly to himself, had never troubled him overmuch withher love of music. .. . 

He knocked twice, sharply, on his wife's door. 

The song broke short with an almost cruel suddenness, and yet therefollowed a perceptible pause before he heard her say, "Come in. "

And then, as Jacques de Wissant slowly turned the handle of the door, hesaw his wife, Claire, before she saw him. He had a vision, that is, ofher as she appeared when she believed herself to be, if not alone, thenin sight of eyes that were indifferent, unwatchful. But Jacques' eyes, which his wife's widowed sister, the frivolous Parisienne, MadeleineBaudoin, had once unkindly compared to fishes' eyes, were now filledwith a watchful, suspicious light which gave a tragic mask to hispallid, plain-featured face. 

Claire de Wissant was standing before a long, narrow mirror placed atright angles to a window looking straight out to sea. Her short, narrow, dark blue skirt and long blue silk jersey silhouetted her slenderfigure, the figure which remained so supple, so--so girlish, in spite ofher nine-year-old daughters. There was something shy and wild, untamedand yet beckoning, in the oval face now drawn with pain andsleeplessness, in the grey, almond-shaped eyes reddened with secrettears, and in the firm, delicately modelled mouth. 

She was engaged in tucking up her dark, curling hair under a greyyachting cap, and, for a few moments, she neither spoke nor looked roundto see who was standing framed in the door. But when, at last, sheturned away from the mirror and saw her husband, the colour, rushinginto her pale face, caused an unbecoming flush to cover it. 

"I thought it was one of the children, " she said, a little breathlessly. And then she waited, assuming, or so Jacques thought, an air at once ofpatience and of surprise which sharply angered him. 

Then her look of strain, nay, of positive illness, gave him an uneasytwinge of discomfort. Could it be anxiety concerning her second sister, Marie-Anne, who, married to an Italian officer, was now ill of scarletfever at Mantua? Two days ago Claire had begged very earnestly to beallowed to go and nurse Marie-Anne. But he, Jacques, had refused, notunkindly, but quite firmly. Claire's duty of course lay at Falaise, withher husband and children; not at Mantua, with her sister. 

Suddenly she again broke silence. "Well?" she said. "Is there anythingyou wish to tell me?" They had never used the familiar "thee" and "thou"the one to the other, for at the time of their marriage an absurd whimof fashion had ordained on the part of French wives and husbands areturn to eighteenth-century formality, and Claire had chosen, in thatone instance, to follow fashion. 

She added, seeing that he still did not speak, "I am lunching with mysister to-day, but I shall be home by three o'clock. " She spoke with thechill civility a lady shows a stranger. Claire seldom allowed herself tobe on the defensive when speaking to her husband. 

Jacques de Wissant frowned. He did not like either of his wife'ssisters, neither the one who was now lying ill in Italy, nor his widowedsister-in-law, Madeleine Baudoin. In the villa which she had hired forthe summer, and which stood on a lonely stretch of beach beyond the bay, Madeleine often entertained the officers of the submarine flotilla, andthis, from her brother-in-law's point of view, was very far from"correct" conduct on the part of one who could still pass as a youngwidow. 

In response to his frown there had come a slight, mocking smile onClaire's face. 

"I suppose you are on your way to some important town function?"

She disliked the town of Falaise, the town-folk bored her, and she hatedthe vast old family house in the Market Place, where she had to spendeach winter. 

"To-day is the fourteenth of August, " observed Jacques de Wissant in hisdeliberate voice; "and I have a great many marriages to celebrate thismorning. "

"Yes, I suppose that is so. " And again Claire de Wissant spoke with thecourteous indifference, the lack of interest in her husband's concerns, which she had early schooled him to endure. 

But all at once there came a change in her voice, in her manner. "Whyto-day--the fourteenth of August--is our wedding day! How stupid of meto forget! We must tell Jacqueline and Clairette. It will amusethem----"

She uttered the words a little breathlessly, and as she spoke, Jacquesde Wissant walked quickly forward into the room. As he did so his wifemoved abruptly away from where she had been standing, thus maintainingthe distance between them. 

But Claire de Wissant need not have been afraid; her husband had his ownstrict code of manners, and to this code he ever remained faithful. Hepossessed a remarkable mastery of his emotions, and he had always showedwith regard to herself so singular a power of self-restraint thatClaire, not unreasonably, doubted if he had any emotions to master, anypassionate feeling to restrain. 

All he now did was to take a shagreen case out of his breast pocket andhold it out towards her. 

"Claire, " he said quietly, "I have brought you, in memory of our weddingday, a little gift which I hope you will like. It is a medallion of thechildren. " And as she at last advanced towards him, he pressed a spring, and revealed a dull gold medal on which, modelled in high relief, andsuperposed the one on the other, were Clairette's and Jacqueline'schildish, delicately pure profiles. 

A softer, kindlier light came into Claire de Wissant's sad grey eyes. She held out a hesitating hand--and Jacques de Wissant, before placinghis gift in it, took that soft hand in his, and, bending ratherawkwardly, kissed it lightly. In France, even now, a man will often kissa woman's hand by way of conventional, respectful homage. But to Clairethe touch of her husband's lips was hateful--so hateful indeed that shehad to make an instant effort to hide the feeling of physical repulsionwith which that touch had suddenly engulfed her in certain dark recessesof memory and revolt. 

"It is a charming medallion, " she said hurriedly, "quite a work of art, Jacques; and I thank you for having thought of it. It gives megreat--very great pleasure. "

And then something happened which was to her so utterly unexpected thatshe gave a stifled cry of pain--almost it seemed of fear. 

As she forced herself to look straight into her husband's face, theanguish in her own sore heart unlocked the key to his, and she perceivedwith the eyes of the soul, which see, when they are not holden, so muchthat is concealed from the eyes of the body, the suffering, the dumblonging she had never allowed herself to know were there. 

For the first time since her marriage--since that wedding day of whichthis was the tenth anniversary--Claire felt pity for Jacques as well asfor herself. For the first time her rebellious heart acknowledged thather husband also was enmeshed in a web of tragic circumstance. 

"Jacques?" she cried. "Oh, Jacques!" And as she so uttered his nametwice, there came a look of acute distress and then of sudden resolutionon her face. "I wish you to know, " she exclaimed, "that--that--if Iwere a wicked woman I should perhaps be to you a better wife!" Thanks tothe language in which she spoke, there was a play on the word--that wordwhich in French signifies woman as well as wife. 

He stared at her, and uttered no word of answer, of understanding, inresponse to her strange speech. 

At one time, not lately, but many years ago, Claire had sometimes triedhis patience by the odd, unreasonable things she said, and once, stungbeyond bearing, he had told her so. Remembering those cold, measuredwords of rebuke, she now caught with quick, exultant relief at the ideathat Jacques had not understood the half-confession wrung from her byher sudden vision of his pain; and she swung back to a belief she hadalways held till just now, the belief that he was dull--dull andunperceptive. 

With a nervous smile she turned again to her mirror, and then Jacques deWissant, with his wife's enigmatic words ringing in his ears, abruptlyleft the room. 

 * * * * *

As if pursued by some baneful presence, he hastened through Claire'sbeautiful boudoir, across the dining-room hung with the Gobelinstapestries which his wife had brought him as part of her slender dower, and so into the oval hall which formed the centre of the house. 

And there Jacques de Wissant waited for a while, trying to still and toco-ordinate his troubled thoughts and impressions. 

Ah yes, he had understood--understood only too well Claire's strange, ambiguous utterance! There are subtle, unbreathed temptations which allmen and all women, when tortured by jealousy, not only understand butdivine before they are actually in being. 

Jacques de Wissant now believed that he was justified of the suspicionsof which he had been ashamed. His wife--moved by some obscure desire forself-revelation to which he had had no clue--had flung at him the truth. 

Yes, without doubt Claire could have made him happy--so little wouldhave contented his hunger for her--had she been one of those light womenof whom he sometimes heard, who go from their husbands' kisses to thoseof their lovers. 

But if he sometimes, nay, often heard of them, Jacques de Wissant knewnothing of such women. The men of his race had known how to acquirehonest wives, aye, and keep them so. There had never been in the deWissant family any of those ugly scandals which stain other clans, andwhich are remembered over generations in French provincial towns. Thosescandals which, if they provoke a laugh and cruel sneer when discussedby the indifferent, are recalled with long faces and anxious whisperingswhen a young girl's future is being discussed, and which make thehonourable marriage of daughters difficult of achievement. 

Jacques de Wissant thanked the God of his fathers that Claire hadnothing in common with such women as those: he thought he did not needher assurance to know that his honour, in the usual, narrow sense of thephrase, was safe in her hands, but still her strange, imprudent words ofhalf-avowal racked him with jealous and, yes, suspicious pain. 

Fortunately for him, he was a man burdened with much business, and so atlast he looked at his watch. Why, it was getting late--terribly late, and he prided himself on his punctuality. Still, if he started now, atonce, he would be at the Hôtel de Ville a few minutes before teno'clock, the time when the first of the civil marriages he had tocelebrate that morning was timed to take place. 

Without passing through the house, he made his way rapidly round by thegardens to the road, winding ribbon-wise behind the cliffs, where hisphaeton was waiting for him; for Jacques de Wissant had as yet resistedthe wish of his wife and the advice of those of his friends whoconsidered that he ought to purchase an automobile: driving had beenfrom boyhood one of his few pleasures and accomplishments. 

But as he drove, keeping his fine black bays well in hand, the fivemiles into the town, and tried to fix his mind on a commercial problemof great importance with which he would be expected to deal that day, Jacques de Wissant found it impossible to think of any matter but thatwhich for the moment filled his heart to the exclusion of all else. Thatmatter concerned his own relations to his wife, and his wife's relationsto Commander Dupré. 

This gentleman of France was typical in more than one sense of hisnation and of his class--quite unlike, that is, to the fancy picturewhich foreigners draw of the average Frenchman. Reserved and cold inmanner; proud, with an intense but never openly expressed pride in hisname and of what the bearers of it had achieved for their country;obstinate and narrow as are apt to be all human beings whose judgment isnever questioned by those about them, Jacques de Wissant's fetish washis personal honour and the honour of his name--of the name of Wissant. 

In his distress and disturbance of mind--for his wife's half confessionhad outraged his sense of what was decorous and fitting--his memorytravelled over the map of his past life, aye, and even beyond theboundaries of his own life. 

Before him lay spread retrospectively the story of his parents'uneventful, happy marriage. They had been mated in the good old Frenchway, that is, up to their wedding morning they had never met save in thepresence of their respective parents. And yet--and yet how devoted theyhad been to each other! So completely one in thought, in interest, insympathy had they grown that when, after thirty-three years of marriedlife, his father had died, Jacques' mother had not known how to go onliving. She had slipped out of life a few months later, and as she laydying she had used a very curious expression: "My faithful companion iscalling me, " she had said to her only child, "and you must not try, dearson, to make me linger on the way. "

Now, to-day, Jacques de Wissant asked himself with perplexed pain andanger, why it was that his parents had led so peaceful, so dignified, sowholly contented a married life, while he himself----?

And yet his own marriage had been a love match--or so those about himhad all said with nods and smiles--love marriages having suddenly becomethe fashion in the rich provincial world of which he had then been oneof the heirs-apparent. 

His old-fashioned mother would have preferred as daughter-in-law any oneof half a dozen girls who belonged to her own good town of Falaise, andwhom she had known from childhood. But Jacques had been difficult toplease, and he was already thirty-two when he had met, by a mere chance, Claire de Kergouët at her first ball. She was only seventeen, with butthe promise of a beauty which was now in exquisite flower, and he haddecided, there and then, in the course of two hours, that thisdemoiselle de Kergouët was alone worthy of becoming Madame Jacques deWissant. 

And on the whole his prudent parents had blessed his choice, for thegirl was of the best Breton stock, and came of a family famed in thenaval annals of France. Unluckily Claire de Kergouët had had no dowry tospeak of, for her father, the Admiral, had been a spendthrift, and, asis still the reckless Breton fashion, father of a large family--threedaughters and four sons. But Jacques de Wissant had not allowed hisparents to give the matter of Claire's fortune more than a regretfulthought--indeed, he had done further, he had "recognized" a larger dowrythan she brought him to save the pride of her family. 

But Claire--he could not help thinking of it to-day with a sense ofbitter injury--had never seemed grateful, had never seemed to understandall that had been done for her. .. . 

Had he not poured splendid gifts upon her in the beginning of theirmarried life? And, what had been far more difficult, had he not, withinreason, contented all her strange whims and fantasies?

But nought had availed him to secure even a semblance of that steadfast, warm affection, that sincere interest and pride in his concerns which isall such a Frenchman as was Jacques de Wissant expects, or indeeddesires, of his wedded wife. Had Claire been such a woman, Jacques' ownpassion for her would soon have dulled into a reasonable, comfortableaffection. But his wife's cool aloofness had kept alive the hiddenfires, the more--so ironic are the tricks which sly Dame Natureplays--that for many years past he had troubled her but very little withhis company. 

Outwardly Claire de Wissant did her duty, entertaining his friends andrelations on such occasions as was incumbent on her, and showingherself a devoted and careful mother to the twin daughters who formedthe only vital link between her husband and herself. But inwardly?Inwardly they two were strangers. 

And yet only during the last few months had Jacques de Wissant ever feltjealous of his wife. There had been times when he had been angered bythe way in which her young beauty, her indefinable, mysterious charm, had attracted the very few men with whom she was brought into contact. But Claire, so her husband had always acknowledged to himself, was noflirt; she was ever perfectly "correct. "

Correct was a word dear to Jacques de Wissant. It was one which he usedas a synonym for great things--things such as honour, fineness ofconduct, loyalty. 

But fate had suddenly introduced a stranger into the dull, decorous lifeof the Pavillon de Wissant, and it was he, Jacques himself, who hadbrought him there. 

How bitter it was to look back and remember how much he had liked--likedbecause he had respected--Commander Dupré! He now hated and feared thenaval officer, and he would have given much to have been able to despisehim. But that Jacques de Wissant could not do. Commander Dupré was stillall that he had taken him to be when he first made him free of hishouse--a brilliant officer, devoted to his profession, already noted inthe Service as having made several important improvements in submarinecraft. 

From the first it had seemed peculiar, to Jacques de Wissant's mindunnatural, that such a man as was Dupré should be so keenly interestedin music and in modern literature. But so it was, and it had been owingto these strange, untoward tastes that Commander Dupré and Claire hadbecome friends. 

He now reminded himself, for the hundredth time, that he had begun byactually approving of the acquaintance between his wife and the navalofficer--an acquaintance which he had naturally supposed would be of themost "correct" nature. 

Then, without warning, there came an hour--nay, a moment, when in thattwilight hour which the French call "'Twixt dog and wolf, " the mosttorturing and shameful of human passions, jealousy, had taken possessionof Jacques de Wissant, disintegrating, rather than shattering, theelaborate fabric of his House of Life, that house in which he had alwaysdwelt so snugly and unquestioningly ensconced. 

He had come home after a long afternoon spent at the Hôtel de Ville tolearn with tepid pleasure that there was a visitor, Commander Dupré, inthe house, and as he had come hurrying towards his wife's boudoir, Jacques had heard Claire's low, deep voice and the other's ardent, eagertones mingling together. .. . 

And then as he, the husband, had opened the door, they had stoppedspeaking, their words clipped as if a sword had fallen between them. Atthe same moment a servant had brought a lamp into the twilit room, andJacques had seen the ravaged face of Commander Dupré, a fair, tannedface full of revolt and of longing leashed. Claire had remained inshadow, but her eyes, or so the interloper thought he perceived, werefull of tears. 

Since that spring evening the Mayor of Falaise had not had an easymoment. While scorning to act the spy upon his wife, he was for everwatching her, and keeping an eager and yet scarcely conscious count ofher movements. 

True, Commander Dupré had soon ceased to trouble the owner of thePavillon de Wissant by his presence. The younger officers came and went, but since that hour, laden with unspoken drama, their commander onlycame when good breeding required him to pay a formal call on his nearestneighbour and sometime host. But Claire saw Dupré constantly at theChâlet des Dunes, her sister's house, and she was both too proud and tooindifferent, it appeared, to her husband's view of what a young marriedwoman's conduct should be, to conceal the fact. 

This openness on his wife's part was at once Jacques' consolation andopportunity for endless self-torture. 

For three long miserable months he had wrestled with those ignoblequestionings only the jealous know, now accepting as probable, nowrejecting with angry self-rebuke, the thought that his wife suffered, perhaps even returned, Dupré's love. And to-day, instead of finding hisjealousy allayed by her half-confidence, he felt more wretched than hehad ever been. 

His horses responded to his mood, and going down the steep hill whichleads into the town of Falaise they shied violently at a heap of stonesthey had passed sedately a dozen times or more. Jacques de Wissantstruck them several cruel blows with the whip he scarcely ever used, andthe groom, looking furtively at his master's set face and blazing eyes, felt suddenly afraid. 

III

It was one o'clock, and the last of the wedding parties had swept gailyout of the great _salle_ of the Falaise town hall and so to theCathedral across the market place. 

Jacques de Wissant, with a feeling of relief, took off his tricolorbadge of office. With the instinctive love of order which wascharacteristic of the man, he gathered up the papers that were spread onthe large table and placed them in neat piles before him. Through thehigh windows, which by his orders had been prised open, for it wasintensely hot, he could hear what seemed an unwonted stir outside. Thepicturesque town was full of strangers; in addition to the usualholiday-makers from the neighbourhood, crowds of Parisians had come downto spend the Feast of the Assumption by the sea. 

The Mayor of Falaise liked to hear this unwonted stir and movement, foreverything that affected the prosperity of the town affected him verynearly; but he was constitutionally averse to noise, and just now hefelt very tired. The varied emotions which had racked him that morninghad drained him of his vitality; and he thought with relief that in afew moments he would be in the old-fashioned restaurant just across themarket place, where a table was always reserved for him when his townhouse happened to be shut up, and where all his tastes and dieteticfads--for M. De Wissant had a delicate digestion--were known. 

He took up his tall hat and his lemon-coloured gloves--and then a lookof annoyance came over his weary face, for he heard the swinging of adoor. Evidently his clerk was coming back to ask some stupid question. 

He always found it difficult to leave the town hall at the exact momenthe wished to do so; for although the officials dreaded his coldreprimands, they were far more afraid of his sudden hot anger ifbusiness of any importance were done without his knowledge and sanction. 

But this time it was not his clerk who wished to intercept the mayor onhis way out to _déjeuner_; it was the chief of the employés in thetelephone and telegraph department of the building, a forward, pushingyoung man whom Jacques de Wissant disliked. 

"M'sieur le maire?" and then he stopped short, daunted by the mayor'sstern look of impatient fatigue. "Has m'sieur le maire heard the news?"The speaker gathered up courage; it is exciting to be the bearer ofnews, especially of ill news. 

M. De Wissant shook his head. 

"Alas! there has been an accident, m'sieur le maire! A terribleaccident! One of the submarines--they don't yet know which it is--hasbeen struck by a big private yacht and has sunk in the fairway of theChannel, about two miles out!"

The Mayor of Falaise uttered an involuntary exclamation of horror. "Whendid it happen?" he asked quickly. 

"About half an hour ago more or less. _I_ said that m'sieur le maireought to be informed at once of such a calamity. But I was told to waittill the marriages were over. "

Looking furtively at the mayor's pale face, the young man regretted thathe had not taken more on himself, for m'sieur le maire looked seriouslydispleased. 

There was an old feud between the municipal and the naval authorities ofFalaise--there often is in a naval port--and the mayor ought certainlyto have been among the very first to hear the news of the disaster. 

The bearer of ill news hoped m'sieur le maire would not blame him forthe delay, or cause the fact to postpone his advancement to a highergrade--that advancement which is the perpetual dream of every FrenchGovernment official. 

"The admiral has only just driven by, " he observed insinuatingly, "notfive minutes ago----"

But still Jacques de Wissant did not move. He was listening to theincreasing stir and tumult going on outside in the market place. Thesounds had acquired a sinister significance; he knew now that thetramping of feet, the loud murmur of voices, meant that the wholepopulation belonging to the seafaring portion of the town was emptyingitself out and hurrying towards the harbour and the shore. 

Shaking off the bearer of ill news with a curt word of thanks, the Mayorof Falaise strode out of the town hall into the street and joined theeager crowd, mostly consisting of fisher folk, which grew denser as itswept down the tortuous narrow streets leading to the sea. 

The people parted with a sort of rough respect to make way for theirmayor; many of them, nay the majority, were known by name to Jacques deWissant, and the older men and women among them could remember him as achild. 

Rising to the tragic occasion, he walked forward with his head heldhigh, and a look of deep concern on his pale, set face. The men whomanned the Northern Submarine Flotilla were almost all men born and bredat Falaise--Falaise famed for the gallant sailors she has ever given toFrance. 

The hurrying crowd--strangely silent in its haste--poured out on to thegreat stone-paved quays in which is set the harbour so finely encircledon two sides by the cliffs which give the town its name. 

Beyond the harbour--crowded with shipping, and now alive with eagerlittle craft and fishing-boats making ready to start for the scene ofthe calamity--lay a vast expanse of glistening sea, and on thatsun-flecked blue pall every eye was fixed. 

The end of the harbour jetty was already roped off, only thoseofficially privileged being allowed through to the platform where nowstood Admiral de Saint Vilquier impatiently waiting for the tug whichwas to take him out to the spot where the disaster had taken place. TheAdmiral was a naval officer of the old school--of the school who calledtheir men "my children"--and who detested the Republican form ofgovernment as being subversive of discipline. 

As Jacques de Wissant hurried up to him, he turned and stiffly salutedthe Mayor of Falaise. Admiral de Saint Vilquier had no liking for M. DeWissant--a cold prig of a fellow, and yet married to such a beautiful, such a charming young woman, the daughter, too, of one of the Admiral'soldest friends, of that Admiral de Kergouët with whom he had first goneto sea a matter of fifty years ago! The lovely Claire de Kergouët hadbeen worthy of a better fate than to be wife to this plain, cold-bloodedlandsman. 

"Do they yet know, Admiral, which of the submarines has gone down?"asked Jacques de Wissant in a low tone. He was full of a burningcuriosity edged with a longing and a suspense into whose secret sourceshe had no wish to thrust a probe. 

The Admiral's weather-beaten face was a shade less red than usual; thebright blue eyes he turned on the younger man were veiled with a film ofmoisture. "Yes, the news has just come in, but it isn't to be madepublic for awhile. It's the submarine _Neptune_ which was struck, withCommander Dupré, Lieutenant Paritot, and ten men on board. The craft islying eighteen fathoms deep----"

Jacques de Wissant uttered an inarticulate cry--was it of horror or onlyof surprise? And yet, gifted for that once and that once only with akind of second sight, he had known that it was the _Neptune_ andCommander Dupré which lay eighteen fathoms deep on the floor of the sea. 

The old seaman, moved by the mayor's emotion, relaxed into aconfidential undertone. "Poor Dupré! I had forgotten that you knew him. He is indeed pursued by a malignant fate. As of course you are aware, heapplied a short time ago to be transferred to Toulon, and hisappointment is in to-day's _Gazette_. In fact he was actually leavingFalaise this very evening in order to spend a week with his familybefore taking up his new command!"

The Mayor of Falaise stared at the Admiral. "Dupré going away?--leavingFalaise?" he repeated incredulously. 

The other nodded. 

Jacques de Wissant drew a long, deep breath. God! How mistaken he hadbeen! Mistaken as no man, no husband, had ever been mistaken before. Hefelt overwhelmed, shaken with conflicting emotions in which shame andintense relief predominated. 

The fact that Commander Dupré had applied for promotion was to his mindabsolute proof that there had been nothing--nothing and less thannothing--between the naval officer and Claire. The Admiral's words nowmade it clear that he, Jacques de Wissant, had built up a hugesuperstructure of jealousy and base thoughts on the fact that poor Dupréand Claire had innocently enjoyed certain tastes in common. True, suchfriendships--friendships between unmarried men and attractive youngmarried women--are generally speaking to be deprecated. Still, Clairehad always been "correct;" of that there could now be no doubt. 

As he stood there on the pier, staring out, as all those about him andbehind him were doing, at the expanse of dark blue sun-flecked sea, there came over Jacques de Wissant a great lightening of the spirit. .. . 

But all too soon his mind, his memory, swung back to the tragic businessof the moment. 

Suddenly the Admiral burst into speech, addressing himself, rather thanthe silent man by his side. 

"The devil of it is, " he exclaimed, "that the nearest salvage appliancesare at Cherbourg! Thank God, the Ministry of Marine are aloneresponsible for that blunder. Dupré and his comrades have, it seems, thirty-six hours' supply of oxygen--if, indeed, they are still living, which I feel tempted to hope they are not. You see, Monsieur de Wissant, I was at Bizerta when the _Lutin_ sank. A man doesn't want to remembertwo such incidents in his career. One is quite bad enough!"

"I suppose it isn't yet known how far the _Neptune_ is injured?"inquired the Mayor of Falaise. 

But he spoke mechanically; he was not really thinking of what he wassaying. His inner and real self were still steeped in that strangemingled feeling of shame and relief--shame that he should have suspectedhis wife, exultant relief that his jealousy should have been so entirelyunfounded. 

"No, as usual no one knows exactly what did happen. But we shall learnsomething of that presently. The divers are on their way. But--but evenif the craft did sustain no injury, what can they do? Ants might as wellattempt to pierce a cannon-ball"--he shrugged his shoulders, oppressedby the vision his homely simile had conjured up. 

And then--for no particular reason, save that his wife Claire was verypresent to him--Jacques de Wissant bethought himself that it was mostunlikely that any tidings of the accident could yet have reached theChâlet des Dunes, the lonely villa on the shore where Claire was nowlunching with her sister. But at any moment some casual visitor from thetown might come out there with the sad news. He told himself uneasilythat it would be well, if possible, to save his wife from such a shock. After all, Claire and that excellent Commander Dupré had been goodfriends--so much must be admitted, nay, now he was eager to admit it. 

Jacques de Wissant touched the older man on the arm. 

"I should be most grateful, Admiral, for the loan of your motor-car. Ihave just remembered that I ought to go home for an hour. This terribleaffair made me forget it; but I shall not be long--indeed, I must soonbe back, for there will be all sorts of arrangements to be made at thetown hall. Of course we shall be besieged with inquiries, with messagesfrom Paris, with telegrams----"

"My car, monsieur, is entirely at your disposal. "

The Admiral could not help feeling, even at so sad and solemn a momentas this, a little satirical amusement. Arrangements at the town hall, forsooth! If the end of the world were in sight, the claims of themunicipality of Falaise would not be neglected or forgotten; in as faras Jacques de Wissant could arrange it, everything in such a case wouldbe ready at the town hall, if not on the quarter-deck, for the GreatAssize!

What had a naval disaster to do with the Mayor of Falaise, after all?But in this matter the old Admiral allowed prejudice to get the betterof him; the men now immured in the submarine were, with twoexceptions--their commander and his junior officer--all citizens of thetown. It was their mothers, wives, children, sweethearts, who were nowpressing with wild, agonized faces against the barriers drawn across theend of the pier. .. . 

As Jacques de Wissant made his way through the crowd, his greyfrock-coat was pulled by many a horny hand, and imploring faces gazedwith piteous questioning into his. But he could give them no comfort. 

Not till he found himself actually in the Admiral's car did he give hisinstructions to the chauffeur. 

"Take me to the Châlet des Dunes as quickly as you can drive withoutdanger, " he said briefly. "You probably know where it is?"

The man nodded and looked round consideringly. He had never driven soelegantly attired a gentleman before. Why, M. De Wissant looked like abridegroom! The Mayor of Falaise should be good for a handsome tip. 

The chauffeur did not need to be told that on such a day time was ofimportance, and once they were out of the narrow, tortuous streets ofthe town, the Admiral's car flew. 

And then, for the first time that day, Jacques de Wissant began to feelpleasantly cool, nay, there even came over him a certain exhilaration. He had been foolish to hold out against motor-cars. There was a greatdeal to be said for them, after all. He owed his wife reparation for hisevil thoughts of her. He resolved that he would get Claire the bestautomobile money could buy. It is always a mistake to economize in suchmatters. .. . 

His mind took a sudden turn--he felt ashamed of his egoism, and thesensation disturbed him, for the Mayor of Falaise very seldom hadoccasion to feel ashamed, either of his thoughts or of his actions. Howcould he have allowed his attention to stray from the subject whichshould just now be absorbing his whole mind?

Thirty-six hours' supply of oxygen? Well, it might have been worse, fora great deal can be done in thirty-six hours. 

True, all the salvage appliances, so the Admiral had said, were atCherbourg. What a shameful lack of forethought on someone's part! Still, there was little doubt but that the _Neptune_ would be raised in--intime. The British Navy would send her salvage appliances. Jacques deWissant had a traditional distrust of the English, but at such momentsall men are brothers, and just now the French and the English happenedto be allies. He himself felt far more kindly to his little girls'governess, Miss Doughty, than he would have done five years ago. 

Yes, without doubt the gallant English Navy would send salvageappliances. .. . 

There would be some hours of suspense--terrible hours for the wives andmothers of the men, but those poor women would be upheld by theuniversal sympathy shown them. He himself as mayor of the town would doall he could. He would seek these poor women out, say consoling, hopefulthings, and Claire would help him. She had, as he knew, a very tenderheart, especially where seamen were concerned. 

Indeed, it was a terrible thought--that of those brave fellows downthere beneath the surface of the waters. Terrible, that is, if they werealive--alive in the same measure as he, Jacques de Wissant, was nowalive in the keen, rushing air. Alive, and waiting for a deliverancethat might never come. The idea made him feel a queer, interior tremor. 

Then his mind, in spite of himself, swung back to its old moorings. Howstrange that he had not been told that Commander Dupré had applied fora change of command! Doubtless the Mediterranean was better suited, being a tideless sea, for submarine experiments. Keen, clever Dupré, absorbed as he was in his profession, had doubtless thought of that. 

But, again, how odd of Claire not to have mentioned that Dupré wasleaving Falaise! Of course it was possible that she also had beenignorant of the fact. She very seldom spoke of other people's affairs, and lately she had been so dreadfully worried about her sister's, Marie-Anne's, illness. 

If his wife had known nothing of Commander Dupré's plans, it proved ashardly anything else could have done how little real intimacy therecould have been between them. A man never leaves the woman he lovesunless he has grown tired of her--then, as all the world knows, exceptperchance the poor soul herself, no place is too far for him to makefor. 

Such was Jacques de Wissant's simple, cynical philosophy concerning asubject to which he had never given much thought. The tender passion hadalways appeared to him in one of two shapes--the one was a grotesque andslightly improper shape, which makes men do silly, absurd things; theother came in the semblance of a sinister demon which wrecks the honourand devastates, as nothing else can do, the happiness of respectablefamilies. It was this second and more hateful form which had haunted himthese last few weeks. 

He recalled with a sick feeling of distaste the state of mind and bodyhe had been in that very morning. Why, he had then been in the mood tokill Dupré, or, at any rate, to welcome the news of his death withfierce joy! And then, simultaneously with his discovery of howgroundless had been his jealousy, he had learnt the awful fact that theman whom he had wrongly accused lay out there, buried and yet alive, beneath the glistening sea, which was stretched out, like a great bluepall, on his left. 

Still, it was only proper that his wife should be spared the shock ofhearing in some casual way of this awful accident. Claire had alwaysbeen sensitive, curiously so, to everything that concerned the Navy. Admiral de Saint Vilquier had recalled the horrible submarine disasterof Bizerta harbour; Jacques de Wissant now remembered uncomfortably howvery unhappy that sad affair had made Claire. Why, one day he had foundher in a passion of tears, mourning over the tragic fate of those poorsailor men, the crew of the _Lutin_, of whose very names she wasignorant! At the time he had thought her betrayal of feeling veryunreasonable, but now he understood, and even shared to a certainextent, the pain she had shown; but then he knew Dupré, knew and likedhim, and the men immured in the _Neptune_ were men of Falaise. 

These were the thoughts which jostled each other in Jacques de Wissant'sbrain as he sat back in the Admiral's car. 

They were now rushing past the Pavilion de Wissant. What a pity it wasthat Claire had not remained quietly at home to-day! It would have beenso much pleasanter--if one could think of anything being pleasant insuch a connection--to have gone in and told her the sad news at home. Her sister, Madeleine Baudoin, though older than Claire, was foolishlyemotional and unrestrained in the expression of her feelings. Madeleinewas sure to make a scene when she heard of Commander Dupré's peril, andJacques de Wissant hated scenes. 

He now asked himself whether there was any real necessity for histelling his wife before her sister. All he need do was to send Claire amessage by the servant who opened the door to him. He would say that shewas wanted at home; she would think something had happened to one of thechildren, and this would be a good thing, for it would prepare her in ameasure for ill tidings. 

From what Jacques knew of his wife he believed she would receive thenews quietly, and he, her husband, would show her every consideration;again he reminded himself that it would be ridiculous to deny the factthat Claire had made a friend, almost an intimate, of Commander Dupré. It would be natural, nay "correct, " for her to be greatly distressedwhen she heard of the accident. 

 * * * * *

There came a familiar cutting in the road, and again the sea lay spreadout, an opaque, glistening sheet of steel, before him. He gazed across, with a feeling of melancholy and fearful curiosity, to the swarm ofcraft great and small collected round the place where the _Neptune_ lay, eighteen fathoms deep. .. . 

He hoped Claire would not ask to go back into the town with him in orderto hear the latest news. But if she did so ask, then he would raise noobjection. Every Falaise woman, whatever her rank in life, was now fullof suspense and anxiety, and as the mayor's wife Claire had a right toshare that anxious suspense. 

The car was now slowing on the sharp decline leading to the shore, andJacques de Wissant got up and touched the chauffeur on the shoulder. 

"Stop here, " he said. "You needn't drive down to the Châlet. I want youto turn and wait for me at the Pavillon de Wissant. Ask my servants togive you some luncheon. I may be half an hour or more, but I want to getback to Falaise as soon as I can. "

The Châlet des Dunes had been well named. It stood enclosed in roughpalings in a sandy wilderness. An attempt had been made to turn theimmediate surroundings of the villa into the semblance of a garden;there were wind-blown flowers set in sandy flower-beds, and coarse, luxuriant creepers flung their long, green ropes about the woodenverandah. In front, stretching out into the sea, was a stone pier, builtby Jacques' father many a year ago. 

The Châlet looked singularly quiet and deserted, for all the shuttershad been closed in order to shut out the midday heat. 

Jacques de Wissant became vaguely uneasy. He reconsidered his plan ofaction. If the two sisters were alone together--as he supposed them tobe--he would go in and quietly tell them of the accident. It would bemaking altogether too much of the matter to send for Claire to come outto him; she might very properly resent it. For the matter of that, itwas quite possible that Madeleine Baudoin had some little sentiment forDupré. That would explain so much--the officer's constant presence atthe Châlet des Dunes added to his absence from the Pavillon. It was oddhe had never thought of the possibility before. 

But this new idea made Jacques grow more and more uneasy at the thoughtof the task which now lay before him. With slow, hesitating steps hewalked up to the little front door of the Châlet. 

He pulled the rusty bell-handle. How absurd to have ironwork in such aplace!

There followed what seemed to him a very long pause. He rang again. 

There came the sound of light, swift steps; he could hear them in spiteof the rhythmical surge of the sea; and then the door was opened by hissister-in-law, Madame Baudoin, herself. 

In the midst of his own agitation and unease, Jacques de Wissant sawthat there was a look of embarrassment on the face which Madeleine triedto make amiably welcoming. 

"Jacques?" she exclaimed. "Forgive me for having made you ring twice! Ihave sent the servants into Falaise to purchase a railway time-table. Claire will doubtless have told you that I am starting for Italyto-night. Our poor Marie-Anne is worse; and I feel that it is my dutyto go to her. "

She did not step aside to allow him to come in. In fact, doubtlesswithout meaning to do so, she was actually blocking up the door. 

No, Claire had not told Jacques that Marie-Anne was worse. That ofcourse was why she had looked so unhappy this morning. He felt hurt andangered by his wife's reserve. 

"I am sure you will agree, Madeleine, " he said stiffly--he was not sorryto gain a little time--"that it would not be wise for Claire toaccompany you to Italy. After all, she is still quite a young woman, andpoor Marie-Anne's disease is most infectious. I have ascertained, too, that there is a regular epidemic raging in Mantua. "

Madeleine nodded. Then she turned, with an uneasy side-look at herbrother-in-law, and began leading the way down the short passage. Thedoor of the dining-room was open; Jacques could not help seeing thatonly one place was laid at the round table, also that Madeleine had justfinished her luncheon. 

"Isn't Claire here?" he asked, surprised. "She said she was going tolunch with you to-day. Hasn't she been here this morning?"

"No--I mean yes. " Madeleine spoke confusedly. "She did not stay tolunch. She was only here for a very little while. "

"But has she gone home again?"

"Well--she may be home by now; I really don't know"--Madeleine wasopening the door of the little drawing-room. 

It was an ugly, common-looking room; the walls were hung with Turkeyred, and ornamented with cheap coloured prints. There were cane andbasket chairs which Madame Baudoin had striven to make comfortable withthe help of cushions and rugs. 

Jacques de Wissant told himself that it was odd that Claire should liketo spend so much of her time here, in the Châlet des Dunes, instead ofasking her sister to join her each morning or afternoon in her ownbeautiful house on the cliff. 

"Forgive me, " he said stiffly, "but I can't stay a moment. I really camefor Claire. You say I shall find her at home?"

He held his top hat and his yellow gloves in his hand, and hissister-in-law thought she had never seen Jacques look so plain andunattractive, and--and tiresome as he looked to-day. 

Madame Baudoin had a special reason for wishing him away; but she knewthe slow, sure workings of his mind. If Jacques found that his wife hadnot gone back to the Pavillon de Wissant, and that there was no news ofher there, he would almost certainly come back to the Châlet des Dunesfor further information. 

"No, " she said reluctantly, "Claire has not gone back to the Pavillon. Ibelieve that she has gone into the town. She had something importantthat she wished to do there. "

She looked so troubled, so--so uncomfortable that Jacques de Wissantleapt to the sudden conclusion that the tidings he had been at suchpains to bring had already been brought to the Châlet des Dunes. 

"Ah!" he exclaimed, "then I am too late! Ill news travels fast. "

"Ill news?" Madeleine repeated affrightedly. "Is anything the matter?Has anything happened to one of the children? Don't keep me in suspense, Jacques. I am not cold-blooded--like you!"

"The children are all right, " he said shortly. "But there has been, asyou evidently know, an accident. The submarine _Neptune_ has met with aserious mishap. She now lies with her crew in eighteen fathoms of waterabout two miles out. "

He spoke with cold acerbity. How childishly foolish of Madeleine to tryand deceive him! But all women of the type to which she belonged makefoolish mysteries about nothing. 

"The submarine _Neptune_?" As she stammered out the question which hadalready been answered, there came over Madame Baudoin's face a look ofmeasureless terror. Twice her lips opened--and twice she closed themagain. 

At last she uttered a few words--words of anguished protest and revolt. "No, no, " she cried, "that can't be--it's impossible!"

"Command yourself!" he said sternly. "Remember what would be thought byanyone who saw you in this state. "

But she went on looking at him with wild, terror-stricken eyes. "My poorClaire!" she moaned. "My little sister Claire----"

All Jacques de Wissant's jealousy leapt into eager, quivering life. Thenhe had been right after all? His wife loved Dupré. Her sister'sanguished sympathy had betrayed Claire's secret as nothing Claireherself was ever likely to say or do could have done. 

"You are a good sister, " he said ironically, "to take Claire's distressso much to heart. Identifying yourself as entirely as you seem to dowith her, I am surprised that you did not accompany her into Falaise: itwas most wrong of you to let her go alone. "

"Claire is not in Falaise, " muttered Madeleine. She was grasping theback of one of the cane chairs with her hand as if glad of even thatslight support, staring at him with a dazed look of abject misery whichincreased his anger, his disgust. 

"Not in Falaise?" he echoed sharply. "Then where, in God's name, isshe?"

A most disagreeable possibility had flashed into his mind. Was itconceivable that his wife had had herself rowed to the scene of thedisaster? If she had done that, if her sister had allowed her to goalone, or accompanied maybe by one or other of the officers belonging tothe submarine flotilla, then he told himself with jealous rage that hewould find it very difficult ever to forgive Claire. There are things awoman with any self-respect, especially a woman who is the mother ofdaughters, refrains from doing. 

"Well?" he said contemptuously. "Well, Madeleine? I am waiting to hearthe truth. I desire no explanations--no excuses. I cannot, however, withhold myself from telling you that you ought to have accompanied yoursister, even if you found it impossible to control her. "

"I was there yesterday, " said Madeleine Baudoin, with a pinched, whiteface, "for over two hours. "

"What do you mean?" he asked suspiciously. "Where were you yesterday forover two hours?"

"In the _Neptune_. "

She gazed at him, past him, with widely open eyes, as if she werestaring, fascinated, at some scene of unutterable horror--and therecrept into Jacques de Wissant's mind a thought so full of shameful dreadthat he thrust it violently from him. 

"You were in the _Neptune_, " he said slowly, "knowing well that it isabsolutely forbidden for any officer to take a friend on board asubmarine without a special permit from the Minister of Marine?"

"It is sometimes done, " she said listlessly. 

Madame Baudoin had now sat down on a low chair, and she was plucking atthe front of her white serge skirt with a curious mechanical movement ofthe fingers. 

"Did the submarine actually put out to sea with you on board?"

She nodded her head, and then very deliberately added, "Yes, I have toldyou that I was out for two hours. They all knew it--the men and officersof the flotilla. I was horribly frightened, but--but now I am gladindeed that I went. Yes, I am indeed glad!"

"Why are you glad?" he asked roughly--and again a hateful suspicionthrust itself insistently upon him. 

"I am glad I went, because it will make what Claire has done to-dayseem natural, a--a simple escapade. "

There was a moment of terrible silence between them. 

"Then do all the officers and men belonging to the flotilla know that mywife is out there--in the _Neptune_?" Jacques de Wissant asked in a low, still voice. 

"No, " said Madeleine, and there was now a look of shame, as well as ofterror, on her face. "They none of them know--only those who are onboard. " She hesitated a moment--"That is why I sent the servants awaythis morning. We--I mean Commander Dupré and I--did not think itnecessary that anyone should know. "

"Then no one--that is, only a hare-brained young officer and ten menbelonging to the town of Falaise--were to be aware of the fact that mywife had accompanied her lover on this life-risking expedition? You andDupré were indeed tender of her honour--and mine. "

"Jacques!" She took her hand off the chair, and faced her brother-in-lawproudly. "What infamous thing is this that you are harbouring in yourmind? My sister is an honest woman, aye, as honest, as high-minded aswas your own mother----"

He stopped her with a violent gesture. "Do not mention Claire and mymother in the same breath!" he cried. 

"Ah, but I will--I must! You want the truth--you said just now youwanted only the truth. Then you shall hear the truth! Yes, it is as youhave evidently suspected. Louis Dupré loves Claire, and she"--her voicefaltered, then grew firmer--"she may have had for him a littlesentiment. Who can tell? You have not been at much pains to make herhappy. But what is true, what is certain, is that she rejected his love. To-day they were to part--for ever. "

Her voice failed again, then once more it strengthened and hardened. 

"That is why he in a moment of folly--I admit it was in a moment offolly--asked her to come out on his last cruise in the _Neptune_. Whenyou came I was expecting them back any moment. But, Jacques, do not beafraid. I swear to you that no one shall ever know. Admiral de SaintVilquier will do anything for us Kergouëts; I myself will go to him, and--and explain. "

But Jacques de Wissant scarcely heard the eager, pitiful words. 

He had thrust his wife from his mind, and her place had been taken byhis honour--his honour and that of his children, of happy, light-hearted Clairette and Jacqueline. For what seemed a long while hesaid nothing; then, with all the anger gone from his voice, he spoke, uttered a fiat. 

"No, " he said quietly. "You must leave the Admiral to me, Madeleine. Youwere going to Italy to-night, were you not? That, I take it, _is_ true. "

She nodded impatiently. What did her proposed journey to Italy mattercompared with her beloved Claire's present peril?

"Well, you must carry out your plan, my poor Madeleine. You must go awayto-night. "

She stared at him, her face at last blotched with tears, and a look ofbewildered anguish in her eyes. 

"You must do this, " Jacques de Wissant went on deliberately, "forClaire's sake, and for the sake of Claire's children. You haven'tsufficient self-control to endure suspense calmly, secretly. You neednot go farther than Paris, but those whom it concerns will be told thatClaire has gone with you to Italy. There will always be time to tell thetruth. Meanwhile, the Admiral and I will devise a plan. And perhaps"--hewaited a moment--"the truth will never be known, or only known to a veryfew people--people who, as you say, will understand. "

He had spoken very slowly, as if weighing each of his words, but it wasquickly, with a queer catch in his voice, that he added--"I ask you todo this, my sister"--he had never before called Madeleine Baudoin "mysister"--"because of Claire's children, of Clairette and Jacqueline. Their mother would not wish a slur to rest upon them. "

She looked at him with piteous, hunted eyes. But she knew that she mustdo what he asked. 

IV

Jacques de Wissant sat at his desk in the fine old room which is setaside for the mayor's sole use in the town hall of Falaise. 

He was waiting for Admiral de Saint Vilquier, whom he had summoned onthe plea of a matter both private and urgent. In his note, of which hehad written more than one draft, he had omitted none of the punctiliousual in French official correspondence, and he had asked pardon, in themost formal language, for asking the Admiral to come to him, instead ofproposing to go to the Admiral. 

The time that had elapsed since he had parted from his sister-in-law hadseemed like years instead of hours, and yet every moment of those hourshad been filled with action. 

From the Châlet des Dunes Jacques had made his way straight to thePavillon de Wissant, and there his had been the bitter task of lying tohis household. 

They had accepted unquestioningly his statement that their mistress, without waiting even to go home, had left the Châlet des Dunes with hersister for Italy owing to the arrival of sudden worse news from Mantua. 

While Claire's luggage was being by his orders hurriedly prepared, hehad changed his clothes; and then, overcome with mortal weariness, withsick, sombre suspense, he had returned to Falaise, taking the railwaystation on his way to the town hall, and from there going through thegrim comedy of despatching his wife's trunks to Paris. 

Since the day war was declared by France on Germany, there had neverbeen at the town hall of Falaise so busy an afternoon. Urgent messagesof inquiry and condolence came pouring in from all over the civilizedworld, and the mayor had to compose suitable answers to them all. 

To him there also fell the painful duty of officially announcing to thecrowd surging impatiently in the market place--though room in front wasalways made and kept for those of the fisher folk who had relatives inthe submarine service--that it was the _Neptune_ which had gone down. 

He had seen the effect of that announcement painted on rough, worn, upturned faces; he had heard the cries of anger, the groans of despairof the few, and had witnessed the relief, the tears of joy of the many. But his heart felt numb, and his cold, stern manner kept the emotionsand excitement of those about him in check. 

At last there had come a short respite. It was publicly announced thatowing to the currents the divers had had to suspend their work awhile, but that salvage appliances from England and from Cherbourg were ontheir way to Falaise, and that it was hoped by seven that evening activeoperations would begin. With luck the _Neptune_ might be raised beforemidnight. 

Fortunate people blessed with optimistic natures were already planning abanquet at which the crew of the _Neptune_ were to be entertained withinan hour of the rescue. 

 * * * * *

Jacques de Wissant rose from the massive First Empire table which formedpart of the fine suite of furniture presented by the great Napoleonjust a hundred years ago to the municipality of Falaise. 

With bent head, his hands clasped behind him, the mayor began walking upand down the long room. 

Admiral de Saint Vilquier might now come at any moment, but the manawaiting him had not yet made up his mind how to word what he had tosay--how much to tell, how much to conceal from, his wife's old friend. He was only too well aware that if the desperate attempts which wouldsoon be made to raise the _Neptune_ were successful, and if its humanfreight were rescued alive, the fact that there had been a woman onboard could not be concealed. Thousands would know to-night, andmillions to-morrow morning. 

Not only would the amazing story provide newspaper readers all over theworld with a thrilling, unexpected piece of news, but the fact thatthere had been a woman involved in the disaster would be perpetuated, aslong as our civilization endures, in every account of subsequentaccidents to submarine craft. 

More intimately, vividly agonizing was the knowledge that the story, thescandal, would be revived when there arose the all-important question ofa suitable marriage for Clairette or Jacqueline. 

As he paced up and down the room, longing for and yet dreading thecoming of the Admiral, he visualized what would happen. He could almosthear the whispered words: "Yes, dear friend, the girl is admirablybrought up, and has a large fortune, also she and your son have takenquite a fancy for one another, but there is that very ugly story of themother! Don't you remember that she was with her lover in the submarine_Neptune_? The citizens of Falaise still laugh at the story and pointher out in the street. Like mother like daughter, you know!" Thus themiserable man tortured himself, turning the knife in his wound. 

But stay---- Supposing the salvage appliances failed, as they had failedat Bizerta, to raise the _Neptune_? Then with the help of Admiral deSaint Vilquier the awful truth might be kept secret. 

 * * * * *

At last the door opened. 

Jacques de Wissant took a step forward, and as his hand rested looselyfor a moment in the old seaman's firmer grasp, he would have given manyyears of his life to postpone the coming interview. 

"As you asked me so urgently to do so, I have come, M. De Wissant, tolearn what you have to tell me. But I'm afraid the time I can spare youmust be short. As you know, I am to be at the station in half an hour tomeet the Minister of Marine. He will probably wish to go out at once tothe scene of the calamity, and I shall have to accompany him. "

The Admiral was annoyed at having been thus sent for to the town hall. It was surely Jacques de Wissant's place to have come to him. 

And then, while listening to the other's murmured excuses, the old navalofficer happened to look straight into the face of the Mayor of Falaise, and at once a change came over his manner, even his voice softened andaltered. 

"Pardon my saying so, M. De Wissant, " he exclaimed abruptly, "but youlook extremely ill! You mustn't allow this sad business to take such ahold on you. It is tragic no doubt that such things must be, butremember"--he uttered the words solemnly--"they are the Price ofAdmiralty. "

"I know, I know, " muttered Jacques de Wissant. 

"Shall we sit down?"

The deadly pallor, the look of strain on the face of the man before himwas making the Admiral feel more and more uneasy. "It would be veryawkward, " he thought to himself, "were Jacques de Wissant to be takenill, here, now, with me---- Ah, I have it!"

Then he said aloud, "You have doubtless had nothing to eat since themorning?" And as de Wissant nodded--"But that's absurd! It's alwaysmadness to go without food. Believe me, you will want all your strengthduring the next few days. As for me, I had fortunately lunched before Ireceived the sad news. I keep to the old hours; I do not care for yourEnglish _déjeuners_ at one o'clock. Midday is late enough for me!"

"Admiral?" said the wretched man, "Admiral----?"

"Yes, take your time; I am not really in such a hurry. I am quite atyour disposal. "

"It is a question of honour, " muttered Jacques de Wissant, "a questionof honour, Admiral, or I should not trouble you with the matter. "

Admiral de Saint Vilquier leant forward, but Jacques de Wissant avoidedmeeting the shrewd, searching eyes. 

"The honour of a naval family is involved. " The Mayor of Falaise was nowspeaking in a low, pleading voice. 

The Admiral stiffened. "Ah!" he exclaimed. "So you have been asked tointercede with me on behalf of some young scapegrace. Well, who is it?I'll look into the matter to-morrow morning. I really cannot think ofanything to-day but of this terrible business----"

"----Admiral, it concerns this business. "

"The loss of the _Neptune_? In what way can the honour of a naval familybe possibly involved in such a matter?" There was a touch of hauteur aswell as of indignant surprise in the fine old seaman's voice. 

"Admiral, " said Jacques de Wissant deliberately, "there was--there is--awoman on board the _Neptune_. "

"A woman in the _Neptune_? That is quite impossible!" The Admiral got upfrom his chair. "It is one of our strictest regulations that no strangerbe taken on board a submarine without a special permit from the Ministerof Marine, countersigned by an admiral. No such permit has been issuedfor many months. In no case would a woman be allowed on board. CommanderDupré is far too conscientious, too loyal, an officer to break such aregulation. "

"Commander Dupré, " said Jacques de Wissant in a low, bitter tone, "wasnot too conscientious or too loyal an officer to break that regulation, for there is, I repeat it, a woman in the _Neptune_. "

The Admiral sat down again. "But this is serious--very serious, " hemuttered. 

He was thinking of the effect, not only at home but abroad, of such abreach of discipline. 

He shook his head with a pained, angry gesture--"I understand whathappened, " he said at last. "The woman was of course poor Dupré's"--andthen something in Jacques de Wissant's pallid face made him substitute, for the plain word he meant to have used, a softer, kindlierphrase--"poor Dupré's _bonne amie_, " he said. 

"I am advised not, " said Jacques de Wissant shortly. "I am told that theperson in question is a young lady. "

"Do you mean an unmarried girl?" asked the Admiral. There was greatcuriosity and sincere relief in his voice. 

"I beg of you not to ask me, Admiral! The family of the lady haveimplored me to reveal as little of the truth as possible. They havetaken their own measures, and they are good measures, to account forher--her disappearance. " The unhappy man spoke with considerableagitation. 

"Quite so! Quite so! They are right. I have no wish to show indiscreetcuriosity. "

"Do you think anything can be done to prevent the fact becoming known?"asked Jacques de Wissant--and, as the other waited a moment beforeanswering, the suspense became almost more than he could endure. 

He got up and instinctively stood with his back to the light. "Thefamily of this young lady are willing to make any pecuniarysacrifice----"

"It is not a question of pecuniary sacrifice, " the Admiral said stiffly. "Money will never really purchase either secrecy or silence. But honour, M. De Wissant, will sometimes, nay, often, do both. "

"Then you think the fact can be concealed?"

"I think it will be impossible to conceal it if the _Neptune_ israised"--he hesitated, and his voice sank as he added the poignant words"_in time_. But if that happens, though I fear that it is not likely tohappen, then I promise you that I will allow it to be thought that I hadgiven this lady permission, and her improper action will be accepted forwhat it no doubt was--a foolish escapade. If Dupré and little Paritotare the men of honour I take them to be, one or other of them will ofcourse marry her!"

"And if the _Neptune_ is not raised--" the Mayor's voice also droppedto a whisper--"_in time_--what then?"

"Then, " said the Admiral, "everything will be done by me--so you canassure your unlucky friends--to conceal the fact that Commander Dupréfailed in his duty. Not for his sake, you understand--he, I fear, deserves what he has suffered, what he is perhaps still suffering, "--alook of horror stole over his old, weather-roughened face--"but for thesake of the foolish girl and for the sake of her family. You say it is anaval family?"

"Yes, " said Jacques de Wissant. "A noted naval family. "

The Admiral got up. "And now I, on my side, must exact of you a pledge, M. De Wissant--" he looked searchingly at the Government officialstanding before him. "I solemnly implore you, monsieur, to keep thisfact you have told me absolutely secret for the time being--secret evenfrom the Minister of Marine. "

The Mayor of Falaise bent his head. "I intend to act, " he said slowly, "as if I had never heard it. "

"I ask it for the honour, the repute, of the Service, " muttered the oldofficer. "After all, M. De Wissant, the poor fellow did not mean muchharm. We sailors have all, at different times of our lives, had some_bonne amie_ whom we found it devilish hard to leave on shore!"

The Admiral walked slowly towards the door. To-day had aged him years. Then he turned and looked benignantly at Jacques de Wissant; the manbefore him might be stiff, cold, awkward in manner, but he was agentleman, a man of honour. 

And as he drove to the station to meet the Minister of Marine, Admiralde Saint Vilquier's shrewd, practical mind began to deal with thedifficult problem which was now added to his other cares. It wassimplified in view of the fact--the awful fact--that according to hisprivate information it was most unlikely that the submarine would beraised within the next few hours. He hoped with all his heart that thetwelve men and the woman now lying beneath the sea had met death at themoment of the collision. 

 * * * * *

All that summer night the cafés and eating-houses of Falaise remainedopen, and there was a constant coming and going to the beach, where manypeople, even among those visitors who were not directly interested inthe calamity, camped out on the stones. 

The mayor sent word to the Pavillon de Wissant that he would sleep inhis town house, but though he left the town hall at two in the morninghe was back at his post by eight, and he spent there the whole of thenext long dragging day. 

Fortunately for him there was little time for thought. In addition tothe messages of inquiry and condolence which went on pouring in, important members of the Government arrived from Paris and theprovinces. 

There also came to Falaise the mother of Commander Dupré, and the fatherand brother of Lieutenant Paritot. De Wissant made the latter hisspecial care. They, the two men, were granted the relief of tears, butMadame Dupré's silent agony could not be assuaged. 

Once, when he suddenly came upon her sitting, her chin in her hand, inhis room at the town hall, Jacques de Wissant shrank from her blazingeyes and ravaged face, so vividly did they recall to him the eyes, theface, he had seen that April evening "'twixt dog and wolf, " when he hadfirst leapt upon the truth. 

On the third day all hope that there could be anyone still living in the_Neptune_ was being abandoned, and yet at noon there ran a rumourthrough the town that knocking had been heard in the submarine. .. . 

The mayor himself drew up an official proclamation, in which it waspointed out that it was almost certain that all on board had perished atthe time of the collision, and that, even if any of them had survivedfor a few hours, not one could be alive now. 

And then, as one by one the days of waiting began to wear themselvesaway, the world, apart from the town which numbered ten of her sonsamong the doomed men, relaxed its painful interest in the fate of theFrench submarine. Indeed, Falaise took on an almost winter stillness ofaspect, for the summer visitors naturally drifted away from a spot whichwas still the heart of an awful tragedy. 

But Jacques de Wissant did not relax in his duties or in his efforts onbehalf of the families of the men who still lay, eighteen fathoms deep, encased in their steel tomb; and the townspeople were deeply moved bytheir mayor's continued, if restrained, distress. He even put hischildren, his pretty twin daughters, Jacqueline and Clairette, into deepmourning; this touched the seafaring portion of the population verymuch. 

It also became known that M. De Wissant was suffering from domesticdistress of a very sad and intimate kind; his sister-in-law wasseriously ill in Italy from an infectious disease, and his wife, whohad gone away at a moment's notice to help to nurse her, had caught theinfection. 

The Mayor of Falaise and Admiral de Saint Vilquier did not often haveoccasion to meet during those days spent by each of them in entertainingofficial personages and in composing answers to the messages andinquiries which went on dropping in, both by day and by night, at thetown hall and at the Admiral's quarters. But there came an hour whenAdmiral de Saint Vilquier at last sought to have a private word with theMayor of Falaise. 

"I think I have arranged everything satisfactorily, " he said briefly, "and you can convey the fact to your friends. I do not suppose, asmatters are now, that there is much fear that the truth will ever comeout. "

The old man did not look into Jacques de Wissant's face while he utteredthe comforting words. He had become aware of many things--includingMadeleine Baudoin's cruise in the _Neptune_ the day before the accident, and of her own and Claire de Wissant's reported departure for Italy. 

Alone, among the people who sometimes had friendly speech of the mayorduring those sombre days of waiting, Admiral de Saint Vilquier did notcondole with the anxious husband on the fact that he could not yet leaveFalaise for Mantua. 

V

Jacques de Wissant woke with a start and sat up in bed. He had heard aknock--but, awake or sleeping, his ears were never free of the sound ofknocking, --of muffled, regular knocking. .. . 

It was the darkest hour of the summer night, but with a sharp sense ofrelief he became aware that what had wakened him this time was a realsound, not the slow, patient, rhythmical, tapping which haunted himincessantly. But now the knocking had been followed by the opening ofhis bedroom door, and vaguely outlined before him was the short, squatform of an old woman who had entered his mother's service when he was alittle boy, and who always stayed in his town house. 

"M'sieur l'Amiral de Saint Vilquier desires to see M'sieur Jacques onurgent business, " she whispered. "I have put him to wait in the greatdrawing-room. It is fortunate that I took all the covers off thefurniture yesterday. "

Then the moment of ordeal, the moment he had begun to think would nevercome--was upon him? He knew this summons to mean that the _Neptune_ hadbeen finally towed into the harbour, and that now, in this still, darkhour before dawn, was about to begin the work of taking out the bodies. 

Every day for a week past it had been publicly announced that thefollowing night would see the final scene of the dread drama, and eachevening--even last evening--it had been as publicly announced thatnothing could be done for the present. 

Jacques de Wissant had put all his trust in the Admiral and in thearrangements the Admiral was making to avoid discovery. But now, as hegot up and dressed himself--strange to say that phantom sound ofknocking had ceased--there came over him a frightful sensation of doubtand fear. Had he been right to trust wholly to the old naval officer?Would it not have been better to have taken the Minister of Marine intohis confidence?

How would it be possible for Admiral de Saint Vilquier, unless backed byGovernmental authority, to elude the vigilance, not only of theAdmiralty officials and of all those that were directly interested, butalso of the journalists who, however much the public interest hadslackened in the disaster, still stayed on at Falaise in order to bepresent at the last act of the tragedy?

These thoughts jostled each other in Jacques de Wissant's brain. Butwhether he had been right or wrong it was too late to alter now. 

He went into the room where the Admiral stood waiting for him. 

The two men shook hands, but neither spoke till they had left the house. Then, as they walked with firm, quick steps across the desertedmarket-place, the Admiral said suddenly, "This is the quietest hour inthe twenty-four, and though I anticipate a little trouble with thejournalists, I think everything will go off quite well. "

His companion muttered a word of assent, and the other went on, thistime in a gruff whisper: "By the way, I have had to tell Dr. Tarnier--"and as Jacques de Wissant gave vent to a stifled exclamation ofdismay--"of course I had to tell Dr. Tarnier! He has most nobly offeredto go down into the _Neptune_ alone--though in doing so he will runconsiderable personal risk. "

Admiral de Saint Vilquier paused a moment, for the quick pace at whichhis companion was walking made him rather breathless. "I have simplytold him that there was a young woman on board. He imagines her to havebeen a Parisienne, --a person of no importance, you understand, --who hadcome to spend the holiday with poor Dupré. But he quite realizes thatthe fact must never be revealed. " He spoke in a dry, matter-of-facttone. "There will not be room on the pontoon for more than five or six, including ourselves and Dr. Tarnier. Doubtless some of our newspaperfriends will be disappointed--if one can speak of disappointment in sucha connection--but they will have plenty of opportunities of beingpresent to-morrow and the following nights. I have arranged with theMinister of Marine for the work to be done only at night. "

As the two men emerged on the quays, they saw that the news had leakedout, for knots of people stood about, talking in low hushed tones, andstaring at the middle of the harbour. 

Apart from the others, and almost dangerously close to the unguardededge below which was the dark lapping water, stood a line of womenshrouded in black, and from them came no sound. 

As the Admiral and his companion approached the little group ofofficials who were apparently waiting for them, the old naval officerwhispered to Jacques de Wissant, using for the first time the familiarexpression, "_mon ami_, " "Do not forget, _mon ami_, to thank theharbour-master and the pilot. They have had a very difficult task, andthey will expect your commendation. "

Jacques de Wissant said the words required of him. And then, at the lastmoment, just as he was on the point of going down the steps leading tothe flat-bottomed boat in which they were to be rowed to the pontoon, there arose an angry discussion. The harbour-master had, it seemed, promised the representatives of two Paris newspapers that they should bepresent when the submarine was first opened. 

But the Admiral stiffly asserted his supreme authority. "In such mattersI can allow no favouritism! It is doubtful if any bodies will be takenout to-night, gentlemen, for the tide is already turning. I will see ifother arrangements can be made to-morrow. If any of you had been in theharbour of Bizerta when the _Lutin_ was raised, you would now thank mefor not allowing you to view the sight which we may be about to see. "

And the weary, disappointed special correspondents, who had spent longdays watching for this one hour, realized that they would have tocontent themselves with describing what could be seen from the quays. 

 * * * * *

It will, however, surprise no one familiar with the remarkableenterprise of the modern press, when it is recorded that by far the mostaccurate account of what occurred during the hour that followed waswritten by a cosmopolitan war correspondent, who had had the goodfortune of making Dr. Tarnier's acquaintance during the dull fortnightof waiting. 

He wrote:

 None of those who were there will ever forget what they saw last night in the harbour of Falaise. 

 The scene, illumined by the searchlight of a destroyer, was at once sinister, sombre, and magnificent. Below the high, narrow pontoon, on the floor of the harbour, lay the wrecked submarine; and those who gazed down at the _Neptune_ felt as though they were in the presence of what had once been a sentient being done to death by some huge Goliath of the deep. 

 Dr. Tarnier, the chief medical officer of the port--a man who is beloved and respected by the whole population of Falaise--stood ready to begin his dreadful task. I had ascertained that he had obtained permission to go down alone into the hold of death--an exploration attended with the utmost physical risk. He was clad in a suit of india-rubber clothing, and over his arm was folded a large tarpaulin sheet lined with carbolic wool, one of half a dozen such sheets lying at his feet. 

 The difficult work of unsealing the conning tower was then proceeded with in the presence of Admiral de Saint Vilquier, whose prowess as a midshipman is still remembered by British Crimean veterans--and of the Mayor of Falaise, M. Jacques de Wissant. 

 At last there came a guttural exclamation of "_Ça y est!_" and Dr. Tarnier stepped downwards, to emerge a moment later with the first body, obviously that of the gallant Commander Dupré, who was found, as it was expected he would be, in the conning tower. 

 Once more the doctor's burly figure disappeared, once more he emerged, tenderly bearing a slighter, lighter burden, obviously the boyish form of Lieutenant Paritot, who was found close to Commander Dupré. 

 The tide was rising rapidly, but two more bodies--this time with the help of a webbed band cleverly designed by Dr. Tarnier with a view to the purpose--were lifted from the inner portion of the submarine. 

 The four bodies, rather to the disappointment of the large crowd which had gradually gathered on the quays, were not taken directly to the shore, to the great hall where Falaise is to mourn her dead sons; one by one they were reverently conveyed, by the Admiral's orders, to a barge which was once used as a hospital ward for sick sailors, and which is close to the mouth of the harbour. Thence, when all twelve bodies have been recovered--that is, in three or four days, for the work is only to be proceeded with at night, --they will be taken to the Salle d'Armes, there to await the official obsequies. 

On the morning following the night during which the last body was liftedfrom within the _Neptune_, there ran a curious rumour through thefishing quarter of the town. It was said that thirteen bodies--nottwelve, as declared the official report--had been taken out of the_Neptune_. It was declared on the authority of one of the seamen--aGascon, be it noted--who had been there on that first night, that five, not four, bodies had been conveyed to the hospital barge. 

But the rumour, though it found an echo in the French press, was notregarded as worth an official denial, and it received its final quietuson the day of the official obsequies, when it was at once seen that thenumber of ammunition wagons heading the great procession was twelve. 

 * * * * *

As long as tradition endures in the life of the town, Falaise willremember the _Neptune_ funeral procession. Not only was every navy inthe world represented, but also every strand of that loosely woven humanfabric we civilized peoples call a nation. 

Through the long line of soldiers, each man with his arms reversed, walked the official mourners, while from the fortifications there boomedthe minute gun. 

First the President of the French Republic, with, to his right, theMinister of Marine; and close behind them the stiff, still vigorous, figure of old Admiral de Saint Vilquier. By his side walked the Mayor ofFalaise--so mortally pale, so what the French call undone, that theAdmiral felt fearful lest his neighbour should be compelled to fall out. 

But Jacques de Wissant was not minded to fall out. 

The crowd looking on, especially the wives of those substantial citizensof the town who stood at their windows behind half-closed shutters anddrawn blinds, stared down at the mayor with pitying concern. 

"He has a warm heart though a cold manner, " murmured these ladies to oneanother, "and just now, you know, he is in great anxiety, for hiswife--that beautiful Claire with whom he doesn't get on very well--is inItaly, seriously ill of scarlet fever. " "Yes, and as soon as this sadceremony is over, he will leave for the south--I hear that the Presidenthas offered him a seat in his saloon as far as Paris. "

As the head of the procession at last stopped on the great parade groundwhere the last honours were to be rendered to the lowly yet illustriousdead, Jacques de Wissant straightened himself with an instinctivegesture, and his lips began to move. He was muttering to himself thespeech he would soon have to deliver, and which he had that morning, making a great mental effort, committed to memory. 

And after the President had had his long, emotional, and flowery say;and when the oldest of French admirals had stepped forward and, in aquavering voice, bidden the dead farewell on behalf of the Navy, it cameto the turn of the Mayor of Falaise. 

He was there, he said, simply as the mouth-piece of his fellow-townsmen, and they, bowed as they were by deep personal grief, could say butlittle--they could indeed only murmur their eternal gratitude for thesympathy they had received, and were now receiving, from theircountrymen and from the world. 

Then Jacques de Wissant gave a brief personal account of each of the tenseamen whom this vast concourse had gathered together to honour. It wasnoted by the curious in such things that he made no allusion to the twoofficers, to Commander Dupré and Lieutenant Paritot; doubtless hethought that they, after all, had been amply honoured in the precedingspeeches. 

But though his care for the lowly heroes proved the Mayor of Falaise agood republican, he showed himself in the popular estimation also ascholar, for he wound up with the old tag--the grand old tag whichinspired so many noble souls in the proudest of ancient empires andcivilizations, and which will retain the power of moving and thrillinggenerations yet unborn in both the Western and the Eastern worlds:

 "Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori. "

THE CHILD

I

It was close on eleven o'clock; the July night was airless, and the lastof that season's great balls was taking place in Grosvenor Square. 

Mrs. Elwyn's brougham came to a sudden halt in Green Street. Encompassedbehind and before with close, intricate traffic, the carriage swungstiffly on its old-fashioned springs, responding to every movement ofthe fretted horse. 

Hugh Elwyn, sitting by his mother's side, wondered a little impatientlywhy she remained so faithful to the old brougham which he couldremember, or so it seemed to him, all his life. But he did not utter histhoughts aloud; he still went in awe of his mother, and he was proud, ina whimsical way, of her old-fashioned austerity of life, of hernarrowness of vision, of her dislike of modern ways and new fashions. 

Mrs. Elwyn after her husband's death had given up the world. This wasthe first time since her widowhood that she and her son had dined outtogether; but then the occasion was a very special one--they had been todinner with the family of Elwyn's fiancée, Winifred Fanshawe. 

Hugh Elwyn turned and looked at his mother. As he saw in thehalf-darkness the outlines of the delicately pure profile, framed ingrey bands of hair covering the ears as it had been worn when Mrs. Elwynwas a girl upwards of forty years ago, he felt stirred with an unwontedtenderness, added to the respect with which he habitually regarded her. 

Since leaving Cavendish Square they had scarcely spoken the one to theother. The drive home was a short one, for they lived in South Street. It was tiresome that they should be held up in this way within a hundredyards of their own door. 

Suddenly the mother spoke. She put out her frail hand and laid it acrossher son's strong brown fingers. She gazed earnestly into thegood-looking face which was not as radiantly glad as she would havewished to see it--as indeed she had once seen her son's face look, andas she could still very vividly remember her own husband's face hadlooked during their short formal engagement nearly fifty years ago. "Icould not be better pleased, Hugh, if I had myself chosen your futurewife. "

Elwyn was a little amused as well as touched; he was well aware that hismother, to all intents and purposes, _had_ chosen Winifred. True, shehad been but slightly acquainted with the girl before the engagement, but she had "known all about her, " and had been on terms of friendlyacquaintance with Winifred's grandmother all her long life. Elwynremembered how his mother had pressed him to accept an invitation to acountry house where Winifred Fanshawe was to be. But Mrs. Elwyn hadnever spoken to her son of her wishes until the day he had come and toldher that he intended to ask Winifred to marry him, and then herunselfish joy had moved him and brought them very near to one another. 

When Hugh Elwyn was in London--he had been a great wanderer over theearth--he lived with his mother, and they were outwardly on the closest, most intimate terms of affection. But then Mrs. Elwyn never interferedwith Hugh, as he understood his friends' mothers so often interferedwith them and with their private affairs. This doubtless was why theywere, and remained, on such ideal terms together. 

Suddenly Mrs. Elwyn again spoke, but she did not turn round and looktenderly at her son as she had done when speaking of his futurewife--this time she gazed straight before her: "Is not Winifred a cousinof Mrs. Bellair?"

"Yes, there's some kind of connection between the Fanshawes and theBellairs. "

Hugh Elwyn tried to make his voice unconcerned, but he failed, and heknew that he had failed. His mother's question had disturbed him, andtaken him greatly by surprise. 

"I wondered whether they are friends?"

"I have never heard Winifred mention her, " he said shortly. "Yes, Ihave--I remember now that she told me the Bellairs had sent her apresent the very day after our engagement was in the _Morning Post_. "

"Then I suppose you will have to see something of them after yourmarriage?"

"You mean the Bellairs? Yes--no. I don't think that follows, mother. "

"Do you see anything of them now?"

"No"--he again hesitated, and again ate his word--"that is--yes. I metthem some weeks ago. But I don't think we are likely to see much of themafter our marriage. "

He would have given the world to feel that his voice was betrayingnothing of the discomfort he was feeling. 

"I hope not, Hugh. Mrs. Bellair would not be a suitable friend forWinifred--or--or for any young married woman. "

"Mother!" Elwyn only uttered the one word, but anger, shame, andself-reproach were struggling in the tone in which he uttered that oneword. "You are wrong, indeed, you are quite wrong--I mean about FannyBellair. "

"My dear, " she said gently, but her voice quivered, "I do not think I amwrong. Indeed, I know I am right. " Neither had ever seen the other somoved. "My dear, " again she said the two quiet words that may mean somuch or so little, "you know that I never spoke to you of the matter. Itried never even to think of it, and yet, Hugh, it made me very anxious, very unhappy. But to-night, looking at that sweet girl, I felt I mustspeak. "

She waited a moment, and then added in a constrained voice, "I do notjudge you, Hugh. "

"No!" he cried, "but you judge her! And it's so unfair, mother--sohorribly unfair!"

He had turned round; he was forcing his mother to look at his now moody, unhappy face. 

Mrs. Elwyn shrank back and closed her lips tightly. Her expressionrecalled to her son the look which used to come over her face when, as apetted, over cared-for only child, he asked her for something which shebelieved it would be bad for him to have. From that look there had been, in old days, no appeal. But now he felt that he must say something more. His manhood demanded it of him. 

"Mother, " he said earnestly, "as you have spoken to me of the matter, Ifeel I must have it out with you! Please believe me when I say that youare being unjust--indeed, cruelly so. I was to blame all through--fromthe very beginning to the very end. "

"You must allow me, " she said in a low tone, "to be the judge of that, Hugh. " She added deprecatingly, "This discussion is painful, and--andvery distasteful to me. "

Her son leant back, and choked down the words he was about to utter. Heknew well that nothing he could say would change or even modify hismother's point of view. But oh! why had she done this? Why had shechosen to-night, of all nights, to rend the veil which had always hung, so decently, between them. He had felt happy to-night--not madly, foolishly happy, as so many men feel at such moments, but reasonably, decorously pleased with his present and his future. He was making a_mariage de convenance_, but there had been another man on the lists, ayounger man than himself, and that had added a most pleasing zest to thepursuit. He, aided of course by Winifred Fanshawe's prudent parents, hadwon--won a very pretty, well-bred, well-behaved girl to wife. What morecould a man of forty-one, who had lived every moment of his life, ask ofthat providence which shapes our ends?

The traffic suddenly parted, and the horse leapt forward. 

As they reached their own front door, Mrs. Elwyn again spoke: "Perhaps Iought to add, " she said hurriedly, "that I know one thing to Mrs. Bellair's credit. I am told that she is a most devoted and carefulmother to that little boy of hers. I heard to-day that the child isseriously ill, and that she and the child's nurse are doing everythingfor him. "

Mrs. Elwyn's voice had softened, curiously. She had an old-fashionedprejudice against trained nurses. 

Hugh Elwyn helped his mother into the house; then, in the hall, he bentdown and just touched her cheek with his lips. 

"Won't you come up into the drawing-room? Just for a few minutes?" sheasked; there was a note of deep, yearning disappointment in her voice, and her face looked grey and tired, very different from the happy, placid air it had worn during the little dinner party. 

"No, thank you, mother, I won't come up just now. I think I'll go outagain for half an hour. I haven't walked at all to-day, and it's sohot--I feel I shouldn't sleep if I turn in now. "

He was punishing his mother as he had seen other sons punishing theirmothers, but as he himself had never before to-night been tempted topunish his. Nay, more, as Hugh Elwyn watched her slow ascent up thestaircase, he told himself that she had hurt and angered him past entireforgiveness. He had sometimes suspected that she knew of that fatefulepisode in his past life, but he had never supposed that she would speakof it to him, especially not now, after years had gone by, and when, greatly to please her, he was about to make what is called a "suitable"marriage. 

He was just enough to know that his mother had hurt herself by hurtinghim, but that did not modify his feelings of anger and of surprise atwhat she had done. Of course she thought she knew everything there wasto know, but how much there had been that she had never even suspected!

Those words--that admission--as to Fanny Bellair being a good motherwould never have passed Mrs. Elwyn's lips--they would never even havebeen credited by her had she known the truth--the truth, that is, as tothe child to whom Mrs. Bellair was so passionately devoted, and who now, it seemed, was ailing. That secret, and Hugh Elwyn thanked God, notirreverently, that it was so, was only shared by two human beings, thatis by Fanny and himself. And perhaps, Fanny, like himself, had managedby now almost to forget it. .. . 

Elwyn swung out of the house, he walked up South Street, and so intoPark Lane and over to the Park railings. There was still a great deal oftraffic in the roadway, but the pavements were deserted. 

As he began to walk quickly westward, the past came back and overwhelmedhim as with a great flood of mingled memories. And it was not, as hismother would probably have visioned it, a muddy spate filled withunclean things. Rather was it a flood of exquisite spring waters, instinct with the buoyant head-long rushes of youth, and filled withclear, happy shallows, in which retrospectively he lay and sunnedhimself in the warmth of what had been a great love--love such asWinifred Fanshawe, with her thin, complaisant nature, would neverbestow. 

The mother's imprudent words of unnecessary warning had brought back toher son everything she had hoped was now, if not obliterated, thenrepented of; but Elwyn's heart was filled to-night with a vaguetenderness for the half-forgotten woman whom he had loved awhile with sopassionate and absorbing a love, and to whom, under cover of that poorand wilted thing, his conscience, he had ultimately behaved so ill. 

Hugh Elwyn's mind travelled back across the years, to the very beginningof his involved account with honour--that account which he believed tobe now straightened out. 

Jim Bellair had been Elwyn's friend--first college friend and thenfavourite "pal. " When Bellair had fallen head over ears in love with agirl still in the schoolroom, a girl not even pretty, but with wonderfulauburn hair and dark, startled-looking eyes, and had finally persuaded, cajoled, badgered her into saying "Yes, " it was Hugh Elwyn who had beenBellair's rather sulky best man. Small wonder that the bridegroom hadhalf-jokingly left his young wife in Elwyn's charge when he had had togo half across the world on business that could not be delayed, whileshe stayed behind to nurse her father who was ill. 

It was then, with mysterious, uncanny suddenness, that the mischief hadbegun. There had been something wild and untamed in FannyBellair--something which had roused in Elwyn the hunter's instinct, aninstinct hitherto unslaked by over easy victories. And then Chance, thatgreat, cynical goddess which plays so great a part in civilized life, had flung first one opportunity and then another into his eager, grasping hands. 

Fanny's father had died; and she had been lonely and in sorrow. Carelessfriends, however kind, do not care to see much of those who mourn, buthe, Hugh Elwyn, had not been careless, nay, he had been careful to seemore, not less, of his friend's wife in this her first great grief, andshe had been moved to the heart by his sympathy. 

It was by Elwyn's advice that Mrs. Bellair had taken a house not farfrom London that lovely summer. 

Ah, that little house! Elwyn could remember every bush, almost everyflower that had flowered, in the walled garden during those enchantedweeks. Against the background of his mind every ornament, every oddpiece of furniture in that old cottage, stood out as having been thesilent, it had seemed at the time the kindly, understanding witnesses ofwhat had by then become an exquisite friendship. He, the man, had knownalmost from the first where they too were drifting, but she, the woman, had slipped into love as a wanderer at night slips suddenly into a deepand hidden pool. 

In a story book they would both have gone away openly together--butsomehow the thought of doing such a thing never seriously occurred toElwyn. He was far too fond of Bellair--it seemed absurd to say that now, but the truth, especially the truth of what has been, is often absurd. 

Elwyn had contented himself with stealing Bellair's wife; he had nodesire to put public shame and ridicule upon his friend. And fortune, favouring him, had prolonged the other man's enforced absence. 

And then? And then at last Bellair had come back, --and trouble began. Asto many things, nay, as to most things which have to do with the fleshrather than the spirit, men are more fastidiously delicate than arewomen. There had come months of misery, of revolt, and, on Elwyn's part, of dulling love. .. . 

Then, once more, Chance gave him an unlooked-for opportunity--anopportunity of escape from what had become to him an intolerableposition. 

The war broke out, and Hugh Elwyn was among the very first of thosegallant fellows who volunteered during the dark November of '99. 

By a curious irony of fate, the troopship that bore him to South Africahad Bellair also on board, but owing to Elwyn's secret decision--he wasfar the cleverer man of the two--he and his friend were no longer boundtogether by that wordless intimacy which is the basis of any close tieamong men. By the time the two came back from Africa they had becomelittle more than cordial acquaintances. Marriage, so Bellair sometimestold himself ruefully, generally plays the devil with a man's bachelorfriendships. He was a kindly, generous hearted soul, who found muchcomfort in platitudes. .. . 

But that, alas! had not been the end. On Elwyn's return home there hadcome to him a violent, overmastering revival of his passion. Again heand Fanny met--again they loved. Then one terrible day she came and toldhim, with stricken eyes, what he sometimes hoped, even now, had not beentrue--that she was about to have a child, and that it would be hischild. At that moment, as he knew well, Mrs. Bellair had desiredardently to go away with him, openly. But he had drawn back, assuringhimself--and this time honestly--that his shrinking from that course, now surely the only honest course, was not wholly ignoble. Were he to dosuch a thing it would go far to kill his mother--worse, it wouldembitter every moment of the life which remained to her. 

For a while Elwyn went in deadly fear lest Fanny should tell her husbandthe truth. But the weeks and months drifted by, and she remained silent. And as he had gone about that year, petted and made much of by hisfriends and acquaintances--for did he not bear on his worn, handsomeface that look which war paints on the face of your sensitive modernman?--he heard whispered the delightful news that after five years ofmarriage kind Jim and dear Fanny Bellair were at last going to be madehappy--happy in the good old way. 

Among the other memories of that hateful time, one came back, to-night, with especial vividness. Hurrying home across the park one afternoon, seven years ago now, almost to a day, he had suddenly run up againstBellair. 

They had talked for a few moments on indifferent things, and then Jimhad said shyly, awkwardly, but with a beaming look on his face, "Youknow about Fanny? Of course I can't help feeling a bit anxious, butshe's so healthy--not like those women who have always something thematter with them!" And he, Elwyn, had gripped the other man's hand, andmuttered the congratulation which was being asked of him. 

That meeting, so full of shameful irony, had occurred about a weekbefore the child's birth. Elwyn had meant to be away from London--butChance, so carelessly kind a friend to him in the past, at last provedcruel, for surely it was Chance and Chance alone that led him, on thevery eve of the day he was starting for Norway, straight across thequiet square, composed of high Georgian houses, where the Bellairs stilllived. 

To-night, thanks to his mother, every incident of that long, agonizingnight came back. He could almost feel the tremor of half fear, halfexcitement, which had possessed him when he had suddenly become awarethat his friends' house was still lit up and astir, and that fresh strawlay heaped up in prodigal profusion in the road where, a little past thedoor, was drawn up a doctor's one-horse brougham. Even then he mighthave taken another way, but something had seemed to drive him on, pastthe house, --and there Elwyn, staying his deadened footsteps, had heardfloat down to him from widely opened windows above, certain sounds, muffled moans, telling of a physical extremity which even now he wincedto remember. 

He had waited on and on--longing to escape, and yet prisoned betweenimaginary bounds within which he paced up and down, filled with anobscure desire to share, in the measure that was possible to him, hertorment. 

At last, in the orange, dust-laden dawn of a London summer morning, thefront door of the house had opened, and Elwyn had walked forward, everynerve quivering with suspense and fatigue, feeling that he must know. .. . 

A great doctor, with whose face he was vaguely acquainted, had steppedout accompanied by Bellair--Bellair with ruffled hair and red-rimmedeyes, but looking if tired then content, even more, triumphant. Elwynhad heard him say the words, "Thanks awfully. I shall never forget howkind you have been, Sir Joseph. Yes, I'll go to bed at once. I know youmust have thought me rather stupid. "

And then Bellair had suddenly seen Elwyn standing on the pavement; hehad accepted unquestioningly the halting explanation that he was on hisway home from a late party, and had happened, as it were, that way. "It's a boy!" he had said exultantly, although Elwyn had asked him noquestion, and then, "Of course I'm awfully pleased, but I'm dog tired!She's had a bad time, poor girl--but it's all right now, thank God! Comein and have a drink, Hugo. "

But Elwyn had shaken his head. Again he had gripped his old friend'shand, as he had done a week before, and again he had muttered thenecessary words of congratulation. Then, turning on his heel, he hadgone home, and spent the rest of the night in desultory packing. 

 * * * * *

That was just seven years ago, and Elwyn had never seen Fanny's child. He had been away from England for over a year, and when he came back helearned that the Bellairs were away, living in the country, where theyhad taken a house for the sake of their boy. 

As time had gone on, Elwyn and his friends had somehow drifted apart, aspeople are apt to drift apart in the busy idleness of the life led bythe fortunate Bellairs and Elwyns of this world. Fanny avoided HughElwyn, and Elwyn avoided Fanny, but they two only were aware of this. Itwas the last of the many secrets which they had once shared. When heand Bellair by chance met alone, all the old cordiality and even the oldaffection seemed to come back, if not to Elwyn then to the other man. 

And now the child, to whom it seemed not only Fanny but Jim Bellair alsowas so devoted, was ill, and he, Hugh Elwyn, had been the last to hearof it. He felt vaguely remorseful that this should be so. There had beenyears when nothing that affected Bellair could have left himindifferent, and a time when the slightest misadventure befalling Fannywould have called forth his eager, helpful sympathy. 

How strange it would be--he quickened his footsteps--if this child, withwhom he was at once remotely and intimately concerned, were to die! Hecould not help feeling, deep down in his heart, that this would be, if atragic, then a natural solution of a painful and unnatural problem--andthen, quite suddenly, he felt horribly ashamed of having allowed himselfto think this thought, to wish this awful wish. 

Why should he not go now, at once, to Manchester Square, and inquire asto the little boy's condition? It was not really late, not yet midnight. He could go and leave a message, perhaps even scribble a line to JimBellair explaining that he had come round as soon as he had heard of thechild's illness. 

II

When Hugh Elwyn reached the familiar turning whence he could see theBellairs' high house, time seemed to have slipped back. 

The house was all lit up as it had been on that summer night seven yearsago. Everything was the same--even to the heaped-up straw into which hishalf-reluctant feet now sank. There was even a doctor's carriage drawnup a little way from the front door, but this time it was a smartelectric brougham. 

He rang the bell, and as the door opened, Jim Bellair suddenly came intothe hall, out of a room which Elwyn knew to be the smoking-room--a roomin which he and Fanny had at one time spent long hours in contented, nayin ecstatic, dual solitude. 

"I have come to inquire--I only heard to-night--" he began awkwardly, but the other cut him short, "Yes, yes, I understand--it's awfully goodof you, Elwyn! I'm awfully glad to see you. Come in here--" and perforcehe had to follow. "The doctor's upstairs--I mean Sir Joseph Pixton. Fanny was determined to have him, and he very kindly came, though ofcourse he's not a child's doctor. He's annoyed because Fanny won't havetrained nurses; but I don't suppose anything would make any difference. It's just a fight--a fight for the little chap's life--that's what itis, and we don't know yet who'll win. "

He spoke in quick, short sentences, staring with widely open eyes at hiserstwhile friend as he spoke. "Pneumonia--I suppose you don't knowanything about it? I thought children never had such things, especiallynot in hot weather. "

"I had a frightful illness when I was about your boy's age, " said Elwyneagerly. "It's the first thing I can really remember. They called itinflammation of the lungs. I was awfully bad. My mother talks of it now, sometimes. "

"Does she?" Bellair spoke wearily. "If only one could _do_ something, "he went on. "But you see the worst of it is that I can donothing--nothing! Fanny hates my being up there--she thinks it upsetsthe boy. He's such a jolly little chap, Hugo. You know we called himPeter after Fanny's father?"

Elwyn moved towards the door. He felt dreadfully moved by the other'spain. He told himself that after all he could do no good by staying, andhe felt so ashamed, such a cur----

"You don't want to go away yet?" There was sharp chagrin, reproachfuldismay, in Bellair's voice. Elwyn remembered that in old days Jim hadalways hated being alone. "Won't you stay and hear what Pixton says?Or--or are you in a hurry?"

Elwyn turned round. "Of course I'll stay, " he said briefly. 

Bellair spared him thanks, but he began walking about the roomrestlessly. At last he went to the door and set it ajar. "I want to hearwhen Sir Joseph comes down, " he explained, and even as he spoke therecame the sound of heavy, slow footsteps on the staircase. 

Bellair went out and brought the great man in. 

"I've told Mrs. Bellair that we ought to have Bewdley! He knows a greatdeal more about children than I can pretend to do; and I propose, withyour leave, to go off now, myself, and if possible bring him back. " Theold doctor's keen eyes wandered as he spoke from Bellair's fair face toHugh Elwyn's dark one. "Perhaps, " he said, "perhaps, Mr. Bellair, youwould get someone to telephone to Dr. Bewdley's house to say that I'mcoming? It might save a few moments. "

As Bellair left the room, the doctor turned to Elwyn and said abruptly, "I hope you'll be able to stay with your brother? All this is very hardon him; Mrs. Bellair will scarcely allow him into the child's room, andthough that, of course, is quite right, I'm sorry for the man. He'swrapped up in the child. "

And when Bellair came back from accompanying the old doctor to hiscarriage, there was a smile on his face--the first smile which had beenthere for a long time: "Pixton thinks you're my brother! He said, 'Ihope your brother will manage to stay with you for a bit. ' Now I'll goup and see Fanny. Pixton is certainly more hopeful than the last man wehad--"

Bellair's voice had a confident ring. Elwyn remembered with a pang thatJim had always been like that--always believed, that is, that the bestwould come to pass. 

When left alone, Elwyn began walking restlessly up and down, much as hisfriend had walked up and down a few minutes ago. Something of theexcitement of the fight going on above had entered into him; he nowdesired ardently that the child should live, should emerge victor fromthe grim struggle. 

At last Bellair came back. "Fanny believes that this is the night ofcrisis, " he said slowly. All the buoyancy had left his voice. "But--butElwyn, I hope you won't mind--the fact is she's set her heart on yourseeing him. I told her what you told me about yourself, I mean yourillness as a child, and it's cheered her up amazingly, poor girl!Perhaps you could tell her a little bit more about it, though I like tothink that if the boy gets through it"--his voice broke suddenly--"shewon't remember this--this awful time. But don't let's keep herwaiting--" He took Elwyn's consent for granted, and quickly the two menwalked up the stairs of the high house, on and on and on. 

"It's a good way up, " whispered Bellair, "but Fanny was told that achild's nursery couldn't be too high. So we had the four rooms at thetop thrown into two. "

They were now on the dimly-lighted landing. "Wait one moment--wait onemoment, Hugo. " Bellair's voice had dropped to a low, gruff whisper. 

Elwyn remained alone. He could hear slight movements going on in theroom into which Bellair had just gone; and then there also fell on hisears the deep, regular sound of snoring. Who could be asleep in thehouse at such a moment? The sound disturbed him; it seemed to add atouch of grotesque horror to the situation. 

Suddenly the handle of the door in front of him moved round, and heheard Fanny Bellair's voice, unnaturally controlled and calm. "I sentNanna to bed, Jim. The poor old creature was absolutely worn out. Andthen I would so much rather be alone when Sir Joseph brings back theother doctor. He admits--I mean Sir Joseph does--that to-night _is_ thecrisis. "

The door swung widely open, and Elwyn, moving instinctively back, visualized the scene before him very distinctly. 

There was a screen on the right hand, a screen covered, as had been theone in his own nursery, with a patchwork of pictures varnished over. 

Mrs. Bellair stood between the screen and the pale blue wall. Her slimfigure was clad in some sort of long white garment, and over it she worean apron, which he noticed was far too large for her. Her hair, theauburn hair which had been her greatest beauty, and which he had onceloved to praise and to caress, was fastened back, massed up in as smalla compass as possible. That, and the fact that her face wasexpressionless, so altered her in Elwyn's eyes as to give him an uncannyfeeling that the woman before him was not the woman he had known, hadloved, had left, --but a stranger, only bound to him by the slender linkof a common humanity. 

She waited some moments as if listening, then she came out on to thelanding, and shut the door behind her very softly. 

The sentence of conventional sympathy half formed on Elwyn's lips diedinto nothingness; as little could he have offered words of cheer to onewho was being tortured; but in the dim light their hands met and claspedtightly. 

"Hugo?" she said, "I want to ask you something. You told Jim just nowthat you were once very ill as a child, --ill like this, ill like mychild. I want you to tell me honestly if that is true? I mean, were youvery, very ill?"

He answered her in the same way, without preamble, baldly: "It is quitetrue, " he said. "I was very ill--so ill that my mother for one momentthought that I was dead. But remember, Fanny, that in those days theydid not know nearly as much as they do now. Your boy has two chances forevery one that I had then. "

"Would you mind coming in and seeing him?" Her voice faltered, it hadbecome more human, more conventional, in quality. 

"Of course I will see him, " he said. "I want to see him, --dear. " Shehad suddenly become to him once more the thing nearest his heart; oncemore the link between them became of the closest, most intimate nature, and yet, or perhaps because of its intensity, the sense of nearnesswhich had sprung at her touch into being was passionless. 

The face which had been drained of all expression quickened intoagonized feeling. She tried to withdraw her hand from his, but he heldit firmly, and it was hand in hand that together they walked into theroom. 

As they came round the screen behind which lay the sick child, Bellairwent over to the farthest of the three windows and stood there withcrossed arms staring out into the night. 

The little boy lay on his right side, and as they moved round to theedge of the large cot, Elwyn, with a sudden tightening of the throat, became aware that the child was neither asleep nor, as he in hisignorance had expected to find him, sunk in stupor or delirium. But thesmall, dark face, framed by the white pillow, was set in lines of deep, unchildlike gravity, and in the eyes which now gazed incuriously atElwyn there was a strange, watchful light which seemed to illumine thatwhich was within rather than that which was without. 

As is always the case with a living creature near to death, littlePeter Bellair looked very lonely. 

Then Elwyn, moving nearer still, seemed--or so at least Fanny Bellairwill ever believe--to take possession of the moribund child, yieldinghim as he did so something of his own strength to help him through thecrisis then imminent. And indeed the little creature whose forehead, whose clenched left hand lying on the sheet were beginning to glistenwith sweat, appeared to become merged in some strange way with himself. Merged, not with the man he was to-day, but with the Hugh Elwyn ofthirty years back, who, as a lonely only child, had lived so intenselysecret, imaginative a life, peopling the prim alleys of Hyde Park withfairies, imps, tricksy hobgoblins in whom he more than half believed, and longing even then, as ever after, for the unattainable, nevercarelessly happy as his father and mother believed him to be. .. . 

Hugh Elwyn stayed with the Bellairs all that night. He shared the sicksuspense the hour of the crisis brought, and he was present when thespecialist said the fateful words, "I think, under God, this child willlive. "

When at last Elwyn left the house, clad in an old light coat ofBellair's in order that the folk early astir should not see that he waswearing evening clothes, he felt happier, more light-hearted, than hehad done for years. 

His life had been like a crowded lumber-room, full of useless andworn-out things he had accounted precious, while he had ignored the onepossession that really mattered and that linked him, not only with thefuture, but with the greatest reality of his past. 

The inevitable pain which this suddenly discovered treasure was to bringwas mercifully concealed from him, as also the sombre fact that he wouldhenceforth go lonely all his life, perforce obliged to content himselfwith the crumbs of another man's feast. For Peter Bellair, high-strung, imaginative, as he will ever be, will worship the strong, kindly, simpleman he believes to be his father, but to that dear father's friend hewill only yield the careless affection born of gratitude for muchkindness. 

 * * * * *

In the matter of the broken engagement, Hugh Elwyn was more fairlytreated by the men and women whom the matter concerned, or who thoughtit concerned them, than are the majority of recusant lovers. 

"Hugh Elwyn has never been quite the same since the war, and you knowWinifred Fanshawe really liked the other man the best, " so said thosewho spent an idle moment in discussing the matter, and they generallyadded, "It's a good thing that he's spending the summer with his oldfriends, the Bellairs. They're living very quietly just now, for theirlittle boy has been dreadfully ill, so it's just the place for poor oldHugo to get over it all!"

ST. CATHERINE'S EVE

I

"In this matter of the railway James Mottram has proved a false friend, a very traitor to me!"

Charles Nagle's brown eyes shone with anger; he looked loweringly at hiscompanions, and they, a beautiful young woman and an old man dressed inthe sober garb of a Catholic ecclesiastic of that day, glanced at oneanother apprehensively. 

All England was then sharply divided into two camps, the one composed ofthose who welcomed with enthusiasm the wonderful new invention whichobliterated space, the other of those who dreaded and abhorred thecoming of the railroads. 

Charles Nagle got up and walked to the end of the terrace. He stareddown into the wooded combe, or ravine, below, and noted with sullenanger the signs of stir and activity in the narrow strip of wood whichtill a few weeks before had been so still, so entirely remote fromeven the quiet human activities of 1835. 

At last he turned round, pirouetting on his heel with a quick movement, and his good looks impressed anew each of the two who sat there withhim. Eighty years ago beauty of line and colour were allowed to tell inmasculine apparel, and this young Dorset squire delighted in fineclothes. Though November was far advanced it was a mild day, and CharlesNagle wore a bright blue coat, cut, as was then the fashion, to show offthe points of his elegant figure--of his slender waist and his broadshoulders; as for the elaborately frilled waistcoat, it terminated in anIndia muslin stock, wound many times round his neck. He looked a foppishLondoner rather than what he was--an honest country gentleman who hadnot journeyed to the capital for some six years, and then only to see agreat physician. 

"'Twas a most unneighbourly act on the part of James--he knows it wellenough, for we hardly see him now!" He addressed his words moreparticularly to his wife, and he spoke more gently than before. 

The old priest--his name was Dorriforth--looked uneasily from his hostto his hostess. He felt that both these young people, whom he had knownfrom childhood, and whom he loved well, had altered during the few weekswhich had gone by since he had last seen them. Rather--he mentallycorrected himself--it was the wife, Catherine, who was changed. CharlesNagle was much the same; poor Charles would never be other, for hebelonged to the mysterious company of those who, physically sound, arementally infirm, and shunned by their more fortunate fellows. 

But Charles Nagle's wife, the sweet young woman who for so long had beencontent, nay glad, to share this pitiful exile, seemed now to haveescaped, if not in body then in mind, from the place where her sad, monotonous duty lay. 

She did not at once answer her husband; but she looked at him fixedly, her hand smoothing nervously the skirt of her pretty gown. 

Mrs. Nagle's dress also showed a care and research unusual in that ofthe country lady of those days. This was partly no doubt owing to herFrench blood--her grandparents had been _émigrés_--and to the fact thatCharles liked to see her in light colours. The gown she was now wearingon this mild November day was a French flowered silk, the spoil of asmuggler who pursued his profitable calling on the coast hard by. Theshort, high bodice and puffed sleeves were draped with a scarf ofBuckinghamshire lace which left, as was the fashion of those days, thewearer's lovely shoulders bare. 

"James Mottram, " she said at last, and with a heightened colour, "believes in progress, Charles. It is the one thing concerning which youand your friend will never agree. "

"Friend?" he repeated moodily. "Friend! James Mottram has shown himselfno friend of ours. And then I had rights in this matter--am I not hisheir-at-law? I could prevent my cousin from touching a stone, or fellinga tree, at the Eype. But 'tis his indifference to my feelings thatangers me so. Why, I trusted the fellow as if he had been my brother!"

"And James Mottram, " said the old priest authoritatively, "has alwaysfelt the same to you, Charles. Never forget that! In all but name youare brothers. Were you not brought up together? Had I not the schoolingof you both as lads?" He spoke with a good deal of feeling; he hadnoticed--and the fact disturbed him--that Charles Nagle spoke in thepast tense when referring to his affection for the absent man. 

"But surely, sir, you cannot approve that this iron monster shouldinvade our quiet neighbourhood?" exclaimed Charles impatiently. 

Mrs. Nagle looked at the priest entreatingly. Did she by any chancesuppose that he would be able to modify her husband's violent feeling?

"If I am to say the truth, Charles, " said Mr. Dorriforth mildly, "andyou would not have me conceal my sentiments, then I believe the timewill come when even you will be reconciled to this marvellous invention. Those who surely know declare that, thanks to these railroads, ourbeloved country will soon be all cultivated as is a garden. Nay, perhapsothers of our Faith, strangers, will settle here----"

"Strangers?" repeated Charles Nagle sombrely, "I wish no strangers here. Even now there are too many strangers about. " He looked round as if heexpected those strangers of whom the priest had spoken to appearsuddenly from behind the yew hedges which stretched away, enclosingCatherine Nagle's charming garden, to the left of the plateau on whichstood the old manor-house. 

"Nay, nay, " he repeated, returning to his grievance, "never had Iexpected to find James Mottram a traitor to his order. As for the folkabout here, they're bewitched! They believe that this puffing devil willmake them all rich! I could tell them different; but, as you know, thereare reasons why I should not. "

The priest bent his head gravely. The Catholic gentry of those days werenot on comfortable terms with their neighbours. In spite of the factthat legally they were now "emancipated, " any malicious person couldstill make life intolerable to them. The railway mania was at itsbeginnings, and it would have been especially dangerous for CharlesNagle to take, in an active sense, the unpopular side. 

In other parts of England, far from this Dorset countryside, railroadshad brought with them a revival of trade. It was hoped that the sameresult would follow here, and a long strip of James Mottram's estate hadbeen selected as being peculiarly suitable for the laying down of theiron track which was to connect the nearest town with the sea. 

Unfortunately the land in question consisted of a wood which formed theboundary-line where Charles Nagle's property marched with that of hiskinsman and co-religionist, James Mottram; and Nagle had taken thematter very ill indeed. He was now still suffering, in a physicalsense, from the effects of the violent fit of passion which the matterhad induced, and which even his wife, Catherine, had not been able toallay. .. . 

As he started walking up and down with caged, impatient steps, shewatched him with an uneasy, anxious glance. He kept shaking his headwith a nervous movement, and he stared angrily across the ravine to theopposite hill, where against the skyline the large mass of Eype Castle, James Mottram's dwelling-place, stood four-square to the high windswhich swept up from the sea. 

Suddenly he again strode over to the edge of the terrace: "I think I'llgo down and have a talk to those railroad fellows, " he muttereduncertainly. 

Charles knew well that this was among the forbidden things--the thingshe must not do; yet occasionally Catherine, who was, as the poor fellowdimly realized, his mentor and guardian, as well as his outwardlysubmissive wife, would allow him to do that which was forbidden. 

But to-day such was not her humour. "Oh, no, Charles, " she saiddecidedly, "you cannot go down to the wood! You must stay here and talkto Mr. Dorriforth. "

"They were making hellish noises all last night; I had no rest at all, "Nagle went on inconsequently. "They were running their puffing devil upand down, 'The Bridport Wonder'--that's what they call it, reverendsir, " he turned to the priest. 

Catherine again looked up at her husband, and their old friend saw thatshe bit her lip as if checking herself in impatient speech. Was shelosing the sweetness of her temper, the evenness of disposition thepriest had ever admired in her, and even reverenced?

Mrs. Nagle knew that the steam-engine had been run over the line for thefirst time the night before, for James Mottram and she had arranged thatthe trial should take place then rather than in the daytime. She alsoknew that Charles had slept through the long dark hours, those hoursduring which she had lain wide awake by his side listening to thestrange new sounds made by the Bridport Wonder. Doubtless one of theservants had spoken of the matter in his hearing. 

She frowned, then felt ashamed. "Charles, " she said gently, "would itnot be well for me to go down to the wood and discover when theserailroad men are going away? They say in the village that their work isnow done. "

"Yes, " he cried eagerly. "A good idea, love! And if they're going offat once, you might order that a barrel of good ale be sent down to them. I'm informed that that's what James has had done this very day. Now I'veno wish that James should appear more generous than I!"

Catherine Nagle smiled, the indulgent kindly smile which a woman bestowson a loved child who suddenly betrays a touch of that vanity which is, in a child, so pardonable. 

She went into the house, and in a few moments returned with a pink scarfwound about her soft dark hair--hair dressed high, turned back from herforehead in the old pre-Revolution French mode, and not, as was then thefashion, arranged in stiff curls. 

The two men watched her walking swiftly along the terrace till she sankout of their sight, for a row of stone steps led down to an orchardplanted with now leafless pear and apple trees, and surrounded with aquickset hedge. A wooden gate, with a strong lock to it, was set in thisclosely clipped hedge. It opened on a steep path which, after traversingtwo fields, terminated in the beech-wood where now ran the iron track ofthe new railroad. 

Catherine Nagle unlocked the orchard gate, and went through on to thefield path. And then she slackened her steps. 

For hours, nay, for days, she had been longing for solitude, and now, for a brief space, solitude was hers. But, instead of bringing herpeace, this respite from the companionship of Charles and of Mr. Dorriforth brought increased tumult and revolt. 

She had ardently desired the visit of the old priest, but his presencehad bestowed, instead of solace, fret and discomfort. When he fixed onher his mild, penetrating eyes, she felt as if he were dragging into thelight certain secret things which had been so far closely hidden withinher heart, and concerning which she had successfully dulled her oncesensitive conscience. 

The waking hours of the last two days had each been veined with torment. Her soul sickened as she thought of the morrow, St. Catherine's Day, that is, her feast-day. The _émigrés_, Mrs. Nagle's own people, had inexile jealousy kept up their own customs, and to Charles Nagle's wifethe twenty-fifth day of November had always been a day of days, what herbirthday is to a happy Englishwoman. Even Charles always remembered thedate, and in concert with his faithful man-servant, Collins, sent toLondon each year for a pretty jewel. The housefolk, all of whom hadlearnt to love their mistress, and who helped her loyally in herdifficult, sometimes perilous, task, also made of the feast a holiday. 

But now, on this St. Catherine's Eve, Mrs. Nagle told herself that shewas at the end of her strength. And yet only a month ago--so she nowreminded herself piteously--all had been well with her; she had beenstrangely, pathetically happy a month since; content with all theconditions of her singular and unnatural life. .. . 

Suddenly she stopped walking. As if in answer to a word spoken by aninvisible companion she turned aside, and, stooping, picked a weedgrowing by the path. She held it up for a moment to her cheek, and thenspoke aloud. "Were it not for James Mottram, " she said slowly, and veryclearly, "I, too, should become mad. "

Then she looked round in sudden fear. Catherine Nagle had never beforeuttered, or permitted another to utter aloud in her presence, that awfulword. But she knew that their neighbours were not so scrupulous. Onecruel enemy, and, what was especially untoward, a close relation, Mrs. Felwake, own sister to Charles Nagle's dead father, often uttered it. This lady desired her son to reign at Edgecombe; it was she who in thelast few years had spread abroad the notion that Charles Nagle, in thepublic interest, should be asylumed. 

In his own house, and among his own tenants, the slander was angrilydenied. When Charles was stranger, more suspicious, moodier than usual, those about him would tell one another that "the squire was ill to-day, "or that "the master was ailing. " That he had a mysterious illness wasadmitted. Had not a famous London doctor persuaded Mr. Nagle that itwould be dangerous for him to ride, even to walk outside the boundary ofhis small estate, --in brief, to run any risks which might affect hisheart? He had now got out of the way of wishing to go far afield;contentedly he would pace up and down for hours on the long terracewhich overhung the wood--talking, talking, talking, with Catherine onhis arm. 

But he was unselfish--sometimes. "Take a walk, dear heart, with James, "he would say, and then Catherine Nagle and James Mottram would go outand make their way to some lonely farmhouse or cottage where Mottram hadestate business. Yet during these expeditions they never forgot Charles, so Catherine now reminded herself sorely, --nay, it was then that theytalked of him the most, discussing him kindly, tenderly, as theywent. .. . 

Catherine walked quickly on, her eyes on the ground. With a feeling ofoppressed pain she recalled the last time she and Mottram had been alonetogether. Bound for a distant spot on the coast, they had gone on and onfor miles, almost up to the cliffs below which lay the sea. Ah, howhappy, how innocent she had felt that day!

Then they had come to a stile--Mottram had helped her up, helped herdown, and for a moment her hand had lain and fluttered in his hand. .. . 

During the long walk back, each had been very silent; and Catherine--shecould not answer for her companion--when she had seen Charles waitingfor her patiently, had felt a pained, shamed beat of the heart. As forJames Mottram, he had gone home at once, scarce waiting for good-nights. 

That evening--Catherine remembered it now with a certain comfort--shehad been very kind to Charles; she was ever kind, but she had then beenkinder than usual, and he had responded by becoming suddenly clearer inmind than she had known him to be for a long time. For some days he hadbeen the old Charles--tender, whimsical, gallant, the Charles with whom, at a time when every girl is in love with love, she had alack! fallen inlove. Then once more the cloud had come down, shadowing a dreary wasteof days--dark days of oppression and of silence, alternating with suddenbursts of unreasonable and unreasoning rage. 

James Mottram had come, and come frequently, during that time of misery. But his manner had changed. He had become restrained, as if watchful ofhimself; he was no longer the free, the happy, the lively companion hehad used to be. Catherine scarcely saw him out of Charles's presence, and when they were by chance alone they talked of Charles, only ofCharles and of his unhappy condition, and of what could be done tobetter it. 

And now James Mottram had given up coming to Edgecombe in the oldfamiliar way; or rather--and this galled Catherine shrewdly--he cameonly sufficiently often not to rouse remark among their servants andhumble neighbours. 

 * * * * *

Catherine Nagle was on the edge of the wood, and looking about her shesaw with surprise that the railway men she had come down to see hadfinished work for the day. There were signs of their immediateoccupation, a fire was still smouldering, and the door of one of theshanties they occupied was open. But complete stillness reigned in thiskingdom of high trees. To the right and left, as far as she could see, stretched the twin lines of rude iron rails laid down along what hadbeen a cart-track, as well as a short cut between Edgecombe Manor andEype Castle. A dun drift, to-day's harvest of dead leaves, had settledon the rails; even now it was difficult to follow their course. 

As she stood there, about to turn and retrace her steps, Catherinesuddenly saw James Mottram advancing quickly towards her, and themingled revolt and sadness which had so wholly possessed her gave way toa sudden, overwhelming feeling of security and joy. 

She moved from behind the little hut near which she had been standing, and a moment later they stood face to face. 

James Mottram was as unlike Charles Nagle as two men of the same age, ofthe same breed, and of the same breeding could well be. He was shorter, and of sturdier build, than his cousin; and he was plain, whereasCharles Nagle was strikingly handsome. Also his face was tanned byconstant exposure to sun, salt-wind, and rain; his hair was cut short, his face shaven. 

The very clothes James Mottram wore were in almost ludicrous contrast tothose which Charles Nagle affected, for Mottram's were always ofserviceable homespun. But for the fact that they and he werescrupulously clean, the man now walking by Catherine Nagle's side mighthave been a prosperous farmer or bailiff instead of the owner of suchlarge property in those parts as made him, in spite of his unpopularfaith, lord of the little world about him. 

On his plain face and strong, sturdy figure Catherine's beautiful eyesdwelt with unconscious relief. She was so weary of Charles's absorptionin his apparel, and of his interest in the hundred and one fal-lalswhich then delighted the cosmopolitan men of fashion. 

A simple, almost childish gladness filled her heart. Conscience, butjust now so insistent and disturbing a familiar, vanished for a space, nay more, assumed the garb of a meddling busybody who seeks to discoverharm where no harm is. 

Was not James Mottram Charles's friend, almost, as the old priest hadsaid, Charles's brother? Had she not herself deliberately chosen Charlesin place of James when both young men had been in ardent pursuit ofher--James's pursuit almost wordless, Charles's conducted with all theeloquence of the poet he had then set out to be?

Mottram, seeing her in the wood, uttered a word of surprise. Sheexplained her presence there. Their hands scarce touched in greeting, and then they started walking side by side up the field path. 

Mottram carried a stout ash stick. Had the priest been there he wouldperchance have noticed that the man's hand twitched and moved restlesslyas he swung his stick about; but Catherine only became aware that hercompanion was preoccupied and uneasy after they had gone some way. 

When, however, the fact of his unease seemed forced upon her notice, shefelt suddenly angered. There was a quality in Mrs. Nagle that made herever ready to rise to meet and conquer circumstance. She told herself, with heightened colour, that James Mottram should and must return to hisold ways--to his old familiar footing with her. Anything else would be, nay was, intolerable. 

"James, "--she turned to him frankly--"why have you not come over to seeus lately as often as you did? Charles misses you sadly, and so do I. Prepare to find him in a bad mood to-day. But just now he distressedMr. Dorriforth by his unreasonableness touching the railroad. " Shesmiled and went on lightly, "He said that you were a false friend tohim--a traitor!"

And then Catherine Nagle stopped and caught her breath. God! Why had shesaid that? But Mottram had evidently not caught the sinister word, andCatherine in haste drove back conscience into the lair whence consciencehad leapt so suddenly to her side. 

"Maybe I ought, in this matter of the railroad, " he said musingly, "tohave humoured Charles. I am now sorry I did not do so. After all, Charles may be right--and all we others wrong. The railroad may notbring us lasting good!"

Catherine looked at him surprised. James Mottram had always been so sureof himself in this matter; but now there was dejection, weariness in hisvoice; and he was walking quickly, more quickly up the steep inclinethan Mrs. Nagle found agreeable. But she also hastened her steps, telling herself, with wondering pain, that he was evidently in no moodfor her company. 

"Mr. Dorriforth has already been here two days, " she observedirrelevantly. 

"Aye, I know that. It was to see him I came to-day; and I will ask youto spare him to me for two or three hours. Indeed, I propose that heshould walk back with me to the Eype. I wish him to witness my new will. And then I may as well go to confession, for it is well to be shrivenbefore a journey, though for my part I feel ever safer on sea thanland!"

Mottram looked straight before him as he spoke. 

"A journey?" Catherine repeated the words in a low, questioning tone. There had come across her heart a feeling of such anguish that it was asthough her body instead of her soul were being wrenched asunder. In herextremity she called on pride--and pride, ever woman's most loyalfriend, flew to her aid. 

"Yes, " he repeated, still staring straight in front of him, "I leaveto-morrow for Plymouth. I have had letters from my agent in Jamaicawhich make it desirable that I should return there without delay. " Hedug his stick into the soft earth as he spoke. 

James Mottram was absorbed in himself, in his own desire to carryhimself well in his fierce determination to avoid betraying what hebelieved to be his secret. But Catherine Nagle knew nothing of this. She almost thought him indifferent. 

They had come to a steep part of the incline, and Catherine suddenlyquickened her steps and passed him, so making it impossible that hecould see her face. She tried to speak, but the commonplace words shedesired to say were strangled, at birth, in her throat. 

"Charles will not mind; he will not miss me as he would have missed mebefore this unhappy business of the railroad came between us, " Mottramsaid lamely. 

She still made no answer; instead she shook her head with an impatientgesture. Her silence made him sorry. After all, he had been a goodfriend to Catherine Nagle--so much he could tell himself without shame. He stepped aside on to the grass, and striding forward turned round andfaced her. 

The tears were rolling down her cheeks; but she threw back her head andmet his gaze with a cold, almost a defiant look. "You startled megreatly, " she said breathlessly, "and took me so by surprise, James! Iam grieved to think how Charles--nay, how we shall both--miss you. It isof Charles I think, James; it is for Charles I weep----"

As she uttered the lying words, she still looked proudly into his faceas if daring him to doubt her. "But I shall never forget--I shall everthink with gratitude of your great goodness to my poor Charles. Twoyears out of your life--that's what it's been, James. Too much--too muchby far!" She had regained control over her quivering heart, and it waswith a wan smile that she added, "But we shall miss you, dear, kindfriend. "

Her smile stung him. "Catherine, " he said sternly, "I go because Imust--because I dare not stay. You are a woman and a saint, I a man anda sinner. I've been a fool and worse than a fool. You say that Charlesto-day called me false friend, traitor! Catherine--Charles spoke moretruly than he knew. "

His burning eyes held her fascinated. The tears had dried on her cheeks. She was thirstily absorbing the words as they fell now slowly, nowquickly, from his lips. 

But what was this he was saying? "Catherine, do you wish me to go on?"Oh, cruel! Cruel to put this further weight on her conscience! But shemade a scarcely perceptible movement of assent--and again he spoke. 

"Years ago I thought I loved you. I went away, as you know well, becauseof that love. You had chosen Charles--Charles in many ways the betterfellow of the two. I went away thinking myself sick with love of you, but it was false--only my pride had been hurt. I did not love you as Iloved myself. And when I got clear away, in a new place, among newpeople"--he hesitated and reddened darkly--"I forgot you! I vow thatwhen I came back I was cured--cured if ever a man was! It was ofCharles, not of you, Catherine, that I thought on my way home. To meCharles and you had become one. I swear it!" He repeated: "To me you andCharles were one. "

He waited a long moment, and then, more slowly, he went on, as ifpleading with himself--with her: "You know what I found here in place ofwhat I had left? I found Charles a----"

Catherine Nagle shrank back. She put up her right hand to ward off theword, and Mottram, seizing her hand, held it in his with a convulsiveclasp. "'Twas not the old feeling that came back to me--that I againswear, Catherine. 'Twas something different--something infinitelystronger--something that at first I believed to be all noble----"

He stopped speaking, and Catherine Nagle uttered one word--a curiousword. "When?" she asked, and more urgently again she whispered, "When?"

"Long before I knew!" he said hoarsely. "At first I called the passionthat possessed me by the false name of 'friendship. ' But that poorhypocrisy soon left me! A month ago, Catherine, I found myselfwishing--I'll say this for myself, it was for the first time--thatCharles was dead. And then I knew for sure what I had already longsuspected--that the time had come for me to go----"

He dropped her hand, and stood before her, abased in his own eyes, butone who, if a criminal, had had the strength to be his own judge andpass heavy sentence on himself. 

"And now, Catherine--now that you understand why I go, you will bid meGod-speed. Nay, more"--he looked at her, and smiled wryly--"if you arekind, as I know you to be kind, you will pray for me, for I go from youa melancholy, as well as a foolish man. "

She smiled a strange little wavering smile, and Mottram was deeply movedby the gentleness with which Catherine Nagle had listened to his story. He had been prepared for an averted glance, for words of coldrebuke--such words as his own long-dead mother would surely haveuttered to a man who had come to her with such a tale. 

 * * * * *

They walked on for a while, and Catherine again broke the silence by aquestion which disturbed her companion. "Then your agent's letter wasnot really urgent, James?"

"The letters of an honest agent always call for the owner, " he mutteredevasively. 

They reached the orchard gate. Catherine held the key in her hand, butshe did not place it in the lock--instead she paused awhile. "Then thereis no special urgency?" she repeated. "And James--forgive me for askingit--are you, indeed, leaving England because of this--this matter ofwhich you have just told me?"

He bent his head in answer. 

Then she said deliberately: "Your conscience, James, is too scrupulous. I do not think that there is any reason why you should not stay. WhenCharles and I were in Italy, " she went on in a toneless, monotonousvoice, "I met some of those young noblemen who in times of pestilence godisguised to nurse the sick and bury the dead. It is that work ofcharity, dear friend, which you have been performing in our unhappyhouse. You have been nursing the sick--nay, more, you have beentending"--she waited, then in a low voice she added--"the dead--the deadthat are yet alive. "

Mottram's soul leapt into his eyes. "Then you bid me stay?" he asked. 

"For the present, " she answered, "I beg you to stay. But only so if itis indeed true that your presence is not really required in Jamaica. "

"I swear, Catherine, that all goes sufficiently well there. " Again hefixed his honest, ardent eyes on her face. 

And now James Mottram was filled with a great exultation of spirit. Hefelt that Catherine's soul, incapable of even the thought of evil, shamed and made unreal the temptation which had seemed till just now onewhich could only be resisted by flight. Catherine was right; he had beenover scrupulous. 

There was proof of it in the blessed fact that even now, already, thepoison which had seemed to possess him, that terrible longing foranother man's wife, had left him, vanishing in that same wife's purepresence. It was when he was alone--alone in his great house on thehill, that the devil entered into him, whispering that it was an awfulthing such a woman as was Catherine, sensitive, intelligent, and in herbeauty so appealing, should be tied to such a being as was CharlesNagle--poor Charles, whom every one, excepting his wife and one loyalkinsman, called mad. And yet now it was for this very Charles thatCatherine asked him to stay, for the sake of that unhappy, distraughtman to whom he, James Mottram, recognized the duty of a brother. 

"We will both forget what you have just told me, " she said gently, andhe bowed his head in reverence. 

They were now on the last step of the stone stairway leading to theterrace. 

Mrs. Nagle turned to her companion; he saw that her eyes were verybright, and that the rose-red colour in her cheeks had deepened as ifshe had been standing before a great fire. 

As they came within sight of Charles Nagle and of the old priest, Catherine put out her hand. She touched Mottram on the arm--it was afleeting touch, but it brought them both, with beating hearts, to astand. "James, " she said, and then she stopped for a moment--a momentthat seemed to contain æons of mingled rapture and pain--"one word aboutMr. Dorriforth. " The commonplace words dropped them back to earth. "Didyou wish him to stay with you till to-morrow? That will scarcely bepossible, for to-morrow is St. Catherine's Day. "

"Why, no, " he said quickly. "I will not take him home with me to-night. All my plans are now changed. My will can wait"--he smiled at her--"andso can my confession. "

"No, no!" she cried almost violently. "Your confession must not wait, James----"

"Aye, but it must, " he said, and again he smiled. "I am in no mood forconfession, Catherine. " He added in a lower tone, "you've purged me ofmy sin, my dear--I feel already shriven. "

Shame of a very poignant quality suddenly seared Catherine Nagle's soul. "Go on, you, " she said breathlessly, though to his ears she seemed tospeak in her usual controlled and quiet tones, "I have some orders togive in the house. Join Charles and Mr. Dorriforth. I will come outpresently. "

James Mottram obeyed her. He walked quickly forward. "Good news, Charles, " he cried. "These railway men whose presence so offends you gofor good to-morrow! Reverend sir, accept my hearty greeting. "

 * * * * *

Catherine Nagle turned to the right and went into the house. Shehastened through the rooms in which, year in and year out, she spenther life, with Charles as her perpetual, her insistent companion. Shenow longed for a time of recollection and secret communion, and so sheinstinctively made for the one place where no one, not even Charles, would come and disturb her. 

Walking across the square hall, she ran up the broad staircase leadingto the gallery, out of which opened the doors of her bedroom and of herhusband's dressing-room. But she went swiftly past these two closeddoors, and made her way along a short passage which terminated abruptlywith a faded red baize door giving access to the chapel. 

Long, low-ceilinged and windowless, the chapel of Edgecombe Manor hadremained unaltered since the time when there were heavy penaltiesattached both to the celebration of the sacred rites and to the hearingof Mass. The chapel depended for what fresh air it had on a narrow dooropening straight on to ladder-like stairs leading down directly and outon to the terrace below. It was by this way that the small and scatteredcongregation gained access to the chapel when the presence of a priestpermitted of Mass being celebrated there. 

Catherine went up close to the altar rails, and sat down on thearm-chair placed there for her sole use. She felt that now, when aboutto wrestle with her soul, she could not kneel and pray. Since she hadbeen last in the chapel, acting sacristan that same morning, life hadtaken a great stride forward, dragging her along in its triumphant wake, a cruel and yet a magnificent conqueror. 

Hiding her face in her hands, she lived again each agonized andexquisite moment she had lived through as there had fallen on her earsthe words of James Mottram's shamed confession. Once more her heart wasmoved to an exultant sense of happiness that he should have said thesethings to her--of happiness and shrinking shame. .. . 

But soon other thoughts, other and sterner memories were thrust uponher. She told herself the bitter truth. Not only had she led JamesMottram into temptation, but she had put all her woman's wit to the taskof keeping him there. It was her woman's wit--but Catherine Nagle calledit by a harsher name--which had enabled her to make that perilous rockon which she and James Mottram now stood heart to heart together, appear, to him at least, a spot of sanctity and safety. It was she, notthe man who had gazed at her with so ardent a belief in her purity andhonour, who was playing traitor--and traitor to one at once confidingand defenceless. .. . 

Then, strangely, this evocation of Charles brought her burdenedconscience relief. Catherine found sudden comfort in remembering hercare, her tenderness for Charles. She reminded herself fiercely thatnever had she allowed anything to interfere with her wifely duty. Never?Alas! she remembered that there had come a day, at a time when JamesMottram's sudden defection had filled her heart with pain, when she hadbeen unkind to Charles. She recalled his look of bewildered surprise, and how he, poor fellow, had tried to sulk--only a few hours later tocome to her, as might have done a repentant child, with the words, "HaveI offended you, dear love?" And she who now avoided his caresses hadkissed him of her own accord with tears, and cried, "No, no, Charles, you never offend me--you are always good to me!"

There had been a moment to-day, just before she had taunted JamesMottram with being over-scrupulous, when she had told herself that shecould be loyal to both of these men she loved and who loved her, givingto each a different part of her heart. 

But that bargain with conscience had never been struck; whileconsidering it she had found herself longing for some convulsion of theearth which should throw her and Mottram in each other's arms. 

James Mottram traitor? That was what she was about to make him be. Catherine forced herself to face the remorse, the horror, the loathingof himself which would ensue. 

It was for Mottram's sake, far more than in response to the command laidon her by her own soul, that Catherine Nagle finally determined on theact of renunciation which she knew was being immediately required ofher. 

 * * * * *

When Mrs. Nagle came out on the terrace the three men roseceremoniously. She glanced at Charles, even now her first thought andher first care. His handsome face was overcast with the look of gloomypreoccupation which she had learnt to fear, though she knew that intruth it signified but little. At James Mottram she did not look, forshe wished to husband her strength for what she was about to do. 

Making a sign to the others to sit down, she herself remained standingbehind Charles's chair. It was from there that she at last spoke, instinctively addressing her words to the old priest. 

"I wonder, " she said, "if James has told you of his approachingdeparture? He has heard from his agent in Jamaica that his presence isurgently required there. "

Charles Nagle looked up eagerly. "This is news indeed!" he exclaimed. "Lucky fellow! Why, you'll escape all the trouble that you've put on uswith regard to that puffing devil!" He spoke more cordially than he haddone for a long time to his cousin. 

Mr. Dorriforth glanced for a moment up at Catherine's face. Then quicklyhe averted his eyes. 

James Mottram rose to his feet. His limbs seemed to have aged. He gaveCatherine a long, probing look. 

"Forgive me, " he said deliberately. "You mistook my meaning. The matteris not as urgent, Catherine, as you thought. " He turned to Charles, "Iwill not desert my friends--at any rate not for the present. I'll facethe puffing devil with those to whom I have helped to acquaint him!"

But Mrs. Nagle and the priest both knew that the brave words were a vainboast. Charles alone was deceived; and he showed no pleasure in thethought that the man who had been to him so kind and so patient acomrade and so trusty a friend was after all not leaving Englandimmediately. 

"I must be going back to the Eype now. " Mottram spoke heavily; again helooked at Mrs. Nagle with a strangely probing, pleading look. "But I'llcome over to-morrow morning--to Mass. I've not forgotten that to-morrowis St. Catherine's Day--that this is St. Catherine's Eve. "

Charles seemed to wake out of a deep abstraction. "Yes, yes, " he saidheartily. "To-morrow is the great day! And then, after we've hadbreakfast I shall be able to consult you, James, about a very importantmatter, that new well they're plaguing me to sink in the village. "

For the moment the cloud had again lifted; Nagle looked at his cousinwith all his old confidence and affection, and in response JamesMottram's face worked with sudden emotion. 

"I'll be quite at your service, Charles, " he said, "quite at yourservice!"

Catherine stood by. "I will let you out by the orchard gate, " she said. "No need for you to go round by the road. "

They walked, silently, side by side, along the terrace and down thestone steps. When in the leafless orchard, and close to where they wereto part, he spoke:

"You bid me go--at once?" Mottram asked the question in a low, eventone; but he did not look at Catherine, instead his eyes seemed to befollowing the movements of the stick he was digging into the ground attheir feet. 

"I think, James, that would be best. " Even to herself the words Mrs. Nagle uttered sounded very cold. 

"Best for me?" he asked. Then he looked up, and with sudden passion, "Catherine!" he cried. "Believe me, I know that I can stay! Forget thewild and foolish things I said. No thought of mine shall wrongCharles--I swear it solemnly. Catherine!--do not bid me leave you. Cannot you trust my honour?" His eyes held hers, by turns they seemed tobecome beseeching and imperious. 

Catherine Nagle suddenly threw out her hands with a piteous gesture. "Ah! James, " she said, "I cannot trust my own----" And as she thus madesurrender of her two most cherished possessions, her pride and herwomanly reticence, Mottram's face--the plain-featured face soexquisitely dear to her--became transfigured. He said no word, he madeno step forward, and yet Catherine felt as if the whole of his being wascalling her, drawing her to him. .. . 

Suddenly there rang through the still air a discordant cry: "Catherine!Catherine!"

Mrs. Nagle sighed, a long convulsive sigh. It was as though a deep pithad opened between herself and her companion. "That was Charles, " shewhispered, "poor Charles calling me. I must not keep him waiting. "

"God forgive me, " Mottram said huskily, "and bless you, Catherine, forall your goodness to me. " He took her hand in farewell, and she felt thefirm, kind grasp to be that of the kinsman and friend, not that of thelover. 

Then came over her a sense of measureless and most woeful loss. Sherealized for the first time all that his going away would mean toher--of all that it would leave her bereft. He had been the one humanbeing to whom she had been able to bring herself to speak freely. Charles had been their common charge, the link as well as the barrierbetween them. 

"You'll come to-morrow morning?" she said, and she tried to withdraw herhand from his. His impersonal touch hurt her. 

"I'll come to-morrow, and rather early, Catherine. Then I'll be able toconfess before Mass. " He was speaking in his usual voice, but he stillheld her hand, and she felt his grip on it tightening, bringing welcomehurt. 

"And you'll leave----?"

"For Plymouth to-morrow afternoon, " he said briefly. He dropped herhand, which now felt numbed and maimed, and passed through the gatewithout looking back. 

She stood a moment watching him as he strode down the field path. It hadsuddenly become, from day, night, --high time for Charles to be indoors. 

Forgetting to lock the gate, she turned and retraced her steps throughthe orchard, and so made her way up to where her husband and the oldpriest were standing awaiting her. 

As she approached them, she became aware that something going on in thevalley below was absorbing their close attention. She felt glad thatthis was so. 

"There it is!" cried Charles Nagle angrily. "I told you that they'dbegin their damned practice again to-night!"

Slowly through the stretch of open country which lay spread to theirright, the Bridport Wonder went puffing its way. Lanterns had been hungin front of the engine, and as it crawled sinuously along it looked likesome huge monster with myriad eyes. As it entered the wood below, thedark barrel-like body of the engine seemed to give a bound, a lurchforward, and the men that manned it laughed out suddenly and loudly. Thesound of their uncouth mirth floated upwards through the twilight. 

"James's ale has made them merry!" exclaimed Charles, wagging his head. "And he, going through the wood, will just have met the puffing devil. Iwish him the joy of the meeting!"

II

It was five hours later. Mrs. Nagle had bidden her reverend guest goodnight, and she was now moving about her large, barely furnishedbedchamber, waiting for her husband to come upstairs. 

The hours which had followed James Mottram's departure had seemedintolerably long. Catherine felt as if she had gone through someterrible physical exertion which had left her worn out--stupefied. Andyet she could not rest. Even now her day was not over; Charles oftengrew restless and talkative at night. He and Mr. Dorriforth were nodoubt still sitting talking together downstairs. 

Mrs. Nagle could hear her husband's valet moving about in the next room, and the servant's proximity disturbed her. 

She waited awhile and then went and opened the door of thedressing-room. "You need not sit up, Collins, " she said. 

The man looked vaguely disturbed. "I fear that Mr. Nagle, madam, hasgone out of doors, " he said. 

Catherine felt dismayed. The winter before Charles had once stayed outnearly all night. 

"Go you to bed, Collins, " she said. "I will wait up till Mr. Nagle comesin, and I will make it right with him. "

He looked at her doubtingly. Was it possible that Mrs. Nagle was unawareof how much worse than usual his master had been the last few days?

"I fear Mr. Nagle is not well to-day, " he ventured. "He seems muchdisturbed to-night. "

"Your master is disturbed because Mr. Mottram is again leaving Englandfor the Indies. " Catherine forced herself to say the words. She wasdully surprised to see how quietly news so momentous to her was receivedby her faithful servant. 

"That may be it, " said the man consideringly, "but I can't help thinkingthat the master is still much concerned about the railroad. I fear thathe has gone down to the wood to-night. "

Catherine was startled. "Oh, surely he would not do that, Collins?" Sheadded in a lower tone, "I myself locked the orchard gate. "

"If that is so, " he answered, obviously relieved, "then with your leave, madam, I'll be off to bed. "

Mrs. Nagle went back into her room, and sat down by the fire, and then, sooner than she had expected to do so, she heard a familiar sound. Itcame from the chapel, for Charles was fond of using that strange andsecret entry into his house. 

She got up and quietly opened her bedroom door. 

From the hall below was cast up the dim light of the oil-lamp whichalways burnt there at night, and suddenly Catherine saw her husbandemerge from the chapel passage, and begin walking slowly round theopposite side of the gallery. She watched him with languid curiosity. 

Charles Nagle was treading softly, his head bent as if in thought. Suddenly he stayed his steps by a half-moon table on which stood a largeChinese bowl filled with pot-pourri; and into this he plunged his hands, seeming to lave them in the dry rose-leaves. Catherine felt no surprise, she was so used to his strange ways; and more than once he had hiddenthings--magpie fashion--in that great bowl. She turned and closed herdoor noiselessly; Charles much disliked being spied on. 

At last she heard him go into his dressing-room. Then came the sounds ofcupboard doors being flung open, and the hurried pouring out ofwater. .. . But long before he could have had time to undress, she heardthe familiar knock. 

She said feebly, "Come in, " and the door opened. 

It was as she had feared; her husband had no thought, no intention, ofgoing yet to bed. Not only was he fully dressed, but the white eveningwaistcoat he had been wearing had been changed by him within the lastfew moments for a waistcoat she had not seen before, though she hadheard of its arrival from London. It was of cashmere, the latest freakof fashion. She also saw with surprise that his nankeen trousers werestained, as if he had been kneeling on damp ground. He looked very hot, his wavy hair lay damply on his brow, and he appeared excited, oppressively alive. 

"Catherine!" he exclaimed, hurrying up to the place where she wasstanding near the fire. "You will bear witness that I was always andmost positively averse to the railroad being brought here?" He did notwait for her to answer him. "Did I not always say that trouble wouldcome of it--trouble to us all? Yet sometimes it's an ill thing to beproved right. "

"Indeed it is, Charles, " she answered gently. "But let us talk of thisto-morrow. It's time for bed, my dear, and I am very weary. "

He was now standing by her, staring down into the fire. 

Suddenly he turned and seized her left arm. He brought her unresistingacross the room, then dragged aside the heavy yellow curtains which hadbeen drawn before the central window. 

"Look over there, Catherine, " he said meaningly. "Can you see the Eype?The moon gives but little light to-night, but the stars are bright. Ican see a glimmer at yon window. They must be still waiting for James tocome home. "

"I see the glimmer you mean, " she said dully. "No doubt they leave alamp burning all night, as we do. James must have got home hours ago, Charles. " She saw that the cuff of her husband's coat was also coveredwith dark, damp stains, and again she wondered uneasily what he had beendoing out of doors. 

"Catherine?" Charles Nagle turned her round, ungently, and forced her tolook up into his face. "Have you ever thought what 'twould be like tolive at the Eype?"

The question startled her. She roused herself to refute what she felt tobe an unworthy accusation. "No, Charles, " she said, looking at himsteadily. "God is my witness that at no time did I think of living atthe Eype! Such a wish never came to me----"

"Nor to me!" he cried, "nor to me, Catherine! All the long years thatJames Mottram was in Jamaica the thought never once came to me that hemight die, and I survive him. After all we were much of an age, he hadbut two years the advantage of me. I always thought that the boy--myaunt's son, curse him!--would get it all. Then, had I thought of it--andI swear I never did think of it--I should have told myself that any dayJames might bring a wife to the Eype----"

He was staring through the leaded panes with an intent, eager gaze. "Itis a fine house, Catherine, and commodious. Larger, airier thanours--though perhaps colder, " he added thoughtfully. "Cold I alwaysfound it in winter when I used to stay there as a boy--colder than thishouse. You prefer Edgecombe, Catherine? If you were given a choice, isit here that you would live?" He looked at her, as if impatient for ananswer. 

"Every stone of Edgecombe, our home, is dear to me, " she said solemnly. "I have never admired the Eype. It is too large, too cold for my taste. It stands too much exposed to the wind. "

"It does! it does!" There was a note of regret in his voice. He let thecurtain fall and looked about him rather wildly. 

"And now, Charles, " she said, "shall we not say our prayers and retireto rest. "

"If I had only thought of it, " he said, "I might have said my prayers inthe chapel. But there was much to do. I thought of calling you, Catherine, for you make a better sacristan than I. Then I rememberedBoney--poor little Boney crushed by the miller's dray--and how you criedall night, and that though I promised you a far finer, cleverer dog thanthat poor old friend had ever been. Collins said, 'Why, sir, you shouldhave hid the old dog's death from the mistress till the morning!' Aworthy fellow, Collins. He meant no disrespect to me. At that time, d'you remember, Collins had only been in my service a few months?"

 * * * * *

It was an hour later. From where she lay in bed, Catherine Nagle withdry, aching eyes stared into the fire, watching the wood embers turnfrom red to grey. By her side, his hand in hers, Charles slept thedreamless, heavy slumber of a child. 

Scarcely breathing, in her anxiety lest he should wake, she loosened herhand, and with a quick movement slipped out of bed. The fire was burninglow, but Catherine saw everything in the room very clearly, and shethrew over her night-dress a long cloak, and wound about her head thescarf which she had worn during her walk to the wood. 

It was not the first time Mrs. Nagle had risen thus in the still nightand sought refuge from herself and from her thoughts in the chapel; andher husband had never missed her from his side. 

As she crept round the dimly lit gallery she passed by the great bowl ofpot-pourri by which Charles Nagle had lingered, and there came to herthe thought that it might perchance be well for her to discover, beforethe servants should have a chance of doing so, what he had doubtlesshidden there. 

Catherine plunged both her hands into the scented rose-leaves, and shegave a sudden cry of pain--for her fingers had closed on the sharp edgeof a steel blade. Then she drew out a narrow damascened knife, onewhich her husband, taken by its elegant shape, had purchased longbefore in Italy. 

Mrs. Nagle's brow furrowed in vexation--Collins should have put thedangerous toy out of his master's reach. Slipping the knife into thedeep pocket of her cloak, she hurried on into the unlit passage leadingto the chapel. 

 * * * * *

Save for the hanging lamp, which since Mr. Dorriforth had said Massthere that morning signified the presence of the Blessed Sacrament, thechapel should have been in darkness. But as Catherine passed through thedoor she saw, with sudden, uneasy amazement, the farther end of thechapel in a haze of brightness. 

Below the altar, striking upwards from the floor of the sanctuary, gleamed a corona of light. Charles--she could not for a moment doubtthat it was Charles's doing--had moved the six high, heavy silvercandlesticks which always stood on either side of the altar, and hadplaced them on the ground. 

There, in a circle, the wax candles blazed, standing sentinel-wise abouta dark, round object which was propped up on a pile of altar-linencarefully arranged to support it. 

Fear clutched at Catherine's heart--such fear as even in the early daysof Charles's madness had never clutched it. She was filled with ahorrible dread, and a wild, incredulous dismay. 

What was the Thing, at once so familiar and so terribly strange, thatCharles had brought out of the November night and placed with so muchcare below the altar?

But the thin flames of the candles, now shooting up, now guttering low, blown on by some invisible current of strong air, gave no steady light. 

Staying still close to the door, she sank down on her knees, anddesiring to shut out, obliterate, the awful sight confronting her, shepressed both her hands to her eyes. But that availed her nothing. 

Suddenly there rose up before Catherine Nagle a dreadful scene of thatgreat Revolution drama of which she had been so often told as a child. She saw, with terrible distinctness, the severed heads of men and womenborne high on iron pikes, and one of these blood-streaked, livid faceswas that of James Mottram--the wide-open, sightless eyes, his eyes. .. . 

There also came back to her as she knelt there, shivering with cold andanguish, the story of a French girl of noble birth who, having boughther lover's head from the executioner, had walked with it in her armsto the village near Paris where stood his deserted château. 

Slowly she rose from her knees, and with her hands thrown out beforeher, she groped her way to the wall and there crept along, as if aprecipice lay on her other side. 

At last she came to the narrow oak door which gave on to the staircaseleading into the open air. The door was ajar; it was from there thatblew the current of air which caused those thin, fantastic flames toflare and gutter in the awful stillness. 

She drew the door to, and went on her way, so round to the altar. In thenow steadier light Catherine saw that the large missal lay open at theOffice for the Dead. 

She laid her hands with a blind instinct upon the altar, and felt ahealing touch upon their palms. Henceforth--and Catherine Nagle wasfated to live many long years--she remained persuaded that it was thenthere had come to her a shaft of divine light piercing the dark recessesof her soul. For it was at that moment that there came to her theconviction, and one which never faltered, that Charles Nagle had done noinjury to James Mottram. And there also came to her then the swiftunderstanding of what others would believe, were there to be found inthe private chapel of Edgecombe Manor that which now lay on the groundbehind her, close to her feet. 

So understanding, Catherine suddenly saw the way open before her, andthe dread thing which she must do if Charles were to be saved from aterrible suspicion--one which would undoubtedly lead to his being takenaway from her and from all that his poor, atrophied heart held dear, tobe asylumed. 

With steps that did not falter, Catherine Nagle went behind the altarinto the little sacristy, there to seek in the darkness an altar-cloth. 

Holding the cloth up before her face she went back into the lightedchapel, and kneeling down, she uncovered her face and threw the clothover what lay before her. 

And then Catherine's teeth began to chatter, and a mortal chill overtookher. She was being faced by a new and to her a most dread enemy, fortill to-night she and that base physical fear which is the coward's foehad never met. Pressing her hands together, she whispered the short, simple prayer for the Faithful Departed that she had said so often and, she now felt, so unmeaningly. Even as she uttered the familiar words, base Fear slunk away, leaving in his place her soul's old companion, Courage, and his attendant, Peace. 

She rose to her feet, and opening wide her eyes forced herself to thinkout what must be done by her in order that no trace of Charles'shandiwork should remain in the chapel. 

Snuffing out the wicks, Catherine lifted the candlesticks from theground and put them back in their accustomed place upon the altar. Then, stooping, she forced herself to wrap up closely in the altar-cloth thatwhich must be her burden till she found James Mottram's headless bodywhere Charles had left it, and placing that same precious burden withinthe ample folds of her cloak, she held it with her left hand and armclosely pressed to her bosom. .. . 

With her right hand she gathered up the pile of stained altar-linen fromthe ground, and going once more into the sacristy she thrust it into theoak chest in which were kept the Lenten furnishings of the altar. Havingdone that, and walking slowly lest she should trip and fall, she madeher way to the narrow door Charles had left open to the air, and goingdown the steep stairway was soon out of doors in the dark and windynight. 

Charles had been right, the moon gave but little light; enough, however, so she told herself, for the accomplishment of her task. 

She sped swiftly along the terrace, keeping close under the house, andthen more slowly walked down the stone steps where last time she trodthem Mottram had been her companion, his living lips as silent as werehis dead lips now. 

The orchard gate was wide open, and as she passed through there came toCatherine Nagle the knowledge why Charles on his way back from the woodhad not even latched it; he also, when passing through it, had beenbearing a burden. .. . 

She walked down the field path; and when she came to the steep placewhere Mottram had told her that he was going away, the tears for thefirst time began running down Catherine's face. She felt again thesharp, poignant pain which his then cold and measured words had dealther, and the blow this time fell on a bruised heart. With a convulsivegesture she pressed more closely that which she was holding to herdesolate breast. 

At night the woodland is strangely, curiously alive. Catherine shudderedas she heard the stuffless sounds, the tiny rustlings and burrowings ofthose wild, shy creatures whose solitude had lately been so rudelyinvaded, and who now of man's night made their day. Their myriadpresence made her human loneliness more intense than it had been in theopen fields, and as she started walking by the side of the iron rails, her eyes fixed on the dark drift of dead leaves which dimly marked thepath, she felt solitary indeed, and beset with vague and fearsometerrors. 

At last she found herself nearing the end of the wood. Soon would comethe place where what remained of the cart-track struck sharply to theleft, up the hill towards the Eype. 

It was there, close to the open, that Catherine Nagle's quest ended; andthat she was able to accomplish the task she had set herself, of makingthat which Charles had rendered incomplete, complete as men, consideringthe flesh, count completeness. 

Within but a few yards of safety, James Mottram had met with death; aswift, merciful death, due to the negligence of an engine-driver notonly new to his work but made blindly merry by Mottram's gift of ale. 

 * * * * *

Charles Nagle woke late on the morning of St. Catherine's Day, and thepale November sun fell on the fully dressed figures of his wife and Mr. Dorriforth standing by his bedside. 

But Charles, absorbed as always in himself, saw nothing untoward intheir presence. 

"I had a dream!" he exclaimed. "A most horrible and gory dream thisnight! I thought I was in the wood; James Mottram lay before me, doneto death by that puffing devil we saw slithering by so fast. His headnearly severed--_à la guillotine_, you understand, my love?--from hispoor body----" There was a curious, secretive smile on Charles Nagle'spale, handsome face. 

Catherine Nagle gave a cry, a stifled shriek of horror. 

The priest caught her by the arm and led her to the couch which stoodacross the end of the bed. 

"Charles, " he said sternly, "this is no light matter. Yourdream--there's not a doubt of it--was sent you in merciful preparationfor the awful truth. Your kinsman, your almost brother, Charles, wasfound this morning in the wood, dead as you saw him in your dream. "

The face of the man sitting up in bed stiffened--was it with fear orgrief? "They found James Mottram dead?" he repeated with an uneasyglance in the direction of the couch where crouched his wife. "And hishead, most reverend sir--what of his head?"

"James Mottram's body was terribly mangled. But his head, " answered thepriest solemnly, "was severed from his body, as you saw it in yourdream, Charles. A strangely clean cut, it seems----"

"Ay, " said Charles Nagle. "That was in my dream too; if I said nearlysevered, I said wrong. "

Catherine was now again standing by the priest's side. 

"Charles, " she said gravely, "you must now get up; Mr. Dorriforth isonly waiting for you, to say Mass for James's soul. "

She made the sign of the cross, and then, with her right hand shadingher sunken eyes, she went on, "My dear, I entreat you to tell noone--not even faithful Collins--of this awful dream. We want no suchtale spread about the place----"

She looked at the old priest entreatingly, and he at once responded. "Catherine is right, Charles. We of the Faith should be more carefulwith regard to such matters than are the ignorant and superstitious. "

But he was surprised to hear the woman by his side say insistently, "Charles, if only to please me, vow that you will keep most secret thisdreadful dream. I fear that if it should come to your Aunt Felwake'sears----"

"That I swear it shall not, " said Charles sullenly. 

And he kept his word. 

THE WOMAN FROM PURGATORY

 ". .. Not dead, this friend--not dead, But, in the path we mortals tread, Got some few, little steps ahead And nearer to the end, So that you, too, once past the bend, Shall meet again, as face to face, this friend You fancy dead. "

I

Mrs. Barlow, the prettiest and the happiest and the best dressed of theyoung wives of Summerfield, was walking toward the Catholic Church. Shewas going to consult the old priest as to her duty to an unsatisfactoryservant; for Agnes Barlow was a conscientious as well as a pretty and ahappy woman. 

Foolish people are fond of quoting a foolish gibe: "Be good, and you maybe happy; but you will not have a good time. " The wise, however, soonbecome aware that if, in the course of life's journey, you achievegoodness and happiness, you will almost certainly have a good time too. 

So, at least, Agnes Barlow had found in her own short life. Herexcellent parents had built one of the first new houses in what had thenbeen the pretty, old-fashioned village of Summerfield, some fifteenmiles from London. There she had been born; there she had spentdelightful years at the big convent school over the hill; there she hadgrown up into a singularly pretty girl; and there, finally--it hadseemed quite final to Agnes--she had met the clever, fascinating younglawyer, Frank Barlow. 

Frank had soon become the lover all her girl friends had envied her, andthen the husband who was still--so he was fond of saying and of provingin a dozen dear little daily ways--as much in love with her as on theday they were married. They lived in a charming house called The Haven, and they were the proud parents of a fine little boy, named Francisafter his father, who never had any of the tiresome ailments whichafflict other people's children. 

But strange, dreadful things do happen--not often, of course, but justnow and again--even in this delightful world! So thought Agnes Barlow onthis pleasant May afternoon; for, as she walked to church, this pretty, happy, good woman found her thoughts dwelling uncomfortably on anotherwoman, her sometime intimate friend and contemporary, who was neithergood nor happy. 

This was Teresa Maldo, the lovely half-Spanish girl who had been herfavourite schoolmate at the convent over the hill. 

Poor, foolish, unhappy, wicked Teresa! Only ten days ago Teresa had donea thing so extraordinary, so awful, so unprecedented, that Agnes Barlowhad thought of little else ever since. Teresa Maldo had eloped, goneright away from her home and her husband, and with a married man!

Teresa and Agnes were the same age; they had had the same upbringing;they were both--in a very different way, however--beautiful, and theyhad each been married, six years before, on the same day of the month. 

But how different had been their subsequent fates!

Teresa had at once discovered that her husband drank. But she loved him, and for a while it seemed as if marriage would reform Maldo. Unfortunately, this better state of things did not last: he again beganto drink: and the matrons of Summerfield soon had reason to shake theirheads over the way Teresa Maldo went on. 

Men, you see, were so sorry for this lovely young woman, blessed (orcursed) with what old-fashioned folk call "the come-hither eye, " thatthey made it their business to console her for such a worthless husbandas was Maldo. No wonder Teresa and Agnes drifted apart; no wonder FrankBarlow soon forbade his spotless Agnes to accept Mrs. Maldo'sinvitations. And Agnes knew that her dear Frank was right; she had nevermuch enjoyed her visits to Teresa's house. 

But an odd thing had happened about a fortnight ago. And it was to thisodd happening that Agnes's mind persistently recurred each time shefound herself alone. 

About three days before Teresa Maldo had done the mad and wicked thingof which all Summerfield was still talking, she had paid a long call onAgnes Barlow. 

The unwelcome guest had stayed a very long time; she had talked, as shegenerally did talk now, wildly and rather strangely; and Agnes, lookingback, was glad to remember that no one else had come in while her oldschoolfellow was there. 

When, at last, Teresa Maldo had made up her mind to go (luckily, someminutes before Frank was due home from town), Agnes accompanied her tothe gate of The Haven, and there the other had turned round and madesuch odd remarks. 

"I came to tell you something!" she had exclaimed. "But, now that I seeyou looking so happy, so pretty, and--forgive me for saying so, Agnes--so horribly good, I feel that I can't tell you! But, Agnes, whatever happens, you must pity, and--and, if you can, understand me. "

It was now painfully clear to Agnes Barlow that Teresa had come that dayintending to tell her once devoted friend of the wicked thing she meantto do; and more than once pretty and good Mrs. Barlow had asked herselfuneasily whether she could have done anything to stop Teresa on herdownward course. 

But no; Agnes felt her conscience clear. How would it have been possiblefor her even to discuss with Teresa so shameful a possibility as that ofa woman leaving her husband with another man?

Agnes thought of the two sinners with a touch of fascinated curiosity. They were said to be in Paris, and Teresa was probably having a verygood time--a wildly amusing, exciting time. 

She even told herself, did this pretty, happy, fortunate young marriedwoman, that it was strange, and not very fair, that vice and pleasureshould always go together! It was just a little irritating to know thatTeresa would never again be troubled by the kind of worries that playedquite an important part in Agnes's own blameless life. Never again, forinstance, would Teresa's cook give her notice, as Agnes's cook had givenher notice that morning. It was about that matter she wished to seeFather Ferguson, for it was through the priest she had heard of theimpertinent Irish girl who cooked so well, but who had such anindependent manner, and who would _not_ wear a cap!

Yes, it certainly seemed unfair that Teresa would now be rid of alldomestic worries--nay, more, that the woman who had sinned would live inluxurious hotels, motoring and shopping all day, going to the theatre orto a music-hall each night. 

At last, however, Agnes dismissed Teresa Maldo from her mind. She knewthat it is not healthy to dwell overmuch on such people and theirdoings. 

The few acquaintances Mrs. Barlow met on her way smiled and nodded, but, as she was walking rather quickly, no one tried to stop her. She hadchosen the back way to the church because it was the prettiest way, andalso because it would take her by a house where a friend of hers wasliving in lodgings. 

And suddenly the very friend in question--his name was Ferrier--came outof his lodgings. He had a tall, slight, active figure; he was dressed ina blue serge suit, and, though it was still early spring, he wore astraw hat. 

Agnes smiled a little inward smile. She was, as we already know, a verygood as well as a happy woman. But a woman as pretty as was Agnes Barlowmeets with frequent pleasant occasions of withstanding temptation, ofwhich those about her, especially her dear parents and her kind husband, are often curiously unknowing. And the tall, well-set-up masculinefigure now hurrying toward her with such eager steps played aconsiderable part in Agnes's life, if only as constantly providing herwith occasions of acquiring merit. 

Agnes knew very well--even the least imaginative woman is always acutelyconscious of such a fact--that, had she not been a prudent and aladylike as well as (of course) a very good woman, this clever, agreeable, interesting young man would have made love to her. As it was, he (of course) did nothing of the kind. He did not even try to flirtwith her, as our innocent Agnes understood that much-tried verb; and sheregarded their friendship as a pleasant interlude in her placid, well-regulated existence, and as a most excellent influence on his moreagitated life. 

Mr. Ferrier lifted his hat. He smiled down into Agnes's blue eyes. Whatvery charming, nay, what beautiful eyes they were! Deeply, exquisitelyblue, but unshadowed, as innocent of guile, as are a child's eyes. 

"Somehow, I had a kind of feeling that you would be coming by just now, "he said in a rather hesitating voice; "so I left my work and came out onchance. "

Now, Agnes was very much interested in Mr. Ferrier's work. Mr. Ferrierwas not only a writer--the only writer she had ever known; he was also apoet. She had been pleasantly thrilled the day he had given her a slimlittle book, on each page of which was a poem. This gift had been madewhen they had known each other only two months, and he had inscribed it:"From G. G. F. To A. M. B. "

Mr. Ferrier had a charming studio flat in Chelsea, that odd, remoteplace where London artists live, far from the pleasant London of theshops and theatres which was all Agnes knew of the great City near whichshe dwelt. But he always spent the summer in the country, and his summerlasted from the 1st of May till the 1st of October. He had alreadyspent two holidays at Summerfield, and had been a great deal at TheHaven. 

When with Mr. Ferrier, and they were much together during the longweek-days when Summerfield is an Adamless Eden, Agnes Barlow made apoint of often speaking of dear Frank and of Frank's love for her, --not, of course, in a way that any one could have regarded as silly, but in anatural, happy, simple way. 

How easy, how very easy, it is to keep this kind offriendship--friendship between a man and a woman--within bounds! And howterribly sad it was to think that Teresa Maldo had not known how to dothat easy thing! But then, Teresa's lover had been a married manseparated from his wife, and that doubtless made all the difference. Agnes Barlow could assure herself in all sincerity that, had Mr. Ferrierbeen the husband of another woman, she would never have allowed him tobecome her friend to the extent that he was now. 

Mr. Ferrier--Agnes never allowed herself to think of him as Gerald(although he had once asked her to call him by his Christian name)--heldan evening paper in his hand. 

"I was really on my way to The Haven, " he observed, "for there are a fewverses of mine in this paper which I am anxious you should read. ShallI go on and leave it at your house, or will you take it now? And then, if I may, I will call for it some time to-morrow. Should I be likely tofind you in about four o'clock?"

"Yes, I'll be in about four, and I think I'll take the paper now. "

And then--for she was walking very slowly, and Ferrier, with his handsbehind his back, kept pace with her--Agnes could not resist the pleasureof looking down at the open sheet, for the newspaper was so turned aboutthat she could see the little set of verses quite plainly. 

The poem was called "My Lady of the Snow, " and it told in very pretty, complicated language of a beautiful, pure woman whom the writer loved ina desperate but quite respectful way. 

She grew rather red. "I must hurry on, for I am going to church, " shesaid a little stiffly. "Good evening, Mr. Ferrier. Yes, I will keep thepaper till to-morrow, if I may. I should like to show it to Frank. Hehasn't been to the office to-day, for he isn't very well, and he willlike to see an evening paper. "

Mr. Ferrier lifted his hat with a rather sad look, and turned backtoward the house where he lodged. And as Agnes walked on she feltdisturbed and a little uncomfortable. Her clever friend had evidentlybeen grieved by her apparent lack of appreciation of his poem. 

When she reached the church her parents had helped to build, she wentin, knelt down, and said a prayer. Then she got up and walked throughinto the sacristy. Father Ferguson was almost certain to be there justnow. 

Agnes Barlow had known the old priest all her life. He had baptized her;he had been chaplain at the convent during the years she had been atschool there; and now he had come back to be parish priest atSummerfield. 

When with Father Ferguson, Agnes somehow never felt quite so good as shedid when she was by herself or with a strange priest; and yet FatherFerguson was always very kind to her. 

As she came into the sacristy he looked round with a smile. "Well?" hesaid. "Well, Agnes, my child, what can I do for you?"

Agnes put the newspaper she was holding down on a chair. And then, toher surprise, Father Ferguson took up the paper and glanced over thefront page. He was an intelligent man, and sometimes he foundSummerfield a rather shut-in, stifling sort of place. 

But the priest's instinctive wish to know something of what was passingin the great world outside the suburb where it was his duty to dwell didhim an ill turn, for something he read in the paper caused him to uttera low, quick exclamation of intense pain and horror. 

"What's the matter?" cried Agnes Barlow, frightened out of her usualself-complacency. "Whatever has happened, Father Ferguson?"

He pointed with shaking finger to a small paragraph. It was headed"Suicide of a Lady at Dover, " and Agnes read the few lines withbewildered and shocked amazement. 

Teresa Maldo, whom she had visioned, only a few minutes ago, as leadinga merry, gloriously careless life with her lover, was dead. She hadthrown herself out of a bedroom window in a hotel at Dover, and she hadbeen killed instantly, dashed into a shapeless mass on the stones below. 

Agnes stared down at the curt, cold little paragraph with excitedhorror. She was six-and-twenty, but she had never seen death, and, asfar as she knew, the girls with whom she had been at school were allliving. Teresa--poor unhappy, sinful Teresa--had been the first to die, and by her own hand. 

The old priest's eyes slowly brimmed over with tears. "Poor, unhappychild!" he said, with a break in his voice. "Poor, unfortunate Teresa!I did not think, I should never have believed, that she would seek--andfind--this terrible way out. "

Agnes was a little shocked at his broken words. True, Teresa had beenvery unhappy, and it was right to pity her; but she had also been verywicked; and now she had put, as it were, the seal on her wickedness bykilling herself. 

"Three or four days before she went away she came and saw me, " thepriest went on, in a low, pained voice. "I did everything in my power tostop her, but I could do nothing--she had given her word!"

"Given her word?" repeated Agnes wonderingly. 

"Yes, " said Father Ferguson; "she had given that wretched, that wickedlyselfish man her promise. She believed that if she broke her word hewould kill himself. I begged her to go and see some woman--some kind, pitiful, understanding woman--but I suppose she feared lest such a onewould dissuade her to more purpose than I was able to do. "

Agnes looked at him with troubled eyes. 

"She was very dear to my heart, " the priest went on. "She was always agenerous, unselfish child, and she was very, very fond of you, Agnes. "

Agnes's throat tightened. What Father Ferguson said was only too true. Teresa had always been a very generous and unselfish girl, and very, very fond of her. She wondered remorsefully if she had omitted to do orsay anything she could have done or said on the day that poor Teresa hadcome and spoken such strange, wild words----?

"It seems so awful, " she said in a low voice, "so very, very awful tothink that we may not even pray for her soul, Father Ferguson. "

"Not pray for her soul?" the priest repeated. "Why should we not prayfor the poor child's soul? I shall certainly pray for Teresa's soulevery day till I die. "

"But--but how can you do that, when she killed herself?"

He looked at her surprised. "And do you really so far doubt God's mercy?Surely we may hope--nay, trust--that Teresa had time to make an act ofcontrition?" And then he muttered something--it sounded like a line ortwo of poetry--which Agnes did not quite catch; but she felt, as sheoften did feel when with Father Ferguson, at once rebuked andrebellious. 

Of course there _might_ have been time for Teresa to make an act ofcontrition. But every one knows that to take one's life is a deadlysin. Agnes felt quite sure that if it ever occurred to herself to dosuch a thing she would go straight to hell. Still, she was used to obeythis old priest, and that even when she did not agree with him. So shefollowed him into the church, and side by side they knelt down and eachsaid a separate prayer for the soul of Teresa Maldo. 

As Agnes Barlow walked slowly and soberly home, this time by the highroad, she tried to remember the words, the lines of poetry, that FatherFerguson had muttered. They at once haunted and eluded her memory. Surely they could not be

 Between the window and the ground, She mercy sought and mercy found. 

No, Agnes was sure that he had not said "window, " and yet window seemedthe only word that would fit the case. And he had not said, "_she_ mercyfound"; he had said, "_he_ mercy sought and mercy found"--of that Agnesfelt sure, and that, too, was odd. But then, Father Ferguson was veryodd sometimes, and he was fond of quoting in his sermons queer littlebits of verse of which no one had ever heard. 

Suddenly she bethought herself, with more annoyance than the matter wasworth, that in her agitation she had left Mr. Ferrier's newspaper inthe sacristy. She did not like the thought that Father Ferguson wouldprobably read those pretty, curious verses, "My Lady of the Snow. "

Also, Agnes had actually forgotten to speak to the old priest of herimpertinent cook!

II

We find Agnes Barlow again walking in Summerfield; but this time she ishurrying along the straight, unlovely cinder-strewn path which forms ashort cut from the back of The Haven to Summerfield station; and thestill, heavy calm of a late November afternoon broods over the roughground on either side of her. 

It is nearly six months since Teresa Maldo's elopement and subsequentsuicide, and now no one ever speaks of poor Teresa, no one seems toremember that she ever lived, excepting, perhaps, Father Ferguson. .. . 

As for Agnes herself, life had crowded far too many happenings into thelast few weeks for her to give more than a passing thought to Teresa;indeed, the image of her dead friend rose before her only when she wassaying her prayers. And as Agnes, strange to say, had grown rathercareless as to her prayers, the memory of Teresa Maldo was now veryfaint indeed. 

An awful, and to her an incredible, thing had happened to Agnes Barlow. The roof of her snug and happy House of Life had fallen in, and she lay, blinded and maimed, beneath the fragments which had been hurled down onher in one terrible moment. 

Yes, it had all happened in a moment--so she now reminded herself, withthe dull ache which never left her. 

It was just after she had come back from Westgate with little Francis. The child had been ailing for the first time in his life, and she hadtaken him to the seaside for six weeks. 

There, in a day, it had turned from summer to winter, raining as it onlyrains at the seaside; and suddenly Agnes had made up her mind to go backto her own nice, comfortable home a whole week before Frank expected herback. 

Agnes sometimes acted like that--on a quick impulse; she did so to herown undoing on that dull, rainy day. 

When she reached Summerfield, it was to find her telegram to her husbandlying unopened on the hall table of The Haven. Frank, it seemed, hadslept in town the night before. Not that that mattered, so she toldherself gleefully, full of the pleasant joy of being again in her ownhome; the surprise would be the greater and the more welcome when Frankdid come back. 

Having nothing better to do that first afternoon, Agnes had goneup to her husband's dressing-room in order to look over his summerclothes before sending them to the cleaner. In her careful, playing-at-housewifely fashion, she had turned out the pocketsof his cricketing coat. There, a little to her surprise, she hadfound three letters, and idle curiosity as to Frank's invitationsduring her long stay away--Frank was deservedly popular with theladies of Summerfield and, indeed, with all women--caused her totake the three letters out of their envelopes. 

In a moment--how terrible that it should take but a moment to shatterthe fabric of a human being's innocent House of Life!--Agnes had seenwhat had happened to her--to him. For each of these letters, written inthe same sloping woman's hand, was a love letter signed "Janey"; and ineach the writer, in a plaintive, delicate, but insistent and reproachfulway, asked Frank for money. 

Even now, though nearly seven weeks had gone by since then, Agnes couldrecall with painful vividness the sick, cold feeling that had come overher--a feeling of fear rather than anger, of fear and desperatehumiliation. 

Locking the door of the dressing-room, she had searched eagerly--adishonourable thing to do, as she knew well. And soon she had foundother letters--letters and bills; bills of meals at restaurants, showingthat her husband and a companion had constantly dined and supped at theSavoy, the Carlton, and Prince's. To those restaurants where he hadtaken her, Agnes, two or three times a year, laughing and grumbling atthe expense, he had taken this--this _person_ again and again in theshort time his wife had been away. 

As to the further letters, all they proved was that Frank had first met"Janey Cartwright" over some law business of hers, connected--even Agnessaw the irony of it--in some shameful way with another man; for, tiedtogether, were a few notes signed with the writer's full name, of whichthe first began:

 Dear Mr. Barlow: Forgive me for writing to your private address [etc. , etc. ]. 

The ten days that followed her discovery had seared Agnes's soul. Frankhad been so dreadfully affectionate. He had pretended--she felt sure itwas all pretence--to be so glad to see her again, though sometimes shecaught him looking at her with cowed, miserable eyes. 

More than once he had asked her solicitously if she felt ill, and shehad said yes, she did feel ill, and the time at the seaside had not doneher any good. 

And then, on the last of those terrible ten days, Gerald Ferrier hadcome down to Summerfield, and both she and Frank had pressed him to stayon to dinner. He had done so, though aware that something was wrong, andhe had been extraordinarily kind, sympathetic, unquestioning. But as hewas leaving he had said a word to his host: "I feel worried about Mrs. Barlow"--Agnes had heard him through the window. "She doesn't look thething, somehow! How would it be if I asked her to go with me to aprivate view? It might cheer her up, and perhaps she would lunch with meafterwards?" Frank had eagerly assented. 

Since then Agnes had gone up to London, if not every day, very nearlyevery day, and Mr. Ferrier had done his best, without much success, to"cheer her up. "

Though they soon became more intimate than they had ever been, Agnesnever told Ferrier what it was that had turned her from a happy, unquestioning child into a miserable woman; but, of course, he guessed. 

And gradually Frank also had come to know that she knew, and, man-like, he spent less and less time in his now uncomfortable home. He would goaway in the morning an hour earlier than usual, and then, under pretextof business keeping him late at the office, he would come back afterhaving dined, doubtless with "Janey, " in town. 

Soon Agnes began to draw a terrible comparison between these twomen--between the husband who had all she had of heart, and the friendwhom she now acknowledged to herself--for hypocrisy had fallen away fromher--had lived only for her, and for the hours they were able to spendtogether, during two long years, and yet who had never told her of hislove, or tried to disturb her trust in Frank. 

Yes, Gerald Ferrier was all that was noble--Frank Barlow all that wasignoble. So she told herself with trembling lip a dozen times a day, taking fierce comfort in the knowledge that Ferrier was noble. But shewas destined even to lose that comfort; for one day, a week before theday when we find her walking to Summerfield station, Ferrier's nobility, or what poor Agnes took to be such, suddenly broke down. 

They had been walking together in Battersea Park, and, after one ofthose long silences which bespeak true intimacy between a man and awoman, he had asked her if she would come back to his rooms--for tea. 

She had shaken her head smilingly. And then he had turned on her with atorrent of impetuous, burning words--words of ardent love, of anguishedlonging, of eager pleading. And Agnes had been frightened, fascinated, allured. 

And that had not been all. 

More quietly he had gone on to speak as if the code of morality in whichhis friend had been bred, and which had hitherto so entirely satisfiedher, was, after all, nothing but a narrow counsel of perfection, suitedto those who were sheltered and happy, but wretchedly inadequate to meetthe needs of the greater number of human beings who are, as Agnes nowwas, humiliated and miserable. His words had found an echo in her soreheart, but she had not let him see how much they moved her. On thecontrary, she had rebuked him, and for the first time they hadquarrelled. 

"If you ever speak to me like that again, " she had said coldly, "I willnot come again. "

And once more he had turned on her violently. "I think you had betternot come again! I am but a man after all!"

They parted enemies; but the same night Ferrier wrote Agnes a verypiteous letter asking pardon on his knees for having spoken as he haddone. And his letter moved her to the heart. Her own deep misery--neverfor one moment did she forget Frank, and Frank's treachery--made herunderstand the torment that Ferrier was going through. 

For the first time she realized, what so few of her kind ever realize, that it is a mean thing to take everything and give nothing in exchange. And gradually, as her long, solitary hours wore themselves away, Agnescame to believe that if she did what she now knew Ferrier desired her todo, --if, casting the past behind her, she started a new life withhim--she would not only be doing a generous thing by the man who hadloved her silently and faithfully for so long, but she would also bepunishing Frank--hurting him in his honour, as he had hurt her in hers. 

And then the stars that fight in their courses for those lovers who arealso poets fought for Ferrier. 

The day after they had quarrelled and he had written her his piteousletter of remorse, Gerald Ferrier fell ill. But he was not too ill towrite. And after he had been ill four days, and when Agnes was feelingvery, very miserable, he wrote and told her of a wonderful vision whichhad been vouchsafed to him. 

In this vision Ferrier had seen Agnes knocking at the narrow front doorof the lonely flat where he lived solitary; and through the door hadslipped in his angelic visitant, by her mere presence bringing himpeace, health, and the happiness he was schooling himself to believemust never come to him through her. 

The post which brought her the letter in which Ferrier told his visionbrought also to Agnes Barlow a little registered parcel containing apearl-and-diamond pendant from Frank. 

For a few moments the two lay on her knee. Then she took up the jeweland looked at it curiously. Was it with such a thing as this that herhusband thought to purchase her forgiveness?

If Ferrier's letter had never been written, if Frank's gift had neverbeen despatched, it may be doubted whether Agnes would have done what wenow find her doing--hastening, that is, on her way to make Ferrier'sdream come true. 

 * * * * *

At last she reached the little suburban station of Summerfield. 

One of her father's many kindnesses to her each year was the gift of aseason ticket to town; but to-day some queer instinct made her buy aticket at the booking-office instead. 

The booking-clerk peered out at her, surprised; then made up his mindthat pretty Mrs. Barlow--she wore to-day a curiously thick veil--had afriend with her. But his long, ruminating stare made her shrink andflush. Was it possible that what she was about to do was written on herface?

She was glad indeed when the train steamed into the station. She gotinto an empty carriage, for the rush that goes on each eveningLondonward from the suburbs had not yet begun. 

And then, to her surprise, she found that it was the thought of herhusband, not of the man to whom she was going to give herself, thatfilled her sad, embittered heart. 

Old memories--memories connected with Frank, his love for her, her lovefor him--became insistent. She lived again, while tears forcedthemselves into her closed eyes, through the culminating moment of hermarriage day, the start for the honeymoon, --a start made amid a crowd oflaughing, cheering friends, from the little station she had just left. 

She remembered the delicious tremor which had come over her when shehad found herself at last alone, really alone, with her three-hour-oldbridegroom. 

How infinitely kind and tender Frank had been to her!

And then Agnes reminded herself, with tightening breath, that men likeFrank Barlow are always kind--too kind--to women. 

Other journeys she and Frank had taken together came and mocked her, andespecially the journey which had followed a month after little Francis'sbirth. 

Frank had driven with her, the nurse, and the baby, to the station--butonly to see them off. He had had a very important case in the Courtsjust then, and it was out of the question that he should go with hiswife to Littlehampton for the change of air, the few weeks by the sea, that had been ordered by her good, careful doctor. 

And then at the last moment Frank had suddenly jumped into the railwaycarriage without a ticket, and had gone along with her part of the way!She remembered the surprise of the monthly nurse, the woman's primremark, when he had at last got out at Horsham, that Mr. Barlow wascertainly the kindest husband she, the nurse, had ever seen. 

But these memories, now so desecrated, did not make her give up herpurpose. Far from it, for in a queer way they made her think moretenderly of Gerald Ferrier, whose life had been so lonely, and who hadknown nothing of the simpler human sanctities and joys, and who hadnever--so he had told her with a kind of bitter scorn of himself--beenloved by any woman whom he himself could love. 

In her ears there sounded Ferrier's quick, hoarsely uttered words:"D'you think I should ever have said a word to you of all this--if youhad gone on being happy? D'you think I'd ask you to come to me if Ithought you had any chance of being happy with him--now?"

And she knew in her soul that he had spoken truly. Ferrier would neverhave tried to disturb her happiness with Frank; he had never so triedduring those two years when they had seen so much of each other, andwhen Agnes had known, deep down in her heart, that he loved her, thoughit had suited her conscience to pretend that his love was only"friendship. "

III

The train glided into the fog-laden London station, and very slowlyAgnes Barlow stepped down out of the railway carriage. She feltoppressed by the fact that she was alone. During the last few weeksFerrier had always been standing on the platform waiting to greet her, eager to hurry her into a cab--to a picture gallery, to a concert, or oflate, oftenest of all, to one of those green oases which the great townstill leaves her lovers. 

But now Ferrier was not here. Ferrier was ill, solitary, in the lonelyrooms which he called "home. "

Agnes Barlow hurried out of the station. 

Hammer, hammer, hammer went what she supposed was her heart. It was acurious, to Agnes a new sensation, bred of the fear that she would meetsome acquaintance to whom she would have to explain her presence intown. She could not help being glad that the fog was of that dense, stifling quality which makes every one intent on his own business ratherthan on that of his neighbours. 

Then something happened which scared Agnes. She was walking, now veryslowly, out of the station, when a tall man came up to her. He took offhis hat and peered insolently into her face. 

"I think I've had the pleasure of meeting you before, " he said. 

She stared at him with a great, unreasonable fear gripping her heart. Nodoubt this was some business acquaintance of Frank's. "I--I don't thinkso, " she faltered. 

"Oh, yes, " he said. "Don't you remember, two years ago at the Pirola inRegent Street? I don't _think_ I can be wrong. "

And then Agnes understood. "You are making a mistake, " she saidbreathlessly, and quickened her steps. 

The man looked after her with a jeering smile, but he made no furtherattempt to molest her. 

She was trembling--shaken with fear, disgust, and terror. It was odd, but such a thing had never happened to pretty Agnes Barlow before. Shewas not often alone in London; she had never been there alone on such afoggy evening, an evening which invited such approaches as those she hadjust repulsed. 

She touched a respectable-looking woman on the arm. "Can you tell me theway to Flood Street, Chelsea?" she asked, her voice faltering. 

"Why, yes, Miss. It's a good step from here, but you can't mistake it. You've only got to go straight along, and then ask again after you'vebeen walking about twenty minutes. You can't mistake it. " And shehurried on, while Agnes tried to keep in step behind her, for the slightadventure outside the station became retrospectively terrifying. Shethrilled with angry fear lest that--that brute should still be stalkingher; but when she looked over her shoulder she saw that the pavement wasnearly bare of walkers. 

At last the broad thoroughfare narrowed to a point where four streetsconverged. Agnes glanced fearfully this way and that. Which of thoseshadowy black-coated figures hurrying past, intent on their business, would direct her rightly? Within the last half-hour Agnes had grownhorribly afraid of men. 

And then, with more relief than the fact warranted, across the narrowroadway she saw emerge, between two parting waves of fog, the shroudedfigure of a woman leaning against a dead wall. 

Agnes crossed the street, but as she stepped up on to the kerb, suddenlythere broke from her, twice repeated, a low, involuntary cry of dread. 

"Teresa!" she cried. And then, again, "Teresa!" For in the shroudedfigure before her she had recognized, with a thrill of incredulousterror, the form and lineaments of Teresa Maldo. 

But there came no answering cry; and Agnes gave a long, gasping, involuntary sigh of relief as she realized that what had seemed to beher dead friend's dark, glowing face was the face of a little child--ablack-haired beggar child, with large startled eyes wide open on aliving world. 

The tall woman whose statuesque figure had so strangely recalledTeresa's supple, powerful form was holding up the child, propping it onthe wall behind her. 

Still shaking with the chill terror induced by the vision she nowbelieved she had not seen, Agnes went up closer to the melancholy group. 

Even now she longed to hear the woman speak. "Can you tell me the way toFlood Street?" she asked. 

The woman looked at her fixedly. "No, that I can't, " she saidlistlessly. "I'm a stranger here. " And then, with a passionate energywhich startled Agnes, "For God's sake, give me something, lady, to helpme to get home! I've walked all the way from Essex; it's taken me, oh!so long with the child, though we've had a lift here and a lift there, and I haven't a penny left. I came to find my husband; but he's losthimself--on purpose!"

A week ago, Agnes Barlow would have shaken her head and passed on. Shehad always held the theory, carefully inculcated by her careful parents, that it is wrong to give money to beggars in the street. 

But perhaps the queer illusion that she had just experienced made herremember Father Ferguson. In a flash she recalled a sermon of the oldpriest's which had shocked and disturbed his prosperous congregation, for in it the preacher had advanced the astounding theory that it isbetter to give to nine impostors than to refuse the one just man; nay, more, he had reminded his hearers of the old legend that Christsometimes comes, in the guise of a beggar, to the wealthy. 

She took five shillings out of her purse, and put them, not in thewoman's hand, but in that of the little child. 

"Thank you, " said the woman dully. "May God bless you!" That was all, but Agnes went on, vaguely comforted. 

 * * * * *

And now at last, helped on her way by more than one good-naturedwayfarer, she reached the quiet, but shabby Chelsea street whereFerrier lived. The fog had drifted towards the river, and in thelamplight Agnes Barlow was not long in finding a large open door, abovewhich was inscribed: "The Thomas More Studios. "

Agnes walked timorously through into the square, empty, gas-lit hall, and looked round her with distaste. The place struck her as very uglyand forlorn, utterly lacking in what she had always taken to be theamenities of flat life--an obsequious porter, a lift, electric light. 

How strange of Ferrier to have told her that he lived in a building thatwas beautiful!

Springing in bold and simple curves, rose a wrought-iron staircase, filling up the centre of the narrow, towerlike building. Agnes knew thatFerrier lived high up, somewhere near the top. 

She waited a moment at the foot of the staircase. She was gathering upher strength, throwing behind her everything that had meant life, happiness, and--what signified so very much to such a woman asherself--personal repute. 

But, even so, Agnes did not falter in her purpose. She was stillpossessed, driven onward, by a passion of jealous misery. 

But, though her spirit was willing, ay, and more than willing, forrevenge, her flesh was weak; and as she began slowly walking up thestaircase she started nervously at the grotesque shapes cast by her ownshadow, and at the muffled sounds of her own footfalls. 

Half-way up the high building the gas-jets burned low, and Agnes feltaggrieved. What a mean, stupid economy on the part of the owners of thisstrange, unnatural dwelling-place. 

How dreadful it would be if she were to meet any one she knew--any onebelonging to what she was already unconsciously teaching herself to callher old, happy life! As if in cruel answer to her fear, a door opened, and an old man, clad in a big shabby fur coat and broad-brimmed hat, came out. 

Agnes's heart gave a bound in her bosom. Yes; this was what she hadsomehow thought would happen. In the half-light she took the old man tobe an eccentric acquaintance of her father's. 

"Mr. Willis?" she whispered hoarsely. 

He looked at her, surprised, resentful. 

"My name's not Willis, " he said gruffly, as he passed her on his waydown, and her heart became stilled. How could she have been so foolishas to take that disagreeable old man for kindly-natured Mr. Willis?

She was now very near the top. Only a storey and a half more, and shewould be there. Her steps were flagging, but a strange kind of peace hadfallen on her. In a few moments she would be safe, for ever, inFerrier's arms. How strange and unreal the notion seemed!

And then--and then, as if fashioned by some potent incantation from thevaporous fog outside, a tall, grey figure rose out of nothingness, andstood, barring the way, on the steel floor of the landing above her. 

Agnes clutched the iron railing, too oppressed rather than toofrightened to speak. Out in the fog-laden street she had involuntarilycalled out the other's name. "Teresa?" she had cried, "Teresa!" But thistime no word broke from her lips, for she feared that if she spoke theother would answer. 

Teresa Maldo's love, the sisterly love of which Agnes had been so littleworthy, had broken down the gateless barrier which stretches its denselength between the living and the dead. What she, the living woman, hadnot known how to do for Teresa, the dead woman had come back to do forher--for now Agnes seemed suddenly able to measure the depth of the gulfinto which she had been about to throw herself. .. . 

She stared with fearful, fascinated eyes at the immobile figure swathedin grey, cere-like garments, and her gaze travelled stealthfully up tothe white, passionless face, drained of all expression save that ofwatchful concern and understanding tenderness. .. . 

With a swift movement Agnes turned round. Clinging to the iron rail, shestumbled down the stairway to the deserted hall, and with swiftterror-hastened steps rushed out into the street. 

Through the fog she plunged, not even sparing a moment to look back andup to the dimly lighted window behind which poor Ferrier stood, --as asofter, a truer-natured woman might have done. Violently she put allthought of her lover from her, and as she hurried along with tighteningbreath, the instinct of self-preservation alone possessing her, shebecame more and more absorbed in measuring the fathomless depth of thepit in which she had so nearly fallen. 

Her one wish now was to get home--to get home--to get home--before Frankgot back. 

But the fulfilment of that wish was denied her--for as Agnes Barlowwalked, crying softly as she went, in the misty darkness along the roadwhich led from Summerfield station to the gate of The Haven, there fellon her ear the rhythmical tramp of well-shod feet. 

She shrank near to the hedge, in no mood to greet or to accept greetingfrom a neighbour. But the walker was now close to her. He struck amatch. 

"Agnes?" It was Frank Barlow's voice--shamed, eager, questioning. "Isthat you? I thought--I hoped you would come home by this train. "

And as she gave no immediate answer, as he missed--God alone knew withwhat relief--the prim, cold accents to which his wife had accustomed himof late, he hurried forward and took her masterfully in his arms. "Oh!my darling, " he whispered huskily, "I know I've been a beast--but I'venever left off loving you--and I can't stand your coldness, Agnes; it'sdriving me to the devil! Forgive me, my pure angel----"

And Frank Barlow's pure angel did forgive him, and with a spontaneityand generous forgetfulness which he will ever remember. Nay, more;Agnes--and this touched her husband deeply--even gave up her pleasantacquaintance with that writing fellow, Ferrier, because Ferrier, throughno fault of his, was associated, in both their minds, with the terribletime each would have given so much to obliterate from the record oftheir otherwise cloudless married life. 

WHY THEY MARRIED

 "God doeth all things well, though by what strange, solemn, and murderous contrivances. "

I

John Coxeter was sitting with his back to the engine in a first-classcarriage in the Paris-Boulogne night train. Not only Englishman, butEnglishman of a peculiarly definite class, that of the London civilservant, was written all over his spare, still active figure. 

It was late September, and the rush homewards had begun; so Coxeter, being a man of precise and careful habit, had reserved a corner seat. Then, just before the train had started, a certain Mrs. Archdale, ayoung widowed lady with whom he was acquainted, had come up to him onthe Paris platform, and to her he had given up his seat. 

Coxeter had willingly made the little sacrifice of his personal comfort, but he had felt annoyed when Mrs. Archdale in her turn had yielded thecorner place with foolish altruism to a French lad exchanging vociferousfarewells with his parents. When the train started the boy did not givethe seat back to the courteous Englishwoman to whom it belonged, andCoxeter, more vexed by the matter than it was worth, would have liked topunch the boy's head. 

And yet, as he now looked straight before him, sitting upright in thecarriage which was rocking and jolting as only a French railway carriagecan rock and jolt, he realized that he himself had gained by the lad'slack of honesty. By having thus given away something which did notbelong to her, Mrs. Archdale was now seated, if uncomfortably hemmed inand encompassed on each side, just opposite to Coxeter himself. 

Coxeter was well aware that to stare at a woman is the height of badbreeding, but unconsciously he drew a great distinction between what isgood taste to do when one is being observed, and that which one doeswhen no one can catch one doing it. Without making the slightest effort, in fact by looking straight before him, Nan Archdale fell into hisdirect line of vision, and he allowed his eyes to rest on her with anunwilling sense that there was nothing in the world he had rather theyrested on. Her appearance pleased his fastidious, rather old-fashionedtaste. Mrs. Archdale was wearing a long grey cloak. On her head waspoised a dark hat trimmed with Mercury wings; it rested lightly on thepale golden hair which formed so agreeable a contrast to her deep blueeyes. 

Coxeter did not believe in luck; the word which means so much to manymen had no place in his vocabulary, or even in his imagination. But, still, the sudden appearance of Mrs. Archdale in the great Paris stationhad been an agreeable surprise, one of those incidents which, justbecause of their unexpectedness, make a man feel not only pleased withhimself, but at one with the world. 

Before Mrs. Archdale had come up to the carriage door at which he wasstanding, several things had contributed to put Coxeter in anill-humour. 

It had seemed to his critical British phlegm that he was surrounded, immersed against his will, in floods of emotion. Among his fellowtravellers the French element predominated. Heavens! how theytalked--jabbered would be the better word--laughed and cried! How theyhugged and embraced one another! Coxeter thanked God he was anEnglishman. 

His feeling of bored disgust was intensified by the conduct of along-nosed, sallow man, who had put his luggage into the same carriageas that where Coxeter's seat had been reserved. 

Strange how the peculiar characteristics common to the Jewish racesurvive, whatever be the accident of nationality. This man also wassaying good-bye, his wife being a dark, thin, eager-looking woman of avery common French type. Coxeter looked at them critically, he wonderedidly if the woman was Jewish too. On the whole he thought not. She washalf crying, half laughing, her hands now clasping her husband's arm, now travelling, with a gesture of tenderness, up to his fleshy face, while he seemed to tolerate rather than respond to her endearments andextravagant terms of affection. "_Adieu, mon petit homme adoré!_" shefinally exclaimed, just as the tickets were being examined, and toCoxeter's surprise the adored one answered in a very English voice, albeit the utterance was slightly thick, "There, there! That'ull do, mydear girl. It's only for a fortnight after all. "

Coxeter felt a pang of sincere pity for the poor fellow; a cad, nodoubt--but an English cad, cursed with an emotional French wife!

Then his attention had been most happily diverted by the unexpectedappearance of Mrs. Archdale. She had come up behind him very quietly, and he had heard her speak before actually seeing her. "Mr. Coxeter, areyou going back to England, or have you only come to see someone off?"

Not even then had Coxeter--to use a phrase which he himself would nothave used, for he avoided the use of slang--"given himself away. " Overhis lantern-shaped face, across his thin, determined mouth, there hadstill lingered a trace of the supercilious smile with which he had beenlooking round him. And, as he had helped Mrs. Archdale into thecompartment, as he indicated to her the comfortable seat he had reservedfor himself, not even she--noted though she was for her powers ofsympathy and understanding--had divined the delicious tremor, thecurious state of mingled joy and discomfort into which her suddenpresence had thrown the man whom she had greeted a little doubtfully, byno means sure that he would welcome her companionship on a long journey. 

And, indeed, in spite of the effect she produced upon him, in spite ofthe fact that she was the only human being who had ever had, or was everlikely to have, the power of making him feel humble, not quite satisfiedwith himself--Coxeter disapproved of Mrs. Archdale. At the presentmoment he disapproved of her rather more than usual, for if she meantto give up that corner seat, why had she not so arranged as to sit byhim? Instead, she was now talking to the French boy who occupied whatshould have been her seat. 

But Nan Archdale, as all her friends called her, was always like that. Coxeter never saw her, never met her at the houses to which he wentsimply in order that he might meet her, without wondering why she wastedso much of the time she might have spent in talking to him, and aboveall in listening to him, in talking and listening to other people. 

Four years ago, not long after their first acquaintance, he had made heran offer of marriage, impelled by something which had appeared at thetime quite outside himself and his usual wise, ponderate view of life. He had been relieved, as well as keenly hurt, when she had refused him. 

Everything that concerned himself appeared to John Coxeter of suchmoment and importance that at the time it had seemed incredible that NanArchdale would be able to keep to herself the peculiar honour which hadbefallen her, --one, by the way, which Coxeter had never seriouslythought of conferring on any other woman. But as time went on he becameaware that she had actually kept the secret which was not hers tobetray, and, emboldened by the knowledge that she alone knew of hishumiliating bondship, he had again, after a certain interval, writtenand asked her if she would marry him. Again she had refused, in a kind, impersonal little note, and this last time she had gone so far as todeclare that in this matter she really knew far better than he didhimself what was good for him, and once more something deep in his hearthad said "Amen. "

When he thought about it, and he went on thinking about it more than wasquite agreeable for his own comfort or peace of mind, Coxeter would tellhimself, with what he believed to be a vicarious pang of regret, thatMrs. Archdale had made a sad mistake as regarded her own interest. Hefelt sure she was not fit to live alone; he knew she ought to besurrounded by the kind of care and protection which only a husband canproperly bestow on a woman. He, Coxeter, would have known how to detachher from the unsuitable people by whom she was always surrounded. 

Nan Archdale, and Coxeter was much concerned that it was so, had aninstinctive attraction for those poor souls who lead forlorn hopes, andof whom--they being unsuccessful in their fine endeavours--the worldnever hears. She also had a strange patience and tenderness for thosene'er-do-wells of whom even the kindest grow weary after a time. Nan hada mass of queer friends, old protégés for whom she worked unceasingly ina curious, detached fashion, which was quite her own, and utterly apartfrom any of the myriad philanthropic societies with which the world shelived in, and to which she belonged by birth, interests its prosperousand intelligent leisure. 

It was characteristic that Nan's liking for John Coxeter often took theform of asking him to help these queer, unsatisfactory people. Why, evenin this last week, while he had been in Paris, he had come into closerelation with one of Mrs. Archdale's "odd-come-shorts. " This time theman was an inventor, and of all unpractical and useless things he hadpatented an appliance for saving life at sea!

Nan Archdale had given the man a note to Coxeter, and it wascharacteristic of the latter that, while resenting what Mrs. Archdalehad done, he had been at some pains when in Paris to see the man inquestion. The invention--as Coxeter had of course known would be thecase--was a ridiculous affair, but for Nan's sake he had agreed tosubmit it to the Admiralty expert whose business it is to consider andpronounce on such futile things. The queer little model which its makerbelieved would in time supersede the life-belts now carried on everyBritish ship, had but one merit, it was small and portable: at thepresent moment it lay curled up, looking like a cross between aserpent's cast skin and a child's spent balloon, in Coxeter'sportmanteau. Even while he had accepted the parcel with a coolly civilword of thanks, he had mentally composed the letter with which he wouldultimately dash the poor inventor's hopes. 

To-night, however, sitting opposite to her, he felt glad that he hadbeen to see the man, and he looked forward to telling her about it. Scarcely consciously to himself, it always made Coxeter glad to feelthat he had given Nan pleasure, even pleasure of which he disapproved. 

And yet how widely apart were these two people's sympathies andinterests! Putting Nan aside, John Coxeter was only concerned with twothings in life--his work at the Treasury and himself--and people onlyinterested him in relation to these two major problems of existence. NanArchdale was a citizen of the world--a freewoman of that dear kingdom ofromance which still contains so many fragrant byways and sunny oases forthose who have the will to find them. But for her freedom of thiskingdom she would have been a very sad woman, oppressed by the griefsand sorrows of that other world to which she also belonged, for Nan'shuman circle was ever widening, and in her strange heart there seemedalways room for those whom others rejected and despised. 

She had the power no human being had ever had--that of making JohnCoxeter jealous. This was the harder to bear inasmuch as he was wellaware that jealousy is a very ridiculous human failing, and one withwhich he had no sympathy or understanding when it affected--as itsometimes did--his acquaintances and colleagues. Fortunately forhimself, he was not retrospectively jealous--jealous that is of the deadman of whom certain people belonging to his and to Nan's circlesometimes spoke of as "poor Jim Archdale. " Coxeter knew vaguely thatArchdale had been a bad lot, though never actually unkind to his wife;nay, more, during the short time their married life had lasted, Archdale, it seemed, had to a certain extent reformed. 

Although he was unconscious of it, John Coxeter was a very materialhuman being, and this no doubt was why this woman had so compelling anattraction for him; for Nan Archdale appeared to be all spirit, and thatin spite of her eager, sympathetic concern in the lives which circledabout hers. 

And yet? Yet there was certainly a strong, unspoken link between them, this man and woman who had so little in common the one with the other. They met often, if only because they both lived in Marylebone, that mostconventional quarter of old Georgian London, she in Wimpole Street, hein a flat in Wigmore Street. She always was glad to see him, and seemeda little sorry when he left her. Coxeter was one of the rare humanbeings to whom Nan ever spoke of herself and of her own concerns. But, in spite of that curious kindliness, she did not do what so many peoplewho knew John Coxeter instinctively did--ask his advice, and, what was, of course, more seldom done--take it. In fact he had sometimes angrilytold himself that Nan attached no weight to his opinion, and as time hadgone on he had almost given up offering her unsought advice. 

John Coxeter attached great importance to health. He realized that aperfect physical condition is a great possession, and he tookconsiderable pains to keep himself what he called "fit. " Now Mrs. Archdale was recklessly imprudent concerning her health, the health, that is, which was of so great a value to him, her friend. She took hermeals at such odd times; she did not seem to mind, hardly to know, whatshe ate and drank!

Of the many strange things Coxeter had known her to do, by far thestrangest, and one which he could scarcely think of without an inwardtremor, had happened only a few months ago. 

Nan had been with an ailing friend, and the ailing friend's only son, inthe Highlands, and this friend, a foolish woman, --when recalling thematter Coxeter never omitted to call this lady a foolish woman--onsending her boy back to school, had given him what she had thought to bea dose of medicine out of the wrong bottle, a bottle marked "Poison. "Nothing could be done, for the boy had started on his long railwayjourney south before the mistake had been discovered, and even Coxeter, when hearing the story told, had realized that had he been there hewould have been sorry, really sorry, for the foolish mother. 

But Nan's sympathy--and on this point Coxeter always dwelt with aspecial sense of injury--had taken a practical shape. She had poured outa similar dose from the bottle marked "Poison" and had calmly drunk it, observing as she did so, "I don't believe it _is_ poison in the realsense of the word, but at any rate we shall soon be able to find outexactly what is happening to Dick. "

Nothing, or at least nothing but a bad headache, had followed, and sofar had Nan been justified of her folly. But to Coxeter it was terribleto think of what might have happened, and he had not shared in anydegree the mingled amusement and admiration which the story, as toldafterwards by the culpable mother, had drawn forth. In fact, so deeplyhad he felt about it that he had not trusted himself to speak of thematter to Mrs. Archdale. 

But Mrs. Archdale was not only reckless of her health; she was alsoreckless--perhaps uncaring would be the truer word--of something whichJohn Coxeter supposed every nice woman to value even more than herhealth or appearance, that is the curiously intangible, and yet soeasily frayed, human vesture termed reputation. 

To John Coxeter the women of his own class, if worthy, that is, ofconsideration and respect, went clad in a delicate robe of ermine, andthe thought that this ermine should have even a shade cast on itsfairness was most repugnant to him. Now Nan Archdale was not as carefulin this matter of keeping her ermine unspoiled and delicately white asshe ought to have been, and this was the stranger inasmuch as evenCoxeter realized that there was about his friend a Una-like qualitywhich made her unafraid, because unsuspecting, of evil. 

Another of the cardinal points of Coxeter's carefully thought-outphilosophy of life was that in this world no woman can touch pitchwithout being defiled. And yet on one occasion, at least, the woman whonow sat opposite to him had proved the falsity of this view. NanArchdale, apparently indifferent to the opinion of those who wished herwell, had allowed herself to be closely associated with one of thoseunfortunate members of her own sex who, at certain intervals in thehistory of the civilized world, become heroines of a drama of which eachact takes place in the Law Courts. Of these dramas every whispered word, every piece of "business"--to pursue the analogy to its logical end--isoverheard and visualized not by thousands but by millions, --in fact byall those of an age to read a newspaper. 

Had the woman in the case been Mrs. Archdale's sister, Coxeter with agroan would have admitted that she owed her a duty, though a duty whichhe would fain have had her shirk or rather delegate to another. But thiswoman was no sister, not even a friend, simply an old acquaintanceknown to Nan, 'tis true, over many years. Nan had done what she haddone, had taken her in and sheltered her, going to the Court with herevery day, simply because there seemed absolutely no one else willing todo it. 

When he had first heard of what Mrs. Archdale was undertaking to do, Coxeter had been so dismayed that he had felt called upon to expostulatewith her. 

Very few words had passed between them. "Is it possible, " he had asked, "that you think her innocent? That you believe her own story?"

To this Mrs. Archdale had answered with some distress, "I don't know, Ihaven't thought about it---- As she says she is--I hope she is. If she'snot, I'd rather not know it. "

It had been a confused utterance, and somehow she had made him feelsorry that he had said anything. Afterwards, to his surprise andunwilling relief, he discovered that Mrs. Archdale had not suffered inreputation as he had expected her to do. But it made him feel, more thanever, that she needed a strong, wise man to take care of her, and tokeep her out of the mischief into which her unfortunategood-nature--that was the way Coxeter phrased it to himself--was so aptto lead her. 

It was just after this incident that he had again asked her to marryhim, and that she had again refused him. But it was since then that hehad become really her friend. 

 * * * * *

At last Mrs. Archdale turned away, or else the French boy had come to anend of his eloquence. Perhaps she would now lean a little forward andspeak to him--the friend whom she had not seen for some weeks and whomshe had seemed so sincerely glad to see half an hour ago? But no; sheremained silent, her face full of thought. 

Coxeter leant back; as a rule he never read in a train, for he was awarethat it is injurious to the eyesight to do so. But to-night he suddenlytold himself that after all he might just as well look at the Englishpaper he had bought at the station. He might at least see what sort ofcrossing they were going to have to-night. Not that he minded forhimself. He was a good sailor and always stayed on deck whatever theweather, but he hoped it would be smooth for Mrs. Archdale's sake. Itwas so unpleasant for a lady to have a rough passage. 

Again, before opening the paper, he glanced across at her. She did notlook strong; that air of delicacy, combined as it was with perfecthealth--for Mrs. Archdale was never ill--was one of the things that madeher attractive to John Coxeter. When he was with a woman, he liked tofeel that he was taking care of her, and that she was more or lessdependent on his good offices. Somehow or other he always felt thisconcerning Nan Archdale, and that even when she was doing something ofwhich he disapproved and which he would fain have prevented her doing. 

Coxeter turned round so that the light should fall on the page at whichhe had opened his newspaper, which, it need hardly be said, was the_Morning Post_. Presently there came to him the murmuring of two voices, Mrs. Archdale's clear, low utterances, and another's, guttural and full. 

Ah! then he had been right; the fellow sitting there, on Nan's otherside, was a Jew: probably something financial, connected with the StockExchange. Coxeter of the Treasury looked at the man he took to be afinancier with considerable contempt. Coxeter prided himself on hisknowledge of human beings, --or rather of men, for even hisself-satisfaction did not go so far as to make him suppose that heentirely understood women; there had been a time when he had thoughtso, but that was a long while ago. 

He began reading his newspaper. There was a most interesting article oneducation. After having glanced at this, he studied more carefullyvarious little items of social news which reminded him that he had beenaway from London for some weeks. Then, as he read on, the conversationbetween Nan Archdale and the man next to her became more audible to him. All the other people in the carriage were French, and so first one, andthen the other, window had been closed. 

His ears had grown accustomed to the muffled, thundering sounds causedby the train, and gradually he became aware that Nan Archdale wasreceiving some singular confidences from the man with whom she was nowspeaking. The fellow was actually unrolling before her the whole of hisnot very interesting life, and by degrees Coxeter began rather tooverhear than to listen consciously to what was being said. 

The Jew, though English by birth, now lived in France. As a young man hehad failed in business in London, and then he had made a fresh startabroad, apparently impelled thereto by his great affection for hismother. The Jewish race, so Coxeter reminded himself, are admirable inevery relation of private life, and it was apparently in order that hismother might not have to alter her style of living that the person onwhom Mrs. Archdale was now fixing her attention had finally accepted apost in a Paris house of business--no, not financial, somethingconnected with the sweetmeat trade. 

Coxeter gathered that the speaker had at last saved enough money to makea start for himself, and that now he was very prosperous. He spoke ofwhat he had done with legitimate pride, and when describing the strugglehe had gone through, the fellow used a very odd expression, "It wasn'tall jam!" he said. Now he was in a big way of business, going over toLondon every three months, partly in connection with his work, partly tosee his old mother. 

Behind his newspaper Coxeter told himself that it was amazing any humanbeing should tell so much of his private concerns to a stranger. Evenmore amazing was it that a refined, rather peculiar, woman like NanArchdale should care to listen to such a commonplace story. Butlistening she was, saying a word here and there, asking, too, veryquaint, practical questions concerning the sweetmeat trade. Why, evenCoxeter became interested in spite of himself, for the Jew was anintelligent man, and as he talked on Coxeter learned with surprise thatthere is a romantic and exciting side even to making sweets. 

"What a pity it is, " he heard Nan say at last in her low, even voice, "that you can't now come back to England and settle down there. Surelyit would make your mother much happier, and you don't seem to like Parisso very much?"

"That is true, " said the man, "but--well, unluckily there's an obstacleto my doing that----"

Coxeter looked up from his paper. The stranger's face had becometroubled, preoccupied, and his eyes were fixed, or so Coxeter fanciedthem to be, on Nan Archdale's left hand, the slender bare hand on whichthe only ring was her wedding ring. 

Coxeter once more returned to his paper, but for some minutes he made noattempt to follow the dancing lines of print. 

"I trust you won't be offended if I ask whether you are, or are not, amarried lady?" The sweetmeat man's voice had a curious note of shamedinterrogation threading itself through the words. 

Coxeter felt surprised and rather shocked. This was what came ofallowing oneself to become familiar with an underbred stranger! But Nanhad apparently not so taken the impertinent question, for, "I am awidow, " Coxeter heard her answer gently, in a voice that had no touch ofoffence in it. 

And then, after a few moments, staring with frowning eyes at thespread-out sheet of newspaper before him, Coxeter, with increasingdistaste and revolt, became aware that Mrs. Archdale was now receivingvery untoward confidences--confidences which Coxeter had always imaginedwere never made save under the unspoken seal of secrecy by one man toanother. This objectionable stranger was telling Nan Archdale the storyof the woman who had seen him off at the station, and whose absurdphrase, "_Adieu, mon petit homme adoré_, " had rung so unpleasantly inhis, Coxeter's, ears. 

The eavesdropper was well aware that such stories are among the everydayoccurrences of life, but his knowledge was largely theoretical; JohnCoxeter was not the sort of man to whom other men are willing to confidetheir shames, sorrows, or even successes in a field of which theaftermath is generally bitter. 

In as far as such a tale can be told with decent ambiguity it was sotold by this man of whose refinement Coxeter had formed so poor anopinion, but still the fact that he was telling it remained--and it wasa fact which to such a man as Coxeter constituted an outrage on thedecencies of life. 

Mrs. Archdale, by her foolish good-nature, had placed herself in such aposition as to be consulted in a case of conscience concerning a Jewishtradesman and his light o' love, and now the man was debating with heras with himself, as to whether he should marry this woman, as to whetherhe should force on his respectable English mother a Frenchdaughter-in-law of unmentionable antecedents! Coxeter gathered that theliaison had lasted ten years--that it had begun, in fact, very soonafter the man had first come to Paris. 

In addition to his feeling of wrath that Nan Archdale should becomecognisant of so sordid a tale, there was associated a feeling of shamethat he, Coxeter, had overheard what it had not been meant that heshould hear. 

Perforce the story went on to its melancholy and inconclusive end, andthen, suddenly, Coxeter became possessed with a desire to see NanArchdale's face. He glanced across at her. To his surprise her face wasexpressionless; but her left hand was no longer lying on her knee, itwas supporting her chin, and she was looking straight before her. 

"I suppose, " she said at last, "that you have made a proper provisionfor your--your friend? I mean in case of your death. I hope you have soarranged matters that if anything should happen to you, this poor womanwho loves you would not have to go back to the kind of life from whichyou took her. " Even Coxeter divined that Nan had not found it easy tosay this thing. 

"Why, no, I haven't done anything of that sort. I never thought of doingit; she's always been the delicate party. I am as strong as a horse!"

"Still--still, life's very uncertain. " Mrs. Archdale was now lookingstraight into the face of the stranger on whom she was thrustingunsought advice. 

"She has no claim on me, none at all----" the man spoke defensively. "Idon't think she'd expect anything of that sort. She's had a very goodtime with me. After all, I haven't treated her badly. "

"I'm sure you haven't, " Nan spoke very gently. "I am sure you have beenalways kind to her. But, if I may use the simile you used just now, life, even to the happiest, the most sheltered, of women, isn't alljam!"

The man looked at her with a doubting, shame-faced glance. "I expectyou're right, " he said abruptly. "I ought to have thought of it. I'llmake my will when I'm in England this time--I ought to have done sobefore. "

Suddenly Coxeter leant forward. He felt the time had come when he reallymust put an end to this most unseemly conversation. 

"Mrs. Archdale?" he spoke loudly, insistently. She looked up, startledat the sharpness of the tone, and the man next her, whose eyes had beenfixed on her face with so moved and doubting a look, sat back. "I wantto tell you that I've seen your inventor, and that I've promised to puthis invention before the right quarter at the Admiralty. "

In a moment Nan was all eagerness. "It really is a very wonderfulthing, " she said; "I'm so grateful, Mr. Coxeter. Did you go and see ittried? _I_ did, last time I was in Paris; the man took me to aswimming-bath on the Seine--such an odd place--and there he tested itbefore me. I was really very much impressed. I do hope you will say aword for it. I am sure they would value your opinion. "

Coxeter looked at her rather grimly. "No, I didn't see it tested. " Tothink that she should have wasted even an hour of her time in such afoolish manner, and in such a queer place, too! "I didn't see the use ofdoing so, though of course the man was very anxious I should. I'mafraid the thing's no good. How could it be?" He smiled superciliously, and he saw her redden. 

"How unfair that is!" she exclaimed. "How can you possibly tell whetherit's no good if you haven't seen it tried? Now I _have_ seen the thingtried. "

There was such a tone of protest in her voice that Coxeter felt calledupon to defend himself. "I daresay the thing's all right in theory, " hesaid quickly, "and I believe what he says about the ordinary life-belts;it's quite true, I mean, that they drown more people than they save: butthat's only because people don't know how to put them on. This thing's atoy--not practical at all. " He spoke more irritably than he generallyallowed himself to speak, for he could see that the Jew was listening toall that they were saying. 

All at once, Mrs. Archdale actually included the sweetmeat stranger intheir conversation, and Coxeter at last found himself at her requestmost unwillingly taking the absurd model out of his bag. "Of courseyou've got to imagine this in a rough sea, " he said sulkily, playing thedevil's advocate, "and not in a fresh water river bath. "

"Well, _I_ wouldn't mind trying it in a rough sea, Mr. Coxeter. " Nansmiled as she spoke. 

Coxeter wondered if she was really serious. Sometimes he suspected thatMrs. Archdale was making fun of him--but that surely was impossible. 

II

When at last they reached Boulogne and went on board the packet, Coxeter's ill-humour vanished. It was cold, raw, and foggy, and most oftheir fellow-passengers at once hurried below, but Mrs. Archdale decidedto stay on the upper deck. This pleased her companion; now at last hewould have her to himself. 

In his precise and formal way he went to a good deal of trouble to makeNan comfortable; and she, so accustomed to take thought for others, stood aside and watched him find a sheltered corner, secure with somedifficulty a deck chair, and then defend it with grim determinationagainst two or three people who tried to lay hands upon it. 

At last he beckoned to her to sit down. "Where's your rug?" he asked. She answered meekly, "I haven't brought one. "

He put his own rug, --large, light, warm, the best money could buy--roundher knees; and in the pleasure it gave him to wait on her thus he didnot utter aloud the reproof which had been on his lips. But she saw himshake his head over a more unaccountable omission--on the journey shehad somehow lost her gloves. He took his own off, and with a touch ofmasterfulness made her put them on, himself fastening the big bonebuttons over each of her small, childish wrists; but his manner while hedid all these things--he would have scorned himself had it beenotherwise--was impersonal, businesslike. 

There are men whose every gesture in connection with a woman becomes aninstinctive caress. Such men, as every woman learns in time, are notgood "stayers, " but they make the time go by very quickly--sometimes. 

With Coxeter every minute lasted sixty seconds. But Nan Archdale foundherself looking at him with unwonted kindliness. At last she said, alittle tremulously, and with a wondering tone in her voice, "You're verykind to me, Mr. Coxeter. " Those who spend their lives in speeding otherson their way are generally allowed to trudge along alone; so at leastthis woman had found it to be. Coxeter made no answer to herwords--perhaps he did not hear them. 

Even in the few minutes which had elapsed since they came on board, thefog had deepened. The shadowy figures moving about the deck only tooksubstance when they stepped into the circle of brightness cast by aswinging globe of light which hung just above Nan Archdale's head. Coxeter moved forward and took up his place in front of the deck-chair, protecting its occupant from the jostling of the crowd, for thesheltered place he had found stood but a little way back from thepassage between the land gangway and the iron staircase leading to thelower deck. 

There were more passengers that night than usual. They passed, aseemingly endless procession, moving slowly out of the darkness into thecircle of light and then again into the white, engulfing mist. 

At last the deck became clear of moving figures; the cold, raw fog haddriven almost everyone below. But Coxeter felt curiously content, ratherabsurdly happy. This was to him a great adventure. .. . 

He took out his watch. If the boat started to time they would be off inanother five minutes. He told himself that this was turning out a verypleasant journey; as a rule when crossing the Channel one meets tiresomepeople one knows, and they insist on talking to one. And then, just ashe was thinking this, there suddenly surged forward out of the foggymist two people, a newly married couple named Rendel, with whom both heand Mrs. Archdale were acquainted, at whose wedding indeed they had bothbeen present some six or seven weeks ago. So absorbed in earnest talkwith one another were the bride and bridegroom that they did not seem tosee where they were going; but when close to Mrs. Archdale they stoppedshort, and turned towards one another, still talking so eagerly as to bequite oblivious of possible eavesdroppers. 

John Coxeter, standing back in the shadow, felt a sudden gust of enviouspain. They were evidently on their way home from their honeymoon, thesehappy young people, blessed with good looks, money, health, and love;their marriage had been the outcome of quite a pretty romance. 

But stay, --what was this they were saying? Both he and Nan unwillinglyheard the quick interchange of words, the wife's shrill, angryutterances, the husband's good-humoured expostulations. "I won't stay onthe boat, Bob. I don't see why we should risk our lives in order thatyou may be back in town to-morrow. I know it's not safe--my great-uncle, the Admiral, always said that the worst storm at sea was not as bad asquite a small fog!" Then the gruff answer: "My dear child, don't be afool! The boat wouldn't start if there was the slightest danger. Youheard what that man told us. The fog was much worse this morning, andthe boat was only an hour late!" "Well, you can do as you like, but _I_won't cross to-night. Where's the use of taking any risk? Mother'suncle, the Admiral----" and Coxeter heard with shocked approval theman's "Damn your great-uncle, the Admiral!"

There they stood, not more than three yards off, the pretty, angrylittle spitfire looking up at her indignant, helpless husband. Coxeter, if disgusted, was amused; there was also the comfort of knowing thatthey would certainly pretend not to see him, even if by chance theyrecognized him, intent as they were on their absurd difference. 

"I shall go back and spend the night at the station hotel. No, youneedn't trouble to find Stockton for me--there's no time. " Coxeter andNan heard the laughing gibe, "Then you don't mind your poor maid beingdrowned as well as your poor husband, " but the bride went on as if hehadn't spoken--"I've quite enough money with me; you needn't give meanything--_good-bye_. "

She disappeared into the fog in the direction of the gangway, andCoxeter moved hastily to one side. He wished to save Bob Rendel theannoyance of recognizing him; but then, with amazing suddenness, something happened which made Coxeter realize that after all women wereeven more inexplicable, unreasonable beings than even he had alwaysknown them to be. 

There came the quick patter of feet over the damp deck, and Mrs. Rendelwas back again, close to where her husband was standing. 

"I've made up my mind to stay on the boat, " she said quietly. "I thinkyou are very unwise, as well as very obstinate, to cross in this fog;but if you won't give way, then I'd rather be with you, and share thedanger. "

Bob Rendel laughed, not very kindly, and together they went across tothe stair leading below. 

Coxeter opened his mouth to speak, then he closed it again. What ascene! What a commentary on married life! And these two people weresupposed to be "in love" with one another. 

The little episode had shocked him, jarred his contentment. "If youdon't mind, I'll go and smoke a pipe, " he said stiffly. 

Mrs. Archdale looked up. "Oh yes, please do, " and yet she felt suddenlybereft of something warm, enveloping, kindly. The words formedthemselves on her lips, "Don't go too far away, " but she did not speakthem aloud. But, as if in answer to her unspoken request, Coxeter calledout, "I'm just here, close by, if you want anything, " and thecommonplace words gave her a curious feeling of security, --a feeling, though she herself was unaware of it, which her own care and tendernessfor others often afforded to those round whom she threw the shelteringmantle of her kindness. 

Perhaps because he was so near, John Coxeter remained in her thoughts. Almost alone of those human beings with whom life brought her incontact, he made no demand on her sympathy, and very little on her time. In fact, his first offer of marriage had taken her so much by surpriseas to strike her as slightly absurd; she had also felt it, at the time, to be an offence, for she had given him no right to encroach on theinner shrine of her being. 

Trying to account for what he had done, she had supposed that JohnCoxeter, being a man who evidently ordered his life according to somekind of system, had believed himself ripe for the honourable estate ofmarriage, and had chosen her as being "suitable. "

When writing her cold letter of refusal, she had expected to hear withina few weeks of his engagement to some "nice" girl. But time had gone byand nothing of the sort had happened. Coxeter's second offer, conveyed, as had been the first, in a formal letter, had found her in a verydifferent mood, for it had followed very closely on that done by her ofwhich he, John Coxeter, had so greatly disapproved. She had been touchedthis second time and not at all offended, and gradually they had becomefriends. It was after his second offer that Nan began making use of him, not so much for herself as on behalf of other people. 

Nan Archdale led her life without reference to what those about herconsidered appropriate or desirable; and years had gone by since theboldest busybody among them would have ventured a word of rebuke. Hersocial background was composed of happy, prosperous people. They had butlittle to do with her, however, save when by some amazing mischancethings went wrong with them; when all went well they were apt to forgetNan Archdale. But John Coxeter, though essentially one of them by birthand instinct, and though it had been through them that she had first methim, never forgot her. 

Yet though they had become, in a sense, intimate, he made on her none ofthose demands which endear a man to a woman. Living up on a pleasanttableland of self-approval, he never touched the heights or depths whichgo to form the relief map of most human beings' lives. He always did hisduty and generally enjoyed doing it, and he had no patience, onlycontempt, for those who shirked theirs. 

The passion of love, that greatest of the Protean riddles set by natureto civilized man and woman, played no part, or so Nan Archdale believed, in John Coxeter's life. At the time she had received the letter in whichhe had first asked her to marry him, there had come to her, seen throughthe softening mists of time, a sharp, poignant remembrance of JimArchdale's offer, "If you won't have me, Nan, I'll do somethingdesperate! You'll be sorry then!" So poor Jim Archdale had conqueredher; and looking back, when she recalled their brief married life, sheforgot the selfishness and remembered only the love, the love which hadmade Jim so dependent on her presence and her sympathy. 

But if John Coxeter were incapable of love, she now knew him to be agood friend, and it was the friend--so she believed, and was grateful tohim for it, --who had asked her to accept what he had quixoticallysupposed would be the shelter of his name when she had done that thingof which he had disapproved. 

To-night Nan could not help wondering if he would ever again ask her tomarry him. She thought not--she hoped not. She told herself quiteseriously that he was one of those men who are far happier unwedded. Hisstandard, not so much of feminine virtue as of feminine behaviour, wastoo high. Take what had happened just now; she had listened indulgently, tenderly, to the quarrel of the newly married couple, but she had seenthe effect it had produced on John Coxeter. To him it had been atragedy, and an ugly, ignoble tragedy to boot. 

 * * * * *

The deck was now clear of passengers. Out in the open sea the fog hadbecome so thick as to be impenetrable, and the boat seemed to be gropingits way, heralded by the mournful screaming of the siren. Mrs. Archdalefelt drowsy; she leant back and closed her eyes. Coxeter was close by, puffing steadily at his pipe. She felt a pleasant sensation of security. 

She was roused, rather startled, by a man bending over her, while avoice said gruffly, "I think, ma'am, that you'd better get into shelter. The deck saloon is close by. Allow me to lead you to it. "

Nan rose obediently. With the petty officer on one side and Coxeter onthe other, she made a slow progress across the deck, and so to thelarge, brilliantly lighted saloon. There the fog had been successfullyshut out, and some fifteen to twenty people sat on the velvet benches;among them was the sweetmeat merchant to whom Nan had talked in thetrain. 

Coxeter found a comfortable place for Nan rather apart from the others, and sitting down he began to talk to her. The fog-horn, which wastrumpeting more loudly, more insistently than ever, did not, he thought, interfere with their conversation as much as it might have done. 

"We shan't be there till morning, " Coxeter heard a man say, "tillmorning doth appear, at this rate!"

"I suppose we're all right. There's no _real_ danger in a fog--not inthe Channel; there never has been an accident on the Channelpassage--not an accident of any serious kind. "

"Yes, there was--to one of the Dieppe boats--a very bad accident!"

And then several of those present joined in the discussion. The man whohad recalled the Dieppe boat accident could be heard, self-assertive, pragmatical, his voice raised above the voices around him. "I've beenall over the world in my time, and when I'm caught in a fog at sea Ialways get up, dress, and go up on deck, however sleepy I may be. "

Coxeter, sitting apart by Nan's side, listened with some amusement. Hisrather thin sense of humour was roused by the fact that the peoplearound him were talking in so absurd a manner. This delay was notpleasant; it might even mean that he would be a few hours late at theTreasury, a thing he had never once been after a holiday, for Coxeterprided himself on his punctuality in the little as well as the greatthings of life. But, of course, all traffic in the Channel would bedelayed by this fog, and his absence would be accounted for by the fact. 

Sitting there, close to Mrs. Archdale, with no one sufficiently near toattract her attention, or, what was more likely, to appeal to her forsympathy, he felt he could well afford to wait till the fog cleared off. As for the loud, insistent screaming of the siren, that sound whichapparently got on the nerves of most of those present in the decksaloon, of course it was a disagreeable noise, but then they all knew itwas a necessary precaution, so why make a fuss about it?

Coxeter turned and looked at his companion, and as he looked at her hefelt a little possessive thrill of pride. Mrs. Archdale alone among thepeople there seemed content and at ease, indeed she was now smiling, smiling very brightly and sweetly, and, following the direction of hereyes, he saw that they rested on a child lying asleep in its mother'sarms. .. . 

Perhaps after all it was a good thing that Nan was so detached frommaterial things. Before that burst of foolish talk provoked by the fog, he had been speaking to her about a matter very interesting tohimself--something connected with his work, something, by the way, ofwhich he would not have thought of speaking to any other woman; but thenMrs. Archdale, as Coxeter had good reason to know, was exceptionallydiscreet. .. . She had evidently been very much interested in all he hadtold her, and he had enjoyed the conversation. 

Coxeter became dimly conscious of what it would mean to him to have Nanto come back to when work, and the couple of hours he usually spent athis club, were over. Perhaps if Nan were waiting for him, he would notwish to stay as long as two hours at his club. But then of course hewould want Nan all to himself. Jealous? Certainly not. He was far toosensible a man to feel jealous, but he would expect his wife to put himfirst--a very long way in front of anybody else. It might beold-fashioned, but he was that sort of man. 

 * * * * *

Coxeter's thoughts leapt back into the present with disagreeableabruptness. Their Jewish fellow-traveller, the man who had thrust onMrs. Archdale such unseemly confidences, had got up. He was now headingstraight for the place where Mrs. Archdale was sitting. 

Coxeter quickly decided that the fellow must not be allowed to bore Mrs. Archdale. She was in his, Coxeter's, care to-night, and he alone had aright to her interest and attention. So he got up and walked down thesaloon. To his surprise the other, on seeing him come near, stoppeddead. "I want to speak to you, " he said in a low voice, "Mr. --er--Coxeter. "

Coxeter looked at him, surprised, then reminded himself that his fullname, "John Coxeter, " was painted on his portmanteau. Also that Mrs. Archdale had called him "Mr. Coxeter" at least once, when discussingthat life-saving toy. Still, sharp, observant fellows, Jews! One shouldalways be on one's guard with them. "Yes?" he said interrogatively. 

"Well, Mr. Coxeter, I want to ask you to do me a little favour. Thetruth is I've just made my will--only a few lines--and I want you to bemy second witness. I've no objection, none in the world, to your seeingwhat I want you to witness. "

He spoke very deliberately, as if he had prepared the form of words inwhich he made his strange request, and as he spoke he held out a sheetof paper apparently torn out of a notebook. "I asked that gentleman overthere"--he jerked his thumb over his shoulder--"to be my first witness, and he kindly consented. I'd be much obliged if you'd sign your namejust here. I'll also ask you to take charge of it--only a smallenvelope, as you see. It's addressed to my mother. I've made herexecutor and residuary legatee. "

Coxeter felt a strong impulse to refuse. He never mixed himself up withother people's affairs; he always refused to do so on principle. 

The man standing opposite to him divined what was passing through hismind, and broke in, "Only just while we're on this boat. You can tear itup and chuck the pieces away once we're on land again--" he spokenervously, and with contemptuous amazement Coxeter told himself that thefellow was _afraid_. "Surely you don't think there's any danger?" heasked. "D'you mean you've made this will because you think something mayhappen to the boat?"

The other nodded, "Accidents do happen"; he smiled rather foolishly ashe said the words, pronouncing the last one, as Coxeter noted withdisapproval, "habben. " He was holding out a fountain pen; he had aningratiating manner, and Coxeter, to his own surprise, suddenly gaveway. 

"All right, " he said, and taking the paper in his hand he glanced overit. He had no desire to pry into any man's private affairs, but hewasn't going to sign anything without first reading it. 

This odd little will consisted of only two sentences, written in aclear, clerkly hand. The first bequeathed an annuity of £240 (sixthousand francs) to Léonie Lenoir, of Rue Lafayette, Paris; the secondappointed the testator's mother, Mrs. Solomon Munich, of Scott Terrace, Maida Vale, residuary legatee and executor. The will was signed "VictorMunich. "

"Very well, I'll sign it, " said Coxeter, at last, "and I'll take chargeof it till we're on land. But look here--I won't keep it a momentlonger!" Then, perhaps a little ashamed of his ungraciousness, "I say, Mr. Munich, if I were you I'd go below and take a stiffish glass ofbrandy and water. I once had a fright, I was nearly run over by abrewer's dray at Charing Cross, and I did that--took some brandy Imean--" he jerked the words out, conscious that the other's sallow facehad reddened. 

Then he signed his name at the bottom of the sheet of paper, and busiedhimself with putting the envelope carefully into his pocketbook. "There, " he said, with the slight supercilious smile which was his mostmarked physical peculiarity, but of which he was quite unconscious, "your will is quite safe now! If we meet at Folkestone I'll hand it youback; if we miss one another in the--er--fog I'll destroy it, asarranged. "

He turned and began walking back to where Nan Archdale was sitting. Whata very odd thing! How extraordinary, how unexpected!

Then a light broke in on him. Why, of course, it was Nan who had broughtthis about! She had touched up the Jew fellow's conscience, frightenedhim about that woman--the woman who had so absurdly termed him her"_petit homme adoré_. " That's what came of mixing up in other people'sbusiness; but Coxeter's eyes nevertheless rested on the sitting figureof his friend with a certain curious indulgence. Odd, sentimental, sensitive creatures--women! But brave--not lacking in moral courageanyway. 

As he came close up to her, Mrs. Archdale moved a little, making roomfor him to sit down by her. It was a graceful, welcoming gesture, andJohn Coxeter's pulse began to quicken. .. . He told himself that this alsowas an extraordinary thing--this journey with the woman he had wished tomake his wife. He felt her to be so tantalizingly near, and yet in asense so very far away. 

His eyes fell on her right hand, still encased in his large brown glove. As he had buttoned that glove, he had touched her soft wrist, and a wildimpulse had come to him to bend yet a little closer and press his lipsto the white triangle of yielding flesh. Of course he had resisted thetemptation, reminding himself sternly that it was a caddish thing evento have thought of taking advantage of Nan's confiding friendliness. Yetnow he wondered whether he had been a fool not to do it. Other men didthose things. 

 * * * * *

There came a dragging, grating sound, the boat shuddering as if inresponse. Coxeter had the odd sensation that he was being gently butirresistibly pushed round, and yet he sat quite still, with nothing inthe saloon changed in relation to himself. 

Someone near him exclaimed in a matter-of-fact voice, "We've struck;we're on a rock. " Everyone stood up, and he saw an awful look of doubt, of unease, cross the faces of the men and women about him. 

The fog-horn ceased trumpeting, and there rose confused sounds, loudhoarse shouts and thin shrill cries, accompanying the dull thundercaused by the tramping of feet. Then the lights went out, all but theyellow flame of a small oil lamp which none of them had known was there. 

The glass-panelled door opened widely, and a burly figure holding atorch, which flared up in the still, moist air, was outlined against thesteamy waves of fog. 

"Come out of here!" he cried; and then, as some people tried to pushpast him, "Steady, keep cool! There'll be room in the boats for everysoul on board, " and Coxeter, looking at the pale, glistening face, toldhimself that the man was lying, and that he knew he lied. 

They stumbled out, one by one, and joined the great company which wasnow swarming over the upper deck, each man and woman forlorn and lonelyas human beings must ever be when individually face to face with death. 

Coxeter's right hand gripped firmly Mrs. Archdale's arm. She waspressing closely to his side, shrinking back from the rough crowdsurging about them, and he was filled with a fierce protectivetenderness which left no room in his mind for any thought of self. Hisone thought was how to preserve his companion from contact with some ofthose about them; wild-eyed, already distraught creatures, swayed with aterror which set them apart from the mass of quiet, apparently dazedpeople who stood patiently waiting to do what they were told. 

Close to Nan and Coxeter two men were talking Spanish; they weregesticulating, and seemed to be disagreeing angrily as to what course topursue. Presently one of them suddenly produced a long knife whichglittered in the torchlight; with it he made a gesture as if to show theother that he meant to cut his way through the crowd towards the spot, now railed off with rope barriers, where the boats were being got readyfor the water. 

With a quick movement Coxeter unbuttoned his cloak and drew Nan withinits folds; putting his arms round her he held her, loosely and yet howfirmly clasped to his breast. "I can't help it, " he mutteredapologetically. "Forgive me!" As only answer she seemed to draw yetcloser to him, and then she lay, still and silent, within his shelteringarms, --and at that moment he remembered to be glad he had not kissed herwrist. 

They two stood there, encompassed by a living wall, and yet howstrangely alone. The fog had become less dense, or else the resintorches which flared up all about them cleared the air. 

From the captain's bridge there whistled every quarter minute a highrocket, and soon from behind the wall of fog came in answer distantsignals full of a mingled mockery and hope to the people waiting there. 

But for John Coxeter the drama of his own soul took precedence of thatgoing on round him. Had he been alone he would have shared to the fullthe awful, exasperating feeling of being trapped, of there being nothingto be done, which possessed all the thinking minds about him. But he wasnot alone----

Nan, lying on his breast, seemed to pour virtue into him--to make himextraordinarily alive. Never had he felt death, extinction so near, andyet there seemed to be something outside himself, a spirit informing, uplifting, and conquering the flesh. 

Perceptions, sympathies, which had lain dormant during the whole of histhirty-nine years of life, now sprang into being. His imaginationawoke. He saw that it was this woman, now standing, with such completetrust in the niceness of his honour, heart to heart with him, who hadmade the best of that at once solitary and companioned journey which wecall life. He had thought her to be a fool; he now saw that, if a fool, she had been a divine fool, ever engaged while on her pilgrimage withthe only things that now mattered. How great was the sum of herachievement compared with his. She had been a beacon diffusing light andwarmth; he a shadow among shadows. If to-night he were engulfed in theunknown, for so death was visioned by John Coxeter, who would miss him, who would feel the poorer for his sudden obliteration?

 * * * * *

Coxeter came back into the present; he looked round him, and for thefirst time he felt the disabling clutch of physical fear. The life-beltswere being given out, and there came to him a horrid vision of thepeople round him as they might be an hour hence, drowned, heads down, legs up, done to death by those monstrous yellow bracelets which theywere now putting on with such clumsy, feverish eagerness. 

He was touched on the arm, and a husky voice, with which he was by nowfamiliar, said urgently, "Mr. Coxeter--see, I've brought your bag outof the saloon. " The man whose name he knew to be Victor Munich wasstanding at his elbow. "Look here, don't take offence, Mr. Coxeter, Ithink better of the----" he hesitated--"the life-saver that you've gotin this bag of yours than you do. I'm willing to give you a fancy pricefor it--what would you say to a thousand pounds? I daresay I shan't haveoccasion to use it, but of course I take that risk. "

Coxeter, with a quick, unobtrusive movement, released Mrs. Archdale. Heturned and stared, not pleasantly, at the man who was making him so oddan offer. Damn the fellow's impudence! "The life-saver is not for sale, "he said shortly. 

Nan had heard but little of the quick colloquy. She did not connect itwith the fact that the strong protecting arms which had been about herwere now withdrawn, --and the tears came into her eyes. She felt both ina physical and in a spiritual sense suddenly alone. John Coxeter, theone human being who ever attempted to place himself on a more intimate, personal plane with her, happened, by a strange irony of fate, to be hercompanion in this awful adventure. But even he had now turned away fromher. .. . 

Nay, that was not quite true. He was again looking down at her, and shefelt his hand groping for hers. As he found and clasped it, he made amovement as if he wished again to draw her towards him. Gently sheresisted, and at once she felt that he responded to her feeling ofrecoil, and Nan, with a confused sense of shame and anger, was now hurtby his submission. Most men in his place would have made short work ofher resistance, --would have taken her, masterfully, into the shelter ofhis arms. 

There came a little stir among the people on the deck. Coxeter heard avoice call out in would-be-cheery tones, "Now then, ladies! Please stepout--ladies and children only. Look sharp!" A sailor close by whisperedgruffly to his mate, "I'll stick to her anyhow. No crowded boats for me!I expect she'll be a good hour settling--perhaps a bit longer. "

As the first boat-load swung into the water, some of the people aboutthem gave a little cheer. Coxeter thought, but he will never be quitesure, that in that cheer Nan joined. There was a delay of a minute; thenagain the captain's voice rang out, this time in a sharper, moreperemptory tone, "Now, ladies, look sharp! Come along, please. "

Coxeter unclasped Nan's hand--he did not know how tightly he had beenholding it. He loved her. God, how he loved her! And now he must sendher away--away into the shrouding fog--away, just as he had found her. If what he had overheard were true, might he not be sending Nan to aworse fate than that of staying to take the risk with him?

But the very man who had spoken so doubtfully of the boats just now cameforward. "You'd best hurry your lady forward, sir. There's no time tolose. " There was an anxious, warning note in the rough voice. 

"You must go now, " said Coxeter heavily. "I shall be all right, Mrs. Archdale, " for she was making no movement forward. "There'll be plentyof room for the men in the next boat. I'd walk across the deck with you, but I'm afraid they won't allow that. " He spoke in his usualmatter-of-fact, rather dry tone, and Nan looked up at him doubtingly. Did he really wish her to leave him?

Flickering streaks of light fell on his face. It was convulsed withfeeling, --with what had become an agony of renunciation. She withdrewher eyes, feeling a shamed, exultant pang of joy. "I'll wait tillthere's room for you, too, Mr. Coxeter. " She breathed rather thanactually uttered the words aloud. 

Another woman standing close by was saying the same thing to hercompanion, but in far more eager, more vociferous tones. "Is it likelythat I should go away now and leave you, Bob? Of course not--don't beridiculous!" But the Rendels pushed forward, and finally both foundplaces in this, the last boat but one. 

Victor Munich was still standing close to John Coxeter, and Mrs. Archdale, glancing at his sallow, terror-stricken face, felt a thrill ofgenerous pity for the man. "Mr. Coxeter, " she whispered, "do give himthat life-saver! Did he not ask you for it just now? We don't want it. "

Coxeter bent down and unstrapped his portmanteau. He handed to Nan theodd, toy-like thing by which he had set so little store, but which nowhe let go with a touch of reluctance. He saw her move close to the manwhose name she did not know. "Here is the life-saver, " she said kindly;"I heard you say you would like it. "

"But you?"--he stammered--"how about you?"

"I don't want it. I shall be all right. I shouldn't put it on in anycase. "

He took it then, avidly; and they saw him go forward with a quick, stealthy movement to the place where the last boat was being got readyfor the water. 

"There's plenty of room for you and the lady now, sir!" Coxeter hurriedNan across the deck, but suddenly they were pushed roughly back. Therope barriers had been cut, and a hand-to-hand struggle was taking placeround the boat, --an ugly scrimmage to which as little reference aspossible was made at the wreck inquiry afterwards. To those who lookedon it was a horrible, an unnerving sight; and this time Coxeter withsudden strength took Nan back into his arms. He felt her trembling, shuddering against him, --what she had just seen had loosed fear from itsleash. 

"I'm frightened, " she moaned. "Oh, Mr. Coxeter, I'm so horriblyfrightened of those men! Are they all gone?"

"Yes, " he said grimly, "most of them managed to get into the boat. Don'tbe frightened. I think we're safer here than we should be with thoseruffians. "

Another man would have found easy terms of endearment and comfort foralmost any woman so thrust on his protection and care, but the verydepth of Coxeter's feeling seemed to make him dumb, --that and hisanguished fear lest by his fault, by his own want of quickness, she hadperhaps missed her chance of being saved. 

But what he was lacking another man supplied. This was the captain, andNan, listening to the cheering, commonplace words, felt her nerve, hercourage, come back. 

"Stayed with your husband?" he said, coming up to them. "Quite right, mum! Don't you be frightened. Look at me and my men, we're notfrightened--not a bit of it! My boat will last right enough for us to bepicked off ten times over. I tell you quite fairly and squarely, if I'dmy wife aboard I'd 'a kept her with me. I'd rather be on this boat ofmine than I would be out there, on the open water, in this fog. " But ashe walked back to the place where stood the rocket apparatus, Coxeterheard him mutter, "The brutes! Not all seconds or thirds either. I wishI had 'em here, I'd give 'em what for!"

 * * * * *

Later, when reading the narratives supplied by some of the passengerswho perforce had remained on the doomed boat, Coxeter was surprised tolearn how many thrilling experiences he had apparently missed during thelong four hours which elapsed before their rescue. And yet the time ofwaiting and suspense probably appeared as long to him as it did to anyof the fifty odd souls who stayed, all close together, on the upperdeck waiting with what seemed a stolid resignation for what might nextbefall them. 

From the captain, Coxeter, leaving Mrs. Archdale for a moment, hadextracted the truth. They had drifted down the French coast. They wereon a dangerous reef of rock, and the rising of the wind, the lifting ofthe fog, for which they all looked so eagerly, might be the signal forthe breaking up of the boat. On the other hand, the boat might hold fordays. It was all a chance. 

Coxeter kept what he had learnt to himself, but he was filled with adull, aching sensation of suspense. His remorse that he had not hurriedMrs. Archdale into one of the first boats became almost intolerable. Whyhad he not placed her in the care even of the Jew, Victor Munich, whowas actually seated in the last boat before the scramble round it hadbegun?

More fortunate than he, Mrs. Archdale found occupation in tending thefew forlorn women who had been thrust back. He watched her moving amongthem with an admiration no longer unwilling; she looked bright, happy, almost gay, and the people to whom she talked, to whom she listened, caught something of her spirit. Coxeter would have liked to follow herexample, but though he saw that some of the men round him were eager totalk and to discuss the situation, his tongue refused to form words ofcommonplace cheer. 

When with the coming of the dawn the fog lifted, Nan came up to Coxeteras he stood apart, while the other passengers were crowding round a firewhich had been lit on the open deck. Together in silence they watchedthe rolling away of the enshrouding mist; together they caught sight ofthe fleet of French fishing boats from which was to come succour. 

As he turned and clasped her hand, he heard her say, more to herselfthan to him, "I did not think we should be saved. "

III

John Coxeter was standing in the library of Mrs. Archdale's home inWimpole Street. Two nights had elapsed since their arrival in London, and now he was to see her for the first time since they had parted onthe Charing Cross platform, in the presence of the crowd of peoplecomprised of unknown sympathisers, acquaintances, and friends who hadcome to meet them. 

He looked round him with a curious sense of unfamiliarity. The colouringof the room was grey and white, with touches of deep-toned mahogany. Itwas Nan's favourite sitting-room, though it still looked what it hadbeen ever since Nan could remember it--a man's room. In his day herfather had been a collector of books, medals, and engravings connectedwith the severer type of eighteenth-century art and letters. 

In a sense this room always pleased Coxeter's fancy, partly because itimplied a great many things that money and even modern culture cannotbuy. But now, this morning--for it was still early, and he was on hisway to his office for the first time since what an aunt of his hadcalled his mysterious preservation from death--he seemed to seeeverything in this room in another light. Everything which had once beento him important had become, if not worthless, then unessential. 

He had sometimes secretly wondered why Mrs. Archdale, possessed as shewas of considerable means, had not altered the old house, had not madeit pretty as her friends' houses and rooms were pretty; but to-day he nolonger wondered at this. His knowledge of the fleetingness of life, andof the unimportance of all he had once thought so important, was toovividly present. .. . 

She came into the room, and he saw that she was dressed in a morefeminine kind of garment than that in which he generally saw her. Itwas white, and though girdled with a black ribbon, it made her look veryyoung, almost girlish. 

For a moment they looked at one another in constraint. Mrs. Archdalealso had altered, altered far less than John Coxeter, but she was aware, as he was not aware, of the changes which long nearness to death hadbrought her; and for almost the first time in her life she was moreabsorbed in her own sensations than in those of the person with her. 

Seeing John Coxeter standing there waiting for her, looking so like hisold self, so absolutely unchanged, confused her and made her feeldesperately shy. 

She held out her hand, but Coxeter scarcely touched it. After havingheld her so long in his arms, he did not care to take her hand in formalgreeting. She mistook his gesture, thought that he was annoyed at havingreceived no word from her since they had parted. The long day in betweenhad been to Nan Archdale full of nervous horror, for relations, friends, acquaintances had come in troops to see her, and would not be denied. 

Already she had received two or three angry notes from people whothought they loved her, and who were bitterly incensed that she hadrefused to see them when they had rushed to hear her account of anadventure which might so easily have happened to them. She made themistake of confusing Coxeter with these selfish people. 

"I am so sorry, " she said in a low voice, "that when you calledyesterday I was supposed to be asleep. I have been most anxious to seeyou"--she waited a moment and then added his name--"Mr. Coxeter. I knewthat you would have the latest news, and that you would tell it me. "

"There is news, " he said, "of all the boats; good news--with theexception of the last boat----" His voice sounded strangely to himself. 

"Oh, but that must be all right too, Mr. Coxeter! The captain said theboats might drift about for a long time. "

Coxeter shook his head. "I'm afraid not, " he said. "In fact"--he waiteda moment, and she came close up to him. 

"Tell me, " she commanded in a low voice, "tell me what you know. Theysay I ought to put it all out of my mind, but I can think of nothingelse. Whenever I close my eyes I see the awful struggle that went onround that last boat!" She gave a quick, convulsive sob. 

Coxeter was dismayed. How wildly she spoke, how unlike herself sheseemed to-day--how unlike what she had been during the whole of theirterrible ordeal. 

Already that ordeal had become, to him, something to be treasured. Thereis no lack of physical courage in the breed of Englishmen to which JohnCoxeter belonged. Pain, entirely unassociated with shame, holds outcomparatively little terror to such as he. There was something rueful inthe look he gave her. 

"The last boat was run down in the fog, " he said briefly. "Some of thebodies have been washed up on the French coast. "

She looked at him apprehensively. "Any of the people we had spoken to?Any of those who were with us in the railway carriage?"

"Yes, I'm sorry to say that one of the bodies washed up is that of theperson who sat next to you. "

"That poor French boy?"

Coxeter shook his head. "No, no--he's all right; at least I believe he'sall right. It--the body I mean--was that of your other neighbour;" headded, unnecessarily, "the man who made sweets. "

And then for the first time Coxeter saw Nan Archdale really moved out ofherself. What he had just said had had the power to touch her, to causeher greater anguish than anything which had happened during the longhours of terror they had gone through. She turned and, moving as ifblindly, pressed her hand to her face as if to shut out some terribleand pitiful sight. 

"Ah!" she exclaimed in a low voice, "I shall never forgive myself overthat! Do you know I had a kind of instinct that I ought to ask that manthe name, the address"--her voice quivered and broke--"of his friend--ofthat poor young woman who saw him off at the Paris station. "

Till this moment Coxeter had not known that Nan had been aware of whathad, to himself, been so odious, so ridiculous, and so grotesque, ascene. But now he felt differently about this, as about everything elsethat touched on the quick of life. For the first time he understood, even sympathized with, Nan's concern for that majority of human beingswho are born to suffering and who are bare to the storm. .. . 

"Look here, " he said awkwardly, "don't be unhappy. It's all right. Thatman spoke to me on the boat--he did what you wished, he made a willproviding for that woman; I took charge of it for him. As a matter offact I went and saw his old mother yesterday. She behaved splendidly. "

"Then the life-saver was no good after all?"

"No good, " he said, and he avoided looking at her. "At least so it wouldseem, but who can tell?"

Nan's eyes filled with tears; something beckoning, appealing seemed topass from her to him. .. . 

The door suddenly opened. 

"Mrs. Eaton, ma'am. She says she only heard what happened, to-day, andshe's sure you will see her. "

Before Mrs. Archdale could answer, a woman had pushed her way past themaid into the room. "Nan? Poor darling! What an awful thing! I _am_ gladI came so early; now you will be able to tell me all about it!"

The visitor, looking round her, saw John Coxeter, and seemed surprised. Fortunately she did not know him, and, feeling as if, had he stayed, hemust have struck the woman, he escaped from the room. 

 * * * * *

As Coxeter went through the hall, filled with a perplexity and pain veryalien from his positive nature, a good-looking, clean-shaven man, whogave him a quick measured glance, passed by. With him there had been noparleying at the door as in Coxeter's own case. 

"Who's that?" he asked, with a scowl, of the servant. 

"The doctor, sir, " and he felt absurdly relieved. "We sent for himyesterday, for Mrs. Archdale seemed very bad last night. " The servantdropped her voice, "It's the doctor, sir, as says Mrs. Archdale oughtn'tto see visitors. You see it was in all the papers about the shipwreck, sir, and of course Mrs. Archdale's friends all come and see her to hearabout it. They've never stopped. The doctor, he says that she ought tohave stayed in bed and been quite quiet. But what would be the good ofthat, seeing she don't seem able to sleep? I suppose you've not sufferedthat way yourself, sir?"

The young woman was staring furtively at Coxeter, but, noting his coldmanner and imperturbable face, she felt that he was indeed adisappointing hero of romance--not at all the sort of gentleman withwhom one would care to be shipwrecked, if it came to a matter of choice. 

"No, " he said solemnly, "I can't say that I have. "

He looked thoughtfully out into what had never been to him a "longunlovely street, " and which just now was the only place in the worldwhere he desired to stay. Coxeter, always so sure of himself, and ofwhat was the best and wisest thing to do in every circumstance of life, felt for the first time unable to cope with a situation presented to hisnotice. 

As he was hesitating, a carriage drove up, and a footman came forwardwith a card, while the occupant of the carriage called out, makinganxious inquiries as to Mrs. Archdale's condition, and promising to callagain the same afternoon. 

Coxeter suddenly told himself that it behoved him to see the doctor, andascertain from him whether Mrs. Archdale was really ill. 

He crossed the street, and began pacing up and down, and unconsciouslyhe quickened his steps as he went over every moment of his briefinterview with Nan. All that was himself--and there was a good deal moreof John Coxeter than even he was at all aware of--had gone out to her ina rapture of memory and longing, but she, or so it seemed to him, hadpurposely made herself remote. 

At last, after what seemed a very long time, the doctor came out of Mrs. Archdale's house and began walking quickly down the street. 

Coxeter crossed over and touched him on the arm. "If I may, " he said, "Ishould like a word with you. I want to ask you--I mean I trust that Mrs. Archdale is recovering from the effect of the terrible experience shewent through the other night. " He spoke awkwardly, stiffly. "I saw herfor a few minutes just before you came, and I was sorry to find her veryunlike herself. "

The doctor went on walking; he looked coldly at Coxeter. 

"It's a great pity that Mrs. Archdale's friends can't leave her alone!As to being unlike herself, you and I would probably be very unlikeourselves if we had gone through what this poor lady had just gonethrough!"

"You see, I was with her on the boat. We were not travelling together, "Coxeter corrected himself hastily, "I happened to meet her merely on thejourney. My name is Coxeter. "

The other man's manner entirely altered. He slackened in his quick walk. "I beg your pardon, " he said; "of course I had no notion who you were. She says you saved her life! That but for you she would have been inthat boat--the boat that was lost. "

Coxeter tried to say something in denial of this surprising statement, but the doctor hurried on, "I may tell you that I'm very worried aboutMrs. Archdale--in fact seriously concerned at her condition. If you haveany influence with her, I beg you to persuade her to refuse herself tothe endless busybodies who want to hear her account of what happened. She won't have a trained nurse, but there ought to be someone onguard--a human watchdog warranted to snarl and bite!"

"Do you think she ought to go away from London?" asked Coxeter in a lowvoice. 

"No, I don't think that--at least not for the present, " the medical manfrowned thoughtfully. "What she wants is to be taken out of herself. IfI could prescribe what I believe would be the best thing for her, Ishould advise that she go away to some other part of London with someonewho will never speak to her of what happened, and yet who will alwayslisten to her when she wants to talk about it--some sensible, commonplace person who could distract her mind without tiring her, andwho would make her do things she has never done before. If she was anordinary smart lady, I should prescribe philanthropy"--he made a slightgrimace--"make her go and see some of my poorer patients--come intocontact with a little _real_ trouble. But that would be no change toMrs. Archdale. No; what she wants is someone who will force her to beselfish--who will take her up the Monument one day, and to a music-hallthe next, motor her out to Richmond Park, make her take a good longwalk, and then sit by the sofa and hold her hand if she feels likecrying----" He stopped, a little ashamed of his energy. 

"Thank you, " said Coxeter very seriously, "I'm much obliged to you fortelling me this. I can see the sense of what you say. "

"You know, in spite of her quiet manner, Mrs. Archdale's a nervous, sensitive woman"--the doctor was looking narrowly at Coxeter as hespoke. 

"She was perfectly calm and--and very brave at the time----"

"That means nothing! Pluck's not a matter of nerve--it ought to be, butit isn't! But I admit you're a remarkable example of the presence of theone coupled with the absence of the other. You don't seem a penny theworse, and yet it must have been a very terrible experience. "

"You see, it came at the end of my holiday, " said Coxeter gravely, "and, as a matter of fact"--he hesitated--"I feel quite well, in fact, remarkably well. Do you see any objection to my calling again, I meanto-day, on Mrs. Archdale? I might put what you have just said beforeher. "

"Yes, do! Do that by all means! Seeing how well you have come throughit"--the doctor could not help smiling a slightly satiricalsmile--"ought to be a lesson to Mrs. Archdale. It ought to show her thatafter all she is perhaps making a great deal of fuss about nothing. "

"Hardly that, " said Coxeter with a frown. 

They had now come to the corner of Queen Anne Street. He put out hishand hesitatingly. The doctor took it, and, oddly enough, held it for amoment while he spoke. 

"Think over what I've said, Mr. Coxeter. It's a matter of hours. Mrs. Archdale ought to be taken in hand at once. " Then he went off, crossingthe street. "Pity the man's such a dry stick, " he said to himself;"now's his chance, if he only knew it!"

John Coxeter walked straight on. He had written the day before to saythat he would be at his office as usual this morning, but now the factquite slipped his mind. 

Wild thoughts were surging through his brain; they were running awaywith him and to such unexpected places!

The Monument? He had never thought of going up the Monument; he wouldformerly have thought it a sad waste of time, but now the Monumentbecame to John Coxeter a place of pilgrimage, a spot of secret healing. A man had once told him that the best way to see the City was at night, but that if you were taking a lady you should choose a Sunday morning, and go there on the top of a 'bus. He had thought the man who said thisvery eccentric, but now he remembered the advice and thought it wellworth following. 

By the time Coxeter turned into Cavendish Square he had travelled farfurther than the Monument. He was in Richmond Park; Nan's hand wasthrust through his arm, as it had been while they had watched the firstboat fill slowly with the women and children. 

 * * * * *

To lovers who remember, the streets of a great town, far more thancountry roads and lanes, hold over the long years precious, poignantmemories, for a background of stones and mortar has about it a characterof permanence which holds captive and echoes the scenes and wordsenacted and uttered there. 

Coxeter has not often occasion to go the little round he went thatmorning, but when some accidental circumstance causes him to do so, hefinds himself again in the heart of that kingdom of romance from whichhe was so long an alien, and of which he has now become a naturalizedsubject. As most of us know, many ways lead to the kingdom of romance;Coxeter found his way there by a water-way. 

And so it is that when he reaches the turning into Queen Anne Streetthere seems to rise round him the atmosphere of what Londoners call theCity--the City as it is at night, uncannily deserted save for theghosts and lovers who haunt its solitary thoroughfares after the bustleof the day is stilled. It was then that he and Nan first learnt towander there. From there he travels on into golden sunlight; he is againin Richmond Park as it was during the whole of that beautiful October. 

Walking up the west side of Cavendish Square, Coxeter again becomesabsorbed in his great adventure, --a far greater adventure than that withwhich his friends and acquaintances still associate his name. With somesurprise, even perhaps with some discomfiture, he sees himself--for hehas not wholly cast out the old Adam--he sees himself as he was thatmemorable morning, carried, that is, wholly out of his usual wise, ponderate self. Perhaps he even wonders a little how he could ever havefound courage to do what he did--he who has always thought so much, in ahidden way, of the world's opinion and of what people will say. 

He could still tell you which lamp-post he was striding past when herealized, with a thrill of relief, that in any case Nan Archdale wouldnot treat him as would almost certainly do one of those women whom hehad honoured with his cold approval something less than a week ago. Anyone of those women would have regarded what he was now going to ask Nanto do as an outrage on the conventions of life. But Nan Archdale wouldbe guided only by what she herself thought right and seemly. .. . 

And then, as he turns again into Wimpole Street, as he comes near towhat was once his wife's house, his long steady stride becomes slower. Unwillingly he is living again those doubtful moments when he knocked ather door, when he gave the surprised maid the confused explanation thathe had a message from the doctor for Mrs. Archdale. He hears the youngwoman say, "Mrs. Archdale is just going out, sir. The doctor thought sheought to take a walk;" and his muttered answer, "I won't keep her amoment. .. . "

Again he feels the exultant, breathless thrill which seized him when sheslipped, neither of them exactly knew how, into his arms, and when thesentences he had prepared, the arguments he meant to use, in his hurriedrush up the long street, were all forgotten. He hears himself imploringher to come away with him now, at once. Is she not dressed to go out?Instinct teaches him for the first time to make to her the one appeal towhich she ever responds. He had meant to tell her what the doctor hadsaid--to let that explain his great temerity--but instead he tells heronly that he wants her, that he cannot go on living apart from her. Isthere any good reason why they should not start now, this moment, forDoctors' Commons, in order to see how soon they can be married?

So it is that when John Coxeter stands in Wimpole Street, so typical aLondoner belonging to the leisured and conventional class that none ofthe people passing by even glance his way, he lives again through theimmortal moment when she said, "Very well. "

 * * * * *

To this day, so transforming is the miracle of love, Nan Coxeterbelieves that during their curious honeymoon it was she who was takingcare of John, not he of her.