The Invader

 A NOVEL

 By

 Margaret L. Woods

 New York and London

 Harper & Brothers Publishers

 1907

 Copyright, 1907, by HARPER & BROTHERS. 

 Published May, 1907. 

 * * * * *

TO

Hilda Greaves

AND THE DUMB COMPANIONS OF TAN-YR-ALLTTHIS BOOK IS DEDICATED BY THEIRGRATEFUL AND AFFECTIONATEFRIEND

 * * * * *

THE INVADER

CHAPTER I

Dinner was over and the ladies had just risen, when the Professor hadbegged to introduce them to the new-comer on his walls. The Invader, itmight almost have been called, this full-length, life-size portrait, which, in the illumination of a lamp turned full upon it, seemed to takepossession of the small room, to dominate at the end of the polished-oaktable, where the light of shaded candles fell on old blue plates, oldVenetian glass, a bit of old Italian brocade, and chrysanthemums in achina bowl coveted by collectors. Every detail spoke of theconnoisseurship, the refined and personal taste characteristic of Oxfordin the eighties. The authority on art put up his eye-glasses andfingered his tiny forked beard uneasily. 

"There's no doubt it's a good thing, Fletcher, " he said, presently--"reallyquite good. But it's too like Romney to be Raeburn, and too like Raeburn tobe Romney. You ought to be able to find out the painter, if, as you say, it's a portrait of your own great-grandmother--"

"He did say so!" broke in Sanderson, exultantly. "He said it was anancestress. Fletcher, you're a vulgar fraud. You've got no ancestress. You bought her. There's a sale-ticket still on the frame under theprojection at the right-hand lower corner. I saw it. "

Sanderson was a small man and walked about perpetually, except whentaking food: sometimes then. He was a licensed insulter of his friends, and now stood before the picture in a belligerent attitude. TheProfessor stroked his amber beard and smiled down on Sanderson. 

"True, O Sanderson; and at the same time untrue. I did buy the picture, and the lady was my great-grandmother once, but she did not like theposition and soon gave it up. This picture must have been done after shehad given it up. "

"Is this a conundrum or blather, invented to hide your ignominy in acloud of words?" asked Sanderson. 

"It's a _hors d'oeuvre_ before the story, " interposed Ian Stewart, throwing back his tall dark head and looking up at the picture throughhis eye-glasses, his handsome face alive with interest. "'Tak' awa' thekickshaws, ' Fletcher, 'and bring us the cauf. '"

The Professor gathered his full beard in one hand and smileddeprecatingly. 

"I don't know how the ladies will like my ex-great-grandmother's story. It was a bit of a scandal at the time. "

"Never mind, Mr. Fletcher, " cried a young married woman, with a facelike a seraph, "we're all educated now, and scandal about a lady withher waist under her arms becomes simply classical. "

"Not so bad as that, Mrs. Shaw, I assure you, " returned the Professor;"but I dare say you all know as much as I do about my great-grandmother, for she was the well-known Lady Hammerton. "

There were sounds of interest and surprise, for most of the party knewher name, and were curious to learn how she came to be ProfessorFletcher's great-grandmother. Mr. Fletcher explained:

"My great-grandfather was a distinguished professor in Edinburgh ahundred years ago. When he was a widower of forty with a family, he wassilly enough to fall in love with a little miss of sixteen. He taughther Latin and Greek--which was all very well--and married her, which wasdistinctly unwise. She had one son--my grandfather--and then ran awaywith an actor from London. After that she made a certain sensation onthe stage, but I suspect she was clever enough to see that her realsuccesses were personal ones; at all events, she made a good marriage assoon as ever she got the chance. The Hammerton family naturallyobjected. You'll find all about it in those papers which have come outlately. I believe, ladies, they were almost as much scandalized by herlearning as by her morals. "

"She told Sydney Smith years after, I think, " observed Stewart, "thatshe had to be a wit lest people should find out she was a blue. There'sa good deal about her in the Englefield _Memoirs_. She travelledextraordinarily for a woman in those days, and most of the realtreasures at Hammerton House come from her collections. "

"I thought they were nearly all burned in a great fire, and she wasburned trying to save them, " said Mrs. Shaw. 

"A good many were saved, " returned Fletcher; "she had rushed back tofetch a favorite bronze, was seen hurling it out of the window--and wasnever seen again. "

"She must have been a very remarkable woman, " commented Stewart, meditatively, his eyes still fixed on the picture. 

"Know nothing about her myself, " remarked Sanderson; "Stewart knowssomething about everybody. It's sickening the way he spends his timereading gossip and calling it history. "

"Gossip's like many common things, interesting when fossilized, "squeaked a little, white-haired, pink-faced old gentleman, like anelderly cherub in dress-clothes. He had remained at the other end of theroom because he did not care for pictures. Now he toddled a littlenearer and every one made way for him with a peculiar respect, for hewas the Master of Durham, whose name was great in Oxford and also in theworld outside it. He looked up first at the pictured face and then atMilly Flaxman, a young cousin of Fletcher's and a scholar of AschamHall, who had taken her First in Mods, and was hoping to get one inGreats. The Master liked young girls, but they had to be clever as wellas pleasing in appearance to attract his attention. 

"It's very like Miss Flaxman, " he squeaked. 

Every one turned their eyes from the picture to Milly, whose pale cheeksblushed a bright pink. The blush emphasized her resemblance to herancestress, whose brilliant complexion, however, hinted at rouge. Milly's soft hair was amber-colored, like that of the lady in thepicture, but it was strained back from her face and twisted in a minuteknot on the nape of her neck. That was the way in which her aunt LadyThomson, whose example she desired to follow in all things, did herhair. The long, clearly drawn eyebrows, dark in comparison with theamber hair, the turquoise blue eyes, the mouth of the pictured lady werecuriously reproduced in Milly Flaxman. Possibly her figure may have beendesigned by nature to be as slight and supple, yet rounded, as that ofthe white-robed, gray-scarfed lady above there. But something or someone had intervened, and Milly looked stiff and shapeless in a greenvelveteen frock, scooped out vaguely around her white young throat andgathered in clumsy folds under a liberty silk sash. 

Mrs. Shaw cried out enraptured at the interesting resemblance which hadescaped them all, to be instantly caught by the elderly cherub in thebackground, who did not care about art, while the Professor explainedthat both Milly's parents were, like himself, great-grandchildren ofLady Hammerton. The seraph now fell upon Milly, too shy to resist, hadout her hair-pins in a trice and fingered the fluffy hair till it madean aureole around her face. Then by some conjuring trick producing agauzy white scarf, Mrs. Shaw twisted it about the girl's head, inimitation of the lady on the wall, who had just such a scarf, but with atiny embroidered border of scarlet, twisted turban-wise and floatingbehind. 

"There!" she cried, pushing the feebly protesting Milly into the fulllight of the lamp the Professor was holding, "allow me to present to youthe new Lady Hammerton!"

There was a moment of wondering silence. Milly's pulses beat, for shefelt Ian Stewart's eyes upon her. Neither he nor any one else there hadever quite realized before what capacities for beauty lay hid in thesubdued young face of Milly Flaxman. She had nothing indeed of thecharm, at once subtle and challenging, of the lady above there. She, with one hand on the gold head of a tall cane, looking back, seemed todare unseen adorers to follow her into a magic, perhaps a fatalfairyland of mountain and waterfall and cloud; a land whose dim mistsand silver gleams seemed to echo the gray and the white of her floatinggarments, its autumn leaves to catch a faint reflection from her hair, while far off its sky showed a thin line of sunset, red like the borderof her veil. Milly's soft cheeks and lips were flushed, her eyes brightwith a mixture of very innocent emotions, as she stood with every one'seyes, including Ian Stewart's, upon her. 

But in a minute the Master took up Mrs. Shaw's remark. 

"No, " he said, emphatically; "not a new Lady Hammerton; only a rathernew Miss Flaxman; and that, I assure you, is something very preferable. "

"I'm quite sure the Master knows something dreadful about yourgreat-grandmother, Mr. Fletcher, " laughed Mrs. Shaw. 

"I think we'd better go before he tells it, " interposed Mrs. Fletcher, who saw that Milly was feeling shy. 

When the ladies had left, the men reseated themselves at the table andthere was a pause. Everyone waited for the Master, who seemed meditatingspeech. 

"My mother, " he said--and somehow they all felt startled to learn thefact that the Master had had a mother--"my mother knew Lady Hammerton inthe twenties. She was often at Bath. "

The thin, staccato voice broke off abruptly, and three out of the fiveother men present being the Master's pupils, remained silent, knowing hehad not finished. But Mr. Toovey, a young don overflowing with mildintelligence, exclaimed, deferentially:

"Really, Master! Really! How extremely interesting! Now do please tellus a great deal about Lady Hammerton. "

The Master took no notice whatever of Toovey. He sat about a minutelonger in his familiar posture, looking before him, his little roundhands on his little round knees. Then he said:

"She was a raddled woman. "

And his pupils knew he had finished speaking. What he had said wasdisappointingly little, but uttered in that strange high voice of his, it contained an infinite deal more than appeared on the face of it. Awhole discreditable past seemed to emerge from that one word "raddled. "Ian Stewart, to whose imagination the woman in the picture made astrange appeal, now broke a lance with the Master on her account. 

"She may have been raddled, Master, " he said, "but she must have beenvery remarkable and charming too. Hammerton himself was no fool, yet headored her to the last. "

The Master seemed to hope some one else would speak; but finding that noone did, he uttered again:

"Men often adore bad wives. That does not make them good ones. "

Stewart tossed a rebel lock of raven black hair back from his forehead. 

"Pardon me, Master, it does make them good wives for those men. "

"Oh, surely not good for their higher natures!" protested Toovey, fervently. 

The Master took three deliberate sips of port wine. 

"I think, Stewart, we are discussing matters we know very little about, "he said, in a particularly high, dry voice; and every one felt that thediscussion was closed. Then he turned to Sanderson and made some remarkabout a house which Sanderson's College, of which he was junior bursar, was selling to Durham. 

Fletcher, the only married man present, mourned inwardly over his ownmasculine stupidity. He felt sure that if his wife had been there shewould have gently led Stewart's mind through these paradoxicalmatrimonial fancies, to dwell on another picture; a picture of marriagewith a nice girl almost as pretty as Lady Hammerton, a good girl whoshared his tastes, and, above all, who adored him. David Fletcher felthimself pitiably unequal to the task, although he was as anxious as hiswife was that Stewart should marry Milly. Did not all their friends wishit? It seemed to them that there could not be a more suitable couple. IfMilly was working so terribly hard to get her First in Greats, it waslargely because Mr. Stewart was one of her tutors and she knew hethought a good deal of success in the Schools. 

There could be no doubt about Milly Flaxman's goodness; in fact, some ofthe girls at Ascham complained that it "slopped over. " Her clothes weremade on hygienic principles which she treated as a branch of morals, andshe often refused to offer the small change of polite society because itweighed somewhat light in the scales of truth. But these were foiblesthat the young people's friends were sure Ian Stewart would nevernotice. As to him, although only four and thirty, he was already adistinguished man. A scholar, a philosopher, and an archæologist, he hadalso imagination and a sense of style. He had written a brilliant bookon Greek life at a particular period, which had brought him a reputationamong the learned and also found readers in the educated public. Hisdisposition was sweet, his character unusually high, judged even by thestandard of the academic world, which has a higher standard than most. Obviously he would make an excellent husband; and equally obviously, ashe had no near relations and his health was delicate, it would be acapital thing for him to have a home of his own and a devoted wife tolook after him. Their income would be small, but not smaller than thatof most young couples in Oxford, who contrived, nevertheless, to liverefined and pleasant lives and to be well-considered in a society wheremoney positively did not count. 

But if Fletcher did not succeed in forwarding this matrimonial scheme inthe dining-room, his wife succeeded no better when the gentlemen cameinto the drawing-room. She rose from a sofa in the corner, leaving Millyseated there; but Mr. Toovey made his way straight to Miss Flaxman, without a glance to right or left, and bending over her before he seatedhimself at her side, fixed upon her a patronizing, a possessive smilewhich would have made some girls long for a barbarous freedom in thematter of face-slapping. But Milly Flaxman was meek. She took ArchibaldToovey's seriousness for depth, and as his attentions had becomeunmistakable, had several times lain awake at night tormenting herselfas to whether her behavior towards him was or was not right. Accordinglyshe submitted to being monopolized by Mr. Toovey, while Ian Stewartturned away and made himself pleasant to an unattractive lady-visitor ofthe Fletchers', who looked shy and left-alone. When Mrs. Fletcher triedto effect a change of partners, Ian explained that he found himselfunexpectedly obliged to attend a College meeting at ten o'clock. In aplace where there are no offices to close and business engagements areliable to crop up at any time in the evening, there was no need forextravagance of apology for this early departure. 

He changed his shoes in the narrow hall and put on his seedy-lookingdark overcoat, quite unconscious that Mrs. Fletcher had had the collarmended since he had taken it off. Then he went out into the dampNovember night, unlit by moon or star. But to Stewart the darkness ofnight, on whatever corner of earth he might chance to find it descended, remained always a romantic, mysterious thing, setting his imaginationfree among visionary possibilities, without form, but not for that void. The road between the railing of the parks and the row of old loppedelms, was ill-lighted by the meagre flame of a few gas-lamps and hardlycheered by the smothered glow of the small prison-like windows of Keble, glimmering through the bare trees. There was not a sound near, exceptthe occasional drip of slow-collecting dews from the branches of the oldelms. Afar, too, many would have said there was not a sound; but therewas, and Ian's ear was attuned to catch it. The immense inarticulatewhisper of night came to him. It came to him from the deserted parks, from the distant Cherwell flowing through its willow-roots andosier-islands, from the flat meadow-country beyond, stretching away tothe coppices of the low boundary hills. It was a voice made up of manywhispers, each imperceptible, or almost imperceptible in itself; whisperof water and dry reeds, of broken twigs and dry leaves fluttering to theground, of heaped dead leaves or coarse winter grass, stirring in someslight movement of the air. It seemed to his imagination as though underthe darkness, in the loneliness of night, the man-mastered world must besecretly transformed, returned to its primal freedom; and that could hego forth into it alone, he would find it quite different from anythingfamiliar to him, and might meet with something, he knew not what, secret, strange, and perhaps terrible. 

Such fancies, though less crystallized than they must needs be by words, floated in the penumbra of his mind, coming to him perhaps with theblood of remote Highland ancestors, children of mountains and mist. Hisreasonable self was perfectly aware that should he go, he would findnothing in the open fields at that hour except a sleeping cow or two, and would return wet as to the legs, and developing a severe cold forthe morning. But he heard these far-off whisperings of the nightplaying, as it were, a mysterious "ground" to his thoughts of MillyFlaxman. The least fatuous of men, he had yet been obliged to see thathis friends in general and the Fletchers in particular, wished him tomarry Milly, and that the girl herself hung upon his words with atremulous sensitivity even greater than the enthusiastic female studentusually exhibits towards those of her lecturer. In the abstract heintended to marry; for he did not desire to be left an old bachelor incollege. He had been waiting for the great experience of falling inlove, and somehow it had never come to him. There were probably numbersof people to whom it never did come. Should he now give up all hope ofit, and make a marriage of reason and of obligingness, such as hismarriage with Miss Flaxman would assuredly be? Thank Heaven! as hertutor he could not possibly propose to her till she had got through theSchools, so there were more than six months in which to consider thequestion. 

And while he communed thus with himself, the mysterious whispers of thenight came nearer to him, in the blackness of garden trees, ancienttrees of College gardens brooding alone, whispering alone through thedark hours, of that current of young life which is still flowing pastthem; how for hundreds of years it has always been flowing, and alwayspassing, passing, passing so quickly to the great silent sea of deathand oblivion, to the dark night whose silence is only sometimes stirredby vague whispers, anxious yet faint, dying upon the ear before thesense can seize them. 

CHAPTER II

Parties in Oxford always break up early, and Milly had a good excuse forcarrying her aching, disappointed heart back to Ascham at ten o'clock, for every one knew she was working hard. Too hard, Mr. Fletcher said, looking concernedly at her heavy eyes, mottled complexion, and thelittle crumples which were beginning to come in her low white forehead. Her cousins, however, had more than a suspicion that these marks of careand woe were not altogether due to her work, but that Ian Stewart wasaccountable for most of them. 

The Professor escorted her to the gates of the Ladies' College; but shewalked down the dark drive alone, mindful of familiar puddles, andhearing nothing of those mysterious whispers of night which in IanStewart's ears had breathed a "ground" to his troubled thoughts of her. 

She mounted the stairs to her room at the top of the house. It was anextremely neat room, and by day, when the bed was disguised as a sofa, and the washstand closed, there was nothing to reveal that it served asa bedroom, although a tarnished old mirror hung in a dark corner. Theoak table and pair of brass candlesticks upon it were kept in shiningorder by Milly's own zealous hands. 

Milly found her books open at the right place and her writing materialsready to hand. In a very few minutes her outer garments and simpleornaments were put away, and clothed in a clean but shrunk and fadedblue dressing-gown, she sat down to work. The work was Aristotle's_Ethics_, and she was going through it for the second time, amplifyingher notes. But this second time the Greek seemed more difficult, thephilosophic argument more intricate than ever. She had had very littlesleep for weeks, and her head ached in a queer way as though somethinginside it were strained very tight. It was plain that she had come tothe end of her powers of work for the present--and she had calculatedthat only by not wasting a day, except for a week's holiday at Easter, could she get through all that had to be done before the Schools!

She put Aristotle away and opened Mommsen, but even to that she couldnot give her attention. Her thoughts returned to the bitterdisappointment which the evening had brought. Ian Stewart had been nexther at dinner, but even then he had talked to her rather less than toMrs. Shaw. Afterwards--well, perhaps it was only what she deserved fornot making it plain to poor Mr. Toovey that she could never return hisfeelings. And now the First, which she had looked to as a thing thatwould set her nearer the level of her idol, was dropping below thehorizon of the possible. Aunt Beatrice always said--and she wasright--that tears were not, as people pretended, a help and solace introuble. They merely took the starch out of you and left you a poorsoaked, limp creature, unfit to face the hard facts of life. Butsometimes tears will lie heavy and scalding as molten lead in the brain, until at length they force their way through to the light. And Millyafter blowing her nose a good deal, as she mechanically turned the pagesof Mommsen, at length laid her arms on the book and transferred herhandkerchief to her eyes. But she tried to look as though she werereading when Flora Timson came in. 

"At it again, M. ! You know you're simply working yourself stupid. "

Thus speaking, Miss Timson, known to her intimates at Ascham as "Tims, "wagged sagely her very peculiar head. A crimson silk handkerchief wastied around it, turban-wise, and no vestige of hair escaped frombeneath. There was in fact none to escape. Tims's sallow, comic littleface had neither eyebrows nor eyelashes on it, and her small figure wasnot of a quality to triumph over the obvious disadvantages of a tightblack cloth dress with bright buttons, reminiscent of a page's suit. 

Milly pushed the candles farther away and looked up. 

"I was wanting to see you, Tims. Do tell me whether you managed to getout of Miss Walker what Mr. Stewart said about my chances of a First. "

Tims pushed her silk turban still higher up on her forehead. 

"I can always humbug Miss Walker and make her say lots of indiscreetthings, " Tims returned, with labored diplomacy. "But I don't repeatthem--at least, not invariably. "

There was a further argument on the point, which ended by Milly sheddingtears and imploring to be told the worst. 

Tims yielded. 

"Stewart said your scholarship was A 1, but he was afraid you wouldn'tget your First in Greats. He said you had a lot of difficulty inexpressing yourself and didn't seem to get the lead of their philosophyand stuff--and--and generally wanted cleverness. "

"He said that?" asked Milly, in a low, sombre voice, speaking as thoughto herself. "Well, I suppose it's better for me to know--not to go onhoping, and hoping, and hoping. It means less misery in the end, nodoubt. "

There was such a depth of despair in her face and voice that Tims wasappalled at the consequence of her own revelation. She paced the room inagitation, alternately uttering incoherent abuse of her friend's follyand suggesting that she should at once abandon the ungrateful School of_Literæ Humaniores_ and devote herself like Tims, to the joys ofexperimental chemistry and the pleasures of practical anatomy. 

Meantime, Milly sat silent, one hand supporting her chin, the otherplaying with a pencil. 

At length Tims, taking hold of Milly under the arms, advised her to "goto bed and sleep it off. "

Milly rose dully and sat on the edge of her bed, while Tims awkwardlyremoved the hair-pins which Mrs. Shaw had so deftly put in. But as shewas laying them on the little dressing-table, Milly suddenly flungherself down on the bed and lay there a twisted heap of blue flannel, her face buried in the pillows, her whole body shaken by a paroxysm ofsobs. Tims supposed that this might be a good thing for Milly; but forherself it created an awkward situation. Her soothing remarks fell flat, while to go away and leave her friend in this condition would seembrutal. She sat down to "wait till the clouds rolled by, " as she phrasedit. But twenty minutes passed and still the clouds did not roll by. 

"Look here, M. " she said, argumentatively, standing by the bed. "You'rein hysterics. That's what's the matter with you. "

"I know I am, " came in tones of muffled despair from the pillow. 

"Well!" Tims was very stern and accented her words heavily, "then--pull--yourself--together--dear girl. Sit up!"

Milly sat up, pressed her handkerchief over her face, and held herbreath. For a minute all was quiet; then another violent sob forced apassage. 

"It's no use, Tims, " she gasped. "I cannot--cannot--stop. Oh, whatwould--!" She was going to say, "What would Aunt Beatrice think of me ifshe knew how I was giving way!" but a fresh flood of tears suppressedher speech. "My head's so bad! Such a splitting headache!"

Tims tried scolding, slapping, a cold sponge, every remedy inexperiencecould suggest, but the hysterical weeping could not be checked. 

"Look here, old girl, " she said at length, "I know how I can stop you, but I don't believe you'll let me do it. "

"No, not that, Tims! You know Miss Burt doesn't--"

"Doesn't approve. Of course not. Perhaps you think old B. Would approveof the way you're going on now. Ha! Would she!"

The sarcasm caused a new and alarming outburst. But finally, past allrespect for Miss Burt, and even for Lady Thomson herself, Millyconsented to submit to any remedy that Tims might choose to try. 

She was assisted hurriedly to undress and put to bed. Tims knew thewhereabouts of the prize-medal which Milly had won at school, andplacing the bright silver disk in her hand, directed her to fix her eyesupon it. Seated on her heels on the patient's bed, her crimson turbanlow on her forehead, her face screwed into intent wrinkles, Tims beganpassing her slight hands slowly before Milly's face. 

The long slender fingers played about the girl's fair head, sometimespressed lightly upon her forehead, sometimes passed through her fluffyhair, as it lay spread on the pillow about her like an amber cloud. 

"Don't cry, M. , " Tims began repeating in a soft, monotonous voice. "You've got nothing to cry about; your head doesn't ache now. Don'tcry. "

At first it was only by a strong effort that Milly could keep hertear-blinded eyes fixed on the bright medal before her; but soon theybecame chained to it, as by some attractive force. The shining diskseemed to grow smaller, brighter, to recede imperceptibly till it was apoint of light somewhere a long way off, and with it all the sorrows andagitations of her mind seemed also to recede into a dim distance, whereshe was still aware of them, yet as though they were some one else'ssorrows and agitations, hardly at all concerning her. The aching tensionof her brain was relaxed and she felt as though she were drowningwithout pain or struggle, gently floating down, down through a greenabyss of water, always seeing that distant light, showing as the sunmight show, seen from the depths of the sea. 

Before a quarter of an hour had passed, her sobs ceased in sighingbreaths, the breaths became regular and normal, the whole face slackenedand smoothed itself out. Tims changed the burden of her song. 

"Go to sleep, Milly. What you want is a good long sleep. Go to sleep, Milly. "

Milly was sinking down upon the pillow, breathing the calm breath ofdeep, refreshing slumber. Tims still crouched upon the bed, chanting hermonotonous song and contemplating her work. At length she slipped off, conscious of pins-and-needles in her legs, and as she withdrew, Millywith a sudden motion stretched her body out in the white bed, asstraight and still almost as that of the dead. The movement wasmechanical, but it gave a momentary check to Tims's triumph. She leanedover her patient and began once more the crooning song. 

"Go to sleep, M. ! What you want is a good long sleep. Go to sleep, Milly!"

But presently she ceased her song, for it was evident that Milly Flaxmanhad indeed gone very sound asleep. 

CHAPTER III

Tims was proud of the combined style and economy of her dress. She wasconstantly discovering and revealing to an unappreciative world theexistence of superb tailors who made amazingly cheap dresses. For twoyears she had been vainly advising her friends to go to the man who hadmade her the frock she still wore for morning; a skirt and coat of tweedwith a large green check in it, a green waistcoat with gilt buttons, andgreen gaiters to match. In this costume and coiffed with a man's wig, ofthe vague color peculiar to such articles, Tims came down at her usualhour, prepared to ask Milly what she thought of hypnotism now. But therewas no Milly over whom to enjoy this petty triumph. She climbed to thetop story as soon as breakfast was over, and entering Milly's room, found her patient still sleeping soundly, low and straight in the bed, just as she had been the preceding night. She was breathing regularlyand her face looked peaceful, although her eyes were still stained withtears. The servant came in as Tims was looking at her. 

"I've tried to wake Miss Flaxman, miss, " she said. "She's always veryparticular as I should wake her, but she was that sound asleep thismorning, I 'adn't the 'eart to go on talking. Poor young lady! I expectshe's pretty well wore out, working away at her books, early and late, the way she does. "

"Better leave her alone, Emma, " agreed Tims. "I'll let Miss Burt knowabout it. "

Miss Burt was glad to hear Milly Flaxman was oversleeping herself. Shehad not been satisfied with the girl's appearance of late, and fearedMilly worked too hard and had bad nights. 

Tims had to go out at ten o'clock and did not return untilluncheon-time. She went up to Milly's room and knocked at the door. Asbefore, there was no answer. She went in and saw the girl still soundasleep, straight and motionless in the bed. Her appearance was sohealthy and natural that it was absurd to feel uneasy at the length ofher slumber, yet remembering the triumph of hypnotism, Tims did feel alittle uneasy. She spoke to Miss Burt again about Milly's prolongedsleep, but Miss Burt was not inclined to be anxious. She had strictlyforbidden Tims to hypnotize--or as she called it, mesmerize--any one inthe house, so that Tims said no more on the subject. She was working atthe Museum in the early part of the afternoon, only leaving it when thelight began to fail. But after work she went straight back to Ascham. Milly was still asleep, but she had slightly shifted her position, andaltogether there was something about her aspect which suggested aslumber less profound than before. Tims leaned over her and spokesoftly:

"Wake up, M. , wake up! You've been asleep quite long enough. "

Milly's body twitched a little. A responsive flicker which was almost aconvulsion, passed over her face; but she did not awake. It was evident, however, that her spirit was gradually floating up to the surface fromthe depths of oblivion in which it had been submerged. Tims took off herTam-o'-Shanter and ulster, and revealed in the simple elegance of thetweed frock with green waistcoat and gaiters, put the kettle on thefire. Then she went down-stairs to fetch some bread and butter and anegg, wherewith to feed the patient when she awoke. 

She had not long left the room when the slumberer's eyes openedgradually and stared with the fixity of semi-consciousness at a stem ofblossoming jessamine in the wall-paper. Then she slowly stretched herarms above her head until some inches of wrist, slight and round andwhite, emerged from the strictly plain night-gown sleeve. So she lay, till suddenly, almost with a start, she pulled herself up and lookedabout her. The gaze of her wide-open eyes travelled questioningly aroundthe quiet-toned room which two windows at right angles to each otherstill kept light with the reflection of a yellow winter sunset. Shepushed the bedclothes down, dropped first one bare white foot, then theother to the ground and looked doubtfully at a pair of worn feltslippers which were placed beside the bed, before slipping her feet intothem. With the same air as of one assuming garments which do not belongto her, she put on the faded blue flannel dressing-gown. Then she walkedto the southern window. None of the glories of Oxford were visible fromit; only the bare branches of trees through which appeared a huddle ofsomewhat sordid looking roofs and the unimposing spire of St. Aloysius. With the same air, questioning yet as in a dream, she turned to thewestern window, which was open. Below, in its wintry dulness, lay thegarden of the College, bounded by an old gray wall which divided it fromthe straggling street; beyond that, a mass of slate roofs. But a certainglory was on the slate roofs and all the garden that was not in shadow. For away over Wytham, where the blue vapor floated in the folds of thehills, blending imperceptibly with the deep brown of the leafless woods, sunset had lifted a wide curtain of cloud and showed between the gloomof heaven and earth, a long straight pool of yellow light. 

She leaned out of the window. A mild fresh air which seemed to bepouring over the earth through that rift in heaven which the sunset hadmade, breathed freshly on her face and the yellow light shone on heramber hair, which lay on her shoulders about the length of the hair ofan angel in some old Florentine picture. 

Miss Burt in galoshes and with a wrap over her head was coming up thegarden. She caught sight of that vision of gold and pale blue in thewindow and smiled and waved her hand to Milly Flaxman. The visionwithdrew, trembling slightly as though with cold, and closed thewindow. 

Tims came in, carrying a boiled egg and a plate of bread and butter. Tims put down the egg-cup and the plate on the table before she relaxedthe wrinkle of carefulness and grinned triumphantly at her patient. 

"Well, old girl, " she asked; "what do you say to hypnotism now? Put_you_ to sleep, right enough, anyhow. Know what time it is?"

The awakened sleeper made a few steps forward, leaned her hands on thetable, on the other side of which Tims stood, and gazed upon her withstartling intentness. Then she began to speak in a rapid, urgent voice. Her words were in themselves ordinary and distinct, yet what she saidwas entirely incomprehensible, a nightmare of speech, as though sometalking-machine had gone wrong and was pouring out a miscellaneous stockof verbs, nouns, adjectives and the rest without meaning or cohesion. Certain words reappeared with frequency, but Tims had a feeling that thespeaker did not attach their usual meaning to them. This travesty oflanguage went on for what appeared to the transfixed and terrifiedlistener quite a long time. At length the serious, almost tragic, babbler, meeting with no response save the staring horror of Tims's tooexpressive countenance, ended with a supplicating smile and a glancewhich contrived to be charged at once with pathos and coquetry. Thissmile, this look, were so totally unlike any expression which Tims hadever seen on Milly's countenance that they heightened her feeling ofnightmare. But she pulled herself together and determined to showpresence of mind. She had already placed a basket-chair by the fireready for her patient, and now gently but firmly led Milly to it. 

"Sit down, Milly, " she said--and the use of her friend's proper nameshowed that she felt the occasion to be serious--"and don't speak againtill you've had some tea. Your head will be clearer presently, it's abit confused now, you know. "

The stranger Milly, still so unlike the Milly of Tims's intimacy, farfrom exerting the unnatural strength of a maniac, passively permittedherself to be placed in the chair and listened to what Tims was sayingwith the puzzled intentness of a child or a foreigner, trying tounderstand. She laid her head back in its little cloud of amber hair, and looked up at Tims, who, frowning portentously, once more with liftedfinger enjoined silence. Tims then concealing her agitation behind acupboard-door, reached down the tea-things. By some strange accident themethodical Milly's teapot was absent from its place; a phenomenon forwhich Tims was thankful, as it imposed upon her the necessity of leavingher patient for a few minutes. Shaking her finger again at Milly stillmore emphatically, she went out, and locked the door behind her. After amoment's thought, she reluctantly decided to report the matter to MissBurt. But Miss Burt was closeted with the treasurer and an architectfrom London, and was on no account to be disturbed. So Tims went up toher own room and rapidly revolved the situation. She was certain thatMilly was not physically ill; on the contrary, she looked much betterthan she had looked on the previous day. This curious affection of thespeech-memory might be hysterical, as her sobbing the night before hadbeen, or it might be connected with some little failure of circulationin the brain; an explanation, perhaps, pointed to by the extraordinarylength of her sleep. Anyhow, Tims felt sceptical as to a doctor being ofany use. 

She went to her cupboard to take out her own teapot, and her eye fellupon a small medicine bottle marked "Brandy. " Milly was a convincedteetotaller; all the more reason, thought Tims, why a dose of alcoholshould give her nerves and circulation a fillip, only she must not knowof it, or she would certainly refuse the remedy. 

Pocketing the bottle and flourishing the teapot, Tims mounted again toMilly's room. Her patient, who had spent the time wandering about theroom and examining everything in it, as well as she could in thefast-falling twilight, resumed her position in the chair as soon as sheheard a step in the passage, and greeted her returning keeper with anattractive smile. Tims uttering words of commendation, slyly poured somebrandy into one of the large teacups before lighting the candles. 

"Now, my girl, " she said, when she had made the tea, "drink this, andyou'll feel better. "

Milly leaned forward, her round chin on her hand, and looked intently atthe tea-service and at the proffered cup. Then she suddenly raised herhead, clapped her hands softly, and cried in a tone of delighteddiscovery, "Tea!"

"Excuse me, " she added, taking the cup with a little bow; and in twoseconds had helped herself to three lumps of sugar. Tims was surprised, for Milly never took sugar in her tea. 

"That's right, M. , you're going along well!" cried Tims, standing on thehearth-rug, with one hand under her short coat-tails, while she gulpedher own tea, and ate two pieces of bread and butter put together. Millyate hers and drank her tea daintily, looking meanwhile at her companionwith wonder which gradually gave way to amusement. At length leaningforward with a dimpling smile, she interrogated very politely and quitelucidly. 

"Pardon me, sir, you are--? Ah, the doctor, no doubt! My poor head, yousee!" and she drew her fingers across her forehead. 

Tims started, and grabbed her wig, as was her wont in moments ofagitation. She stood transfixed, the teacup at a dangerous angle in herextended hand. 

"Good God!" she ejaculated. "You are mad and no mistake, my poor oldgirl. "

The "old girl" made a supreme effort to contain herself, and then burstinto a pretty, rippling laugh in which there was nothing familiar toTims's ear. She rose from her chair vivaciously and took the cup fromTims's hand, to deposit it in safety on the chimney piece. 

"How silly I was!" she cried, regarding Tims sparklingly. "Do you know Iwas not quite sure whether you were a man or a woman. Of course I seenow, and I'm so glad. I do like men, you know, so much better thanwomen. "

"Milly, " retorted Tims, sternly, settling her wig. "You are mad, youneed not be bad as well. But it's my own fault for giving you thatbrandy. You know as well as I do that I hate men--nasty, selfish, guzzling, conceited, guffawing brutes! I never wanted to speak to a manin my life, except in the way of business. "

Milly waved her amber head gracefully for a moment as though at a loss, then returned playfully, "That must be because the women spoil you so. "

Tims smiled sardonically; but regaining her sense of the situation, outof which she had been momentarily shocked, applied herself to theproblem of calling back poor Milly's wandering mind. 

"Sit down, my girl, " she said, abruptly, putting her arm around Milly'sbody, so soft and slender in the scanty folds of the blue dressing-gown. Milly obeyed precipitately. Then drawing a small chair close to her, Tims said in gentle tones which could hardly have been recognized ashers:

"M. , darling, do you know where you are?"

Milly turned on her a face from which the unnatural vivacity had fallenlike a mask; the appealing face of a poor lost child. 

"Am I--am I--in a _maison de santé_?" she asked tremulously, fixing herblue eyes on Tims, full of piteous anxiety. 

"A lunatic asylum? Certainly not, " replied Tims. "Now don't begincrying again, old girl. That's how the trouble began. "

"Was it?" asked Milly, dreamily. "I thought it was--" she paused, frowning before her in the air, as though trying to pursue with herbodily vision some recollection which had flickered across herconsciousness only to disappear. 

"Well, never mind that now, " said Tims, hastily; "get your bearingsright first. You're in Ascham College. "

"A College!" repeated Milly vaguely, but in a moment her facebrightened, "I know. A place of learning where they have professors andthings. Are you a professor?"

"No, I'm a student. So are you. "

Milly looked fixedly at Tims, then smiled a melancholy smile. "I see, "she said, "we're both studying--medicine--medicine for the mind. " Shestood up, locked her hands behind her head in her soft hair and wailedmiserably. "Oh, why won't some kind person come and tell me where I am, and what I was before I came here?"

Tears of wounded feelings sprang to Tims's eyes. "Milly, my beauty!" shecried despairingly, "I'm trying to be kind to you and tell youeverything you want to know. Your name is Mildred Flaxman and you usedto live in Oxford here, but now all your people have gone to Australiabecause your father's got a deanery there. "

"Have they left me here, mad and by myself?" asked Milly; "have I no oneto look after me, no one to give me a home?"

"I suppose Lady Thomson or the Fletchers would, " returned Tims, "but youhaven't wanted one. You've been quite happy at Ascham. Do try andremember. Can't you remember getting your First in Mods. And how you'vebeen working to get one in Greats? Your brain's been right enough untilto-day, old girl, and it will be again. I expect it's a case of collapseof memory from overwork. Things will come back to you soon and I'll helpyou all I can. Do try and recollect me--Tims. " There was an unmistakablechoke in Tims's voice. "We have been such chums. The others are allpretty nasty to me sometimes--they seem to think I'm a grinning, woodenAunt Sally, stuck up for them to shy jokes at. But you've never oncebeen nasty to me, M. , and there's precious few things I wouldn't do tohelp you. So don't go talking to me as though there weren't any one inthe world who cared a brass farthing about you. "

"I'm sure I'm most thankful to find I have got some one here who caresabout me, " returned Milly, meekly, passing her hand across her eyes forlack of a handkerchief. "You see, it's dreadful for me to be like this. I seem to know what things are, and yet I don't know. A little while agoit seemed to me I was just going to remember something--somethingdifferent from what you've told me. But now it's all gone again. Oh, please give me a handkerchief!"

Tims opened one of Milly's tidy drawers and sought for a handkerchief. When she had found it, Milly was standing before the highchimney-piece, over which hung a long, low mirror about a foot wide anddivided into three parts by miniature pilasters of tarnished gilt. Themirror, too, was tarnished here and there, but it had been a good glassand showed undistorted the blue Delft jars on the mantel-shelf, glimpsesof flickering firelight in the room, amber hair and the tear-bedewedroses of a flushed young face. Suddenly Milly thrust the jars aside, seized the candle from the table, and, holding it near her face, lookedintently, anxiously in the glass. The anxiety vanished in a moment, butnot the intentness. She went on looking. Tims had always perceivedMilly's beauty--which had an odd way of slipping through the worldunobserved--but had never seen her look so lovely as now, her eyes wideand brilliant, and her upper lip curved rosily over a shining glimpse ofher white teeth. 

Beauty had an extraordinary fascination for Tims, poor step-child ofnature! Now she stood looking at the reflection of Milly withoutnoticing how in the background her own strange, wizened face peered dimand grotesque from the tarnished mirror, like the picture of a witch ora goblin behind the fair semblance of some princess in a fairy tale. 

"I do remember myself partly, " said Milly, doubtfully; "and yet--somehownot quite. I suppose I shall remember you and this queer place soon, ifthey don't put me into a mad-house at once. "

"They sha'n't, " said Tims, decisively. "Trust to me, M. , and I'll seeyou through. But I'm afraid you'll have to give up all thought of yourFirst. "

"My what, " asked Milly, turning round inquiringly. 

"Your First Class, your place, you know, in the Final Honors School, Lit. Hum. , the biggest examination of the lot. "

"Do I want it very much, my First?"

"Want it? I should just think you do want it!"

Milly stared at the fire for a minute, warming one foot before she spokeagain. Then:

"How funny of me!" she observed, meditatively. 

CHAPTER IV

Tims's programme happened to be full on the following day, so that itwas half-past twelve before she knocked at Milly's door and wasadmitted. Milly stood in the middle of the room in an attitude ofenergy, with her small wardrobe lying about her on the floor inignominious heaps. 

"Tell me, Tims, " said Milly, after the first inquiries, "are thosepositively all the clothes I possess?"

"Of course they are, M. What do you want with more?"

"Are they in the fashion?" asked Milly, anxiously. 

Tims stared. 

"Fashion! Good Lord, M. ! What does it matter whether you look the sameas every fool in the street or not?"

"Oh, Tims!" cried Milly, laughing that pretty rippling laugh so strangein Tims's ears. "I was quite right when I made a mistake, you're justlike a man. All the better. But you can't expect me not to care a bitabout my clothes like you, you really can't. "

Tims drew herself up. 

"You're wrong, my girl, I'm a deal fonder of frocks than you are. Ialways think, " she added, looking before her dreamily, "that I wasmeant to be a very good dresser, only I was brought up too economical. "Generally speaking, when Tims had uttered one of her deepest and truestfeelings, she would glance around, suddenly alert and suspicious tosurprise the twinkle in her auditor's eye. But in the clear blue ofMilly Flaxman's quiet eyes, she had ceased to look for that tormentingtwinkle, that spark which seemed destined to dance about her from thecradle to the grave. 

Presently she found herself hanging up Milly's clothes while Milly paidno attention; for she alternately stood before the glass in the darkcorner, and kneeled on the hearth-rug, curling-tongs in hand. And thehair, the silky soft amber hair, which could be twisted into a tiny ballor fluffed into a golden fleece at will, was being tossed up and pulleddown, combed here and brushed there, altogether handled with a zeal andpatience to which it had been a stranger since the days when it had beenthe pride of the nursery. Tims the untidy, as one in a dream, went ontidying the room she was accustomed to see so immaculate. 

"There!" cried Milly, turning, "that's how I wear it, isn't it?"

"Good Lord, no!" exclaimed Tims, contemplating the transformed Milly. "It suits you, M. , in a way, but it looks queer too. The others will allbe hooting if you go down-stairs like that. "

Milly plumped into a chair irritably. 

"How ever am I to know how I did my hair if I can't remember? Please doit for me. "

Tims smiled sardonically. 

"I'll lend you my hair, " she said; "the second best. But _do_ your hair!You really are as mad as a hatter. "

Milly shrugged her shoulders. 

"You can't? Then I keep it like this, " she said. 

An argument ensued. Tims left the room to try and find a photograph ofMilly as she had been. 

When she returned she found her friend standing in absorbedcontemplation of a book in her hand. 

"This is Greek, isn't it?" she asked, holding it up. Her face wore alittle frown as of strained attention. 

"Right you are, " shrieked Tims in accents of relief. "Greek it is. Canyou read it?"

"Not yet, " replied Milly, flushing with excitement, "but I shall soon, Iknow I shall. Last night I couldn't make head or tail of the books. NowI understand right enough what they are, and I know some are in Greekand some in English. I can't read either yet, but it's all coming backgradually, like the daylight coming in at the window this morning. "

"Hooray! Hooray!" shouted Tims. "You'll be reading as hard as ever in aweek if I don't look after you. But see here, my girl, you've given me anasty jar, and I'm not going to let you break your heart or crack yourbrain in a wild-goose chase. You can't get that First, you know; you'reon a fairly good Second Class level, and you'd better make up your mindto stay there. "

"A fairly good Second Class level!" repeated Milly, still turning theleaves of the book. "That doesn't sound very exhilarating--and I ratherthink I shall do as I like about staying there. "

Tims began to heat. 

"Well, that's what Stewart said about you. I don't believe I told youhalf plain enough what Stewart did say, for fear of hurting yourfeelings. He said you are a good scholar, but barring that, you weren'tat all clever. "

Milly looked up from her book; but she was not tearful. There was a curlin her lip and the light of battle in her eye. 

"Stewart said that, did he? Now if I were a gentleman I shouldsay--'damn his impudence'--and 'who the devil is Stewart'; but then I'mnot. You can say it. "

Tims stared. "Oh, come, I say!" she exclaimed. "I don't swear, I onlyquote. But my goodness, when you remember who Stewart is, you'llbe--well, pained to think of the language you're using about him. "

"Why?" asked Milly, her head riding disdainfully on her slender neck. 

"Because he's your tutor and lecturer--and a regular tiptop man at Greekand all that--and you--you respect him most awfully. "

"Do I?" cried Milly--"did perhaps in my salad days. I've no respectwhatever for professors now, my good Tims. I know what they're like. Here's Stewart for you. "

She took up a pen and a scrap of paper and dashed off a clever ludicroussketch of a man with long hair, an immense brow, and spectacles. 

"Nonsense!" said Tims; "that's not a bit like him. "

She held the paper in her hand and looked fixedly at it. Milly had beenwont seriously to grieve over her hopeless lack of artistic talent andshe had never attempted to caricature. Tims was thinking of a youngfellow of a college who had lately died of brain disease. In the earlierstages of his insanity, it had been remarked that he had an originalitywhich had not been his when in a normal state. What if her friend weredeveloping the same terrible disease? If it were so, it was no usefussing, since there was no remedy. Still, she felt a desperate need totake some sort of precaution. 

"If I were you, M. , " she said, "I'd go to bed and keep very quiet for aday or two. You're so--so odd, and excited, they'd notice it if you wentdown-stairs. "

"Would they?" asked Milly, suddenly sobered. "Would they say I was mad?"An expression of fear came into her face, and its strangely luminouseyes travelled around the room with a look as of some trapped creatureseeking escape. 

There was an awkward pause. 

"I'm not mad, " affirmed Milly, swallowing with a dry throat. "I'mperfectly sensible, but any one would be odd and excited too whowas--was as I am--with a number of words and ideas floating in my mindwithout my having the least idea where they spring from. Please, Timsdear, tell me how I am to behave. I should so hate to be thought queer, wanting in any way. "

Tims considered. 

"For one thing, you mustn't talk such a lot. You never have been one forchattering; and lately, of course, with your overwork, you've beenparticularly quiet. Don't talk, M. , that's my advice. "

"Very well, " replied Milly, gloomily. 

Tims hesitated and went on:

"But I don't see how you're going to hide up this business about yourmemory. I wish you'd let me tell old B. , anyhow. "

"I won't have any one told, " cried Milly. "Not a creature. If onlyyou'll help me, dear, dear Tims--you will help me, won't you?--I shallsoon be all right, and no one except you will ever know. No one will beable to shrug their shoulders and say, whatever I do, 'Of course she'scrazy. ' I should hate it so! I know I can get on if I try. I'm muchcleverer than you and that silly old Stewart think. Promise me, promiseme, darling Tims, you won't betray me!"

Tims was not weak-minded, but she was very tender-hearted andexceedingly susceptible to personal charms. She ought not, she knew sheought not, to have yielded, but she did. She promised. Yet in herfriend's own interest, she contended that Milly must confess to acertain failure of memory from over-fatigue, if only as a pretext fordropping her work for a while. It was agreed that Milly should remain inbed for several days, and she did so; less bored than might have beenexpected, because she had the constant excitement of this or that bit ofknowledge filtering back into her mind. But this knowledge was purelyintellectual. With Tims's help she had recovered her reading powers, andalthough she felt at first only a vague recognition of somethingfamiliar in the sense of what she read, it was evident that she was fastregaining the use of the treasures stored in her brain by years ofdogged and methodical work. But the facts and personalities which hadmade her own life seemed to have vanished, leaving "not a wrack behind. "

Tims, having primed her well beforehand, brought in the more importantgirls to see her, and by dint of a cautious reserve she passed very wellwith them, as with Miss Burt and Miss Walker. Tims seemed to feel muchmore nervous than Milly herself did when she joined the other studentsas usual. 

There were moments when Tims gasped with the certainty that therevelation of her friend's blank ignorance of the place and people wasabout to be made. Then Mildred--for so, despising the soft diminutive, she now desired to be called--by some extraordinary exertion of tact andingenuity, would evade the inevitable and appear on the other side ofit, a little elated, but otherwise serene. It was generally marked thatMiss Flaxman was a different creature since she had given up worryingabout her Schools, and that no one would have believed how much prettiershe could make herself by doing her hair a different way. 

Miss Burt, however, was somewhat puzzled and uneasy. Although Milly waslooking unusually well, it was evident that all was not quite right withher, for she complained of a failure of memory, a mental fatigue whichmade it impossible for her to go to lectures, and she seemed to havelost all interest in the Schools, which had so lately been for her the"be-all" as well as the "end-all here. " Miss Burt knew Milly's only nearrelation in England, Lady Thomson, intimately; and for that reasonhesitated to write to her. She knew that Beatrice Thomson had nopatience with the talk--often silly enough--about girls overworkingtheir brains. She herself had never been laid up in her life, exceptwhen her leg was broken, and her views on the subject of ill-health weremarked. She regarded the catching of scarlet-fever or influenza as anact of cowardice, consumption or any organic disease as scarcely, if atall, less disgraceful than drunkenness or fraud, while the countlesslittle ailments to which feminine flesh seems more particularly heir shecondemned as the most deplorable of female failings, except the love ofdress. 

Eventually Miss Burt did write to Lady Thomson, cautiously. Lady Thomsonreplied that she was coming up to town on Thursday, and could so arrangeher journey as to have an hour and a half in Oxford. She would be atAscham at three-thirty. Mildred rushed to Tims with the agitating newsand both were greatly upset by it. However, Aunt Beatrice had got to befaced sometime or other and Mildred's spirit rose to the encounter. 

She had by this time provided herself with another dress, encouraged todo so by the money in hand left by the frugal Milly the First. She hadgot a plain tailor-made coat and skirt, in a becoming shade of brown;and with the unbecoming hard collar _de rigueur_ in those days, she worea turquoise blue tie, which seemed to reflect the color of her eyes. Andin spite of Tims's dissuasions, she put on the new dress on Thursday, and declined to screw her hair up in the old way, as advised. 

Accordingly on Thursday at twenty-five minutes to four, Mildredappeared, in answer to a summons, in the quiet-colored, pleasantdrawing-room at Ascham, with its French windows giving on to the lawn, where some of the girls were playing hockey, not without cries. Herfirst view of Aunt Beatrice was a pleasant surprise. A tall, upstandingfigure, draped in a long, soft cloak trimmed with fur, a handsome facewith marked features, marked eyebrows, a fine complexion and brightbrown eyes under a wide-brimmed felt hat. 

Having exchanged the customary peck, she waited in silence till Mildredhad seated herself. Then surveying her niece with satisfaction:

"Come, Milly, " said she, in a full, pleasant voice; "I don't see muchsigns of the nervous invalid about you. Really, Polly, " turning to MissBurt, "she has not looked so well for a long time. "

"She's been much better since she dropped her work, " replied Miss Burt. 

"Taking plenty of fresh air and exercise, I suppose"--Aunt Beatricesmiled kindly on her niece--"I'm afraid I've kept you from your hockeythis afternoon, Milly. "

"Oh no, Aunt Beatrice, certainly not, " replied Milly, with the extremecourtesy of nervousness. "I never play hockey now. "

Lady Thomson turned to the Head with a shade of triumph in hersatisfaction. 

"There, Polly! What did I tell you? I was sure there was something elseat the bottom of it. Steady work, methodically done, never hurt anybody. But of course if she's given up exercise, her liver or something wasbound to get out of order. "

"No, really, I take lots of exercise, " interposed Milly; "only I don'tcare for hockey, it's such a horrid, rough, dirty game; don't you thinkso? And Miss Walker got a front tooth broken last winter. "

Lady Thomson looked at her in a surprised way. 

"Well, if you've not been playing hockey, what exercise have you beentaking?"

"Walks, " replied Milly, feebly, feeling herself on the wrong track; "Igo walks with Ti--with Flora Timson when she has time. "

Aunt Beatrice looked at the matter judicially. 

"Of course, games are best for the physique. Look at men. Still, walkingwill do, if one takes proper walks. I hope Flora Timson takes you goodlong walks. "

"Indeed she does!" cried Milly. "Immense! She walks a dreadful pace, andwe get over stiles and things. "

"Immense is a little vague. How far do you go on an average?"

Mildred's notions of distance were vague. "Quite two miles, I'm sure, "she responded, cheerfully. 

Aunt Beatrice made no comment. She looked steadily and scrutinizinglyat her niece, and in a kind but deepened voice told her to go up to herroom, whither she, Lady Thomson, would follow in a few minutes, just tosee how the Mantegnas looked now they were framed. 

As soon as the door had closed behind Mildred, she turned to Miss Burt. "You're right, in a way, Polly, after all. There is something odd aboutMilly, but I think it's affectation. Did you hear her answer? Two miles!When to my knowledge she can easily walk ten. "

Meantime, Mildred mounted slowly to her room. She had tidied it underTims's instructions and had nothing to do but to sit down and thinkuntil Lady Thomson's masculine step was heard outside her door. 

Aunt Beatrice came in and laid aside her hat and cloak, showing a dressof rough gray tweed, and short--so far a tribute to the practical--butotherwise made on some awkward artistic or hygienic principle. Herglossy brown hair was brushed back and twisted tight, as Milly's used tobe, but with different effect, because of its heaviness and length. 

"Why have you crammed up one of your windows with a dressing-glass?"asked Aunt Beatrice, putting a picture straight. 

"Because I can't see myself in that dark corner, " returned Mildred, demurely meek, but waiting her opportunity. 

"See yourself! My dear child, you hardly ever want to see yourself, ifyou are habitually neat and dressed sensibly. I see you've adopted themannish style. That's a phase of vanity. You'll come back to thebeautiful and natural before long. "

Mildred leaned back in her chair and clasped her hands behind her head. 

"I don't think so, Aunt Beatrice. I've settled the dress question onceand for all. I've found a clean, tidy, convenient style of dress and Ican't waste time thinking about altering it again. "

"You don't seem to mind wasting it on doing your hair, " returned AuntBeatrice, smiling, but not grimly, for she enjoyed logical fencing, evento her opponent's fair hits. 

"If I had beautiful hair like yours, I shouldn't need to, " repliedMildred. "But you know how endy and untidy mine always was. "

Aunt Beatrice, embarrassed by the compliment, looked at her watch. "Itseems as if we women can't escape our fate, " she said. "Here we aregabbling about dress when we've plenty of important things to talk over. Miss Burt wrote to me that you were overworked, run down, nerves out oforder, and all the usual nonsense. I'm thankful to find you lookingremarkably well. I should like to know what this humbug about not beingable to work means. "

"It means that--well, I simply can't, " returned Mildred, earnestly thistime. "I can't remember things. "

"You must be able to remember; unless your brain's diseased, which ismost improbable. But I ought to take you to a brain specialist, Isuppose. "

Milly changed color. "Please, oh please, Aunt Beatrice, don't do that!"

Lady Thomson, in fact, hardly meant it; for her niece's appearance wasunmistakably healthy. However, the threat told. 

"I shall if you don't improve. I can't understand you. Either you'rehysterical or you've got one of those abominable fits of frivolity whichcome on women like drink on men, and destroy their careers. I thought wehad both set our hearts on your getting another First. "

"But, Aunt Beatrice, they say I can't. They say I'm not clever enough. "

"Oh, that's what they say, is it?" Lady Thomson smiled in calm but deepcontempt. "How do they explain the idiots who have got Firsts? ArchibaldToovey, for instance?" Her eyes met her niece's, and both smiled. 

"Ah, yes! Mr. Toovey, " returned Milly, who had met Archibald Toovey atthe Fletchers', and converted his patronizing courtship into imbecileraptures. 

"But that quite explains your losing an interest in your work. Just foronce, I should like to take you away before the end of term. We would gostraight to Rome next Monday. We shall meet the Breretons there, and gofully over the new excavations and discoveries, besides the old things, which will be new, of course, to you. Then we will go on to Naples, dothe galleries and Pompeii, and come back by Florence and Paris beforeChristmas. By that time you will be ready to settle down to your worksteadily again and forget all this nonsense. "

Mildred's face had lighted up momentarily at the word "Rome. " Then shesucked her under lip and looked at the fire. When Lady Thomson'sprogramme was ended, she made a pause before she said, slowly:

"Thank you so much, dear Aunt Beatrice. I should love to go, but--Idon't think--no, I don't think I'd better. You see, there's theexpense. "

"Of course I don't expect you to pay for yourself. I take you. "

"How very kind and sweet of you! But--well, do you know, you'veencouraged me so about that. First, I feel now as though I could sitdown and get it straight away. I will get it, Aunt Beatrice, if only tomake that old Professor look foolish. "

Lady Thomson, though disappointed in a way, felt that Milly Flaxman wasdoing credit to her principles, showing a spirit worthy of her family. She did not urge the Roman plan; but content with a victory over "nervesand the usual nonsense, " withdrew triumphant to the railway station. 

Tims came in when she was gone and heard about the Roman offer. 

"You refused, when Aunt Beatrice was going to plank down the dollars?M. , you are a fool!"

"No, Tims, " Mildred answered, deliberately; "you see, I don't feel sureyet whether I can manage Aunt Beatrice. "

CHAPTER V

Oxford is beautiful at all times, beautiful even now, in spite of thecruel disfigurement inflicted upon her by the march of modern vulgarity, but she has three high festivals which clothe her with a special gloryand crown her with their several crowns. One is the Festival of May, when her hoary walls and ancient enclosures overflow with emerald andwhite, rose-color and purple and gold, a foam of leafage and blossom, breaking spray-like over edges of stone, gray as sea-worn rocks. And allabout the city the green meadows and groves burn with many tones ofcolor, brilliant as enamels or as precious stones, yet of a texturesofter and richer, more full of delicate shadows than any velvet mantlethat ever was woven for a queen. 

Another Festival comes with that strayed bacchanal October, who hangsher scarlet and wine-colored garlands on cloister and pinnacle, on walland tower. And gradually the foliage of grove and garden, turns throughshade of bluish metallic green, to the mingled splendor of pale gold andbeaten bronze and deepest copper, half glowing and half drowned in thelow, mellow sunlight, and purple mist of autumn. 

Last comes the Festival of Mid-winter, the Festival of the Frost. Therime comes, or the snow, and the long lines of the buildings, thefret-work of stone, the battlements, carved pinnacles and images ofsaints or devils, stand up with clear glittering outlines, or clusteredabout and overhung with fantasies of ice and snow. Behind, the deep-bluesky itself seems to glitter too. The frozen floods glitter in themeadows, and every little twig on the bare trees. There is no color inthe earth, but the atmosphere of the river valley clothes distant hillsand trees and hedges with ultramarine vapor. Towards evening the mistclimbs, faintly veiling the tall groves of elms and the piled masses ofthe city itself. The sunset begins to burn red behind Magdalen Tower, all the towers and aery pinnacles rise blue yet distinct against it. Andthis festival is not only one of nature. The glittering ice is spreadover the meadows, and, everywhere from morning till moonlight, therhythmical ring of the skate and the sound of voices sonorous with thejoy of living, travel far on the frosty air. Sometimes the very riversare frozen, and the broad, bare highway of the Thames and thetree-sheltered path of the Cherwell are alive with black figures, heel-winged like Mercury, flying swiftly on no errand, but for the meredelight of flying. 

It was early on such a shining festival morning that Mildred, a willowy, brown-clad figure, came down to a piece of ice in an outlying meadow. Her shadow moved beside her in the sunshine, blue on the whiteness ofthe snow, which crunched crisp and thin under her feet. She carried ablack bag in her hand--sign of the serious skater, and her face wasserious, even apprehensive. She saw with relief that except the sweepersthere was no one on the ice. A row of shivering men, buttoned up to thechin in seedy coats, rose from the chairs where they awaited theirappointed prey, and all yelled to her at once. She crowned the hopes ofone by occupying his seat, but the important task of putting on thebladed boots she could depute to none. Tims, whom no appeal offriendship could induce to shiver on the ice, had told her that Millywas an expert skater. She was, in fact, correct and accomplished, butthere was a stiffness and sense of effort about her style, a want ofthat appearance of free and daring abandonment to the stroke of theblade once launched, that makes the beauty of skating. Mildred knew onlythat she had to live up to the reputation of a mighty skater, and wasnot sure whether she could even stand on these knifelike edges. Shelaced one boot, happy in the belief that at any rate there would be nowitness to her voyage of discovery. But a renewed yelling among the menmade her lift her head, and there, striding swiftly over the crisp snow, came a tall, handsome young man, with a pointed, silky black beard andfine, short-sighted black eyes, aglow with the pleasure of the frostysun. 

It was Ian Stewart. The young lady whom he discovered to be Miss Flaxmanjust as he reached the chairs, was much more annoyed than he at theencounter. Here was an acquaintance, it seemed, and one provided withthe bag and orange which Tims had warned her was the mark of theserious skater. They exchanged remarks on the weather and she went onlacing her other boot in great trepidation. The moment was come. She didnot recoil from the insult of being seized under her elbows by two menand carefully planted on her feet as though she were most likely totumble down. So far as she knew, she was likely to. But, lo! no soonerwas she up than muscles and nerves, recking nothing of the brain's blinddenial, asserted their own acquaintance with the art of balance andmotion. Wondering, and for a few minutes still apprehensive, butpresently lost in the pleasure of the thing, Mildred began to fly overthe ice. And the dark, handsome man who had taken off his cap to herbecame supremely unimportant. Unluckily the piece of flood-ice was notendless and she had to come back. He was circling around an orange, andshe, throwing herself instinctively on to the outside edge, came downtowards him in great, sweeping curves, absorbed in the delight of thismotion, so new yet so perfectly under her control. Ian Stewart, perceiving that the girl was absolutely unconscious of his presence, blushed in his soul to think that he had been induced to believe himselfto be of importance in her eyes. 

"Miss Flaxman, " he said, skating up to her, "I see you have no orange. Can't we skate a figure together around mine?"

"I've forgotten all about figures, " replied Mildred, with truth. 

"Try some simple turns, " he urged. "There are plenty here, " and he heldup a book in his hand like the one she had found in her own black bag. But it had "Ian Stewart, Durham College, " written clearly on theoutside. 

"So that's Stewart!" thought Milly; and she could not help laughing ather own thoughts, which had created him in a different image. 

Stewart did not know why she laughed, but he found the sound and sightof the laugh new and charming. 

"It's awfully kind of you to undertake my education in another branch, Mr. Stewart, " she answered, pouting, "in spite of having found out thatI'm not at all clever. "

She smiled at him mutinously, sweeping towards the orange with headthrown back over her left shoulder. Momentarily the poise of her headrecalled the attitude of the portrait of Lady Hammerton, beckoning herunseen companions to that far-off mysterious mountain country, where thetorrents shine so whitely through the mist and the red line of sunsetspeaks of coming night. 

Stewart colored, slightly confused. This brutal statement did not seemto him to represent the just and candid account he had given Miss Walkerof Miss Flaxman's abilities. 

"Some one's been misreporting me, I see, " he returned. "But anyhow, onthe ice, Miss Flaxman, it's you who are the Professor; I who am thepupil. So I offer you a fair revenge. "

Accordingly, Mildred soon found herself placed at a due distance fromthe orange, with Stewart equally distant from it on the other side. After a few minutes of extreme uneasiness, she discovered that althoughshe had to halt at each fresh call, she had a kind of mechanicalfamiliarity with the simple figures which he gave her. 

Stewart, though learned, was human; and to sweep now at the oppositepole to his companion, now with a swing of clasping hands at the centreof their delightful dance, his eyes always perforce on his charmingpartner, and her eyes on him, undeniably raised the pleasure of skatingto a higher power than if he had circled the orange in company with mereman. 

So they fleeted the too-short time in the sparkling blue and whiteworld, drinking the air like celestial wine. 

The Festival of the Frost had fallen in the Christmas Vacation, andOxford society in vacation is essentially different from that ofTerm-time, when it is overflowed by men who are but birds of passage, coming no one inquires whence, and flitting few know whither. The partythat picnicked, played hockey, danced and figured on their skatesthrough the weeks of the frost, was in those days almost like a familyparty. So it happened that Ian Stewart met the new Miss Flaxman in anatmosphere of friendly ease that years of term-time society would nothave afforded him. How new she was he did not guess, but supposed thechange to be in his own eyes. Other people, however, saw it. Her veryskating was different. It had gained in grace and vigor, but she wasseldom seen wooing the serious and lonely orange around which Milly hadacquired the skill that Mildred now enjoyed. On the contrary, sheinitiated an epidemic of frivolity on the ice in the shape of waltzingand hand-in-hand figures in general. 

Ian Stewart, too, neglected the orange and went in for hand-in-handfigures that season. Other things, too, he neglected; work, which he hadnever before allowed to suffer measurably from causes within hiscontrol; and far from blushing for his idleness, he rejoiced in it, asthe surest sign of all that for him the Festival of Spring had come inthe time of nature's frost. 

It was not only the crisp air, the frequent sun, the joyous flights overthe ringing ice that made his blood run faster through his veins andlaughter come more easily to his lips; that aroused him in the morningwith a strange sense of delight, as though some spirit had awakened himwith a glad reveille at the window of his soul. He, too, was in Arcady. That in itself should be sufficient joy; he knew he must restrain hisimpatience for more. Not till the summer, when the lady of his heart hadceased to be also his pupil, must he make avowal of his love. 

Mildred on her part found Stewart the most attractive of the men withwhom she was acquainted. As yet in this new existence of hers, she hadnot moved outside the Oxford circle--a circle exceptional in England, because in it intellectual eminence, not always recognized, whenrecognized receives as much honor as is accorded to a great fortune ora great name in ordinary society. Stewart's abilities were of a kind tobe recognized by the Academic world. He was already known in theUniversities of the Continent and America. Oxford was proud of him; andalthough Mildred had no desire to marry as yet, it gratified her tasteand her vanity to win him for a lover. 

CHAPTER VI

Mildred had had no desire to spend her vacations with Lady Thomson, andon the ground of her reading for the Schools, had been allowed to spendthem in Oxford. Tims, who had no relations, remained with her. She hadfor Mildred a sentiment almost like that of a parent, besides anadmiration for which she was slightly ashamed, feeling it to besomething of a slur on the memory of Milly, her first and kindestfriend. 

Mildred had recovered her memory for most things, but the facts of herformer life were still a blank to her. She had begun to work for herFirst in order to evade Aunt Beatrice; but the fever of it grew uponher, either from the ambient air of the University or from a nativepassion to excel in all she did. Her teachers were bewildered by themental change in Miss Flaxman. The qualities of intellectual swiftness, vigor, pliancy, whose absence they had once noted in her, became, on thecontrary, conspicuously hers. Once initiated into the tricks of the"Great Essay" style, she could use it with a dexterity strangely incontrast with the flat and fumbling manner in which poor Milly had beenwont to express her ideas. But in the region of actual knowledge, shenow and again perpetrated some immense and childish blunder, which madethe teachers, who nursed and trained her like a jockey or a race-horse, tremble for the results of the Greats Examination. 

All too swiftly the date of the Schools loomed on the horizon; drewnear; was come. The June weather was glorious on the river, but in thetown, above all in the Examination Schools, it was very hot. The sunglared pitilessly in through the great windows of the big T-shaped room, till the temperature was that of a greenhouse. The young men in theirblack coats and white ties looked enviously at the girl candidate, theonly one, in her white waist and light skirt. They envied her, too, herapparent indifference to a crisis that paled the masculine cheek. Infact, Mildred was nervous, but her nerves were strung up to so high apitch that she was sensitive neither to temperature nor to fatigue, norto want of sleep. And at the service of her quick intelligence and readypen lay all the stored knowledge of Milly the First. 

On the last day, when the last paper was over, Tims came and found herin the big hall, planting the pins in her hat with an almost feverishenergy. Although it was five o'clock, she said she wanted air, not tea. The last men had trooped listlessly down the steps of the Schools andthe two girls stood there while Mildred drew on her gloves. The sunwearing to the northwest, shone down that curve of the High Street whichall Europe cannot match. The slanting gold illumined the gray face ofthe University and the wide pavement, where the black-gowned victims ofthe Schools threaded their sombre way through groups of joyous youths inflannels and ladies in summer attire. On the opposite side cool shadowswere beginning to invade the sunshine, to slant across the old houses, straight-roofed or gabled, the paladian pile of Queen's, the mediævalfront of All Souls, with its single and perfect green tree, leading upto the consummation of the great spire of St. Mary's. 

Already, from the tall bulk of the nave, a shadow fell broad across thepavement. But still the heat of the day reverberated from the stonesabout them. They turned down to the Botanical Gardens and paced thatgray enclosure, full of the pride of branches and the glory of flowersand overhung by the soaring vision of Magdalen Tower. Mildred waswalking fast and talking volubly about the Examination and everythingelse. 

"Look here, old girl, " said Tims at last, when they reached for thesecond time the seat under the willow trellis, "I'm going to sit downhere, unless you'll come to tea at Boffin's. "

"I don't want to sit down, " returned Mildred, seating herself; "or tohave tea or anything. I want to be just going, going, going. I feel asthough if I stop for a minute something horrid will happen. "

Tims wrinkled her whole face anxiously. 

"Don't do that, Tims, " cried Mildred, sharply. "You look hideous. "

Tims colored, rose and walked away. She suddenly thought, with tears inher eyes, of the old Milly who would never have spoken to her likethat. By the time she had reached the little basin in the middle of thegarden, where the irises grew, Mildred had caught her up. 

"Tims, dear old Tims! What a wretch I am! I couldn't help letting offsteam on something--you don't know what I feel like. "

Tims allowed herself to be pacified, but in her heart there remained ayearning for her earlier and gentler friend--that Milly Flaxman who wascertainly not dead, yet as certainly gone out of existence. 

It was towards the end of the last week of Term, and the gayeties ofCommemoration had already begun. Mildred threw herself into them withfeverish enjoyment. She seemed to grudge even the hours that must belost in the unconsciousness of sleep. The Iretons, cousins from India, who had never known the former Milly, took a house in Oxford for a week. She went with them to three College balls and a Masonic, and spent thedays in a carnival of luncheon and boating-parties. She attracted plentyof admiration, and enjoyed herself wildly, yet also purposefully;because she was trying to get rid of that haunting feeling that if shestopped a minute "something horrid would happen. "

Stewart meantime was finding love not so entirely beautiful anddelightful a thing as he had at first imagined it. In his dreamy way hehad overlooked the fact of Commemoration, and planned when Term was overto find Mildred constantly at the Fletchers' and to be able to arrangequiet days on the river. But if he found her there, she was always incompany, and though she made herself as charming to him as usual, sheshowed no disposition to forsake all others and cleave only to him. Hewas not a dancing man, and suffered cruelly on the evenings when he knewher to be at balls, and fancied all her partners in love with her. 

But on the Thursday after Commemoration, the Fletchers gave a strawberrytea at Wytham, as a farewell festivity to their cousins. And Ian Stewartwas there. With Mrs. Fletcher's connivance, he took Mildred home alonein a canoe, by the deep and devious stream which runs under Wythamwoods. She went on talking with a vivacious gayety which was almostfoolish. He saw that it was unreal and that her nerves were at hightension. His own were also. He did not intend to propose to her thatday; but he could no longer restrain himself, and he began to speak toher of his love. 

"Hush!" she cried, with a vehement gesture. "Not to-day! oh, not to-day!I can't bear it!" She put her head on her knee and moaned again, "Notto-day, I'm too tired, I really am. I can't bear it. "

This was all the answer he could get, and her manner left him incomplete uncertainty as to whether she meant to accept or to refuse him. 

Tims had been at the strawberry tea too, and came into Mildred's room inthe evening, curious to know what had happened. She found Mildredwithout a light, sitting, or rather lying in a wicker chair. When thecandle was lighted she saw that Mildred was very pale and shivering. 

"You're overtired, my girl, " she said. "That's what's the matter withyou. "

"Oh, Tims, " moaned Mildred. "I feel so ill and so frightened. I knowsomething horrid's going to happen--I know it is. "

"Don't be a donkey, " returned Tims. "I'll help you undress and then youturn in. You'll be as jolly as a sandboy to-morrow. "

But Mildred was crying tremulously. "Oh, Tims, how dreadful it would beto die!"

"Idiot!" cried Tims, and shook Mildred with all her might. Mildred'stiny sobs turned into a shriek of laughter. 

"My goodness!" ejaculated Tims; "you're in hysterics!"

"I know I am, " gasped Mildred. "I was laughing to think of what AuntBeatrice would say. " And she giggled amid her tears. 

Tims insisted on her rising from the chair, undressing, and getting intobed. Then she sat by her in the half-dark, waiting for the miserabletears to leave off. 

"Don't cry, old girl, don't cry. Go to sleep and forget all about it, "she kept repeating, almost mechanically. 

At length leaning over the bed she saw that Mildred was asleep, lyingstraight on her bed with her feet crossed and her hands laid on herbosom. 

CHAPTER VII

About noon on Friday Milly Flaxman awoke. She lay very quiet, sleepy andcomfortable, her eyes fixed idly on a curve in the jessamine-patternpaper opposite her bed. The windows were wide open, the blinds down andevery now and again flapping softly, as a capricious little breeze wentby, whispering through the leafy trees outside. There seemed nothingunusual in that; she always slept with her windows open. But as hersenses emerged from those mists which lie on the surface of the river ofsleep, she was conscious of a balmy warmth in the room, of an impressionof bright sunshine behind the dark blinds, and of noises from thestreets reaching her with a kind of sharpness associated with sunshine. She sat up, looked at her watch, and was shocked to find how late shehad slept. She must have missed a lecture. Then the recollection of thedinner-party at the Fletchers', the verdict of Mr. Stewart on her chanceof a First, and her own hysterical outburst returned to her, overpowering all outward impressions. She felt calm and well now, butunhappy and ashamed of herself. She put her feet out of bed and lookedround mechanically for her dressing-gown and slippers. Their absence wasunimportant, for no sense of chill struck through her thin night-gownto her warm body, and going to the window, she drew up the blind. 

The high June sun struck full upon her, hot and dazzling, but not sodazzling that she could not see the row of garden trees through whosebare branches she had yesterday descried the squalid roofs of the town. They were spreading now in a thick screen of fresh green leaves. Sheleaned out, as though further investigation might explain thephenomenon, and saw a red standard rose in full flower under her window. The thing was exactly like a dream, and she tried to wake up but couldnot. She was panic-stricken and trembling. Had she been very, very ill?Was it possible to be unconscious for six months? She looked at herselfin a dressing-glass near the window, which she had never placed there, and saw that she was pale and had dark marks under her eyes, but notmore so than had been the case in that yesterday so strangely andmysteriously removed in time. Her slender white arms and throat were asrounded as usual. And if she had been ill, why was she left alone likethis? She found a dressing-gown not her own, and went on a voyage ofdiscovery. But the other rooms on her floor were dismantled andtenantless. The girls were gone and the servants were "cleaning" in adistant part of the College. She felt incapable of getting into bedagain and waiting for some one to come, so she began dressing herselfwith trembling hands. Every detail increased the sense of strangeness. There were a number of strange clothes, ball-dresses and others, hanging in her cupboard, strange odds and ends thrust confusedly intoher bureau. She found at length a blue cotton frock of her own, whichseemed just home from the wash. She had twisted up her hair and wasputting on the blue frock, when she heard a step on the stairs, andpaused with beating heart. Who was coming? How would the mystery beresolved? The door opened and Tims came in--the old Tims, wrinkled face, wig, and old straw hat on one side as usual. 

"Tims!" cried Milly, flying towards her and speaking with pale lips. "Please, please tell me--what has happened? Have I been very ill?" Andshe stared in Tims's face with a tragic mask of terror and anxiety. 

"Now take it easy--take it easy, M. , my girl!" cried Tims, giving her agreat squeeze and a clap on the shoulder. "I'm jolly glad to see youback. But don't let's have any more of your hysterics. No, never nomore!"

"Have I been away?" asked Milly, her lips still trembling. 

"I should think you had!" exclaimed Tims. "But nobody knows it exceptme. Don't forget that. Here's a note for you from old B. Read it firstor we shall both forget all about it. She had to go away early thismorning. "

Milly opened the note and read:

 "DEAR MILLY, --I am sorry not to say good-bye, but glad you are sleeping off your fatigue. I want to tell you, between ourselves, not to go on worrying about the results of the Schools, as I think you are doing, in spite of your pretences to the contrary. I hear you have done at least one brilliant paper, and although I, of course, know nothing certain, I believe you and the College will have reason to rejoice when the list comes out. 

 "Yours affectionately, "MARY BURT. "

"What does it mean?--oh, what can it mean?" faltered Milly, holding outthe missive to Tims. 

"It means you've been in for Greats, my girl, and done first-rate. Butthe strain's been a bit too much for you, and you've had anothercollapse of memory. You had one in the end of November. You've beenuncommonly well ever since, and worked like a Trojan, but you've notbeen quite your usual self, and I'm glad you've come right again, oldgirl. Let me tell you the whole business. "

Tims did so. She wanted social tact, but she had the tact of the heartwhich made her hide from Milly how very different, how much morebrilliant and attractive Milly the Second had been than her normal self. She only made her friend feel that the curious episode had entailed nodisgrace, but that somehow in her abnormal condition she had done wellin the Schools, and probably touched the top of her ambition. 

"But I don't feel as though it had been quite straightforward to hide itup so, " said Milly. "I shall write and tell Miss Burt and Aunt Beatrice, and tell the Fletchers when I go to them. "

"You'll do nothing of the kind, you stupid, " snapped Tims. "You'll besimply giving me away if you do. What is the good? It won't happenagain unless you're idiot enough to overwork yourself again. Very likelynot then; for, as an open-minded, scientific woman, I believe it to havebeen a case of hypnotism, and in France and the United States they'dhave thought it a very interesting one. But in England people are soprejudiced they'd say you'd simply been out of your mind; although thatwouldn't prevent them from blaming me for hypnotizing you. "

While Tims spoke thus, there was a knocking without, and a maiddelivered a note for Miss Flaxman. Milly held it in her hands andstudied it musingly before opening the envelope. Her pale, troubled facecolored and grew more serious. Tims had not mentioned Ian Stewart, butMilly had not forgotten him or his handwriting. Tims knew it too. Sherestrained her excitement while Milly turned her back and stood by thewindow reading the note. She must have read them several times over, thetwo sides of the sheet inscribed with Stewart's small, scholarlyhandwriting, before she turned her transfigured face towards theanxiously expectant Tims. 

"Tims, dear, " she said at length, smiling tremulously, and layingtremulous hands on Tims's two thin shoulders--"dear old Tims, why didn'tyou tell me?"

"Tell you what?" asked Tims, grinning delightedly. Milly threw her armsround her friend's neck and hid her happy tears and blushes betweenTims's ear and shoulder. 

"Mr. Stewart--it seems too good to be true--he loves me, he really does. He wants me to be his wife. "

Most girls would have hugged and kissed Milly, and Tims did hug her, butinstead of kissing her, she banged and slapped her back and shouldershard all over, shaking the while with deep internal chuckles. It hurt, but Milly did not mind, for it was sympathy. Presently she drew herselfaway, and wiping her damp eyes, said, smiling shyly:

"He's never guessed how much I care about him. I'm so glad. He says hedoesn't wonder at my hesitation and talks about others more worthy tolove me. But you know there isn't any one except Mr. Toovey. Poor Mr. Toovey! I do hope I haven't behaved very badly to him. "

"Never mind Toovey, " chuckled Tims. "Anyhow, Milly, I've got a good loadoff my mind. I didn't half like having put that other girl into yourboots. However, you've come back, and everything's going to be allright. "

"All right!" breathed Milly. "Why, Tims, darling, I never thought anyone in the world could be half so happy as I am. "

And Tims left Milly to write the answer for which Ian Stewart was soanxiously waiting. 

 * * * * *

The engagement proceeded after the manner of engagements. No one wassurprised at it and every one was pleased. The little whirlpool of talkthat it created prevented Milly's ignorance of the events of the pastsix or seven months from coming to the surface. She lay awake at night, devising means of telling Ian about this strange blank in her life. Butshe shrank from saying things that might make him suspect her of anunsound mind. She had plainly been sane enough in her abnormal state, and there was no doubt of her sanity now. She told him she had had sincethe autumn, and still had, strange collapses of memory; and he said thatquite explained some peculiarities of her work. She tried to talk to himabout French experiments in hypnotism, and how it was said sometimes tobring to light unsuspected sides of a personality. But he laughed athypnotism as a mixture of fraud and hysteria. So with many searchings ofheart, she dropped the subject. 

She was staying at the Fletchers' and saw Ian every day. He was all thatshe could wish as a lover, and it never occurred to her to ask whetherhe felt all that he himself could have wished as such. He was very fondof Milly and quite content with her, but not perfectly content withhimself. He supposed he must at bottom be one of those ordinary andrather contemptible men who care more for the excitement of the chasethan for the object of it. But he felt sure he was really a very luckyfellow, and determined not to give way to the self-analysis which isalways said to be the worst enemy of happiness. 

Miss Flaxman had been the only woman in for Greats, and as a favor shewas taken first in _viva voce_. The questions were directed to probingher actual knowledge in places where she had made one or two amazingblunders. But she emerged triumphant, and went in good spirits toClewes, Aunt Beatrice's country home in the North, whither Ian Stewartshortly followed her. Beyond the fact that she wore perforce and withshame, not having money to buy others, frocks which Lady Thomsondisapproved, she was once more the adoring niece to whom her aunt wasaccustomed. And Lady Thomson liked Ian. She never expected men to shareher fads. 

In due time came the announcement of the First, bringing almost as manycongratulatory letters as the engagement. And on August 2d Milly sailedfor Australia, where she was to spend two or three months with herfamily. 

In October the newspapers announced that the marriage of Miss MildredBeatrice Flaxman, eldest daughter of the Dean of Stirling, SouthAustralia, with Mr. Ian Stewart, Fellow of Durham College, Oxford, wouldtake place at Oxford in the second week in December. 

CHAPTER VIII

"Madame dort toujours!" The dark-eyed, cherry cheeked, white-cappedchamber-maid of the Hôtel du Chalet made the statement to the manager, who occupied a glass case in the hall. "She must have been very tiredyesterday, pauvre petite!"

The manager answered phlegmatically in French with a German accent:

"So much the better if she sleeps. She does not eat. When the gentlemanwent out he wanted sanveeches to put in his pocket. One does not wantsanveeches when one sleeps. "

"All the same, I wish she would wake up. It's so odd to see her sleepinglike that, " returned the cherry-cheeked one; and passed about herduties. 

The _déjeuner_ was over, and those guests who had not already gone outfor the day, were tramping about the bare, wooden passages andstaircase, putting on knitted gloves and shouting for their companionsand toboggans. But it was not till all had gone out and their voices haddied away on the clear, cold air, that the sleeper in No. 19 awoke. Fora while she lay with open eyes as still as though she were yet sleeping. But suddenly she started up in bed and looked around her with frowning, startled attention. She was in a rather large, bare bedroom withvarnished green wood-work and furniture and a green pottery stove. Therewas an odd, thick paper on the wall, of no particular color, and apainted geometrical pattern in the centre of the ceiling. It was a neatroom, on the whole, but on the bed beside her own a man's waistcoat hadbeen thrown, and in the middle of the floor a pair of long, shabbyslippers lay a yard apart from each other and upside down. There wereother little signs of masculine occupation. A startled movement broughther sitting up on the bedside. 

"Married!" she whispered to herself. "How perfectly awful!"

A fiery wave of anger that was almost hate swept through her veins, anger against the unknown husband and against that other one who had thepower thus to dispose of her destiny, while she lay helpless in someunfathomed deep between life and death. Swifter than light her thoughtsflew back to the last hours of consciousness which had preceded thatstrange and terrible engulfment of her being. She remembered that Mr. Stewart had tried to propose to her on the river and that she had notallowed him to do so. Probably he had taken this as a refusal. She knewnothing of any love of Milly's for him; only was sure that he had notbeen in love with her, Mildred, when she first knew him; therefore hadnot cared for her other personality. Who else was possible? With anaudible cry she sprang to her feet. 

"Toovey! Archibald Toovey!"

The idea was monstrous, it was also grotesque; and even while sheplunged despairing fingers in her hair, she laughed so loud that shemight have been heard in the corridor. 

"Mrs. Archibald Toovey! Good Heavens! But that girl was perfectlycapable of it. "

Then she became more than serious and buried her face in her hands, thinking. 

"If it is Mr. Toovey, " she thought, "I must go away at once, wherever Iam. I can't have been married long. I am sure to have some moneysomewhere. I'll go to Tims. Oh, that brute! That idiot!"--she wasthinking of Milly--"How I should like to strangle her!"

She clinched her hands till the nails hurt her palms. Two photographs, propped up on the top of a chest of drawers, caught her eye. Shesnatched them. One was a wedding group, but there was no bridegroom;only six bridesmaids. It was as bad as such things always are, and itwas evident that the dresses were ill-fitting, the hats absurd. Tims wasprominent among the bridesmaids, looking particularly ugly. The otherphotograph might have seemed pretty to a less prejudiced eye. It wasthat of a slight, innocent-looking girl in a white satin gown, "ungirtfrom throat to hem, " and holding a sheaf of lilies in her hand. Her hairwas loose upon her shoulders, crowned with a fragile garland and coveredwith a veil of fine lace. 

"What a Judy!" commented Mildred, throwing the photograph fiercely awayfrom her. "Fancy my being married in a dressing-gown and having Timsfor a bridesmaid! Sickening!"

But her anxiety with regard to the bridegroom dominated even this justindignation. Somehow, after seeing the photographs, she was convinced hemust be Archibald Toovey. She determined to fly at once. The questionwas, where was she? Not in England, she fancied. The stove had beenthrice-heated by the benevolent cherry-cheeked one, and the atmosphereof the room was stifling. This, together with the cold outside, hadcombined to throw a gray veil across the window-panes. She hastily puton a blue Pyrenean wool dressing-gown, flung open a casement and leanedout into the wide sunshine, the iced-champagne air. The window was onlyon the first floor, and she saw just beneath a narrow, snowy strip ofground, on either side and below it snow-sprinkled pinewoods falling, falling steeply, as it were, into space. But far below the blue airdeepened into a sapphire that must be a lake, and beyond that graycliffs, remote yet fairly clear in the sunshine, rose streaked with theblue shadows of their own buttresses. Above the cliffs, white and sharpand fantastic in their outline, snowy mountain summits showed clearagainst the deep blue sky. Between them, imperceptibly moving on itssecular way, hung the glacier, a track of vivid ultramarine and green, looking like a giant pathway to the stars. Mildred guessed she was inSwitzerland. She knew that it should be easy to get back to England, yetfor her with her peculiar inexperience of life, it would not be easy. Atany rate, she would dash herself down some gray-precipice into thatlake below rather than remain here as the bride of Archibald Toovey. Just as she was registering a desperate vow to that effect a man cameclimbing up the woodland way to the left, a long-legged man in aknickerbocker suit and gaiters. He stepped briskly out of the pinewoodon to the snowy platform below, and seeing her at the window, looked up, smiling, and waved his cap, with a cry of "Hullo, Milly!" And it was notArchibald Toovey. 

Mildred, relieved from the worst of fears, leaned from the windowtowards him. A slanting ray caught the floating cloud of her amber hair, her face glowed rosily, her eyes beamed on the new-comer, and she brokeinto such an enchanting ripple of laughter as he had never heard fromthose soft lips since it had been his privilege to kiss them. Thensomething happened within him. Upon his lonely walk he had been overcomeby a depression against which he had every day been struggling. He hadbeen disappointed in his marriage, now some weeks old--disappointed, that is, with himself, because of his own incapacity for rapturoushappiness. Yet a year ago on the ice at Oxford, six months ago in thefalling summer twilight on the river, under Wytham Woods, he had thoughthimself as capable as any man of feeling the joys and pains of love. Inthe sequel it had seemed that he was not; and just as he had lost allhope of finding once again that buried treasure of his heart, it hadreturned to him in one delightful moment, when he stood as it were onthe top of the world in the crisp, joyous Alpine air, and his eyes metthe eyes of his young wife, who leaned towards him into the sunshine andlaughed. He could not possibly have told how long the golden visionendured; only that suddenly, precipitately, it withdrew. A "spirit inhis feet" sent him bounding up the bare, shallow hotel stairs, two stepsat a time, dropping on every step a cake of snow from his boots, to meltand make pools on the polished wood. The manager, who respected none ofhis guests except those who bullied him, called out a reprimand, butreceived no apology. 

Stewart strode with echoing tread down the corridor towards No. 19, eager to hold that slender, girlish wife of his in his arms and to presskisses on the lips that had laughed at him so sweetly from above. Thewalls of the hotel were thin, and as he approached the door he heard aquick, soft scurry across the room on the other side, and in his swiftthought saw Milly flying to meet him, just relieved from one absurdanxiety about his safety and indulging another on the subject of his wetfeet. A smile of tender amusement visited his lips as he took hold ofthe door-handle. Exactly as he touched it, the key on the other sideturned. The lock had been stiff, but it had shot out in the nick oftime, and he found himself brought up short in his impulsive career andhurtling against a solid barrier. He knocked, but no one answered. Hecould have fancied he heard panting breaths on the other side of theill-fitting door. 

"Mayn't I come in, darling?" he asked, gently, but with a shade ofreproach in his voice. 

"No, you can't, " returned Milly's voice; hers, but with an accent ofcoldness and decision in it which struck strangely on his ear. Hepaused, bewildered. Then he remembered how often he had read that womenwere capricious, unaccountable creatures. Milly had made him forgetthat. Her attitude towards him had been one of unvarying gentleness anddevotion. Vaguely he felt that there was a kind of feminine charm inthis sudden burst of coldness, almost indifference. 

"Is anything the matter, dear?" he asked. "Aren't you well?"

"Quite well, thank you, " came the curt voice through the door. Thenafter a minute's hesitation: "What do you want?"

Ian smiled to himself as he answered:

"My feet are wet. I want to change. "

He was a delicate man, and if he had a foible which Milly could be saidto execrate, it was that of "sitting in wet feet. " He expected the doorto fly open; but it did nothing of the kind. There was not a trace ofanxiety in the grudging voice which replied, after a pause:

"I suppose you want dry shoes and stockings. I'll give them to you ifyou'll wait. "

He stood bewildered, a little pained, not noticing the noisy opening andshutting of several ill-fitting drawers in the room. Yet Milly alwaysput away his things for him and should have known where to find them. The door opened a chink and the shoes and stockings came flying throughon to the passage floor. He had a natural impulse to use his masculinestrength, to push the door open before she could lock it again, butfortunately he restrained it. He went down-stairs slowly, shoes andstockings in hand; threw them down behind the big green stove in thesmoking-room and lighted a meditative pipe. It was evidently a fact thatwomen were difficult to understand; even Milly was. He had beenuniformly kind and tender to her, and so far she had seemed more thancontent with him as a husband. But beneath this apparent happiness ofhers had some instinct, incomprehensible to him, been whispering to herthat he did not love her as many men, perhaps most, loved their youngwives? That he had felt for her no ardor, no worship? If so, then thecrisis had come at the right moment; at the moment when, by one of thosetricks of nature which make us half acquiesce in the belief that ourpersonality is an illusion, that we are but cosmic automata, the powerof love had been granted to him again. Yet for all that--veryfortunately, seeing that the crisis was more acute than he was aware--hedid not fancy that his way lay plain before him. He began to perceivethat the cementing of a close union between a man and woman, two beingswith so abundant a capacity for misunderstanding each other, is acomplex and delicate affair. That to marry is to be a kind of Odysseusadvancing into the palace of a Circe, nobler and more humane than theenchantress of old, yet capable also of working strange and terribletransformations. That many go in there carrying in their hands blossomswhich they believe to be moly; but the true moly is not easy todistinguish. And he hoped that he and Milly, in their different ways, had found and were both wearing the milk-white flower. Yet he knew thatthis was a matter which must be left to the arbitrament of time. 

CHAPTER IX

On their return to Oxford the young couple were fêted beyond the common. People who had known Milly Flaxman in earlier days were surprised tothink how little they had noticed her beauty or guessed what a fund ofhumor, what an extraordinary charm, had lurked beneath the surface ofher former quiet, grave manner. The Master of Durham alone refused to besurprised. He merely affirmed in his short squeak that he had alwaysadmired Mrs. Stewart very much. She was now frequently to be found inthe place of honor at those dinners of his, where distinguished visitorsfrom London brought the stir and color of the great world into theaustere groves, the rarefied atmosphere of Academe. 

Wherever she appeared, the vivid personality of Mrs. Stewart made a kindof effervescence which that indescribable entity, a vivid personality, is sure to keep fizzing about it. She was devoutly admired, fiercelycriticised, and asked everywhere. It is true she had quite given up hermusic, but she drew caricatures which were irresistibly funny, and was atremendous success in charades. Everything was still very new to her, everything interesting and amusing. She was enchanted with her house, although Milly and Lady Thomson had chosen it, preferring to a villa inthe Parks an old gray house of the kind that are every day recklesslydestroyed by the march of modern vulgarity. She approved of the few andgood pieces of old furniture with which they had provided it; althoughLady Thomson could not entirely approve of the frivolity andextravagance of the chintzes with which she helped the sunshine tobrighten the low, panelled rooms. But Aunt Beatrice, girt withprinciples major and minor, armed with so Procrustean a measure for mostof her acquaintance, accepted Mildred's deviations with an astonishingease. The secret of personal magnetism is not yet discovered. It may bethat the _aura_ surrounding each of us is no mystic vision of theNeo-Buddhists, but a physical fact; that Mildred's personality acted bya power not moral but physical on the nerves of those who approachedher, exciting those of some, of the majority, pleasurably, fillingothers with a nameless uneasiness, to account for which they must accuseher manners or her character. 

To Ian Stewart the old panelled house with the walled garden behind, where snowdrops and crocuses pushed up under budding orchard boughs, wasa paradise beyond any he had imagined. He found Mildred the mostadorable of wives, the most interesting of companions. Her defects as ahousekeeper, which Aunt Beatrice noted in silence but with surprise, were nothing to him. He could not help pausing sometimes even in themidst of his work, to wonder at his own good fortune and to reflectthat whatever the future might have in store, he would have no right tocomplain, since it had been given to him to know the taste of perfecthappiness. 

Since his marriage he had been obliged to take more routine work, andthe Long Vacation had become more valuable to him than ever. As soon ashe had finished an Examination he had undertaken, he meant to devote thetime to the preparation of a new book which he had in his mind. Mildred, seemingly as eager as himself that the book should be done, had at firstagreed. Then some of her numerous friends had described the pleasures ofDieppe, and she was seized with the idea that they too might go there. Ian, she said, could work as well at Dieppe as at Oxford or in thecountry. Ian knew better; besides, his funds were low and Dieppe wouldcost too much. For the first time he opposed Mildred's wishes, and toher surprise she found him perfectly firm. There was no quarrel, butalthough she was silent he felt that she did not yield her opinion andwas displeased with him. 

Late at night as he sat over Examination papers, his sensitiveimagination framed the accusations of selfishness, pedantry, scrupulosity, which his wife might be bringing against him in the"sessions of silent thought;" although it was clearly to her advantageas much as to his own that he should keep out of money difficulties anddo work which counted. She had no fixed habits, and he flung down pipeand pen, hoping to find her still awake. But she was already soundasleep. The room was dark, but he saw her by the illumination ofdistant lightning, playing on the edge of a dark and sultry world. Hisappointed task was not yet done and he returned to the study, a long, low, dark-panelled room, looking on the garden. The windows were wideopen on the hushed, warm, almost sulphurous darkness, from which frailwhite-winged moths came floating in towards the shaded lamp on hiswriting-table. He sat down to his papers and by an effort of willconcentrated his mind upon them. Habit had made such concentration easyto him as a rule, but to-night, after half an hour of steady work, hewas mastered by an invading restlessness of mind and body. The cause wasnot far to seek; he could hear all the time he worked the dull, almostcontinuous, roar of distant thunder. All else was very still, it waslong past midnight and the town was asleep. 

He got up and paced the room once or twice, grasping his extinguishedpipe absently in his hand. Suddenly a blast seemed to spring out ofnowhere and rush madly round the enclosed garden, tossing the gnarledand leafy branches of the old orchard trees and dragging at the longtrails of creepers on wall and trellis. It blew in at the windows, hotas from the heart of the thunder-cloud, and waved the curtains beforeit. It rushed into the very midst of the old house with its cavernouschimneys, deep cellars, and enormous unexplored walls, filling it withstrange, whispering sounds, as of half articulate voices, here menacing, there struggling to reveal some sinister and vital secret. The blastdied away, but it seemed to have left those voices still muttering andsighing through the walls that had sheltered so many generations, suchvarious lives of men. Ian was used to the creaking and groaning of thewood-work; he knew how on the staircase the rising of the boards, whichhad been pressed down in the day, simulated ghostly footsteps in thenight. He was in his mental self the most rational of mortals, but attimes the Highland strain in his blood, call it sensitive orsuperstitious, spoke faintly to his nerves--never before so strongly, soover-masteringly as to-night. A blue blaze of crooked lightningzigzagged down the outer darkness and seemed to strike the earth but alittle beyond the garden wall. Following on its heels a tremendous clapof thunder burst, as it were, on the very chimneys. The solid houseshook to its foundations. But the tide of horrible, irrational fearwhich swept over Ian's whole being was not caused by this mereexaggerated commonplace of nature. He could give no guess what it wasthat caused it; he only knew that it was agony. He knew what it meant tofeel the hair lift on his head; he knew what the Psalmist meant when hesaid, "My bones are turned to water. " And as he stood unable to move, afraid to turn his head, abject and ashamed of his abjectness, he waslistening, listening for he knew not what. 

At length it came. He heard the stairs creak and a soft padding footstepcoming slowly down them; with it the brush of a light garment andintermittently a faint human sound between a sigh and a sob. He did notreflect that he could not really have heard such slight sounds through athick stone wall and a closed door. He heard them. The steps stopped atthe door; a hand seemed feeling to open it, and again there was apainful sigh. The physical terror had not passed from him, but thesudden though that it was his wife and that she was frightened or ill, made him able to master it. He seized the lamp, because he knew thelight in the hall was extinguished, rushed to the door, opened it andlooked out. There was no one there. He made a hasty but sufficientsearch and returned to the study. 

The extremity of his fear was now passed, but an unpleasantly eeryfeeling still lingered about him and he had a very definite desire tofind himself in some warm, human neighborhood. He had left the door openand was arranging the papers on his writing-table, when once again heheard those soft padding feet on the stairs; but this time they weremuch heavier, more hurried, and stumbled a little. He stood bent overthe table, a bundle of papers in his hand, no longer overcome by mortalterror, yet somehow reluctant once more to look out and to see oncemore--nothing. There was a sound outside the door, louder, hoarser thanthe faint sob or sigh which he had heard before, and he seized the lampand turned towards it. Before he had made a step forward, the door waspushed violently back and his wife came in, leaning upon it as thoughshe needed support. She was barefooted and dressed only in a longnight-gown, white, yet hardly whiter than her face. Her eyes did notturn towards him, they stared in front of her, not with the fixed gazeof an ordinary sleep-walker, but with purpose and intensity. She seemedto see something, to pursue something, with starting eyes andout-stretched arms; something she hated even more than she feared it, for her lips were blanched and tightened over her teeth as though withfury, and her smooth white forehead gathered in a frown. Again sheuttered that low, fierce sound, like that he had heard outside the door. Then, loosing the handle on which she had leaned, she half sprung, halfstaggered, with uplifted hand, towards an open window, beyond which therush of the thunder shower was just visible, sloping pallidly across thedarkness. She leaned out into it and uttered to the night a hoarse, confused voice, words inchoate, incomprehensible, yet with a terribleaccent of rage, of malediction. This transformation of his wife, sorefined, so self-contained, into a creature possessed by an almostanimal fury, struck Ian with horror, although he accepted it as aphenomenon of somnambulism. He approached but did not touch her, for hehad heard that it was dangerous to awaken a somnambulist. Her voice sankrapidly to a loud whisper and he heard her articulate--"My husband!Mine! Mine!"--but in no tone of tenderness, rather pronouncing the wordsas a passionate claim to his possession. Then suddenly she drooped, halfkneeling on the deep window-seat, half fallen across the sill. He sprangto catch her, but not before her forehead had come down sharply on thestone edge of the outer window. He kneeled upon the window-seat andgathered her gently in his arms, where she lay quiet, but moaning andshuddering. 

"My husband!" she wailed, no longer furious now but despairing. "Ian! Mylove! Ian! My life!--my life! My own husband!"

Even in this moment it thrilled him to hear such words from her lips. Hehad not thought she loved him so passionately. He lifted her on to adeep old sofa at the end of the room, wrapped her in a warm Orientalcoverlet which hung there, and held her to his heart, murmuring love andcomfort in her cold little ear. It seemed gradually to soothe her, although he did not think she really awoke. Then he put her down, lighted the lamp outside, and, not without difficulty, carried her up tobed. Her eyes were half closed when he laid her down and drew thebedclothes over her; and a minute or two later, when he looked in fromhis dressing-room, she was evidently asleep. 

When he got into bed she did not stir, and while he lay awake foranother hour, she remained motionless and breathing regularly. Heassured himself that the whole curious occurrence could be explained bythe electrical state of the atmosphere, which had affected his ownnerves in a way he would never humiliate himself by confessing to anyone. Those mysterious footsteps on the stairs which he had heard, footsteps like his wife's yet not hers; that hand upon the door, thatvoice of sighs, were the creation of his own excited brain. In time hewould doubtless come to believe his own assurances on the point, butthat night at the bottom of his heart he did not believe them. 

CHAPTER X

Next morning, if Ian himself slept late, Milly slept later still. Thestrained and troubled look which he had seen upon her face even in sleepthe night before, had passed away in the morning, but she lay almostalarmingly still and white. He was reassured by remembering that oncewhen they were in Switzerland she had slept about sixteen hours andawakened in perfect health. He remained in the house watching over her, and about four o'clock she woke up. But she was very pale and veryquiet; exhausted, he thought, by her strange mental and physicalexertions of the night before. 

She came down to tea with her pretty hair unbecomingly twisted up, anddressed in a brownish-yellow tea-gown, which he fancied he rememberedhearing her denounce as only fit to be turned into a table-cloth. He didnot precisely criticise these details, but they helped in the impressionof lifelessness and gloom that hung about her. It was a faint, gleamyafternoon, and such sun as there was did not shine into the study. Thedark panelling looked darker than usual, and as she sat silent andlistless in a corner of the old sofa, her hair and face stood outagainst it almost startling in their blondness and whiteness. She wasstrangely unlike herself, but Stewart comforted himself by rememberingthat she had been odd in her manner and behavior, though in a differentway, after her long sleep in Switzerland. After he had given her tea, hesuggested that they should walk in the garden, as the rain was over. 

"Not yet, Ian, " she said. "I want to try and tell you something. I cando it better here. "

Her mouth quivered. He sat down by her on the sofa. 

"Must you tell me now?" he asked, smiling. "Do you really think itmatters?"

"Yes--it does matter, " she answered, tremulously, pressing her foldedhands against her breast. "It's something I ought to have told youbefore you married me--but indeed, indeed I didn't know how dreadful itwas--I didn't think it would happen again. "

He was puzzled a moment, then spoke, still smiling:

"I suppose you mean the sleep-walking. Well, darling, it is a bitcreepy, I admit, but I shall get used to it, if you won't do it toooften. "

"Did I really walk?" she asked--and a look of horror was growing on herface. "Ah! I wasn't sure. No--it's not that--it is--oh, don't think memad, Ian!"

"Tell me, dearest. I promise I won't. "

"I've not been here at all since you've been living in this house. I'venot seen you, my own precious husband, since I went to sleep inSwitzerland, at the Hôtel du Chalet--don't you remember--when we hadbeen that long walk up to the glacier and I was so tired?"

Stewart was exceedingly startled. He paused, and then said, very gentlybut very firmly:

"That's nonsense, dearest. You have been here, you've been with me allthe time. "

"Ah! You think so, but it was not _I_--no, don't interrupt me--I mean totell you, I must, but I can't if you interrupt me. It was awfully wrongof me not to tell you before; but I tried to, and then I saw youwouldn't believe me. Do you remember a dinner-party at the Fletchers', the autumn before we were engaged--when Cousin David had just boughtthat picture?"

"That portrait of Lady Hammerton, which is so like you? Yes, I rememberit perfectly. "

"You know I wanted my First so much and I had been working too hard, andthen I was told that evening that you had said I couldn't get it--"

"Silly me!"

"And I felt certain you didn't love me--"

"Silly you!"

"Don't interrupt me, please. And I wasn't well, and I cried and criedand I couldn't leave off, and then I allowed Tims to hypnotize me. Weboth knew she had no business to do it, it was wrong of us, of course, but we couldn't possibly guess what would happen. I went to sleep, andso far as I knew I never woke again for more than six months, not tillthe Schools were over. "

"But, my darling, I skated with you constantly in the ChristmasVacation, and took your work through the Term. I assure you that youwere quite awake then. "

"I remember nothing about it. All I know is that some one got my Firstfor me. "

"But, Mildred--"

"Why do you call me Mildred? That's what they called me when I woke uplast time; but my own name's Milly. "

Stewart rose and paced the room, then came back. 

"It's simply a case of collapse of memory, dear. It's very trying, butdon't let's be fanciful about it. "

"I thought it was only that--I told you, didn't I, something of thatsort? But I didn't know then, nobody told me, that I wasn't like myselfat all those months I couldn't remember. Last night in my sleep Iknew--I knew that some one else, something else--I can't describe it, it's impossible--was struggling hard with me in my own brain, my ownbody, trying to hold me down, to push me back again into the place, whatever it was, I came out of. But I got stronger and stronger till Iwas quite myself and the thing couldn't really stop me. I dare say itonly lasted a few seconds, then I felt quite free--free from thestruggle, the pressure; and I saw myself standing in the room, with somekind of white floating stuff over my head and about me, and I saw myselfopen the door and go out of the room. I wasn't a bit surprised, but Ijust lay there quiet and peaceful. Then suddenly it came to me that Icouldn't have seen myself, that the person, the figure I had seen goout of the door was the other one, the creature I had been strugglingwith, who had stolen my shape; and it came to me that she was gone tosteal you--to steal your heart from me and take you away; and youwouldn't know, you would think it was I, and you would follow her andlove her and never know it was not your own wife you were loving. And Iwas mad with anger; I never knew before what it meant, Ian, to be asangry as that. I struggled hard to get up, and at last I managed it, andI came down-stairs after her, but I couldn't find her, and I was surethat she had gone and had taken you away with her. And you say I reallydid come down-stairs. "

"Yes, darling, and if you had been awake instead of asleep, as youobviously were, you would have seen that this nightmare of yours wasnothing but a nightmare. You would have seen that I was alone here, quietly arranging my papers before going to bed. You gave me a frightcoming down as you did, for there was a tremendous thunderstorm goingon, and I am ashamed to say how queer my own nerves were. The electricalstate of the atmosphere and a very loud clap of thunder just overhead, account for the whole business, which probably lasted only a few secondsfrom beginning to end. Be reasonable, little woman, you are generallythe most reasonable person I know--except when you talk about going toDieppe. "

Milly gave him a strange look. 

"Why am I not reasonable when I talk about going to Dieppe?"

He drew her to him and kissed her hair. 

"Never mind why. We aren't going to excite ourselves to-day or doanything but make love and forget nightmares and everythingdisagreeable. "

She drew herself away a little and looked with frightened eyes in his. 

"But I can't forget, Ian, that I don't remember anything that hashappened since we were on our honeymoon in Switzerland. And now we arein Oxford, and I can see it's quite late in the summer. How can I forgetthat somehow I am being robbed of myself--robbed of my life with you?"

"Wait till to-morrow and you'll remember everything right enough. "

But Milly was not to be convinced. She was willing to submit on thequestion of last night's experiences, but she assured him that Timswould bear her out in the assertion that she had never recovered herrecollection of the months preceding her engagement. Ian ceased tryingto convince her that she was mistaken on this point; but he argued thatthe memory was of all functions of the brain the most uncertain, thatthere was no limit to its vagaries, which were mere matters of nervesand circulation, and that Dr. Norton-Smith, the nerve and brainspecialist to whom he would take her, would probably turn out to have adozen patients subject to the same affliction as herself. One neverhears of half the ills that flesh is heir to until the inheritance fallsto one's own lot. 

Milly was a common-sense young woman, and his explanation, especially asit was his, pacified her for the time. The clouds had been rolling awaywhile they talked, the space of deep blue sky overhead growing larger, the sunshine fuller. There was a busy twittering and shaking of littlewings in the tall pear-tree near the house, where the tomtits in theirvaried liveries loved to congregate. July was not far advanced and thesun had still some hours in which to shine. Ian and Milly went out andwalked in the Parks. The tennis-club lawns were almost deserted, butthey met a few acquaintances taking their constitutional, likethemselves, and an exchange of ordinary remarks with people who took hernormality for granted, helped Milly to believe in it herself. So long asthe blank in her memory continued, she could not be free from care; butshe went to sleep that night in Ian's arms, feeling herself protected bythem not only from bodily harm, but from all those dreadful fears andevil fantasies that "do assault and hurt the soul. "

CHAPTER XI

Ian had been so busy persuading Milly to view her own case as a simpleone, and so busy comforting her with an almost feminine intuition ofwhat would really afford her comfort, that it was only in the watches ofthe night that certain disquieting recollections forced their way intohis mind. It was of course now part of his creed that he had loved MillyFlaxman from the first--only he had never known her well till thatChristmas Vacation when they had skated so much together. Later on, suchdisturbing events as engagement and marriage had seemed to him enough toexplain any changes he had observed in her. Later still, he had been toomuch in love to think about her at all, in the true sense of the word. She had been to him "all a wonder and a wild desire. "

Now, taking the dates of her collapses of memory, he made, despitehimself, certain notes on those changes. It is to be feared he did notoften want to see Miss Timson; but on the day after Milly's return tothe world, he cycled out to visit her friend. Tims was spending thesummer on the wild and beautiful ridge which has since become a suburbof Oxford. It was doubtful whether he would find her in, as she washerself a mighty cyclist, making most of her journeys on the wheel, happy in the belief that she was saving money at the expense of therailway companies. 

The time of flowers, the freshness of trees, and the glory of gorse andbroom was over. It was the season of full summer when the midlands, clothed with their rich but sheenless mantle of green, wear aself-satisfied air, as of dull people conscious of deserved prosperity. But just as the sea or a mountain or an adventurous soul will alwayslend an element of the surprising and romantic to the commonest cornerof earth, so the sky will perpetually transfigure large spaces of levelcountry, valley or plain, laid open to its capricious influences. BoarsHill looks over the wide valley of the narrow Og to the downs, and up towhere that merges into the valley of the Upper Thames. By the sandytrack which Ian followed, the tree still stood, though no longer alone, whence the poet of _Thyrsis_ looking northward, saw the "fair city withher dreaming spires"; less fair indeed to-day than when he looked uponit, but still "lovely all times, " in all its fleeting shades, whetherblond and sharp-cut in the sunshine or dimly gray among its veilingtrees. The blue waving line of the downs, crowned here and there byclumps of trees, ran far along the southwestern horizon, meltingvaporously in the distance above "the Vale, the three lone weirs, theyouthful Thames. " Over the downs and over the wide valley of ripeningcornfields, of indigo hedgerow-elms and greener willow and woodland, ofred-roofed homesteads and towered churches, moved slowly the broadshadows of rolling clouds that journeyed through the intense blue above. Some shadows were like veils of pale gray gauze, through which the worldshowed a delicately softened face; others were dark, with a rich, indefinable hue of their own, and as they moved, the earth seemed toburst into a deeper glow of color behind them. Close by, the brokenhill-side was set here and there with oak and thorn, was everywhere deepin bracken, on whose large fronds lay the bluish bloom of theirmaturity. It all gained a definiteness of form, an air of meaning by itsdetachment from the wide background floating behind. 

Following steep and circuitous lanes, Ian arrived at the lodging-houseand found Tims on the porch preparing to start on her bicycle. Butflattered and surprised by his visit, she ordered tea in the brightlittle sitting-room she was inhabiting. He was shy of approaching thereal object of his visit. They marked time awhile till the thunderstormbecame their theme. Then he told something of Milly's sleep-walking, hercollapse of memory; and watched Tims meantime, hoping to see in her facemerely surprise and concern. But there was no surprise, hardly concernin the queer little face. There was excitement, and at last a flash ofpositive pleasure. 

"Good old M. !" she observed. "I'm glad she has got back; though I'm abit proud of the other one too. I expect you feel much the same, oldboy, don't you?"

The speech was the reverse of soothing, even to its detail of "old boy. "He looked at his teacup and drew his black brows together. 

"I'm afraid I don't understand, Miss Timson. I suppose you think it ajoke, but to me it seems rather a serious matter. "

"Of course it is; uncommon serious, " returned Tims, too much interestedin her subject to consider the husband's feelings. "Bless you! _I_ don'twant to be responsible for it. At first I thought it was a simple caseof a personality evolved by hypnotism; but if so it would have dependedon the hypnotist, and you see it didn't after the first. "

"I don't think we need bother about hypnotism"--there was a note ofimpatience in Ian's voice--"it's just a case of collapse of memory. Butas you were with her the first time it happened, I want to know exactlyhow far the collapse went. There were signs of it every now and then inher work, but on the whole it improved. "

"You never can tell what will happen in these cases, " said Tims. "Sheremembered her book-learning pretty well, but she forgot her own name, and as to people and things that had happened, she was like a new-bornbabe. If I hadn't nursed her through she'd have been sent to a lunaticasylum. But it wasn't that, after all, that made it so exciting. It wasthe difference between Milly's two personalities. You don't mean to say, old chap, you've lived with her for seven months and can't see thedifference?"

Tims looked at him. She held strong theoretical views as to thestupidity of the male, but circumstances had seldom before allowed herto put them to the test. Behold them more than justified; for Ian wasfar above the average in intelligence. He, for a fraction of a minute, paused, deliberately closing the shutter of his mind against anunpleasant search-light that shot back on the experiences of hiscourtship and marriage. 

"Well, I suppose I'm not imaginative, " he returned, with a dry laugh. "Ionly see certain facts about her memory and want more of them, to tellNorton-Smith when I take her up to see him. "

"Norton-Smith!" exclaimed Tims. "What is the good? Englishmen are allright when it's a question of filling up the map of Africa, but they'reno good on the dark continent of ourselves. They're cowards. That'swhat's the matter with them. Don't go to Norton-Smith. "

Stewart made an effectual effort to overcome his irritation. He ought tohave known better than to turn to an oddity like Tims for advice andsympathy. 

"Whom ought I to go to, then?" he asked, good-humoredly, and lookingparticularly long as he rose from the depths of the low wicker chair. "Amedicine-man with horns and a rattle?"

"Well, " returned Tims with deliberation, pulling on a pair of threadgloves, "I dare say he could teach Norton-Smith a thing or two. Mindyou, I'm not talking spiritualistic rot; I'm talking scientific facts, which every one knows except the English scientific men, who keep onclapping their glass to the blind eye like a lot of clock-work Nelsons. The effects of hypnotism are as much facts as the effects of a bottle ofwhiskey. But Milly's case is different. In my opinion she's developed anindependent double personality. It's an inconvenient state of things, but I don't suppose it'll last forever. One or the other will getstronger and 'hold the fort. ' But it's rather a bad business anyhow. "Tims paused and sighed, drawing on the other glove. "I'm--I'm fond ofthem both myself, and I expect you'll feel the same, when you see thedifference. "

Ian laughed awkwardly, his brown eyes fixed scrutinizingly upon her. 

"So long as the fort holds somebody, I sha'n't worry, " he said, lightly. 

They went out, and as he led his own bicycle towards the upper track, Tims spun down the steep drive, and, turning into the lane, kissed herhand to him in farewell from under the brim of her perennially crookedhat. 

"That Timson girl's more than queer, " he mused to himself, going on. "There's a streak of real insanity in her. I'm afraid it's not been goodfor a highly strung creature like Mildred to see so much of her; and whyon earth did she?"

He tried to clear his mind of Tims's fantastic suggestions; ofeverything, indeed, except the freshness of the air rushing past him, the beauty of the wide view, steeped in the romance of distance. Butmemory, that strange, recalcitrant, mechanical slave of ours, keptdiving, without connivance of his, into the recesses of the past twentymonths of his life, and presenting to him unsolicited, circumstances, experiences, which he had thrust away unclassified--his own surprise, almost perplexity, when Mildred had brought him work for the first timeafter her illness that autumn Term before last; his disappointment andeven boredom in his engagement and the first three weeks of hismarriage; then the change in his own feelings after her long sleep atthe Hôtel du Chalet; besides a score of disquieting trifles which meantnothing till they were strung on a thread. He felt himself beginning tobe infected with Flora Timson's mania against his will, against hissober judgment; and he spun down Bagley Hill at a runaway speed, onlysaved by a miracle from collision with a cart which emerged fromHincksey Lane at the jolting pace with which the rustic pursues hisundeviating course. 

CHAPTER XII

Milly, too, had not been without a sharp reminder that the leaves in herlife so blank to her, had been fully inscribed by another. She hardlyyet felt mistress of the house, but it was pleasant to rest and read inthe low, white-panelled drawing-room, which lowered awnings kept cool, although the afternoon sun struck a golden shaft across the floweringwindow-boxes of its large and deeply recessed bow-window. The whole roomwas lighter and more feminine than Milly would have made it, but atbottom the taste that reigned there was more severe than her own. Theonly pictures on the panels were a few eighteenth century coloredprints, already charming, soon to be valuable, and one or two framedpieces of needlework which harmonized with them. 

Presently the door-bell rang and a Mr. Fitzroy was announced by theparlor-maid, in a tone which implied that she was accustomed to hisname. He looked about the age of an undergraduate and wasextraordinarily well-groomed, in spite of, or perhaps because of, beingin a riding-dress. His sleek dark hair was neatly parted in the middleand he was clean shaven, when to be so smacked of the stage; but hismanners and expression smacked of nothing of the kind. 

"I'm awfully glad to find you at home, Mrs. Stewart, " he said. "I'vebeen lunching at the Morrisons', and, you know, I'm afraid there's goingto be a row. "

The Morrisons? They lived outside Oxford, and Milly knew them by sight, that was all. 

"What about?" she asked, kindly, thinking the young man had come forhelp, or at least sympathy, in some embarrassment of his own. 

"Why, about your acting Galatea. Jim Morrison's been a regular foolabout it. He'd no business to take it for granted that that was the partI wanted Mrs. Shaw for. Now it appears she's telling every one thatshe's been asked to play the lead at the Besselsfield theatricals; and, by Jove, he says she is to, too!"

Milly went rather pale and then quite pink. 

"Then of course I couldn't think of taking the part, " she said, gaspingwith relief at this providential escape. 

Mr. Fitzroy in his turn flushed. He had an obstinate chin and the caresof stage-management had already traced a line right across his smoothforehead. It deepened to a furrow as he leaned forward out of his lowwicker chair, clutching the pair of dogskin gloves which he held in hishand. 

"Oh, come, I say now, Mrs. Stewart!" and his voice and eye weresurprisingly stern for one so young. "That's not playing fair. Youpromised me you'd see me through this show, and you know as well as Ido, Mrs. Shaw can no more act than those fire-irons. "

"But I--" Milly was about to say "I've never acted in my life"--when sheremembered that she knew less than any one in her acquaintance what shehad or had not done in that recent life which was not hers. "I shouldn'tact Galatea at all well, " she substituted lamely; "and I shouldn't lookthe part nearly as well as Mrs. Shaw will. "

"Excuse me, Mrs. Stewart, but I'm certain you're simply cut out for itall round, and you told me the other day you were particularly anxiousto play it. You promised you'd stick to me through thick and thin andnot care a twopenny--I mean a straw--what Jim Morrison and Mrs. Shaw--"

In the stress of conversation they had neither of them noticed thetinkle of the front-door bell. Now the door of the room, narrow and inthe thickness of an enormous wall, was thrown open and Mrs. Shaw wasannounced. 

Fitzroy, forgetful of manners in his excitement, stooped forward andgripping Milly's arm almost hissed:

"Remember! You've promised me. "

The words filled Milly with misery. That any one should be able toaccuse her of breaking a promise, however unreal her responsibility forit, was horrible to her. 

Mrs. Shaw entered, no longer the seraph of twenty months ago. She hadlatterly put off the æsthetic raiment she had worn with such peculiargrace, and her dress and coiffure were quite in the fashion of thehour. The transformation somewhat shocked Milly, who could never helpfeeling a slight austere prejudice against fashionably dressed woman. Then, considering how little she knew Mrs. Shaw, it was embarrassing tobe kissed by her. 

"It's odd I should find you here, Mr. Fitzroy, " said Mrs. Shaw, settlingher rustling skirts on a chintzy chair. "I've just come to talk to Mrs. Stewart about the acting. I'm so sorry there's been a misunderstandingabout it. "

Her tone was civil but determined, and there was a fighting look in hereye. 

"So am I, Mrs. Shaw, most uncommonly sorry, " returned Fitzroy, pattinghis sleek hair and feeling that his will was adamant, however prettyMrs. Shaw might be. 

"Of course, I shouldn't have thought of taking the part away from Mrs. Stewart, " she resumed, glancing at Milly, not without meaning, "but Mr. Morrison asked me to take it quite a fortnight ago. I've learned most ofit and rehearsed two scenes already with him. He says they go capitally, and we both think it seems rather a pity to waste all that labor andchange the part now. "

Fitzroy cast a look at Mrs. Stewart which was meant to call upreinforcements from that quarter; but as she sat there quite silent, hecleared his throat and begun:

"It's an awful bore, of course, but I fancy it's about three weeks or amonth since I first asked Mrs. Stewart to play the lead--isn't it, Mrs. Stewart?"

Milly muttered assent, horribly suspecting a lie. A flash of indignantscorn from Mrs. Shaw confirmed the suspicion. 

"Mrs. Stewart said something quite different when I spoke to her aboutit at tennis on Friday. Didn't you, Mildred?" she asked. 

Milly crimsoned. 

"Did I?" she stammered. "I'm afraid I've got a dreadfully badmemory--for--for dates of that kind. "

Mrs. Shaw smiled coldly. Mr. Fitzroy felt himself deceived in Mrs. Stewart as an ally. He had counted on her promised support, on her witand spirit to carry him through, and her conduct was simply cowardly. 

"The fact is, Mrs. Shaw, " he said, "Jim Morrison's not bossing this showat all. That's where the mistake has come in. My aunt, Lady Wolvercote, is a bit of an autocrat, don't you know, and she doesn't like us fellowsto arrange things on our own account. If she knew you I'm sure she'd seewhat a splendid Galatea you'd make, but as it is she's set her heart ongetting Mrs. Stewart from the very first. "

Had he stopped here his position would have been good, but an indignantinstinct, urging him to push the reluctant Mrs. Stewart into the properplace of woman--that natural shield of man against all the socialdisagreeables he brings on himself--made Fitzroy rush into the fataldetail. 

"My aunt told you so at the Masonic; didn't she, Mrs. Stewart?"

Milly, under the young man's imperious eye, assented feebly, but Mrs. Shaw laughed. She perfectly remembered Mildred having mentioned on thatvery occasion that she did not know Lady Wolvercote by sight. 

"I'm afraid I've come just a few minutes too soon, " she said, dryly. "You and Mr. Fitzroy don't seem to have talked things over quiteenough. "

The saying was dark and yet too clear. Milly, the meticulously truthful, saw herself convicted of some horrible falsehood. She blushed violently, gasped, and rolled her handkerchief into a tight ball. Mr. Fitzroyignoring the insinuation, changed his line. 

"The part we really wanted you to take, Mrs. Shaw, was that of a nymphin an Elizabethan masque which Lumley has written, with music by StephenBampton. It's to be played in the rose garden and there's a chorus ofnymphs who sing and dance. We want them to look perfectly lovely, don'tyou know, and as there can't be any make-up to speak of, it's awfullydifficult to find the right people. "

Mrs. Shaw disdained the lure and mentally condemned his anxiously civilmanner as "soapy. "

"I shall ask Mr. Morrison to go to Lady Wolvercote at once, " she said, "and see whether she really wishes me to give up the part. Time'sgetting on, and he says he won't be able to have many more rehearsals. "

There was a sound as of a carriage stopping in the street below, thejingling of bits, and a high female voice giving an order. Fitzroy, inwardly exasperated by Mrs. Shaw's resistance and the abject conduct ofhis ally, sprang to his feet. 

"I believe that's my aunt!" he exclaimed. "She wants me to call atBlenheim on the way home, and I suppose the Morrisons told her where Iwas. "

He managed to slip his head out between the edge of an awning and themignonette and geraniums of a window-box. 

"It's my aunt, right enough. May I fetch her up, Mrs. Stewart?" He wasdown the stairs in a moment and voluble in low-voiced colloquy with thelady in the barouche. 

Lady Wolvercote was organizing the great fancy fair for the benefit ofthe County Cottage Hospitals, and had left the dramatic part of theprogramme to her nephew to arrange. She was a tall, slight woman, of theusual age for aunts, and pleasant to every one; but she took it forgranted that every one would do as she wished--naturally, since theyalways did in her neighborhood. As she stumbled up the stairs afterCharlie Fitzroy--it was a dark staircase and narrow in proportion to itsmassive oak balusters--she felt faintly annoyed with him for draggingher into the quarrels of his middle-class friends, but confident thatshe could manage them without the least trouble. 

Milly was relieved at the return of Mr. Fitzroy with his aunt. She hadhad an unhappy five minutes with Mrs. Shaw, who had been saying crypticbut unpleasant things and calling her "Mildred"; whereas she did not somuch as know Mrs. Shaw's Christian name. 

Seeing Mrs. Shaw, beautiful, animated, well-dressed, and Milly neatlyclothed, since her clothes were not of her own choosing, but with herhair unbecomingly knotted, the brightness of her eyes, complexion, andexpression in eclipse, Lady Wolvercote wondered at her nephew's choice. But that was his affair. She began to talk in a rather high-pitchedvoice and continuously, like one whose business it is to talk; so thatit was difficult to interrupt without rudeness. 

"So you're going to be kind enough to act Galatea for us at our fancyfair, Mrs. Stewart? We want it to be a great success, and LordWolvercote and I have heard so much about your acting. My nephew saidthe part of Galatea would suit you exactly; didn't you, Charlie?"

"Down to the ground, " interpolated, or rather accompanied, Fitzroy. "Weshall have the placards out on Wednesday, and people are looking forwardalready to seeing Mrs. Stewart. There'll be a splendid audience. "

"Every one has promised to fill their houses for the fair, " LadyWolvercote was continuing, "and the Duke thinks he may be able to getdown ----, " she mentioned a royalty. "You're going to help us too, aren't you, Mrs. Shaw? It's so very kind of you. We've got such a prettypart for you in a musical affair which Lenny Lumley wrote with somebodyor other for the Duchess of Ulster's Elizabethan bazaar. There's achorus of fairies--nymphs, Charlie? Yes, nymphs, and we want them allto be very pretty and able to sing, and there's a charming dance forthem. I'm afraid that silly boy, Jim Morrison, made some mistake aboutit, and told you we wanted you to act Galatea. But of course we couldn'tpossibly do without you in the other thing, and Mrs. Stewart seems quitepointed out for that Galatea part. Jim's such a dear, isn't he? And sucha splendid actor, every one says he really ought to go on the stage. Butwe none of us pay the least attention to anything the dear boy says, forhe always does manage to get things wrong. "

Mrs. Shaw had been making little movements preparatory to going. She hadno gift for the stage except beauty, but that produces an illusion ofsuccess, and she took her acting with the seriousness of a Duse. 

"I'm sorry I didn't know Mr. Morrison's habits better, " she replied. "I've been studying the part of Galatea a good deal and rehearsing itwith him as well. Of course, I don't for a moment wish to prevent Mrs. Stewart from taking it, but I've spent a good deal of time upon it andI'm afraid I can't undertake anything else. Of course, it's veryinconvenient stopping in Oxford in August, and I shouldn't care to do itexcept for the sake of a part which I felt gave me a real opportunity--"

"But it's a very pretty part we've got for you, " resumed LadyWolvercote, perplexed. "And we were hoping to see you over atBesselsfield a good deal for rehearsals--"

It seemed to her a "part of nature's holy plan" that the prospect ofBesselsfield should prove irresistibly attractive to the wives ofprofessional men. 

"Thanks, so much, but I'm sure you and Mr. Fitzroy must know plenty ofgirls who would do for that sort of part, " returned Mrs. Shaw. 

Milly here broke in eagerly:

"Please, Lady Wolvercote, do persuade Mrs. Shaw to take Galatea; I'msure I sha'n't be able to do it a bit; and I would try and take thenymph. I should love the music, and I know I could do the singing, anyhow. "

She rose because Mrs. Shaw had risen and was looking for her parasol andshaking out her plumes. But why did Mr. Fitzroy and Mrs. Shaw both stareat her in an unvarnished surprise, touched with ridicule on the lady'sside?

"No, no, Mrs. Stewart, that won't do!" cried he, in obvious dismay. Atthe same moment Mrs. Shaw ejaculated, ironically:

"That's very brave of you Mildred! I thought you hated music and werenever going to try to sing again. "

She and Fitzroy had both been present on an occasion when Mildred, urgedon by Milly's musical reputation, had committed herself to an experimentin song which had not been successful. 

"Thank you very much, " Mrs. Shaw went on, "for offering to change, butof course Lady Wolvercote must arrange things as she likes; and, tospeak frankly, I'm not particularly sorry to give the acting up, as myhusband was rather upset at my not being able to go to Switzerland withhim on the 28th. No, please don't trouble; I can let myself out. Good-bye, Lady Wolvercote; I hope the fair and the theatricals will be agreat success. Good-bye, Mr. Fitzroy, good-bye. "

Lady Wolvercote's faint remonstrances were drowned in the adieus, andMrs. Shaw sailed out with flying colors, while Milly sank back abjectlyinto the seat from which she had risen. Every minute she was realizingwith a more awful clearness that she, whose one appearance on the stagehad been short and disastrous, was cast to play the leading part in apublic play before a large and brilliant audience. She hardly heardFitzroy's bitter remarks on Mrs. Shaw--not forgetting Jim Morrison--orLady Wolvercote exclaiming in a voice almost dreamy with amazement:

"Really it's too extraordinary!"

"I'm very sorry Mrs. Shaw won't take the part, " said Milly, clasping andunclasping her slender fingers, "for I know I can't do it myself. "

Fitzroy was protesting, but she forced herself to continue: "You don'tknow what I'm like when I'm nervous. When we had _tableaux vivants_ atAscham I was supposed to be Charlotte putting a wreath on Werther's urn, and I trembled so much that I knocked the urn down. It was onlycard-board, so it didn't break, but every one laughed and the tableauwas spoiled. "

Fitzroy and his aunt cried out that that was nothing, a firstappearance; any one could see she had got over that now. Pale, withterrified eyes, she looked from one to the other of her tormentors, whocontinued to sing the praises of her past prowess on the boards and toforetell the unprecedented harvest of laurels she would reap atBesselsfield. The higher their enthusiasm rose, the more profound becameher dejection. There seemed no loop-hole for escape, unless the earthwould open and swallow her, which however much to be desired was hardlyto be expected. 

The ting of a bicycle-bell below did not seem to promise assistance, forcyclists affected the quiet street. But it happened that this bicyclebore Ian to the door. He did not notice the coronet on the carriagewhich stood before it, and assumed it to belong to one of the three orfour ladies in Oxford who kept such equipages. Yet in the blank state ofMilly's memory, he was sorry she had not denied herself to visitors, which Mildred had already learned to do with a freedom only possible towomen who are assured social success. Commonly the sight of a carriagewould have sent him tiptoeing past the drawing-room, but now, vaguelyuneasy, he came straight in. He looked particularly tall in the frame ofthe doorway, so low that his black hair almost touched the lintel;particularly handsome in the shaded, white-panelled room, into which thedark glow of his sunburned skin and brown eyes, bright with exercise, seemed to bring the light and warmth of the summer earth and sky. 

Milly sprang to meet him. Lady Wolvercote was surprised to learn thatthis was Mrs. Stewart's husband. She had no idea a Don could be soyoung and good-looking. Judging of Dons solely by the slight andslighting references of her undergraduate relatives, she had imaginedthem to be weird-looking men, within various measurable distances of thegrave. 

"Lady Wolvercote and Mr. Fitzroy want me to act Galatea at theBesselsfield theatricals, " said Milly, clinging to his sleeve andlooking up at him with appealing eyes. "Please tell them I can'tpossibly do it. I'm--I'm not well enough--am I?"

"We're within three weeks of the performance, sir, " put in Fitzroy. "Mrs. Stewart promised she'd do it, and we shall be in a regular fix nowif she gives it up. Mrs. Shaw's chucked us already. "

"Yes, and every one says how splendidly Mrs. Stewart acts, " pleaded LadyWolvercote. 

Stewart had half forgotten the matter; but now he remembered thatMildred had been keen to have the part only a week ago, and a littlepettish because he had advised her to leave it alone, on account of Mrs. Shaw. Now she was hanging on him with desperate eyes and that worriedbrow which he had not seen once since he had married her. 

"I'm extremely sorry, Lady Wolvercote, " he said, "but my wife's had anervous break-down lately and I can't allow her to act. She's not fitfor it. "

"Ah, I see--I quite understand!" returned Lady Wolvercote. "But we'dtake great care of her, Mr. Stewart. She could come and stay atBesselsfield. "

Fitzroy's gloom lifted. His aunt was a trump. Surely an invitation toBesselsfield must do the job. But Stewart, though apologetic, wasinflexible. He had forbidden his wife to act and there was an end of it. The perception of the differences between the two personalities of Millywhich had been thrust to-day on his unwilling mind, made him grasp themeaning of her frantic appeals for protection. He relieved her of allresponsibility for her refusal to act. 

Lady Wolvercote observed, as she and her nephew went sadly on their way, that Mr. Stewart seemed a very, very odd man in spite of his presentablemanners and appearance; and Fitzroy replied gloomily that of course hewas a beast. Dons always were beasts. 

CHAPTER XIII

The diplomatic incident of the theatricals was not the only minortrouble which Milly found awaiting her. The cook's nerves were upset bya development of rigid economy on the part of her mistress, and she gavenotice; the house parlor-maid followed suit. No one seemed to have keptIan's desk tidy, his papers in order, or his clothes properly mended. Itwas a joy to her to put everything belonging to him right. 

When all was arranged to her satisfaction: "Ian, " she said, sitting onhis knee with her head on his shoulder, "I can't bear to think howwretched you must have been all the time I was away. "

Ian was silent a minute. 

"But you haven't been away, and I don't like you to talk as though youhad. "

Wretched? It would have been absurd to think of himself as wretched now;yet compared with the wonderful happiness that had been his for morethan half a year, what was this "house swept and garnished"? An emptything. Words of Tims's which he had thought irritating and absurd at thetime, haunted him now. "_You don't mean to say you haven't seen thedifference?_" He might not have seen it, but he had felt it. He felt itnow. 

There was at any rate no longer any question of Dieppe. They tooklodgings at Sheringham and he made good progress with his book. Yet notquite so good as he had hoped. Milly was indefatigable in looking uppoints and references, in preventing him from slipping into the smallinaccuracies to which he was prone; but he missed the stimulus ofMildred's alert mind, so quick to hit a blot in logic or in taste, sovivid in appreciation. 

Milly meantime guessed nothing of his dissatisfaction. She adored herhusband more every day, and her happiness would have been perfect had itnot been for the haunting horror of the possible "change" which might belurking for her round the corner of any night--that "change, " whichother people might call what they liked, but which meant for her therobbery of her life, her young happy life with Ian. He had taken hertwice to Norton-Smith before the great man went for his holiday. Norton-Smith had pronounced it a peculiar but not unprecedented case ofcollapse of memory, caused by overwork; and had spent most of theconsultation time in condemning the higher education of women. Time, rest, and the fulfilment of woman's proper function of maternity would, he affirmed, bring all right, since there was no sign of disease in Mrs. Stewart, who appeared to him, on the contrary, a perfectly healthy youngwoman. When Ian, alone with him, began tentatively to bring to thedoctor's notice the changes in character and intelligence that hadaccompanied the losses of memory, he found his remarks set aside likethe chatter of a foolish child. 

If maternity would indeed exorcise the Invader, Milly had lost no timein beginning the exorcism. And she did believe that somehow it would;not because the doctor said so, but because she could not believe Godwould let a child's mother be changed in that way, at any rate while shewas bearing it. To do so would be to make it more motherless than anylittle living thing on earth. Milly had always been quietly but deeplyreligious, and she struggled hard against the feeling of peculiarinjustice in this strange affliction that had been sent to her. Sheprayed earnestly to God every night to help and protect her and herchild, and the period of six or seven months, at which the "change" hadcome before, passed without a sign of it. In April a little boy wasborn. They called him Antonio, after a learned Italian, a friend andteacher of Ian's. 

The advent of the child did something to explain the comparativeseclusion into which Mrs. Stewart had retired, and the curious dullingof that brilliant personality of hers. The Master of Durham was amongthe few of Mrs. Stewart's admirers who declined to recognize the changein her. He had been attracted by the girl Milly Flaxman, by her gentle, shy manners and pretty face, combined with her reputation forscholarship; the brilliant Invader had continued to attract him inanother way. The difference between the two, if faced, would have beendisagreeably mysterious. He preferred to say and think that there wasnone; Mrs. Stewart was probably not very well. 

Milly's shyness made it peculiarly awkward for her to find herself inpossession of a number of friends whom she would not have chosenherself, and of whose doings and belongings she was in completeignorance. However, if she gave offence she was unconscious of it, andit came very naturally to her to shrink back into the shadow of herhousehold gods. Ian and the baby were almost sufficient in themselves tofill her life. There was just room on the outskirts of it for a fewrelations and old friends, and Aunt Beatrice still held her honoredplace. But it was through Aunt Beatrice that she was first to learn thefeel of a certain dull heartache which was destined to grow upon herlike some fell disease, a thing of ceaseless pain. 

She was especially anxious to get Aunt Beatrice, who had been in Americaall the Summer Vacation, to stay with them in the Autumn Term as LadyThomson had been with them in May, and Milly did not like to think ofthe number of things, all wrong, which she was sure to have noticed inthe house. Besides, what with theatricals and other engagements, it wasevident that a good many people had been "in and out" in the SummerTerm--a condition of life which Lady Thomson always denounced. Milly wasanxious for her to see that that phase was past and that her favoriteniece had settled down into the quiet, well-ordered existence of whichshe approved. 

Aunt Beatrice came; but oh, disappointment! If it had been possible tosay of Lady Thomson, whose moods were under almost perfect control, that she was out of temper, Milly would have said it. She volunteered noopinion, but when asked, she compared Milly's new cook unfavorably withher former one. When her praise was anxiously sought, she observed thatit was undesirable to be careless in one's housekeeping, but lessdisagreeable than to be fussy and house-proud. She added thatMilly--whom she called Mildred--must be on her guard against relaxinginto domestic dulness, when she could be so extremely clever andcharming if she liked. Milly was bewildered and distressed. She feltsure that she had passed through a phase of which Aunt Beatrice ought tohave disapproved. She had evidently been frivolous and neglectful of herduties; yet it seemed as though her aunt had been better pleased withher when she was like that. What could have made Aunt Beatrice, of allwomen, unkind and unjust?

In this way more than a year went by. The baby grew and wasshort-coated; the October Term came round once more, and still Millyremained the same Milly. To have wished it otherwise would have seemedlike wishing for her death. 

But at times a great longing for another, quite another, came over Ian. It was like a longing for the beloved dead. Of course it was mad--mad!He struggled against the feeling, and generally succeeded in gettingback to the point of view that the change had been more in himself, inhis own emotional moods, than in Milly. 

October, the golden month, passed by and November came in, soft anddim; a merry month for the hunting men beside the coverts, where thered-brown leaves still hung on the oak-trees and brushwood, and amongthe grassy lanes, the wide fresh fields and open hill-sides. No illmonth either for those who love to light the lamp early and open theirbooks beside a cheerful fire. But then the rain came, a persistent, soaking rain. Milly always went to her district on Tuesdays, no matterwhat the weather, and this time she caught a cold. Ian urged her to stopin bed next morning. He himself had to be in College early, and couldnot come home till the afternoon. 

It was still raining and the early falling twilight was murky and brown. The dull yellow glare of the street-lamps was faintly reflected in themuddy wetness of pavements and streets. He was carrying a great armfulof books and papers under his dripping mackintosh and umbrella. As hewalked homeward as fast as his inconvenient load allowed, he becameacutely conscious of a depression of spirits which had been growing uponhim all day. It was the weather, he argued, affecting his nerves ordigestion. The vision of a warm, cosey house, a devoted wife awaitinghim, ought to have cheered him, but it did not. He hoped he would notfeel irritable when Milly rushed into the hall as soon as his key washeard in the front door, to feel him all over and take every damp threadtragically. Poor dear Milly! What a discontented brute of a husband shehad got! The fault was no doubt with himself, and he would not really behappy even if some miracle did set him down on a sunny Mediterraneanshore, with enough money to live upon and nothing to think of but hisbook. Mildred used to say that she always went to a big dinner at Durhamin the unquenchable hope of meeting and fascinating some millionaire whohad sense enough to see how much better it would be to endow writers ofgood books than readers of silly ones. 

With the recollection there rang in the ears of his mind the sound of alaugh which he had not heard for seventeen months. Something seemed totighten about his heart. Yes, he could be quite happy without themillionaire, without the sunny skies, without even the pretty, comfortable home at whose door he stood, if somewhere, anywhere, hecould hope to hear that laugh again, to hold again in his arms thestrange bright bride who had melted from them like snow inspring-time--but that way madness lay. He thrust the involuntary longingfrom him almost with horror, and turned the latch-key in his door. 

The hall lamp was burning low and the house seemed very chilly andquiet. He put his books down on the oak table, threw his streamingmackintosh upon the large chest, and went up to his dressing-room, tochange whatever was still damp about him before seeking Milly, whopresumably was nursing her cold before the study fire. When he hadthrown off his shoes, he noticed that the door leading to his wife'sroom was ajar and a faint red glow of firelight showed invitinglythrough the chink. A fire! It was irresistible. He went in quickly andstirred the coals to a roaring blaze. The dancing flames lit up thelong, low room with its few pieces of furniture, its high whitewainscoting, and paper patterned with birds and trellised leaves. Theylit up the low white bed and the white figure of his sleeping wife. Tillthen he had thought the room was empty. She lay there so deathly stilland straight that he was smitten with a sudden fear; but leaning overher he heard her quiet, regular breathing and saw that if somewhat pale, she was normal in color. He touched her hand. It was withdrawn by amechanical movement, but not before he had felt that it was warm. 

A wild excitement thrilled him; it would have been truer to say a wildjoy, only that it held a pang of remorse for itself. So she had lain atthe Hôtel du Chalet when he had left her for that long walk over thecrisp mountain snow. And when he had returned, she--what She? No, hisbrain did not reel on the verge of madness; it merely accepted under thecompulsion of knowledge a truth of those truths that are too profound toadmit of mere external proof. For our reason plays at the edge of theuniverse as a little child plays at the edge of the sea, gathering fromits fringes the flotsam and jetsam of its mighty life. But miles andmiles beyond the ken of the eager eye, beyond the reach of the alerthand, lies the whole great secret life of the sea. And if it were alllaid bare and spread at the child's feet, how could the little handsuffice to gather its vast treasures, the inexperienced eye to perceiveand classify them?

Alone in the firelit, silent room, with this tranced form before him, Ian Stewart knew that the woman who would arise from that bed would be adifferent woman from the one who had lain down upon it. By whatmysterious alchemy of nature transmuted he could not understand, anymore than he could understand the greater part of the workings of thatcosmic energy which he was compelled to recognize, although he might becheated with words into believing that he understood them. Another womanwould arise and she his Love. She had been gone so long; his heart hadhungered for her so long, in silence even to himself. She had been deadand now she was about to be raised from the dead. He lighted thecandles, locked the doors, and paced softly up and down, stopping tolook at the figure on the bed from time to time. Far around him, closeabout him, life was moving at its usual jog-trot pace. People were goingback to their College rooms or domestic hearths, grumbling about theweather or their digestions or their colds, thinking of their work forthe evening or of their dinner engagements--and suddenly a door had shutbetween him and all that outside world. He was no longer moving in thedriven herd. He was alone, above them in an upper chamber, awaiting themiracle of resurrection. 

In the visions that passed before his mind's eye the face of Milly, pale, with pleading eyes, was not absent; but with a strange hardnesswhich he had never felt before, he thrust the sighing phantom from him. She had had her turn of happiness, a long one; it was only fair thatnow they two, he and that Other, should have their chance, should puttheir lips to the full cup of life. The figure on the bed stirred, turned on one side, and slipped a hand under the pure curve of the youngcheek. He was by the bed in a moment; but it still slept, though lessprofoundly, without that tranced look, as though the flame of lifeitself burned low within. 

How would she first greet him? Last time she had leaned into the clearsunshine and laughed to him from the cloud of her amber hair; and aspirit in his blood had leaped to the music of her laugh, even while therational self knew not it was the lady of his love. But however she cameback it would be she, the Beloved. He felt exultantly how little, afterall, the frame mattered. Last time he had found her, his love had beenset in the sunshine and the splendor of the Alpine snows, with nothingto jar, nothing to distract it from itself. And that was good. To-day, it was opening, a sudden and wonderful bloom, in the midst of the murkydiscomfort of an English November, the droning hum of the machinery ofhis daily work. And this, too, was good. 

Yes, it was better because of the contrast between the wonder and itsenvironment, better because he himself was more conscious of his joy. Hesat on the bed a while watching her impatiently. In his eyes she wasalready filled with a new loveliness, but he wanted her hair, her amberhair. It was brushed back and imprisoned tightly in a little plait tiedwith a white ribbon--Milly's way. With fingers clumsy, yet gentle, hetook off the ribbon and cautiously undid the plait. Then he took a comband spread out the silk-soft hair more as he liked to see it, pleasedwith his own skill in the unaccustomed task. She stirred again, butstill she did not wake. He was pacing up and down the room when sheraised herself a little on her pillow and looked fixedly at the oppositewall. Ian held his breath. He stood perfectly still and watched her. Presently she sat up and looked about her, looked at him with a faint, vague smile, like that of a baby. He sat down at the foot of the bed andtook her hand. She smiled at him again, this time with more definitemeaning. 

"Do you know who it is, sweetheart?" he said in a low voice. She noddedslightly and went on smiling, as though quietly happy. 

"Ian, " she breathed, at length. 

"Yes, darling. "

"I've been away a long, long time. How long?"

He told her. 

She uttered a little "Ah!" and frowned; lay quiet awhile, then drew herhand from Ian's and sat up still more. 

"I sha'n't lie here any longer, " she said, in a stronger voice. "It'sjust waste of time. " She pushed back the clothes and swung her feet outof bed. "Oh, how glad I am to be back again! Are you glad I'm back, Ian?Say you are, do say you are!"

And Ian on his knees before her, said that he was. 

CHAPTER XIV

Ian was leaning against the high mantel-piece of his study. Above it, let into the panelling, was an eighteenth-century painting of the Bridgeand Castle of St. Angelo, browned by time. He was wondering how to tellMildred about the child, and whether she would resent its presence. She, too, was meditating, chin on hand. At length she looked up with a suddensmile. 

"What about the baby, Ian? Don't you take any notice of it yet?"

He was surprised. 

"How do you know about him?"

She frowned thoughtfully. 

"I seem to know things that have happened in a kind of way--rather asthough I had seen them in a dream. But they haven't happened to me, youknow. "

"Was it the same last time?"

"No; but the first time I came, and especially just at first, I seemedto remember all kinds of things--" She paused as though trying in vainto revive her impressions--"Odd things, not a bit like anything inOxford. I can't recall them now, but sometimes in London I fancy I'veseen places before. "

"Of course you have, dear. "

"And the first time I saw that old picture there I knew it was Rome, andI had a notion that I'd been there and seen just that view. "

"You've been seeing pictures and reading books and hearing talk all yourlife, and in the peculiar state of your memory, I suppose you can'tdistinguish between the impressions made on it by facts and by ideas. "

Mildred was silent; but it was not the silence of conviction. Then shejumped up. 

"I'm going to see Baby. You needn't come if you don't want. "

He hesitated. 

"I'm afraid it's too late. Milly doesn't like--" He broke off with awild laugh. "What am I talking about!"

"I suppose you were going to say, Milly doesn't like people taking acandle into the room when Baby is shut up for the night. I don't carewhat Milly likes. He's my baby now, and he's sure to look a duck whenhe's asleep. Come along!"

She put her arm through his and together they climbed the steepstaircase to the nursery. 

Mildred had returned to the world in such excellent spirits at merelybeing there, that she took those awkward situations which Milly hadinevitably bequeathed to her, as capital jokes. The partial and externalacquaintance with Milly's doings and points of view which she hadbrought back with her, made everything easier than before; but herderisive dislike of her absent rival was intensified. It pained Ian ifshe dropped a hint of it. Tims was the only person to whom she couldhave the comfort of expressing herself; and even Tims made faces andgroaned faintly, as though she did not enjoy Mildred's wit when Millywas the subject of it. She gave Milly's cook notice at once, but mostthings she found in a satisfactory state--particularly the familyfinances. More negatively satisfactory was the state of her wardrobe, since so little had been bought. Mildred still shuddered at therecollection of the trousseau frocks. 

Once more Mrs. Stewart, whose social career had been like that of theproverbial rocket shot up into the zenith. But a life of mere amusementwas not the fashion in the circle in which she lived, and her activebrain and easily aroused sympathies made her quick to take up moreserious interests. 

It seemed wiser, too, to make no sudden break with Milly's habits. Still, Emma, the nurse, opined that Baby got on all the better sinceMrs. Stewart had become "more used to him like"--wasn't always changinghis food, taking his temperature, wanting him to have bandages andmedicine, forbidding him to be talked to or sung to, and pulling hislittle, curling-up limbs straight when he was going to sleep. He was ahealthy little fellow and already pretty, with his soft darkhair--softer than anything in the world except a baby's hair--hisdelicate eyebrows and bright dark eyes. Mildred loved playing with him. Sometimes when Ian heard the tiny shrieks of baby laughter, he used tothink with a smile and yet with a pang of pity, how shocked poor Millywould have been at this titillation of the infant brain. But he did notwant thoughts of Milly--so far as he could he shut the door of his mindagainst them. She would come back, no doubt, sooner or later; and hercoming back would mean that Mildred would be robbed of her life, his ownlife robbed of its joy. 

At the end of Term the Master of Durham sent a note to bid the Stewartsto dine with him and meet Sir Henry Milwood, the rich Australian, andMaxwell Davison, the traveller and Orientalist. Ian remarked thatDavison was a cousin, although they had not met since he was a boy. Maxwell Davison had gone to the East originally as agent for some bigfirm, and had spent there nearly twenty years. He was an accomplishedPersian and Arabic scholar, and gossip related that he had run off witha fair Persian from a Constantinople harem and lived with her in Persiauntil her death. But that was years ago. 

When the Stewarts entered the Master's bare bachelor drawing-room, theyfound besides the Milwoods, only familiar faces. Maxwell Davison wasstill awaited, and with interest. He came, and that interest did notappear to be mutual, judging from the Oriental impassivity of his long, brown face, with its narrow, inscrutable eyes. He was tall, slight, sinewy as a Bedouin, his age uncertain, since his dry leanness and thedash of silver at his temples might be the effect of burning desertsuns. 

Mildred was delighted at first at being sent into dinner with him, butshe found him disappointingly taciturn. In truth, he had acquiredOriental habits and views with regard to women. If a foolish Occidentalcustom demanded that they should sit at meat with the lords of creation, he, Maxwell Davison, would not pretend to acquiesce in it. Mildred, towhom it was unthinkable that any man should not wish to talk to her, merely pitied his shyness and determined to break it down; but Davison'sattitude was unbending. 

After dinner the Master, his mortar-board cap on his head, opened thedrawing-room door and invited them to come across to the College Libraryto see some bronzes and a few other things that Mr. Davison hadtemporarily deposited there. He had divined that Maxwell Davison wouldbe willing to sell, and in his guileful soul the little Master may havehad schemes of persuading his wealthy friend Milwood to purchase anybronzes that might be of value to the College or the University. Of theladies, only Mildred and Miss Moore, the archæologist, braved the chillof the mediæval Library to inspect the collection. Davison professed tono artistic or antiquarian knowledge of the bronzes. They had come tohim in the way of trade and had all been dug up in Asia Minor--no, notall, for one he had picked up in England. Nevertheless he had succeededin getting a pretty clear notion of the relative value of hisbronzes--the Oriental curios with them it was his business tounderstand. He could not help observing the sure instinct with whichMrs. Stewart selected what was best among all these different objects. She had the _flair_ of the born collector. The learned archæologistspresent leaned over the collection discussing and disputing, and took nonotice of her remarks as she rapidly handled each article. But Davisondid, and when at length she took up a small figure of Augustus--thebronze that had not come from Asia Minor--and looked at it with apeculiar doubtful intentness, he began to feel uncomfortable. 

"Anything wrong with that?" he asked, in spite of himself. 

She laughed nervously. 

"Oh, Mr. Davison, please ask some one who knows! I don't. Only I--I seemto have seen something like it before, that's all. "

Sanderson, roaming around the professed archæologists, took the bronzefrom her hands. 

"I'll tell you where you've seen it, Mrs. Stewart. It's engraved inEgerton's _Private Collections of Great Britain_. I picked that up theother day--first edition, 1818. I dare say the book's here. We'll see. "

Sanderson took a candle and went glimmering away down the long, darkroom. 

"What can this be?" asked Mildred, taking up what looked like a glassball. 

"Please stand over here and look into it for five minutes, " returnedDavison, evasively. "Perhaps you'll see what it is then. "

He somehow wanted to get rid of Mildred's appraisal of his goods. 

"Mr. Davison, your glass ball has gone quite cloudy!" she exclaimed, ina minute or two. 

"That's all right. Go on looking and you'll see something more, " hereturned. 

Presently she said:

"It's so curious. I see the whole room reflected in the glass now, butit's much lighter than it really is, and the windows seem larger. It alllooks so different. There is some one down there in white. "

Sanderson came up the room carrying a large quarto, open. 

"Here's your bronze, right enough, " he said, putting the book down onthe table. "It's under the heading, _Hammerton Collection_. "

He pointed to a small engraving inscribed, "Bronze statuette ofAugustus. _Very rare. _"

"But some fellow's been scribbling something here, " continued Sanderson, turning the book around to read a note written along the margin. He readout: "'A forgery. Sold by Lady Hammerton to Mr. Solomons, 1819. See caseSolomons _versus_ Hammerton, 1820. '"

The turning of the book showed Mildred a full-page engraving entitled, "The Gallery, Hammerton House. " It represented a long room somewhat likethe one in which they stood, but still more like the room she had seenin the crystal; and in the middle distance there was a slightly sketchedfigure of a woman in a light dress. Half incredulous, half frightened, she pored over the engraving which reproduced so strangely the image shehad seen in Maxwell Davison's mysterious ball. 

"How funny!" she almost whispered. 

"You may call it funny, of course, that Lady Hammerton succeeded incheating a Jew, which is what it looks like, " rejoined Sanderson, benton hunting down his quarry; "but it was pretty discreditable to hertoo. "

"Not at all, " Maxwell Davison's harsh voice broke in. "That wasSolomons's look out. I sha'n't bring a lawsuit against the fellow whosold me that Augustus, if it is a forgery. A man's a fool to deal inthings he doesn't understand. "

"What is this glass ball, Mr. Davison?" asked Miss Moore, in her turntaking up the uncanny thing Mildred had laid down. 

"It's a divining-crystal. In the East certain people, mostly boys, lookin these crystals and see all sorts of things, present, past, and tocome. "

Miss Moore laughed. 

"Or pretend they do!"

"Who knows? It isn't of any interest, really. The things that havehappened have happened, and the things that are to happen will happenjust as surely, whether we foresee them or not. "

Miss Moore turned to the Master. 

"Look, Master--this is a divining-crystal, and Mr. Davison's trying topersuade me that in the East people really see visions in it. "

The Master smiled. 

"Mr. Davison has a poor opinion of ladies' intelligence, I'm afraid. Hethinks they are children, who will believe any fairy tale. "

Davison had drawn near to Mildred as the Master spoke; his eyes met hersand the impassive face wore a faint, ironical smile. 

"The Wisdom of the West speaks!" he exclaimed, in a low voice. "I'dalmost forgotten the sound of it. "

Then scrutinizing her pale face: "I'm afraid you've had a scare. Whatdid you see?"

"I saw--well, I fancy I saw the Gallery at Hammerton House and myancestress, Lady Hammerton. It was burned, you know, and she was burnedwith it, trying to save her collections. I expect she condescended togive me a glimpse of them because I've inherited her mania. I'd be acollector, too, if I had the money. "

She laughed nervously. 

"You should take Ian to the East, " returned Davison. "You could makemoney there and learn things--the Wisdom of the East, for instance. "

Mildred, recovering her equanimity, smiled at him. 

"No, never! The Wisdom of the West engrosses us; but you'll come andtell us about the other, won't you?"

CHAPTER XV

Maxwell Davison settled in Oxford for six months, in order to see hisgreat book on Persian Literature through the press. His advent had beenlooked forward to as promising a welcome variety, bringing a splash ofvivid color into a somewhat quiet-hued, monotonous world. But there wasdoomed to be some disappointment. Mr. Davison went rather freely toCollege dinners but seldom into general society. It came to beunderstood that he disliked meeting women; Mrs. Stewart, however, heappeared to except from his condemnation or rule. Ian was his cousin, which made a pretext at first for going to the Stewarts' house; but hewent because he found the couple interesting in their respective ways. Some Dons, unable to believe that a man without a University educationcould teach them anything, would lecture him out of their littlepocketful of knowledge about Oriental life and literature. Ian, on thecontrary, was an admirable producer of all that was interesting inothers; and in Davison that all was much. At first he had tried to keepMrs. Stewart in what he conceived to be her proper place; but as timewent on he found himself dropping in at the old house with surprisingfrequency, and often when he knew Ian to be in College or too busy toattend to him. 

He had brought horses with him and offered to give Mildred a mountwhenever she liked. Milly had learned the rudiments of the art, but shewas too timid to care for riding. Mildred, on the other hand, delightedin the swift motion through the air, the sensation of the strongbounding life almost incorporated with her own, and if she had momentsof terror she had more of ecstatic daring. She and Davison ended byriding together once or twice a week. 

Interesting as Mildred found Maxwell Davison's companionship, it did notaltogether conduce to her happiness. She who had been so content to bemerely alive, began now to chafe at the narrow limits of her existence. He opened the wide horizons of the world before her, and her soul seemednative to them. One April afternoon they rode to Wytham together. Thewoods of Wytham clothe a long ridge of hill around which the youngThames sweeps in a strong curve and through them a grass ride runsunbroken for a mile and a half. Now side by side, now passing andrepassing each other, they had "kept the great pace" along the track, the horses slackening their speed somewhat as they went down the dip, only to spring forward with fresh impetus, lifting their hind-quartersgallantly to the rise; then given their heads for the last burst alongthe straight bit to the drop of the hill, away they went in passionatecompetition, foam-flecked and sending the clods flying from theirhurrying hoofs. 

A mile and a half of galloping only serves to whet the appetite of awell-girt horse, and the foaming rivals hardly allowed themselves to bepulled up at the edge of a steep grassy slope, where already here andthere a yellow cowslip bud was beginning to break its pale silkensheath. At length their impatient dancing was over, and they stoodquiet, resigned to the will of the incomprehensible beings whocontrolled them. But Mildred's blood was dancing still and she abandonedherself to the pleasure of it, undistracted by speech. Beyond theshining Thames, wide-curving through its broad green meadows, and thegray bridge and tower of Eynsham, that great landscape, undulating, clothed in the mystery of moving cloud-shadows, gave her an agreeableimpression of being a view into a strange country, hundreds of milesaway from Oxford and the beaten track. But Maxwell's eyes were fixedupon her. 

The wood about them was just breaking into the various beauty of springfoliage, emerald and gold and red; a few trees still holding up nakedgray branches among it; here and there a white cloud of cherry blossom, shining in a clearing or floating mistily amid bursting tree-tops belowthem. They turned to the right, down a narrow ride, mossy and winding, where perforce they trod on flowers as they went; for the path and thewood about it were carpeted with blue dog-violets and the pale softblossoms of primroses, opening in clusters amid their thick freshfoliage and the brown of last year's fallen leaves. The sky above worethe intense blue in which dark clouds are seen floating, and as thegleams of travelling sunshine passed over the wooded hill, its colorsalso glowed with a peculiar intensity. The horses, no longer excited bya vista of turf, were walking side by side. But the beauty of earth andsky were nothing to Maxwell, whose whole being was intent on the beautyof the woman in the saddle beside him; the rose and the gold of cheekand hair, the lithe grace of the body, lightly moving to the motion ofher horse. 

She turned to him with a sudden bright smile. 

"How perfectly delightful riding is! I owe all the pleasure of it toyou. "

"Do you?" he asked, smiling too, but slightly and gravely, narrowing onher his inscrutable eyes. "Well, then, will you do what I want?"

"I thought you were a fatalist and never wanted anything. But if youcondescend to want me to do something, your slave obeys. You see I'mlearning the proper way for a woman to talk. "

"I want you to remove the preposterous black pot with which you'vecovered up your hair. I'll carry it for you. "

"Oh, Max! What would people think if they met me riding without my hat?Fancy Miss Cayley! What she'd say! And the Warden of Canterbury! Whathe'd feel!"

She laughed delightedly. 

"They never ride this way. It's the 'primrose path, ' you see, andthey're afraid of the 'everlasting bonfire. ' I'm not; you're not. You'renot afraid of anything. "

"I am. I'm afraid of old maids and--most butlers. "

Maxwell laughed, but his laugh was a harsh one. 

"Humbug! If you really wanted to do anything you'd do it. I know youbetter than you know yourself. If you won't take your hat off it'sbecause you don't really want to do what I want; and when you say prettythings to me about your gratitude for the pleasure I'm giving you, you're only telling the same old lies women tell all the world over. "

"There! Catch my reins!" cried Mildred, leaning over and holding themout to him. "How do you suppose I can take my hat off if you don't?"

He obeyed and drew up to her, stooping near, a hand on the mane of herhorse. The horses nosed together and fidgeted, while she balancedherself in the saddle with lifted arms, busy with hat-pins. The taskaccomplished, she handed the hat to him and they cantered on. Presentlyshe turned towards him, brightening. 

"You were quite right about the hat, Max. It's ever so much nicerwithout it; one feels freer, and what I love about riding is the freefeeling. It's as though one had got out of a cage; as though one couldjump over all the barriers of life; as though there were nobody andnothing to hinder one from galloping right out into the sky if onechose. But I can't explain what I mean. "

"Of course you don't mean the sky, " he answered. "What you really meanis the desert. There's space, there's color, glorious, infinite, with anair purer than earthly. Such a life, Mildred! The utter freedom of it!None of this weary, dreary slavery you call civilization. That would bethe life for you. "

It was true that Mildred's was an essentially nomadic and adventuroussoul. Whether the desert was precisely the most suitable sphere for herwanderings was open to doubt, but for the moment as typifying freedom, travel, and motion--all that really was as the breath of life to her--itfascinated her imagination. Maxwell, closely watching thatsunshine-gilded head, saw her eyes widen, her whole expression at onceexcited and meditative, as though she beheld a vision. But in a momentshe had turned to him with a challenging smile. 

"I thought slavery was the only proper thing for women. "

"So it is--for ordinary women. It makes them happier and lessmischievous. But I don't fall into the mistake--which causes such a dealof unnecessary misery and waste in the world--the mistake of supposingthat you can ever make a rule which it's good for every one to obey. You've got to make your rule for the average person. Therefore it'sbound not to fit the man or woman who is not average, and it's folly towish them to distort themselves to fit it. "

"And I'm not average? I needn't be a slave? Oh, thank you, Max! I am soglad. "

"Confound it, Mildred, I'm not joking. You are a born queen and yououghtn't to be a slave; but you are one, all the same. You're a slave tothe 'daily round, the common task, ' which were never meant for such asyou; you're a slave to the conventional idiocy of your neighbors. Youdaren't even take your hat off till I make you; and now you see how niceit is to ride with your hat off. "

They had been slowly descending the steep, stony road which leads toWytham Village, but as he spoke they were turning off into a large fieldto the right, across which a turfy track led gradually up to the woodsfrom which they had come. The track lay smooth before them, and thehorses began to sidle and dance directly their hoofs touched it. Mildreddid not answer his remarks, except by a reference to the hat. 

"Don't lose it, that's all!" she shouted, looking back and laughing, asshe shot up the track ahead of him. He fancied she was trying to showhim that she could run away from him if she chose; and with a quietsmile on his lips and a firm hand on his tugging horse, he kept behindher until she was a good way up the field. Then he gave his horse itshead and it sprang forward. She heard the eager thud of the heavy hoofsdrawing up behind, and in a few seconds he was level with her. For aminute they galloped neck and neck, though at a little distance fromeach other. Then she saw him ahead, riding with a seat looser than mostEnglishmen's, yet with an assurance, a grace of its own, thehind-quarters of his big horse lifting powerfully under him, as it spedwith great bounds over the flying turf. Her own mare saw it, too, andvented her annoyance in a series of kicks, which, it must be confessed, seriously disturbed Mildred's equilibrium. Then settling to business, she sprang after her companion. Maxwell heard her following him up thelong grass slope towards the gate which opens into the main ride bywhich they had started. He fancied he had the improvised race well inhand, but suddenly the hoofs behind him hurried their beat; Mildred flewpast him at top speed and flung her mare back on its haunches at thegate. 

"I've won! Hurrah! I've won!" she shouted, breathlessly, and waved herwhip at him. 

Maxwell was swearing beneath his breath, in a spasm of anger andanxiety. 

"Don't play the fool!" he cried, savagely, as he drew rein close to her. "You might have thrown the mare down or mixed her in with the gate, pulling her up short like that. It's a wonder you didn't come offyourself, for though you're a devil to go, you know as well as I doyou're a poor horse-woman. "

He was violently angry, partly at Mildred's ignorant rashness, partlybecause, after all, she had beaten him. She, taking her hat from hishand and fastening it on again, uttered apologies, but from the lipsonly; for she had never seen a man furious before, and she was keenlyinterested in the spectacle. Maxwell's eyes were not inscrutable now;they glittered with manifest rage. His harsh voice was still harsher, his hard jaw clinched, the muscles of his lean face, which was as paleas its brownness allowed it to be, stood out like cords, and the handthat grasped her reins shook. Mildred felt somewhat as she imagined alion-tamer might feel; just the least bit alarmed, but mistress of thebrute, on the whole, and enjoying the contact with anything so naturaland fierce and primitive. The feeling had not had time to pall on her, when going through the gate, they were joined by two other members ofthe little clan of Wytham riders, and all rode back to Oxford together, through flying scuds of rain. 

CHAPTER XVI

There is a proverbial rule against playing with fire, but it is onewhich, as Davison would have said, was evidently made by average people, who would in fact rather play with something else. There are others towhom fire is the only really amusing plaything; and though theby-stander may hold his breath, nine times out of ten they will come outof the game as unscathed as the professional fire-eater. This was notprecisely true of Mildred, who had still a wide taste in playthings; butin the absence of anything new and exciting in her environment, shefound an immense fascination in playing with the fiery elements inMaxwell Davison's nature, in amusing her imagination with visions of afree wandering life, led under a burning Oriental sky, which heconstantly suggested to her. Yet dangerously alluring as these visionsmight appear, appealing to all the hidden nomad heart of her, her goodsense was never really silenced. It told her that freedom from theshackles of civilization might become wearisome in time, besidesinvolving heavier, more intolerable forms of bondage; although she didnot perceive that Maxwell Davison's dislike to her being a slave wasonly a dislike to her being somebody else's slave. He was a despot atheart and had accustomed himself to a frank despotism over women. Mildred's power over him, the uncertainty of his power over her, maddened him. But Mildred did not know what love meant. At one time shehad fancied her affection for Ian might be love; now she wonderedwhether her strange interest in the society of a man for whom she had noaffection, could be that. She did not feel towards Ian as an ordinarywife might have done, yet his feelings and interests weighed much withher. Milly, too, she must necessarily consider, but she did that in adifferent, an almost vengeful spirit. 

One evening Ian, looking up from his work, asked her what she wassmiling at so quietly to herself. And she could not tell him, because itwas at a horrible practical joke suggested to her by an impish spiritwithin. What if she should prepare a little surprise for the returningMilly? Let her find herself planted in Araby the Blest with MaxwellDavison? Mildred chuckled, wondering to herself which would be in thebiggest rage, Milly or Max; for however Tims might affirm the contrary, Mildred had a fixed impression that Milly could be in a rage. 

The fire-game was hastening to its close; but before Mildred could proveherself a real mistress of the dangerous element, the sleep fell uponher. 

Except a sensation of fatigue, for which it was easy to find a reason, there was no warning of the coming change. But Ian had dreams in thenight and opened his eyes in the morning with a feeling of uneasinessand depression. Mildred could never sleep late without causing himanxiety, and on this morning his first glance at her filled him with adread certainty. She was sleeping what was to her in a measure the sleepof death. He had a violent impulse to awaken her forcibly; but he fearedit would be dangerous. With his arm around her and his head close tohers on the pillow, he whispered her name over and over again. Thecalmness of her face gradually gave way to an expression of struggleapproaching convulsion, and he dared not continue. He could only awaitthe inevitable in a misery which from its very nature could find noexpression and no comforter. 

Milly, unlike Mildred, did not return to the world in a rapture ofsatisfaction with it. The realization of the terrible robbery of life ofwhich she had again been the victim, was in itself enough to account fora certain sadness even in her love for Ian and for her child. Thehygiene of the nursery had been neglected according to her ideas, yetBaby was bonny enough to delight any mother's heart, however heavy itmight be. Ian, she said, wanted feeding up and taking care of; and hesubmitted to the process with a gentle, melancholy smile. Just onerequest he made; that she would not spoil her pretty hair by screwing itup in her usual unbecoming manner. She understood, studying a certainphotograph in a drawer--what drawer was safe from Milly's tidyings?--anddressed her hair as like it as she knew how, with a secret bitterness ofheart. 

Mildred had found a diary, methodically kept by Milly, of great use toher, and although incapable herself of keeping one regularly, she hadcontinued it in a desultory manner, noting down whatever she thoughtmight be useful for Milly's guidance. For whatever the feelings of thetwo personalities towards each other, there was a terrible closeness ofunion between them. Their indivisibility in the eyes of the world madetheir external interests inevitably one. New friends and acquaintancesMildred had noted down, with useful remarks upon them. She was notconfidential on the subject of Maxwell Davison, but she gave the barenecessary information. 

It was now late in the Summer Term and her bedroom chimney-piece wasrichly decorated with invitation cards. Among others there was aninvitation to a garden-party at Lady Margaret Hall. Milly put on a freshflowered muslin dress, apparently unworn, that she found hanging in oneof the deep wall-cupboards of the old house, and a coarse burnt-strawhat, trimmed with roses and black ribbon, which became her marvellouslywell. All the scruples of an apostle of hygienic dress, all theuneasiness of an economist at the prospect of unpaid bills, disappearedbefore the pleasure of a young woman face to face with an extremelypretty reflection in a pier-glass. That glass, an oval in a lightmahogany frame, of the Regency period, if not earlier, was one ofMildred's finds in the slums of St. Ebbes. 

She walked across the Parks, where the Cricket Match of the season wasdrawing a crowd, meaning to come out by a gate below Lady Margaret Hall, the gardens and buildings of which did not then extend to the Cherwell. In their place were a few tennis-grounds and a path leading to aboat-house, shared by a score or more of persons. While she was stillcoming across the grass of the Parks, a man in flannels, very white inthe sun, came towards her from the gate for which she was making. Hemust have recognized her from a long way off. He was a striking-lookingman of middle age, walking with a free yet indolent stride that carriedhim along much faster than it appeared to do. 

Milly had no idea who the stranger was, but he greeted her with: "Hereyou are at last, Mildred! Do you know how much behind time you are?"--hetook out his watch--"Exactly thirty-five minutes. I should have givenyou up if I hadn't known that breaking your promise is not among yournumerous vices, and unpunctuality is. "

Who on earth was he? And why did he call her by her Christian name?Milly went a beautiful pink with embarrassment. 

"I'm so sorry. I thought the party would have just begun, " she replied. 

"You don't mean to say you want to keep me kicking my heels while you goto a confounded party? I thought you knew I was off to Paris to-night, after that Firdusi manuscript, and I think of taking the ContinentalExpress to Constantinople next week. I don't know when I shall be back. Surely, Mildred, it's not a great deal to ask you to spare half an hourfrom a wretched party to come on the river with me before I go?" Itstruck Maxwell as he ended that he was falling into the whining of theOccidental lover. He was determined that he would clear the situationthis afternoon; the more determined because he was conscious of afeeling odiously resembling fear which had before now held him back fromplain dealing with Mildred. Afraid of a woman? It was too ridiculous. 

Milly, meanwhile, felt herself on firmer ground. This must be Ian'scousin, Maxwell Davison, the Orientalist. But there was nothing nomadicin her heart to thrill to the idea of being on the Cherwell thisafternoon, in London this evening, in Paris next morning, inConstantinople next week. 

"Of course I'll come on the river with you, " she said. "I'm sorry I'mlate. I'm afraid I--I'd forgotten. "

Forgotten! How simply she said it! Yet it was surely the veriestimpudence of coquetry. He looked at her slowly from the hat downward, ashe lounged leisurely at her side. 

"War-paint, I see!" he remarked. "Armed from head to heel with all thetrue and tried female weapons. They're just the same all the worldover--'plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose, '--though no doubt youfancy they're different. Who's the frock put on for, Mildred? For theparty, or--for me?"

Milly was conscious of such an extreme absence of intention so far asMaxwell was concerned, that it would have been rude to express it. Shewent very pink again, and lifting forget-me-not blue eyes to hisinscrutable ones, articulated slowly:

"I'm sure I don't know. "

Her eyes were like a child's and a shy smile curved her pink lipsadorably as she spoke. Such mere simplicity would not in itself havecast a spell over Maxwell, but it came to him as a new, surprising phaseof the eternal feminine in her; and it had the additional charm that itcaused that subjugated feeling resembling fear, with which Mildred couldinspire him, to disappear entirely. He was once more in the properdominant attitude of Man. He felt the courage now to make her do what hebelieved she wished to do in her heart; the courage, too, to punish herfor the humiliation she had inflicted upon him. Six months ago he wouldhave had nothing but a hearty contempt for the man who could beat thirtyyards of gravel-path for half an hour, watch in hand, in a misery ofimpatience, waiting on the good pleasure of a capricious woman. 

Meantime he laughed good-humoredly at Milly's answer and began to talkof neutral matters. If her tongue did not move as nimbly as usual, heflattered himself it was because she knew that the hour of her surrenderwas at hand. 

Milly knew the boat-house well, the pleasant dimness of it on hot summerdays; how the varnished boats lay side by side all down its length, andhow the light canoes rested against the walls as it were on shelves. How, when the big doors were opened on to the raft and the slowlymoving river without, bright circles of sunlight, reflected from therunning water, would fly in and dance on wall and roof. She stood therein the dimness, while Maxwell lifted down a large canoe and, opening oneof the barred doors, took it out to the water. Mildred would have felt ahalf-conscious æsthetic pleasure in watching his movements, superficially indolent but instinct with strength. Milly had not thesame æsthetic sensibilities, and she was still disagreeably embarrassedat finding herself on such a familiar footing with a man whom she hadnever seen before. Then, although she followed Aunt Beatrice's goldenrule of never allowing a question of feminine dress to interfere withmasculine plans, she could not but feel anxious as to the fate of herfresh muslin and ribbons packed into a canoe. Maxwell, however, hadlearned canoeing years ago on the Canadian lakes, and did not splash. His lean, muscular brown arms and supple wrists took the canoe rapidlythrough the water, with little apparent effort. 

It was the prime of June and the winding willow-shaded Cherwell was inits beauty. White water-lilies were only just beginning to open silverbuds, floating serenely on their broad green and red pads; but prodigalmasses of wild roses, delicately rich in scent and various in color, overhung the river in brave arching bowers or starred bushes andhedgerows so closely that the green briers were hardly visible. Beds ofthe large blue water forget-me-not floated beside the banks, and abovethem creamy meadow-sweet lifted its tall plumes among the reeds andgrasses. Small water-rats swam busily from bank to bank or played on theroots of the willows, and bright wings of birds and insects flutteredand skimmed over the shining stream. 

The Cherwell, though not then the crowded waterway it has since become, was usually popular with boaters on such an afternoon. But there musthave been strong counter-attractions elsewhere, for Milly and Davisonpassed only one, a party of children working very independent oars, ontheir way to the little gray house above the ferry, where an oldFrenchman dispensed tea in arbors. 

There was a kind of hypnotic charm in the gliding motion of the canoeand the water running by. Milly was further dazed by Maxwell's talk. Itwas full of mysterious references and couched in the masterful tone of aperson who had rights over her--a tone which before he had been morewilling than able to adopt; but now the bit was between his teeth. Perhaps absorbed in his own intent, he hardly noticed how little sheanswered; but he did notice every point of her beauty as she leaned backon the cushions in the light shade of her parasol, from the softbrightness of her hair to the glimpse of delicate white skin whichshowed through the open-work stocking on her slender foot. 

When they were in the straight watery avenue between green willow walls, which leads up to the ferry, he slackened the pace. 

"And what are you going to do next week?" he asked, as one of a seriesof ironical questions. 

"A great deal; much more than I care to do. I'm going up to town to seethe new Savoy opera, and I'm going to a dance, and to severalgarden-parties, and to dine with the Master of Durham. "

"Quite enough for some people; but not for you, Mildred. Think ofit--year after year, always the same old run. October Term, Lent Term, Summer Term! A little change in Vacations, say a month abroad, when youcan afford it. You aren't meant for it, you know you're not, any morethan a swallow's meant for the little hopping, pecketing life of aLondon sparrow. "

"Indeed, I don't see the likeness either way. I'm quite happy as I am. "

He smiled mockingly. 

"Quite happy! As it's very proper you should be, of course. Come, Mildred, no humbug! Think how you'd feel if you knew that instead ofgoing to all those idiotic parties next week you were going toConstantinople. "

"Isn't it dreadfully hot at this time of year?"

"I like it hot. But at any rate one can always find some cool place inthe hottest weather. How would you like to go in a caravan from Cairo toDamascus next autumn?"

"I dare say it would be delightful, if the country one passed throughwere not too wild and dangerous. But Ian would never be able to leavehis work for an expedition like that. "

Maxwell smiled grimly. 

"I'd no idea you'd want him. I shouldn't. Do be serious. If you fancyI'm the sort of man you can go on playing with forever, you're mostconfoundedly mistaken. "

Milly was both offended and alarmed. Was this strange man mad? And shealone with him on the river!

"I don't know what you mean, " she said, coldly. 

"Don't you?" he returned, and he still wore his ironic smile--"Well, Iknow what you mean all the time. You say I only know Oriental women, but, by Allah, there's not a pin to choose between the lot of you, except that there's less humbug about them, and over here you're a setof trained, accomplished hypocrites!"

Indignation overcame fear in Milly's bosom. 

"We are nothing of the kind, " she said. "How can you talk suchnonsense?"

"Nonsense? I suppose being a woman you can't really be logical, althoughyou generally pretend to be so. Why have you pranked yourself out, spentan hour I dare say in making yourself pretty to-day? For what possiblereason except to attract the eyes of a crowd of men, young fools ordoddering old ones--"

Milly uttered an expression of vehement denial, but he continued:

"Or else to whet my appetite for forbidden fruit. But there's no 'or'about it, is there? Most likely you had both of those desirable objectsin view. "

Milly was not a coward when her indignation was aroused. She took holdof the sides of the canoe and began raising herself. 

"I don't know whether you mean to be insulting, " she said; "but I don'twish to hear any more of this sort of thing. I'd rather you put me out, please. "

"Sit down, " he said, with authority--the canoe was rockingviolently--"unless you're anxious to be drowned. I warn you I'm a verypoor swimmer, and if we upset there's not a ghost of a chance of mybeing able to save you. "

Milly was a poor swimmer, too, and felt by no means competent to saveherself; neither was she anxious to be drowned. So she sat down again. 

"Put me out at the ferry, please, " she repeated, haughtily. 

They were reaching the end of the willow avenue, just where the wirerope crosses the river. On the right was a small wooden landing-stage, and high above it the green, steep river-bank, with the gray house andthe arbors on the top. The old Frenchman stood before the house in hisshirt-sleeves, watching sadly for his accustomed prey, which for someinexplicable reason did not come. He took off his cap expectantly toMaxwell Davison, whom he knew; but the canoe glided swiftly under therope and on. 

"No, I sha'n't put you out, Mildred, " Maxwell answered with decision, after a pause. "I'm sorry if I've offended you. I've forgotten mymanners, no doubt, and must seem a bit of a brute to you. I didn't bringyou here just to quarrel, or to play a practical joke upon you, and sendyou on a field-walk in that smart frock and shoes--" he smiled at her, and this time she was obliged to feel a certain fascination in hissmile--"nor yet to go on with the game you've been playing with me allthese months. You forget; I've been used to Nature for so many yearsthat I find it hard to realize how natural the most artificialconditions of life appear to you. I'll try to remember; but you mustremember, too, that the most civilized beings on earth have got to comeright up against the hard facts of Nature sometimes. They've got to bestripped of their top layer and see it stripped off other people, and torecognize the fact that every one has got a core of Primitive Man or ofPrimitive Woman in them; a perfectly unalterable, indestructible core. And the people who refuse to recognize that aren't elevated and refined, but simply stupid and obstinate and no good. "

Milly, if she would have no compromise with principles, was always quickto accept an apology. She did not follow the line of Maxwell's argument, but she remembered it was noted in a certain deplorably irregular Diary, that he had lived for many years in the East and was quite Orientalizedin many of his ways and ideas. With gentle dignity she signified that inher opinion civilized European manners and views were to be commended inopposition to barbarous and Oriental ones. Maxwell, his face benttowards the turning paddle, hardly heard what she was saying. He waspaddling fast and considering many things. 

They came to where the river ran under a narrow grass field, rising ina steep bank and shut off from the world by a tall hedge and a row ofelms, that threw long shadows down the grass and were reflected in thewater. A path led through it, but it was little frequented. On the otherside was a wide, green meadow, where the long grass was ripening underrose-blossoming hedges, and far beyond was the blueness of distant hillsand woods. Maxwell ran the bow of the canoe into a thick bed offorget-me-nots, growing not far from the bank. He laid the drippingpaddle aside, and, resting his elbows on his knees, held his head in hishands for a minute or more. When he turned his face towards her it wascharged with passion, but most of all with a grave masterfulness. He hadbeen sitting on a low seat, but now he kneeled so as to come nearer toher, and, stretching out his long arms, laid a hand, brown, long-fingered, smooth, on her two slight, gray-gloved ones. 

"Mildred, " he said, and his voice seemed to have lost its harshness, "I've brought you here to make you decide what you are going to do withme and with yourself. I want you--you know I want you, but I don't comebegging for you as an alms. I say, just compare the life, the free, glorious life I can give you, and the wretched, petty round of existencehere. Come with me, won't you? Don't be afraid I shall treat you like aslave; I follow Nature, and Nature made you a queen. Come with meto-night, come to Paris, to Constantinople, to all the East! Never mindabout love yet, we won't talk about that, for I don't really flattermyself you love me; I'm only sure you don't love Ian--"

Milly had listened to him so far, drawing herself back to the farthestend of the canoe, half petrified with amazement, half dominated by hispowerful personality. At these words her pallor gave way to a scarletflush. 

"How dare you!" she cried, in a voice tremulous with indignation. "Howdare you talk to me like this? How dare you name my husband? You broughtme out here on purpose to say such things to me? Oh, it's abominable, it's disgraceful!"

There was no room for doubt as to the sincerity of her indignation. Maxwell drew back and his face changed. There were patches of dull redon his cheeks, almost as though he had been struck, and his narrow eyesglittered. Looking at him, Milly felt physical fear; she thought oncemore of insanity. There was a silence; then she spoke again. 

"Put me on to the bank here, please. I'll walk back. "

"I shall let you go when I choose, " returned he, in a grating voice. "Ihave something to say to you first. "

He paused and his frown darkened upon her. "You asked me how I 'dared. 'Dare! Do you take me for a dog, to be chained up and tantalized withnice bits, and hardly allowed to whine for them? I say, how dare youentice me with your beauty--it's decked out now for me--entice me withall your beguiling ways, your pretence of longing to go away and to livethe free life in the East as I live it? Now, when you've made me wantyou--what else have you been aiming at? You pretend to be surprised, youpretend even to yourself, to be dreadfully shocked. What damned humbug!With us only the dancing-girls venture to play such tricks as you do, and they daren't go too far, because the men are men and wear knives. But here you proper women, with your weakness unnaturally protected, yougo about pretending you don't know there's such a thing in the world asdesire--oh, of course not!--and all the while you're deliberatelyexciting it and playing upon it. "

Mildred had been right in saying that the gentle Milly could be in arage; though it was a thing that had happened to her only once or twicebefore since her childhood. It happened now. Anger, burning anger, extinguished the fear that had held her silent while he was speaking. 

"It's false!" she cried, with burning face and blazing eyes. "It'sdisgraceful of you to say such things--it's degrading for me to have tohear them. I will get away from you, if I have to jump into the river. "

She started forward, but Maxwell, with his tall, lithe body and longarms, had a great reach. He leaned forward and his iron hands were uponher shoulders, forcing her back. 

"Don't be a fool, " he said, still fierce in eye and voice. 

Her lips trembled with fury so that she could hardly speak. 

"Do you consider yourself a gentleman?"

He laughed scornfully. 

"I don't consider the question at all. I am a man; you are a woman, andyou have presumed to make a plaything of me. You thought you could do itwith impunity because we are civilized, because you are a lady; forbar-maids and servant-girls do get their throats cut sometimes still. Don't be frightened, I'm not going to kill you, but I mean to make youunderstand for once that these privileges of weakness are humbug, thatthey're not in nature. I mean to teach you that a man is a betteranimal--"

He suddenly withdrew his hands from her with a sharp exclamation. Milly's teeth were pearly white and rather small, but they were pointed, and they had met in the flesh of the right hand which rested so firmlyon her shoulder. He fell back and put his hand to his mouth. A boat-hooklay within her reach, and her end of the canoe had drifted near enoughto the river-bank for her to be able to catch hold with the hook and topull it farther in. Braced to the uttermost by rage and fear, shebounded to her feet without upsetting the canoe. It lurched violently, but righted itself, swinging out once more into the stream. Maxwelllooked up and saw her standing on the river-bank above him. She did notstay to parley, but with lifted skirt hurried up the steep meadow, through the sun-flecked shadows of the elm-trees, towards the path. Whenshe was half-way up a harsh, sardonic laugh sounded behind her, andinstinctively she looked back. Maxwell held up his wounded hand:

"Primitive woman at last, Mildred!" he shouted. "Don't apologize, Isha'n't. "

CHAPTER XVII

Ian only came home just in time to scramble into his evening dress-suitfor a dinner at the Fletchers'. He needed not to fear delay either fromthat shirt-button at the back, refractory or on the last thread, or fromany other and more insidious trap for the hurrying male. Milly lookedafter him in a way which, if the makers of traditions concerning wiveswere not up to their necks in falsehood, must have inspired devotion inthe heart of any husband alive. She had already observed that he hadbeen allowed to lose most of the pocket-handkerchiefs she had marked forhim in linen thread. That trifles such as this should cause bitternesswill seem as absurd to sensible persons as it would to be told that ourlives are made up of mere to-morrows--if Shakespeare had not happened toput that in his own memorable way. For it takes a vast deal ofimagination to embrace the ordinary facts of life and human nature. Buteven the most sensible will understand that it was annoying for Millyregularly to find her own and the family purse reduced to a state thatdemanded rigid economy. The Invader, stirring in that limbo where shelay, might have answered that rigid economy was Milly's forte and realdelight, and that it was well she should have nothing to spend inridiculously disguising the fair body they were condemned to share. Mildred certainly left behind her social advantages which both Ian andMilly enjoyed without exactly realizing their source, while herbric-à-brac purchases, from an eighteenth-century print to a Chineseivory, were always sure to be rising investments. But all such minormiseries as her invasion might multiply for Milly, were forgotten in thehorror of the abyss that had now opened under her feet. For long afterthat second return of hers, on the night of the thunderstorm, a shadow, a dreadful haunting thought, had hovered in the back of her mind. Gradually it had faded with the fading of a memory; but to-night thecolors of that memory revived, the thought startled into a more vividexistence. 

In the press and hurry of life, not less in Oxford than in other moderntowns, the Stewarts and Fletchers did not meet so often and intimatelyas to make inevitable the discovery of Mildred Stewart's dualpersonality by her cousins. They said she had developed moods; but withthe conservatism of relations, saw nothing in her that they had not seenin her nursery days. 

Ian and Milly walked home from dinner, according to Oxford custom, but aDurham man walked with them, talking over a College question with Ian, and they did not find themselves alone until they were within thewainscoted walls of the old house. Milly had looked so pale all theevening that Ian expected her to go to bed at once; but she followedhim into the study, where the lamp was shedding its circle of light onthe heaped books and papers of his writing-table. Making someperfunctory remarks which she barely answered, he sat down to work at anaddress which he was to deliver at the meeting of a learned society inLondon. 

Milly threw off her white shawl and seated herself on the old, high-backed sofa. Her dress was of some gauzy material of indeterminatetone, interwoven with gold tinsel, and a scarf of gauze embroidered withgold disguised what had seemed to her an over-liberal display ofdazzling shoulders. Ian, absorbed in his work, hardly noticed his wifesitting in the penumbra, chin on hand, staring before her intonothingness, like some Cassandra of the hearth, who listens to theinevitable approaching footsteps of a tragic destiny. At last she said:

"I've got something awful to tell you. "

Ian startled, dropped his pen and swung himself around in his pivotchair. 

"What about? Tony?"--for it was to this diminutive that Mildred hadreduced the flowing syllables of Antonio. 

"No, your cousin, Maxwell Davison. "

Now, Ian liked his cousin well enough, but by no means as well as heliked Tony. 

"About Max!" he exclaimed, relieved. "What's happened to him?"

"Nothing--but oh, Ian! I--hate even to speak of such a thing--"

"Never mind. Just tell me what it is. "

"I was on the river with him this afternoon, and he--he made love tome. "

The lines of Ian's face suddenly hardened. 

"Did he?" he returned, significantly, playing with a paper-knife. Then, after a pause: "I'm awfully sorry, Milly. I'd no idea he was such acad. "

"He--he wanted me to run away with him. "

Ian's face became of an almost inhuman severity. 

"I shall let Maxwell Davison know my opinion of him, " he said. 

"But it's worse--it's even more horrible than that. He was expecting me. I--_I_ of course knew nothing about it; I only knew about thegarden-party at Lady Margaret. But he said I'd promised to come; he saidall kinds of shocking, horrid things about my having dressed myself upfor him--"

"Please don't tell me what he said, Milly, " Ian interrupted, stillcoldly, but with a slight expression of disgust. "I'd rather you didn't. I suppose I ought to have taken better care of you, my poor little girl, but really here in Oxford one never thinks of anything so outrageoushappening. "

"I must tell you one thing, " she resumed, almost obstinately. "He saidhe knew I didn't love you--that _I_ didn't love _you_, my own darlinghusband. Some one, some one--must be responsible for his thinking that. How do I know what happens when--when I'm away. My poor Ian! Left with acreature who doesn't love you!"

Ian rose. His face was cold and hard still, but there was a faint flushon his cheek, the mark of a frown between his black brows. He walked toa window and looked out into the moonlit garden, where the gnarledapple-trees threw weird black shadows on grass and wall, like shapes ofgrotesque animals, or half-hidden spectres, lurking, listening, waiting. 

"We're getting on to a dangerous subject, " he answered, at length. "Don't give me pain by imagining evil about--about yourself. You couldnever, under any aspect, be anything but innocent and loyal and all thata man could wish his wife to be. "

He smoothed his brow with an effort, went up to her, and taking her softface between his hands kissed her forehead. 

"There!" he exclaimed, with a forced smile. "Don't let's talk about itany more, darling. Go to bed and forget all about it. It won't seem sobad to-morrow morning. "

But Milly did not respond. When he released her head she threw it backagainst her own clasped hands, closing her eyes. She was ghastly pale. 

"No, " she moaned, "I can't bear it by myself. It's too, too awful. It'snot Me; it's something that takes my place. I saw it once. It's an evilspirit. O God, what have I done that such a thing should happen to me!I've always tried to be good. "

There was a clash of pity and anger in Ian's breast. Pity for Milly'scase, anger on account of her whom his inmost being recognized asanother, whatever his rational self might say to the matter. He satdown beside his wife and uttered soothing nothings. But she turned uponhim eyes of wild despair, the more tragic because it broke through anature fitted only for the quietest commonplaces of life. She flungherself upon him, clutching him tight, hiding her face upon him. 

"What have I done?" she moaned again. "You know I always believed inGod, in God's love. I wouldn't have disbelieved even if He'd taken youaway from me. But now I can't believe in anything. There must be wickedspirits, but there can't be a good God if He allows them to takepossession of a poor girl like me, who's never done any one any harm. OIan, I've tried to pray, and I can't. I don't believe in anything now. "

Ian was deeply perplexed. He himself believed neither in a God nor inevil spirits, and he knew not how to approach Milly's mind. At length hesaid, quietly:

"I should have expected you, dear, to have reasoned about this a littlemore. What's the use of being educated if we give way to superstition, like savages, directly something happens that we don't quite understand?Some day an eclipse of conscious personality, like yours, will come tobe understood as well as an eclipse of the moon. Don't let's make itworse by conjuring up superstitious terrors. "

"At first I thought it was like that--an eclipse of memory. But now Ifeel more and more it's a different person that's here, it's not I. To-night Cousin David said that sometimes when he met me he expected tofind when he got home that his Lady Hammerton had walked away out of theframe. And, Ian, I looked up at that portrait, and suddenly I wasreminded of--that fearful night when I came back and saw--something. Iam descended from that woman, and you know how wicked she was. "

Again the strange irritation stirred in the midst of Ian's pity. 

"Wicked, darling! That's an absurd word to use. "

"She left her husband. And it's awful that I, who can't understand howany woman could be so wicked as to do that, should be so terribly likeher. I feel as though it had something to do with this appalling thinghappening to me. Perhaps her sins are being visited on me. " She held thelapels of his coat and looked tenderly, yearningly, in his face. "And Icould bear it better if--But oh, my Ian! I can't bear to think of youleft with something wicked, with some one who doesn't love you, whodeceives you, and--"

"Milly, " he broke in, "I won't have you say things like that. They areabsolutely untrue, and I won't have them said. "

There was a note of sternness in his voice that Milly had never heardbefore, and she saw a hard look come into his averted face which was newto her. When she spoke it was in a gasp. 

"You love her? You love that wicked, bad woman so much you won't let metell you what she is?"

He drew himself away from her with a gesture, and in a minute answeredwith cold deliberation:

"I cannot cease to love my own wife because--because she's not alwaysexactly the same. "

They sat silent beside each other. At length Milly rose from the sofa. The tinselled scarf, that other woman's delicate finery, had slippedfrom the white beauty of her shoulders. She drew it around her againslowly, and slowly with bowed head left the room. 

CHAPTER XVIII

Between noon and one o'clock on a bright June morning there is no placein the world quite so full of sunshine and summer as the quadrangle ofan Oxford College. Not Age but Youth of centuries smiles from gray wallsand aery pinnacles upon the joyous children of To-day. Youth, in abright-haired, black-winged-butterfly swarm, streams out of every darkdoorway, from the austere shade of study, to disport itself, two by two, or in larger eddying groups, upon the worn gravel, even venturouslyflits across the sacred green of the turf. There is an effervescence oflife in the clear air, and the sun-steeped walls of stone are resonantwith the cheerful noise of young voices. Here and there men already inflannels pass towards the gate; Dons draped in the black folds of thestately gown, stand chatting with their books under their arms; andsince the season of festivity has begun, scouts hurry cautiously to andfro from buttery and kitchen, bearing brimming silver cups crowned withblue borage and floating straws, or trays of decorated viands. Thescouts are grave and careworn, but from every one else a kind ofphysical joy and contentment seems to breathe as perfume breathes fromblossoms and even leaves, in the good season of the year. 

Ian Stewart did not quite resist this atmosphere of physicalcontentment. He stood in the sunshine exchanging a few words withpassing pupils; yet at the back of his mind there was a deep distress. He had been brought up in the moral refinement, the honorable strictnessof principle with regard to moral law, common to his academic class, and, besides, he had an innate delicacy and sensibility of feeling. Ifhis intelligence perceived that there are qualities, individualitieswhich claim exemption from ordinary rules, he had no desire to claim anysuch exemption for himself. Yet he found himself occupying the positionof a man torn on the rack between a jealous wife for whom he hasaffection and esteem, and a mistress who compels his love. Only here wasnot alone a struggle but a mystery, and the knot admitted of noseverance. 

He looked around upon his pupils, upon the distant figures of his fellowDons, robed in the same garb, seemingly living the same life as himself. Where was fact, where was reality? In yonder phantasmagoric processionof Oxford life, forever repeating itself, or in this strangetragi-comedy of souls, one in two and two in one, passing behind thethick walls of that old house in the street nearby? There he stood amongthe rest, part and parcel apparently of an existence as ordinary, aspeaceful, as monotonous as the Victorian era could produce. Yet if hewere to tell any one within sight the plain truth concerning his life, it would be regarded as a fairy tale, the fantastic invention of anoverwrought brain. 

There is something in college life which fosters a reticence that isalmost secretiveness; and this becomes a code, a religion; yet Stewartfound himself seized with an intense longing to confide in someone. Andat that moment, from under the wide archway leading into the quadrangle, appeared the Master of Durham. The Master was in cap and gown, andcarried some large papers under his arm; he walked slowly, as he hadtaken to walking of late, his odd, trotting gait transformed almost to ahobble. Meditative, he looked straight before him with unseeing eyes. Noartist was ever able to seize the inner and the outer verity of thatround, pink baby face, filled with the power of a weighty personalityand a penetrating mind. Stewart marked him in that minute, sagacity andbenevolence, as it were, silently radiating from him; and the youngerman in his need turned to the wise Master, the paternal friend whosecounsels had done so much to set his young feet in the way of success. 

When Stewart found himself in the Master's study, the study so familiarto his youth, with its windows looking out on the garden quadrangle, andsaw the great little man himself seated before him at the writing-table, he marvelled at the temerity that had brought him there to speak on sucha theme. But the cup was poured and had to be drunk. The Master left himto begin. He sat with a plump hand on each plump knee, and regarded hisold pupil with silent benevolence. 

"I've come to see you, Master, " said Stewart, "because I feel verybewildered, very helpless, in a matter which touches my wife even morethan myself. You were so kind about my marriage, and you have alwaysbeen good to her as well as to me. "

"Miss Flaxman was a nice young lady, " squeaked the Master. "I knew youmarried wisely. "

"Something happened shortly before we were engaged which she--we didn'tquite grasp--its importance, I mean, " Stewart began. He then spoke ofthose periodical lapses of memory in his wife which he had come to seeinvolved real and extraordinary variations in her character--a change, in fact, of personality. He mentioned their futile visits toNorton-Smith, the brain and nerve specialist. The Master heard himwithout either moving or interrupting. When he had done there was asilence. At length the Master said:

"I suspect we don't understand women. "

"Perhaps not. But, Master, haven't you yourself noticed a greatdifference in my wife at various times?"

"Not more than I feel in myself--not of another character, that is. Welive among men; we live among men who, generally speaking, know nothingabout women. That's why women appear to us strange and unnatural. Yourwife's quite normal, really. "

"But the memory alone, surely--"

"That's made you nervous; but I've known cases not far different. Youremember meeting Sir Henry Milwood here? When I knew him he was a youngclergyman. He had an illness; forgot all about his clerical life, andwent sheep-farming in Australia, where he made his fortune. "

"But his personality?" asked Stewart, with anxiety. "Was that changed?"

"Certainly. A colonial sheep-farmer is a different person from a youngDon just in orders. "

"I don't mean that, Master. I mean did he rise from his bed with ideas, with feelings quite opposite to those which had possessed him when helay down upon it? Did he ever have a return of the clerical phase, during which he forgot how he became a sheep-farmer and wished to takeup his old work again?"

"No--no. "

There was a pause. The Master played with his gold spectacles and suckedhis under lip. Then:

"Take a good holiday, Stewart, " he said. 

Stewart's clear-cut face hardened and flushed momentarily. "These arenot fancies of my own, Master. Cases occur in which two, sometimes morethan two, entirely different personalities alternate in the sameindividual. The spontaneous cases are rare, of course, but hypnotismseems to develop them pretty freely. The facts are there, but Englishscientists prefer to say nothing about them. "

The Master rose and trotted restlessly about. 

"They're quite right, " he returned, at length. "Such ideas can lead tonothing but mischief. "

"Surely that is the orthodox theologian's usual objection to scientificfact. "

The Master lifted his head and looked at his rebel disciple. Foralthough he was an officiating clergyman, he and the orthodoxtheologians were at daggers drawn. 

"Views, statements of this kind are not knowledge, " he said, after awhile, and continued moving uneasily about without looking at Stewart. 

Stewart did not reply; it seemed useless to go on talking. He recognizedthat the Master's attitude was what his own had been before the iron offact had entered into his flesh and spirit. Yet somehow he had hopedthat his Master's large and keen perception of human things, hisjudicial mind, would have lifted him above the prejudices of Reason. Hesat there cheerless, his college cap between his knees; and was seekingthe moment to say good-bye when the Master suddenly sat down beside him. To any one looking in at the window, the two seated side by side on thehard sofa would have seemed an oddly assorted pair. Stewart's length offrame, the raven black of his hair and beard, the marble pallor of hisdelicate features, made the little Master look smaller, pinker, plumperthan usual; but his face, radiating wisdom and affection, was more thanbeautiful in the eyes of his old disciple. 

"I took a great interest in your marriage, Stewart, " he said. "I alwaysthink of you and your wife as two very dear young friends. You must letme speak to you now as a father might--and probably wouldn't. "

Stewart assented with affectionate reverence. 

"You are young, but your wife is much younger. A man marries a girlmany years younger than himself and has not the same feeling ofresponsibility towards her as he would have towards a young man of thesame age. He seldom considers her youth. Yet his responsibility is muchgreater towards her than towards a pupil of the same age; she needs morehelp, she will accept more in forming her mind and character. Now youhave married a young lady who is very intelligent, very pleasing; butshe has a delicate nervous system, and it has been overstrained. Shelets this peculiar weakness of her memory get on her nerves. You havenerves yourself, you have imagination, and you let your mind give way tohers. That's not wise; it's not right. Let her feel that these moods donot affect you; be sure that they do not. What matters mainly is thatyour mutual love should remain unchanged. When your wife finds that herhappiness, her real happiness, is quite untouched by these changes ofmood, she will leave off attributing an exaggerated importance to them. So will you, Stewart. You will see them in their right proportion; youwill see the great evil and danger of giving way to imagination, ofaccepting perverse psychological hypotheses as guides in life. Reasonand Religion are the only true guides. "

The Master did not utter these sayings continuously. There were pauseswhich Stewart might have filled, but he did not offer to do so. Thespell of his old teacher's mind and aspect was upon him. His spirit was, as it were, bowed before his Master in a kind of humility. 

He walked home with a lightened heart, feeling somewhat as a devoutsinner might feel to whom his confessor had given absolution. For abouttwenty-four hours this mood lasted. Then he confronted the fact that thebeloved Master's advice had been largely, though not altogether, futile, because it had not dealt with actuality. And Ian Stewart saw himself tobe moving in the plain, ordinary world of men as solitary as a ghostwhich vainly endeavors to make its presence and its needs recognized. 

CHAPTER XIX

Tims had ceased to be an inhabitant of Oxford. She was studyingphysiology in London and luxuriating in the extraordinary cheapness oflife in Cranham Chambers. Not that she had any special need ofcheapness; but the spinster aunt who brought her up had, together with acomfortable competence, left her the habit of parsimony. If, however, she did not know how to enjoy her own income, she allowed many womenpoorer than herself to benefit by it. 

She was no correspondent; and an examination, followed by the seriousillness of her next-door neighbor--Mr. Fitzalan, a solitary man with asmall post in the British Museum--had prevented her from visiting Oxfordduring Mildred's last invasion. She had imagined Milly Stewart to havebeen leading for two undisturbed years the busily tranquil life properto her; adoring Ian and the baby, managing her house, and goingsometimes to church and sometimes to committees, without whollyneglecting the cultivation of the mind. A letter from Milly, in whichshe scented trouble, made her call herself sternly to account for herlong neglect of her friend. 

It was now the Long Vacation, but Miss Burt was still at Ascham andLady Thomson was spending a week with her. She had stayed with theStewarts in the spring, and resolutely keeping a blind eye turnedtowards whatever she ought to have disapproved in Mildred, had laudedher return to bodily vigor, and also to good sense, in ceasing to fussabout the health of Ian and the baby. Aunt Beatrice would have blushedto own a husband and child whose health required care. This time whenshe dined with the Stewarts she had found Milly reprehensibly pale anddispirited. One day shortly afterwards she came in to tea. The nursehappened to be out, and Tony, now a beautiful child of fifteen months, was sitting on the drawing-room floor. 

The two women were discussing plans for raising money to build agymnasium at Ascham, but Tony was not interested in the subject. He keptworking his way along the floor to his mother, partly on an elbow and aknee, but mostly on his stomach. Arrived at his goal he would pull herskirt, indicate as well as he could a little box lying by his neglectedpicture-book, and grunt with much expression. A monkey lived inside thebox, and Tony, whose memory was retentive, persevered in expecting tohear that monkey summoned by wild tattoos and subterranean growls untilit jumped up with a bang--a splendidly terrible thing of white bristles, and scarlet snout--to dance the fandango to a lively if unmusical tune. Then Tony, be sure, would laugh until he rolled from side to side. Mummynever responded to his wishes now, but Daddy had pleaded for theJack-in-the-box to be spared, and sometimes when quite alone with Tony, would play the monkey-game in his inferior paternal style, pleased withsuch modified appreciation as the young critic might bestow upon him. 

"I'm sorry Baby's so troublesome, " apologized the distressed Milly, forthe third time lifting Tony up and replacing him in a sitting posture, with his picture-book. "I'm trying to teach him to sit quiet, but I'mafraid he's been played with a great deal more than he should havebeen. "

"To tell the truth, I thought so the last time I was here, " replied AuntBeatrice. "But he's still young enough to be properly trained. It's suchwaste of a reasonable person's time to spend it making idiotic noises ata small baby. And it's a thousand times better for the child's brain andnerves for it to be left entirely to itself. "

Tony said nothing, but his face began to work in a threatening manner. 

"I perfectly agree with you, Aunt Beatrice, " responded Milly, eagerly. 

Lady Thomson continued:

"Children should be spoken to as little as possible until they are fromtwo to two and a half years old; then they should be taught to speakcorrectly. "

Milly chimed in: "Yes, that's always been my own view. I do feel it soimportant that their very first impressions should be the right ones, that the first pictures they see should be good, that they should neverbe sung to out of tune and in general--"

Apparently this programme for babies did not commend itself to Tony;certainly the first item, enjoining silent development, did not. Hisface had by this time worked the right number of minutes to produce aroar, and it came. Milly picked him up, but the wounds of his spiritwere not to be immediately healed, and the roar continued. Finally hehad to be handed over to the parlor-maid, and so came to great happinessin the kitchen, where there were no rules against infantileconversation. Milly was flushed and disturbed. 

"Baby has not been properly brought up, " she said. "He's been allowedhis own way too much. "

"Since you say so, Milly, I must confess I noticed in the spring thatyou seemed to be bringing the child up in an easy-going, old-fashionedway I should hardly have expected of you. I hope you will begin now tostudy the theory of education. A mother should take her vocationseriously. I own I don't altogether understand the taste for frivolitieswhich you have developed since you married. It's harmless, no doubt, butit doesn't seem quite natural in a young woman who has taken a First inGreats. "

Milly's hands grasped the arms of her chair convulsively. She looked ather aunt with desolation in her dark-ringed eyes. The last thing she hadever intended was to mention the mysterious and disastrous fate that hadbefallen her; yet she did it. 

"The person you saw here last spring wasn't I. Oh, Aunt Beatrice! Can'tyou see the difference?"

Lady Thomson looked at her in surprise:

"What do you mean? I was speaking of my visit to you in March. "

"And don't you see the difference? Oh, how hateful you must have foundme!"

"Really, Mildred, I saw nothing hateful about you. On the contrary, ifyou want the plain truth, I greatly prefer you in a cheerful, common-sense mood, as you were then, even if your high spirits do leadyou into a little too much frivolity. I think it a more wholesome, andtherefore ultimately a more useful, frame of mind than this causelessdepression, which leads you to take such a morbid, exaggerated view ofthings. "

Every word pierced Milly's heart with a double pang. 

"You liked her better than me?" she asked, piteously. "Yet I've alwaystried to be just what you wanted me to be, Aunt Beatrice, to doeverything you thought right, and she--Oh, it's too awful!"

"What do you mean, Mildred?"

"I mean that the person you prefer to me as I am now, the person who washere in March, wasn't I at all. "

The fine healthy carnation of Lady Thomson's cheek paled. In her calm, rapid way she at once found the explanation of Milly's unhealthy, depressed appearance and manner. Poor Mildred Stewart was insane. Beyondthe paling of her cheek, however, Lady Thomson allowed no sign of shockto be visible in her. 

"That's an exaggerated way of talking, " she replied. "I suppose you meanyour mood was different. "

Milly was looking straight in front of her with haggard eyes. 

"No; it simply wasn't I at all. You believe in the Bible, don't you?"

"Not in verbal inspiration, of course, but in a general way, yes, "returned Lady Thomson, puzzled but guarded. 

"Do you believe in the demoniacs? In possession by evil spirits?"

Milly was not looking at vacancy now. Her desperate hands clutched thearms of her chair, as she leaned forward and fixed her aunt with holloweyes, awaiting her reply. 

"Certainly not! Most certainly not! They were obviously cases ofepilepsy and insanity, misinterpreted by an ignorant age. "

"No--it's all true, quite literally true. Three times, and for sixmonths or more each time, I have been possessed by a spirit that cannotbe good. I know it's not. It takes my body, it takes the love of peopleI care for, away from me--" Milly's voice broke and she pressed herhandkerchief over her face. "You all think her--But she's bad, and someday she'll do something wicked--something that will break my heart, andyou'll all insist it was I who did it, and you'll believe I'm a wickedwoman. "

Lady Thomson looked very grave. 

"Mildred, dear, " she said, "try and collect yourself. It is reallywicked of you to give way to such terrible fancies. Would God permitsuch a thing to happen to one of His children? We feel sure He wouldnot. "

Milly shook her head, but the struggle with her hysterical sobs kept hersilent. Lady Thomson walked to the window, feeling more "upset" than shehad ever felt in her life. The window was open, but an awning shut outthe view of the street. From the window-boxes, filled with pinkgeraniums and white stocks, a sweet, warm scent floated into the room, and the rattle of the milkman's cart, the chink of his cans, fell uponLady Thomson's unheeding ears. So did voices in colloquy, but she didnot particularly note a female one of a thin, chirpy quality, addressingthe parlor-maid with a familiarity probably little appreciated by thatelegantly decorous damsel. 

Milly had scarcely mastered her tears and Lady Thomson had just begun toaddress her in quiet, firm tones, when Tims burst unannounced into theroom. Her hat was incredibly on one side, and her sallow face almostcrimson with heat, but bright with pleasure at finding herself once morein Oxford. 

"Hullo, old girl!" she cried, blind to the serious scene into which shewas precipitated. "How are you? Now don't kiss me"--throwing herselfinto an attitude of violent defence against an embrace not yetoffered--"I'm too hot. Carried my bag myself all the way from thestation and saved the omnibus. "

Lady Thomson fixed Tims with a look of more than usually colddisapproval. Milly proffered a constrained greeting. 

"Anything gone wrong?" asked Tims, after a minute, peering at Milly'stear-stained eyes with her own short-sighted ones. 

Milly answered with a forced self-restraint which appeared like colddeliberation. 

"Aunt Beatrice thinks I'm mad because I say I'm not the same person shefound in my place last March. I want you to tell her that it's not justmy fancy, but that you know that sometimes a quite different persontakes my place, and I'm not responsible for anything she says or does. "

"Yes, that's a solemn Gospel fact, right enough, " affirmed Tims. 

Lady Thomson could hardly control her indignation, but she did, althoughshe spoke sternly to Tims. 

"Do I understand you to say, Miss Timson, that it's a 'solemn Gospelfact'--Gospel! Good Heavens--that Milly is possessed by a devil?"

Tims plumped down on the sofa and stared at Lady Thomson. 

"Possessed by a devil? Good Lord, no! What do you mean?"

"Mildred believes herself to be possessed by an evil spirit. "

Tims turned to Milly in consternation. 

"Milly, old girl! Come! Poor old Milly! I never thought you were sosuperstitious as all that. Besides, I know more about it than you do, and I tell you straight, you mayn't be quite such a good sort whenyou're in your other phase, but as to there being a devil in it--well, devil's all nonsense, but if that were so, I should like to have a devilmyself, and the more the merrier. "

Milly turned on her a face pale with horror and indignation. Her eyesflashed and she raised a remonstrating hand. 

"Hush!" she cried. "Hush! You don't know what dreadful things you'resaying. I don't know exactly what this spirit is that robs me of mylife; I'm only sure it's not Me and it's not good. "

"Whatever may be the matter with you, Mildred, " said Lady Thomson, "itcan't possibly be that. I suppose you have suffered from loss of memoryagain and it's upset your nerves. Why will people have nerves? I shouldadvise you to go to Norton-Smith at once. "

Milly's tears were flowing again but she managed to reply:

"I've been to Dr. Norton-Smith, Aunt Beatrice. He doesn't seem tounderstand. "

"He doesn't want to, " interjected Tims, scornfully. "You don't suppose arespectable English nerve-doctor wants to know anything aboutpsychology? They'd be interested in the case in France, or in the UnitedStates, but they wouldn't be able to keep down Milly Number Two. "

"Then what use would they be to me?" asked Milly, despairingly. "I canonly trust in God; and He seems to have forsaken me. "

"No, no, my dear child!" cried Lady Thomson. "Don't talk in this painfulway. I can't imagine what you mean, Miss Timson. It all soundsdreadfully mad. "

"I can explain the whole case to you perfectly, " stated Tims, with eagerconfidence. 

"I'd better go away, " gasped Milly between her convulsive sobs. "I can'tbear any more. But Aunt Beatrice must know now. Tell her what you like, only--only it isn't true. "

Milly fled to her bedroom; the long, low room, so perfect in itssimplicity, its windows looking away into the sunshine over the pleasantboughs of orchards and garden-plots and the gray shingled roofs of oldhouses--the room from which on that November evening Milly's spirit hadbeen absent while Ian, the lover whom she had never known, had watchedhis Beloved, the Desire of his soul and sense, returning to him from theunimagined limbo to which she had again withdrawn. 

CHAPTER XX

When Ian came back from the Bodleian Library, where he was working, heheard voices talking in raised tones before he entered the drawing-room. He found no Milly there, but Lady Thomson and Miss Timson seated at theextreme ends of the same sofa and engaged in a heated discussion. 

"It can't be true, " Lady Thomson was stating firmly. "If it were, whatbecomes of Personal Immortality?"

Miss Timson had just time to convey the fact that Personal Immortalitywas not the affair of a woman of science, before she rose to greet Ian, which she did effusively. 

"Hullo!" he remarked, cheerfully, when her effusion was over. "No Millyand no tea!"

"We don't want either just yet, " returned Lady Thomson. "I'm terriblyanxious about Mildred, Ian, and Miss Timson has not said anything tomake me less so. I want a sound, sensible opinion on the state ofher--her nerves. "

Ian's brow clouded. 

"Tell me frankly, do you notice so great a difference in her from timeto time, as to account for the positively insane delusion she has gotinto her head?"

"What do you mean, Aunt Beatrice?" asked Ian, shortly, sternly eyingTims, whom he imagined to have let out the secret. 

"Mildred has made an extraordinary statement to me about not being thesame person now as she was in March. Of course I see she--well, she isnot so full of life as she was then. Yes, I do admit she is in a verydifferent mood. But do you know the poor unfortunate child has got itinto her head that she is possessed by an evil spirit? I can't think howyou could have allowed her to come to that state of--of mentalaberration, without doing anything. "

Ian was silent. He looked gaunt and sombrely dark in the low, awning-shaded room, with its heavy beams and floor of wavelikeunevenness. 

"You'll have to put her under care next, if you don't take some steps. Send her for a sea-voyage. "

"I'd take her myself if I thought it would do her any good, " said Tims. "But I'll lay my bottom dollar it wouldn't. "

"I'm afraid I think Miss Timson's view of the matter as insane asMilly's, " returned Lady Thomson, tartly. 

Ian lifted his bowed head and addressed Tims:

"I should like to know exactly what your view of the matter is, MissTimson. We need not discuss poor Milly's; it's too absurd and also toopainful. "

"It's no doubt a case of disintegration of personality, " replied Tims, after a pause. "Somewhere inside our brains must be a nerve-centrewhich co-ordinates most of our mental, our sensory and motor processes, in such a manner as to produce consciousness, volition, what we callpersonality. But after all there are always plenty of activities withinus going on independent of it. Your heart beats, your stomachdigests--even your memory works apart from your consciousness sometimes. Now suppose some shock or strain enfeebles your centre of consciousness, so that it ceases to be able to co-ordinate all the mental processes ithas been accustomed to superintend. What you call your personality isthe outcome of your memory and all your other faculties and tendenciesworking together, checking and balancing each other. Suppose your centreof consciousness so enfeebled; suppose at the same time an enfeeblementof memory, causing you to completely forget external facts: certain ofyour faculties and tendencies are left working and they are co-ordinatedwithout an important part of the memory, without many other facultiesand tendencies which checked and balanced them. Naturally you appear toyourself and to every one else a totally different person; but it's nota new personality really, it's only a bit of the old one which goes onits own hook, while the rest is quiescent. "

"This is the most abominably materialistic theory of the human mind Iever heard, " exclaimed Lady Thomson, indignantly. "The most degrading toour spiritual natures. "

Ian leaned against the high, carved mantel-piece and pushed back theblack hair from his forehead. 

"I'm not concerned with that, " he replied, deliberately, discussingthis case so vitally near to him with an almost terrible calmness. "ButI can't feel that this disintegration theory altogether covers theground. There is no development of characteristics previously to befound in Milly; on the contrary, the qualities of mind and characterwhich she exhibits when--when the change comes over her, are preciselythe opposite of those she exhibits in what I presume we ought to callher normal state. "

"There must be some reason for it, old chap, you know, " returned Tims;"and it seems to me that's the line you've got to move along, unlessyou're an idiot and go in for devils or spiritualistic nonsense. "

"I believe I've followed what you've been saying, Miss Timson, " saidLady Thomson, in her fullest tones; "and I can assure you I feel underno necessity to become either a materialist or an idiot in consequence. "

Ian spoke again. 

"I don't profess to be scientific, but I do seem to see another possibleline, running parallel with yours, but not quite the same. It's evidentwe can inherit faculties, characteristics, from our ancestors whichnever become active in us; but we know they must have been present in usin a quiescent state, because we can transmit them to children in whomthey become active. Mildred's father and mother, for example, are notscholars, although her grandfather and great-grandfather were; yet inone of her parents at least there must be a germ of the scholar'sfaculty which has never been developed, because Mildred has inheritedit. Now why can't we develop all the faculties, the germs of which liewithin our borders? Perhaps because we have each only a certain amountof what I'll call vital current. If the Nile could overflow the wholedesert it would all be fertilized, and perhaps if we had sufficientvital force we could develop all the faculties whose germs we inherit. Suppose by some accident, owing to a shock or strain, as you say, theflow of this vital current of ours is stopped in the direction in whichit usually flows most strongly; its course is diverted and it fertilizestracts of our brain and nervous system which before have been lyingquiescent, sterile. If we lose the memory of our former lives, and if atthe same time hereditary faculties and tendencies, of the existence ofwhich we were unaware, suddenly become active in us, we are practicallynew personalities. Then say the vital current resumes its old course; weregain our memories, our old faculties, while the newly developed onessink again into quiescence. We are once more our old selves. No doubtthis is all very unscientific, but so far Science seems to have nothingto say on the question. "

"It certainly has not, " commented Lady Thomson, decisively. "I ought toknow what Science is, considering how often I've met Mr. Darwin andProfessor Huxley. Hypnotism and this kind of unpleasant talk is notScience. It's only a new variety of the hocus-pocus that's been imposingon human weakness ever since the world began. I'd sooner believe withpoor Milly that she's possessed by a devil. It's less silly to acceptinherited superstitions than to invent brand-new ones. "

"But we've got to account somehow for the extraordinary changes whichtake place in Milly, " sighed Ian, wearily. 

The light lines across his forehead were showing as furrows, and Tims'swhole face was corrugated. 

"No hocus-pocus about them, anyway, " she said. 

"There's a great deal of fancy about them, " retorted Lady Thomson. "Anervous, imaginative man like you, Ian, ought to be on your guardagainst allowing such notions to get hold of you. It's so easy to fancythings are as you're afraid they may be, and then you influence Millyand she goes from bad to worse. I think I may claim to understand her ifany one does, and all I see is that she gives way to moods. At first Ithought it was a steady development of character; but I admit that whenshe is unwell and out of spirits, she becomes just her old timid, over-conscientious self again. She's always been very easily influenced, very dependent, and now--I hardly like to say such a thing of my ownniece--but I fear there's a touch of hysteria about her. I've alwaysheard that hysterical people, even when they've been perfectly frank andtruthful before, become deceitful and act parts till it's impossible totell fact from falsehood with regard to them. I would suggest yourletting Mildred come to me for a month or two, Ian. I feel sure I shouldsend her back to you quite cured of all this nonsense. "

At this point Milly came in. Ian stretched out his hand towards her withprotective tenderness; but even at the moment when his whole soul wasmoved by an impulse of compassion so strong that it seemed almost love, a spirit within him arose and mocked at all hypotheses, telling him thatthis poor stricken wife of his, seemingly one with the lady of hisheart, was not she, but another. 

"Aunt Beatrice was just saying you ought to get away from domestic caresfor a month or two, Milly, " he said, as cheerfully as he could. 

Lady Thomson explained. 

"What you want is a complete change; though I don't know what peoplemean when they talk about 'domestic cares. ' I should like to have you upat Clewes for the rest of the Long. Ian can look after the baby. "

Milly smiled at her sweetly, but rather as though she were talkingnonsense. 

"It's very kind of you, Aunt Beatrice, but Ian and I have never beenparted for a day since we were married; I mean not when--and I don'tfeel as though I could spare a minute of his company. And poor Baby, too! Oh no! But of course it's very good of you to think of it. "

"Then you must all come to Clewes, " decided Aunt Beatrice, after someremonstrance. "That'll settle it. "

"But my work!" ejaculated Ian in dismay. "How am I to get on at Clewes, away from the libraries?"

"There are some things in life more important than books, Ian, " returnedLady Thomson. 

"But it won't do a penn'orth of good, " broke in Tims, argumentatively. "I don't pretend to have more than a working hypothesis, but whoeverelse may prove to be right, Lady Thomson's on the wrong line. "

Lady Thomson surveyed her in silence; Ian took no notice of her remark. He was looking before him with a sadness incomprehensible to theuncreative man--to the man who has never dreamed dreams and seenvisions; with the sadness of one who just as the cloudy emanations ofhis mind are beginning to take form and substance sees them scattered, perhaps never again to reunite, by some cold breath from the relentlessoutside world of circumstance. He made his renunciation in silence;then, with a quiet smile, he turned to Lady Thomson and answered her. 

"You're very kind, Aunt Beatrice, and quite right. There are things inlife much more important than books. "

CHAPTER XXI

So the summer went by; a hot summer, passed brightly enough to allappearance in the spacious rooms and gardens of Clewes and inexpeditions among the neighboring fells. But to Ian it seemed rather ananxious pause in life. His work was at a stand-still, yet whatever theoptimistic Aunt Beatrice might affirm, he could not feel that the shadowwas lifting from his wife's mind. To others she appeared cheerful in thequiet, serious way that had always been hers, but he saw that her wholeattitude towards life, especially in her wistful, yearning tendernesstowards himself and Tony, was that of a woman who feels the stamp ofdeath to be set upon her. At night, lying upon his breast, she wouldsometimes cling to him in an agony of desperate love, adjuring him totell her the truth as to that Other: whether he did not see that she wasdifferent from his own Milly, whether it were possible that he couldlove that mysterious being as he loved her, his true, loving wife. Ian, who had been wont to hold stern doctrines as to the paramount obligationof truthfulness, perjured himself again and again, and hoped theRecording Angel dropped the customary tear. But, however deep theperjury, before long he was sure to find himself obliged to renew it. 

To a man of his sensitive and punctilious nature the situation wasalmost intolerable. The pity of this tender, innocent life, his care, which seemed like some little inland bird, torn by the tempest from itsnative fields and tossed out to be the plaything of an immense andterrible ocean whose deeps no man has sounded! The pity of that otherlife, so winged for shining flight, so armed for triumphant battle, yetheld down helpless in those cold ocean depths, and for pity's sake notto be helped by so much as a thought! Yet from the thorns of his hiddenlife he plucked one flower of comfort which to him, the philosopher, theman of Abstract Thought, was as refreshing as a pious reflection wouldbe to a man of Religion. He had once been somewhat shaken by the dictaof the modern philosophers who relegate human love to the plane of anillness or an appetite. But where was the physical difference betweenthe woman he so passionately loved and the one for whom he had neverfelt more than affection and pity? If from the strange adventure of hismarriage he had lost some certainties concerning the human soul, he hadgained the certainty that Love at least appertains to it. 

One hot afternoon Milly was writing her Australian letter under aspreading ilex-tree on the lawn. Lady Thomson and Ian were sitting therealso; he reading the latest French novel, she making notes for a speechshe had to deliver shortly at the opening of a Girls' High School. 

It is sometimes difficult to find the right news for people who havebeen for some years out of England, and Milly, in the languor of hermelancholy, had relaxed the excellent habit formed under Aunt Beatriceof always keeping her mind to the subject in hand. She sat at the tablewith one hand propping her chin, gazing dreamily at the brightflower-beds on the lawn and the big, square, homely house, brightened byits striped awnings. At length Aunt Beatrice looked up from her notes. 

"Mooning, Milly!" she exclaimed, in her full, agreeable voice. "Now Isuppose you'll be telling your father you havn't time to write him along letter. "

"Milly's not mooning; she's making notes, like you, " Ian replied, forhis wife. 

Milly looked around at him in surprise, and then at her right hand. Itheld a stylograph and had been resting on some scattered sheets offoolscap that Ian had left there in the morning. She had certainly beenscrawling on it a little, but she was not aware of having writtenanything. Yet the scrawl, partly on one sheet and partly on another, waswriting, very bad and broken, but still with a resemblance to her ownhandwriting. She pored over it; then looked Ian in the eyes, her owneyes large with a bewilderment touched with fear. 

"I--I don't know what it means, " she said, in a low, anxious tone. 

"What's that?" queried Aunt Beatrice. "Can't read what you've written?You remind me of our old writing-master at school, who used to saytragically that he couldn't understand how it was that when thathappened to a man he didn't just take a gun and shoot himself. Irecommend you the pond, Mildred. It's more feminine. "

"Please don't talk to Milly like that, " retorted Ian, not quite lightly. "She always follows your advice, you know. It--it's only scrabbles. "

He had left his chair and was leaning over the table, completelypuzzled, first by Milly's terrified expression, then by what she hadwritten, illegibly enough, across the two sheets of foolscap. He madeout: "You are only miserab ... "--the words were interspersed with reallyillegible scrawls--"... Go ... Go ... Let me ... I want to live, I wantto ... Mild ... "

Milly now wrote in her usual clear hand: "Who wrote that?"

He scribbled with his pencil: "You. "

She replied in writing: "No. I know nothing about it. "

Lady Thomson had taken up the newspaper, a thing she never did except atodd minutes, although she contrived to read everything in it that wasreally worth reading. Folding it up and looking at her watch, sheexclaimed:

"A quarter of an hour before the carriage is round! Now don't godawdling there, young people, and keep it standing in the sun. "

Milly stood up and gathered her writing-materials together. AuntBeatrice's tall figure, its stalwart handsomeness disguised in uncouthgarments, passed with its usual vigorous gait across the burningsunlight on the lawn and broad gravel walk, to disappear under theawning of a French window. Milly, very pale, had closed her eyes and herhands were clasped. She trembled, but her voice and expression were calmand even resolute. 

"The evil spirit is trying to get possession of me in another way now, "she said. "But with God's help I shall be able to resist it. "

Ian too was pale and disturbed. It was to him as though he had suddenlyheard a beloved voice calling faintly for help. 

"It's only automatic writing, dear, " he replied. "You may not have beenaware you were writing, but it probably reflects something in yourthoughts. "

"It does not, " returned she, firmly. "However miserable I may sometimesbe, I could never wish to give up a moment of my life with you, my ownhusband, or to leave you and our child to the influence of this--thisbeing. "

She stretched out her arms to him. 

"Please hold me, Ian, and will as I do, that I may resist this horribleinvasion. I have a feeling that you can help me. "

He hesitated. "I, darling? But I don't believe--"

She approached him, and took hold of him urgently, looking him in theeyes. 

"Won't you do it, husband dear? Please, for my sake, even if you don'tbelieve, promise you'll will to keep me here. Will it, with all yourmight!"

What madness it was, this fantastic scene upon the well-kept lawn, underthe square windows of the sober, opulent North Country house! And themaddest part of it all was the horrible reluctance he felt to complywith his wife's wish. He seemed to himself to pause noticeably beforeanswering her with a meaningless half-laugh:

"Of course I'll promise anything you like, dear. "

He put his arms around her and rested his face upon her golden head. 

"Will!" she whispered, and the voice was one of command rather than ofappeal. "Will! You have promised. "

He willed as she commanded him. 

The triple madness of it! He did not believe--and yet it seemed to himthat the being he loved best in all the world was struggling up frombelow, calling to him for help from her tomb; and he was helping herenemy to hold down the sepulchral stone above her. He put his hand tohis brow, and the sweat stood upon it. 

Aunt Beatrice's masculine foot crunched the gravel. She stood theredressed and ready for the drive, beckoning them with her parasol. Theycame across the lawn holding each other by the hand, and Milly's facewas calm, even happy. Aunt Beatrice smiled at them broadly with herlarge, handsome mouth and bright brown eyes. 

"What, not had enough of spooning yet, you foolish young people! Thecarriage will be round in one minute, and Milly won't be ready. "

CHAPTER XXII

There is a joy in the return of every season, though the return ofspring is felt and celebrated beyond the rest. The gay flame dancing onthe hearth where lately all was blackness, the sense of immunity fromthe "wrongs and arrows" of the skies and their confederate earth, theconcentration of the sense upon the intimate charms which four walls cancontain, bring to civilized man consolation for the loss of summer'slavish warmth and beauty. Children are always sensible of these openingfestivals of the seasons, but many mature people enjoy without realizingthem. 

To Mildred the world was again new, and she looked upon its mostfamiliar objects with the delighted eyes of a traveller returning to afavorite foreign country. So she did not complain because when she hadleft the earth it had been hurrying towards the height of June, and shehad returned to find the golden boughs of October already stripped bydevastating winds. The flames leaped merrily under the great carvedmantel-piece in her white-panelled drawing-room, showing the date 1661, and the initials of the man who had put it there, and on its narrowshelf a row of Chelsea figures which she had picked up in variouscorners of Oxford. The chintz curtains were drawn around the bay-windowand a bright brass _scaldino_ stood in it, filled with the yellows andred-browns, the silvery pinks and mauves of chrysanthemums. The ancientcharm, the delicate harmony of the room, in which every piece offurniture, every picture, every ornament, had been chosen with anexactness of taste seldom found in the young, made it more pleasurableto a cultivated eye than the gilded show drawing-rooms into which wealthtoo commonly crowds a medley of incongruous treasures and costlynullities. 

It was a free evening for Ian, and as it was but the second since theDesire of his Eyes had returned to him, his gaze followed her movementsin a contented silence, as she wandered about the room in her slightgrace, the whiteness of her skin showing through the transparency of ablack dress, which, although it was old, Milly would have thoughtunsuitable for a domestic evening. When everything was just where itshould be, she returned to the fire and sank into a chair thoughtfully. 

"How I should like some rides, " she said; "but I suppose I can't havethem, not unless Maxwell Davison's still in Oxford. "

Ian's face clouded. 

"He's not, " he returned, shortly; and knocked the ashes out of his pipe, hesitating as to how he should put what he had to say about MaxwellDavison. 

Mildred put her hand over her eyes and leaned back in her chair. Suddenly the silence was broken by a burst of rippling laughter. Ianstarted; his own thoughts had not been so diverting. 

"What's the joke, Mildred?"

"Oh, Ian, don't you know? Max made love to Milly and she--she bit him!Wasn't it frightfully funny?" She laughed again, with a more inwardenjoyment. 

"I didn't know you bit him, although he richly deserved it; but ofcourse I knew he made love to you. How do you know?"

"It came to me just now in a sort of flash. I seemed to see him--to seeher, floundering out of the canoe; and both of them in such a toweringrage. It really was too funny. "

Ian's face hardened. 

"I am afraid I can't see the joke of a man making love to my wife. "

"You old stupid! He'd never have dared to behave like that to me; butMilly's such an ass. "

"Milly was frightened, shocked, as any decent woman would be to whomsuch a thing happened. She certainly didn't encourage Maxwell; but shefound an appointment already made for her to go on the river with him. No doubt she took an exaggerated view of her--of your--good God, Mildred, what am I to say?--well, of your relations with him. "

Mildred had closed her eyes. A strange knowledge of things that hadpassed during her suppression was coming to her in glimpses. 

"I know, " she returned, in a kind of wonder at her own knowledge. "Absurd! But Max did behave abominably. I couldn't have believed it ofhim, even with that silly little baa-lamb. Of course she couldn't managehim. She won't be able to manage Tony long. "

"Please don't speak of--of your other self in that way, Mildred. You'revery innocent of the world in both your selves, and you must have beenindiscreet or it would never have occurred to Maxwell to make love toyou. "

Ian was actually frowning, his lips were tight and hard, the clearpallor of his cheek faintly streaked with red. Mildred, leaning forward, looked at him, interested, her round chin on her hands. 

"Are you angry, Ian? I really believe you are. Is it with me?"

"No, not with you. But of course I'm angry when I think of a fellow likethat, my own cousin, a man who has been a guest in my house over andover again, being cad enough to make love to my wife. "

Mildred was smiling quietly to herself. 

"How primitive you are, Ian!" she said. "I suppose men are primitivewhen they're angry. I don't mind, but it does seem funny _you_ shouldbe. "

He looked at her, surprised. 

"Primitive? What do you mean?"

"What difference does it make, Max being your cousin, you silly old boy?You'd hardly ever seen him till last winter. Clans aren't any use to usnow, are they? And when a man's got a house of his own, as Max had, oreven a hotel, why should he be so grateful as all that for a few decentmeals? He's not in the desert, depending on you for food and protection. Anyhow, it seems curious to expect him to weigh little things like thatin the balance against what is always said to be such a very strongfeeling as a man's love for a woman. "

Men often deplore that they have failed in their attempts fundamentallyto civilize Woman. They would use stronger language if Woman often madeattempts fundamentally to civilize them. 

"Please don't look at me like that, " Mildred said, tremulously, after apause. And the tears rushed to her eyes. 

Ian's face softened, as leaning against the tall white mantel-piece helooked down and met the tear-bright gaze of his beloved. 

"Poor sweetheart!" he exclaimed. "You're just a child for all yourcleverness, and you don't half understand what you're talking about. Butlisten to me--" He kneeled before her, bringing their heads almost on alevel. "I won't have any more affairs like this of Maxwell's. I dare sayit was as much my fault as yours, but it mustn't happen again. "

She dabbed away two tears that hung on her eyelashes, and looked at himwith such a bright alluring yet elusive smile as might have flittedacross the face of Ariel. 

"How can I help it if Milly flirts? I don't believe I can help it if Ido myself. But I can tell you this, Ian--yes, really--" Her soft whitearms went about his neck. "I've never seen a man yet who was a patchupon you for cleverness and handsomeness and goodness andaltogetherness. No! You really are the very nicest man I ever saw!"

CHAPTER XXIII

In spite of the deepening dislike between the two egos which struggledfor the possession of Mildred Stewart's bodily personality, they had acommon interest in disguising the fact of their dual existence. Yet thetransformation never occurred without producing its little harvest ofinconveniences, and the difficulty of disguising the difference betweenthe two was the greater because of the number of old acquaintances andfriends of Milly Flaxman living in Oxford. 

This was one reason why, when Ian was offered the headship of theMerchants' Guild College in London, Mildred encouraged him to take it. The income, too, seemed large in comparison to their Oxford one; and thegreat capital, with its ever-roaring surge of life, drew her with anatural magnetism. The old Foundation was being reconstructed, and wasambitious of adorning itself with a name so distinguished as IanStewart's, while at the same time obtaining the services of a man withso many of his best years still before him. Stewart, although he coulddo fairly well in practical administration, if he gave his mind to it, had won distinction as a student and man of letters, and feared that, difficult as it was to combine the real work of his life withbread-and-butter-making in Oxford, it would be still more difficult tocombine it with steering the ship of the Merchants' Guild College. Buthe had the sensitive man's defect of too often deferring to the judgmentof others, less informed or less judicious than himself. He found itimpossible to believe that the opinion of the Master of Durham was notbetter than his own; and his old friend and tutor was strongly in favorof his accepting the headship. His most really happy and successfulyears had been those later ones in which he had shone as the Head of themost brilliant College in Oxford, a man of affairs and, in hisindividual way, a social centre. Accordingly he found it impossible tobelieve that it might be otherwise with Ian Stewart. The majority ofIan's most trusted advisers were of the same opinion as the Master, since the number of persons who can understand the conditions necessaryto the productiveness of exceptional and creative minds is always few. Besides, most people at bottom are in Martha's attitude of scepticismtowards the immaterial service of the world. 

Lady Thomson voiced the general opinion in declaring that a man couldalways find time to do good work if he really wanted to do it. Sherejoiced when Ian put aside the serious doubts which beset him andaccepted the London offer. Mildred also rejoiced, although she regrettedmuch that she must leave behind her, and in particular the old panelledhouse. 

This was, however, the one part of Oxford that Milly did not grieve tohave lost, when she awoke once more from long months of sleep, to findherself in a new home. For she had grown to be silently afraid of theold house, with the great chimney-stacks like hollowed towers within it, made, it seemed, for the wind to moan in; its deep embrasures andpanelling, that harbored inexplicable sounds; its ancient boards thatcreaked all night as if with the tread of mysterious feet. Awake in thedark hours, she fancied there were really footsteps, really knockings, movements, faint sighs passing outside her door, and that some oldwicked life which should long since have passed away through the portalsof the grave, clung to those ancient walls with a horrible tenacity, still refusing the great renunciation of death. 

It was true that in the larger, more hurried world of London it waseasier to dissimulate her transformations than it had been in Oxford. The comparative retirement in which Milly lived was easily explained byher delicate health. It seemed as though in her sojourns--which more andmore encroached upon those of the original personality--the strong, intrusive ego consumed in an unfair degree the vitality of their commonbody, leaving Milly with a certain nervous exhaustion, a languor againstwhich she struggled with a pathetic courage. She learned also to coverwith a seldom broken silence the deep wound which was ever draining heryoung heart of its happiness; and for that very reason it grew deeperand more envenomed. 

That Ian should love her evil and mysterious rival as though they twowere really one was horrible to her. Even her child was not unreservedlyher own, to bring up according to her own ideas, to love without fear ofthat rival. Tony was like his father in the sweetness of hisdisposition, as well as in his dark beauty, and he accented withsurprising resignation the innumerable rules and regulations which Millyset about his path and about his bed. But although he was healthy, hisnerves were highly strung, and it seemed as though her feverish anxietyfor his physical, moral, and intellectual welfare reacted upon him andmade him, after a few weeks of her influence, less vigorous inappearance, less gay and boylike than he was during her absence. Iandared not hint a preference for the animal spirits that Mildredencouraged, with their attendant noise and nonsense, considered by Millyso undesirable. But one day Tims observed, cryptically, that "A watchedboy never boils"; and Emma, the nurse, told Mrs. Stewart bluntly thatshe thought Master Tony wasn't near so well and bright when he wasalways being looked after, as he was when he was let go his own way abit, like other children. Then a miserable fear beset Milly lest theboy, too, should notice the change in his mother; lest he should lookforward to the disappearance of the woman who loved him so passionately, watched over him with such complete devotion, and in his silent heartregret, invoke, that other. It was at once soothing and bitter to her tobe assured by Ian and by Tims that they had never been able to discoverthe least sign that Tony was aware when the change occurred between thetwo personalities of his mother. 

Two years passed in London, two years out of which the original ownerenjoyed a total share of only nine months; and this, indeed, she couldnot truly have been said to have enjoyed, since happiness was far fromher. Death would have been a sad but simple catastrophe, to be met withresignation to the will of God. What resignation could be felt beforethis gradual strangulation of her being at the hands of a nameless yetsurely Evil Thing? Her love for Ian was so great that his sufferingswere more to her than her own, and in the space of those two years shesaw that on him, too, sorrow had set its mark. The glow of his goodlooks and the brilliancy of his mind were alike dulled. It was not onlythat his shoulders were bent, his hair thinned and touched with gray, but his whole appearance, once so individual, was growing merelytypical; that of the middle-aged Academic, absorbed in the cares of hisprofession. His real work was not merely at a stand-still, but a fewmore such years and his capacity for it would be destroyed. She feltthis vaguely, with the intuition of love. If the partnership had beenonly between him and her, he surely would have yielded to her prayer togive up the headship of the Merchants' Guild College after a set term;but he put the question by. Evidently that Other, who cared for nothingbut her own selfish interests and amusements, who spent upon them themoney that he ought to be saving, would never allow him to give up hisappointment unless something better offered. It was not only her ownlife, it was the higher and happier part of his that she was strugglingto save in those desperate hours when she sought around her for someweapon wherewith to fight that mortal foe. She turned to priests, Anglican, Roman Catholic; but they failed her. Both believed her to besuffering under an insane delusion, but the Roman Catholic priest wouldhave attempted to exorcise the evil spirit if she would have joined hisCommunion. She was too honest to pretend to a belief that was not hers. 

When she returned from her last vain pilgrimage to the Church of theSacred Heart and stood before the glass, removing a thick black veilfrom the pale despair of her face, she was suddenly aware of a strange, unfamiliar smile lifting the drooped lines of her lips--an elfish smilewhich transformed her face to something different from her own. Andimmediately those smiling lips uttered words that fell as unexpectedlyon her ears as though they had proceeded from the mouth of anotherperson. 

"Never mind, " they said, briskly. "It wouldn't have been of the leastuse. "

For a minute a wild terror made her brain swim and she fled to the door, instinctively seeking protection; but she stayed herself, rememberingthat Ian, who was sleeping badly at night, was now asleep in his study. Weak and timid though she was, she would lay no fresh burden on him, butfight her battle, if battle there was to be, alone. 

She walked back deliberately to the glass and looked steadily at herown reflection. Her brows were frowning, her eyes stern as she had neverbefore seen them, but they were assuredly hers, answering to the mood ofher own mind. Her lips were cold, and trembled so that although she hadmeant solemnly to defy the Power of Evil within her she was unable toarticulate. As she looked in the glass and saw herself--her realself--so evidently there, the strange smile, the speech divorced fromall volition of hers which had crossed her lips, began to lose reality. Still her lips trembled, and at length a convulsion shook them asirresistible as that of a sob. Words broke stammeringly out which werenot hers:

"Struggle for life--the stronger wins. I'm stronger. It's no usestruggling--no use--no use--no use!"

Milly pressed her lips hard against her teeth with her hands, stoppingthis utterance by main force. Her heart hammered so loud it seemed asthough some one must hear it and come to ask what was the matter. But noone came. She was left alone with the Thing within her. 

It may have been a long while, it may have been only a few seconds thatshe remained standing at her dressing-table, her hands pressed hardagainst her convulsed mouth. She had closed her eyes, afraid to looklonger in the glass, lest something uncanny should peer out of it. Shedid not pray--she had prayed so often before--but she fought with herwhole strength against the encroaching power of the Other. At length shegradually released her lips. They were bruised, but they had ceased tomove. It was she herself who spoke, low but clearly and withdeliberation:

"I shall struggle. I shall never give in. You think you're the stronger. I won't let you be. I'm fighting for my husband's happiness--do youhear?--as well as my own. You're strong, but we shall be stronger, heand I, in the end. "

There was no answer, the sense of struggle was gone from her; andsuddenly she felt how mad it was to be talking to herself like that inan empty room. She took off the little black toque which sat on herbright head with an alien smartness to which she was now accustomed, andforced herself to look in the glass while she pinned up a stray lock ofhair. Beyond an increased pallor and darker marks under her eyes, shesaw nothing unusual in her appearance. 

It was five o'clock, and Ian would probably be awake and wanting histea. She went softly into the study and leaned over him. Sleep hadalmost smoothed away the lines of effort and worry which had marred thebeauty of his face; in the eyes of her love he was always the samehandsome Ian Stewart as in the old Oxford days, when he had seemed as ayoung god, so high above her reach. 

She went to an oak table behind the sofa, on which the maid had set thetea-things without awakening him, and sat there quietly watching thekettle. The early London twilight began to veil the room. Ian stirred onthe sofa and sat up, with his back to her, unconscious of her presence. She rose, vaguely supposing herself about to address some gentle wordto him. Then suddenly she had thrown one soft hand under his chin andone across his eyes, and with a _brusquerie_ quite unnatural to herpulled him backwards, while a ripple of laughter so strange as to beshocking in her own ears burst from her lips, which cried aloud with adefiant gayety:

"Who, Ian? Guess!"

Ian, with a sudden force as strange to her as her own laughter, her owngay cry, pulled her hands away, held them an instant fast; then, kneeling on the sofa, he caught her in his long arms across the back ofit, and after the pressure of a kiss upon her lips such as she had neverfelt before, breathed with a voice of unutterable gladness: "Mildred!Darling! Dearest love!"

A hoarse cry, almost a shriek, broke from the lips of Milly. The womanhe held struggled from his arms and stared at him wildly in the veilingtwilight. A strange horror fell upon him, and for several seconds heremained motionless, leaning over the back of the sofa. Then, gropingtowards the wall, he switched on the electric light. He saw it plainly, the white mask of a woman smitten with a mortal blow. 

"Milly, " he uttered, stammeringly. "What's the matter? You are ill. "

She turned on him her heart-broken look, then pressing her hand to herthroat, spoke as though with difficulty. 

"I love you very much--you don't know how much I love you. I've triedso hard to be a good wife to you. "

Ian perceived catastrophe, yet dimly; sought with desperate haste toremember why for a moment he had believed that that Other was come back;what irreparable thing he had said or done. 

Meantime he must say something. "Milly, dear! What's gone wrong? Whathave I done, child?"

"You've let her take you--" She spoke more freely now, but with astartling fierceness--"You've let her take you from me. "

"Ah, the old trouble! My poor Milly! I know it's terrible for you. I canonly say that no one else really exists; that you are always youreally. "

"That's not true. You don't believe it yourself. That wicked creaturehas made you love her--her own wicked way. You want to have her insteadof me; you want to destroy your own wife and to get her back again. "

The cruel, ultimate truth that Milly's words laid bare--the truth whichhe constantly refused to look upon, in mercy to himself andher--paralyzed the husband's tongue. He tried to approach her with vaguewords and gestures of affection and remonstrance, but she motioned himfrom her. 

"No. Don't say you love me; I can't believe it, and I hate to hear yousay what's not true. "

For a moment the fierce heart of Primitive Woman had blazed up withinher--that fire which all the waters of baptism fail to quench. But theflame died down as suddenly as it had arisen, and appealing withoutspread hands, as to some invisible judge, she wailed, miserably:

"Oh, what am I to do--what am I to do? I love you so much, and it's allno use. "

Ian was as white as herself. 

"Milly, my poor girl, don't break our hearts. "

He stretched his arms towards her, but she turned away from him towardsthe door, made a few steps, then stopped and clutched her throat. Hethought her struggling with sobs; but when once more, as though in fear, she turned her face towards him, he saw it strangely convulsed. He movedtowards her in an alarmed silence, but before he could reach her andcatch her in his arms, her head drooped, she swayed once upon her feet, and fell heavily to the ground. 

CHAPTER XXIV

"Now be reasonable Tims. You can be if you choose. "

Mildred was perched on a high stool in Tims's Chambers, breathing springfrom a bunch of fresh Neapolitan violets, grown by an elderly admirer ofhers, and wearing her black, winter toque and dress with that invincibleair of smartness which she contrived to impart to the oldest clothes, provided they were of her own choosing. Tims, who from her face andattitude might have been taken for a victim of some extreme and secrettorture, crouched, balancing herself on the top rail of her fender. Shereplied only by a horrible groan. 

"Who do you suppose is the happier when Milly comes back?" continuedMildred. 

"Well--the brat. "

"Tony? He doesn't even know when she's there; but by the time she's donewith him he's unnaturally good. He can't like that, can he?"

"Then there's Ian, good old boy!"

"That's humbug. You know it is. "

"But it's Milly herself I really care about, " cried Tims. "You've been apig to her, Mil. She says you're a devil, and if I weren't a scientificwoman I swear I should begin to believe there was something in it. "

"No, Tims, dear, " returned Mildred with earnestness. "I'm neither a pignor a devil. " She paused. "Sometimes I think I've lived before, somequite different life from this. But I suppose you'll say that's allnonsense. "

"Of course it is--rot, " commented Tims, sternly. "You're a physiologicalfreak, that's what you are. You're nothing but Milly all the time, andyou ought to be decent to her. "

"I don't want to hurt her anyhow, " apologized Mildred; "but you see whenI'm only half there--well, I am only half there. I'm awfully rudimentaryand I can't grasp anything except that I'm being choked, squeezed out ofexistence, and that I must make a fight for my life. Any woman becomesrudimentary who is fighting for her life against another woman; onlyI've more excuse for it, because as a scientist you must see that I canonly be in very partial possession of my brain. "

Tims had pulled her wig down over her eyes and glared at space. "That'sall very well for you, " she said; "but why should I help you to killpoor old M. ?"

"Do try and understand! Every time she comes back she's more and moremiserable; and that's not cheerful for Ian either, is it? Now, throughthat underhand trick of rudimentary Me--you see I don't try to hide myhorrid ways--she knows Ian adores me and, comparatively speaking, doesn't care two straws about her. That will make her more miserablethan she has ever been before. She'll only want to live so that Imayn't. "

"I don't see how Ian's going to get on without her. _You_ don't do muchfor him, my girl, except spend his money. "

"Of course, that's quite true. I'm not in the least suited to Ian or hislife or his income; but that's not my fault. How perverse men are!Always in love with the wrong women, aren't they?"

Tims's countenance relaxed and she replied with a slight air ofimportance:

"My opinion of men has been screwed up a peg lately. Every now and thenyou do find one who's got too much sense for any rot of that kind. "

Mildred continued. 

"Ian's perfectly wretched at what happened; can't understand it, ofcourse. He doesn't say much, but I can see he dreads explanations withMilly. He's good at reserve, but no good at lies, poor old dear, andjust think of all the straight questions she'll ask him! It'll betorture to both of them. Poor Milly! I've no patience with her. Whyshould she want to live? Life's no pleasure to her. She's known a longtime that Tony's really jollier and better with me, and now she knowsIan doesn't want her. How can you pretend to think Milly happy, Tims?Hasn't she said things to you?"

"Yes, " groaned Tims. "Poor old M. ! She's pretty well down on her luck, you bet. "

"And I enjoy every minute of my life, although I could find plenty togrumble at if I liked. Listen to me, Tims. How would it be to strike abargain? Let me go on without any upsets from Milly until I'm forty. I'msure I sha'n't care what happens to me at forty. Then Milly may haveeverything her own way. What would it matter to her? She likes to taketime by the forelock and behaves already as though she were forty. Ifeel sure you could help me to keep her quiet if only you chose. "

"If I chose to meddle at all, I should be much more likely to help herto come back, " returned Tims, getting snappish. 

"Alas! I fear you would, Tims, dear, in spite of knowing it would onlymake her miserable. That shows, doesn't it, how unreasonable even adistinguished scientific woman can be?"

This aspersion on Tims's reasoning powers had to be resented and theresentment to be soothed. And the soothing was so effectually done thatTims owned to herself afterwards there was some excuse for Ian'sinfatuation. 

But Tims had no desire to meddle, and the months passed by without anysymptoms of the change appearing. It seemed as if Mildred's hold uponlife had never been so firm, the power of her personality never so fullydeveloped. She belonged to a large family which in all its branches hada trick of throwing up successful men and brilliant women. But inreaction against Scottish clannishness, it held little together, and inthe two houses whence Mildred was launched on her London career, shehad no nursery reputation of Milly's with which to contend. 

One of these houses was that of her cousin, Sir Cyril Meres, afashionable painter with a considerable gift for art, and more forsuccess--success social and financial. His beautiful house, stored withwonderful collections, had a reputation, and was frequented by every oneof distinction in the artistic or intellectual world--by those of theworld of wealth and rank who were interested in such matters, and theyet larger number who affected to be interested in them. For thoseAnglo-Saxon deities, Mammon and Snobbery, who have since conquered thewhole civilized globe, had temporarily fallen back for a fresh spring, and in the eighties and early nineties Culture was reckoned very nearlyas _chic_ as motoring in the first years of the new century. 

Several painters of various degrees of talent attempted to fix on canvasthe extraordinary charm of Mrs. Stewart's appearance. Not one of themsucceeded; but the peculiar shade of her hair, the low forehead anddelicate line of the dark eyebrows, the outline of the mask, sometimesadmired, sometimes criticised, made her portrait always recognized, whether simpering as a chocolate-box classicality, smiling sadly fromthe flowery circle of the Purgatorio, or breaking out of some rough massof paint with the provocative leer of a _cocotte_ of the Quartier Latin. 

The magnetism of her personality defied analysis, as her essentialbeauty defied the painter's art. It was a magnetism which surrounded herwith an atmosphere of adorations, admirations, enmities--all equallyviolent and irrational. Her wit had little to do with the making of herenemies, because it was never used in offence against friends or evenharmless acquaintances; only against her foes she employed it with theefficiency and mercilessness of a red Indian wielding the tomahawk. 

The other family where she found her niche awaiting her was of adifferent order. It was that of the retired Indian judge, Sir JohnIreton, whose wife had chaperoned her through a Commemoration the summershe had taken her First in Greats. Ireton was not only in Parliament, but his house was a meeting-place where politicians cemented personalties and plotted party moves. Milly in her brief appearances, had beenof use to Lady Ireton, but Mildred proved socially invaluable. Therewere serious persons who suspected Mrs. Stewart of approaching politicsin a flippant spirit; but on certain days she had revealed a grave andardent belief in the dogmas of the party and a piety of attitude towardsthe person of its great apostle, which had convinced them that she wasnot really cynical or frivolous. 

Lady Augusta Goring was the most important conquest of the kind Millyhad made. She was the only child of the Marquis of Ipswich, and one ofthose rather stupid people whose energy of mind and character is oftenmistaken by themselves and others for cleverness. Lady Augusta washandsome in a dull, massive way, and so conscientious that she hadseldom time to smile. Her friends said she would smile oftener if herhusband caused her less anxiety; but considering who George Goring wasand how he had been brought up, he might have been much worse. Wherewomen were concerned, scandal had never accused him of anything moreflagrant than dubious flirtations. It was his political intrigues, constantly threatening unholy _liaisons_ in the most unthinkabledirections; his sudden fits of obstinate idleness, often occurring atthe very moment when some clever and promising political scheme of hisown was ripe for execution, which so unendurably harassed the staidMarquis and the earnest Lady Augusta. They were highly irritating, too, to Sir John Ireton, who had believed himself at one time able to tameand tutor the tricksy young politician. 

The late Lord Ipswich had been a "sport" in the Barthop family; a blacksheep, but clever, and a well known collector. Accidental circumstanceshad greatly enriched him, and as he detested his brother and successor, he had left his pictures to the nation and all of his fortune which hecould dispose of--which happened to be the bulk--to his natural son, George Goring. But his will had not been found for some weeks after hisdeath, and while the present Marquis had believed himself the inheritorof the whole property, he had treated the nameless and penniless childof his brother with perfect delicacy and generosity. When George Goringfound himself made rich at the expense of his uncle, he proposed to hiscousin Lady Augusta and was accepted. 

Mildred was partly amused and partly bored to discover herself on sofriendly a footing with Lady Augusta. Putting herself into that passiveframe of mind in which revelations of Milly's past actions were mostoften vouchsafed to her, she saw herself type-writing in a small, high-ceilinged room looking out on a foggy London park, and Lady Augustaseated at a neighboring table, surrounded by papers. Type-writing wasnot then so common as it is now, and Milly had learned the art in orderto give assistance to Ian. Mildred was annoyed to find herself in dangerof having to waste her time in a mechanical occupation which shedetested, or else of offending a woman whom her uncle valued as a friendand political ally. 

It was a slight compensation to receive an invitation to accompany theIretons to a great ball at Ipswich House. There was no question of Ianaccompanying her. He was usually too tired to care for going out in theevening and went only to official dinners and to the houses of oldfriends, or of people with whom he had educational connections. It didnot occur to him that it might be wise to put a strain upon himselfsometimes, to lay by his spectacles, straighten his back, have his beardtrimmed and appear at Mildred's side in the drawing-rooms where sheshone, looking what he was--a husband of whom she had reason to beproud. More and more engrossed by his own work and responsibilities, helet her drift into a life quite apart from his, content to see her worldfrom his own fireside, in the sparkling mirror of her talk. 

Ipswich House was a great house, if of little architectural merit, andthe ball had all the traditional spectacular splendor common to suchfestivities. The pillared hall and double staircase, the suites ofspacious rooms, were filled with a glittering kaleidoscopic crowd offair and magnificently bejewelled women and presumably brave, certainlywell-groomed and handsome men. The excellence of the music, the massesof flowers, the number of great names and well-advertised societybeauties present, would subsequently provide material for long andeulogistic paragraphs in the half-penny press and the Ladies' Weeklies. 

Mildred enjoyed it as a spectacle rather than as a ball, for she knewfew people there, and the young political men whom she had met at heruncle's parties were too much engaged with ladies of more importance, towhom they were related or to whom they owed social attention, to writetheir names more than once on her programme. One of these, however, asked her if she had noticed how harassed both Lord Ipswich and LadyAugusta looked. Goring's speech, he said, at the Fothering by-electionwas reported and commented upon in all the papers, and had giventremendous offence to the leaders of his party; while the fact that hehad not turned up in time for the ball must be an additional cross tohis wife, who made such a firm stand against the social separation ofmarried couples. 

When Mildred returned to her uncle she found him the centre of a groupof eminent politicians, all denouncing in more or less subdued tones theoutrageous utterances and conduct of Goring, and most declaring thatonly consideration for Lord Ipswich and Lady Augusta prevented them frompublicly excommunicating the hardened offender. Others, however, whileadmitting the outrage, urged that he was too brilliant a young man to belightly thrown away, and advised patience, combined with thedisciplinary rod. Sir John was of the excommunicatory party. Later inthe evening he disappeared into some remote smoking or card-room, not somuch forgetting his niece as taking it for granted that she was, asusual, surrounded by friends and admirers of both sexes. But a detachedpersonality, however brilliant, is apt to be submerged in such a crowdof social eminences, bound together by ties of blood, of interests, andof habit, as filled the salons of Ipswich House. Mildred walked aroundthe show contentedly enough for a time, receiving a smile here and apleasant word there from such of her acquaintances as she chanced upon, but practically alone. And being alone, she found herself yielding to avulgar envy of richer women's clothes and jewels. Her dress, with whichshe had been pleased, looked ordinary beside the creations of greatParisian _ateliers_, and the few old paste ornaments which were the onlyjewels she possessed, charming as they were, seemed dim and scant amongthe crowns and constellations of diamonds that surrounded her. Her priderebelled against this envy, but could not conquer it. 

More gnawing pangs, however, assailed her presently, the pangs ofhunger; and no one offered to take her in to supper. The idea of takingherself in was revolting; she preferred starvation. But where couldUncle John have hidden himself? She sought the elderly truant with allthe suppressed annoyance of a chaperon seeking an inconsiderate flirt ofa girl. And it happened that a spirit in her feet led her to the door ofa small room in which Milly and Lady Augusta had been wont to transacttheir business. A curious feeling of familiarity, of physical habit, caused her to open the big mahogany door. There was no air of publicfestivity about the room, which was furnished with a substantial, almostshabby masculine comfort. But oh, tantalizing spectacle! Under theillumination of a tall, crimson-shaded, standard lamp, stood a little, white-covered table, reminding her irresistibly of a little table in afairy story, which the due incantation causes to rise out of the ground. A small silver-gilt tureen of soup smoked upon it and a little pile ofdelicate rolls lay beside the plate set for one. But alas! she mightnot, like the favored girl in the fairy story, proceed without ceremonyto satisfy her hunger at the mysterious little table. 

A door immediately opposite that of the small sitting-room openednoiselessly, and a young man entered with a light, quick step. He sawMildred, but for a second or so she did not see him. He was at her sidewhen she looked around and their eyes met. They had never seen eachother before, but at that meeting of the eyes a curious feeling, such astwo Europeans might experience, meeting in the heart of some darkcontinent, affected them both. 

There was something picturesque about the young man's appearance, inspite of the impeccable cut and finish of his dress-suit and the waxedends of his small blond mustache. His hair was of a ruddy nut-browncolor, and had a wave in it; his bright hazel eyes seemed exactly tomatch it. His face had a fine warm pallor, and his under lip, which withhis chin was somewhat thrust forward, was redder than the lip of achild. It was perhaps this noticeable coloring and something in his portwhich made him, in spite of the correct modernity of his dress, suggestsome seventeenth-century portrait. 

"Forgive my passing you, " he said, at length; "but I'm starving. "

"So am I, " she returned, hardly aware of what she was saying. Somestrange, almost hypnotic attraction seemed to rivet her whole attentionon the mere phenomenon of this man. 

"By Jove! Aren't they feeding the multitude down there?" he asked, nodding in the direction of the supper-room. 

"Of course, " she answered, with the simple gravity of a child, her blueeyes still fixed upon him. "But I can't ask for supper for myself, canI?"

Her need was distinctly material; yet the young man confronting herwhite grace, the strange look in her blue eyes, had a dreamlike feeling, almost as though he had met a dryad or an Undine between two of theprosaic, substantial doors of Ipswich House. And as in a dream the mostextraordinary things seem familiar and expected, so the apparition ofthe Undine and her confidence in him seemed familiar, in fact just whathe had been expecting during those hours of fog off the Goodwins, whenthe sirens, wild voices gathering up from all the seas of the world, hadbeen screaming to each other across the hidden waters. That same innerconcentration upon the mere phenomenon of a presence, an existence, which had given the childlike note to Mildred's speech, froze acompliment upon his lips; and they stood silent, eying each othergravely. A junior footman appeared, carrying a bottle of champagne in abucket, and the young man addressed him in a vague, distracted tone, very unlike his usual manner. 

"Look here, Arthur, here's a lady who can't get any supper. "

The footman went quite pink at this personal reproach. He happened tohave heard some one surmise, on seeing Mildred roaming about alone, thatshe was a newspaper woman. 

"Please sir, " he replied, "I don't know how it's happened, for herLadyship told Mr. Mackintosh to be sure and see as the newspaper ladiesand gentlemen were well looked after, and he thought as they'd all hadsupper. "

It seemed incredible that Mildred should not have heard this reply, uttered so close to her; but though it fell upon her ears it did notpenetrate to her mind. 

"Bring up supper for two, Arthur, " said Goring, in his usual decisivetone. "That'll do, won't it?" he added, and turned to Mildred, usheringher into the room. "You'll have supper with me, I hope? My name'sGoring; I'm Lord Ipswich's son-in-law and I live in his house; so yousee it's all right. "

The corollary was not evident; but the mention of the name broughtMildred back to the ordinary world. So this was George Goring, theplague of his political party, the fly in the ointment of a respectableMarquis and his distinguished daughter. She had not fancied him likethis. For one thing, she did not know him to be younger than his wife, and between the careworn solidity of Lady Augusta and this vividrestless personality, the five actual years of difference seemedstretched to ten. 

"I'm convinced it's all right, Mr. Goring, " she replied, throwingherself into a chair and smiling at him sparklingly. "It must be allright. I want my supper so much I should have to accept your invitationeven if you were a burglar. "

Goring, whose habit it was to keep moving, laughed as he walked about, one hand in his trousers pocket. 

"Why shouldn't I be a burglar? A burglar, with an assistant disguised asa footman, sacking the bedrooms of Lord Ipswich's house while the ballproceeds? There's copy for you! Shall I do it? 'Mr. George Goring'sCelebrated Black Pearls Stolen, ' would make a capital head-line. Perhapsyou've heard I'd do anything to keep my name in the newspapers. "

"It certainly gets there pretty often, " returned Mildred, politely; "andwhenever it's mentioned it has an enlivening effect. "

The footman had reappeared and they were unfolding their dinner-napkins, sitting opposite each other at the little table. 

"As how, enlivening?"

"Like a bit of bread dropped into a glass of flat champagne. "

"You think my party's like champagne? Why, it couldn't exist for amoment if it sparkled. "

"I was talking of newspapers, not of your party; though there's no doubtyou do enliven that. "

"Do I? Like what? No odiously inoffensive comparisons, if you please. "

"Well, I have heard people say like--like a blister on the back of theneck. "

Goring laughed. "Thanks. That's better. "

"The patient's using language, but he won't really tear it off, becausehe knows that would hurt him more, and the blister will do him good inthe end, if he bears with it. "

"But there's the blister's side to it, too. It's infernally tiring for ablister to be sticking on to such a fellow everlastingly. It'll fly offof itself before long, if he doesn't look out. Hullo! What am I saying?I suppose you'll have all this out in some confounded paper--'The RebelMember Returns. A Chat with Mr. Goring'--Don't do that; but I'll giveyou some other copy if you like. "

"You're very kind in giving me all this copy. What shall I do with it?Shall I keep it as a memento?"

"No, no. You can sell it; honor bright you can. "

"Can I? Shall I get much for it? Enough money to buy me a tiara, do youthink?"

"Do you really want to wear the usual fender? Now, why? I supposebecause you aren't sufficiently aware how--" he paused on the edge of acompliment which seemed suddenly too full-flavored and ordinary to beaddressed to this strangely lovely being, with her smile at once sosparkling and so mysterious. He substituted: "How much moredistinguished it is to look like an Undine than like a peeress. "

Mildred seemed slightly taken aback. 

"Why do you say 'Undine?'" she asked, almost sharply. "Do I--do I lookas if I came out of a Trafalgar Square fountain with fell designs onLord Ipswich?"

"Of course not. But--I can't exactly define even to myself what I mean, only you do suggest an Undine to me. To some one else you might besimply Miss--Forgive me, I don't know your name. "

He had not even troubled to glance at her left hand, and when the "Mrs. "was uttered it affected him oddly. It was one of the peculiardifferences between her two personalities that, casually encountered, Mildred was as seldom taken for a married woman as Milly for anunmarried one. 

"Do I look as if I'd got no soul?" she persisted, leaning a littletowards him, an intensity that might almost have been called anxiety inher gaze. 

He could even have fancied she had grown paler. He, too, became serious. His eyes brightened, meeting hers, and a slight color came into hischeeks. 

"Quite the contrary, " he answered. "I should say you had a greatdeal--in fact, I shall begin to believe in detachable souls again. Fancymost people as just souls, without trimmings. It makes one laugh. Butyour body looks like an emanation from the spirit; as though it mightflow away in a white waterfall or go up in a white fire; and as though, if it did, your soul could certainly precipitate another body, whichmust certainly be like this one, because it would be as this is, thematerial expression of a spirit. "

She listened as he spoke, seriously, her eyes on his. But when he haddone, she dropped her chin on her hand and laughed delightedly. 

"You think I should be able to grow a fresh body, like a lobster growinga fresh claw? What fun!"

There was a sound without, not of the footman struggling with dishes andplates and the door-handle, but of middle-aged voices. 

Instinctively Goring and Mildred straightened themselves and lookedpolite. Lord Ipswich and Sir John Ireton, deep in political converse, came slowly in and then stopped short in surprise. Mildred lost not amoment in carrying the war into their country. She turned about andaddressed her uncle in a playful tone, which yet smacked of reproof. 

"Here you are at last, Uncle John! I thought you'd forgotten all aboutme. I've been walking miles in mad pursuit of you, till I was so tiredand hungry I think I should have dropped if Mr. Goring hadn't takenpity upon me and made me eat his supper. "

Sir John defended himself, and Lord Ipswich was shocked to think that alady had been in such distress in his house; although the apparition ofGoring prevented him from feeling it as acutely as he would otherwisehave done. His pleasant pink face took on an expression of severity ashe responded to his son-in-law's somewhat too cheerful greeting. 

"Sorry to be so late, but we were held up by a fog at the mouth of theThames. "

"It must have been very important business to take you all the way toBrussels so suddenly. "

"It certainly wouldn't wait. I heard there was a whole set of Beauvaistapestries to be had for a mere song. I couldn't buy them without seeingthem you know, and the big London and Paris dealers were bound to chipin if I didn't settle the matter pretty quick. I'm precious glad I did, for they're the finest pieces I ever saw and would have fetched fivetimes what I gave for them at Christie's. "

"Ah--really!" was all Lord Ipswich's response, coldly uttered andaccompanied by a smile more sarcastic than often visited his neat andkindly lips. Sir John Ireton and Mildred, aware of the delicatesituation, partly domestic and partly political, upon which they wereintruding, took themselves away and were presently rolling through theempty streets in the gray light of early morning. 

CHAPTER XXV

Not long afterwards Mildred received a letter the very address of whichhad an original appearance, looking as if it were written with a stickin a fist rather than with a pen between fingers. It caught herattention at once from half a dozen others. 

 "DEAR MRS. STEWART, --Yesterday I was at Cochrane's studio and he told me Meres was the greatest authority in England on tapestry, and also a cousin of yours. Please remember (or forgive) the supper on Tuesday, and of your kindness, ask him to let me see his lot and give me his opinion on mine. Cochrane had a folly he called a portrait of you in his studio. I turned its face to the wall; and in the end he admitted I was right. 

 "Yours sincerely, "GEORGE GORING. "

Accordingly, on a very hot day early in July, Goring met Mildred again, at Sir Cyril Meres's house on Campden Hill. The long room at one end ofwhich stood the small dining-table looked on the greenness of a lawny, lilac-sheltered garden, so that such light as filtered through the greenjalousies was green also. There was a great block of ice somewhere inthe room, and so cool it was, so greenly dim there, that it seemedalmost like a cavern of the sea. Mildred wore a white dress, and, aswas the fashion of the moment, a large black hat shadowed withostrich-feathers. Once more on seeing her he had a startled impressionof looking upon an ethereal creature, a being somehow totally distinctfrom other beings; and for lack of some more appropriate name, he calledher again in his mind "Undine. " As the talk, which Cyril Meres had agenius for making general, became more animated, he half lost thatimpression in one of a very clever, charming woman, with a bright witsailing lightly over depths of knowledge to which he was unaccustomed inher sex. 

The party was not intended to number more than eight persons, of whomLady Thomson was one, and they sat down seven. When Sir Cyril observed:"We won't wait any longer for Davison, " Mildred was too much interestedin Goring's presence to inquire who this Davison might be. 

She sparkled on half through luncheon to the delight of every one butMiss Ormond the actress, who would have preferred to play the leadherself. Then came a pause. A door was opened at the far end of the dimroom, and the missing guest appeared. Sir Cyril rose hastily to greethim. He advanced without any apologetic hurry in his gait; the sameimpassive Maxwell Davison as before, but leaner, browner, moresilver-headed from three more years of wandering under Oriental suns. Mildred could hardly have supposed it possible that the advent of anyhuman being could have given her so disagreeable a sensation. 

Sir Cyril was unaware that she knew Maxwell Davison; surprised to hearthat he was a cousin of Stewart's, between whom and himself thereexisted a mutual antipathy, expressing itself in terms of avoidance. Hisown acquaintance with Davison was recent and in the way of business. Hehad had the fancy to build for the accommodation of his Hellenictreasures a room in imitation of the court of a Græco-Roman house whichhe had helped to excavate in Asia Minor. He had commissioned Davison tobuy him hangings for it to harmonize with an old Persian carpet in creamcolor and blue of which he was already possessed. Davison had broughtthese with him and a little collection of other things which he thoughtMeres might care to look at. He did not know the Stewarts had moved toLondon, and it was an unpleasant surprise to find himself seated at thesame table with Mildred; he had not forgotten, still less forgiven, thelure of her coquetry, the insult of her rebuff. 

Lady Thomson was next him and questioned him exhaustively about his bookon Persian Literature and the travels of his lifetime. Miss Ormond tookadvantage of Mrs. Stewart's sudden silence to talk to the table rathercleverly around the central theme of herself. Goring conversed apartwith Mrs. Stewart. 

Coffee was served in the shrine which Sir Cyril had reared for his Greekcollection, of which the gem was a famous head of Aphrodite--an earlyAphrodite, divine, removed from all possible pains and agitations ofhuman passion. The room was an absurdity on Campden Hill, said some, but undeniably beautiful in itself. The columns, of singular lightnessand grace, were of a fine marble which hovered between creamy white andfaint yellow, and the walls and floor were of the same tone, except fora frieze on a Greek model, very faintly colored, and the old Persiancarpet. In fine summer weather the large skylight covering the centralspace was withdrawn, and such sky as London can show looked down uponit. The new hangings which Maxwell Davison had brought with him werealready displayed on a tall screen, and his miscellaneous collection ofantiquities, partly sent from Durham College, partly lately acquired, were arranged on a marble bench. 

"I shouldn't have brought these things, Sir Cyril, " he said; "if I'dknown Mrs. Stewart was here. She's got a way of hinting that my mostcherished antiquities are forgeries; and the worst of it is, she makesevery one believe her, including myself. "

Mildred protested. 

"I don't pretend to know anything about antiquities, Mr. Davison. I'msure I never suspected you of a forgery, and if I had, I hope Ishouldn't have been rude enough to tell you so. "

Maxwell Davison laughed his harsh laugh. 

"Do you want me to believe you can't be rude, Mrs. Stewart?"

"I'm almost afraid she can't be, " interposed Lady Thomson's full voice. "People who make a superstition of politeness infallibly lose the highercourtesy of truth. "

Here Sir Cyril Meres called Davison away to worship at the shrine of theAphrodite, while Goring invited Mrs. Stewart into a neighboring corridorwhere some tapestries were hanging. 

The divining crystal was among the objects returned from Oxford, and hadbeen included in the collection which Davison had brought with him, onthe chance that the painter might fancy such curiosities. When Goringand Mildred returned from their leisurely inspection of the tapestries, Miss Ormond had it in her hand, and Lady Thomson was commenting on someremark of hers. 

"I've no doubt, as you say, it has played a wicked part before now inOriental intrigues. But of course the poor crystal is perfectly innocentof the things read into it by rascals, practising on the ignorant andsuperstitious. "

"Sometimes, perhaps, Lady Thomson, " returned Miss Ormond; "but sometimespeople do see extraordinary visions in a crystal. "

Lady Thomson sniffed. 

"Excitable, imaginative people do, I dare say. "

"On the contrary, prosaic people are far more likely to see things thanhighly strung imaginative creatures like myself. I've tried severaltimes and have never seen anything. I believe having a great deal ofbrain-power and emotion and all that tells against it. I shouldn't be atall surprised now if Mrs. Stewart, who is--well, I should fancy, just alittle cold, very bright and all that on the surface, you know--Ishouldn't wonder if she could crystal-gaze very successfully. I shouldlike to know whether she's ever tried. "

"I'm sure she's not, " replied Lady Thomson, firmly. "My niece, Mrs. Stewart, is a great deal too sensible and well-educated. "

"Mrs. Stewart can't honestly say the same for herself, " interposedDavison; "she gazed in this very crystal some years ago and certainlysaw something in it. "

Miss Ormond exclaimed in triumph. Mildred froze. She did not desire therôle of Society Seer. 

"What did I see, Mr. Davison?" she asked. 

He shrugged his shoulders. 

"Nothing of importance. You saw a woman in a light dress. Perhaps it wasLady Hammerton the collector, originally guilty, you remember, in thematter of the forged Augustus. "

"Mildred had only to peep in any glass to see Lady Hammerton, or someone sufficiently like her, " observed Meres. 

"That idea was started when David Fletcher picked up the fancy picturewhich he chose to call a portrait of Lady Hammerton, " cried LadyThomson, who was just taking her leave. "Such nonsense! I protestagainst my own niece and a scholar of Ascham being likened to thatscandalous woman. "

Cyril Meres smiled and stroked his soft, silvery beard. 

"Quite right of you to protest, Beatrice. Still, I'm glad Lady Hammertondidn't stick heroically to her Professor--as Mildred here does. Weshould never have been proud of her as an ancestress if she had. "

"Heroically?" repeated Maxwell Davison under his breath, and laughed. But the meaning of his laugh was lost on every one except Mildred. Sheflushed hotly at the thought of having to bear the responsibility ofthat ridiculous scene on the Cherwell; it was humiliating, indeed. Shetook up the crystal to conceal her chagrin. 

"Do please see something, Mrs. Stewart!" exclaimed Miss Ormond. 

"What sort of thing?"

"Anything! Whatever you see, it will be quite thrilling. 

"Please see me, Mrs. Stewart, " petitioned Goring, wandering towards thecrystal-gazer. "I should so like to thrill Miss Ormond. "

"It's no good your trying that way, " smiled the lady, playing fine eyes. "It's only shadows that are thrilling in the crystal; shadows ofsomething happening a long way off; or sometimes a coming event casts ashadow before--and that's the most thrilling of all. "

"A coming event! That's exactly what I am, a tremendous coming PoliticalEvent. You ask them in the House, " cried Goring, thrusting out his chinand aiming a provocative side-smile at a middle-aged Under-Secretary ofState who discreetly admired Miss Ormond. 

"Modest creature!" ejaculated the Under-Secretary playfully with hislips; and in his heart vindictively, "Conceited devil!"

"Please see me, Mrs. Stewart!" pleaded Goring, half kneeling on a chairand leaning over the crystal. 

"I do, " she returned. "I'd rather not. You look so distorted and odd;and so do I, don't I? Dreadful! But the crystal's getting cloudy. "

"Then you're going really to see something!" exclaimed Miss Ormond. "Howdelightful! Come away directly, Mr. Goring, or you'll spoil everything. "

Sir Cyril and Davison looked up from some treasure of Greek art. Theconversation was perfunctory, every one's curiosity waiting on Mildredand the crystal. 

"Don't you see anything yet, Mrs. Stewart?" asked Miss Ormond at length, impatiently. 

"No, " replied Mildred, hesitatingly. "At least, not exactly. I seesomething like rushing water and foam. "

"The reflection of clouds overhead, " pronounced the Under-Secretary, dogmatically, glancing upward. 

"I'm sure it's nothing of the kind, " asserted Miss Ormond. "Please go onlooking, Mrs. Stewart, and perhaps you'll see a water-spirit. "

"Why do you want her to see a water-spirit?" asked Davison, ironically. "In all countries of the world they are reckoned spiteful, treacherouscreatures. I was once bitten by one severely, and I have never wanted tosee one since. "

"Oh, Mr. Davison! Are you serious? What do you mean?" questioned MissOrmond. 

Mrs. Stewart hastily put down the crystal. "I don't want to see one, "she said; "I'm afraid it might bring me bad luck, and, besides, I can'twait for it, I've got several calls to make before I go home, and Ithink there's a storm coming. " She shivered. "I'm quite cold. "

Miss Ormond said that must be the effect of the crystal, as theafternoon was still oppressively hot. 

Goring caught up with Mrs. Stewart in the gravel drive outside the houseand walked through Kensington Gardens with her. It seemed to them bothquite natural that they should be walking together, and their talk wasin the vein of old friends who have met after a long separation ratherthan in that of new acquaintances. When he left her and turned to walkacross Hyde Park towards Westminster, he examined his impressions andperceived that he was in a state of mind foreign to his nature, andtherefore the butt of his ridicule; a state in which, if he and Mrs. Stewart had been unmarried persons, he would have said to himself, "Thatis the woman I shall marry. " It would not have been a passion or anemotion that would have made him say that; it would have been aconviction. As it was, the thing was absurd. Cochrane had told him, halfin jest, that Mrs. Stewart was a breaker of hearts, but had not hintedthat her own was on the market. Her appearance made it surely aninteresting question whether she had a heart at all. 

And for himself? He hated to think of his marriage, because herecognized in it the fatal "little spot" in the yet ungarnered fruit ofhis life. He was only thirty, but he had been married seven years andhad two children, both of them the image of all the Barthops that hadever been, except his own father. In moments of depression he sawhimself through all the coming years being gradually broken, crushedunder a weight of Barthops--father-in-law, wife and children--mouldedinto a thin semblance of a Marquis of Ipswich, a bastard Marquis. No onebut himself knew the weakness of his character--explosive, audacious inalarums or excursions, but without the something, call it strength orhardness or stupidity, which enables the man or woman possessing it toresist constant domestic pressure--the unconscious pressure of radicallyopposed character. The crowd applauds the marriage of such oppositesbecause their side almost always wins; partly by its own weight andpartly by their weight behind. But the truth is that two beings opposedin emotional temperament and mental processes are only a few degreesmore able to help and understand each other in the close union ofmarriage than the two personalities of Milly Stewart in the closer unionof her body. 

From one point of view it was Goring's fatal weakness to have a realaffection for his father-in-law, who was a pattern of goodness andgood-breeding. Consequently, that very morning he had promised LordIpswich to walk in the straightest way of the party, for one year atleast; and if he must slap faces, to select them on the other side ofthe House. Nevertheless, if he really wished to give sinceregratification to Lord Ipswich and to dear Augusta, he must needs giveup his capricious and offensive tactics altogether. These things mightgive him a temporary notoriety in the House and country, but they werenot in the traditions of the Ipswich family, which had held a high placein politics for two hundred years. The Marquis said that he had alwaystried to make George feel that he was received as a true son of thefamily and heir of its best traditions, if not of its name. There hadbeen a great deal of good faith on both sides. Yet now a solitary youngman, looking well in the frock-coat and tall hat of convention, mighthave been observed stopping and striking the gravel viciously as hereflected on the political future which his father-in-law was mappingout for him. 

CHAPTER XXVI

Sir James Carus, the well-known scientist, had for some time beenemploying Miss Timson in the capacity of assistant, and spoke highly ofher talents. She began to have a reputation in scientific circles, andowing to her duties with Carus she could not come to the Stewarts' asoften as she had formerly done. But she preserved her habit ofdismissing the parlor-maid at the door and creeping up to thedrawing-room like a thief in the night. 

On the day following Sir Cyril Meres's luncheon-party she arrived in herusual fashion. The windows were shaded against the afternoon sun, butthe sky was now overcast, and such a twilight reigned within that atfirst she could distinguish little, and the drawing-room seemed to herto be empty. But in a minute she discerned a white figure supine in alarge arm-chair--Mildred, and asleep. 

She had a writing-board on her knee, and a hand resting on it still helda stylograph. She must have dozed over her writing; yet she did not stirwhen her name was uttered. Tims noticed a peculiar stillness in her, asomething almost inanimate in her attitude and countenance, whichsuggested that this was no ordinary siesta. The idea that Milly mighteven now be resurgent fluttered Tims's pulses with a mixed emotion. 

"Good old Milly! Poor old girl!" she breathed to the white figure in thearm-chair. "Don't be in a hurry! You won't find it all beer and skittleswhen you're here. "

It seemed to her that a slight convulsion passed over the sleeper'sface. 

Tims seated herself on a low chair, in the attitude of certain gargoylesthat crouch under the eaves of old churches, elbows on knees, chin onhands, and fixed her eyes in silence on her silent companion. In spiteof her work along the acknowledged lines of science, she had pursued herhypnotic studies furtively, half in scorn and half in fear of herscientific brethren. What would she not have given to be enabled towatch, to comprehend the changes passing within that human form so closeto her that she could see its every external detail, could touch it bythe out-stretching of a hand! But its inner shrine, its secret place, remained barred against those feeble implements of sense with whichnature has provided the explorative human intelligence. Its content wasmore mysterious, more inaccessible than that of the remotest star whichyields the secret of its substance to the spectroscope of theastronomer. 

Tims's thoughts had forsaken the personal side of the question, when shewas recalled to it by seeing the right hand in which the stylograph hadbeen lying begin to twitch, the fingers to contract. There was noanswering movement in the face--even when the sleeper at length firmlygrasped the pen and suddenly sat up. Tims rose quickly, and thenperceived, lying on the writing-board, a directed envelope and ahalf-finished note to herself. She slipped the note-paper nearer to thetwitching hand, and after a few meaningless flourishes, it wrote slowlyand tentatively:

"Tims--Milly--cannot get back. Help me ... Save Ian. Wicked creature--noconscience--"

Here the power of the hand began to fail, and the writing was terminatedby mere scrawls. The sleeper's eyes were now open, but not wide. Theyhad a strange, glassy look in them, nor did she show any consciousnessof Tims's presence. She dropped the pen, folded the paper in the sameslow and tentative manner in which she had written upon it, and placedit in the directed envelope lying there. Then her face contracted, herfingers slackened, and she fell back again to the depths of the chair. 

"Milly!" cried Tims, almost involuntarily bending over her. "Milly!"

Again there was a slight contraction of the face and of the whole body. 

At the moment that Tims uttered Milly's name, Ian was entering the room. His long legs brought him up to the chair in an instant, and he asked, without the usual salutation:

"What's the matter? Has--has the change happened?"

His voice unconsciously spoke dismay. Tims looked at him. 

"No, not exactly, " she articulated, slowly; and, after a pause: "Poorold Milly's trying to come back, that's all. "

She paused again; then:

"You look a bit worried, old man. "

He tossed back his head with a gesture he had kept from the days whenthe crest of raven-black hair had been wont to grow too long andencroach on his forehead. It was grizzled now, and much less intrusive. 

"I'm about tired out, " he said, shortly. 

"Look here, " she continued, "if you really want Milly back, just say so. She's kind of knocking at the door, and I believe I could let her in ifI tried. "

He dropped wearily into a chair. 

"For Heaven's sake, Miss Timson, don't put the responsibility on me!"

"I can't help it, " returned Tims. "She's managed to get this through tome--" She handed Milly's scrawled message to Ian. 

He read it, then read it again and handed it back. 

"Strange, certainly. "

"Does it mean anything in particular?"

He shrugged his shoulders almost impatiently and sighed. 

"Oh no! It's the poor child's usual cry when she's here. She's got itinto her head that the self she doesn't know is frightfully wicked, andmakes me miserable. I've tried over and over again to convince her, butit's all nonsense. "

He thought to himself: "She is coming back still full of this mortal, heart-rending jealousy, and we shall have more painful scenes. "

"Well, it's your business to say what I'm to do, " insisted Tims. "Idon't think she'd have troubled to write if she'd found she could getback altogether without my help; but the other one's grown a bit toostrong for her. Do you want Milly back?"

The remorseless Tims forced on Ian a plain question which in his ownmind he habitually sought to evade. He leaned back and shaded his eyeswith his hand. After a silence he spoke, low, as if with effort:

"I can't honestly say I want the change to happen just now, Miss Timson. It means a great deal of agitation, a thorough upheaval of everything. We have an extremely troublesome business on at the Merchants'Guild--I've just come away from a four hours' meeting; and upon my wordI don't think I can stand a--domestic revolution at the same time. Itwould utterly unfit me for my work. "

He did not add that he had been looking forward to receiving helpfulcounsel from Mildred, with her clear common-sense, seasoned with wit. 

Tims wagged her head and stared in his face. 

"Poor old M. !" she ejaculated, slowly. 

Miss Timson still possessed the rare power of irritating Ian Stewart. Hegrew restive. 

"I suppose I am a selfish brute. Men always are, aren't they? But, afterall, my wife enjoys life in her present state at least as much as shedoes in the other. "

"Not for the same reason, dear boy, " returned Tims. "Old M. , bless her, just lives for you. You don't imagine, do you, that Mildred cares aboutyou like that?"

Ian flushed slightly, and his face hardened. 

"One can't very well discuss one's wife's feeling for one's self, " hesaid. "I believe I have every reason to be happy, however things are. And I very much doubt, Miss Timson, whether you can really effect thechange in her in any way. At any rate, I'd rather you didn't try, please. I'll have her moved to her room, where she'll most likely sleeptill to-morrow. "

Tims bent over the sleeper. Then:

"I don't believe she will, somehow. You'd better leave her with me forthe present, and I'll let you know if anything happens. "

He obeyed, and in a minute she heard the front door close after him. Tims sat down in the chair which he had vacated. 

"Poor old M. !" she ejaculated again, presently, and added: "What idiotsmen are! All except old Carus and Mr. Fitzallan. He's sensible enough. "

Her thoughts wandered away, until they were recalled by the door openinga mere chink to let a child slip into the room--a slim, tall child, in ablue smock--Tony. His thick, dark hair was cropped boywise now, and thelikeness of the beautiful, sensitive child face to Ian's was moremarked. It was evident that in him there was to be no blending ofstrains, but an exact reproduction of the paternal type. 

Tims was in his eyes purely a comic character, but the ready grin withwhich he usually greeted her was replaced to-day by a little, inattentive smile. He went past her and stood by the sofa, lookingfixedly at his mother with a grave mouth and a slight frown on hisforehead. At length he turned away, and was about to leave the room asquietly as he had come, when Tims brought him to a stand-still at herknee. He held up an admonishing finger. 

"Sh! Don't you wake my Mummy, or Daddy 'll be angry with you. "

"We sha'n't wake her; she's too fast asleep. Tell me why you looked sosolemnly at her just now, Tony?"

Tony, his hands held fast, wriggled, rubbed his shoulder against hisear, and for all answer laughed in a childish, silly way. Such is thedepth and secretiveness of children, whom we call transparent. 

"Did you think Mummy was dead?"

"What's 'dead'?" asked Tony, with interest, putting off his mask ofinanity. 

"People are dead when they've gone to sleep and will never wake again, "returned Tims. 

Tony thought a minute; then his dark eyes grew very large. He whisperedslowly, as though with difficulty formulating his ideas:

"Doesn't they _never_ wake? Doesn't they wake up after ever so long, when peoples can't remember everything--and it makes them want to cry, only grown-up people aren't 'lowed?"

Tims was puzzled. But even in her bewilderment it occurred to her thatif poor Milly should return, she would be distressed to find in what aslovenly manner Tony was allowed to express himself. 

"I don't know what you mean, Tony. Say it again and put it moreclearly. "

Tims had around her neck a necklace composed of casts of coins in theBritish Museum. She did not usually wear ornaments, because shepossessed none, except a hair-bracelet, two brooches, and a large goldcross which had belonged to her late aunt. Tony's soft, slender fingerswent to the necklace, and ignoring her question, he asked: "Why have yougot these funny things round your neck, Auntie Tims?"

"They're not funny. They're beautiful--copies of money which the oldGreeks used to use. A gentleman gave it to me. " Tims spoke with a grandcarelessness. "I dare say if you're a good boy he'll tell you storiesabout them himself some day. But I want you to explain what it was youmeant to say about dead people. Dead people don't come back, you know. "

Tony touched her hand, which lay open on her knee, and played with thefingers a minute. Then raising his eyes he said, plaintively:

"I do so want my tea. "

Once more he had wiped the conversational slate, and the baffled Timsdismissed him. He opened the door a little and slipped out; put his darkhead in again with an engaging smile, said politely, "I sha'n't be away_very_ long, " and closed the door softly behind him. For that softclosing of the door was one of the things poor Milly had taught himwhich the little 'peoples' did contrive to remember. 

The sleeper now began to stir slightly in her sleep, and before Tony'ssomewhat prolonged tea was over, she sat up and looked about her. 

"Is that Tims?" she asked, in a colorless voice. 

"Yes--is it you, Milly?"

"No. What makes you think so?"

"Milly's been trying to come back. I suppose she couldn't manage it. "

"Ah!"--there was a deep satisfaction in Mildred's tone now; "I thoughtshe couldn't!"

CHAPTER XXVII

George Goring and Mildred Stewart did not move in the same social set, but their sets had points of contact, and it was at these that Goringwas now most likely to be found; especially at the pleasant bachelorhouse on Campden Hill. Mrs. Stewart walked in the Park every morning atan unfashionable hour, and sometimes, yet not too often for discretion, Goring happened to be walking there too. All told, their meetings werenot very numerous, nor very private. But every half-hour they spent ineach other's company seemed to do the work of a month of intimacy. 

July hastened to an end, but an autumn Session brought Goring up to townin November, and three months of absence found him and Mildred still atthe same point. Sir Cyril Meres was already beginning to plan hiswonderful _tableaux-vivants_, which, however, did not come off untilFebruary. The extraordinary imitative talent which his artistic careerhad been one long struggle to disguise, was for once to be allowed fullplay. The _tableaux_ were to represent paintings by certainfellow-artists and friends; not actual pictures by them, but pictureswhich they might have painted, and the supposed authors were allowed aright of veto or criticism. 

A stage of Renaissance design, which did not jar with the surroundingarchitecture, was erected in the depth of the portico at the end of theHellenic room. 

The human material at Meres's command was physically admirable. He hadlong been the chosen portrait-painter of wealth and fashion, and therewas not a beauty in Society, with the biggest "S, " who was not delightedto lend her charms for his purpose. The young men might grumble forform's sake, but at the bottom of their hearts they were equallysensible to the compliment of being asked to appear. It was when it cameto the moulding of the material for artistic purposes, that the troublebegan. The English have produced great actors, but in the bulk they havelittle natural aptitude for the stage; and what they have is discouragedby a social training which strains after the ideal composure, the fewmovements, the glassy eye of a waxwork. Only a small and chosen number, it is true, fully attain that ideal; but when we see them we recognizewith a start, almost with a shudder, that it is there, the perfection ofour deportment. 

Cyril Meres was, however, an admirable stage-manager, exquisite in tact, in temper, and urbane patience. The results of his prolonged trainingwere wonderful; yet again and again he found it impossible to carry outhis idea without placing his cousin Mrs. Stewart at the vital point ofhis picture. She was certainly not the most physically beautiful womanthere, but she was unrivalled by any other in the grace, the variety, the meaning of her gestures, the dramatic transformations of hercountenance. She was Pandora, she was Hope, she was Lady Hammerton, shewas the Vampire, and she was the Queen of Faerie. 

There is jealousy on the amateur stage as well as on the professional, and ladies of social position, accustomed to see their beauty lauded inthe newspapers, saw no reason why Mrs. Stewart should be thrust to thefront of half of the pictures. Lady Langham, the "smart" Socialist, withwhom George Goring had flirted last season, to Lady Augusta's realdismay, was the leading rival candidate for Mildred's rôles. But LadyLangham never guessed that Mrs. Stewart was the cause of George Goring'sdisappearance from the list of her admirers, and she still had hopes ofhis return. 

The _tableaux_ were a brilliant success. Ian was there on the firstevening, so was Lady Augusta Goring. Lady Langham, peeping through thecurtains, saw her, and swept the horizon--that is, the circle of blackcoats around the walls--in vain for George Goring. Then Lady Augustabecame audible, saying that in the present state of affairs in the Houseit was quite impossible for Mr. Goring to leave it, even for dinner, onthat evening or the next. Nevertheless, on the next evening, LadyLangham espied George Goring in the act of taking a vacant chair nearthe front, next to a social _protégée_ of her own. She turned andmentioned the fact to a friend, who smiled meaningly and remarked, "Inspite of Lady Augusta's whip!"

Mildred, passing, caught the information, the comment, the smile. Duringthe rehearsals for the _tableaux_, she had heard people coupling thenames of Goring and Lady Langham, not seriously, yet seriously enoughfor her. A winged shaft of jealousy pierced at once her heart and herpride. Was she allowing her whole inner life to be shaken, dissolved bythe passing admiration of a flirt? Her intimate self had assurance thatit was not so; but sometimes a colder wind, blowing she knew not whence, or the lash of a chance word, threw her into the attitude of a chanceobserver, one who sees, guesses, does not know. 

Meantime George Goring had flung himself down in the only vacant chairhe could see, and careless of the brilliant company about him, carelesseven of the face of Aphrodite herself, smiling divinely, unconcernedwith human affairs, from a far corner he waited for the curtain to goup. His neighbor spoke. She had met him at the Langhams last season. What a pity he had just missed Lady Langham's great _tableau_, "Helenbefore the Elders of Troy"! There was no one to be compared to MaudLangham, so beautiful, so clever! She would have made her fortune if shehad gone on the stage. Goring gave the necessary assent. 

The curtain went up, exhibiting a picture called "The Vampire. " It wassmaller than most and shown by a curious pale light. A fair young girlwas lying in a deep sleep on a curtained bed, and hovering, crawlingover her with a deadly, serpentine grace, was a white figure wrapped ina veiling garment that might have been a shroud. Out of white cerementsshowed a trail of yellow hair and a face alabaster white, save for thelips that were blood red--an intent face with a kind of terrible beauty, yet instinct with cruelty. One slender, bloodless hand was in the girl'shair, and, even without the title, it would have been plain that therewas a deadly purpose in that creeping figure. 

"Isn't it horrid?" whispered Goring's neighbor. "Fancy that Mrs. Stewartletting herself be made to look so dreadful!"

"Who?" asked Goring, horrified. He had not recognized Mildred. 

"Why, the girl on the bed's Gertrude Waters, and the Vampire's a cousinof Sir Cyril Meres. A horrid little woman some people admire, but Ishouldn't think any one would after this. I call it disgusting, don'tyou?"

"It's horrible!" gasped George; "it oughtn't to be allowed. What doesthat fellow Meres mean by inventing such deviltries? By Jove, I shouldlike to thrash him!"

The neighbor stared. It was all very well to be horrified at Mrs. Stewart, but why this particular form of horror?

"Please call me when it's over, " said Goring, putting his head downbetween his hands. 

What an eccentric young man he was! But clever people often wereeccentric. 

In due course the _tableau_ was over, and to the relief of onespectator at least, it was not encored. The next was some harmlessdomestic scene with people in short waists. George Goring looked in vainfor Mildred among them, longing to see her, the real lovely her, andforget the horrible thing she had portrayed. Lady Langham was there, andhis neighbor commended her tediously, convinced of pleasing. 

There followed a large and very beautiful picture in the manner of agreat English Pre-Raphaelite. This was called "Thomas the Rhymer, meeting with the Faerie Queen, " but it did not follow the description ofthe ballad. The Faerie Queen, a figure of a Botticellian grace, wascoming, with all her fellowship, out of a wonderful pinewood, whileThomas the Rhymer, handsome and young and lean and brown, his harpacross his back, had just crossed a mountain-stream by a rough bridge. He appeared suddenly to have beheld her, pausing above him beforedescending the heathery bank that edged the wood; and looking in herface, to have entered at once into the land of Faerie. The pose, thefigure, the face of the Faerie Queen were of the most exquisite charmand beauty, touched with a something of romance and mystery that noother woman there except Mildred could have lent it. The youth whopersonated Thomas the Rhymer was temporarily in love with Mrs. Stewartand acted his part with intense expression. Goring, shading his eyeswith his hand, fixed them upon her as long as he dared; then glanced atthe Rhymer and was angry. He turned to his chattering neighbor andasked:

"Who's the chap doing Thomas? Looks as if he wanted a wash. "

"I don't know. Nobody particular, I should think. Wasn't it a pity theydidn't have Lady Langham for the Faerie Queen? I do call it absurd theway Sir Cyril Meres has put that pert, insignificant cousin of hisforward in quite half the pictures--and when he might have had MaudLangham. "

Goring threw himself back in his chair and laughed his quite loud laugh. 

"'A mad world, my masters, '" he quoted. 

His neighbor took this for Mr. Goring's eccentric way of approving hersentiments. But what he really meant was: What a strange masquerade isthe world! This neighbor of his, so ordinary, so desirous to please, would have shuddered at the notion of hinting to him the patent factthat Lady Augusta Goring was a tiring woman; while she pressed upon himlaudations of a person to whom he was perfectly indifferent, mingledwith insulting comments on the only woman in the world for him--thewoman who was his world, without whom nothing was; on her whose veryname, even on these silly, hostile lips, gave him a strong sensation, whether of pain or pleasure he could hardly tell. 

After the performance he constrained himself to go the round of theladies of his acquaintance who had been acting and compliment themcleverly and with good taste. Lady Langham of course seized the lion'sshare of his company and his compliments. He seemed to address only afew remarks of the same nature to Mrs. Stewart, but he had watched hisopportunity and was able to say to her:

"I must leave in a quarter of an hour at latest. Please let me drive youback. You won't say no?"

There was a pleading note in the last phrase and his eyes met hersgravely, anxiously. It was evident that she must answer immediately, while their neighbors' attention was distracted from them. She was palebefore under her stage make-up, and now she grew still paler. 

"Thanks. I told Cousin Cyril I was tired and shouldn't stay long. I'llgo and change at once. "

Then Thomas the Rhymer was at her elbow again, bringing her somethingfor which she had sent him. 

The green-room, in which she resumed the old white lace evening-dressthat she had worn to dine with her cousin, was strewn with the delicateunderclothing, the sumptuous wraps and costly knick-knacks of wealthywomen. She had felt ashamed, as she had undressed there, of her own poorlittle belongings among these; and ashamed to be so ashamed. As she hadseen her garments overswept by the folds of the fair Socialist's whitevelvet mantle, lined with Arctic fox and clasped with diamonds, she hadsmiled ironically at the juxtaposition. Since circumstances and her owngifts had drawn her into the stream of the world, she had been more andmore conscious, however unwillingly, of a longing for luxuries, for richsettings to her beauty, for some stage upon which her brilliantpersonality might shine uplifted, secure. For she seemed to herselfsometimes like a tumbler at a fair, struggling in the crowd for a spacein which to spread his carpet. Now--George Goring loved her. Let theothers keep their furs and laces and gewgaws, their great fortunes orgreat names. Yet if it had been possible for her to take George Goring'slove, he could have given her most of these things as well. 

Wrapped in a gauzy white scarf, she seemed to float rather than walkdown the stairs into the hall, where Thomas the Rhymer was lingering, inthe hope of finding an excuse to escort her home. She was pale, with aclear, beautiful pallor, a strange smile was on her lips and her eyesshone like stars. The Queen of Faerie had looked less lovely, meetinghim on the edge of the wood. She nodded him good-night and passedquickly on into the porch. With a boyish pang he saw her vanish, notinto the darkness of night, but into the blond interior of a smartbrougham. A young man, also smart--her husband, for aught heknew--paused on the step to give orders to the coachman, and followedher in. A moment he saw her dimly, in the glare of carriage-lamps, awhite vision, half eclipsed by the black silhouette of the man at herside; then they glided away over the crunching gravel of the drive, intothe fiery night of London. 

"Do you really think it went off well?" she asked, as they passedthrough the gates into the street. George was taking off his hat andputting it down on the little shelf opposite. He leaned back and wassilent a few seconds; then starting forward, laid his hand upon herknee. 

"Don't let's waste time like that, Mildred, " he said--and although hehad never called her so before, it seemed natural that he should--"wehaven't got much. You know, don't you, why I asked you to drive withme?"

She in her turn was silent a moment, then meeting his eyes:

"Yes, " she said, quite simply and courageously. 

"I thought you could hardly help seeing I loved you, however blind otherpeople might be. "

Her head was turned away again and she looked out of the window, as sheanswered in a voice that tried to be light:

"But it isn't of any consequence, is it? I suppose you're always in lovewith somebody or other. "

"Is that what people told you about me?"--and it was new and wonderfulto her to hear George Goring speak with this calmness andgravity--"You've not been long in the world, little girl, or you'd knowhow much to believe of what's said there. "

"No, " she answered, in turn becoming calm and deliberate. "When I cometo think of it, people only say that women generally like you and thatyou flirt with them. I--I invented the rest. "

"But, good Heavens! Why?" There was a note of pain and wonder in hisvoice. 

She paused, and his hand moved under her cloak to be laid on the twoslender hands clasped on her lap. 

"I suppose I was jealous, " she said. 

He smiled. 

"Absurd child! But I'm a bit of an ass that way myself. I was jealous ofThomas the Rhymer this evening. "

"That brat!"

She laughed low, the sweet laugh that was like no one else's. It waspast midnight and the streets were comparatively quiet and dark, but atthat moment they were whirled into a glare of strong light. They lookedin each other's eyes in silence, his hand tightening its hold upon hers. Then again they plunged into wavering dimness, and he resumed, gravelyand calmly as before, but bending nearer her. 

"If I weren't anxious to tell you the exact truth, to avoidexaggeration, I should say I fell in love with you the first time I metyou. It seems to me now as though it had been so. And the secondtime--you remember it was one very hot day last July, when we bothlunched with Meres--I hadn't the least doubt that if I had been free andyou also, I should have left no stone unturned to get you for my wife. "

Every word was sweet to her, yet she answered sombrely:

"But we are not free. "

He, disregarding the answer, went on:

"You love me, as I love you?"

"As you love me, dearest; and from the first. "

A minute's silence, while the hands held each other fast. Then low, triumphantly, he exclaimed: "Well?"

Her slim hands began to flutter a little in his as she answered all thatthat "Well" implied. 

"It's impossible, dear. It's no use arguing about it. It's just waste oftime--and we've only got this little time. "

"To do what? To make love in? Dear, we've got all our lives if weplease. We've both made a tremendous mistake, we've both got a chancenow of going back on it, of setting our lives right again, making thembetter indeed than we ever dreamed of their being. We inflict some losson other people--no loss comparable to our gain--we hurt them chieflybecause of their bloated ideas of their claims on us. I know you'veweighed things, have no prejudices. Rules, systems, are made for typesand classes, not for us. You belong to no type, Mildred. I belong to noclass. "

She answered low, painfully:

"It's true I am unlike other people; that's the very reason, why--I--I'mnot good to love. " There was a low utterance that was music in her ears, yet she continued: "Then, dear friend, think of your career, ruined forme, by me. You might be happy for a while, then you'd regret it. "

"That's where you're wrong. My career? A rotten little game, these Houseof Commons party politics, when you get into it! The big things go onoutside them; there's all the world outside them. Anyhow, my career, asI planned it, is ruined already. The Ipswich gang have collared me; Ican't call my tongue my own, Mildred. Think of that!"

She smiled faintly. 

"Temporary, George! You'll soon have your head up--and your tongueout. "

"Oh, from time to time, I presume, I shall always be the Horrid VulgarBoy of those poor Barthops; I shall kick like a galvanized frog longafter I'm dead. But--I wouldn't confess it to any one but you, dear--I'mnot strong enough to stand against the everlasting pressure that'sbrought to bear upon me. You know what I mean, don't you?"

"Yes. You'll be no good if you let the originality be squeezed out ofyou. Don't allow it. "

"Nothing can prevent it--unless the Faerie Queen will stretch out herdearest, sweetest hands to me and lead me, poor mortal, right away intothe wide world, into some delightful country where there's plenty oflove and no politics. I want love so much, Mildred; I've never had it, and no one has ever guessed how much I wanted it except you, dear--except you. "

Yes, she had guessed. The queer childhood, so noisy yet so lonely, hadbeen spoken of; the married life spoke for itself. 

His arm was around her now, their faces drawn close together, and in thepale, faint light they looked each other deep in the eyes. Then theirlips met in a long kiss. 

"You see how it is, " he whispered; "you can't help it. It's got to be. No one has power to prevent it. "

But he spoke without knowledge, for there was one who had power toprevent it, one conquered, helpless, less than a ghost, who yet couldlay an icy hand on the warm, high-beating heart of her subduer, and say:"Love and desire, the pride of life and the freedom of the world, arenot for you. I forbid them to you--I--by a power stronger than the lawsof God or man. True, you have no husband, you have no child, for thosewho seem to be yours are mine. You have taken them from me, and now youmust keep them, whether you will or no. You have taken my life from me, and my life you must have, that and none other. "

It was against this unknown and inflexible power that George Goringstruggled with all the might of his love, and absolutely in vain. Between him and Mildred there could be no lies, no subterfuges; onlythat one silence which to him, of all others, she dared not break. 

She seemed to have been engaged in this struggle, at once so sweet andso bitter, for an eternity before she stood on her own doorstep, latch-key in hand. 

"Good-night, Mr. Goring. So much obliged for the lift. "

"Delighted, I'm sure. All right now? Good-night. Drop me at the House, Edwards. "

He lifted his hat, stepped in and closed the carriage-door sharplybehind him; and in a minute the brougham with its lights rolling almostnoiselessly behind the big fast-trotting bay horse, had disappearedaround a neighboring corner. 

 * * * * *

The house was cold and dark, except for a candle which burned on an oakdresser in the narrow hall. As Mildred dragged herself up the stairs, she had a sensation of physical fatigue, almost bruisedness, as thoughshe had come out of some actual bodily combat. Her room, fireless andcold, was solitary, for Ian's sleep had to be protected fromdisturbance. Nevertheless, having loosened her wraps, she threw herselfon the bed and lay there long, her bare arms under her head. Thesensation of chill, her own cold soft flesh against her face, seemed tobrace her mind and body, to restore her powers of clear, calm judgment, so unlike the usual short-sighted, emotionalized judgments of youth. Shehad nothing of the ordinary woman's feeling of guilt towards herhusband. The intimate bond between herself and George Goring did notseem in any relation the accidental one between her and Ian Stewart. Shehad never before faced the question, the possibility of a choice betweenthe two. Now she weighed it with characteristic swiftness and decision. She reasoned that Ian had enjoyed a period of great happiness in hismarriage with her, in spite of the singularity of its conditions; butthat now, while Milly could never satisfy his fastidious nature, sheherself had grown to be a hinderance, a dissonance in his life. Couldshe strike a blow which would sever him from her, he would suffercruelly, no doubt; but it would send him back again to the student'slife, the only life that could bring him honor, and in the long runsatisfaction. And that life would not be lonely, because Tony, socompletely his father's child, would be with him. As for herself andGeorge Goring, she had no fear of the future. They two were strongenough to hew and build alone their own Palace of Delight. Her intuitiveknowledge of the world informed her that, in the long run, society, iffirmly disregarded, admits the claim of certain persons to go their ownway--even rapidly admits it, though they be the merest bleating straysfrom the common fold, should they haply be possessed of rank or fortune. The way lay plain enough before Mildred, were it not for that Other. Butshe, the shadowy one, deep down in her limbo, laid a finger on the gateof that Earthly Paradise and held it, as inflexibly as any armedarchangel, against the master key of her enemy's intelligence, thepassionate assaults of her heart. 

Mildred, however, was one who found it hard, if not impossible, toacquiesce in defeat. Two o'clock boomed from the watching towers ofWestminster over the great city. She rose from her bed, cold as a marblefigure on a monument, and went to the dressing-table to take off her fewand simple ornaments. The mirror on it was the same from which thatalien smile had peered twelve months ago, filling the sad soul of Millywith trembling fear and sinister foreboding. The white face that stoleinto its shadowy depths to-night, and looked Mildred in the eyes, was ina manner new to her also. It had a new seriousness, a new intensity, asof a woman whose vital energies, once spending themselves in merecorruscations, in mere action for action's sake, were now concentratedon one definite thought, one purpose, one emotion, which with an intenseyet benign fire blended in perfect harmony the life of the soul and ofthe body. 

For a moment the face in its gravity recalled to her the latestphotograph of Milly, a tragic photograph she did not care to look atbecause it touched her with a pity, a remorse, which were after allquite useless. But the impression was false and momentary. 

"No, " she said, speaking to the glass, "it's not really like. Poor weakwoman! I understand better now what you have suffered. " Then almostrepeating the words of her own cruel subconscious self--"But there's allthe difference between the weak and the strong. I am the stronger, andthe stronger must win; that's written, and it's no use strugglingagainst the law of nature. "

CHAPTER XXVIII

George Goring was never so confident in himself as when he was fightingan apparently losing game; and the refusal of Mildred to come to him, arefusal based, as he supposed, on nothing but an insurmountableprejudice against doing what was not respectable, struck him as a stagein their relations rather than as the end of them. He did not attempt tosee her until the close of the Easter Vacation. People began to coupletheir names, but lightly, without serious meaning, for Goring beingpopular with women, had a somewhat exaggerated reputation as a flirt. When a faithful cousin hinted things about him and Mrs. Stewart to LadyAugusta, she who believed herself to have seen a number of similartemporary enslavers, put the matter by, really glad that a harmlessnobody should have succeeded to Maud Langham with her dangerousopinions. 

Ian Stewart on his side was barely acquainted with Goring. Sir JohnIreton and the newspapers informed him that George Goring was a flashy, untrustworthy politician; and the former added that he was a terriblenuisance to poor Lord Ipswich and Lady Augusta. That such a man couldattract Mildred would never have occurred to him. 

The fear of Milly's return, which she could not altogether banish, stillat times checked and restrained Mildred. Could she but have securedTims's assistance in keeping Milly away, she would have felt moreconfident of success. It was hopeless to appeal directly to thehypnotist, but her daring imagination began to conceive a situation inwhich mere good sense and humanity must compel Tims to forbid the returnof Milly to a life made impossible for her. She had not seen Tims formany weeks, not since the Easter Vacation, which had already recededinto a remote distance; so far had she journeyed since then along thepath of her fate. Nor had she so much as wondered at not seeing Tims. But now her mind was turned to consider the latent power which thatstrange creature held over her life, her dearest interests; since howmight not Milly comport herself with George?

Then it was that she realized how long it had been since Tims had creptup the stairs to her drawing-room; pausing probably in the middle ofthem to wipe away with hasty pocket-handkerchief some real or fanciedtrace of her foot on a carpet which she condemned as expensive. 

Mildred had written her a note, but it was hardly posted when the doorwas flung open and Miss Timson was formally announced by theparlor-maid. Tony, who was looking at pictures with his mother, rosefrom her side, prepared to take a hop, skip, and jump and land with hisarms around Tims's waist. But he stopped short and contemplated herwith round-eyed solemnity. The ginger-colored man's wig had developedinto a frizzy fringe and the rest of the coiffure of the hour. A largepicture hat surmounted it, and her little person was clothed in a vividheliotrope dress of the latest mode. It was a handsome dress, a handsomehat, a handsome wig, yet somehow the effect was jarring. Tony feltvaguely shocked. "Bless thee! Thou art translated!" he might have criedwith Quince; but being a polite child, he said nothing, only put out asmall hand sadly. Tims, however, unconscious of the slight chill cast byher appearance, kissed him in a perfunctory, patronizing way, as ladiesdo who are afraid of disarranging their veils. She greeted Mildred alsowith a parade of mundane elegance, and sat down deliberately on thesofa, spreading out her heliotrope skirts. 

"You can run away just now, little man, " she said to Tony. "I want totalk to your mother. "

"How smart you are!" observed Mildred, seeing that comment of some kindwould be welcome. "Been to Sir James Carus's big party at the Museum, Isuppose. You're getting a personage, Tims. "

"I dare say I shall look in later, but I shouldn't trouble to dress upfor that, my girl. Clothes would be quite wasted there. But I think oneshould always try to look decent, don't you? One's men like it. "

Mildred smiled. 

"I suppose Ian would notice it if I positively wasn't decent. But, Tims, dear, does old Carus really criticise your frocks?"

For indeed the distinguished scientist, Miss Timson's chief, was theonly man she could think of to whom Tims could possibly apply thepossessive adjective. Tims bridled. 

"Of course not; I was thinking of Mr. Fitzalan. "

That she had for years been very kind to a lonely little man of thatname who lived in the same block of chambers, Mildred knew, but--Heavens! Even Mildred's presence of mind failed her, and shestared. Meeting her amazed eye, Tims's borrowed smile suddenly broke itsbounds and became her own familiar grin, only more so:

"We're engaged, " she said. 

"My dear Tims!" exclaimed Mildred, suppressing an inclination to burstout laughing. "What a surprise!"

"I quite thought you'd have been prepared for it, " returned Tims. "A bitstupid of you not to guess it, don't you know, old girl. We've beencourting long enough. "

Mildred hastened to congratulate the strange bride and wish herhappiness, with all that unusual grace which she knew how to employ inadorning the usual. 

"I thought I should like you to be the first to know, " said Tims, sentimentally, after a while; "because I was your bridesmaid, you see. It was the prettiest wedding I ever saw, and I should love to have awedding like yours--all of us carrying lilies, you know. "

"I remember there were green stains on my wedding-dress, " returnedMildred, with forced gayety. 

Tims, temporarily oblivious of all awkward circumstances, continued, still more sentimentally:

"Then I was there, as I've told you, when Ian's pop came to poor old M. Poor old girl! She was awfully spifligatingly happy, and I feel just thesame now myself. "

"Well, it wasn't I, anyhow, who felt 'awfully spifligatingly happy' onthat occasion, " replied Mildred, with a touch of asperity in her voice. 

Tims, legitimately absorbed in her own feelings, did not notice it. Shecontinued:

"I dare say the world will say Mr. Fitzalan had an eye on my money; andit's true I've done pretty well with my investments. But, bless you! hehadn't a notion of that. You see, I was brought up to be stingy, and Ienjoy it. He thought of course I was a pauper, and proposed we shouldpauper along together. He was quite upset when he found I was anheiress. Wasn't it sweet of him?"

Mildred said it was. 

"Flora Fitzalan!" breathed Tims, clasping her hands and smiling intospace. "Isn't it a pretty name? It's always been my dream to have apretty name. " Then suddenly, as though in a flash seeing all thosepersonal disadvantages which she usually contrived to ignore:

"Life's a queer lottery, Mil, my girl. We know what we are, we know notwhat we shall be, as old Billy says. Who'd ever have thought that anice, quiet girl like Milly, marrying the lad of her heart and all that, would come to such awful grief; while look at me--a queer kind of girlyou'd have laid your bottom dollar wouldn't have much luck, prosperinglike anything, well up in the Science business, and now, what's ever somuch better, scrumptiously happy with a good sort of her own. Upon myword, Mil, I've half a mind to fetch old M. Back to sympathize with me, for although you've said a peck of nice things, I don't believe youunderstand what I'm feeling the way the old girl would. "

Mildred went a little pale and spoke quickly. 

"You won't do that really, Tims? You won't be so cruel to--to everyone?"

"I don't know. I don't see why you're always to be jolly and haveeverything your own way. Oh, Lord! When I think how happy old M. Waswhen she was engaged, the same as I am, and then on herwedding-day--just the same as I shall be on mine. "

Mildred straightened out the frill of a muslin cushion cover, her headbent. 

"Just so. She had everything _her_ own way that time. I gave her thathappiness, it was all my doing. She's had it and she ought to becontent. Don't be a fool, Tims--" she lifted her face and Tims wasstartled by its expression--"Can't you see how hard it is on me never tobe allowed the happiness you've got and Milly's had? Don't you think Imight care to know what love is like for myself? Don't you think I mighthappen to want--I tell you I'm a million times more alive thanMilly--and I want--I want everything a million times more than shedoes. "

Tims was astonished. 

"But it's always struck me, don't you know, that Ian was a deal more inlove with you than he ever was with poor old M. "

"And you pretend to be in love and think that's enough! It's not enough;you must know it's not. It's like sitting at a Barmecide feast, veryhungry, only the Barmecide's sitting opposite you eating all the timeand talking about his food. I tell you it's maddening, perfectlymaddening--" There was a fierce vehemence in her face, her voice, theclinch of her slender hands on the muslin frill. That strong vitalitywhich before had seemed to carry her lightly as on wings, over all therough places of life, had now not failed, but turned itself inwards, burning in an intense flame at once of pain and of rebellion against itsown pain. 

Tims in the midst of her happiness, felt vaguely scared. Mildred seeingit, recovered herself and plunged into the usual engagement talk. In afew minutes she was her old beguiling self--the self to whose charm Timswas as susceptible in her way as Thomas the Rhymer had been in his. 

When she had left, and from time to time thereafter, Tims felt vaguelyuncomfortable, remembering Mildred's outburst of vehement bitterness onthe subject of love. It was so unlike her usual careless tone, whichimplied that it was men's business, or weakness, to be in love withwomen, and that only second-rate women fell in love themselves. 

Mildred seemed altogether more serious than she used to be, and Millyherself could not have been more sympathetic over the engagement. EvenMr. Fitzalan, when Tims brought him to call on the Stewarts was notafraid of her, and found it possible to say a few words in reply to herremarks. Tims's ceremonious way of speaking of her betrothed, whom shenever mentioned except as Mr. Fitzalan, made Ian reflect with sad humoron the number of offensively familiar forms of address which he himselfhad endured from her, and on the melancholy certainty that she had neverspoken of him in his absence by any name more respectful than the plainunprefixed "Stewart. " But he hoped that the excitement of her engagementhad wiped out of her remembrance that afternoon when poor Milly hadtried to return. For he did not like to think of that moment of weaknessin which he had allowed Tims to divine so much of a state of mind whichhe could not unveil even to himself without a certain shame. 

CHAPTER XXIX

The summer was reaching its height. The weather was perfect. Night afternight hot London drawing-rooms were crowded to suffocation, awningssprang mushroom-like from every West End pavement; the sound of musicand the rolling of carriages made night, if not hideous, at leastdiscordant to the unconsidered minority who went to bed as usual. Outside in the country, even in the suburbs, June came in glory, withwoods in freshest livery of green, with fragrance of hawthorn and broomand gorse, buttercup meadows and gardens brimmed with roses. It seemedto George Goring and Mildred as though somehow this warmth, this gayetyand richness of life in the earth had never been there before, but thatFate and Nature, of which their love was part, were leading them on in agreat festal train to the inevitable consummation. The flame of life hadnever burned clearer or more steadily in Mildred, and every day she felta growing confidence in having won so complete a possession of her wholebodily machinery that it would hardly be in the power of Milly todethrone her. The sight of George Goring, the touch of his hand, thevery touch of his garment, gave her a feeling of unconquerable life. Itwas impossible that she and George should part. All her sanguine anddaring nature cried out to her that were she once his, Milly should not, could not, return. Tims, too, was there in reserve. Not that Tims wouldfeel anything but horror at Mildred's conduct in leaving Ian and Tony;but the thing done, she would recognize the impossibility of allowingMilly to return to such a situation. 

Ian, whose holidays were usually at the inevitable periods, was by someextraordinary collapse of that bloated thing, the Academic conscience, going away for a fortnight in June. He had been deputed to attend acentenary celebration at some German University, and a conference ofsavants to be held immediately after it, presented irresistibleattractions. 

One Sunday Tims and Mr. Fitzalan went to Hampton Court with the usualcrowd of German, Italian, and French hair-dressers, waiters, cooks, andrestaurant-keepers, besides native cockneys of all classes except theupper. 

The noble old Palace welcomed this mass of very common humanity withsuch a pageant of beauty as never greeted the eyes of its royalbuilders. Centuries of sunshine seem to have melted into the rich redsand grays and cream-color of its walls, under which runs a quarter of amile of flower-border, a glowing mass of color, yet as full of delicateand varied detail as the border of an illuminated missal. Everywherethis modern wealth and splendor of flowers is arranged, as jewels in asetting, within the architectural plan of the old garden. There the darkyews retain their intended proportion, the silver fountain rises whereit was meant to rise, although it sprinkles new, unthought-of lilies. Behind it, on either side the stately vista of water, and beside it, inthe straight alley, the trees in the freshness and fulness of theirleafage, stand tall and green, less trim and solid it may be, butessentially as they were meant to stand when the garden grew long ago inthe brain of a man. And out there beyond the terrace the Thames flowsquietly, silverly on, seeming to shine with the memory of all theloveliness those gliding waters have reflected, since their ripplesplayed with the long, tremulous image of Lechlade spire. 

Seen from the cool, deep-windowed rooms of the Palace, where now thepictures hang and hundreds of plebeian feet tramp daily, the gardensgave forth a burning yet pleasant glow of heat and color in the fullsunshine. Tims and Mr. Fitzalan, having eaten their frugal lunch earlyunder the blossoming chestnut-trees in Bushey Park, went into thePicture Gallery in the Palace at an hour when it happened to be almostempty. The queer-looking woman not quite young, and the little, bald, narrow-chested, short-sighted man, would not have struck the passers-byas being a pair of lovers. A few sympathetic smiles, however, had beenbestowed upon another couple seated in the deep window of one of thesmaller rooms; a pretty young woman and an attractive man. The young manhad disposed his hat and a newspaper in such a way as not to make itindecently obvious that he was holding her hand. It was she who calledattention to the fact by hasty attempts to snatch it away when peoplecame in. 

"What do you do that for?" asked the young man. "There's not theslightest chance of any one we know coming along. "

"But George--"

"Do try and adapt yourself to your _milieu_. These people are probablyblaming me for not putting my arm around your waist. "

"George! What an idiot you are!" She laughed a nervous laugh. 

By this time the last party of fat, dark young women in rainbow hats, and narrow-shouldered, anæmic young men, had trooped away towards food. Goring waited till the sound of their footsteps had ceased. He washolding Mildred's hand, but he had drawn it out from under the newspapernow, and the gay audacity of his look had changed to something at oncemore serious and more masterful. 

"I don't like your seeming afraid, Mildred, " he said. "It spoils my ideaof you. I like to think of you as a high-spirited creature, consciousenough of your own worth to go your own way and despise the foolishcomments of the crowd. "

To hear herself so praised by him made the clear pink rise to Mildred'scheeks. How could she bear to fall below the level of his expectation, although the thing he expected of her had dangers of which he wasignorant?

"I'm glad you believe that of me, " she said; "although it's not quitetrue. I cared a good deal about the opinion of the world before--beforeI knew you; only I was vain enough to think it would never treat me verybadly. "

"It won't, " he replied, his audacious smile flashing out for a moment. "It'll come sneaking back to you before long; it can't keep away. Besides, I'm cynic enough to know my own advantages, Mildred. Societydoesn't sulk forever with wealthy people, whatever they choose to do. "

She answered low: "But I shouldn't care if it did, George. I wantyou--just to go right away with you. "

A wonderful look of joy and tenderness came over his face. "Mildred! Canit really be you saying that?" he breathed. "Really you, Mildred?"

They looked each other in the eyes and were silent a minute; but whilethe hand next the window held hers, the other one stole out farther toclasp her. He was too much absorbed in that gaze to notice anythingbeyond it; but Mildred was suddenly aware of steps and a voice in theadjoining room. Tims and Mr. Fitzalan, in the course of a conscientioussurvey of all the pictures on the walls, had reached this point in theirprogress. The window-seat on which Goring and Mildred were sitting wasvisible through a doorway, and Tims had on her strongest glasses. 

Since her engagement, Tims's old-maidish bringing up seemed to bebearing fruit for the first time. 

"I think we'd better cough or do something, " she said. "There's a couplein there going on disgracefully. I do think spooning in public such badform. "

"I dare say they think they're alone, " returned the charitable Mr. Fitzalan, unable to see the delinquents because he was trying to put aloose lens back into his eye-glasses. Tims came to his assistance, talking loudly; and her voice was of a piercing quality. Mildred, leaning forward, saw Mr. Fitzalan and Tims, both struggling witheye-glasses. She slipped from George's encircling arm and stood in thedoorway of the farther room, beckoning to him with a scared face. He gotup and followed her. 

"What's the matter?" he asked, more curious than anxious; for anencounter with Lady Augusta in person could only precipitate a crisis hewas ready to welcome. Why should one simple, definite step from an oldlife to a new one, which his reason as much as his passion dictated, beso incredibly difficult to take?

Mildred hurried him away, explaining that she had seen some one she knewvery well. He pointed out that it was of no real consequence. She couldnot tell him that if Tims suspected anything before the decisive stepwas taken, one of the safeguards under which she took it might fail. 

They found no exit at the end of the suite of rooms, still less anyplace of concealment. Tims and Mr. Fitzalan came upon them discussingthe genuineness of a picture in the last room but one. When Tims sawthat it was Mildred, she made some of the most dreadful grimaces she hadever made in her life. Making them, she approached Mildred, who seeingthere was no escape, turned around and greeted her with a welcomingsmile. 

"Were you--were you sitting on that window-seat?" asked Tims, fixing herwith eyes that seemed bent on piercing to her very marrow. 

Mildred smiled again, with a broader smile. 

"I don't know about 'that window-seat. ' I've sat on a good manywindow-seats, naturally, since I set forth on this pilgrimage. Is thereanything particular about that one? I've never seen Hampton Courtbefore, Mr. Fitzalan, so as some people I knew were coming to-day, Ithought I'd come too. May I introduce Mr. Goring?"

So perfectly natural and easy was Mildred's manner, that Tims alreadyhalf disbelieved her own eyes. They must have played her some trick; yethow could that be? She recalled the figures in the window-seat, as seenwith all the peculiar, artificial distinctness conferred by strongglasses. The young man called Goring had smiled into the hidden face ofhis companion in a manner that Tims could not approve. She made up hermind that as soon as she had leisure she would call on Mildred andquestion her once more, and more straitly, concerning the mystery ofthat window-seat. 

CHAPTER XXX

On Monday and Tuesday an interesting experiment which she was conductingunder Carus claimed Tims's whole attention, except for the eveninghours, which were dedicated to Mr. Fitzalan. But she wrote to say thatMildred might expect her to tea on Wednesday. On Wednesday the postbrought her a note from Mildred, dated Tuesday, midnight. 

 "DEAR TIMS, --I am afraid you will not find me to-morrow afternoon, as I am going out of town. But do go to tea with Tony, who is just back from the sea and looking bonny. He is such a darling! I always mind leaving him, although of course I am not his mother. Oh, dear, I am so sleepy, I hardly know what I am saying. Good-bye, Tims, dear. I am very glad you are so happy with that nice Mr. Fitzalan of yours. 

 Yours, M. B. S. "

So far the note, although bearing signs of haste, was in Mildred's usualclear handwriting; but there was a postscript scrawled crookedly acrossthe inner sides of the sheet and prefixed by several flourishes:

 "Meet me at Paddington 4. 30 train to-morrow. Meet me. M. "

Another flourish followed. 

The note found Tims at the laboratory, which she had not intendedleaving till half-past four. But the perplexing nature of thepostscript, conflicting as it did with the body of the letter, made herthe more inclined to obey its direction. 

She arrived at Paddington in good time and soon caught sight of Mildred, although for the tenth part of a second she hesitated in identifyingher; for Mildred seldom wore black, although she looked well in it. To-day she was dressed in a long, black silk wrap--which, gathered abouther slender figure by a ribbon, concealed her whole dress--and wore along, black lace veil which might have baffled the eyes of a mereacquaintance. Tims could not fail to recognize that willowy figure, withits rare grace of motion, that amber hair, those turquoise-blue eyesthat gleamed through the swathing veil with a restless brilliancyunusual even in them. With disordered dress and hat on one side, Timshastened after Mildred. 

"So here you are!" she exclaimed; "that's all right! I managed to come, you see, though it's been a bit of a rush. "

Mildred looked around at her, astonished, possibly dismayed; but theveil acted as a mask. 

"Well, this is a surprise, Tims! What on earth brought you here? Isanything the matter?"

"Just what I wanted to know. Why are you in black? Going to a funeral?"

"Good Heavens, no! The only funeral I mean to go to will be my own. But, Tims, I thought you were going to tea with Tony. Why have you comehere?"

"Didn't you tell me to come in the postscript of your letter?"

Mildred was evidently puzzled. 

"I don't remember anything about it, " she said. "I was frightfully tiredwhen I wrote to you--in fact, I went to sleep over the letter; but Ican't imagine how I came to say that. "

Tims was not altogether surprised. She had had an idea that Mildred wasnot answerable for that postscript, but Mildred herself had no clew tothe mystery, never having been told of Milly's written communication ofa year ago. She sickened at the possibility that in some moment ofaberration she might have written words meant for another on the note toTims. 

Tims felt sure that Milly wished her to do something--but what?

"Where are you going?" she asked. "What are you going to do?"

"I'm going to stay with some friends who have a house on the river, andI'm going to do--what people always do on the river. Any other questionsto ask, Tims?"

"Yes. I should like to know who your friends are. "

Mildred laughed nervously. 

"You won't be any the wiser if I tell you. " And in the instant shereflected that what she said was true. "I am going to the Gorings'. "

The difference between that and the exact truth was only the differencebetween the plural and the singular. 

"Don't go, old girl, " said Tims, earnestly. "Come back to Tony with meand wait till Ian comes home. "

Mildred was very pale behind the heavy black lace of her veil and herheart beat hard; but she spoke with self-possession. 

"Don't be absurd, Tims. Tony is perfectly well, and there's Mr. Goringwho is to travel down with me. How can I possibly go back? You'reworrying about Milly, I suppose. Well, I'm rather nervous about hermyself. I always am when I go away alone. You don't mind my telling themto wire for you if I sleep too long, do you? And you'd come as quick asever you could? Think how awkward it would be for Milly and for--for theGorings. "

"I'd come right enough, " returned Tims, sombrely. "But if you feel likethat, don't go. "

"I don't feel like that, " replied Mildred; "I never felt less like it, or I shouldn't go. Still, one should be prepared for anything that mayhappen. All the same, I very much doubt that you will ever see your poorfriend Milly again, Tims. You must try to forgive me. Now do make hasteand go to darling Tony--he's simply longing to have you. I see Mr. Goring has taken our places in the train, and I shall be left behind ifI don't go. Good-bye, old Tims. "

Mildred kissed Tims's heated, care-distorted face, and turned away towhere Goring stood at the book-stall buying superfluous literature. Timssaw him lift his hat gravely to Mildred. It relieved her vaguely tonotice that there seemed no warmth or familiarity about their greeting. She turned away towards the Metropolitan Railway, not feeling quite surewhether she had failed in an important mission or merely made a fool ofherself. 

She found Tony certainly looking bonny, and no more inclined to breakhis heart about his mother's departure than any other healthy, happychild under like circumstances. Indeed, it may be doubted whether ahealthy, happy child, unknowing whence its beatitudes spring, does notin its deepest, most vital moment regard all grown-up people asnecessary nuisances. No one came so delightfully near being anotherchild as Mildred; but Tims was a capital playfellow too, a broadcomedian of the kind appreciated on the nursery boards. 

A rousing game with him and an evening at the theatre with Mr. Fitzalan, distracted Tims's thoughts from her anxieties. But at night she dreamedrepeatedly and uneasily of Milly and Mildred as of two separate persons, and of Mr. Goring, whose vivid face seen in the full light of the windowat Hampton Court, returned to her in sleep with a distinctnessunobtainable in her waking memory. 

On the following day her work with Sir James Carus was of absorbinginterest, and she came home tired and preoccupied with it. Yet herdreams of the night before recurred in forms at once more confused andmore poignant. At two o'clock in the morning she awoke, crying aloud: "Imust get Milly back"; and her pillow was wet with tears. For the twofollowing hours she must have been awake, because she heard all thequarters strike from a neighboring church-tower, yet they appeared likea prolonged nightmare. The emotional impression of some forgotten dreamremained, and she passed them in an agony of grief for she knew notwhat, of remorse for having on a certain summer afternoon denied Milly'spetition for her assistance, and of intense volition, resembling prayer, for Milly's return. 

CHAPTER XXXI

The intense heat of early afternoon quivered on the steep woods whichfell to the river opposite the house. The sunlit stream curved underthem, moving clear and quiet over depths of brown, tangledwater-growths, and along its fringe of gray and green reeds and grassesand creamy plumes of meadow-sweet. The house was not very large. It wassquare and white; an old wistaria, an old Gloire-de-Dijon, and a newercarmine cluster-rose contended for possession of its surface. Stripedawnings were down over all the lower windows and some of the upper. Alarge lawn, close-shorn and velvety green, as only Thames-side lawns canbe, stretched from the house to the river. It had no flower-beds on it, but a cedar here, an ilex there, dark and substantial on their own darkshadows, and trellises and pillars overrun by a flood of roses of everyshade, from deep crimson to snow white. The lawn was surrounded byshrubberies and plantations, and beyond it there was nothing to be seenexcept the opposite woods and the river, and sometimes boats passing bywith a measured sound of oars in the rowlocks, or the temporarycommotion of a little steam-launch. It looked a respectable earlyVictorian house, but it had never been quite that, for it had beenbuilt by George Goring's father fifty years earlier, and he himself hadspent much of his boyhood there. 

Everything and every one seemed asleep, except a young man in flannelswith a flapping hat hanging over his eyes, who stood at the end of apunt and pretended to fish. There was no one to look at him or at thehouse behind him, and if there had been observers, they would not haveguessed that they were looking at the Garden of Eden and that he wasAdam. Only last evening he and that fair Eve of his had stood by theriver in the moonlight, where the shattering hawthorn-bloom made the airheavy with sweetness, and had spoken to each other of this theirexquisite, undreamed-of happiness. There had been a Before, there wouldbe an After, when they must stand on their defence against the world, must resist a thousand importunities, heart-breaking prayers, to returnto the old, false, fruitless existence. 

But just for these days they could be utterly alone in their paradise, undisturbed even by the thoughts of others, since no one knew they werethere and together. Alas! they had been so only forty-eight hours, andalready a cold little serpent of anxiety had crept in among their roses. 

Before entrusting herself to him, Mildred had told him that, in spite ofher apparent good health, she was occasionally subject to longtrance-like fits, resembling sleep; should this happen, it would beuseless to call an ordinary doctor, but that a Miss Timson, a well-knownscientific woman and a friend of hers, must be summoned at once. He hadtaken Miss Timson's address and promised to do so; but Mildred had notseemed to look upon the fit as more than a remote contingency. Perhapsthe excitement, the unconscious strain of the last few days had upsether nerves; for this morning she had lain in what he had taken for anatural sleep, until, finding her still sleeping profoundly at noon, hehad remembered her words and telegraphed to Miss Timson. An answer tohis telegram, saying that Miss Timson would come as soon as possible, lay crumpled up at the bottom of the punt. 

The serpent was there, but Goring did not allow its peeping coilsthoroughly to chill his roses. His temperament was too sanguine, he felttoo completely steeped in happiness, the weather was too beautiful. Mostlikely Mildred would be all right to-morrow. 

Meantime, up there in the shaded room, she who had been Mildred began tostir in her sleep. She opened her eyes and gazed through the squarewindow, at the sunlit awning that overhung it, and at the green leavesand pale buds of the Gloire-de-Dijon rose. There was a hum of bees closeby that seemed like the voice of the hot sunshine. It should have been apleasant awakening, but Milly awoke from that long sleep of hers with abrooding sense of misfortune. The remembrance of the afternoon when shehad so suddenly been snatched away returned to her, but it was not therevelation of Ian's passionate love for her supplanter that came back toher as the thing of most importance. Surely she must have known thatlong before, for now the pain seemed old and dulled from habit. It wasthe terrible strength with which the Evil Spirit had possessed her, seizing her channels of speech even while she was still there, hurlingher from her seat without waiting for the passivity of sleep. No, hersense of misfortune was not altogether, or even mainly, connected withthat last day of hers. Unlike Mildred, she had up till now been withoutany consciousness of things that had occurred during her quiescence, andshe had now no vision; only a strong impression that something terriblehad befallen Ian. 

She looked around the bedroom, and it seemed to her very strange;something like an hotel room, yet at once too sumptuous and too shabby. There was a faded pink flock wall-paper with a gilt pattern upon it, thechairs were gilded and padded and covered with worn pink damask, the bedwas gilded and hung with faded pink silk curtains. Everywhere there waspink and gilding, and everywhere it was old and faded and rubbed. A fewearly Victorian lithographs hung on the walls, portraits ofballet-dancers and noblemen with waists and whiskers. No one had tidiedthe room since the night before, and fine underclothing was flungcarelessly about on chairs, a fussy petticoat here, the bodice of anevening dress there; everywhere just that touch of mingled daintinessand disorder which by this time Milly recognized only too well. 

The bed was large, and some one else had evidently slept there besidesherself, for the sheet and pillow were rumpled and there was ahalf-burnt candle and a man's watch-chain on the small table beside it. Wherever she was then, Ian was there too, so that she was at a loss tounderstand her own sinister foreboding. 

She pulled at the bell-rope twice. 

There were only three servants in the house; a housekeeper and twomaids, who all dated from the days of Mrs. Maria Idle, ex-mistress ofthe late Lord Ipswich, dead herself now some six months. The housekeeperwas asleep, the maids out of hearing. She opened the door and found abathroom opposite her bedroom. It had a window which showed her a stripof lawn with flower-beds upon it, beyond that shrubberies and tall treeswhich shut out any farther view. A hoarse cuckoo was crying in thedistance, and from the greenery came a twittering of birds and sometimesa few liquid pipings; but there was no sound of human life. The placeseemed as empty as an enchanted palace in a fairy story. 

Milly's toilet never took her very long. She put on a fresh, simplecotton dress, which seemed to have been worn the day before, and wasjust hesitating as to whether she should go down or wait for Ian tocome, when Clarkson, the housekeeper, knocked at her door. 

"I thought if you was awake, madam, you might like a bit of lunch, " shesaid. 

Milly refused, for this horrible feeling of depression and anxiety madeher insensible to hunger. She looked at the housekeeper with a certainsurprise, for Clarkson was as decorated and as much the worse for wearas the furniture of the bedroom. She was a large, fat woman, laced intoa brown cashmere dress, with a cameo brooch on her ample bosom; her hairwas unnaturally black, curled and dressed high on the top of her head, she had big gold earrings, and a wealth of powder on her large, redface. 

"Can you tell me where I am likely to find Mr. Stewart?" asked Milly, politely. 

The woman stared, and when she answered there was more than a shade ofinsolence in her coarse voice and smile. 

"I'm sure I can't tell, madam. Mr. Stewart's not our gentleman here. "

Milly, understanding the reply as little as the housekeeper hadunderstood the question, yet felt that some impertinence was intendedand turned away. 

There was nothing for it but to explore on her own account. A staircaseof the dull Victorian kind led down to a dark, cool hall. The front doorwas open. She walked to it and stood under a stumpy portico, lookingout. The view was much the same as that seen from the bathroom, onlythat instead of grass and flower-beds there was a gravel sweep, and, just opposite the front door, a circle of grass with a tallmonkey-puzzle tree in the centre. Except for the faded gorgeousness ofthe bedroom, the house looked like an ordinary country house, belongingto old people who did not care to move with the times. Why should shefeel at every step a growing dread of what might meet her there?

She turned from the portico and opened, hesitatingly, the door of a roomon the opposite side of the hall. It was a drawing-room, with traces ofthe same shabby gorgeousness that prevailed in the bedroom, butmitigated by a good deal of clean, faded chintz; and at one end was abrilliant full-length Millais portrait of Mrs. Maria Idle in blue silkand a crinoline. It was a long room, pleasant in the dim light; foralthough it had three windows, the farthest a French one and open, allwere covered with awnings, coming low down and showing nothing of theouter world but a hand's breadth of turf and wandering bits of creeper. It was sweet with flowers, and on a consol table before a mirror stood ahigh vase from which waved and twined tall sprays and long streamers ofcluster-roses, carmine and white. It was beautiful, yet Milly turnedaway from it almost with a shudder. She recognized the touch of the handthat must have set the roses there. And the nameless horror grew uponher. 

Except for the flowers, there was little sign of occupation in the room. A large round rosewood table was set with blue glass vases on mats andsome dozen photograph--albums and gift-books, dating from the sixties. But on a stool in a corner lay a newspaper; and the date on it gave hera shock. She had supposed herself to have been away about four months;she found she had been gone sixteen. There had been plenty of time for amisfortune to happen, and she felt convinced that it had happened. Butwhat? If Ian or Tony were dead she would surely still be in mourning. Then on a little rosewood escritoire, such as ladies were wont to usewhen they had nothing to write, she spied an old leather writing-casewith the initials M. B. F. Upon it. It was one Aunt Beatrice had givenher when she first went to Ascham, and it seemed to look on herpleasantly, like the face of an old friend. She found a few letters inthe pockets, among them one from Ian written from Berlin a few daysbefore, speaking of his speedy return and of Tony's amusing letter fromthe sea-side. She began to hope her feeling of anxiety and depressionmight be only the shadow of the fear and anguish which she had sufferedon that horrible afternoon sixteen months ago. She must try not to thinkabout it, must try to be bright for Ian's sake. Some one surely was withher at this queer place, since she was sharing a room with anotherperson--probably a female friend of that Other's, who had such a crowdof them. 

She drew the awning half-way up and stood on the step outside the Frenchwindow. The lawn, the trees, the opposite hills were unknown to her, butthe spirit of the river spoke to her familiarly, and she knew it for theThames. A gardener in shirt-sleeves was filling a water-barrel by theriver, under a hawthorn-tree, and the young man in the punt was puttingup his fishing-tackle. As she looked, the strangeness of the scenepassed away. She could not say where it was, but in some dream or visionshe had certainly seen this lawn, that view, before; when the young manturned and came nearer she would know his face. And the dim, horriblething that was waiting for her somewhere about the quiet house, thequiet garden, seemed to draw a step nearer, to lift its veil a little. Who was it that had stood not far from where the gardener was standingnow, and seen the moon hanging large and golden over the mystery of theopposite woods? Whoever it was, some one's arm had been fast around herand there had been kisses--kisses. 

It took but a few seconds for these half-revelations to drop into hermind, and before she had had time to reflect upon them, the young man inthe punt looked up and saw her standing there on the step. He took offhis floppy hat and waved it to her; then he put down his tackle, ran tothe near end of the punt and jumped lightly ashore. He came up the greenlawn, and her anxiety sent her down to meet him almost as eagerly aslove would have done. The hat shaded all the upper part of his face, andat a distance, in the strong sunshine, the audacious chin, the red lowerlip, caught her eye first and seemed to extinguish the rest of the face. And suddenly she disliked them. Who was the man, and how did she come toknow him? But former experiences of strange awakenings had made hercautious, self-controlling, almost capable of hypocrisy. 

"So you're awake!" shouted George, still a long way down the lawn. "Good! How are you? All right?"

She nodded "Yes, " with a constrained smile. 

In a minute they had met, he had turned her around, and with his armunder hers was leading her towards the house again. 

"All right? Really all right?" he asked very softly, pressing her armwith his hand and stooping his head to bring his mouth on a level withher ear. 

"Very nearly, at any rate, " she answered, coldly, trying to draw awayfrom him. 

"What are you doing that for?" he asked. "Afraid of shocking thegardener, eh? What queer little dear little ways you've got! I supposeUndines are like that. "

He drew her closer to him as he threw back his head and laughed a noisylaugh that jarred upon her nerves. 

Milly began to feel indignant. It was just possible that a youngersister in Australia might have married and brought this extraordinaryyoung man home to England, but his looks, his tone, were not fraternal;and she had never forgotten the Maxwell Davison episode. She walked onstiffly. 

"Every one seems to be out, " she observed, as calmly as she could. 

He frowned. 

"You mean those devils of servants haven't been looking after you?" heasked. "Yet I gave Clarkson her orders. Of course they're baggages, butI haven't had the heart to send them away from the old place, for who onearth would take them? I expect we aren't improving their chances, youand I, at this very moment; in spite of respecting the gardener'sprejudices. "

He chuckled, as at some occult joke of his own. 

They stooped together under the half-raised awning of the French window, and entered the dim, flower-scented drawing-room side by side. The youngman threw off his hat, and she saw the silky ripple of his nut-brownhair, his smooth forehead, his bright-glancing hazel eyes, all the happypleasantness of his countenance. Before she had had time to reconsiderher dislike of him, he had caught her in his arms and kissed her hairand face, whispering little words of love between the kisses. For oneparalyzed moment Milly suffered these dreadful words, these horriblecaresses. Then exerting the strength of frenzy, she pushed him from herand bounded to the other side of the room, entrenching herself behindthe big rosewood table with its smug mats and vases and albums. 

"You brute! you brute! you hateful cad!" she stammered with tremblinglips; "how dare you touch me?"

George Goring stared at her with startled eyes. 

"Mildred! Dearest! Good God! What's gone wrong?"

"Where's my husband?" she asked, in a voice sharp with anger and terror. "I want to go--I must leave this horrid place at once. "

"Your husband?"

It was Goring's turn to feel himself plunged into the midst of anightmare, and he grew almost as pale as Milly. How in Heaven's name washe going to manage her? She looked very ill and must of course bedelirious. That would have been alarming in any case, and thisparticular form of delirium was excruciatingly painful. 

"Yes, my husband--where is he? I shall tell him how you've dared toinsult me. I must go. This is your house--I must leave it at once. "

Goring did not attempt to come near her. He spoke very quietly. 

"Try and remember, Mildred; Stewart is not here. He will not even be inEngland till to-morrow. You are alone with me. Hadn't you better go tobed again and--" he was about to say, "wait until Miss Timson comes, "but as it was possible that the advent of the person she had wished himto summon might now irritate her, he substituted--"and keep quiet? Ipromise not to come near you if you don't wish to see me. "

"I am alone here with you?" Milly repeated, slowly, and pressed her handto her forehead. "Good God, " she moaned to herself, "what can havehappened?"

"Yes. For Heaven's sake, go and lie down. I expect the doctor can giveyou something to soothe your nerves and then perhaps you'll remember. "

She made a gesture of fierce impatience. 

"You think I'm mad, but I'm not. I have been mad and I am myself again;only I can't remember anything that's happened since I went out of mymind. I insist upon your telling me. Who are you? I never saw you beforeto my knowledge. "

Her voice, her attitude were almost truculent as she faced him, herright hand dragging at the loose clasp of a big photograph album. Everyword, every look, was agony to Goring, but he controlled himself by aneffort. 

"I am George Goring, " he said, slowly, and paused with anxious eyesfixed upon her, hoping that the name might yet stir some answeringstring of tenderness in the broken lyre of her mind. 

She too paused, as though tracking some far-off association with thename. Then:

"Ah! poor Lady Augusta's husband, " she repeated, yet sterner than beforein her anger. "My friend Lady Augusta's husband! And why am I here alonewith you, Mr. Goring?"

"Because I am your lover, Mildred. Because I love you better than anyone or any thing in the world; and yesterday you thought you loved me, you thought you could trust all your life to me. "

She had known the answer already in her heart, but the fact statedplainly by another, became even more dreadful, more intolerable, thanbefore. She uttered a low cry and covered her eyes with her hand. 

"Mildred--dearest!" he breathed imploringly. 

Then she raised her head and looked straight at him with flaming eyes, this fair, fragile creature transformed into a pitiless Fury. She forgotthat indeed an Evil Spirit had dwelt within her; George Goring might bevictim rather than culprit. In this hour of her anguish the identity ofthat body of hers, which through him was defiled, that honor of hers, yes and of Ian Stewart's, which through him was dragged in the dust, made her no longer able to keep clearly in mind the separateness of theMildred Stewart of yesterday from herself. 

"I tell you I was mad, " she gasped; "and you--you vile, wicked man!--youtook advantage of it to ruin my life--to ruin my husband's life! Youmust know Ian Stewart, a man whose shoes you are not fit to tie. Do youthink any woman in her senses would leave him for you? Ah!--" shebreathed a long, shuddering breath and her hand was clinched so hardupon the loose album clasp that it ran into her palm. 

"Mildred!" cried George, staggered, stricken as though by some fieryrain. 

"I ought to be sorry for your wife, " she went on. "She is a splendidwoman, she has done nothing to deserve that you should treat her soscandalously. But I can't--I can't"--a dry sob caught her voice--"besorry for any one except myself and Ian. I always knew I wasn't goodenough to be his wife, but I was so proud of it--so proud--and now--Oh, it's too horrible! I'm not fit to live. "

George had sunk upon a chair and hidden his face in his hands. 

"Don't say that, " he muttered hoarsely, almost inaudibly. "It was mydoing. "

She broke out again. 

"Of course it was. It's nothing to you, I suppose. You've broken myhusband's heart and mine too; you've hopelessly disgraced us both andspoiled our lives; and all for the sake of a little amusement, a littlelow pleasure. We can't do anything, we can't punish you; but if curseswere any use, oh, how I could curse you, Mr. Goring!"

The sobs rising in a storm choked her voice. She rushed from the room, closing the door behind her and leaving George Goring there, his head onhis hands. He sat motionless, hearing nothing but the humming silence ofthe hot afternoon. 

Milly, pressing back her tears, flew across the hall and up the stairs. The vague nightmare thing that had lurked for her in the shadows of thehouse, when she had descended them so quietly, had taken shape at last. She knew now the unspeakable secret of the pink and gold bedroom, theshabbily gorgeous bed, the posturing dancers, the simpering, tailorednoblemen. The atmosphere of it, scented and close, despite the openwindow, seemed to take her by the throat. She dared not stop to think, lest this sick despair, this loathing of herself, should master her. Toget home at once was her impulse, and she must do it before any onecould interfere. 

It was a matter of a few seconds to find a hat, gloves, a parasol. Shenoticed a purse in the pocket of her dress and counted the money in it. There was not much, but enough to take her home, since she felt sure theriver shimmering over there was the Thames. She did not stay to changeher thin shoes, but flitted down the stairs and out under the portico, as silent as a ghost. The drive curved through a shrubbery, and in aminute she was out of sight of the house. She hurried past the lodge, hesitating in which direction to turn, when a tradesman's cart drovepast. She asked the young man who was driving it her way to the station, and he told her it was not very far, but that she could not catch thenext train to town if she meant to walk. He was going in that directionhimself and would give her a lift if she liked. She accepted the youngman's offer; but if he made it in order to beguile the tedium of hisway, he was disappointed. 

The road was dusty and sunny, and this gave her a reason for opening herlarge parasol. She cowered under it, hiding herself from the women whorolled by in shiny carriages with high-stepping horses; not so muchbecause she feared she might meet acquaintances, as from an instinctivedesire to hide herself, a thing so shamed and everlastingly wretched, from every human eye. And so it happened that, when she was close to thestation, she missed seeing and being seen by Tims, who was driving toMr. Goring's house in a hired trap which he had sent to meet her. 

CHAPTER XXXII

Milly took a ticket for Paddington and hurried to the train, which waswaiting at the platform, choosing an empty compartment. Action hadtemporarily dulled the passion of her misery, her rage, her shudderinghorror at herself. But alone in the train, it all returned upon her, only with a complete realization of circumstance which made it worse. 

It had been her impulse to rush to her home, to her husband, as forrefuge. Now she perceived that there was no refuge for her, no comfortin her despair, but rather another ordeal to be faced. She would have totell her husband the truth, so far as she knew it. Good God! Why couldshe not shake off from her soul the degradation, the burning shame ofthis fair flesh of hers, and return to him with some other body, howeverhomely, which should be hers and hers alone? She remembered that the manshe loathed had said that Ian would not be back in England untilto-morrow. She supposed the Evil Thing had counted on stealing home intime to meet him, and would have met him with an innocently smilingface. 

A moment Milly triumphed in the thought that it was she herself whowould meet Ian and reveal to him the treachery of the creature who hadsupplanted her in his heart. Then with a shudder she hid her face, remembering that it was, after all, her own dishonor and his which shemust reveal. He would of course take her back, and if that could be theend, they might live down the thing together. But it would not be theend. "I am the stronger, " that Evil Thing had said, and it was thestronger. At first step by step, now with swift advancing strides, itwas robbing her of the months, the years, till soon, very soon, while inthe world's eyes she seemed to live and thrive, she would be dead; dead, without a monument, without a tear, her very soul not free and in God'shands, but held somewhere in abeyance. And Ian? Through whatdegradation, to what public shame would he, the most refined andsensitive of men, be dragged! His child--her child and Ian's--would growup like that poor wretched George Goring, breathing corruption, lies, dishonor, from his earliest years. And she, the wife, the mother, wouldseem to be guilty of all that, while she was really bound, helpless--dead. 

The passion of her anger and despair stormed through her veins againwith yet greater violence, but this time George Goring was forgotten andall its waves broke impotently against that adversary whose diabolicalpower she was so impotent to resist, who might return to-morrow, to-dayfor aught she knew. 

She had been moving restlessly about the compartment, making vehementgestures in her desperation, but now a sudden, terrible, yet calmingidea struck her to absolute quietness. There was a way, just one, tothwart this adversary; she could destroy the body into which it thoughtto return. At the same moment there arose in her soul two opposing wavesof emotion--one of passionate self-pity to think that she, so weak andtimid, should be driven to destroy herself; the other of triumph overher mortal foe delivered into her hands. She felt a kind of triumph tooin the instantaneousness with which she was able to make up her mindthat this was the only thing to be done--she, usually so full of mentaland moral hesitation. Let it be done quickly--now, while the spur ofexcitement pricked her on. The Thing seemed to have a knowledge of herexperiences which was not reciprocal. How it would laugh if itrecollected in its uncanny way, that she had wanted to kill herself andit with her, that she had had it at her mercy and then had been too weakand cowardly to strike! Should she buy some poison when she reachedPaddington? She knew nothing about poisons and their effects, exceptthat carbolic caused terrible agony, and laudanum was not to be trustedunless you knew the dose. The train was slowing up and the lonely rivergleamed silverly below. It beckoned to her, the river, upon whose streamshe had spent so many young, happy days. 

She got out at the little station and walked away from it with a quick, light step, as though hastening to keep some pleasurable appointment. After all the years of weak, bewildered subjection, of defeat andhumiliation, her turn had come; she had found the answer to the Sphinx'sriddle, the way to victory. 

She knew the place where she found herself, for she had several timesmade one of a party rowing down from Oxford to London. But it was notone of the frequented parts of the river, being a quiet reach amongsolitary meadows. She remembered that there was a shabby little housestanding by itself on the bank where boats could be hired, for they hadput in there once to replace an oar, having lost one down a weir in theneighborhood. The weir had not been on the main stream, but they hadcome upon it in exploring a backwater. It could not be far off. 

She walked quickly along the bank, turning over and over in her mind thesame thoughts; the cruel wrong which now for so many years she hadsuffered, the final disgrace brought upon her and her husband, and shebraced her courage to strike the blow that should revenge all. The actto which this fair-haired, once gentle woman was hurrying along thelonely river-bank, was not in its essence suicide; it was revenge, itwas murder. 

When she came to the shabby little house where the boats lay under anunlovely zinc-roofed shed, she wondered whether she might ask for inkand paper and write to some one. She longed to send one little word toIan; but then what could she say? She could not have seen him andconcealed the truth from him, but it was one of the advantages of herdisappearance that he need never know the dishonor done him. And sheknew he considered suicide a cowardly act. He was quite wrong there. Itwas an act of heroic courage to go out like this to meet death. It wasso lonely; even lonelier than death must always be. She had theconviction that she was not doing wrong, but right. Hers was no commoncase. And for the first time she saw that there might be a reason forthis doom which had befallen her. Men regard one sort of weakness as asin to be struggled against, another as something harmless, evenamiable, to be acquiesced in. But perhaps all weakness acquiesced in wasa sin in the eyes of Eternal Wisdom, was at any rate to be left to themercy of its own consequences. She looked back upon her life and sawherself never exerting her own judgment, always following in some oneelse's tracks, never fighting against her physical, mental, moraltimidity. It was no doubt this weakness of hers that had laid her opento the mysterious curse which she was now, by a supreme effort ofindependent judgment and physical courage, resolved to throw off. 

A stupid-looking man in a dirty cotton shirt got out the small boat shechose; stared a minute in surprise to see the style in which she, anOxford girl born and bred, handled the sculls, and then went in again tocontinue sleeping off a pint of beer. 

She pulled on mechanically, with a long, regular stroke, and one by onescenes, happy river-scenes out of past years, came back to her withwonderful vividness. Looking about her she saw an osier-bed dividingthe stream, and beside it the opening into the willow-shaded backwaterwhich she remembered. She turned the boat's head into it. Heavy cloudshad rolled up and covered the sky, and there was a kind of twilightbetween the dark water and the netted boughs overhead. Very soon sheheard the noise of a weir. Once such a sound had been pleasant in herears; but now it turned her cold with fear. On one side the backwaterflowed sluggishly on around the osier-bed; on the other it hurriedsmoothly, silently away, to broaden suddenly before it swept in whitefoam over an open weir into a deep pool below. She trembled violentlyand the oars moved feebly in her hands, chill for all the warmth of theafternoon. Her boat was in the stream which led to the weir, but not yetfully caught by the current. A few more strokes and the thing would bedone, she would be carried quickly on and over that dancing, sparklingedge into the deep pool below. Her courage failed, could not be screwedto the sticking-point; she hung on the oars, and the boat, as ifanswering to her thought, stopped, swung half around. As she held theboat with the oars and closed her eyes in an anguish of hesitation andterror, a strange convulsion shook her, such as she had felt oncebefore, and a low cry, not her own, broke from her lips. 

"No--no!" they uttered, hoarsely. 

The Thing was there then, awake to its danger, and in another momentmight snatch her from herself, return laughing at her cowardice, to thathouse by the river. She pressed her lips hard together, and silently, with all the strength of her hate and of her love, bent to the oars. Thelittle boat shot forward into mid-stream, the current seized it andswept it rapidly on towards the dancing edge of water. She dropped thesculls and a hoarse shriek broke from her lips; but it was not she whoshrieked, for in her heart was no fear, but triumph--triumph as of onewho is at length avenged of her mortal enemy. 

 * * * * *

In the darkened drawing-room, the room so full of traces of all that hadbeen exquisite in Mildred Stewart, Ian mourned alone. Presently the dooropened a little, and a tall, slender, childish figure in a white smock, slipped in and closed it gently behind him. Tony stole up to his fatherand stood between his knees. He looked at Ian, silent, pale, large-eyed. That a grown-up person and a man should shed tears was strange, evenportentous, to him. 

"Won't Mummy come back, not ever?" asked the child at last, piteously, in a half whisper. 

"No, never, Tony; Mummy won't ever come back. She's gone--gone foralways. "

The child looked in his father's eyes strangely, penetratingly. 

"Which Mummy?" he asked. 

THE END

 * * * * *