initial commit of ebook 14605HEADmain

1 files changed, 14068 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/old/14605.txt b/old/14605.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..7f4f214
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/14605.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,14068 @@
+The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Devil's Garden, by W. B. Maxwell
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: The Devil's Garden
+
+Author: W. B. Maxwell
+
+Release Date: January 5, 2005  [eBook #14605]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DEVIL'S GARDEN***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Rick Niles, Victoria Woosley, and the Project Gutenberg
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net)
+
+
+
+THE DEVIL'S GARDEN
+
+by
+
+W. B. MAXWELL
+
+Author of _In Cotton Wool_, _Mrs. Thompson_, _Seymour Charlton_, etc.
+
+Indianapolis
+The Bobbs-Merrill Company
+Publishers
+
+1914
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+          THE DEVIL'S GARDEN
+
+
+   The Devil playeth in a man's mind like a
+   wanton child in a garden, bringing his filth
+   to choke each open path, uprooting the
+   tender plants, and trampling the buds that
+   should have blown for the Master.
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+
+The village postmaster stood staring at an official envelope that had
+just been shaken out of a mailbag upon the sorting-table. It was
+addressed to himself; and for a few moments his heart beat quicker,
+with sharp, clean percussions, as if it were trying to imitate the
+sounds made by the two clerks as they plied their stampers on the
+blocks. Perhaps this envelope contained his fate.
+
+Soon the stamping was finished; the sorting went on steadily and
+methodically; before long the letters and parcels were neatly arranged
+in compartments near the postmen's bags. The first delivery of the day
+was ready to go forth to the awakening world.
+
+"All through, Mr. Dale."
+
+The postmaster struck a bell, and glanced at the clock. Five
+fifty-six. Up to time, as usual.
+
+"Now then, my lads, off with you."
+
+The postmen had come into the sorting-room, and were packing their
+bags and slinging their parcels.
+
+"Sharp's the word."
+
+Picking up his unopened letter, the postmaster went through the public
+office, stood on the outer threshold, and looked up and down the
+street.
+
+To his left the ground sloped downward through a narrowing perspective
+of house-fronts and roof cornices to faint white mist, in which one
+could see some cattle moving vaguely, and beyond which, if one knew
+that it was there, one might just discern a wide space of common land
+stretching away boldly until the dark barrier of woods stopped it
+short. To his right the ground lay level, with the road enlarging
+itself to a dusty bay in front of the Roebuck Inn, turning by the
+churchyard wall, forking between two gardened houses of gentlefolk,
+and losing itself suddenly in the same white mist that closed the
+other vista. Over the veiling whiteness, over the red roofs, and high
+above the church tower, the sky of a glorious July morning rose
+unstained to measureless arches of blue.
+
+As always in this early hour of the day, the postmaster thought of his
+own importance. The village seemed still half asleep--blinds down
+wherever he looked--lazy, money-greedy tradesmen not yet alive to
+their selfish enterprises--only the poor laborers of the soil already
+at work; and nevertheless here was he, William Dale, up and about,
+carrying on the continuous business of the state.
+
+But how long would he be permitted to feel like this? Could it be
+possible that the end of his importance was near at hand?
+
+_On Her Majesty's Service!_ He opened the envelope, unfolded the folio
+sheet of paper that it contained, began to read--and immediately all
+the blood in his body seemed to rush to his head.
+
+"I am to inform you that you are temporarily suspended." And in the
+pompous language of headquarters he was further informed that the
+person appointed to take over control would arrive at Rodchurch Road
+Station by the eleven o'clock train; that he himself was to come to
+London on the morrow, and immediately call at the G.P.O.; where, on
+the afternoon of that day or the morning of a subsequent day, he would
+be given an opportunity of stating his case in person, "agreeable to
+his request."
+
+Why had they suspended him? Surely it would have been more usual if
+they had allowed him to leave the office in charge of his chief clerk,
+or if they had given charge of it to a competent person from Rodhaven,
+and not sent a traveler from London? The traveling inspector is the
+bird of evil presage: he hovers over the houses of doomed men.
+
+William Dale ran his hand round the collarless neck of his shirt, and
+felt the perspiration that had suddenly moistened his skin.
+
+He was a big man of thirty-five; a type of the strong-limbed,
+quick-witted peasant, who is by nature active as a squirrel and
+industrious as a beaver; and who, if once fired with ambition, soon
+learns to direct all his energies to a chosen end, and infallibly wins
+his way from the cart-tracks and the muck-wagons to office stools and
+black coats. Not yet dressed for the day, in his loose serge jacket
+and unbraced trousers, he looked what was termed locally "a rum
+customer if you had to tackle un." His dark hair bristled stiffly, his
+short mustache wanted a lot of combing, a russet stubble covered chin
+and neck; but the broad forehead and blue eyes gave a suggestion of
+power and intelligence to an aspect that might otherwise have seemed
+simply forbidding.
+
+"Good marnin', sir."
+
+One of the helpers at the Roebuck stables had come slouching past.
+
+"Good mornin', Samuel."
+
+It was still music to the ears of the postmaster when people addressed
+him as "Sir." Especially if, like that fellow, they had known him as a
+boy. But he thought now that perhaps many who spoke to him thus
+deferentially in truth desired his downfall.
+
+Quite possible. One never knows. He himself wished them well, in his
+heart was fond of them all, and craved their regard; although he was
+too proud to be always seeking it, or even going half-way to meet it.
+
+And he thought, tolerantly, that you can not have everything in this
+world. Your successful man is rarely a popular man. He had had the
+success in full measure--if it pleased them, let the envious ones go
+on envying him his elevated station, his domestic comfort, and his
+pretty wife.
+
+As he thought of his wife all his reflections grew tender. She was
+probably still fast asleep; and when, presently, he went up-stairs to
+the private part of the house, he was careful not to disturb her.
+
+His official clothes lay waiting for him on a chair in the kitchen.
+They had been brushed and folded by Mary, the servant, who sprang to
+attention at the appearance of her master, brought him shaving-water,
+arranged the square of looking-glass conveniently, assisted with the
+white collar and black tie, and generally proved herself an efficient
+valet.
+
+She ventured to ask a question when Mr. Dale was about to leave the
+kitchen.
+
+"Any news, sir?"
+
+"News!" Mr. Dale echoed the word sternly. "What news should there
+be--anyway, what news that concerns _you_?
+
+"I beg pardon, sir." Buxom, red-cheeked Mary lowered her eyes, and by
+voice and attitude expressed the confusion proper to a subordinate who
+has taken a liberty in addressing a superior. "I'm sorry, sir. But I
+on'y ast."
+
+"All right," said Dale, less sternly. "You just attend to your own
+job, my girl."
+
+He went down into the office, and did not come up again until an hour
+and a half later, when breakfast was ready and waiting. He stood near
+the window for a few moments, meditatively looking about him. The
+sunlight made the metal cover of the hot dish shine like beautifully
+polished silver; it flashed on the rims of white teacups, and, playing
+some prismatic trick with the glass sugar basin, sent a stream of
+rainbow tints across the two rolls and the two boiled eggs. An
+appetizing meal--and as comfortable, yes, as luxurious a room as any
+one could ask for. Through the open door and across the landing, he
+had a peep into the other room. In that room there were books, a
+piano, a sofa, hand-painted pictures in gold frames--the things that
+you expect to see only in the homes of gentlemen.
+
+"Sorry I'm late, Will."
+
+"Don't mention it, Mavis."
+
+Mrs. Dale had come through the doorway, and his whole face brightened,
+softened, grew more comely. Yes, he thought, a home fit for a
+gentleman, and a wife fit for a king.
+
+"Any news?"
+
+"They've told me to go up and see them to-morrow;" and he moved to the
+table. "Come on. I'm sharp-set."
+
+"Did they write in a satisfactory way?"
+
+"Oh, yes. Sit down, my dear, and give me my tea."
+
+He had said that he felt hungry, but he ate without appetite. The roll
+was crisp and warm, the bacon had been cooked to a turn, the tea was
+neither too strong nor too weak; and yet nothing tasted quite right.
+
+"Will," said his wife, toward the end of the meal, "I can see you
+aren't really satisfied with their answer. Do tell me;" and she
+stretched her hand across the table with a gesture that expressed
+prettily enough both appeal and sympathy.
+
+She was a naturally graceful woman, tall and slim, with reddish brown
+hair, dark eyebrows, and a white skin; and she carried her thirty-two
+years so easily that, though the searching sunlight bore full upon
+her, she looked almost a young girl.
+
+Dale took her hand, squeezed it, and then, with an affectation of
+carelessness, laughed jovially. "They've appointed a deputy to take
+charge here during my absence."
+
+"Oh, Will!" Mrs. Dale's dark eyebrows rose, and her brown eyes grew
+round and big; in a moment all the faint glow of color had left her
+pale cheeks, and her intonation expressed alarm and regret.
+
+"It riled me a bit at first," said Dale firmly. "However, it's no
+consequence--really."
+
+"But, Will, that means--" She hesitated, and her lips trembled before
+she uttered the dreadful word--"That means--suspended!"
+
+"Yes--_pro tem_. Don't fret yourself, Mav. I tell you it's all right."
+
+"But, Will, this does change the look of things. This is
+serious--_now_." And once more she hesitated. "Will, let me write
+again to Mr. Barradine."
+
+"No," said Dale, with great determination.
+
+"May I get Auntie to write to him? She said she knows for sure he'd
+help us."
+
+"Well, he said so himself, didn't he?"
+
+"Yes. Anything in his power!"
+
+Dale reflected for a moment, and when he spoke again his tone was less
+firm.
+
+"In his power! Of course Mr. Barradine is a powerful gentleman. That
+stands to reason; but all the same--Let's have a look at his letter."
+
+"I haven't got his letter, Will."
+
+"Haven't got his letter? What did you do with it?
+
+"I tore it up."
+
+"Tore it up!" Dale stared at his wife in surprise, and spoke rather
+irritably. "What did you do that for?"
+
+"You seemed angry at my taking on myself to write to him without
+permission--so I didn't wish the letter lying about to remind you of
+what I'd done."
+
+"You acted foolish in destroying document'ry evidence," said Dale,
+sternly and warmly. But then immediately he stifled his irritation.
+"Don't you see, lassie, I'd 'a' liked to know the precise way he
+worded it. I'm practised to all the turns of the best sort o'
+correspondence, and I'd 'a' known in a twinkling whether he meant
+anything or nothing."
+
+"He said he'd be glad to do what was in his power. Really he said no
+more."
+
+"Very good. We'll leave it at that. He has done more than enough for
+us already, and I don't hold with bothering gentlemen in and out of
+season. Besides, this is a bit in which I don't want his help, nor
+nobody else's. This is between me and _them_."
+
+He pushed away his uneaten food, stood up, and squared his big
+shoulders.
+
+"Yes, but, Will dear--you, you won't be hasty when you get before
+them."
+
+Dale frowned, then laughed. "Mav, trust your old boy, and don't fret."
+He came round the table, and laid his hand on his wife's shoulder. "My
+sweetheart, I'm sorry, for your sake, that this little upset should
+have occurred. But don't you fret. I'm coming out on top. Maybe, this
+is like touch-and-go. I don't say it isn't. But I know my vaarlue--and
+I mean to let them know it, if they don't know it already. Look at my
+record! Who's goin' to pick a hole in it?"
+
+"No, but--"
+
+"There's times when a man's got to show pluck--to stan' to's guns, and
+assert hisself for what he's worth. And that's what I'm going to do in
+the General Post Office of all England." As he said this the blood
+showed redly, and every line of his face deepened and hardened. "You
+keep a stout heart. This isn't going to shake William Dale off of his
+perch."
+
+"No?" And she looked up at him with widely-opened eyes.
+
+"No." He gave her shoulder a final pat, and laughed noisily. "No,
+it'll set me firmer on the road to promotion than what I've ever been.
+When I get back here again, I shall be like the monkey--best part up
+the palm-tree, and nothing dangerous between him and the nuts."
+
+All that day Dale was busy installing the deputy.
+
+"You find us fairly in order," he said, with a pride that did not
+pretend to conceal itself. "Nothing you wouldn't call shipshape?"
+
+"Apple-pie order," said Mr. Ridgett. "Absolutely O.K."
+
+Mr. Ridgett was a small sandy man of fifty, who obviously wished to
+make himself as agreeable as might be possible in rather difficult
+circumstances. During the afternoon he listened with an air of
+interested attention while Dale told him at considerable length the
+series of events that had led up to this crisis.
+
+"For your proper understanding," said the postmaster, "I'll ask you
+once more to cast your eye over the position of the instruments;" and
+he marched Mr. Ridgett from the sorting-room to the public office, and
+showed him the gross error that had been committed in placing the
+whole telegraphic apparatus right at the front, close to the window,
+merely screened from the public eye and the public ear by glass
+partition-work, instead of placing it all at the back, out of
+everybody's way. "I told them it was wrong from the first--when they
+were refitting the office, at the time of the extensions. My
+experience at Portsmouth had taught me the danger."
+
+It seemed that one evening, about three weeks ago, a certain soldier
+on leave had been lounging against the counter, close to the glass
+screen. On the other side of the screen the apparatus was clicking
+merrily while Miss Yorke, the telegraph clerk, despatched a message.
+And all at once the soldier, who was well versed in the code, began to
+recite the message aloud. The postmaster peremptorily ordered him to
+stand away from the counter. An altercation ensued, and the soldier
+became so impudent that the postmaster threatened to put him outside
+the door. "Oh," said the soldier, "it'd take a many such as you to put
+me out."
+
+"Did he say so? Really now!" And Mr. Ridgett looked at Dale
+critically. "I take it he was a heavyweight, eh?"
+
+"He gave me my work," said Dale; "and I was all three minutes at it.
+But _out_ he went."
+
+"Really now!" and Mr. Ridgett smiled.
+
+"I had stopped Miss Yorke from operating. And I started her again
+within four minutes. That was the time, and no more, the message was
+delayed. That was the time it took me to renew the service with the
+confidence and secrecy provided by Her Majesty's Regulations. And I
+ask you, how else could I have acted? Was I to allow a telegram
+consigned to my care to be blabbed out word for word to all the
+world?"
+
+"Were there many people in the office just then?"
+
+"Two. But that makes no difference. If it had been only one--or half a
+one--it couldn't be permitted."
+
+"And was the message itself of a particularly private or important
+nature?"
+
+"Not as it happens. But the principle was the same."
+
+"Just so."
+
+As it appeared from Dale's narration, the soldier was at first willing
+to accept his licking in a sportsmanlike spirit, was indeed quite
+ready to admit that he had been the offending party; but injudicious
+friends--secret enemies of Dale perhaps--had egged him on to take out
+a summons for assault. When, however, Dale appeared before the
+magistrates, the soldier had changed his mind again--he did not
+appear, he allowed the charge to fall to the ground. And there the
+matter might have ended, ought to have ended, but for the fact that
+the local Member of Parliament suddenly made a ridiculous fuss--said
+it was a monstrous and intolerable state of affairs that soldiers of
+the Queen should be knocked about by her civil servants--wrote letters
+to other Members of Parliament, to Government secretaries, to
+newspapers. Then the excitement that had been smoldering burst forth
+with explosive force, shaking the village, the county, the universe.
+
+Dale, at handy grips with his superior officers, stood firm, declined
+to budge an inch from his position; he was right, and nothing would
+ever make him say he was wrong.
+
+"Ah, well," said Mr. Ridgett, "if that's the way you looked at it. But
+I don't quite follow how it got lifted out of their hands at Rodhaven,
+and brought before _us_."
+
+"I demanded it," said Dale proudly. "I wasn't going to be messed about
+any further by a pack of funking old women--for that's what they are,
+at Rodhaven. And I wasn't going to have it hushed over--nor write any
+such letter as they asked."
+
+"Oh, they suggested--"
+
+"They suggested," said Dale, swelling with indignation, "that I should
+write regret that I had perhaps acted indiscreet but only through
+over-zeal."
+
+"Oh! And you didn't see your way to--"
+
+"Not _me_. Take a black mark, and let my record go. No, thank you. I
+sent up my formal request to be heard at headquarters. I appealed to
+Caesar."
+
+Mr. Ridgett smiled good-naturedly. "Why, you're quite a classical
+scholar, Mr. Dale. You have your Latin quotations all pat."
+
+"I'm a self-educated man," said Dale. "I begun at the bottom, and I've
+been trying to improve myself all the way to where I've risen to."
+
+Once or twice he sought tentatively to obtain from Mr. Ridgett the
+moral support that even the strongest people derive from being assured
+that they are entirely in the right. But Mr. Ridgett, who had been
+sympathetic from the moment of his arrival, and who throughout the
+hours had been becoming more and more friendly, did not entirely
+respond to these hinted invitations.
+
+"If you tell me to speak frankly," he said at last, "I should have a
+doubt that you've made this one false step. You haven't kept
+everything in proportion."
+
+"How do you mean?"
+
+"Well, I mean it strikes me--quite unbiased, you know--that you've let
+Number One overshadow the situation. You've drawn it all too personal
+to yourself."
+
+"I don't see that," said Dale, forcibly, almost hotly. "It's the
+principle I stand for--pretty near as much as for myself."
+
+"Ah, yes, just so," said Mr. Ridgett. "And now I'm going to ask you to
+help me find a bedroom somewhere handy, and put me up to knowing where
+I'd best get my meals;" and he laughed cheerfully. "Don't think I'm
+_establishing_ myself--but one may as well be comfortable, if one can.
+And I do give you this tip. You're in for what we used to call the
+devil's dance up there. Caesar is a slow mover. I mean, it won't be
+'Step this way, Mr. Dale. Walk in this minute.' They'll keep you on
+the dance. I should take all you're likely to want for a week--at the
+least."
+
+Dale made arrangements for the future comfort of the visitor, and
+hospitably insisted that he should take his first substantial meal
+up-stairs.
+
+"It's served at seven sharp," said Dale; "and we make it a meat tea;
+but you aren't restricted to non-alcolic bev'rages."
+
+"Oh, tea is more than good enough for me, thank you."
+
+"Mavis," said Dale, introducing his guest, "this is Mr. Ridgett, who
+is so kind as to honor us without ceremony." And, as if to demonstrate
+the absence of ceremony, he put his arm round his wife's waist and
+kissed her.
+
+Mr. Ridgett smiled, and opened conversation in a very pleasant easy
+fashion.
+
+"From the look of things," he said facetiously, "I hazard the guess
+that you two aren't long home from the honeymoon."
+
+"You're off the line there," said Dale. "We're quite an old Darby and
+Joan."
+
+"Really!" And Mr. Ridgett's smile, as he regarded Mrs. Dale, expressed
+admiration and surprise. "Appearances are deceitful. And how long may
+you have been running in double harness?"
+
+"Eleven years," said Dale.
+
+"Never! Any children?"
+
+"No," said Mrs. Dale.
+
+"No," said her husband. "We haven't been blessed that way--not as
+yet."
+
+"I note the addition. Not as yet! Very neatly put." Mr. Ridgett
+laughed, and bowed gallantly to Mrs. Dale. "Plenty of time for any
+amount of blessings."
+
+Then they all sat down to the table.
+
+During the course of the meal, and again when it was over, they spoke
+of the business that lay before Dale on the morrow.
+
+"I've ventured to tell your husband that perhaps he has been taking it
+all too seriously."
+
+"Oh, has he? I'm so glad to hear you say it." And Mavis Dale, with her
+elbows on the table, leaned forward and watched the deputy's face
+intently.
+
+"Too much of the personal equation."
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"What I say is, little accidents happen to all of us--but they blow
+over."
+
+Mavis Dale drew in her breath, and her eyebrows contracted. "Mr.
+Ridgett! The way you say that, shows you really think it's serious for
+him."
+
+"Oh, I don't in the least read it up as ruin and all the rest of it.
+It's just a check. In Mr. Dale's place, I should be philosophical. I
+should say, 'This is going to put me back a bit, but nothing else.'"
+
+Dale shrugged his shoulders and snorted. Mrs. Dale's eyebrows had
+drawn so close together that they almost touched; her eyes appeared
+darker, smaller, more opaque. Mr. Ridgett continued talking in a tone
+of light facetiousness that seemed to cover a certain deprecating
+earnestness.
+
+"Yes, that would be _my_ point of view--quite general, philosophical.
+I should say to myself, 'Old chap, if you're in for a jolly good
+wigging, why, just take it. If you're to be offered a little humble
+pie to eat--well, eat it.'"
+
+"I won't," cried Dale, loudly; and he struck the table with his
+clenched fist. "I'm not goin' to crawl on my belly any more. I've done
+it in my time, when perhaps I felt myself wrong. But I won't do it now
+when I'm right--no, so help me, God, I won't."
+
+It was as if all restraints had been burst by the notion of such
+injustice.
+
+"Ah, well," said Ridgett, looking uncomfortable, "then I must withdraw
+the suggestion."
+
+Mavis Dale was trembling. Her husband's noisy outburst seemed to have
+shaken her nerves; the downward lines formed themselves at the corners
+of her mouth; and her eyelids fluttered as if she were on the verge of
+tears. "Will," she murmured, "you--you ought to listen, if it's good
+advice. Mr. Ridgett knows the ropes--he, he has experience--and he
+means you well."
+
+"Indeed I do," said Ridgett cordially.
+
+"And I thank you for it, sir," said Dale. "And now--" He mastered his
+emotions and was calm and polite again, as became a host. "Now, what
+about two or three whiffs?"
+
+"If madam permits."
+
+"Mav don't mind. She's smoke-dried."
+
+All three remained sitting at the table. The two men smoked their
+pipes reflectively, and spoke only at intervals, while Mavis sank into
+the motionless silence of a deep reverie. The golden sunlight came no
+more into the room; bright colors of oleograph pictures, hearth-rug,
+and window-curtains imperceptibly faded; the whole world seemed to be
+growing quiet and cool and gray. The sounds of voices and the rumble
+of passing wheels rose so drowsily from the street that they did not
+disturb one's sense of peace.
+
+All at once Mavis roused herself, or rather, seemed to be roused
+involuntarily by some inward sensation--perhaps an ugly and unexpected
+turn that her thoughts had suddenly taken. She gave a little shiver,
+looked across the table at the visitor as if surprised at his
+presence, and then began to talk to him volubly.
+
+"Do you know this part of the world? It's a pretty country--especially
+the forest side. Lots of artists and photographers come here on
+purpose to take the views."
+
+For a little while she and Mr. Ridgett chatted gaily together; and
+Dale observed, not without satisfaction, that the deputy patently
+admired Mavis. "Yes," he thought, "it must be an eye-opener for him or
+anybody else to come up those stairs and find a postmaster's wife with
+all the education and manners of a lady, and as pretty as a bunch of
+primroses into the bargain."
+
+And indeed little Mr. Ridgett was fully susceptible to Mavis' varied
+charms. He liked her complexion--so unusually white; he liked her
+hair--such a lot of it; he liked the mobility of her lips, the
+fineness and straightness of her nose; and he also greatly liked the
+broad black ribbon that was tied round her slender neck. The simple
+decoration seemed curiously in harmony with something childlike
+pertaining to its wearer. He did not attempt to analyze this
+characteristic, but he felt it plainly--something that drew its
+components from voice, expression, gesture, and that as a whole
+carried to one a message of extreme youth.
+
+And how fond of her husband! The anxiety for his welfare that she had
+shown just now quite touched a soft spot in Mr. Ridgett's dryly
+official heart.
+
+"You know," said Dale, interrupting the conversation, and speaking as
+though the subject that occupied his own mind was still under debate,
+"they can't pretend but what I warned them. I said it's madness to go
+and put the instruments anywhere but the place I've marked on the
+plan. If they'd listened to my words _then_--"
+
+"Ah, there you are again," said Mr. Ridgett. "The personal equation!"
+
+"Where's the personality of it?"
+
+"I'll tell you. London isn't Rodchurch. What you said--how many years
+ago?--isn't going to govern the judgment of people who never heard you
+say it."
+
+"It ought to have gone on record. It _is_ on record over at Rodhaven."
+
+"London isn't Rodhaven either."
+
+Then once again the talk became serious; and once again Ridgett saw in
+Mrs. Dale's white face, trembling fingers, and narrowed eyes, the
+deadly anxiety that she was suffering. With that face opposite to one,
+it would have been monstrously cruel not to offer the wisest and best
+considered advice that one could anyhow produce.
+
+"Here's _verb. sap_," he said solemnly. "_Ultimatum_, and _ne plus
+ultra_. I'm giving you Latin for Latin, Mr. Dale. I understand your
+attitude, and I appreciate its bearing; but I say to you, the best
+causes sometimes need the best advocates."
+
+"Yes!" Mavis drew in her breath with a little gasp.
+
+"If any of the gentry down here would speak up for you, send you a few
+testimonials--well, I should get them to do it. You see, from what you
+tell me of the case, you've your Member of Parliament against you. It
+would be useful to counteract--"
+
+Then Mavis eagerly explained that the biggest man of the neighborhood
+had promised to give his support to her husband. This great personage
+was the Right Honorable Everard Barradine, an ex-Cabinet Minister and
+a large landed proprietor, who lived over at the Abbey House, on the
+edge of Manninglea Chase, five miles away. Mr. Barradine had always
+borne a good heart to her and hers.
+
+"Capital!" said Mr. Ridgett, visibly brightening. "A friend at
+court--what's the proverb? It's not for me to let fall any remarks
+about wire-pulling. But naturally there's a freemasonry among the
+bigwigs. You take my tip, and use Mr. Barradine's interest for all
+it's worth."
+
+"Well," said Dale, "he has given a promise--of a sort--and I shan't
+bother him further."
+
+After that the talk became light again. As if the strain of her
+anxiety was more than Mavis Dale could bear for long at a time, she
+plunged into frivolous discussion, telling Mr. Ridgett of the
+splendors and beauties of the Abbey House. It was a show-place. Its
+gardens surpassed belief; royal persons came hundreds of miles to look
+at them. And the wild historic woodland of Manninglea Chase was
+famous, it was said, all over Europe. Talking thus, she seemed as gay
+and careless as a child of ten.
+
+Mr. Ridgett, puffing his pipe luxuriously, contemplated her animated
+face with undisguised admiration; and presently Dale felt irritated by
+the admiring scrutiny.
+
+That was what always happened. At first he felt pleased that people
+should admire his wife; but if they seemed to admire her the least
+little shade too much, he became angry. In the lanes, in church,
+anywhere, he froze too attentive glances of admiring males with a most
+portentous scowl. It was not that he entertained the faintest doubt of
+her loyalty and devotion, or of her power to protect herself from
+improper assiduities; but he loved her so passionately that his blood
+began to boil at the mere thought of anybody's having the audacity to
+court her favor. Instinctively, on such occasions, words formed
+themselves in his mind and clamored for utterance on his lips. "You
+take care, my fine fellow;" "Hands off, please;" "Let me catch you
+trying it"--and so on: only thought-counters secretly used by himself,
+and never issued in the currency of spoken words.
+
+Now the internal warmth was just sufficient to make him push back his
+chair and break up the party. "Mavis," he said, rather grimly, "we
+mustn't detain Mr. Ridgett from his duties." Then he forced a laugh.
+"I'm nobody; and so it doesn't matter how long I sit over my supper.
+But we've to remember that Mr. Ridgett is the postmaster of
+Rodchurch."
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+
+He went to bed early; but he knew that he would not sleep until the
+mail-cart had gone.
+
+His wife was sleeping peacefully. He could feel the warmth of her body
+close against him; her breath, drawn so lightly and regularly, just
+touched his face; and he edged away cautiously, seeking space in which
+to turn without disturbing her. At immeasurably long periods the
+church clock chimed the quarters. That last chime must have been the
+quarter after eleven.
+
+Every now and then there came a sound that told him of the things that
+were happening on the ground floor; and in the intervals of silence he
+began to suffer from an oppressive sense of unreality. This disruption
+of the routine of life was so strange as to seem incredible. They were
+making up the two big bags for the up mail and the down mail; and he
+was lying here like a state prisoner, of no account for the time
+being, while below him his realm remained actively working.
+
+As midnight approached, an increasing anxiety possessed him. The horse
+and cart had been standing under the window for what appeared to be
+hours, and yet they would not bring out the bags. What in the name of
+reason were they waiting for now? Then at last he detected the
+movement of shuffling footsteps; he heard voices--Ridgett's voice
+among the others; a wheel grated against the curbstone, and the cart
+rolled away. The sounds of the church clock chiming twelve mingled
+with the reverberations made by the horse's hoofs as the cart passed
+between the garden walls. Thank goodness, anyhow, they had got it off
+to its time.
+
+With a sigh, he turned on his back and stared at the darkness that hid
+the ceiling. Ah! A profuse perspiration had broken out on his neck and
+chest. To give himself more air he pulled down the too generous supply
+of bed clothes, and in imagination he followed the cart.
+
+It was progressing slowly and steadily along the five miles of road to
+the railway junction. Would Perkins, the driver, break the regulations
+to-night and pick up somebody for a ride with the sacred bags? Such a
+gross breach of duty would render Perkins, or his employer, liable to
+a heavy penalty; and again and again Dale had reminded him of the
+risks attending misbehavior. But unwatched men grow bold. This would
+be a night to bring temptation in the way of Perkins. Some
+villager--workman, field-laborer, wood-cutter--tramping the road would
+perhaps ask for a lift. "What cheer, mate! I'm for the night-mail.
+Give us a lift's far as junction, and I'll stan' the price of a pint
+to you."
+
+A glance up and down the empty road--and then "Jump in. Wunnerful
+weather we're having, aren't us?" So much for the wise regulation!
+_Most_ wise regulation, if one understand it properly. For when once
+you begin tampering with the inviolable nature of a mail-cart, where
+are you to stop? Suppose your chance passenger proves to be not an
+honest subject, but a malefactor--_one of a gang_. "Take that, ye
+swab." A clump on the side of his head, and the driver is sent
+endways from the box-seat; the cart gallops on to where the, rest of
+the gang lurk waiting for it; strong arms, long legs, and the
+monstrous deed is consummated. Her Majesty's bags have been stolen.
+
+Though so dark in this bedroom, there would be light enough out there.
+There was no moon; but the summer night, as he knew, would never
+deepen to real obscurity. It would keep all of a piece till dawn, like
+a sort of gray dusk, heavy and impenetrable beneath the trees, but
+quite transparent on the heath and in the glades; and then it would
+become all silvery and trembling; the wet bracken would glisten
+faintly, high branches of beech trees would glow startlingly, each
+needle on top of the lofty firs would change to a tiny sword of
+fire--just as he had seen happen so often years ago, when as an
+undisciplined lad he lay out in the woods for his pleasure.
+
+Now! The church clock had struck one. Barring accidents, the cart was
+at its goal; and in imagination he saw the junction as clearly as if
+he had been standing at Perkins' elbow. There was the train for London
+already arrived--steam rising in a straight jet from the engine, guard
+and porter with lanterns, and a flood of orange light streaming from
+the open doors of the noble Post Office coach. Perkins hands in his up
+bag, receives a bag in exchange, and half his task is done. Forty
+minutes to wait before he can perform the other half of it. Then,
+having passed over the metals with the cart, he will attend to the
+down train; hand in his other bag, receive the London bag; and, as
+soon as the people in the signal-box will release the crossing-gates,
+he may come home.
+
+Dale knew now that he would not sleep until the cart returned.
+
+When the church clock struck the half-hour after two, he lay straining
+his ears to catch the sound of the horse's hoofs. Finally it came to
+him, immensely remote, a rhythmic plod, plod, plod. Then in a few more
+minutes the cart was at rest under his window again; they were taking
+in the bags; bolts shot into their fastenings, a key turned in a lock,
+and the clerk went back to bed at the top of the house. All was over
+now. Nothing more would happen until the other clerk came down in a
+couple of hours' time, until the bags were opened, until Ridgett came
+yawning from his hired bedroom at the saddler's across the street, and
+the new day's work began. And Dale would be shut out of the work--a
+director who might not even assist, a master superseded, a general
+under arrest in the midst of his army.
+
+He gulped and grew hot. "By Jupiter! I'll have to tell them what I
+think of them up there, and please the pigs!"
+
+Then he remembered the pleadings of his wife. She had implored him to
+keep a tight hold of himself; and in fairness to her he must exercise
+discretion. She and he were one. With extraordinary tenderness he
+mentally framed the words that by custom he employed when speaking of
+her. "She is the wife of my boosum."
+
+For a little while he calmed himself by thinking only of her. Then,
+tossing and turning and perspiring again, he began to think of his
+whole life, seeing it as a pageant full of wonder and pathos. Holy
+Jupiter! how hard it had been at its opening! Everything against
+him--just a lout among the woodside louts, an orphan baited and
+lathered by a boozy stepfather, a tortured animal that ran into the
+thickets for safety, a thing with scarce a value or promise inside it
+except the little flame of courage that blows could not extinguish!
+And yet out of this raw material he had built up the potent, complex,
+highly-dowered organism known to the world as Mr. Dale of Rodchurch.
+There was the pride and glory--from such a start to have reached so
+magnificent a position. But he could not have done it--not all of
+it--without Mavis.
+
+It would be unkind to wake this dear bedfellow merely because he
+himself could not sleep. He clasped his hands behind his head, and by
+a prolonged effort of will remained motionless. But insomnia was
+exciting every nerve in his body; each memory seemed to light up the
+entire labyrinth of his brain; each sense-message came inward like a
+bomb-shell, reaching with its explosion the highest as well as the
+deepest centers, discharging circuits of swift fire through every area
+of associated ideas, and so completely shattering the normal congruity
+between impressions and recognitions that the slight drag of the sheet
+across his raised toes was sufficient to make him feel again the
+pressure of thick boots that he had worn years ago when he tramped as
+new postman on the Manninglea Road.
+
+And each thing that he thought of he saw--hawthorn blossom like snow
+on the hedgerows, red rhododendrons as vivid as Chinese lanterns in
+the gloom of the dark copse, the green moss of the rides, the white
+paint of the gates. The farthest point of his round was Mr.
+Barradine's mansion, and he used to arrive there just before eight
+o'clock. With the thought came the luminous pictures, and he saw
+again, as clearly as fifteen years ago, the splendor of the Abbey
+House--that is, all one can see of it as one approaches its vast
+servants' offices. Here, solidly real, were the archway, the first and
+the second courtyard, grouped gables and irregular roof ridges, the
+belfry tower and its gilded vane; men washing a carriage, a horse
+drinking at the fountain trough, a dog lying on a sunlit patch of
+cobble-stones and lazily snapping at flies; a glimpse, through iron
+scroll work, of terrace balustrades, yellow gravel, and lemon-trees in
+tubs; the oak doors of laundries, drying-rooms, and so forth.
+
+It was here, outside the laundry, that he saw Mavis for the first
+time; and although the sleeves of her print dress were rolled up and
+she was carrying a metal skimming dish, something ineffably refined
+and superior in her deportment led him to believe that she was some
+lesser member of the august Barradine family, and not one of its hired
+dependents. He touched his peaked cap, and did not even venture to say
+"Good morning, miss."
+
+Then he found out about her. She was not quite so grand as all that.
+You might say she was a young lady right enough, if you merely counted
+manners and education; but she had been born far below the level of
+gentility. She belonged to the Petherick lot; and, living with her
+aunt at North Ride Cottage, she came every day to the Abbey to do some
+light and delicate work in Mr. Barradine's model dairy. The fact that
+she had lost both her parents interested and pleased Dale: orphanhood
+seemed to contain the embryonic germs of a mutual sympathy.
+
+He used to speak to her now whenever he saw her. One day they stood
+talking in the copse, and he showed her their distorted reflections on
+the curves of her shining cream-dish. She laughed; and that day he was
+late on his round.
+
+Then somehow he got to a heavy sort of chaff about the letters. She
+said she liked receiving letters, and she never received enough of
+them. He used to say, "Good morning, miss. My mate started off with a
+tremendous heavy bag to-day. I expect the most of it was for you.
+You'll find 'em when you get home this evening--shoals of 'em."
+
+Walking fast on his round he rehearsed such little speeches, and if
+she made an unanticipated answer he was baffled and confused. He
+suffered from an extreme shyness when face to face with her.
+
+Then all at once his overwhelming admiration gave him a hot flow of
+language. Beginning the old cumbrous facetiousness about her
+correspondence, he blurted out the true thoughts that he had begun to
+entertain.
+
+"You didn't ought to want for letters, miss, and you wouldn't--not if
+I was your letter-writer. I'd send you a valentine every day of the
+year."
+
+As he spoke, he looked at her with burning eyes. He was astonished,
+almost terrified by his hardiness; and what he detected of its effect
+on her threw him into an indescribable state of emotion.
+
+Rough and coarse he might be, and yet not truly disagreeable to her
+fine senses; his freckled face and massive shoulders did not repel
+her; no instinct of the lovely princess turned sick at these advances
+of the wild man of the woods. Under his scrutiny she showed a sort of
+fluttered helplessness, a mingling of beauty and weakness that sent
+fiery messages thrilling through and through him, a pale tremor, a
+soft glow, a troubled but not offended frown; and from beneath all
+these surface manifestations the undeveloped woman in her seemed to
+speak to the matured manhood in him--seemed to say without words, "Oh,
+dear me, what is this? I hope you haven't taken a real fancy to my
+whiteness and slenderness and tremulousness; because if you _have_,
+you are so big and so strong that I know you'll get me in the end."
+
+That was the crucial moment of his marvelous life. After that all his
+dreams fused and became one. He felt as if from soft metal he had
+changed into hard metal. And, moreover, the stimulus of love seemed to
+induce a vast intellectual growth; things that had been difficult of
+comprehension became lucidly clear; prejudices and ignorances fell
+away from him of their own accord. A shut world had suddenly become an
+open world.
+
+As a grown man he returned to the benches of evening school. He
+learned to write his beautiful copper-plate hand, and knocked the
+bottom out of arithmetic and geography. Then came sheer erudition--the
+nature of chemical elements, stars in their courses, kings of England
+with their Magna Chartas and habeas corpuses. Nor content even then,
+he must needs grapple with Roman emperors and Greek republics, and
+master the fabled lore concerning gods and goddesses, cloven-footed
+satyrs, and naked nymphs of the grove. But he understood that, in
+spite of all this culture, in spite, too, of his greater care for
+costume and his increased employment of soap and water, Mavis was
+still enormously above him. The aunt, a smooth-tongued little woman
+whom for a long time he regarded as implacably hostile to his suit,
+made him measure the height of the dividing space every time that he
+called at North Ride Cottage. Plainly trying to crush him with the
+respectability both of herself and of her surroundings, she showed off
+all the presents from the Abbey--the china and glass ornaments, the
+piano; the photographs of Mr. Barradine on horseback, of the late Lady
+Evelyn Barradine in her pony-carriage, of Mr. Barradine's guests with
+guns waiting to shoot pheasants. And she conducted him into and out of
+the two choicely upholstered rooms which on certain occasions Mr.
+Barradine deigned to occupy for a night or a couple of nights--for
+instance, when the Abbey House was being painted and he fled the smell
+of paint, when the Abbey House was closed and he came down from London
+to see his agent on business, when he wanted to make an early start at
+the cub-hunting and he couldn't trust the servants of the Abbey House
+to rouse him if he slept there.
+
+"Last time of all," and Mrs. Petherick rubbed her hands together and
+smiled insinuatingly, "he paid me the pretty compliment of saying that
+I made him more comfortable than he ever is in his own house. I said,
+'If we can't let you feel at home here, it's something new among the
+Pethericks.'"
+
+It seemed that the bond between the humble family and the great one
+had existed for several generations. It was a tradition that the
+Pethericks should serve the Barradines. Mavis' grandfather had been
+second coachman at the Abbey; her aunt's husband had been valet to Mr.
+Everard and made the grand tour of Europe with him; aunt herself was
+of the Petherick blood, and had been a housemaid at the Abbey. It
+also seemed to be a tradition that the acknowledgment made by the
+Barradines for this fidelity of the Pethericks should be boundless in
+its extent.
+
+Aunt spoke of the Right Honorable Everard as though she held him like
+a purse in her pocket, and Dale at one period had some queer thoughts
+about this old widow of a dead servant for whom so much had been done
+and who yet expected so much more. She said Mr. Barradine had charged
+himself with the musical training of another niece, and he would
+probably not hesitate to send Mavis to Vienna for the best masters,
+should she presently display any natural talent. Her cousin Ruby sang
+like an angel from the age of ten; but Mavis so far exhibited more
+inclination for instrumental music.
+
+"She'll belie her name, though, if she doesn't pipe up some day, won't
+she?"
+
+When Dale secured his appointment at Portsmouth, he and Mavis were not
+engaged. She said, "Auntie simply won't hear of it."
+
+"Not now," he said. "But later, when I've made my way, she'll come
+round. Mav, will you wait for me?
+
+"Oh, I don't know," said Mavis. "I can't give any promise. I must do
+whatever Auntie tells me. I can't go against her wishes."
+
+Yet somehow he felt sure that she would be his. A thousand slimy,
+humbugging old aunts should not keep them apart. From Portsmouth he
+wrote a letter to his sweetheart on every day of the year for three
+years--except on those days of joyous leave when he could get away and
+talk to her instead of writing to her. At the end of the three years
+the postmastership at Rodchurch became vacant, and he boldly applied
+for the place.
+
+His life just then was almost too glorious to be true. All
+difficulties and dangers seemed to melt away in a sort of warm haze of
+rapture. Mrs. Petherick no longer opposed the marriage; Mr. Barradine,
+at the zenith of political power, exerted his influence; the
+postmastership was obtained. To top up, Dale made the not unpleasing
+discovery that Mavis was an heiress as well as an orphan. She had two
+hundred pounds of her very own, "which came in uncommon handy for the
+furnishing."
+
+And his education did not cease with wedlock. Mavis was always
+improving him, especially in regard to diction. He was pleased to
+think that he made very few slips nowadays--an "h" elided here and
+there; the vowels still rather broad, more particularly the Hampshire
+"a"; and one or two unchanged words, such as "boosum." But these
+microscopic faults were of no consequence, and Mav had stopped teasing
+him about them. She only warned him of what he knew was Gospel
+truth--that the little failures were more frequent under hurry or
+excitement, and that when deeply moved he had a tendency to lapse
+badly toward the ancient peasant lingo.
+
+Nothing to worry about, however. It merely indicated that he must
+never speak on important matters without due preparation. He would be
+all right up there, knowing to a syllable what he wished to say; and
+he thought with swelling pride of comparatively recent public speeches
+and the praise that he had received from them. After the Parish
+meeting last January the _Rodhaven District Courier_ had said, "With
+a few happy remarks Mr. Dale adverted again to the fallacy of plunging
+the village into the expense of a costly fire-engine without first
+ascertaining the reliability of the water supply." His very words,
+almost _verbatim_ "Happy remarks!" A magistrate on the bench could not
+have been better reported or more handsomely praised.
+
+The reviewing of these manifold bounties of Providence had produced a
+sedative effect; but now he grew restless once more. He felt that
+twinge of doubt, the pin-prick of illogical fear which during the last
+eighteen hours had again and again pierced his armor of
+self-confidence. Suppose things went against him! No, that would be
+too monstrous; that would mean no justice left in England, the whole
+fabric of society gone rotten and crumbling to dust.
+
+The spaces between the blinds and window-frames were white instead of
+gray; the sun had risen; presently the whole room was visible.
+
+Mavis' little face showed pink and warm as a baby's above the bed
+clothes. And a sudden longing for caresses took possession of her
+husband. To wake her, fold her in his arms, and then, pacified by the
+embrace, perhaps obtain a few hours' sound sleep? For some moments his
+desire was almost irresistible. But it would be selfish thus to break
+her tranquil repose--poor little tired bird.
+
+He noiselessly slipped from the bed, huddled on some clothes, washed
+his face in cold water at the kitchen sink, and let himself out of the
+house. The open air refreshed him almost as much as sleep could have
+done. He walked nearly five miles and back on the Manninglea Road,
+and would not even glance at the busy sorting-room when he came in
+again.
+
+Mavis accompanied him to Rodchurch Road Station, and saw him off by
+the nine o'clock train. He looked very dignified in his newest bowler
+hat and black frock-coat, with a light overcoat on one arm and his
+wife's gloved hand on the other; and as he walked up and down the
+platform he endeavored to ignore the fact that he was an object of
+universal attention.
+
+When buying his ticket he had let fall a guarded word or two about the
+nature of his errand, and from the booking-office the news had flown
+up and down both sides of the station, round the yard, and even into
+the signal cabins. "See Mr. Dale?" "Mr. Dale!" "There's Mr. Dale,
+going to London for an interview with the Postmaster-General."
+
+Mr. Melling, the Baptist minister, took off his hat and bowed gravely;
+Mrs. Norton, the vicar's wife, smilingly stopped Mavis and spoke as if
+she had been addressing a social equal; then they received greetings
+from old Mr. Bates, the corn merchant, and from young Richard Bates,
+his swaggering good-for-nothing son. And then, as passengers gathered
+more thickly, it became quite like a public reception. "Ma'arnin',
+sir." "Good day, Mr. Dale." "I hope I see you well, sir."
+
+Mavis got him away from all this company just before the train came
+in, and made a last appeal to him. Would he recollect what the deputy
+had said about eating that ugly dish which is commonly known as humble
+pie?
+
+But at the mention of Mr. Ridgett's advice Dale displayed a slight
+flare of irascibility.
+
+"Let Mr. Ridgett mind his own business," he said shortly, "and not
+bother himself about mine. And look here," he added. "I am not
+trusting that gentleman any further than I see him."
+
+"I think you're wrong there, Will."
+
+"I know human nature." His face had flushed, and he spoke
+admonitorily. "I don't need to tell you to be circumspect during my
+absence--but you may have a little trouble in keeping Mr. R. in his
+proper place. You'll be quick to twig if he supposes the chance has
+come to pester you. These London customers--whatever their age--think
+when they get along with a pretty woman--"
+
+"Oh, Will, don't be absurd;" and she looked at him wistfully, and
+spoke sadly. "I'm not so attractive as you think me. I may be the same
+to your eyes--but not to others. It's very doubtful if anybody would
+want me now--except those who knew me when I was young."
+
+Then after a moment's reflection she said that, if he consented, she
+proposed to relieve his mind of any silly jealous fancies about Mr.
+Ridgett by going over to stay with her aunt at North Ride.
+
+"I should be anxious and miserable here, Will, while you were
+away--whereas with her I could occupy my thoughts."
+
+He immediately consented to the arrangement. An excellent idea. She
+might go that very afternoon, and safely promise to stay three days.
+He would write to North Ride and keep her informed as to his
+movements.
+
+"Good-by, my sweetheart. God bless you."
+
+"Good luck, Will. Good luck, my dear one."
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+
+The devil's dance had begun.
+
+They kept him waiting. Days passed; but his hour of crisis postponed
+itself, and all things combined to enervate him. Above all, the
+callous immensity of London oppressed his mind. His case, that had
+been so important down there in the village, was absolutely of no
+account up here in the city. Not a single sympathizer among these
+millions of hurrying human beings.
+
+The General Post Office was itself a town within a town--a mighty
+labyrinth that made the imagination ache. To find one's way through a
+fractional block of it, to see a thronged corner of any of its yards,
+to hear even at a distance the stone thunder made by the smallest
+stampede of its red carts, irresistibly evoked a realization of one's
+nothingness. Never would he have believed it possible that the local
+should thus shrink in presence of the central.
+
+He had taken a bedroom on the top floor of a cheap lodging-house near
+the Euston Road, and every night as he climbed the dimly-lit staircase
+he knew that he was toiling upward toward a fit of depression. The
+house was almost empty of lodgers; no one noticed when he went out or
+came in; at each flight of the stairs his sense of solitude increased.
+
+He had never before lived in a building that contained so many
+stories, and at first he was troubled by the great height above the
+ground; but now he could stand at his open window and look down
+without giddiness. Wonder used to fill his mind as he stared out
+toward the southeast at the stupendous field of roofs, chimneys, and
+towers; at the sparkling powder of street-lamps; at the astounding
+yellow haze that extended across the horizon, illuminating the sky
+nearly to the zenith, and seemingly like the onset of a terrific
+conflagration which only he of all the thousands who were threatened
+had as yet observed. Even this bit of London, the comparatively small
+part of the overwhelming whole now visible to his eyes, must be as big
+as Manninglea Chase. And beyond his half circle of vision, behind him,
+on either hand, the forest of houses stretched away almost to
+infinity. The thought of it was as crushing as that of interstellar
+distances, of the pathless void into which God threw a handful of dust
+and then quietly ordained that each speck should be a sun and the
+pivot of a solar system.
+
+He turned from the window to look at the dark little room, groped his
+way to the chest of drawers, and lighted a candle. Its flame
+sputtered, then settled and burned unwaveringly. Here in London the
+nights seemed as stuffy as the days; there was no life or freshness,
+no movement of the air; it was as if the warm breath of the crowd rose
+upward and nothing less than a balloon would allow one to escape from
+its taint. But he noticed that even at this slight elevation he had
+got free from the noise of the traffic. It would continue--a crashing
+roar--for hours, and yet it was now scarcely perceptible. Listening
+attentively he heard it--just a crackling murmur, a curious muffled
+rhythm, as of drums beaten by an army of drummers marching far away.
+
+When he got into bed and blew out his candle, the rectangle of the
+window became brighter. After a little while he fancied that he could
+distinguish two or three stars shining very faintly in the patch of
+sky above the sashes; and again thinking of remoteness, immensity,
+infinity, he experienced a curious physical sensation of contracting
+bulk, as though all his body had grown and was steadily growing
+smaller. Very strong this sensation, and, unless one wrestled with it
+firmly, translating itself in the mental sphere as a vaguely
+distressful notion that one was nothing but a tiny insect at war with
+the entire universe.
+
+Day after day he spent his time in the same manner at the
+G.P.O.--asking questions of clerks, lounging in stone corridors,
+sitting on wooden benches, thinking that the hour was coming and
+finding that it did not come. He was one of a weary regiment of people
+waiting for interviews. Clerks behind counters of inquiry offices
+hunted him up in pigeon-holes, looked for him in files and on skewers.
+"Oh, yes, let's see. You say you're the man from Rodchurch! That's
+north or midlands, isn't it? You must ask in Room 45.... What say?
+Down south, is it? Then you're quite right to ask here. No, we haven't
+heard any more about it since yesterday."
+
+At the end of each fruitless day he emerged from the vast place of
+postponement feeling exhausted, dazed, stupefied. The sunlight made
+him blink. He stood holding his hat so as to shade his eyes.
+
+Then after a few minutes, as he plodded along Queen Victoria Street,
+his confusion passed away, and he observed things with a clear
+understanding. It was a lovely evening really and truly, and these
+ponderous omnibuses were all carrying people home because the day's
+work was done. The streets were clean and bright; and there was plenty
+of gayness and joy--for them as could grab a share of it. He noticed
+fine private carriages drawn up round corners, waiting for prosperous
+tradesmen; young men with tennis-bats in their hands, taking
+prodigiously long strides, eager to get a game of play before dusk;
+girls who went by twos and threes, chattering, laughing, making funny
+short quick steps of it, like as if on the dance to reach sweethearts
+and green lanes. A man selling a mechanical toy--sort of a tin frog
+that jumped so soon as you put it down--made him smile indulgently.
+
+Outside the Mansion House Station the traffic stopped dead all of a
+moment, and directly the wheels ceased rattling one heard the cheerful
+music of a soldiers' band close upon one. It was the Bank
+Guard--Coldstreams--marching proudly. The officer in charge seemed
+very proud; with drawn sword, his broad red back bulging above his
+sash, and the enormous bearskin narrowing to his shoulders and hiding
+his neck.
+
+The wheels rolled again; the music, floating, fading, died beneath the
+horses' feet; and Dale stood gaping at a board over the entrance of
+the railway station. Places served by this District Company had
+pleasant-sounding suburban names--such as Kew Gardens, Richmond,
+Wimbledon. Reading the names, he felt a sick nostalgic yearning for
+the wind that blows through fir-trees, for the dust that falls on
+highroads, for the village street and the friendly nod--for home.
+
+He ate some food at an eating-house near Blackfriars, and then
+wandered aimlessly for hours. The broad river, with its dull brown
+flood breaking in oily wavelets against the embankment wall, exercised
+a fascination. He admired the Temple, watched some shadows on a lawn,
+and wondered if the pigeons by the cab-rank ever went to bed, or if,
+changing their natural habits to suit their town-life, they had become
+night birds like the owls. The trains passing to and fro in the iron
+cage called Hungerford Bridge interested him; and as he approached the
+Houses of Parliament, he was stirred by memories of his historical
+reading.
+
+The stately pile had become almost black against the western sky by
+the time that he drew near to it, and its majestic extent, with the
+lamplight gleaming from innumerable windows, gave him a quite personal
+satisfaction. It represented all that was grandest in the tale of his
+country. The freedom of the subject had been born on this hallowed
+spot; here had been thrown down those cruel barriers by which the rich
+and powerful penned and confined the poor and humble as cattle or
+slaves; by this and because of this, the people's meeting-place, men
+like himself had been enabled to aspire and to achieve. He was aware
+of a moisture in his eyes and a lump in his throat while he meditated
+thus; and then suddenly his eyes grew hot and dry again, and his
+larynx opened. His thought had taken a rapid turn from the general to
+the particular. It was a pity that an interfering ass like their
+member should have the right to come in and out here, record his vote,
+and spout his nonsense with the best of them.
+
+The metal tongue of Big Ben startled him, a booming voice that might
+have been that of Time itself, telling the tardy sunlight and the
+encroaching dusk that it was nine o'clock. Under a lamp-post Dale
+brought out his silver watch, and carefully set it.
+
+"I suppose they keep Greenwich," he thought, "same as we do;" and an
+apprehensive doubt presented itself. Would his clerk have the sense to
+see to it, that the clocks down there were duly wound? Ridgett, of
+course, could not be expected to know that they were always wound on
+Thursdays.
+
+St. James' followed Westminster in his tour of inspection, and then,
+after that amazing street of clubs, he soon found himself in the white
+glare, the kaleidoscopic movement, and the concentrated excitement of
+Piccadilly Circus. Then he sauntered through Leicester Square and
+began to drift northward. The gas torches outside places of
+entertainment had arrested his slow progress. One of the music-halls
+in the Square appeared to him as iniquitously gorgeous, and he gazed
+through the wide entrance at the vestibule hall, and staircase. The
+whole thing was as fine as one might have expected inside Buckingham
+Palace or the Mansion House--crimson curtains, marble steps, golden
+balusters, and flunkeys wearing velvet breeches and silk stockings. It
+grieved him momentarily to discover that two giant commissionnaires
+were both foreigners. He heard them address each other with a rapid
+guttural jabber. "Should 'a' thought there's large-sized men enough in
+England, if you troubled to look for 'em."
+
+To this point he had amused himself sufficiently; but each night as
+he turned his face toward the Euston Road, his spirits sank and the
+same queer mixture of bodily and mental discomfort attacked him. It
+began with the slightly bitter thought of being "out of it." He looked
+disapprovingly at pallid and puffed young swells gliding past in cabs;
+at the humbler folk who hurried by without seeming to be aware of his
+existence, who bumped into him and never said "Pardon!"; at the
+painted women of the narrower pavements--more foreigners half of
+them--who leered and murmured.
+
+"Where's the police?" He asked himself the question indignantly and
+contemptuously. "Can't they see what's going on under their noses? Or
+don't they _wish_ to see it? Or have they been paid _not_ to see it?
+Funny thing if every respectable married man is to be bothered like
+this--three times in fifty yards!"
+
+These incessant solicitations affected his nerves. So much so, indeed,
+that he cursed the impudence of one woman and called her a rude name.
+She did not seem to mind. While he was still in the generous afterglow
+produced by a bit of plain-speaking, another one had taken her place.
+
+With head high and shoulders squared he marched on, subject for some
+distance to a purely nervous irritation, together with a disagreeably
+potent memory of powdered cheeks, reddened lips, and a searching
+perfume.
+
+Then he thought of his wife, and instantly he had so vivid a
+presentation of her image that it obliterated all newer visual
+records. What a lady she looked when bidding him farewell at the
+station. He had watched her till the train carried him out of sight--a
+slender graceful figure; pale face and sad eyes; a fluttering
+handkerchief and a waved parasol; then nothing at all, except a
+sudden sense of emptiness in his heart.
+
+And once more he mused with gratitude on the things that Mavis had
+done for him. He thought of how she had saved him from the ugly
+imaginations of his youth. How marvelously she had purified and
+elevated him! He used to be afraid of himself, of all the
+potentialities for evil that one takes with one across the threshold
+of manhood.
+
+The fantastic dread which recurred to his memory now, as he turned
+from Dean Street into Oxford Street, had been started when he first
+heard the legendary tale of Hadleigh Wood. It was said that seventy or
+a hundred years ago some louts had caught girls bathing in the stream
+and violated them. The legend declared that one of the offenders was
+executed and the rest were sent to prison for life. Perhaps it was all
+a myth, but it helped to give the upper wood a bad name; and out of
+these fabled materials William had built his fancy--dread and desire
+combining--a wish that, when he pushed the branches apart, he might
+see a lass bathing; and a fear that he would not be able to resist an
+impulse to plunge into the water and carry her off. As he walked
+through the shade cast by summer foliage, with a hot whisper of
+nascent virility tormenting his senses, the fancy was almost strong
+enough to be a hallucination. He could imagine that he saw female
+garments on the bank, petticoats fallen in a circle, boots and
+stockings hard by; he could hear the splashing of water on the other
+side of the holly bushes; he could feel the weight of the nude form
+slung across his shoulder as he galloped into the gloom with his prey.
+And later, under the increasing stress of his adolescence, he used to
+have a dread of realities--a conviction that he could not trust
+himself. He thought at this period not of legends, but of facts--of
+things that truly happened; of the brutality of hayfields; of a man
+full of beer dealing roughly with a woman-laborer who unluckily came
+in his way alone and defenceless at nightfall.
+
+From all this kind of vague peril his wife had saved him. When in the
+course of his education he read of nymphs and satyrs, and was startled
+by what seemed a highly elaborated version of his own crude
+imaginings, he had already, through the influence of Mavis, attained
+to states of mind that rendered such suggestions powerless to stir his
+pulses or warm his blood; and now, as he recognized with proud
+satisfaction, he had reached a stage of development wherein the
+improper advances of a thousand houris would evoke merely indignation
+and repugnance. It was not a matter that one could boast about to
+anybody except one's self; but he wondered if Mr. Ridgett, or several
+other customers who might remain nameless, could say as much.
+
+Thanks to Mav! Yes, he ought always let himself be guided by her.
+
+And then, by a natural transition of ideas, he thought of that other
+great instinct of untutored man--the fighting instinct. When a person
+is rising in the social scale he should learn to govern that also.
+Although the nobs themselves do it when pushed to it, scrapping is not
+respectable. It is common. Nevertheless there must be exceptions to
+every rule: anger when justified by its provocation is not, can not be
+reprehensible.
+
+But dimly he understood that with him cerebral excitement, when it
+reached a certain pitch, overflowed too rapidly into action. Whereas
+the gentry, after their centuries of repressive training, could
+always control themselves. They could fight, but they could wait for
+the appropriate moment. If you stung them with an insult, they
+resolved to avenge themselves--but not necessarily then and there; and
+their resolve deepened in every instant of delay, so that when the
+fighting hour struck, their heads worked with their arms, and they
+fought _better_ than the hasty peasants.
+
+And then he thought of the various advantages still possessed by
+gentlefolk. How unfairly easy is the struggle of life made for them,
+in spite of all the talk about equality; how difficult it still is for
+the humbly-born, in spite of Magna Chartas, habeas corpuses, and
+Houses of Commons! Finishing his long ramble, he remembered the
+biggest and grandest gentleman of his acquaintance, and wondered
+bitterly if the Right Honorable Everard Barradine had done so much as
+to raise a little finger on his behalf.
+
+Five days had passed, and as yet not a single official at St.
+Martin's-le-Grand had learnt to know him by sight. Every morning he
+was forced to repeat the whole process of self-introduction.
+
+"Dale? Rodchurch, Hants. Let's see. What name did you say? Dale!
+Superseded--eh?"
+
+But on the sixth morning somebody knew all about him. It was quite a
+superior sort of clerk, who announced that Mr. Dale and all that
+concerned Mr. Dale had been transferred to other hands, in another
+part of the building. Dale gathered that something had happened to his
+case; it was as though, after lying dormant so long, it had
+unexpectedly come to life; and in less than ten minutes he was given a
+definite appointment. The interview would take place at noon on the
+day after to-morrow.
+
+To-day was Saturday. The long quiescent Sunday must be endured--and
+then he would stand in the presence of supreme authority.
+
+By the end of that Sunday his enervation was complete. The want of
+exercise, the want of fresh air, the want of Mavis, had been steadily
+weakening him, and now his anticipations as to the morrow produced a
+feverish excitement.
+
+Throughout the day he rehearsed his speeches. He was still
+assuming--had always taken for granted--that the personage addressed
+would be the Postmaster-General, and he was sure of the correct mode
+of address. "Your Grace, I desire to respectfully state my
+position."... That was the start all right; but how did it go on?
+Again and again, before recovering the hang of it, he was confronted
+with a blank wall of forgetfulness.
+
+And there was the bold flight that he had determined on for wind-up.
+This had come as an inspiration, down there at Rodchurch over a
+fortnight ago, and had been cherished ever since. "Your Grace, taking
+the liberty under this head of speaking as man to man, I ask: If you
+had been situated as I was, wouldn't you have done as I done?" That
+was to be the wind-up, and it had rung in his mind like a trumpet
+call, bold yet irresistible--"Duke you may be, but if also a man, act
+as a man, and see fair play." Now, however, the prime virtue of it
+seemed to be lessened: it was all muddled, unstimulating, and flat of
+tone.
+
+How damnable if some insane nervousness should make him mix things up!
+Strong as his case was, it might be spoiled by ineffective argument.
+But was his case strong? Again the cruel twinge of doubt.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+
+The parquetry all around the square of carpet was so smooth that Dale
+had slipped a foot and nearly come down when he entered the room and
+bowed to his judges; and now he moved with extreme caution when they
+told him to withdraw to the window.
+
+There were three seated at the table, and none of the three was the
+Postmaster-General. Two of them were obviously bigwigs--so big, at any
+rate, that his fate lay in their hands; and the other one was a
+secretary--not the General Secretary--not even a gentleman, if one
+could draw any inference from his deferential tone and the casual
+manner in which the others addressed him. He was a sandy person--not
+unlike Ridgett, but rather older and much fatter.
+
+Once a quiet young gentleman--a real gentleman, although apparently
+acting just as a clerk--had been in and out of the room. He had given
+Dale a half smile, and it had been welcome as a ray of sunlight on the
+darkest day of winter. Instinct told Dale that this nice young man
+sympathized with him, as certainly as it told him that his judges were
+unsympathetic.
+
+He stood now in the deep bay window, as far as possible from the
+table, pretending not to listen while straining every nerve to catch
+the words that were being spoken over there. His blood was hurrying
+thickly, his heart beat laboriously, his collar stuck clammily to his
+perspiring neck. His sense of bodily fatigue was as great as if he had
+run a mile race; and yet one might say that the interview had scarcely
+begun. What would he be like before it was over? He summoned all his
+courage in order to go through with it gamely.
+
+... "You can't have this sort of thing." The words had reached him
+distinctly--spoken by the one they called Sir John; and the one that
+Sir John called "Colonel" said with equal distinctness, "Certainly
+not."
+
+Dale's heart beat more easily. As he hoped and believed, they must be
+talking of the soldier. Then the heart-beats came heavy again. Were
+they talking of him and not of the soldier? He caught a few other
+broken phrases of enigmatic import--such as "storm in teacup,"
+"trouble caused," "no complaints"--and then the voices were lowered,
+and he heard no more of the conversation at the table.
+
+Presently he saw that the secretary was producing a fresh file of
+papers, and at the same moment, quite inexplicably, his attention
+wandered. He had brought out a handkerchief, and while with a slow
+mechanical movement he rubbed the palms of his hands, he noticed and
+thought about the furniture and decoration of the room. Clock, map,
+and calendar; some busts on top of a bookless bookcase; red turkey
+carpet, the treacherous parquetry, and these stiff-looking
+chairs--really that was all. The emptiness and tidiness surprised him,
+and he began to wonder what the Postmaster-General's room was like.
+Surely there would be richer furniture and more litter of business
+there. Then, with a little nervous jerk, as of his internal machinery
+starting again after a breakdown, he felt how utterly absurd it was
+to be thinking about chairs and desks at such a moment. He must pull
+himself together, or he was going to make an ass of himself.
+
+"Now, if you please." They were calling him to the table. He slowly
+marched across to them, and stood with folded hands.
+
+"Well now, Mr. Dale." The Colonel was speaking, while Sir John read
+some letters handed to him by the secretary. "We have gone into this
+matter very carefully, and I may tell you at once that we have come to
+certain conclusions."
+
+"Yes, sir." Dale found himself obliged to clear his throat before
+uttering the two words. His voice had grown husky since he last spoke.
+
+"You have caused us a lot of trouble--really an immense amount of
+trouble."
+
+Dale looked at the Colonel unflinchingly, and his voice was all right
+this time. "Trouble, sir, is a thing we can't none of us get away
+from--not even in private affairs, much less in public affairs."
+
+"No; but there is what is called taking trouble, and there is what is
+called making trouble."
+
+"And the best public servants, Mr. Dale"--this was Sir John, who had
+unexpectedly raised his eyes--"are those who take most and make
+least;" and he lowered his eyes and went on reading the documents.
+
+"First," said the Colonel, "there is your correspondence with the
+staff at Rodhaven. Here it is. We have gone through it carefully--and
+there's plenty of it. Well, the plain fact is, it has not impressed us
+favorably--that is, so far as you are concerned."
+
+"Sorry to hear it, sir."
+
+"No, I must say that the tone of your letters does not appear to be
+quite what it should be."
+
+"Indeed, sir. I thought I followed the usual forms."
+
+"That may be. It is not the form, but the spirit. There is an
+arrogance--a determination not to brook censure."
+
+"No censure was offered, sir."
+
+"No, but your tone implied that you would not in any circumstances
+accept it."
+
+"Only because I knew I hadn't merited it, sir."
+
+"But don't you see that subordination becomes impossible when each
+officer--"
+
+Sir John interrupted his colleague.
+
+"Mr. Dale, perhaps short words will be more comprehensible to you than
+long ones."
+
+Dale flushed, and spoke hurriedly.
+
+"I'm not without education, sir--as my record shows. I won the Rowland
+Hill Fourth Class Annual and the Divisional Prize for English
+composition."
+
+Sir John and the Colonel exchanged a significant glance; and Dale,
+making a clumsy bow, went on very submissively. "However you are good
+enough to word it, sir, I shall endeavor to understand."
+
+"Then," said Sir John, with a sudden crispness and severity, "the
+opinion I have derived from the correspondence is that you were
+altogether too uppish. You had got too big for your boots."
+
+"Sorry that should be your opinion, sir."
+
+"It is the opinion of my colleague too," said Sir John sharply. "The
+impudence of a little Jack in office. I'm the king of the castle."
+
+"I employed no such expression, sir."
+
+"No, but you couldn't keep your temper in writing to your superiors,
+any more than you could in managing the ordinary business of your
+office.
+
+"Who makes the allegation?" Unconsciously Dale had raised his voice to
+a high pitch. "That's what I ask. Let's have facts, not allegations,
+sir."
+
+"Or," said Sir John, calmly and gravely, "any more than you can keep
+your temper now;" and he leaned back in his chair and looked at Dale
+with fixed attention.
+
+Dale's face was red. He opened and shut his mouth as if taking gulps
+of air.
+
+Sir John smiled, and continued very quietly and courteously. "You must
+forgive me, Mr. Dale, if by my bruskness and apparent lack of
+consideration I put you to a little test. But it seemed necessary. You
+see, as to Rodhaven, the gravamen of their charge against you--"
+
+"Charge!" Dale's voice had dropped to a whisper. "Do they lodge a
+charge against me, sir--in spite of my record?"
+
+"Their report is of course strictly confidential, and it is not
+perhaps my duty to inform you as to its details."
+
+"I thought if a person's accused, he should at least know his
+indictment, sir."
+
+Sir John smiled, and nudged the Colonel's elbow. "Then, Mr. Dale, it
+merely amounts to this. They say you are unquestionably an efficient
+servant, but that your efficiency--at any rate, in the position you
+have held of late--has been marred by what seem to be faults of
+temperament. They believe--and we believe--that you honestly try to
+do your best; but, well, you do not succeed."
+
+"I'd be glad to know where I've failed, sir. Mr. Ridgett, he said he
+found everything in apple-pie order. That was Mr. Ridgett's very own
+word."
+
+"Who is Mr. Ridgett?"
+
+"Your inspector, sir--what you sent to take over."
+
+"Ah, yes. But he no doubt referred to the office itself. What I am
+referring to is a much wider question--the necessity of avoiding
+friction with the public. We have to remember that we are the servants
+of the public, and not its masters. Now in country districts--You were
+at Portsmouth, weren't you, before you went to Rodchurch?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Well, of course, in the poorer parts of big towns like Portsmouth,
+one has rather a rough crowd to deal with; good manners may not be
+required; a dictatorial method is not so much resented. But in a
+country village, in a residential neighborhood, where high and low are
+accustomed to live in amity--well, I must say candidly, a postmaster
+who adopts bullying tactics, and is always losing his temper--"
+
+"Sir," said Dale earnestly, "I do assure you I am not a bully, nor one
+who is always losing his temper."
+
+"Yet you gave me the impression of irascibility just now, when I drew
+you."
+
+Dale inwardly cursed his stupidity in having allowed himself to be
+drawn. He had made a mistake that might prove fatal. He felt that the
+whole point of the affair was being lost sight of; they seemed to have
+drifted away into a discussion of good and bad manners, while he
+wanted to get back to the great issue of right and wrong, justice or
+injustice. And he understood the ever-increasing danger of being
+condemned on the minor count, with the cause itself, the great
+fundamental principle, remaining unweighed.
+
+"No one," he said, humbly but firmly, "regrets it more than I do,
+gentlemen, if I spoke up too hot. But, sir," and he bowed to Sir John,
+"you were wishing to nettle me, and there's no question that for the
+moment I was nettled."
+
+All three judges smiled; and Dale, accepting the smiles as a happy
+augury, went on with greater confidence.
+
+"I'm sure I apologize. And I ask you not to turn it to more than its
+proper consequence--or to make the conclusion that I'm that way as a
+rule. With all respect, I'd ask you to think that this means a great
+deal to me--a very great deal; and that it has dragged on
+until--naturally--it begins to prey on one's mind. I am like to that
+extent shaken and off my balance; but I beg, as no more than is due,
+gentlemen, that you won't take me for quite the man up here, where
+all's strange, to what I am down there, where I'm in my element and on
+my own ground. And I would further submit, under the head of all
+parties at Rodhaven, that there may be a bit of malice behind their
+report."
+
+"What malice could there possibly be? They appear to have shown an
+inclination to pass over the whole matter."
+
+"Only if I took a black mark, sir. That's where the shoe pinched with
+me, sir--and perhaps with them too. They mayn't have been best pleased
+when I asked to have _your_ decision over theirs."
+
+Then the Colonel spoke instead of Sir John.
+
+"But apart from Rodhaven, we have evidence against you from the
+village. Your neighbors, Mr. Dale, complain more forcibly than anybody
+else."
+
+"Is that so?" Dale felt as if he had received a wickedly violent blow
+in the dark. "Of course," and he moved his hands spasmodically--"Of
+course I've long expected I'd enemies." Then he snorted. "But I
+suppose, sir, you're alluding now to a certain Member of Parliament
+whose name I needn't mention."
+
+"Yes, I allude to him, and to others--to several others."
+
+"If some have spoken against me, there's a many more would have spoken
+for me."
+
+"But they have not done so," said the Colonel dryly.
+
+For a moment Dale's mental distress was so acute that his ideas seemed
+to blend in one vast confused whirl. Some answer was imperatively
+necessary, and no answer could evolve itself. Hesitation would be
+interpreted as the sign of a guilty conscience. And in this dreadful
+arrest of his faculties, the sense of bodily fatigue accentuated
+itself till it seemed that it would absolutely crush him.
+
+"Gentlemen, as I was venturing to say--" Really the pause had been
+imperceptible: "From the vicar downwards, there's many would have
+spoke to my credit--if I'd asked them. And I did not ask them--and for
+why?"
+
+"Well, why?"
+
+"Because," said Dale, with a brave effort, "I relied implicitly on the
+fair play that would be meted out here. From the hour I knew I was to
+be heard at headquarters, I said this is now between me and
+headquarters, and I don't require any one--be it the highest in the
+land--coming between us."
+
+"Ah, I understand," said the Colonel, with great politeness.
+
+"Such was my confident feeling, sir--my full confidence that, having
+heard me, you'd bear me out as doing my duty, and no more nor no less
+than my duty."
+
+Yet, even as he said so, his whole brain seemed as if fumes from some
+horrid corrosive acid were creeping through and through it. In truth,
+all his confidence had gone, and only his courage remained. These men
+were hostile to him; they had prejudged him; their deadly politeness
+and their airs of suave impartiality could not conceal their
+abominable intentions. He had trusted them, and they were going to
+show themselves unworthy of trust.
+
+"Gentlemen," he said the word very loudly, and again there came the
+check to the sequence of his ideas. In another whirl of thought he
+remembered those courtyards at the Abbey House, the loyal service of
+his wife's family, the great personage who might have spoken up for
+him. Oh, why hadn't he allowed Mavis to write a second time imploring
+aid? "Gentlemen--" He echoed the word twice, and then was able to go
+on. "My desire has ever bin to conduct the service smooth and
+expeditious, and in strict accordance with the regulations--more
+particularly as set out in the manual, which I can truly
+ass-ass-assev'rate that I read more constant and careful than what I
+do the Bible."
+
+He knew that the crisis was close upon him. Now or never he must speak
+the words that should convince and prevail; and instinct told him
+that he would speak in vain. Nevertheless, he succeeded in stimulating
+himself adequately for the last great effort. He would fight game and
+he would die game.
+
+"If," he said stoutly, "I am at liberty now to make my plain statement
+of the facts, I do so. It was seven-thirty-five P.M. Miss Yorke was at
+the instrument. I was here"--and he moved a step away. "The soldier
+was there;" and he pointed. "The soldier began his audacity by--"
+
+"But, good gracious," said Sir John, "you are going back to the very
+beginning."
+
+"For your proper understanding," said Dale, with determination, "I
+must commence at the commencement. If, as promised, I am to be
+heard--"
+
+"But you _have_ been heard."
+
+"Your pardon, sir. You have examined me, but I have made no
+statement."
+
+"Oh, very well." Sir John, as well as the other two, assumed an
+attitude of patient boredom. "Fire ahead, then, Mr. Dale."
+
+And, bowing, Dale plunged into his long-pondered oration. Their three
+faces told him that he was failing. Not a single point seemed to
+score. He was muddled, hopeless, but still brave. He struggled on
+stanchly. With a throbbing at his temples, a prickly heat on his
+chest, a clammy coldness in his spine--with his voice sounding harsh
+and querulous, or dull and faint--with the sense that all the
+invisible powers of evil had combined to deride, to defeat, and to
+destroy him--he struggled on toward the bitterly bitter end of his
+ordeal.
+
+He had nearly got there, was just reaching his man-to-man finale, when
+the judges cut him short.
+
+"One moment, Mr. Dale."
+
+The nice young man had come in, and was talking both to Sir John and
+the Colonel.
+
+"Thank you. Just for a moment."
+
+Of his own accord Dale had gone back to the window.
+
+It was all over. Never mind about the end of the speech. Nothing could
+have been gained by saying it. The tension of his nerves relaxed, and
+a wave of sick despair came rolling upward from viscera to brain. He
+knew now with absolute certainty that right was going to count for
+nothing; no justice existed in the world; these men were about to
+decide against him.
+
+"Yes,"--and the young man laughed genially--"he said I was to offer
+his apologies."
+
+Dale listened to the conversation at the table without attempting to
+understand it. Somebody, as he gathered dully, was demanding an
+interview. But the interruption could make no difference. It was all
+over.
+
+"He said he wouldn't take 'No' for an answer."
+
+Then they all laughed; and Sir John said to the young man, "Very well.
+Ask him in."
+
+The young man went out, leaving the door open; and Dale saw that the
+secretary had risen and brought another chair to the table. Then
+footsteps sounded in the corridor, and Sir John and the Colonel
+smilingly turned their eyes toward the open doorway. Dale, turning his
+eyes in the same direction, started violently.
+
+The newcomer was Mr. Barradine.
+
+He shook hands with the gentlemen at the table, who had both got up
+to receive him; he talked to them pleasantly and chaffingly, and there
+was more laughter; then he nodded to Dale; then he said he was much
+obliged to the secretary for giving him the chair, and then he sat
+down.
+
+Dale's thoughts were like those of a drowning sailor, when through the
+darkness and the storm he hears the voice of approaching aid. He had
+been going down in the deep, cruel waters, with the longed-for lights
+of home, the adored face of his wife, the dreaded gates of hell, all
+dancing wildly before his eyes--and now. Breath again, hope again,
+life again.
+
+He listened, but did not trouble to understand. It was dreamlike,
+glorious, sublime. The illustrious visitor had alluded to the fact
+that Jack, the nice young man, was a connection of his; and had
+explained that, hearing from Jack of to-day's appointment, he
+determined to go right down there and beard the lions in their den. He
+had also spoken of a nephew of Sir John's, who was coming to have a
+bang at the Abbey partridges in September. He further reminded the
+Colonel that he did not consider himself a stranger, because they used
+to meet often at such and such a place. He also asked if the Colonel
+kept up his riding. Now, without any change of tone, he was talking of
+the case.
+
+And Dale, watching, felt as if his whole heart had been melted, and as
+if it was streaming across the room in a warm vapor of gratitude.
+
+"My interest," said Mr. Barradine, "is simply public spirit; although
+it is quite true that I know Mr. Dale personally. Indeed, he and his
+wife have been friends with me and my family for more years than I
+care to count."
+
+Dale caught his breath and coughed. He was almost overwhelmed by the
+noble turn of that last phrase. Friends! Nothing more, and nothing
+less. Not patron and dependents, but friends.
+
+"And, of course," Mr. Barradine was saying, "I want my friend to come
+out of it all right--as I honestly believe he deserves to come out of
+it."
+
+Dale felt himself on the verge of breaking down and sobbing. His
+strength had gone long ago, and now all his courage went too. With his
+gratitude there mingled a cowardly joy that he had not been left to
+fight things out alone and be beaten, that succor had come at the
+supreme moment. Ardently admiring as well as fervently thanking, he
+watched the friend in need, the splendid ally, the only agent of
+Providence that could have saved him.
+
+Who would not admire such a prince?
+
+He was old and big, and though rather frail, yet so magnificently
+grand. His costume was of the plainest character--black satin
+neck-scarf tied negligently, with a pearl pin stuck through it anyhow,
+a queer sort of black pea-jacket with braid on its edges, square-toed
+patent-leather boots with white spats--and, nevertheless, he seemed to
+be dressed as sumptuously as if he had been wearing all the gold and
+glitter of his Privy Councilor's uniform. His face seemed to Dale like
+the mask of a Roman emperor--a high-bridged delicate nose, thin gray
+hair combed back from a low forehead, a ridge like a straight bar
+above the tired eyes and a puffiness of flesh below them, a moustache
+that showed the lose curves of the mouth, and a small pointed beard
+that perhaps concealed an unbeautiful protrusion of the chin. His
+voice, so calm, so evenly modulated, had been trained in the senate
+and the palace. His attitude, his manner, his freedom from gesture
+and emphasis, all indicated a born ruler as well as a born aristocrat.
+Was it likely that when _he_ spoke he would fail?
+
+Already he had swung the balance. Dale could see that he would not be
+resisted. And as the great man sat talking--chatting, one might almost
+term it--he seemed to be taking out of the atmosphere every element of
+discomfort, all the passionate excitement, the hot throbs of
+indignation, the cold tremors of fear. Dale felt his muscles
+recovering tone, his legs stiffening themselves, his blood circulating
+richly and freely.
+
+"You have here," said Mr. Barradine, "a man of unblemished reputation,
+who, acting obviously from conscientious motives, has in the exercise
+of his judgment done so and so. Now, admitting for the sake of
+argument, that he has done wrong, are you to punish him for an error
+of judgment? We do not, however, admit that it was an error."...
+
+Dale looked dogged and stern. He had been on the point of saying, "I
+never will admit it;" but the words would not come out. He must not
+interrupt. This was Heaven-sent advocacy.
+
+Mr. Barradine went on quietly and grandly. In truth what he said now
+was almost what had been said by the authorities at Rodhaven--good
+intentions, over-zeal, a mistake, if you care to call it so;--but from
+these lips it fell on Dale's ear as soothing music. Mr. Barradine
+might say whatever he pleased: and the man he was defending would not
+object.
+
+"And now if I show the edge of the little private ax that I myself
+have to grind!" Mr. Barradine laughed. They all laughed. "Our
+member--we agree in politics; but, well, you know, he and I do not
+altogether hit it off. We are both of us getting older than we
+were--and perhaps we both suffer from swollen head. It's the
+prevailing malady of the period."
+
+Sir John laughed gaily. "I don't think you show any marked symptoms of
+it. But I can't answer for what's-his-name."
+
+"Well;" and Mr. Barradine made his first gesture--just a wave of the
+right hand. "One can't have two kings at Brentford. And honestly I
+shall feel that you have given me a smack in the face, if--"
+
+"Oh, my dear sir!"
+
+Then they sent Dale out of the room. Really it seemed that they had
+forgotten his presence, or they might have banished him before. It was
+the Colonel who suddenly appeared to remember that he was still
+standing over there by the window.
+
+He waited in a large empty room, and the time passed slowly. It was
+the luncheon hour, and far and near he heard the footsteps of clerks
+going to and coming from the midday meal. Bigwigs no doubt would take
+their luncheon privately, in small groups, here and there, all over
+the building. He too was getting very hungry.
+
+An hour passed, an hour and a half, two hours; and then he was again
+summoned to the other room. There was no one in it except the
+secretary--looking hot and red after a copious repast, speaking
+jovially and familiarly, and seeming altogether more common and less
+important than when under the restraining influence of bigwigs.
+
+"Ah, here you are." And he chuckled amicably, and gave Dale a roguish
+nod. "You've had your wires pulled A1 for you. It's decided to stretch
+a point in your favor. Not to make a secret, they don't wish to run
+counter to Mr. B.'s wishes. You have been lucky, Mr. Dale, in having
+him behind you."
+
+Dale gulped, but did not say anything.
+
+"Very well. I am to inform you that you will be reinstated; but--in
+order to allow the talk to blow over--you will not resume your duties
+for a fortnight. You will take a fortnight's holiday--from now--on
+full pay."
+
+Dale said nothing. He could have said so much. At this moment he felt
+that his victory had been intrinsically a defeat. But the strength had
+gone from him; and in its place there was only joy--weak but immense
+joy in the knowledge that all had ended happily. And the world would
+say that he had won.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+
+Outside in the streets his joy increased. Nothing had mattered.
+Beneath all surface sensations there was the deep fundamental rapture:
+as of a wild animal that has been caught, and is now loose and free--a
+squirrel that has escaped from the trap, and, whisking and bounding
+through sunlight and shadow, understands that its four paws are still
+under it, and that only a little of its fur is left in those iron
+teeth. Security after peril--articulate man or dumb brute, can one
+taste a fuller bliss?
+
+But he must share and impart it. Mavis! He might not go dashing back
+to Hampshire--the fortnight's exile prevented him from joining her
+there. A broad grin spread across his face. What was that learned
+saying that his old schoolmaster, Mr. Fenley, used to be so fond of
+repeating? "If Mahomet can not go to the mountain, the mountain must
+come to Mahomet."
+
+The memory of this classical quotation tickled him, and he went
+chuckling into the Cannon Street post office and wrote out a
+telegraph-form.
+
+"Reinstatement. Come at once. Shall expect you this evening without
+fail."
+
+Having sent off the telegram, he presently ordered his dinner in the
+grill-room of a Ludgate Hill restaurant.
+
+"Yes, let's see your notion of a well-cooked rumpsteak. And I'll try
+some of the famous lager beer.... Oh, bottle or draught's all one to
+me;" and he snapped his fingers and laughed. "Now, sharp's the word,
+Mister waiter. I'm fairly famished."
+
+The lager beer, served in a glass vase, was delicious--sunbeams
+distilled to make a frothing and unheady nectar. The grilled steak and
+the fried potatoes could not have been better done at the Buckingham
+Palace kitchens. Never for three weeks had food tasted like this. All
+had been dust and ashes in his mouth since the row began.
+
+Then with appetite satisfied and digestion beginning, he smoked.
+
+"If you've anything in the shape of a really good threepenny cigar, I
+can do with it. But don't fob me off with any poor trash. For I've my
+pipe in my pocket."
+
+The waiter said he had a truly splendid threepenny; and Dale, enjoying
+it, talked to the waiter. He could not help talking; he could not help
+laughing. After so much silence it was a treat to hear the sound of
+his own loud, jolly voice, and he gave himself the treat freely.
+
+"You're from the country, sir," said the waiter, politely.
+
+"Yes, bull's eye," said Dale, with boisterous good-humor. "Hand him
+out a cokernut. But may I ask how you guessed my place of origin so
+pat?"
+
+"Well, sir. I don't know, sir. Haven't had you here before, I think."
+
+"Oh, you're very clever, you Londoners. I don't doubt you can all see
+through a brick wall. Yes, I'm from the country--but I'm beginning to
+know my way about the town too. Ever bin on a steamboat to Rodhaven?"
+
+"Rodhaven? No, sir."
+
+Then Dale told the waiter about the heaths and downs and woods that
+lie between Rodhaven and Old Manninglea.
+
+"Prettiest part of the world that I know of," he said proudly. "You
+spend your next holiday there. Take the four-horse sharrybank from
+Rodhaven pier--and when you get to the Roebuck at Rodchurch, you get
+off of the vehicle and ask for the Postmaster."
+
+"Yes, sir?"
+
+"He won't eat you," and Dale laughed with intense enjoyment of his
+humor. "He's not a bad chap really, though his neighbors say he's a
+bit of a Tartar. I give you my word he'll receive you, decently, and
+stand you dinner into the bargain. I know he will--and for why?
+Because I am that gentleman myself."
+
+He could not resist the pleasure of rounding off his sentence with the
+grand word "Gentleman," and he was gratified by the waiter's meekly
+obsequious reception of the word.
+
+"Thank you, sir. Much obliged, sir."
+
+When leaving, he gave the waiter a generous tip.
+
+To-day his walk through the gaily-crowded streets was sweet to him as
+a lazy truant ramble in the woods during church-time. Everything that
+he looked at delighted him--the richness of shop-windows, showing all
+the expensive useless goods that no sensible person ever wants; the
+liveries worn by pampered servants standing at carriage wheels; the
+glossy coats of mettlesome, prancing horses; the extravagant dresses
+of fine ladies mincingly walking on the common public pavement; the
+stolid grandeur of huge policemen, and the infinite audacity of small
+newspaper boys; the life, the color, the noise. It seemed as if the
+busy city and the pleasure-loving West-end alike unfolded themselves
+as a panorama especially arranged for one's amusement; and his
+satisfaction was so great that it mutely expressed itself in words
+which he would have been quite willing to shout aloud. Such as:
+"Bravo, London! You aren't a bad little place when one gets to know
+you. There's more in you than meets the eye, first view."
+
+And because he was so happy himself, he could sympathize with the
+happiness of everybody else. He was glad that the rich people were so
+rich and the poor people so contented; he admired a young swell for
+buying flowers from a woman with a shawl over her head; he mused on
+all the honest, well-paid toil that had gone to the raising of the
+grapes and peaches at a Piccadilly fruiterer's. "Live, and let
+live"--that's a good motto all the world over. When he saw babies in
+perambulators, he would have liked to kiss them. When he saw an
+elderly man with a pretty young woman, he wanted to nudge him and say
+jocosely, "You're in luck, old chap, aren't you?" When couples of boy
+and girl lovers went whispering by, he smiled sentimentally. "That's
+right. You can't begin too soon. Never mind what Ma says. If you like
+him, stick to him, lassie."
+
+And though still alone, he felt no loneliness. His own dear companion
+was soon coming to him. Throughout the walk the only thoughts tinged
+with solemnity were those which sprang from his always deepening
+gratitude to Mr. Barradine. He wanted to pay a ceremonious call for
+the purpose of expressing his thanks, and he felt that he should do
+this immediately; but for the life of him he could not remember
+whether the great man's London house was situated in Grosvenor Square
+or Grosvenor Place. Mavis of course would know. Or he could find out
+from one of these policemen. He hesitated, and it was the state of his
+collar that decided him. He would postpone the visit of gratitude, and
+do it first thing to-morrow morning in a clean collar.
+
+The hall clock at his lodgings announced the hour as close on five,
+and he mentally noted that the timepiece was inaccurate--three and a
+half minutes behind Greenwich. As usual, the hall was untenanted, with
+no servant to answer questions. He searched the dark recesses of a
+dirty letter-rack, on the chance that he might find a telegram from
+his wife waiting for him. Then he went gaily up the interminable
+staircase, making nothing now of its five flights, enjoying their
+steepness as productive of agreeable exercise.
+
+"Hulloa!" he muttered. "What's this?"
+
+A woman's hat and parasol were lying on a chair, and there was a
+valise on the floor by the chest of drawers. Turning, he gave a cry of
+delight. Mavis was stretched on the bed, fast asleep.
+
+She woke at the sound of his voice, scrambled down, and flung herself
+into his arms.
+
+"Will, oh, Will. My dearest Will!
+
+"My darling--my little sweetheart. But how have you come to me--have
+you flown?"
+
+"Don't be silly."
+
+He was devouring her face with his kisses, straining her to his breast
+in a paroxysm of pleasure, almost suffocating himself and her in the
+ardor of the embrace, and jerking out his words as though they were
+gasps for breath.
+
+"When did you get my wire? Why, it's impossible. I on'y wired
+two-forty-three. Is it witchcraft or just a dream?"
+
+"Did you wire? I never got it. I was so anxious that I couldn't stay
+there any longer without news. So I just packed and came. Will--be
+sensible. Tell me everything."
+
+"Best of news! Reinstated!" He bellowed the glad tidings over her
+head. She was all warm and palpitating in his arms, her dear body so
+delicate and fragile and yet so round and firm, her dear face soft and
+smooth, with lips that trembled and smelled like garden flowers.
+
+"Did you come up by the nine o'clock train? How long have you been
+waiting here?"
+
+"Oh, don't bother about me. I'm nothing. It's you I want to hear
+about."
+
+Then they sat side by side on the narrow little bed, he with his arm
+firmly clasped round her waist, and she nestling against him with her
+face hidden on his breast.
+
+"Mav, my bird, I can't never leave you again. I've bin just a lost dog
+without you. Did you start before you got my Sunday letter?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Every day I wrote--didn't I?--just like the old time. But I've a bone
+to pick with you, young lady. What d'ye mean by not writing to me more
+regular? Not even so much as a post-card these last three days!"
+
+"Will--I, I couldn't. I was too anxious while it all remained in
+suspense."
+
+"Yes, but you might have sent me a card. I told you cards would
+satisfy me. I was thinking of you off and on all yesterday. I can tell
+you it was just about the longest day of my life. Did you and Auntie
+go to church?"
+
+"No. Oh, don't ask questions about me--when I'm dying for a full
+account of it."
+
+He asked no more questions. After stooping to kiss the fragrant coil
+of hair above her forehead, he burst out into his joyous tale of
+triumph.
+
+"It was Mr. Barradine that did the trick for me;" and with enthusiasm
+he narrated the gloriously opportune arrival of "the friend at court."
+Indeed his enthusiasm was so great that he could not keep still while
+speaking. He got off the bed, and walked about the room, brandishing
+his arms. "He's just a tip-topper. If you could have been there to
+hear him, you wouldn't 'a' left off crying yet. I tell you I was
+fairly overcome myself. It was the _way_ he did it. 'Of course,' he
+said, 'I want my friend to come out of it as I honestly believe he
+deserves.' They couldn't stand up against him half a minute. But, mind
+you, Mav;" and Dale stopped moving, and spoke solemnly, "he's aged
+surprising these last few years. He's more feeble like than ever one
+would think, seeing him on his horse. I mean, his bodily frame. The
+int'lect's more powerful, I should make the guess, than ever it
+was.... And mind you, here's another thing, Mav;" and he spoke even
+more solemnly. "All this is going to be a lesson to me. I've worn my
+considering cap most of the time I've been away from you--and, Mav,
+I'm going to lay to heart the fruits of my experience. All's well that
+ends well, old lady. But once bit, twice shy; and in the future I'm
+going to trim my sails so's to avoid another such an upset." He came
+back to the bed, and sat beside her again. "I shan't be too proud to
+say the gray mare's the better horse when it comes to steering through
+the etiquette book, and I mean to mend my manners by Mav's advice."
+
+"My dear Will--my true husband--I'm so glad to think it's ended as we
+wished."
+
+Her joy in his joy was beautiful to see. Though her pretty eyes were
+flooded by sudden tears, her whole face was shining with happiness;
+and she pressed both her hands against him, and raised her lips to his
+lips with the rapid movements of a child that craves a caress from its
+loved and venerated guardian.
+
+"There," he said, after a long hug. "Now use your hanky, and let's be
+jolly--and begin to enjoy ourselves. You and I are going to have the
+best treat this evening that London can provide. But I think that, now
+you've come, I'll do my duty first, and then throw myself into the
+pleasure without alloy. What's his address?"
+
+"Whose address?"
+
+"Mr. Barradine's."
+
+"How do you mean? His address here, in London?"
+
+Yes."
+
+"Number 181, Grosvenor Place."
+
+"Ah, I thought it was the Place--and yet I couldn't feel sure it
+wasn't the Square. Now you shall tie my tie for me."
+
+And, getting out a new collar, he told her that he would go to thank
+Mr. Barradine there and then. He would be less than no time fulfilling
+this act of necessary politeness, and while he was away she was to see
+the people of the house and get a proper married couple's bedroom in
+lieu of this bachelor's crib. Mavis, however, thought that Dale was
+mistaken in supposing the ceremonious call necessary or even
+advisable, and she gently tried to dissuade him from carrying out his
+purpose. She considered that a carefully written letter would be a
+better method of communication to employ in thanking their grand ally.
+But Dale was obstinate. He said that in this one matter he knew best.
+It was between him and Mr. Barradine now--a case of man to man.
+
+"He'll look for it, Mav, and would take a very poor opinion of me if I
+hadn't the manhood to go straight and frank, and say 'I thank you.'
+Trust your old William for once more, Mav;" and he laughed merrily. "I
+tell you what I felt I wanted to do at the G.P.O. was a leaf out of
+the Roman history--that is, to kneel down to him and say, 'Put your
+hand on William Dale's head, sir, for sign and token, and take his
+service from this day forward as your bondsman and your slave.' But I
+shan't say that;" and again he laughed. "I shall simply say, 'Mr.
+Barradine, sir, I thank you for what you've done for me and for the
+kind and open way you done it.' So much he will expect, and the rest
+he will understand."
+
+He was equally determined to despatch a telegram giving the good news
+to Mrs. Petherick at North Ride Cottage, and he became almost huffy
+when Mavis again suggested that a letter would meet the case.
+
+"I don't understand you, Mav. You seem now as if you were for
+belittling everything. I'm not going to spare sixpence to keep your
+aunt on tenterhooks for course of post."
+
+Mr. Barradine's town mansion stood in a commanding corner position,
+with its front door in the side street; and from the glimpse that Dale
+obtained of its hall, its staircase, and its vast depth, he judged
+that it was quite worthy of the owner of that noble countryseat, the
+Abbey House.
+
+The servants were at first doubtful as to the propriety of admitting
+him. They said their master was at home, but they did not know if he
+could receive visitors.
+
+"He won't refuse to see me," said Dale confidently. "Tell him it's Mr.
+Dale of Rodchurch, and won't detain him two minutes."
+
+"Very good," said the principal servant gravely. "But I can't disturb
+him if he's resting."
+
+"Oh, if he's resting," said Dale, "I'll wait. I'll make my time his
+time--whether convenient to me or not." Then they led him down a
+passage, past a cloak-room and a lavatory, to a small room right at
+the back of the house.
+
+Perhaps the room seemed small only by reason of its great height.
+Dale, waiting patiently, examined his surroundings with curious
+interest. There were two old-fashioned writing-tables--one looking as
+if it was never used, and the other looking busy and homelike, with a
+cabinet full of every conceivable sort of notepaper, trays full of
+pens, and little candles to be lighted when one desired to affix
+seals. On a roundabout conveniently near there were books of reference
+that included the current volume of the _London Post Office
+Directory_. The sofas and chairs were upholstered in dark green
+leather, the chimney-piece was of carved marble, a few ancient and
+rather dismal pictures hung almost out of sight on the walls; and
+generally, the room would have produced an impression of a repellent
+and ungenial kind of pomp, if it had not been for the extremely human
+note struck by the large assortment of photographs.
+
+These were dabbed about everywhere--in panels above the chair rail, in
+screens and silver frames, on the writing-table, and loose and
+unframed on the mantel-shelf. They were nearly all portraits of
+women--and some nice attractive bits among them, as Dale thought;
+young and cheeky ones, too, that he guessed were actresses and not
+nieces or cousins. He smiled tolerantly. These photographs brought to
+his mind a nearly forgotten fancy of his own, together with echoes of
+the local gossip. Round Rodchurch the talk ran that the Right
+Honorable gentleman was still a rare one for the ladies. "And why
+not?" thought Dale. A childless old widower may keep up that sort of
+game as long as he likes, or as long as he can, without wounding any
+one's feeling. It wasn't as if her ladyship had been still alive.
+
+"Sir, I hope I have not disturbed you; but I couldn't be easy till I'd
+cordially and heartily thanked you." Mr. Barradine had come in, and
+Dale fired off his brief set speeches. But instinct almost immediately
+told him that once more Mavis had been right and he wrong. Mr.
+Barradine was not expecting or desiring a personal call.
+
+"Not worth mentioning. Nothing at all." He said these things
+courteously, but there was a coldness in his tone that quite froze the
+visitor. He seemed to be saying really: "Now look here, I have had
+quite enough bother about you; and please don't let me have any more
+of it."
+
+"Then, sir, I thank you--and--er--that's all."
+
+"Very glad if--" Mr. Barradine made the same gesture that Dale had
+seen a few hours ago: a wave of the right hand. But to Dale it seemed
+that it was different now, that it indicated languor and haughtiness;
+indeed, it seemed that the whole man was different. Could this be the
+advocate who had spoken up so freely for a friend in trouble? All the
+majesty and the force, as well as the generous friendliness, had
+disappeared. The face, the voice, the whole bearing belonged to
+another man. The tired eyes had not a spark of fire in them; those
+puffy bags of loose flesh, that hung between the outer corners of the
+cheekbones and the thin birdlike nose, were so ugly as to be
+disfiguring; the mouth, instead of looking soft and kind, although
+proud, now appeared to close in the unbending lines of a very obdurate
+self-esteem. This new aspect of his patron made Dale stammer
+uncomfortably; and he felt something akin to humiliation in lieu of
+the fine glow of gratitude with which he had come hurrying from the
+Euston Road.
+
+"Then my duty--and my thanks--and I'll say good afternoon, sir."
+
+He had pulled himself together and spoken these last words ringingly,
+and now grasping Mr. Barradine's hand he gave it a mercilessly severe
+squeeze.
+
+"Damnation!" Under the horny grip, Mr. Barradine emitted a squeal of
+pain. "Confound it--my good fellow--why the deuce can't you be
+careful what you're doing?"
+
+Mr. Barradine, very angry, was ruefully examining his hand; and Dale,
+apologizing profusely, stared at it too. It was limp in texture,
+yellowish white of color, with bluish swollen veins, some darkish
+brown patches here and there, and slight glistening protuberances at
+the knuckle joints-an old man's hand, so feeble that it could not bear
+the least pressure, and yet decorated with a young man's fopperies.
+Dale noticed the three rings on the little finger-one of gold, one of
+silver, one of black metal, each with tiny colored gems in it--and
+while heartily ashamed of his rustic violence, he felt a secret
+contempt for its victim.
+
+"That's all right." Mr. Barradine, although still wincing, had
+recovered composure, and what he said now appeared to be an implied
+excuse for the sharpness of his protest. "When you get to my time of
+life, you'll perhaps know what gout means."
+
+"Sorry you should be afflicted that way, sir," said Dale contritely.
+
+Mr. Barradine had rung a bell, and a servant was standing at the door.
+
+"Good day to you, Mr. Dale. You're going home, I suppose?"
+
+"Not for a fortnight, sir."
+
+"Ah! I hope to return to the Abbey on Thursday morning;" and quite
+obviously Mr. Barradine now intended to gratify Dale by a few polite
+sentences of small talk, and thus show him that his offense had been
+pardoned. "Yes, I soon begin to pine for my garden. Friday, at latest,
+sees me home again. I always call the Abbey home. No place like home,
+Dale."
+
+Dale going out, through the long passage to the hall, felt momentarily
+depressed by a sense of humiliating failure in the midst of his
+apparent success. If only he could have fought them and beaten them
+alone, as a strong man fighting unaided, instead of being pulled
+through the battle by that veinous, blotchy, ringed hand! However, he
+promptly tried to banish all such vague discomfort from his mind.
+
+All of it was gone when he got back to the lodging-house, and found
+his wife established in their new room.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+
+"The Acadia Theater! So be it. They're all one to me."
+
+Mavis had chosen this famous music hall because, as she explained,
+Chirgwin was performing at it, and her aunt had always said that
+Chirgwin was the most excruciatingly funny of all music-hall artists.
+
+"So be it. Half a minute, though." Dale counting his money, dolefully
+discovered that it had run very low indeed. "I begin to think we shall
+have to cut down our treat a bit."
+
+But Mavis swept away all difficulties. She had brought money--her very
+own money--her little emergency hoard; and opening her handbag, and
+tumbling inside it, she produced a five-pound note, and smilingly put
+it on the dressing-table.
+
+"Hulloa! There's more where that comes from." His quick ear had caught
+the rustling sound inside the handbag. "There's other notes in there,
+old lady;" and, laughing, he tried to snatch the bag from her. "How
+much? Here's a miser, and no mistake."
+
+"Never you mind how much your miser's got." Her lips were smiling, her
+eyes shining, and with a happy laugh she sprang away from him. "Now,
+no nonsense. Take me out, and make a fuss of me."
+
+For a moment he stood still, admiring her. She was dressed in her very
+best Sunday clothes, and, to his eye at least, she looked quite
+entrancingly nice. Her straw hat was full of artificial roses that
+any one might have sworn were real; her unbuttoned jacket disclosed
+the delicate finery of a muslin blouse; her long skirt, held up so
+gracefully by the unoccupied hand, was made of veritable silk. She
+just looked tip-top--a picture--to the full as much a lady as the
+young dames he had been lately observing; and yet, wonder of wonders,
+she was his property.
+
+"By Jupiter, I must have another hug--and then off we go."
+
+"No," she said archly, and yet decidedly. "No more kisses till
+bedtime. I'm all ready to show myself to company, and I don't wish to
+be rumpled."
+
+They rode like a gentleman and a lady in a hansom cab; they dined like
+a duke and a duchess at the Criterion restaurant; and they were both
+as happy and light-hearted as schoolboys on the first day of their
+holidays. Like children they made silly little jokes which would have
+been jokes to no one but themselves. He caused immoderate laughter in
+her by assuming the airs of a man about town, by affecting a profound
+knowledge of the French names for all the dishes on the table d'hote
+menu, and by describing how offended he would now be if any one should
+detect that he was not a regular London swell; and she, by whispered
+criticism of a stout party at a distant table, sent such a convulsion
+of mirth through him that he choked badly while drinking wine. He had
+insisted on ordering the wine, and in making Mav take her share of it,
+although she vowed that the unaccustomed stimulant would fly to her
+head.
+
+"Rot, old girl. You dip your beak in it--it's mostly froth and fizz,
+and no more strength than the lager beer, as far as I can make out."
+
+"How much does it cost?"
+
+"Shan't tell. Yes, I will," and he roared with laughter, "since it's
+you that's paying for it. Best part of seven shillings."
+
+"Oh, Will, it's _wicked_!"
+
+"Bosh! This is the time of our lives;" and he chaffed her again about
+being a secret capitalist. "Blow the expense. Let the money fly. And,
+Mav, I on'y borrow it. This is all my affair really."
+
+"No, no. You'll spoil half my pleasure if you don't let me pay."
+
+But his money or her money--what did it matter? They two were one,
+reunited after a cruel, most bitterly cruel separation; her face was
+flushed with joy more than with wine, and her love poured out of her
+eyes like a stream of light.
+
+They walked from the restaurant to Leicester Square, arm in arm, proud
+and joyous, enjoying the lamplight and noise, not minding the airless
+heat; but when they reached the entrance of the music hall--where he
+had stood gaping, solitary and sad, a few nights ago--Mavis met with
+disappointment.
+
+"Oh," she said, "what a shame! They've changed the bill. Chirgwin's
+name is gone. He was acting here Friday night."
+
+"How d'you know that?"
+
+She followed him into the vestibule, and he asked her again while they
+waited in the crowd by the ticket office.
+
+"I read it in the paper. Aunt and I were talking of him; and I--I had
+the curiosity to look at the advertisements--not dreaming that I
+should come so near seeing him."
+
+"Never mind," cried Dale, in his jovial, far-carrying voice; "there'll
+be a many as good as him."
+
+"Hush," she whispered. "If you talk like that, they'll know we come
+from the country;" and she squeezed his arm affectionately. "I don't
+mind a bit, dear--but there's no one so clever as Chirgwin. Really
+there isn't."
+
+She at once forgot her trifling disappointment. Placed side by side in
+extravagantly expensive seats of the stately circle, surrounded by
+ladies and gentlemen in evening dress, they both gave themselves
+wholly to the pleasure of this unparalleled treat. All the early items
+of a long program astounded or charmed him; and her enjoyment was
+enhanced by recognizing how completely he had thrown off the
+narrowness or prejudice of village life. Listening to his laughter at
+almost indecent jokes, his ejaculations of wonder when conjurers
+showed their skill, his enthusiastic clappings after acrobats had
+proved their strength, she understood that all his natural sternness
+was temporarily relaxed; he would not allow himself to be disturbed by
+any semi-religious notions of propriety or impropriety; he was just a
+jolly comrade for an evening's sport.
+
+"Brayvo! Brayvo! By Jupiter--wouldn't 'a' credited it without the
+evidence of my own eyes." The gorgeous curtains had just descended
+upon a narrow parlor, which a Japanese necromancer had literally
+filled to overflowing with colored cardboard boxes produced from the
+interior of one single top hat. "See! Watch 'em, Mav." Footmen were
+coming in front of the curtains to remove the plethora of cardboard
+boxes. "They're real boxes, Mav."
+
+Sweet music, happy laughter, brilliant light--the evening glided
+entrancingly, like a dream in which neither Greenwich nor any other
+time is kept.
+
+During the interval before the ballet he took her out of the circle,
+strolled with her up and down the promenade, and gave her an American
+drink in a refreshment saloon. It was appallingly hot, and they were
+both longing to quench their thirst with something big and cold. A
+magnificent waiter brought them bigness and coldness in tall tumblers
+with straws, and they sat on a velvet divan and sucked rapturously.
+
+Standing or seated at tables, there were young bloods with white
+waistcoats and cigarettes, and young ladies with rich gowns and
+made-up faces; through a gilded doorway one had a vista of the
+thronged promenade; the air was hot, exhausted, pungent with tobacco
+smoke; and amid the chatter of voices, the clink of glasses, the
+rustle of petticoats, one could only just hear the great orchestra
+playing chords of some fantastic march.
+
+Suddenly Mavis felt a vaguely pleasant confusion of mind, as though
+the icily cold liquid, as she slowly absorbed it through the straw,
+was freezing her intelligence. She could not for a few moments
+understand what Dale was whispering at her ear.
+
+"Between you and me and the post, Mav"--And he told her that,
+according to his opinion, all these women parading up and down were no
+better than they ought to be. They were of course, socially, much
+higher than the common women of the streets, but he considered them to
+be, morally, on the same level: although they did not accost
+strangers, they were all willing to scrape acquaintance with any one
+who looked as if he had money in his pocket. "Yes, London's a bit of
+an eye-opener, old girl." Then he laughed behind his hand, and said
+that she was probably the only respectable woman and virtuous wife in
+the whole of the theater.
+
+Mavis, although trying to listen, answered at random.
+
+"Will, I do believe there's spirits in this stuff--yes, and strong
+spirits too."
+
+"Oh, bosh. It's just a refresher. Mostly crushed ice, and a few drops
+of sirup."
+
+Mavis, however, was quite correct. At the bottom of the glass, and
+below the light sirupy mixture, there lurked liqueurs of which the
+potency was only rendered doubtful because of their low temperature.
+The beginning of the long drink was absolutely delicious, so soothing
+and so cooling; but at the end of it was as if one had filled one's
+self with insidious quick-running flame.
+
+Mavis put down her empty tumbler, and looked at it reproachfully.
+
+"Will, it has made me come over all funny. My head's swimming."
+
+When they got back to their seats and were watching the ballet, he too
+felt the consequences of guileless straw-sucking; but with him the
+after effects were entirely pleasurable. He felt invigorated,
+peaceful, massively grand.
+
+He sat placidly enjoying the beauty of the scene, the grace of the
+dancers, the vibrations of the music. The stage was dark at first, and
+one could merely make out that it pictured a wildly-imagined grove in
+the land of dreams; then it grew brighter, and one saw preposterous
+giant-flowers--foxgloves so big that when they opened there was a
+human face in each quivering bell. And the flowers came out of the
+earth and danced; children dressed up as birds, brown boys like
+beetles, slim girls like butterflies, all came dancing, dancing; with
+more light every moment, till the dazzle and the blaze seemed to drive
+away the little people;--and then quite glorious forms appeared,
+pirouetting, almost flying--pink-limbed houris, fairies, nymphs--"call
+'em what you please--a fair knock-out."
+
+"It makes me go round and round," whispered Mavis.
+
+He sat grave and silent--just nodding his head in approval of all he
+saw, not troubling to applaud any further, impassive as some Eastern
+sultan for whom slaves and courtiers had made a mask.
+
+Then gradually his mind seemed half to detach itself from the thraldom
+of external objects. These novel sense impressions, pouring into him,
+joined themselves to old memories, and, mingling, made up a fuller
+stream of joy. He seemed to be able to think of five or six things at
+once; but, as the undercurrent of every thought, there was the same
+deep-flowing comfort, of which the source lay in his relief at the
+escape from danger. Those fairies flashing about under the branches of
+sham trees momentarily evoked the ancient haunting distress of his
+youth, and out of this thought came the lofty conception of Mavis as
+his guardian angel. How persistently the first of those fancies
+lingered--after so many years! Bother the fairies or nymphs, or
+whatever they were. Household angels are what a man wants to bring
+him contentment; and keep him straight, day by day, and week by week.
+
+Before the ballet was over, he became bored with it. Too long! Enough
+is as good as a feast. They were singing now as well as dancing.
+
+The massive, voluminously quiescent sensation induced by the liqueurs
+had passed away, and in its place came increased weariness of the
+spectacular entertainment. The light, and the music, and the
+half-naked women, who still danced and pranced, were affecting his
+nerves unpleasantly now. He looked away from the stage, and stared at
+the audience. Behind him, as he knew, there were all those hussies
+with painted faces offering themselves for hire. And wherever he
+looked, he seemed to see evidences of amorous traffic. When you
+examined it attentively, the entire audience seemed to resolve itself
+into an endless repetition of the same small group of two persons of
+two sexes, each soliciting the other's favor; a man and a woman
+sitting close together, the couple, the factorial two--everywhere, all
+round the circle, along the three visible rows of stalls, and again in
+the private boxes. Those wealthy men in the boxes were unquestionably
+accompanied by their mistresses and not by their wives or sisters.
+Through the vibrating music and the super-heated atmosphere, on a
+river of vivid light, they were all drifting fast toward the night of
+love that each pair had arranged for itself.
+
+And they too would have their night of love. He looked at his wife,
+and felt his pulses stirred as much now as in the far-off days of
+courtship--more, because then there was no experience of facts to
+strengthen his imagination. He gently pressed her arm, and thrilled
+at the mere contact. She was leaning back, fanning herself with her
+program, and he observed the roundness and whiteness of her neck, the
+flesh of her shoulder showing through the transparent sleeve of her
+blouse, the moistness and warmth of her open lips.
+
+Yet she had told him at Rodchurch Road Station that she was attractive
+only to his eyes, and that she could never again arouse desire in
+other men. What utter nonsense! She was simply adorable.
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+
+They took a cab to drive back in, and he almost carried her up to
+their bedroom. It was on the same floor as the other room, with the
+same marvelous bird's-eye view of the starlit sky and the lamplit
+town. He had got her to himself at last--here, high above the world,
+half-way to heaven. There seemed to him something poetical, almost
+sublime in their situation: they two alone, isolated, millions of
+people surrounding them and no living creature able to interfere with
+them.
+
+As he knew, they were the only lodgers on this top floor; and so one
+need not even trouble to avoid making a noise. He gave full voice to
+his exultation.
+
+"There, old lady." He had opened the window as wide as it would go,
+and he told her to look out. "The air--what there is of it--will do
+you good."
+
+"Oh, I couldn't," and she recoiled.
+
+"Giddy?"
+
+"_Giddy_ isn't the word. Oh, Will, why did you let me drink that
+stuff--after drinking the wine?"
+
+"I thought you'd got a better head-piece. Look at _me_. I could 'a'
+stood two or three more goes at it, and bin none the worse." And he
+chaffed her merrily. "Here's a tale--if it ever leaks out Rodchurch
+way. Have you heard how Mrs. Dale behaved up in London? Went to the
+theater, and drunk more'n was good for her. Came out fair
+squiffy--so's poor Mr. Dale, he felt quite disgraced."
+
+She was not intoxicated in an ugly way; her speech, her movements were
+unaffected, and yet the alcohol was troubling her brain. She looked
+like a child who has been overexercised at a children's party, and who
+comes home with eyebrows raised, eyes glowing and yet dull, and cheeks
+very pale.
+
+"Oh, dear, I _am_ tired," and she sat down on a chair by the chest of
+drawers, and slowly took off her hat.
+
+But she got up again and pushed Dale away, when he offered to help her
+in undressing.
+
+"No, certainly not. What are you thinking of?" and she began to hum
+one of the pretty airs they had heard at the theater. "But, my word,
+Will," and she stopped humming, and laughed foolishly, "I shan't be
+sorry to get out of my things. It _is_ hot. This is the hottest night
+we've had."
+
+"Ah, you feel it. I've got acclim'tized."
+
+He undressed rapidly, and lighting the briar pipe which he had not
+cared to smoke in the genteel society at the theater, he lay on the
+outside of the bed.
+
+"Better now, old girl?"
+
+"Yes. I'm all right, Will. Dear old boy--I'm all right."
+
+Lying on the bed and immensely enjoying his delayed pipe, he watched
+her. She wandered about the room, moved one of the two candles from
+the mantel-shelf to the chest of drawers, put her blouse on the seat
+of a chair and her skirt across the back of it. Then with slow
+graceful movements she began to uncoil her hair, and as her smooth
+white arms went up and down, the candlelight sent gigantic wavering
+shadows across the wall-paper to the ceiling. Beneath one of her
+elbows he could see right out through the open window into a dark
+void. From his position on the bed nothing was visible out there, but
+he could fill it if he cared to do so--the scattered dust of street
+lamps below and the scattered dust of solar systems above.
+
+Soon he puffed lazily, drowsily; then he nodded, and then the pipe
+fell from his mouth.
+
+"Hullo!" And muttering, he roused himself. "I must 'a' dropped off.
+Might 'a' set the bed on fire."
+
+Mavis, in her chemise and stockings now, with her hair down, was still
+at the dressing-table. She did not turn when he spoke to her. While he
+dozed she had fetched the other candle, and in the double light she
+was staring intently at the reflection of her face in the
+looking-glass.
+
+Dale slipped softly off the bed, moved across to the dressing-table,
+and with explosive vigor clasped her in his arms.
+
+"Oh, how you frightened me!" She had given a little squeal, and she
+tried to release herself. "Let me go--please."
+
+"Rot!" And he lifted her from the ground, and carried her across to
+the bed.
+
+"Will--let me go. I--I'm tired;" and she began to cry. "Be kind to me,
+Will." The words came in feeble entreaty, between weak sobs. "Be kind
+to me--my husband--not only now--but always."
+
+She sobbed and shivered; and he, holding her in his arms, soothed her
+with gentle murmurs. "My pretty Mav! My poor little bird. Go to
+sleepy-by, then. Tuck her up, and send her to sleep, a dear little
+Mav." At the touch of her coldly trembling limbs, at the sight of her
+tears, all the sensual desire lessened its throb, and the purer side
+of his love began to subjugate him. That was the greatest of her
+powers--to tame the beast in him, to lift him from the depths to the
+heights, to make him feel as though he was her father instead of her
+lover, because she herself was pure and good as a child.
+"There--there, don't cry, my pretty Mav."
+
+And she, melting beneath the gentleness and tenderness of his
+caresses, wept in pity of herself. "Yes, I'm tired--dead-tired." And
+the tears flowed unchecked, blotting out emotion, reason, instinct,
+swamping her in floods of self-pity. "Let me sleep--and let me forget.
+Oh, let me forget what I've gone through these last two days."
+
+"Anyways, it's over now."
+
+"Yes, it's over. Oh, thank God in Heaven, it's over and done with."
+
+"Just so." And there was a change in the tone of his voice that she
+might have noticed, but did not. "Just so--but you're talking rather
+strange, come to think of it."
+
+His arms slowly relaxed, and he let her slide out of his embrace. She
+sank down wearily upon the pillow, closed her eyes, and for a little
+while went on talking drowsily and inconsecutively.
+
+"Shut up," he said suddenly. "Hold your tongue. I'm thinking."
+
+Then almost immediately he turned, and, with his hands upon her
+shoulders, looked down into her face.
+
+"Why didn't you go to church yesterday?"
+
+"What did you say, Will?"
+
+"I said, why didn't you go to church yesterday?"
+
+"Oh--I really didn't care to go."
+
+"That wasn't like you--you so fond of the Abbey Church. Did your Aunt
+go?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You said this afternoon she didn't go."
+
+"She did go. I remember now."
+
+"Ah! Another thing! That actor-feller--what d'yer call 'im--him that
+you counted on and didn't find--Chugwun!"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You see the name in the paper?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You didn't aarpen t'see it on the boards outside the theater?"
+
+"No."
+
+She was wide awake and quite sober now. But her limbs were trembling
+again, and her eyes seemed preposterously large as they stared up at
+him from the white face. "Will!" And she spoke fast and piteously;
+"don't look at me like this. What's come to you? Why do you ask me
+such a pack of questions?" And she tried to laugh. "At such a time of
+night!"
+
+"Bide a bit, my lass. I'm just thinking."
+
+Where had the thoughts come from?--out of blank space?--from nowhere?
+Yet here they were, filling his head, multiplying, expanding, making
+his blood rattle like boiling water in a tube as it rushed up to
+nourish their monstrous growth.
+
+"Will, let go my shoulders. You hurt. Get into the bed--and be
+sensible. I'll answer all questions in the morning."
+
+"No, I think I'll have the answers now."
+
+He went on questioning her, and his hands growing heavier crushed her
+shoulders so that she thought he would break the bones and joints.
+
+"What train did you come up by this morning?"
+
+"The nine o'clock."
+
+"What! D'you mean you went right across from North Ride to Rodchurch
+Road?"
+
+"Oh, no. I caught it at Manninglea Cross."
+
+"Did you, then? An' s'pose I was to tell you the nine o'clock don't
+stop at Manninglea Cross!"
+
+"Will! Loosen your hands. It does stop--it did stop there this
+morning."
+
+"Yes, it did stop--and so it does all mornings. But a fat lot you know
+about it. And for why? You weren't in it."
+
+"I was--I really was. Will--don't go on so cruel."
+
+"Oh, but I _am_ going on." He had lowered his face close to hers, and
+his hot breath beat upon her cold cheeks. "Now, give me the
+explanation of what you let slip about going through so much these
+last two days. What was the precise sense o' _that_?"
+
+"I only meant I've been so anxious."
+
+"Yes, but yer bin anxious best part o' four weeks. What was the mighty
+difference in yesterday or day before?"
+
+"I didn't mean any difference. I scarce knew what I was saying--or
+what I'm saying now."
+
+"Oh! Just a remark let fall without a scrap o' sense in it!"
+
+Staring up at him, it was as if she saw the face of a stranger. His
+eyes were half closed and glittering fiercely; his lips protruded as
+if grotesquely pouting to express scorn, and on each side of the
+distended nostrils a deep vertical wrinkle showed like the blackened
+gash of a knife wound.
+
+"Will, dear, I meant nothing at all."
+
+"You're lying."
+
+Abruptly he took his hands from her shoulders, got off the bed, and
+went to the chest of drawers. Her handbag was on the drawers; and when
+she saw him pick it up she sprang after him, clutching at his hands
+and imploring.
+
+"You'll find nothing there. Nothing that I can't explain;" and she
+made a desperate gurgling laugh. "Why, Will, old man, it is you that's
+drunk, yourself, after chaffing me? No, you shan't. No, Will, you
+shan't."
+
+He gave her a back-hander that sent her reeling. It was the first time
+he had struck her, and he delivered the blow quite automatically, the
+thought that she was preventing him from opening the bag and the
+action that got rid of her interference being all one process. His
+hand had remained open, but he swung it with unhesitating force; and
+now, as he plunged it into the bag, he saw that there was blood on it.
+
+Before he had extracted all the contents of the bag she was back
+again, once more clinging, clutching, and impeding. He did not strike
+her again--merely shook her off so violently that she fell to the
+floor, where she lay for a moment.
+
+In the inner pockets of the bag there were three five-pound notes,
+together with a tooth-brush and several small articles wrapped up in
+paper. These he laid on one side, while he carefully examined all the
+odds and ends that had been packed loose in the bag. Three or four
+pocket-handkerchiefs, a new piece of scented soap, a pair of
+nail-scissors--as he looked at each innocent article, he gave a snort.
+
+She had come back, but she had not risen from the ground; while he
+slowly pursued his investigations she kept quite still, crouching
+close to his legs, silently waiting.
+
+She could not see what he was doing, but presently she knew that he
+had begun to unfold the paper from the things she had hidden in the
+pocket.
+
+"Ah," and he snorted. One of the bits of paper held hairpins; another
+a side-comb; and another, a bit of trebly folded paper, proved to be
+an envelope--the envelope of one of the letters that he had sent to
+her at North Ride Cottage. He looked at the postmark. The postmark
+told him that the envelope belonged to a letter he had written four
+days ago.
+
+Then he found what she had put in the envelope before she folded it.
+It was the return half of a railway ticket, from London to Rodchurch
+Road--he turned it in his fingers and examined the date on the back of
+it.
+
+"Last Friday, my lady. Not to-day by any means--and not Manninglea
+Cross. Issued at Rodchurch Road o' Friday last--the day you come up to
+London."
+
+"Yes, Will, I won't pretend any more."
+
+She had put her arms round his legs and lifted herself to a kneeling
+position. "I _did_ come Friday. But don't be angry with me. Don't fly
+out at me, and I--I'll explain everything."
+
+"May I make so bold 's t'a' ask _why_ you come, without my permission
+begged for nor given?"
+
+His voice was terrible to hear, so deep and yet so harsh, and
+vibrating with such implacable wrath.
+
+"Will, I did it for your sake. I thought if I asked permission, you'd
+say no. So I dared to do it myself--feeling certain as life that you
+were done for if no help came--and I thought it was my duty to bring
+you the help if I could."
+
+"Go on. I'm listening, an' I'm thinking all the time."
+
+"I thought--Auntie thought so too--she advised it--that Mr. Barradine
+knowing me so long, ever since I was a girl, if I went direct to
+him--"
+
+"Ah!" And he made a loud guttural noise, as if on the point of
+choking. "Ah--so's I supposed. Then I got a bull's-eye with my first
+thought to-night. So you went to him. Where?"
+
+"At his house."
+
+"Yes, right into his house. By yourself?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You didn't think to bring your aunt with you. Two was to be comp'ny
+at Mr. Barradine's. So in you go--alone--without my leave--behind my
+back."
+
+"Will--remember yourself, my dear one. You won't blame, you can't
+blame me. But for him, you were done for. All could see it, except
+you. I asked for his help, and I got it."
+
+"But your next move! We're talking about Friday, aren't we? Well,
+after you'd bin to Mr. Barradine, what next?"
+
+"Then I hoped he'd help us."
+
+"Yes, but Friday, Saturday, Sunday? Had yer forgotten my address--or
+didn' 'aarpen to remember that _I_ was in London, too?"
+
+"I was afraid of your being angry. I thought I'd better wait."
+
+"_Where_?"
+
+She looked up at him, but did not answer.
+
+"You've played me false. You've sold yourself to that fornicating old
+devil. You--"
+
+And with a roar he burst into imprecations, blasphemies and
+obscenities. It was the string of foul words that, under a sufficient
+impetus, infallibly comes rolling from the peasant's tongue--an
+explosion as natural as when a thunderbolt scatters a muck-heap at the
+roadside.
+
+Then, snarling and growling like an animal, he stooped and cuffed her.
+
+"Will!" "Will!" She repeated his name between the blows. She did not
+utter a word of complaint, or make an effort to escape. Brave and
+unflinching, though almost stunned, she raised her white blood-stained
+face for him to strike again each time that he buffed it from him.
+"Will!" "Will!"
+
+But her courage and submissiveness were driving him mad, had changed
+suspicion to certainty. Only guilt could make her take her punishment
+this way. Nevertheless she must confess the guilt herself. Even in his
+fury, he remembered to hold his hand open and not clench it--like a
+cruelly strong animal, tormenting its prey before killing, careful to
+keep it alive.
+
+"Answer me. Go on with your tale."
+
+"Then stop beating me, and I'll tell you."
+
+He stayed his hand, poised it, and she seized it and clung to it.
+
+"Will--as God sees me--I did it for your sake--only to help you. I
+couldn't get the help unless I sacrificed myself to save you."
+
+Wrenching his hand away he knocked her to the ground, and she lay face
+downward. But this blow was nothing, purely automatic, like his first
+blow, not bringing with it that faint sense of something refreshing,
+the momentary appeasement of his agony. For in truth the torture that
+he himself suffered was almost unendurable. Yet up to now his pain,
+though so tremendous, was unlocalized; it came from a fusion of all
+his thoughts, and perhaps each separate thought, when it became clear,
+would bring more pain than all the thoughts together.
+
+The world had tumbled about his ears; his glorious life had shriveled
+to nothing; his pride was gone, his love was gone, his trust in man
+and his belief in man's creator; and for a few moments one thought
+grew a little clearer than the rest. The end of all this must be
+death--nothing less. He was really dead already, and he would not
+pretend to go on living. He would finish her, and then finish himself.
+
+Turning his head, he looked at the window; and the open space out
+there seemed to whisper to him, to beg to him, and to command him.
+Yes, that way would be as good as another--strangle her, pitch her
+out, and jump out after her.
+
+"Will!" She had once more scrambled to her knees. "I've loved you
+faithfully. I've never loved any one but you."
+
+He did not hit her. Grasping the arm that she was stretching toward
+him, he dragged her upward, seized her round the body, and carried her
+to the bed.
+
+"Now we'll go to work, you and I." He had thrown her down on her back,
+and he held her with both his hands about her throat. "Now"--and the
+sudden pressure of his hands made her gasp and cough--"we'll begin at
+the beginning."
+
+"Do you mean to murder me?"
+
+"Prob'ly. But not till I've 'ad the truth--and I'll 'aarve it to the
+last word, if I tear it out o' yer boosum."
+
+"You'll kill me if I tell you."
+
+"See that winder! That's yer road--head first--if you try to lie to
+me."
+
+Then she told him the whole sickening story of her relations with Mr.
+Barradine. He had debauched her innocence when she was quite a young
+girl; she had continued to be one of his many mistresses for several
+years; then he grew tired of her, and, his attentions gradually
+ceasing, he had left her quite free to do what she pleased. She had
+never liked him, had always feared him. The long intermittent thraldom
+to his power had been an abomination to her, and it was martyrdom to
+return to him.
+
+"Only to save you, Will. And he wouldn't help unless I done it. It was
+as much a sacrifice for you as if I'd been hung, drawn, and quartered
+for your sake."
+
+"And why did you sacrifice yourself in the beginning, before ever
+you'd seen my face?"
+
+"Auntie made me. It was Auntie's fault, not mine. I told her I was
+afraid of him."
+
+"Your aunt had been that gait with him herself, in her time?"
+
+"Oh, I don't know."
+
+"Yes, I twigged that--and then the mealy-mouthed, filthy hag came over
+me. I on'y guessed, but _you_ knew. Answer me;" and his grip tightened
+on her throat, and he shook her. "Answer."
+
+"Oh, I suppose so."
+
+"And that cousin--the one he paid for in foreign parts?"
+
+"I suppose so."
+
+"Those rooms at the Cottage. They were furnished and set out for you
+and him to take your pleasure."
+
+"He used them for other women--once or twice."
+
+"What other women?"
+
+"Girls from London."
+
+As he questioned her and listened to her answers his passion took a
+rhythm, upward and downward, from blind wrath to black sorrow; and it
+seemed that the points reached by the rising curves were becoming less
+high, while the descending curves went lower and lower, through sorrow
+into shame, and still down, to fathomless depths of despair. He had
+heard all that it was necessary to hear. His life that he had thought
+marvelous and splendid was ridiculous and pitiful; what he had fancied
+to be success was failure; all that he had been proud of as being
+gained by his own merit had been brought to him by his wife's
+disgrace. What more could he learn?
+
+Yet he went on questioning her.
+
+She swore that she had loved him, that she had quite done with the
+other when she married him, had been true to him in thought and deed
+ever since their marriage. But she had been tempted two or three
+times, through her aunt. Mr. Barradine had desired that she should
+understand with what affection he always regarded her, and he invited
+her to meet him; and it was the knowledge that he had come to covet
+her again that made her sure she could get him to do anything for her.
+At the same time the knowledge terrified her; and when Dale's trouble
+began, and things with him seemed to be going from bad to worse, she
+felt as if a sort of waking nightmare was drawing nearer and nearer.
+
+She wrote to Mr. Barradine, simply asking him to exert this influence
+on behalf of her husband; and the reply--the letter that she tore
+up--was in these words: "I will do what I can; but why don't you come
+and ask me yourself?" Of course she knew what that meant.
+
+It was at the railway station, when bidding Dale good-by, that she
+made up her mind to save him at all costs. When he refused to act on
+Ridgett's advice, when he showed himself so firm, so unyielding, she
+knew that he was a man going to his doom, unless she could avert the
+doom.
+
+"And, Will--believe it or not--no woman ever loved a husband truer
+than I loved you at that moment. To see you there so brave and strong
+and good--and yet certain sure to ruin yourself! Well, I couldn't bear
+it. And if it was to do again, I'd do it."
+
+Slowly he withdrew his hands from her throat, and clasped them
+together with all his strength. Turning for a moment, he glanced at
+the open window. The space seemed to have contracted and darkened, so
+that it looked black and small as a square grave cut out for a child.
+But if not by the window, what other end to it all would he find? He
+could not go on like this--with a to-morrow and a day after, and weeks
+and months to follow.
+
+He turned, and in speaking to her, unconsciously used her name.
+
+"Could you think, Mavis, I cared for my job better'n my honor?"
+
+"I thought you'd never know. And I loved you, Will--only you--no one
+else."
+
+He scarcely seemed to listen to the answer. He turned from her again;
+and went on talking, as if to himself or the far-off stars, or the
+invisible powers that mold men's destinies.
+
+"'Aardn't I my fingers and brains--to work for you? Would I care--so's
+you could be what I thought you were--whether I broke my back or burst
+my heart in working for you? Besides, t'wouldn't 'a' bin that. What
+was it but the loss of the office--a step back that I'd soon 'a'
+recovered."
+
+He groaned; then suddenly he unclasped his hands and brandished them.
+The rhythmic beat of his rage came strong and high, and with savage
+energy he seized her again.
+
+"It's half lies still. The money? How does that match? He gave it to
+you. Deny it if you dare."
+
+"Yes, I tried not to take it. He forced it on me."
+
+"Lies! It was the bit for yourself when you drove your
+bargain--nothing to do with me--you--you. The price of your two or
+three nights of love."
+
+"No, I swear. He forced the money as a present. The price he paid was
+his help to you. As God hears me, that's the truth."
+
+Then, answering more and more questions, she resumed her story.
+
+After Dale's departure she went over to North Ride, thinking that Mr.
+Barradine was at the Abbey, and that he would come to her at the
+Cottage. She sent a letter inviting him to do so. There was no answer
+for four days. Then Mr. Barradine wrote to her from London; and she
+went up on Friday afternoon, and saw him at Grosvenor Place. "He said
+he'd engaged rooms for me at an hotel, and I was to go there; and I
+went there."
+
+"What hotel?"
+
+"The Sunderland Hotel--Alderney Street."
+
+"Go on."
+
+"I waited in the rooms."
+
+"Rooms! You mean one room, you slut!"
+
+"No, there were four rooms--a grand suite."
+
+"Go on."
+
+"He said he would come to me next day, or Sunday at latest. And he
+didn't come on Saturday--I stopped indoors all day, afraid to go out
+for fear of meeting you--and he didn't come till Sunday, after lunch."
+
+"Ah! How long did he stay?"
+
+"Till early this morning. Will, let me be--I'm done. You're throttling
+me."
+
+"Go on. I'll 'aarve it all out of you. Begin at the beginning. It's
+Sunday afternoon we're talking of--ever since lunch time. There's a
+many hours to amuse yourselves."
+
+"After dinner he made me dress up."
+
+"What d'you mean?"
+
+"He had brought things in his luggage--fancy dress."
+
+"What dresses?"
+
+"Oh, boy's things--things he'd bought in Turkey, on his travels. He
+made me act that I was his page--and bring the coffee, and sit
+cross-legged on the ground."
+
+"Go on."
+
+"No--what's the use?" She was crying now. "Oh, God have mercy, what's
+the use?"
+
+"Go on."
+
+"No. Kill me, if you want to, and be done with it. I don't care--I'm
+tired out. What I've gone through was worse than death. I'm not afraid
+of dying."
+
+She would tell him no more; she defied him; and yet he did not kill
+her. She lay weeping, moaning, at intervals, repeating that desolate
+phrase, "What's the use? Oh, what's the use?"
+
+Irremediable loss--it sounded in her voice, it crept coldly in his
+burning veins, it came spreading, flooding, filling the whole earth in
+the first faint glimmer of dawn. He sat on the edge of the bed, let
+his hands fall heavy and inert between his knees, and for a long time
+did not change his attitude.
+
+Just now, looking down at her, he had felt a sickness of loathing. He
+hated her for the musical note of her voice, the tragic eloquence of
+her eyes, and above all he hated her for her nakedness. The almost
+nude sprawling form seemed to symbolize the unspeakable shame of his
+sex. This was the disgusting female, round and smooth, white and weak,
+with tumbling hair and lying lips, the lewd parasite that can drag the
+noble male down into hell-fire. Now he looked at her with comparative
+indifference, and felt even pity for the broken and soiled thing that
+he had believed to be clean and sound.
+
+The fusion of his thoughts was over. One thought had split away from
+all the rest, and every moment was becoming more definite, more
+logical, more full of excruciating pain. He thought now only of his
+enemy, of the human fiend who had destroyed Mavis and himself.
+
+At least she had been innocent once. She was clean and good--really
+and truly the candid child that she had never ceased to seem to
+be--when that sliming, crawling reptile first got his coils about her.
+As he thought of the maddening reality, his imagination made pictures
+that printed themselves, deep and indelible, on the soft recording
+surfaces of his brain. Henceforth, so long as blood pumped, nerves
+worked, and cells and fibers held to their shape, he would see these
+pictures--must see them each time that chance stirred his memory of
+the facts for which they stood as emblems.
+
+And with his rage against the man came more and more detestation of
+the crime itself. At the very beginning it had no possible excuse in
+honest love. There was nothing belonging to it of nature's grand
+instinct. It had not the inexorable brutality of primitive passion.
+Here was an old, or an elderly man, not driven by the force of normal,
+full-blooded desire, but craftily plotting, treacherously abusing his
+power, because he was rotten with impure whims--befouling youth and
+innocence just to obtain a few faint voluptuous thrills.
+
+Then the brain-pictures flashed out with torturing clearness, and Dale
+saw the criminal renewing the outrage after long years. He was quite
+old, shaky, infirm, and yet strong enough to consummate the final act
+of his infinite wickedness. And Dale saw those yellow-white hands,
+with their nauseating blotches, their glistening blue knobs, and their
+jeweled rings, as they took possession again of the victim to whom
+they had once given freedom.
+
+Daylight was coming fast; the flame of the candles had turned so pale
+that one could scarcely see it. Dale got off the bed heavily and
+clumsily, blew out one of the candles and carried the other to the
+fireplace. There he lighted the corners of the three bank-notes and
+watched them burning in the empty grate till nothing was left of them
+but black and gray powder. Then he put on his hat and moved to the
+door.
+
+"What are you going to do?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+Blindly raging, he passed through the silent, deserted streets, and
+presently blundered into Regent's Park. It was all exquisitely pretty
+in the pure morning light, with dew-wet grass, feathery branches of
+trees, and the water of a river or lake flashing and sparkling; and as
+he stared stupidly about him, he thought for a moment that he was
+experiencing an illusion of the senses. Or was he a boy again safe in
+his forest? This sort of thing belonged to the happy past, and could
+have no proper place in the abominable present.
+
+He crossed a low rail, walked on a little way toward the water, and
+then threw himself face downward on the grass. He knew where he was
+now--in the present time, in a public pleasure-ground. London
+stretched about the park, and beyond that there was the vast round
+globe; beyond that again there was the universe; and it seemed to him
+that, big as it all was, it was not big enough to hold one other man
+and himself.
+
+When, four or five hours later, he came back to the lodging-house he
+found his wife dressed and sitting by the bedroom table. She had
+contrived to wash away nearly all the marks of violence: one noticed
+only the swollen aspect of the whole face, an inflamed eyebrow, and a
+cut lip. She looked up meekly and fondly as a thrashed dog.
+
+"Will, have you decided what you will do?"
+
+"No."
+
+Then, while getting together his things and beginning to pack, he told
+her that he would take his fortnight's leave, as arranged, and
+carefully consider matters. "And then, at the end of the fortnight, if
+I'm above ground by that time, I'll let you know what I've decided."
+
+But, on hearing this, she flopped from the chair to her knees, and
+clung round him just as she had clung when he was first questioning
+her.
+
+"Will, don't be mad and wicked, and go and take your life."
+
+"Why not? D'you think there's vaarlue in it to me now?"
+
+He spoke quite quietly, but he looked gray, haggard, terrible, his
+clothes all stained and dirty from his open-air bed.
+
+"Will, for mercy's sake--"
+
+He shook her off, and began to count his money.
+
+"I must keep this," he said. "I'll pay it back later to the right
+quarter--along with the equivalent of what I burnt."
+
+When he had finished packing he told her that he would settle with the
+lodging-house keeper, and he gave her a few shillings.
+
+"That's enough to get you home with."
+
+Then he picked up his bag and went out.
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+
+Mavis had bought a cheap blue veil to protect her face, and being,
+moreover, fortunate enough to find an empty compartment in the through
+coach to Rodchurch Road, she did not suffer during the journey from
+too curious observation of strangers. She was going home, exactly as
+if nothing had happened. Her husband had said that she was to go, and
+what else could she do but obey him?
+
+When the station omnibus pulled up outside the post office, Mr.
+Ridgett caught sight of her, and gallantly came to assist her in
+alighting. Evidently he noticed nothing strange about her appearance.
+She at once announced the good news that Dale had not only been
+reinstated, but given a couple of weeks' holiday; and Ridgett,
+genuinely delighted, squeezed both her hands.
+
+"That's something like. Here, let me carry this upstairs for you."
+
+"No, thank you, please don't trouble. I can manage."
+
+Mr. Allen, the saddler, had come across from his shop, and she told
+him the good news too. Mr. Allen hurried down the street to tell
+others. Soon the whole village knew that Mr. Dale had triumphed, and
+that the Postmaster-General was granting him leave of absence as a
+special mark of favor.
+
+Mary clapped her hands on hearing the good news, and was rapturously
+pleased at seeing her mistress home again; but she immediately
+required explanations.
+
+"Oh, lor, mum, whatever have you done to yourself?"
+
+"I have had an accident," said Mrs. Dale. "I fell down--and it has
+given me a bad headache. I don't want any tea. I shall go to bed
+early, and try to get a good sleep."
+
+And in truth, she was longing to sleep. After the terrible ordeal of
+yesterday sleep seemed to be the one good thing left in the world for
+her. But, notwithstanding supreme fatigue, sleep would not come.
+
+Throughout that first night, and again on succeeding nights, she
+struggled beneath a suffocating burden of anxiety. In the daylight she
+had been able to think of herself, but in the darkness she could think
+only of her husband. She was haunted by the expression of his face, by
+the tone of his voice, when he had asked her if she supposed that
+existence was any longer valuable to him, and the sudden instinctive
+apprehension that she had felt then now grew so strong that she fought
+against it vainly.
+
+He intended to commit suicide. At first she had thought of all those
+London bridges, with the dark rivers swirling through their arches and
+eddying round their piers; then she became sure that he would not
+drown himself. He was a vigorous swimmer--such a death would be
+impossible to him. No, he would poison himself, or shoot himself, or
+hang himself. Perhaps even now it was all over.
+
+In his presence it had seemed impossible to disobey him. Whatever he
+commanded she must do. But what pitiful weakness! Why, with instinct
+prompting her, had she not resisted him, refused to let him leave
+her, stayed with him in spite of blows, and been there to snatch the
+cup or the rope from his hands, to thrust herself between the pistol
+and his body?
+
+By day she recognized that her anxiety was unreasoning, based on her
+own emotions, or at least not logically derived from her knowledge of
+his character. Of course he had taken the discovery of her secret far
+worse than she had ever conceived as possible, when timorously
+thinking of untoward hazards that one day or another might lead to
+disclosure. But, even then, fully allowing for the effect of his
+extreme excitement, would he, so brave and self-reliant a creature, be
+guilty of an act that is in its essence cowardly?
+
+She thought of his courage. He was as brave a man as ever breathed,
+and yet you could not describe him as reckless or foolhardy. He was
+wise enough to be chary of exposing himself to useless risks. So much
+so that he had more than once surprised her by keeping quite calm when
+she had expected and dreaded perilous energy. Especially she
+remembered a day out on the Manninglea road when a runaway horse with
+an empty cart came galloping toward them, and Dale, instead of
+attempting to stop it, put his arm round her waist and hastily drew
+her well out of the way. In another hundred yards the runaway went
+crashing off the road, fell, and smashed the cart into smithereens.
+
+"Tally-ho! Gone to ground," cried Dale cheerily. "There's a nice
+little bill for Mr. Baker to pay." And then he told her that one of
+the most dangerous things a pedestrian can do is to interfere with a
+bolting horse when there's a vehicle behind it. "Mind you," he added,
+"I'd have had a try at bringing it to anchor if there'd been anybody
+in the cart. That would have been another pair of shoes. What you're
+justified in doing for a fellow human being you aren't justified in
+doing to save a few pounds, shillings and pence."
+
+She clung to this thought of his innate common sense. And there was
+comfort and hope, too, in another thought. He was a naturally
+religious man, if not an orthodoxly religious one. The church service
+bored him; he only attended it from motives of policy; but,
+nevertheless, when you got him inside the sacred edifice, his behavior
+was perfect, and you could not watch him on his knees or hear him say
+"Christ have mercy upon us, O Lord Christ have mercy on us," without
+being convinced that he did truly believe in an omnipotent God and the
+punishments or rewards that await us on the other side of the grave.
+Surely the man who bowed his head like that at the name of Jesus would
+not, could not, be the man to take his own life merely because it had
+become an unhappy life.
+
+The hope that lay in such thoughts as these helped her to support the
+strain of three long waiting days and four long sleepless nights. Then
+on the fourth day, Saturday, the strain was relieved.
+
+"Mrs. Dale," said Ridgett, speaking to her from the bottom of the
+stairs, "would you be disposed for a little stroll before tea?"
+
+"No, thank you, Mr. Ridgett."
+
+"Have pity on a lonely stranger, and change your mind," said Mr.
+Ridgett, smiling up at her.
+
+"No, really not--but thank you for offering it."
+
+"You know, it isn't right the way you shut yourself up this lovely
+weather."
+
+"I--I have not been feeling quite myself, Mr. Ridgett."
+
+"No, so your maid told me. But, still, I am afraid it's the way to
+make yourself worse, never going out of doors;" and Mr. Ridgett
+laughed amiably. "I won't press you--that is, I won't press you to
+honor me with your company; but I do respectfully press my advice to
+get out a bit. You know I feel a responsibility to look after you in
+the absence of your lord and master."
+
+"Thank you."
+
+"By the way, I had a note from him this morning."
+
+"From Mr. Dale?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Oh, had you? Where--" Mavis gripped the baluster rail so tightly that
+the slender wooden uprights rattled. She had nearly asked a question
+which would have betrayed the fact that she did not know her husband's
+address. "Did he write from his lodgings?"
+
+"No, he wrote from a public library. Lambeth--yes, the Lambeth
+Library."
+
+"What did he say?"
+
+"Only confirmed your report that he wouldn't be back till the
+twenty-eighth." Mr. Ridgett laughed again. "And told me that the
+clocks ought to be wound up Thursday, and he hoped we hadn't let them
+run down. We hadn't, you know."
+
+Mavis was inexpressibly relieved; and yet that night she did not sleep
+any better than on the preceding nights. The worst anxiety had gone,
+but so much that was distressing in her situation remained. Since Will
+was alive now, he would continue to live. And that little circumstance
+of his remembering about the clocks was full of promise--that is,
+promise concerning himself. It implied that he meant to go on much as
+usual. He would come back, and be postmaster as in the past. But what
+would he do with her?
+
+Would he go for a divorce? Publish her shame? Perhaps, even if he were
+willing to spare her, he would not forego the chance of dragging down
+Mr. Barradine. Feeling as strongly as he did--and since the world
+began, surely no one in such circumstances had ever felt quite so
+strongly--he would seize upon the overthrow of Mr. Barradine's
+reputation as the obvious means of obtaining his own revenge. Then she
+thought of what such a scandal would mean to a gentleman of Mr.
+Barradine's state and status. Mr. Barradine would move heaven and
+earth to avert it. He might even get Will spirited away, never to be
+found again! One was always reading in the newspaper of mysterious,
+inexplicable disappearances. New fears almost as bad as the old fear
+began to shake her again.
+
+Of this there could be no question. Mr. Barradine would pay a very
+large sum of money to avoid the threatened disgrace. And--in the midst
+of her acute apprehension and distress--the plain matter-of-fact idea
+presented itself: that if Dale were not rendered irresponsible by
+jealous ire, one might hope that he would eventually fall in with Mr.
+Barradine's views--that he ought, for everybody's sake, to take his
+damages, more damages than he would ever get in a court of law, and
+then let bygones be bygones.
+
+While dressing of a morning she used to examine the bruises on her
+neck, her arms, and her legs. After passing through the stage of
+blackness and purpleness, their discoloration had spread out into
+faint violet and yellow; now already this was beginning to fade; and
+it seemed that as the ugly marks of his hands disappeared from her
+skin, the memory of all the causes that had brought them there began
+itself to weaken. Certainly the despairing anguish that she had felt,
+the submission to his unpardoning wrath, the tacit agreement that the
+discovery gave him license to do anything he liked with her, not only
+then but throughout the future--all this pertained to a state of mind
+which could be coldly recollected, but which could not be warmly
+revived.
+
+How he had knocked her about! Standing before the toilet-glass and
+looking at her bruises musingly, she tried to remember in what part of
+the room, and at which period of the long volcanic discussion, each
+one had been received. All the neck marks could be accounted for on
+the bed, when he was holding her down and shaking her; that graze
+above the knee, outside the right thigh had come when she rolled over
+by the chest of drawers. Raising her eyes in order to see if the lip
+and eyebrow continued to mend satisfactorily, she was surprised by the
+general expression of her face. Positively she was smiling. The smile
+vanished at once, but it had been there--a gentle, melancholy, yet
+proud little smile. And reflecting, she understood that deep in her
+thoughts there was truly pride whenever she dwelt upon her husband's
+violence. It did prove so conclusively how immense was his love.
+
+Jealousy is of course the inevitable accompaniment of love; and while
+it is active everything else is pushed aside, postponed, or forgotten.
+And she smiled again, as she thought what queer creatures men are, how
+extravagantly different from women. She had never understood them,
+and possibly never would do so. For instance, how strange that old
+Will should not for a moment have been softened by a recognition of
+her success in extricating him from his difficulty! One might have
+expected that gratitude would almost counterbalance anger. But, no,
+not for a fraction of a second could he think that, although what she
+had done might be wrong, it had been done with the most unselfish
+intention and had proved very efficacious.
+
+Then, not in the least expecting that she was about to cry, she burst
+into tears.
+
+She had remembered his voice and his look when he said something about
+honor and dishonor, and about working for her till he dropped. Noble
+and splendid love had spoken in that--such love as few women are lucky
+enough to get. Oh, surely if he loved her like that, he could not
+leave off loving her altogether, and never, never, want his Mav again.
+
+Sadness and desolation overcame her. She was alone in their dear, dear
+home, disgraced, abandoned, heart-broken; and her thoughts for a
+little while were all prayers. With each one of them she prayed her
+husband to go on loving her; to come back and bruise her limbs, to
+punish her with fierce glances and cutting words, to subject her to
+systematic penitential discipline, if only at the end of it all she
+might have his love again.
+
+She sat crying most bitterly; and then, when at last she dried her
+eyes, and went down-stairs to gratify Mary by pretending to eat some
+breakfast, a supremely commonplace and yet poignantly sad reflection
+brought another flood of tears. What wretched little chances can
+produce the most tragically terrific upheavals! Had she not bought a
+return railway ticket, the whole disaster might have been averted. But
+for that horrible square inch of pink cardboard, all would have been
+well, her ordeal would not have been suffered in vain. The wickedly
+strong intoxicant had of course begun the mischief by making her blurt
+out those imbecile words that first set Will on the rampage; but it
+was the knowledge of the telltale ticket, close at hand, unguarded,
+certain to be found if looked for, that had unnerved her so
+completely. Otherwise, as she now believed, she could have held her
+own under his rapid fire of questions. She could have laughed off his
+accusations as absurd--or, at the worst, she could have gained time to
+think of plausible explanations. But the ticket simply paralyzed her.
+
+And she had known that she was running a risk when she made up her
+mind to keep it. She bought it without any thought at all--a stupid
+thing to do, considering that the cost was the same as two single
+fares. Not so stupid, however, as the thrifty idea that if she and
+Will traveled home in different trains, she might after all use her
+return half. Oh, fatal economy! In scheming to avoid the loss of five
+shillings she had wrecked all her peace and comfort.
+
+On this Sunday she would have liked to go to church, but a dread of
+loquacious and inquisitive neighbors kept her a prisoner in the house.
+
+On Monday morning she almost determined to go out for a walk but her
+courage again failed her. Until noon the village street was dull and
+lifeless, with only one or two people visible at a time, and yet she
+dared not go down and walk through it. Were she to show herself, all
+the idle shopkeepers would issue from their shops, to congratulate her
+on the postmaster's victory, to inquire where he was spending his
+holiday and why she hadn't gone for the holiday with him.
+
+Nearly all day she sat by the window of the front room, staring at the
+trite and familiar scene, and encouraging her thoughts to wander away
+from her misery whenever they would consent to do so. A butcher's boy
+leaned his bicycle against the curbstone in so careless a fashion that
+it immediately fell down; Mr. Bates the corn merchant passed by with
+an empty wagon; then Mr. Norton the vicar appeared, going from house
+to house, distributing handbills of special services. And she wondered
+if he and his wife had ever had a hidden domestic storm in their
+outwardly tranquil existence. Mrs. Norton must have been quite pretty
+once, and perhaps at that period she caused Mr. Norton anxieties. But
+if she had ever needed forgiveness for some indiscretion or other, she
+had obviously obtained it; and again the thought came strong and clear
+that people who hold conspicuous positions--such as vicars,
+tax-collectors, postmasters, and so on--owe a duty to the world as
+well as to themselves. They must hush things up, and preserve
+appearances: they can not wash their dirty linen in public.
+
+After twelve o'clock there was much more to look at. The children came
+shouting out of school, laborers passed to and fro on their way to
+dinner, and with horns loudly blowing, three heavily-laden
+chars-a-bancs arrived one after another from Rodhaven. The tourists
+filled the street, and for about two hours the aspect of things was
+lively and bustling. Then the horns sounded again, the huge vehicles
+lumbered away, and the whole village relapsed into drowsiness and
+inertia. Literally nothing to look at now.
+
+But before tea time that afternoon she saw something in the street
+that held her breathlessly attentive as long as it remained there. It
+was Mr. Barradine, riding slowly toward her between the churchyard and
+the Roebuck stables. She shrank back behind the muslin curtain of her
+window, and, watching him, passed through an extraordinarily rapid
+sequence of emotions.
+
+The horse was a chestnut, and it stepped lightly and springily. As she
+thought of how and when she had last seen its rider, she felt a
+sensation that was like helplessness, shame, and fear all mingled. It
+was as though her whole body, muscles, flesh and nerves, quailed and
+grew weak at the mere sight of him; as though inherited instincts were
+controlling her, and would always control her whenever she was in his
+presence; as though she the descendant of serfs must infallibly submit
+to the descendant of lords--must forever fear the man who had been her
+master even when he was her lover. Rationally she hated him for the
+harm that he had done her, but instinctively she feared him for the
+further harm that he might yet have power to do.
+
+And together with the hatred and the fear, there was a pitiful
+sneaking admiration. He looked so grand and unruffled--so old, and yet
+sitting the skittish, high-mettled horse so firmly; so feeble, and yet
+full of such an absolute confidence in his power to rule and
+subordinate, accustomed for forty years to the unfailing subjection of
+such things as servants, horses, and women. Her heart bumped against
+her stays, and her face became red and then white, when she thought
+that he intended to stop at the post office and ask for her. But he
+rode on--gave one glance up toward the windows from which she shrank
+still further, and rode by, right down the street, with the horse
+swishing its long tail and seeming to dance in a light amble.
+
+Then, as soon as he disappeared, the spell was broken.
+
+In all that she had confessed to her husband she had been sincere; but
+hers was a simple and easy going nature, and exaltation could not be
+long sustained. After excitement she returned rapidly to a passive and
+unimaginative level; and now, quietly brooding, she could not do
+otherwise than justify herself for all that had happened.
+
+At the end of everything she felt a deep-seated conviction that she
+was in truth blameless. She was not a bad woman. Therefore it would be
+wicked to treat her as a sinner and an outcast. Sinners did wrong
+because they enjoyed the sin; but she had never been vicious, or even
+selfishly anxious for pleasure. Pleasure! She had never cared for that
+sort of thing. Girls of her own age used to talk to her about it, and
+what they said was almost incomprehensible. She had never had such
+feelings, however faintly.
+
+No, her only fault had been in giving way to the people who had charge
+of her, and who were too strong to be resisted. Just at first she had
+been flattered and pleased when Mr. Barradine had begun to take notice
+of her--patting her, and holding her hand, and saying he admired her
+hair; but she had not in the least known where all this was leading.
+What she told Will was substantially correct as to the beginning--but
+of course her eyes had been opened before anything definite occurred.
+Then she had told Auntie that she was afraid; and then it was that
+Auntie ought to have saved her, and didn't. Far from it. Auntie, who
+in early days had been severe enough, now became all smiles, treating
+her deferentially, saying: "If you play your cards properly you'll set
+us all up as large as towers. Don't lose your head. For goodness'
+sake, don't be wild and foolish, and go offending him so that instead
+of coming back again he'll look elsewhere."
+
+Then later, when she had, as it were, sacrificed herself on the family
+altar, she was indignant at finding that he had nevertheless looked
+elsewhere. There were others--and she said she would never forgive
+him. Yet she did forgive him. Finally, there came the outrage of his
+stopping at the Cottage with somebody else. Her aunt had sent her out
+of the way, but she heard of it; and this time she determined to be
+done with Mr. Barradine. And yet again she forgave him.
+
+Then she discovered, without any explanations, that _he_ had done with
+her. He was paternal and kind, but she had become just nobody; and her
+aunt was very angry, saying that she had played her cards badly
+instead of well. That was about the time that Dale had been two years
+at Portsmouth. She liked Dale from the first because he was honest and
+good, and because he seemed to offer her an escape from an extremely
+difficult position. But if she had been a nasty girl, she would not
+have made such a marriage; instead of being anxious to secure
+respectability, however humble, she would have followed Auntie's
+suggestions and looked out for another protector instead of for a
+husband. And she had wanted to tell Dale the whole truth; but there
+again she had been overruled. Auntie forbade her to utter a whisper or
+hint of it; she said that Mr. Barradine would never pardon such a
+betrayal of his confidence, whereas if a properly discreet silence
+were preserved he would give the bride a suitable wedding present, as
+well as push the fortunes of the bridegroom. "Besides," said Aunt
+Petherick, "a nice hash you'll make of it if you go and label yourself
+damaged goods before you're fairly started. Why, it would be just
+giving Dale the whip-hand over you for the rest of your days." Looking
+back at it all, Mavis felt that this argument was irrefutable.
+
+After marriage she began to love Will most truly and devotedly--but
+not for his embraces, which did not even stir her pulses, which only
+made her tenderly happy that she could make him happy. Now after
+eleven years her feeling toward him was all unselfish and beautiful, a
+gentle and deep affection, without a taint of anything that one would
+not call really _lady-like_. The passion and boisterousness were all
+on his side.
+
+And thinking of things that she had never told Will, she wondered if
+this calmness of temperament, or perhaps unusual failure in response,
+was but another fatal consequence of the Barradine slavery. If so,
+what cause she had to hate and curse him! The episode with him was
+simply an irksomeness: it had frozen her instead of warming her,
+checked her expansion, and perhaps, breaking the cycle of normal
+development, made her imperfect as a woman.
+
+Perhaps this was the real reason why she had remained childless. She
+represented completed womanhood in this respect at least, that she
+desired to be a mother. The possession of children was the one thing
+that made her envious of other women. The idea of having a child of
+her own made her almost faint with longing--a baby to nurse, a little
+burden to wheel about in a perambulator, a companion to prattle to her
+all day while Will was busy down-stairs. If the hope of such joy had
+been taken from her by Mr. Barradine, oh, how immeasureably great was
+her cause for hatred!
+
+She sat staring at the distant point where he and his horse had just
+now vanished, and for a little while her thoughts were like curses.
+Any attributes of grandeur were transitory illusions; he was wholly
+mean and base: he was the embodied principle of evil that had spoiled
+the past and that still threatened the future. She wished that he
+might eventually suffer as much as he had made her suffer. She wished
+that he might be racked with rheumatism, burned up with gout, tortured
+with every conceivable painful disease. She wished him dead and
+crumbling to dust in his coffin.
+
+After tea she came back to the window and stayed there till nightfall.
+
+Little by little the street became dim and vague. Two or three futile
+oil lamps were lighted, and the shop fronts shone brightly, but all
+the rest grew dark, like a river or a canal instead of a street. One
+heard voices, and then people showed themselves momentarily as they
+passed through the lamplight.
+
+While she watched them passing, her thoughts drifted into generalized
+sadness.
+
+The shutters went up at the saddler's, and she saw Mr. Allen for a
+moment--a long, thin man, looking too tall for the frame of the
+lamplit doorway. Mr. Allen used to have a fine business but he was
+spoiling it by his folly. It had been his custom to go to neighboring
+meets of hounds and ask the young gentlemen if the saddles he had made
+for them were satisfactory, insinuate his fingers between saddle-tree
+and hunter's withers to see if there was plenty of room, and generally
+render himself obsequiously agreeable. That was good for trade. But
+then the hunting gradually fascinated him, and he followed on foot
+throughout the season, halloaing hounds to wrong foxes, standing on
+banks and frightening horses, being a nuisance to the gentlemen, and
+coming home to boast that although he was fifty he had walked
+twenty-seven miles in the day. And his trade was all going or gone,
+and he not seeming to care. His wife let lodgings to make up a bit.
+Very sad.
+
+Candle-light showed in a window of the house next door to the
+saddler's, and Mavis thought of these neighbors--two sisters, old
+maids--who had a very, very little money of their own and who
+endeavored to add to what was barely enough for necessities by selling
+butterfly nets, children's fishing-rods, stamp albums, and picture
+post-cards. Two years ago the elder sister tumbled down-stairs and
+injured her spine; and since then she had been bedridden, lying in the
+upper room at the back of the house, with nothing to amuse her but a
+view of the graveyard behind the church. Mavis had been to see her one
+day this summer, had sat by the bed, and read her a chapter out of the
+New Testament and then the weekly instalment of a novel in the
+_Rodhaven District Courier_. Extremely sad.
+
+Then livid-faced, matty-haired Emily Frayne passed by, carrying a
+brown-paper parcel. This poor overworked girl was the only daughter
+of Frayne the tailor, who was a confirmed drunkard. All day long she
+was kept toiling like a slave, cutting out, beginning and finishing
+gaiters, breeches, and stable-jackets, doing all the work that was
+ever done at Frayne's; and at night she went round trying to get
+orders, delivering the goods that she had completed, and being forced
+to support the impudence and familiarity of coachmen and grooms, who
+chucked her under the chin and said they'd give her a kiss for her
+pains because they weren't flush enough to stand her a drink. All
+painfully sad.
+
+There was a dreadful lot of tippling at Rodchurch: in fact, one might
+say that drink was the prevailing fault of the village. The vicar
+publicly touched on the matter in his sermons, and privately he often
+said that Mr. Cope, the fat landlord of The Gauntlet Inn, was greatly
+to blame. The tradesmen had a little club at the Gauntlet, where Cope
+employed a horrid brazen barmaid who sometimes sang comic songs to the
+club members. Mrs. Cope felt strongly about the barmaid, and quite
+took the vicar's side in the dispute the day that Cope came out of the
+tap-room and was so rude and abusive to the reverend gentleman. Mrs.
+Cope said she'd be glad if Mr. Norton brought her husband to book
+before the magistrates and got his license taken away.
+
+Dale openly expressed contempt for this boozing Gauntlet club, refused
+to take up his membership when elected, and had received a
+complimentary letter from the vicar thanking him for the fine example
+he had set for others. No, dear old Will, though he liked his glass of
+beer as well as anybody, would often go a whole week on tea and
+coffee; and she thought what a merit his sobriety had been. Merely
+considered as economy, it was a blessing. It is always the drink, and
+never the food, that runs away with one's household money.
+
+Mr. Silcox the tobacconist hurried through the lamplight,
+unquestionably on his way to the Gauntlet. Silcox was a chattering
+foolish creature who had lost his own and his widowed mother's savings
+in a ridiculous commercial enterprise--a promptly bankrupt theater
+company over at Rodhaven--and it was thought that the workhouse would
+be the end for him and Mrs. Silcox. But early this summer people had
+been startled by hearing that the _Courier_ had appointed Silcox as
+their reporter; and local critics were of opinion that Silcox had
+taken very kindly to literature, and that he was shaping well, and
+might perhaps retrieve the past in making name and fortune. Dale, who
+used to chaff Silcox rather heavily, was at present quite polite to
+him. It had always been Will's policy to stand well with the press,
+and there was no doubt that during the recent controversy Silcox had
+endeavored to render aid with his pen.
+
+Lamplight moving now--a cart coming down. Mavis, peering out, saw that
+it was old Mr. Bates again, in a gig this time, going home to his
+pretty little farm two miles off on the Hadleigh Road. Fancy his being
+still at it so late, only finishing the day's work long after so many
+younger men had done. Mr. Bates was reputed rich--a highly respected
+person; but the sorrow of his old age was a bad, bad son. Richard
+Bates raced, and habitually ran after women--that is, when he
+possessed the use of his legs and was able to run. But he was a heavy
+drinker, and it was no unusual thing for the helpers at the Roebuck
+stables to have to get out a conveyance at closing time and drive
+Richard, speechless, motionless, to Vine-Pits Farm. He never went to
+the Gauntlet, but always to the Roebuck--beginning the evening in the
+hotel billiard-room, trying to swagger it out at pool with the
+solicitor and the doctor, then drifting to the stable bar, and
+finishing the evening there, or outside in the open yard. One could
+imagine the feelings of the old father, waiting up all alone, knowing
+from experience what the sound of wheels implied after ten o'clock.
+Will said once that he believed Mr. Bates was glad Mrs. Bates hadn't
+been spared to see it.
+
+And Mavis, moving at last from the window, thought that she was not
+the only sad inhabitant of Rodchurch. There is a cruel lot of sorrow
+in most people's lives.
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+
+The second week of the fortnight was passing much quicker than the
+first week. By a most happy inspiration Mavis had hit upon a means of
+filling the dull empty time. On Tuesday morning she told Mary that
+they would turn the master's absence to good account by giving the
+house an unseasonal but complete spring cleaning, and ever since then
+they had both been hard at work.
+
+The work gave exercise as well as occupation; it furnished a ready
+excuse for declining to go over and see Mrs. Petherick or to allow a
+visit from her; and, moreover, it had a satisfactory calming effect on
+one's nerves. While Mavis was reviewing pots and pans, standing on the
+high step-ladder to unhook muslin curtains, and, most of all, while
+she was going through her husband's winter underclothes in search of
+moths, it seemed to her that she was not only retaining but
+strengthening her hold on all these inanimate friends, and that they
+themselves were eloquently though dumbly protesting against the mere
+idea of forcible separation. When she sat down, hot and tired, in the
+midst of shrouded masses of furniture, to enjoy a picnic meal that
+Mary had set out on the one unoccupied corner of a crowded table, she
+was able to eat with hearty appetite; and yet, no matter how tired she
+might be by the end of the day, she could not sleep properly at
+night.
+
+If she slept, a dream of trouble woke her. As she lay awake her
+trouble sometimes seemed greater than ever. It was as though the
+spring cleaning, which by day proved mentally beneficial, became
+deleterious during these long night watches. The neater, the cleaner,
+the brighter she made her home, the more terrible must be a sentence
+of perpetual banishment.
+
+On Friday afternoon the work was nearly over. Kitchen utensils were
+like shining mirrors; the flowers of the best carpet were like real
+blossoms budding after rain; and Mavis on the step-ladder, with a
+smudged face, untidy hair, and grimy hands, had begun to reinstate the
+pictures handed to her by Mary, when Miss Yorke came knocking abruptly
+at the parlor door.
+
+"A telegram, ma'am."
+
+"All right."
+
+Mavis had come down the ladder, and as she opened the yellow envelope
+she began to tremble.
+
+"Answer paid, ma'am. Shall I wait?"
+
+"No. I--I'll--No, don't wait."
+
+It was from Dale. She had sat down on the lowest step of the ladder,
+and was trembling violently. "Oh, how dreadful!" She muttered the
+words mechanically, without any attempt to express her actual thought.
+"How very dreadful!"
+
+"What is it, ma'am? Bad news?"
+
+"Oh, most dreadful. But perhaps a mistake. I'm to find out;" and she
+stared stupidly at the paper that was shaking in her fingers. Then,
+spreading it on her lap, she read the message aloud:--
+
+    "Evening paper says fatal accident to Mr. Barradine. Is this
+    true? Wire Dale, Appledore Temperance Hotel, Stamford Street,
+    S.E."
+
+Then she jumped up, ran into the front room, and looked out of the
+window. A glance showed her that the village was in possession of some
+sensational tidings. There was a knot of people standing in front of
+the saddler's, and another--quite a little crowd--in front of the
+butcher's; all were talking excitedly, nodding their heads, and
+gesticulating.
+
+She ran down-stairs and joined the group at the saddler's.
+
+"I never cared for the look of the horse," Allen was saying
+sententiously. "And I might almost claim to have warned them--no
+longer ago than last March. The stud-groom was riding him at a meet,
+and I said, 'Mr. Yeatman, you aren't surely going to let Mr. Barradine
+risk his neck with hounds on that thing?' 'No,' he said, 'Mr.
+Barradine has bought him for hacking.' 'Oh,' I said, 'hacking and
+hunting are two things, of course, but--'"
+
+Then somebody interrupted.
+
+"Chestnut horse, wasn't it?"
+
+"Yes," said Allen, "one of these thoroughbred weeds, without a back
+that you can fit with to anything bigger than a racing saddle; and
+I've always maintained the same thing. A bit of blood may do very well
+for young gentlemen, but to go and put a gentleman of Mr. Barradine's
+years--"
+
+"Mind you," interposed a Roebuck stableman, "Mr. Barradine liked 'em
+gay. Mr. Barradine was a horseman!"
+
+Mr. Barradine _liked_ gay horses. Mr. Barradine _was_ a horseman.
+That tremendous sound of the past tense answered the question that
+Mavis was breathlessly waiting to ask.
+
+"Shocking bad business, isn't it, Mrs. Dale?"
+
+She did not reply; but nobody noticed her silence or agitation. They
+all went on talking; and she only thought: "He is dead. He is dead. He
+is dead." She was temporarily tongue-tied, awestricken, full of a
+strange superstitious horror.
+
+Presently Allen spoke to her again. "There'll never be such another
+kind gentleman in _our_ times, Mrs. Dale; nor one so open-handed. And
+it's not only the gentry that's going to mourn him. The pore hev lost
+a good friend."
+
+"Yes," she whispered. "Indeed they have. Indeed they have."
+
+Miss Waddy came out of her absurd little post-card shop and kept
+saying, "Oh, dear!" She, like almost everybody else in the village
+except Mavis Dale and Mary, had known the news for hours; but she was
+greedy for the more and more particularized information that every
+newcomer brought with him along the road from Manninglea.
+
+"How was the body taken to the Abbey?"
+
+"Sent one of the carriages."
+
+"Oh, dear!"
+
+They continued to talk; and Mavis, listening, for a few moments felt
+gladness, nothing but gladness. He had gone out of their lives
+forever. There could be no divorce. Now that he was dead, she would be
+forgiven. Then again she felt the horror of it. The thing was like an
+answer to her secret prayer or wish--like the mysterious overwhelming
+consequence of her curse. It was as though in cursing him she had
+doomed him to destruction.
+
+"They caught the horse last night, didn't they?"
+
+"Yes. Some chaps at Abbey Cross Roads see un go gallopin' by, and
+followed un up Beacon Hill. Catched un in the quag by th' old gravel
+pits."
+
+"Oh, dear!" said Miss Waddy.
+
+Little by little Mavis pieced the story together. Mr. Barradine had
+been out riding late yesterday, and the riderless horse had given the
+alarm some time about nine o'clock in the evening. But, although a
+wide-spread search continued all through the night, the body was not
+found until past noon to-day.
+
+They had found it at Kibworth Rocks. These rocks, situated in Hadleigh
+Wood, about two miles from the Abbey, were of curious formation--a
+wide mass of jagged boulders cropping out unexpectedly from the sandy
+soil, some of them half hidden with bracken, while others, the bigger
+ones, rose brown and bare and strange. They provided a redoubtable
+fortress for foxes, and contained what was known as the biggest
+"earth" of the neighborhood. Not far off, the main ride passed through
+the wood, making a broad sunlit avenue between the gloomy pines; but
+no one without local knowledge would have suspected the existence of
+the rocky gorge or slope, because, although only at a little distance,
+it was quite invisible from the ride.
+
+The body had been discovered lying in a narrow cleft, the head
+fearfully battered; and how Mr. Barradine came by his death was
+obvious. He had been riding through or near the rocks, and the horse,
+probably stumbling, had thrown him; and then, frightened and
+struggling away, had dragged him some considerable distance, until
+the rocks held him fast and tore him free.
+
+What remained doubtful was how or why Mr. Barradine approached the
+rocks. Of course, his horse might have shied from the ride and taken
+him there before he could recover control of it; or, as perhaps was
+more probable, Mr. Barradine might have ridden from the safe and open
+track in order quietly to examine what was called the main earth, and,
+if fortunate, gratify himself with a glimpse of two or three lusty fox
+cubs playing outside the burrows.
+
+However, as Mr. Allen sagely observed, such conjectures were at
+present idle. These and all other matters would be cleared up at the
+inquest.
+
+"Oh, dear!" said Miss Waddy. "Will there have to be an inquest?"
+
+"Certainly there will," said Mr. Allen.
+
+"Yes, that's the law always," said somebody else.
+
+"Surely not," said Miss Waddy, "in the case of such a well-known
+gentleman as Mr. Barradine."
+
+"It would be the same," said Allen, "if it was the Prince of Wales, or
+the Archbishop of Canterbury. Coroner's Court sits on everybody who
+doesn't die in his bed certified by his doctor."
+
+"And it rained, too, last night," said Miss Waddy.
+
+"Yes, there was some heavy showers."
+
+"Fancy the poor gentleman lying out in the rain. Oh, dear!"
+
+Mavis Dale left them talking and went back to the post office. In her
+agitation she had forgotten about the reply telegram to her husband.
+She got Mr. Ridgett to write the message--her hands were trembling so
+that she could scarcely hold the pencil.
+
+"Very sorry, I'm sure," said Mr. Ridgett sympathetically. "This was
+the party you told me of--the gentleman that was giving his support to
+Mr. Dale?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, well--very sad. How will you word it?"
+
+"Please say--'Report true. Mr. Barradine killed by fall from his horse
+yesterday.' And sign it 'Mavis.' No, sign it 'Mav.'"
+
+"Mav!--Ma-v!" Mr. Ridgett looked round, smiling. "That's hubby's pet
+name for you, isn't it? Upon my word, you two _are_ a pair of
+love-birds.... There, off it goes. Good night, Mrs. Dale. I'm truly
+sorry that you've been deprived of such a friend."
+
+She went up-stairs to her bedroom, and did not come out of it that
+evening. For a long time she sat on the bed sobbing and shivering. She
+was glad really, and she knew that she was glad, and yet all the blood
+in her body seemed to be running coldly because of unreasoning
+superstitious fear. It was as though she had seen a ghost, and as
+though the ghost, while imparting to her a piece of surprisingly good
+news, had at the same time almost frightened her out of her wits. It
+is so wicked, so impiously wicked to wish for the death of a fellow
+creature. But what are wishes? Common sense revolts from the
+supposition that thoughts can kill. Why, if they could, half the
+population of the world would succumb beneath the impalpable weapons
+wielded by the other half. It is only toward nightfall, when rooms
+begin to grow dark, and the deepening shadows give queer shapes to
+furniture, curtains, and other familiar objects, that one can be
+foolish enough to entertain such fancies.
+
+She told Mary to bring the candles, and to run out and buy a
+night-light. Then Mary helped her to undress and to get to bed; and
+she slept dreamlessly. The feeling after all was one of unutterable
+relief. Mr. Barradine _was_! Never again would her flesh shrink at the
+sight of him; never again could those lascivious hands touch her.
+
+Next day, between dinner-time and tea-time, while she was giving final
+touches to the well-cleaned parlor, she heard her husband's voice just
+outside the door. He had come up-stairs very quietly and was speaking
+to Mary on the landing.
+
+"Will, Will!" With a cry of delight, Mavis rushed out to welcome him.
+"Oh, thank goodness, you've come home." She boldly took his arm, drew
+him into the parlor and shut the door again. "Will--aren't you going
+to kiss me?"
+
+"No." And he disengaged himself and moved away from her. "No, I can
+not kiss you."
+
+"Oh, Will. Do try to forget and forgive." She stood stretching out her
+hands toward him imploringly, with eyebrows raised, and lips
+quavering.
+
+"I can never forget," he said, after a moment's pause.
+
+Then she tried to make him say that things would eventually come all
+right, that if he could not pardon her and take her to his heart now,
+he would do so some time or another. He listened to her pleadings
+impassively, stolidly; his attitude was stiffly dignified, and it
+seemed to her that, whatever his real frame of mind might be, he had
+determined to hide it by maintaining an impenetrably solemn tone and
+manner.
+
+"Will, you've come home, and I'm grateful for it. But--but I do think
+you're cruel to me. Especially considering what's happened, I did
+hope you'd begin to think kinder to me."
+
+"Mavis," he said solemnly, "it is the finger of God." And he repeated
+the phrase slowly, with a solemnity that was almost pompous. "It is
+the finger of God. If that man had not chanced to die in this sudden
+and startling way, I could never have come home to you. It was the
+decision I had arrived at before I read of his accident in the paper.
+Otherwise you'd 'a' never set eyes on me. Now all I can say is, you
+and I must trust to the future. It will be my endeavor not to look
+back, and I ask you equally to look forward."
+
+She was certain that this was a set speech prepared beforehand. She
+knew so well the faintly unnatural note in his voice when he was
+reciting sentences that he had learned by rote: she who had helped in
+so many rehearsals before his public utterances could not be mistaken.
+However, she had to be contented with it. And, stilted and stiff as it
+was, it certainly seemed to imply that she need not relinquish hope.
+
+He added something, in the same ponderous style, about the probability
+of its being advisable to put private inclinations on one side and
+attend the funeral of the deceased in his public capacity of
+postmaster. This mark of respect would be expected from him, and
+people would wonder if he did not pay it. Then he left the parlor, and
+again spoke to Mary.
+
+Mavis, listening, heard him give orders that an unused camp bedstead
+should be brought down from the clerk's room and made up in the
+kitchen. He told Mary that he wished to sleep by himself because he
+felt twinges of rheumatism and was afraid of disturbing the mistress
+if the pain came on during the night. And Mavis noticed that all the
+time that he was talking to Mary his voice sounded perfectly natural.
+
+Then he went down-stairs, speaking again when he was half-way down.
+
+"How goes it, Miss Yorke? Is Mr. Ridgett in the office?"
+
+And this time it was absolutely his old voice--rather loud, rather
+authoritative, but really quite cheerful.
+
+Thinking of his manner to her and his manner to others, she believed
+that she could now understand all that he intended. She was to be held
+in disgrace perhaps for a long time, but appearances were to be kept
+up. No breath of scandal was to tarnish the reputation of the
+Rodchurch postmaster; the curious world must not be allowed the very
+slightest peep behind the scenes of his private life; and she, without
+explicit instructions, was to assist in preventing any one--even poor
+humble Mary--from guessing that as husband and wife they were not as
+heretofore on the best possible terms.
+
+Down below in the sorting-room Dale greeted Mr. Ridgett very heartily.
+
+"Here I am. May I venture to come in a minute? I'm only a visitor till
+Monday, you know." And he told Ridgett how he had taken a liberty in
+returning before the stipulated date; but he had written to
+headquarters explaining the circumstances, and he had no doubt they
+would approve. "There's the funeral, you know. Though I suppose that
+won't be till Tuesday or even Wednesday. But there's the inquest. And
+I felt it like a duty to attend that too."
+
+"Yes, I suppose this is a bit of a blow to you--knowing him so long.
+Your good lady was mightily upset."
+
+"So she had cause to be," said Dale gravely.
+
+"He'd always shown himself a real friend?"
+
+"The best friend anybody ever had," said Dale with impressive
+earnestness. Then, going, he returned to speak in a confidential
+whisper close to Mr. Ridgett's ear. "It was he who did the trick for
+me up there. But for _him_, I was to be hoofed out of this, as sure as
+eggs."
+
+"Really! Well, I'll tell you frankly, I'm not surprised to hear it.
+Ever since the little Missis came home with the happy tale, I've been
+wondering what miracle pulled you through so grand with them."
+
+Then Dale went out and down the street, talking to everybody he met.
+
+The village received him with tranquil indifference. No one
+congratulated him. The greater excitement had obliterated all memory
+of the less: not a soul seemed to recollect the famous controversy,
+the postmaster's campaign against detractors, his long absence or his
+brilliant success. Kibworth Rocks, the drawn blinds of the Abbey
+House, the decorations of the Abbey Church--these were the only things
+that Rodchurch could now think of, or talk about.
+
+The inquest, held on Monday in one of the state rooms at the Abbey,
+brought to light no new facts that were of the least importance. All
+sorts of people gave evidence, but no one had anything to say that was
+really worth saying. Mr. Allen, it appeared, had "acted foolish" and
+been reproved by the Coroner, first for irrelevance and then for
+impertinence.
+
+Allen had attempted to persuade the Court that the prime cause of the
+accident was simply this, that poor Mr. Barradine's saddle was made by
+a London firm instead of by him--Allen. He pooh-poohed the
+stud-groom's statement that Mr. Barradine had an ineradicable
+objection to patent detachable stirrups, and maintained that he would
+have been able, in five minutes' quiet conversation, to prevail on the
+deceased gentleman to adopt a certain device which was known to Allen
+but to nobody else in the trade; and then he attempted to read a
+written paper in which he advocated the superiority to the modern
+plain flap of the ancient padded knee-roll as a means of rendering the
+seat more secure for forehand stumbles.
+
+"It was laughable--but for the occasion--to hear him spouting out his
+nonsense, until Doctor Hollis told him straight he wouldn't put up
+with it any longer."
+
+Dale gave this account of the proceedings to Mavis and to Mr. Ridgett,
+who had come up to take high tea on the eve of his departure just as
+he had done on the day of his arrival.
+
+"But I admit," said Dale, conscientiously, "there was one bit of sense
+in Allen's remarks. He convinced me against trusting to these blood
+animals. They're too _quick_, and they're never _sure_. The grooms an'
+all spoke up to Mr. Barradine's knowledge of his ridin' gen'rally; but
+it stands to reason, when you're past sixty your grip on a horse isn't
+the same thing as what it once was. Say, your mount gets bounding this
+way, that way;" and with his body and hands he indicated the rapid
+lateral movements of a horse shying and plunging. "Well, it's only the
+grip that can save you. You aren't going to keep in your saddle by
+mere balance--and it's balance that old gentlemen rely on best part
+of the time."
+
+Mavis listened wonderingly and admiringly. When her husband spoke of
+the dead man, his voice was grave, calm and kindly. No one on earth
+could have detected that while the man lived, he had been regarded
+with anything but affection. She thought of that epithet that people
+so often echo--Death the Leveler. Could one hope that already,
+although Will might not know it, might not be willing to know it,
+death had taken from him all or nearly all of his anger and
+resentment? If it was only just acting--the stubborn effort to keep up
+appearances--it was marvelous. Then she sighed. She had remembered
+that Will never did things by halves.
+
+She felt almost gay, certainly quite light-hearted, when driving out
+with him to the funeral. It was such a glorious day, not a bit too
+hot, with a west wind sweeping unseen through the limpid sky; and the
+whole landscape seeming animated, everywhere the sound of wheels, the
+roads full of people all going one way. She simulated gravity, even
+sadness, as they passed the dark pines near Hadleigh Wood; but in
+truth she was quite undisturbed by her proximity to the fateful spot.
+It seemed to her that with the murmur of the wheels, the movement of
+the air, the progressive excitement of every minute, all the tragic or
+gloomy element of life was rolling far away from her.
+
+The scene presented at the Abbey struck her as magnificent. She had
+never seen so many private carriages assembled together, and she would
+not have guessed that the whole county of Hampshire contained so many
+policemen. There were soldiers also--members of some volunteer or
+yeomanry corps of which the deceased was honorary colonel. Their
+brilliant uniforms shone out dazzlingly on a background of black
+dresses and coats.
+
+Naturally there was not space in the church for all this vast
+concourse. The nobility, gentry, and other ticket-holders were
+admitted first, and then there came an unmannerly rush which the
+constables checked with difficulty. Mavis and Dale were just inside
+the door; and Mr. Silcox close by, whispering, and pointing out
+several lords and ladies near the chancel steps. The service was long
+but very beautiful, with giant candles burning by the draped bier,
+organ music that seemed to swell and rumble in the pit of one's
+stomach, and light voices of singing boys that made one vibrate as if
+one had been turned into glass--all stirring one to a quite
+meaningless regret, not for the man who lay deaf and dumb and blind
+beneath the velvet pall, but because of vague thoughts about children
+who die young and have wings to hover over those they loved down here
+below. And, oh, the increasing heat of the church, the oppressive
+crush, the heavy odors of flowers and crape and perspiration! When at
+last one emerged, and the open air touched one's forehead, it was like
+coming out of an oven into a cold bath.
+
+Then the remains were consigned to the family vault in the small
+graveyard behind the church--the crowd filling every vista, the bells
+tolling, and the soldiers discharging a cannon and making one jump at
+each regularly timed discharge. Mavis, turning her eyes in all
+directions, looked at everything with intense interest--at the
+gentlefolk, now inextricably mixed up with the tenantry and the mob;
+at her husband, standing so black and solemn, with a face that might
+have belonged to a marble statue; at the puff of smoke that crept
+upward when the gun went bang, at the sunlight on the church tower, at
+the birds flying so high and so joyous above its battlements. And all
+at once she saw Aunt Petherick--the blackest mourner there, with crape
+veils trailing to the ground, a red face down which the tears streamed
+in rivers; sobbing so that the sobs sounded like the most violent
+hiccoughs; really almost as much noise as the soldiers' gun.
+
+Will had seen her too. Mavis noticed his stony glance at Auntie, when
+the crowd began to move again.
+
+While he was slowly making his way toward the stables, she got hold of
+Mrs. Petherick and had a little chat with her. Auntie had now entirely
+recovered from her recent hysterical storm; the redness of her face
+was passing off, and its expression was one of anxiety, rather than of
+grief.
+
+"My dear girl," she said, "I don't yet know what this will mean to me.
+You know, he promised the house for my life--but he wouldn't give me a
+lease. I've nothing to show--not so much as a letter. I may be turned
+out neck and crop."
+
+"Oh, Auntie, I should think his wishes would be respected."
+
+"How'm I to prove his wishes?" said Mrs. Petherick, quite testily.
+"It'll be wish my foot, for all the lawyers'll care."
+
+"Oh, Auntie!"
+
+"You know, he faithfully promised to provide for me. And now the talk
+is he never made a will at all. You can't believe the talk. But, oh,
+it's awful to me. The suspense! It'll break my heart to give up North
+Ride."
+
+"Auntie," said Mavis presently; "if you chance upon Will, don't speak
+to him."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+She whispered the answer. "He found out about _him_ and me."
+
+"Oh, did he? How did he take it?"
+
+"Awfully badly."
+
+But Mrs. Petherick did not seem to care twopence about the domestic
+trouble of Mavis and Will. Her thoughts were engrossed by her own
+affairs.
+
+"Mavis, I do think this: that if there's a will found, I shall be in
+it. He wasn't a liar, whatever he was."
+
+That night there seemed to be a tremendous lot of drunkenness in
+Rodchurch, and when the Gauntlet Inn closed you could hear the
+shouting as far off as the post office. But next day the village was
+quietly drowsy as of old: it had got over its excitement.
+
+Weeks passed, and for Mavis time began to glide. All things in the
+post office itself had resumed their ordinary course, and she felt
+instinctively that up-stairs, as well as down-stairs, a normal order
+would rule again before very long. Outwardly she and Dale were just
+what they used to be. They were not, however, really living as husband
+and wife. She suffered, but made no complaint. All would come right.
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+
+Mr. Barradine had not died intestate. This fact was made known at the
+post office in a sudden and perturbing manner by a letter to Mavis
+from Messrs. Cleaver, the Old Manninglea solicitors. Messrs. Cleaver
+informed her that the London firm who were acting in the matter of Mr.
+Barradine's will had instructed them to communicate with her, because
+certain documents--such as attested copies of her birth certificate,
+marriage certificate, and so on--would presently be required; and it
+would be convenient to Messrs. Cleaver, if she could pay them a call
+within the next two or three days.
+
+Mavis gave the letter to Dale when they met at breakfast, and he read
+it slowly and thoughtfully.
+
+"What do you suppose it means, Will?"
+
+"I suppose it means that you're one of the leg'tees."
+
+"Yes." Mavis drew in her breath. "It came into my mind that it might
+be that."
+
+"I don't see what else it can be."
+
+His face had become dull and expressionless, and he spoke in a heavy
+tone.
+
+"I may go over and see Mr. Cleaver, mayn't I?"
+
+"Yes," he said. "But I must go with you."
+
+"When can you get away? I don't think we ought to put it off."
+
+"No. There mustn't be an hour's avoidable delay. I'll take you over
+this afternoon."
+
+Then, without another word, he finished his breakfast and went
+down-stairs. Mavis was vibrating with excitement, her eyes large and
+bright, a spot of poppy color on each cheek; she longed to burst out
+into all sorts of conjectures, to discuss every possibility, but she
+did not dare speak to him again just then.
+
+Though the market town of Old Manninglea was only eight miles distant,
+the roundabout journey thither by rail offered such difficulties that
+Dale hired a dog-cart from the Roebuck and drove his wife across by
+road.
+
+Their route for the first four miles was the one they would have
+followed if they had been going to the Abbey, and as they bowled along
+behind a strong and active little horse Mavis felt again, but in an
+intensified degree, those sensations of well-being, of comfort, and
+hopefulness, that she had experienced when passing through the same
+scenery on the day of the funeral. All the country looked so warm and
+rich in its fulness of summer tints--corn ready to cut, fruit waiting
+to be picked, cows asking to be milked; everywhere plenty and peace;
+nature giving so freely, and still promising to give more. It seemed
+to her that as surely as there is a law under which the seasons
+change, sunshine follows storm, and trees after losing their leaf soon
+begin to bud again, so surely is it intended that states of mind
+should succeed one another, that after sorrow should come gladness,
+and that no one has the right to say "I will keep my heart like a
+shuttered room, and because it was dark yesterday the light shall not
+enter it to-day."
+
+About a mile out from Rodchurch they passed the Baptist chapel--a
+supremely ugly little building that stood isolated and forlorn in a
+narrow banked enclosure among flat pasture fields--and Mavis, making
+conversation, called Dale's attention to the tablet that largely
+advertised its date.
+
+"Eighteen thirty-seven, Will! That's a long time ago."
+
+"Yes," he said, "a many years back--that takes one. Year the Queen
+came to the throne."
+
+"I wonder why they built it out here--such a way from everybody--such
+a tramp for the worshipers."
+
+"In those days all non-conformists were a deal more down-trodden than
+they are now. It was before people began to understan' the meanin' o'
+liberty o' conscience; and, like enough, that's a bit of evidence."
+
+"How so, Will?"
+
+"Quite likely there wasn't a landlord lib'ral enough to give 'em a
+patch o' ground within reach o' th' village. Shoved 'em off as far as
+they could, to please Mr. Parson, and not contam'nate his church with
+the sight of an honest dissenter."
+
+He said all this sententiously and didactically, as one who enjoys
+speaking on historical or sociological subjects; but then a cloud
+seemed to descend upon him, and he relapsed into gloomy silence.
+
+After another mile they came to Vine-Pits Farm, the home of Mr. Bates
+the corn-merchant. It was one of the few stone houses of the district,
+a compact snug-looking nucleus from which an irregular wing, rather
+higher than the main building, advanced to the very edge of the
+roadway. A much smaller wing, merely an excrescence, on the other
+side, seemed as if it had gone as far as it could in the direction of
+making a quadrangle and had then given over the task to a broad low
+wall. The square piece of garden, though untidy and neglected, derived
+a great air of dignity from its stone surrounding, and importance was
+added to the house by the solid range of outbuildings, barns, and
+stables. A rick yard with haystacks so big that they showed above the
+tops of fruit trees and yews, three or four wagons and carts, half a
+dozen busy men, made the whole Bates establishment seem quite like a
+thriving little town all to itself.
+
+"It's a funny name, Vine-Pits," said Mavis, still making conversation.
+"I wonder why ever they called it that."
+
+"There was formerly a quantity of old pits 'longside the
+rick-bargan--same as you see forcing-pits at a market-gardener's--and
+the tale goes that they were orig'nally placed there for the purpose
+of growing grapes on the same principle as cucumbers or melons."
+
+"What a funny idea!"
+
+"'Twas a failure. Sort of a gentleman farmer had the notion he knew
+better than others, and tried it on year after year till he made a
+laughing-stock of himself. Anyhow, that's the tale. Mr. Bates has
+shown me the basis of the pits--built over now by the buildings you
+were looking at. Ah, here is the old fellow."
+
+Mr. Bates driving toward them in his gig pulled up, and invited Dale
+to do so also.
+
+"How are you, William?" And he took off his hat to Mrs. Dale. "Your
+servant, madam. Turn head about, William, and come into my place and
+take a bit of refreshment."
+
+"No, thank you, Mr. Bates. Not to-day. Some other time."
+
+"No time like the present. A cup of tea, Mrs. Dale. I don't care to
+see those I count as friends pass my place without stopping."
+
+"I know you mean what you say," said Dale cordially; "but we're for
+Old Manninglea--business appointment."
+
+"Then I mustn't hinder you. But look in on your way back. Your
+servant, madam."
+
+Mavis liked the fresh clean complexion and the silvery white hair of
+Mr. Bates, and there was something very pleasing in his old-fashioned
+mode of address, his courteous way of saluting her, and his gentle
+friendly smile as he spoke to her husband.
+
+"Will," she said, as they drove on, "I believe Mr. Bates is really
+fond of you."
+
+Dale gave a snort; and then after a long pause spoke with strong
+emphasis.
+
+"I'll tell you, Mavis, what Mr. Bates is. He's a _good_ man, every bit
+and crumb of him. There's no one between the downs and the sea that I
+feel the same respect for that I do for that old gentleman."
+
+"Yes, Will, I know you've always praised him."
+
+"And since you make the remark, I'll admit its truth. I do verily
+believe that Mr. Bates _is_ fond of me." Then he laughed bitterly.
+"I'm not aware of any one else I could say it of."
+
+"Oh, Will--there's lots are fond of you."
+
+"No--none. That was one small part of my lesson last month in London.
+I got that tip, straight, at the G.P.O."
+
+"Will!"
+
+They were driving now through the woods, and Mavis, glancing from time
+to time at her husband's face, saw that it had become fearfully
+somber. She guessed that this indicated an unfortunate turn of
+thought, and she talked incessantly in the hope of rendering such
+thought difficult, if not impossible.
+
+After crossing the bridge over the stream that runs serpentining
+through the Upper Hadleigh Wood on its way to join the Rod River, they
+were soon at the Abbey Cross Roads. Here, as they turned into the
+highroad by the Barradine Arms and the cluster of adjacent cottages,
+they had a splendid panoramic view of the Abbey estate rolling
+downward on their left in wide, sylvan beauty as far as the eye could
+see. From this higher ground, the park showed like an irregular
+pattern of lighter color on a dark green carpet, and a few of the main
+rides were visible here and there as truncated straight lines that
+began and ended capriciously; but all the houses and buildings lay
+hidden by the undulating woodland. Mavis turned her eyes toward the
+point where North Ride Cottage shyly concealed itself, and then she
+glanced back at Dale. He was staring straight in front, not looking to
+left or right, as if focusing the roadway between the horse's ears.
+
+"It's uphill now, Will, all the way, isn't it? Oh, that's a new
+cottage. How red the bricks are!"
+
+They had left all the trees behind them now, and, going up the slope
+through the last strip of fields, they soon emerged on the open heath.
+For a mile or two the landscape was wildly sad in aspect, just a waste
+of sand and heather, with naked ridges and boggy hollows, one or two
+wind-swept hillocks that bore a ragged crest of blackened firs, and in
+the farthest distance massive contours of grassy down rising as a
+barrier to guard the fertile valleys of another county. It was here
+that the riderless horse had galloped about and been hunted by the
+people from the cross road cottages.
+
+"You _have_ driven well. I think it's wonderful, considering what a
+little practise you get.... Look, I believe that's a hawk. Must be!
+Nothing but a hawk could stand so still in the air. He can see
+something down under him, I suppose. Rabbits, perhaps. Though I don't
+suppose he'd strike at anything as big as a rabbit, would he?"
+
+Mavis chattered vigorously, to prevent her husband from brooding on
+painful things; but, even while talking, she did not obliterate her
+own real thoughts. Inside her there seemed to be a running chorus of
+unuttered words, and she listened to the inner voice even when at her
+busiest with the outward sounding voice.
+
+"Has he truly left me money? If so, how much?" These mute questions
+were perpetually repeated. "A hundred pounds? Perhaps more than that.
+He gave me two hundred when I married. Suppose he has left me quite a
+lot of money."
+
+It was not market-day, and the town therefore was not at its best and
+brightest. Nevertheless, the appearance of shops, pavements, and
+nicely dressed young ladies, had a most exhilarating effect on Mavis
+when, after putting up the horse and cart, Dale solemnly conducted her
+through the High Street to the solicitor's office in Church Place.
+
+The interview with Mr. Cleaver did not take long, although such
+weighty concerns were spoken of. Dale sat on a chair near the wall,
+his hat held between his knees, his eyes lowered; while Mavis sat on
+a chair close to the solicitor, talking, flushing, throbbing,
+gradually ascending a scale of excitement so feverishly strong that it
+seemed as if it must eventually consume her just as fire consumes.
+
+Mr. Barradine had left her two thousand pounds, and this sum was to be
+paid to her free of all duties. The will had not yet been proved, but
+everything was in order and probate would be granted any day now;
+minor legacies would then immediately be cleared off; and, since Mavis
+would have no difficulty in satisfying the executors as to her
+identity, she might really consider the money as safe in her pocket.
+Mr. Cleaver, having made this stimulating communication and described
+the formalities that she must fulfil, asked a few questions about
+certain of her relatives.
+
+"Ruby Millicent Petherick. That is a cousin of yours? Yes." And he
+jotted down a note of any facts that Mavis could supply. "Still a
+spinster. About your own age, and living abroad. Thank you. That is
+all you can tell me? There seems to be doubt as to her whereabouts.
+Your aunt--Mrs. John Edward Petherick--does not know her address. But
+she will no doubt present herself in due course."
+
+Then Mr. Cleaver indicated that he need not further detain them, and
+Dale, rising slowly and still looking at the crown of his hat, spoke
+for the first time and in a very ponderous way.
+
+"This has come as a complete surprise to my wife."
+
+"Yes," and the solicitor smiled, "but not by any means as an
+unpleasant surprise, Mr. Dale!"
+
+"No, sir, naturally not. My wife having been connected with the family
+since childhood would be naturally one to be thought of by the head
+of the family if wishful to benefit _all_ old friends after he was
+called away."
+
+"Quite so," said Mr. Cleaver.
+
+"Will," said Mavis, "we mustn't waste Mr. Cleaver's time by telling
+him our history;" and she gave a nervous fluttered laugh.
+
+"Mr. Cleaver," said Dale glumly, "will pardon me for desiring to learn
+how others stand, as well as yourself."
+
+"Oh, well," said Mr. Cleaver, "I think it might be premature to go
+into matters that do not directly concern Mrs. Dale."
+
+"Yes," said Mavis, nervously, "we mustn't ask for secrets."
+
+"It's just this," said Dale, with stolid insistence. "I do hope he has
+done something equally handsome for those relations of my wife whose
+names you mentioned--especially for her aunt, Mrs. J.E. Petherick, who
+is now past her youth, and to whom it would be a comfort. Also my
+wife's cousin Ruby, who is earning her livelihood on the continent by
+following the profession of a musician. Such a windfall would come as
+a blessing to her."
+
+"Mr. Dale," said the solicitor, "I may safely say as much as this. No
+one who had the smallest grounds for expecting anything will find
+himself left out in the cold."
+
+"Thank you, sir." Dale had raised his eyes, and, while speaking now,
+in the same sententious manner, he seemed to be observing Mr.
+Cleaver's face very closely. "The fact is, my wife and I had no
+grounds whatever for expecting to be singled out for special rewards.
+On the contrary, it was never in my wife's power to render the long
+and faithful service rendered by the others; so that if a bequest had
+fallen to us while others of the Petherick clan--if I may employ that
+expression--had bin passed over, it might have bin difficult for us to
+benefit to the detriment of the rest of 'em--at least, without causing
+fam'ly squabbles."
+
+"Then I'll freely reassure you. Such a contingency will not arise.
+No," and Mr. Cleaver's tone became heartily enthusiastic. "It is a
+beautiful will. You'll see all the particulars in the newspapers
+before a week is over, and you'll say that no critic--however hard to
+please--could find fault. It is a will that is bound to attract the
+attention of the press."
+
+"Then thank you again, sir. And good afternoon--with renewed thanks
+for the courteous way you wrote to my wife, and received the two of us
+to-day."
+
+"Good afternoon." Mr. Cleaver smiled and shook hands good-humoredly.
+"My congratulations, Mrs. Dale; and one word of advice, free gratis.
+Invest your legacy wisely, and don't confound capital with income.
+You're going to have two thousand pounds all told, not two thousand a
+year, you know."
+
+"Oh, no, sir--I wouldn't be so foolish as to think so."
+
+They had tea at a pastry-cook's in complete silence, and they were
+half-way home again before Mavis ventured to rouse her husband from
+his ominous gloom.
+
+"Will," she said, with an assumption of calmness and confidence, "I
+didn't at once catch the drift of what you were saying to Mr. Cleaver,
+and when I tried to stop you it was because I was all on edge from
+hearing such a tremendous piece of news. Such a lot more than ever I
+could have _dreamed_ of."
+
+He did not answer. Steadily watching the horse's ears, and holding the
+reins in both hands with the conscientious care of an unpractised
+coachman, he drove down the slope to the Cross Roads and round the
+corner into the woods.
+
+"No, but I soon saw what was passing through your mind, Will. You
+wanted to make quite sure that there would be nothing to cause talk. I
+don't myself believe people would have really noticed if I had been
+the only one. But, of course, as I am one of several, it stands to
+reason nobody can say anything nasty."
+
+Still he did not answer.
+
+"Will, you'll let me take the money, won't you?"
+
+"I don't know. I must think."
+
+"Yes, dear, but you'll think sensibly, won't you? Think of the use--to
+both of us. If it's mine in name, I count it all as yours every bit as
+much as mine."
+
+"That's enough now. Don't go on talking about it."
+
+"All right. Are you going to stop at Mr. Bates'?"
+
+"No."
+
+"He was very pressing."
+
+"I've no spirit to tell him--or any one else--what we've heard over
+there."
+
+"Will," and she drew close to him, nestling against him as much as she
+could venture to do without causing him difficulty in driving, "you
+said we were to look forward, not back. Don't get thinking of the
+past. What's done is done--and it _must_ be right to be happy if we
+can."
+
+"Ah," and he gave a snort, "that's what the heathens used to say. I
+thought you were a Christian."
+
+"So I am, Will. Christ preached mercy--yes, and happiness too."
+
+"Thought He preached remorse for sins before you reach pardon and
+peace. But never mind religion--don't let's drag _that_ in. And leave
+me alone. Don't talk. I tell you I want to think."
+
+"Very well, dear. Only this one thing. Keep this before you. Now that
+he's dead--"
+
+"I've asked you to hold your tongue."
+
+"And I will. But let me finish. However lofty you choose to look at
+it, it can't be wrong to take the money now he's gone."
+
+"I wish his money had gone with him. Look at it lofty or low--take it
+or leave it--this cursed legacy reminds me of all I was trying to
+forget."
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+
+Full particulars of the disposition of Mr. Barradine's fortune had now
+been published, and the world was admiringly talking about it.
+
+The claims of the entire Petherick family would be once for all
+satisfied. Mrs. Petherick and that young person who had been sent to
+learn music at Vienna were each to receive as much as Mavis Dale;
+three other Pethericks would get five hundred pounds apiece; still
+more Pethericks would be dowered in a lesser degree. Then came the
+ordinary servants, with legacies proportionate to terms of
+service--everybody remembered, nobody left out in the cold. Then, with
+nice lump sums of increasing magnitude, came a baker's dozen of
+Barradine nephews, nieces, and second cousins; the Abbey domain was to
+go to an elderly first cousin; and then, after bequests to various
+charities, came the grand item that the local solicitor had in his
+mind when he foretold a salvo of newspaper comment.
+
+The residue of the estate, the larger half of all the dead man's
+possessions, was to be employed in the establishment of a Home for
+parentless, unprotected, or destitute female children. The trustees of
+this institution were to find a suitable site somewhere within five
+miles of the Abbey House, and if possible on the Barradine property,
+being guided in their selection of the exact spot by expert advice as
+to the character of the soil, the qualities of the air, and the
+facilities for obtaining a supply of pure water. When they had found
+the site they were immediately to build thereon, and provide
+accommodation at the earliest date for fifty small inmates, each of
+whom was to be reared, educated, and finally launched in life with a
+small dowry. The funds available would be more than sufficient for the
+number of children named; and Mr. Barradine expressed the wish that
+the number should not be increased if, as he hoped, the income of the
+Trust grew bigger with the passage of time. He desired that extension
+of revenue should be devoted to improving the comfort and amenities of
+the fifty occupants, to increasing their dowries, and to assisting
+them after they had gone out into the world.
+
+Not only the _Rodhaven District Courier_, but great London journals
+also, experienced difficulty in marshaling enough adjectives to convey
+their sense of admiration for such a perfect scheme. Ever since his
+death the local praise of Mr. Barradine's amiable qualities had been
+taking richer colors, and now the will seemed so to sanctify his
+memory that one felt he must be henceforth classed with the
+traditional philanthropic heroes of England--those whose names grow
+brighter through the centuries.
+
+When on Sunday Mr. Norton took for his text those beautiful words,
+"Suffer little children to come unto Me," all instantaneously guessed
+what he was getting at, and by the time he finished there was scarcely
+a dry eye that had not been wet at some point or other of an unusually
+long sermon. "We have had," he said in conclusion, "a striking
+instance of that noblest of all the feelings of the human breast,
+tenderness and care for the weak and helpless; and without abrogating
+the practise of our church which forbids us to pray for the souls of
+those who have been summoned away from us, I will ask you all before
+dispersing to-day to join with me in a few moments' silent meditation
+on the lesson to be derived from a kindness that has proved undying--a
+pity that has the attribute of things eternal, and, speaking to us
+from the other side of the grave, may in all reverence be described as
+Angelic."
+
+The talk about the vast sums to be expended in charity produced a
+curious effect on Mavis Dale. It seemed that her own two thousand
+pounds was a steadily diminishing quantity; she was still greatly
+excited whenever she thought about it, but she could not feel again
+the respectful rapture caused by her first thought of its lavishly
+generous extent. Perhaps just at first, doing what the solicitor
+advised her not to do, she had not altogether discriminated between
+capital and interest. Dazzled by the abstract notion of wealth, she
+had over-estimated concrete potentialities.
+
+Of course William would allow her to accept the legacy. In the early
+days after their visit to Old Manninglea she had tormented herself
+with fears that he would attempt to force a renunciation of benefits
+from that quarter, and she had determined never to yield to so
+preposterous an exercise of authority; but now she felt certain that
+he would not thus drive her to open revolt. He was still somber and
+silent, but, however long he remained in this gloomy state, he would
+not interfere with her freedom in regard to the money.
+
+Nevertheless, she felt relieved when he explicitly stated that there
+would be no further opposition on his part.
+
+"Oh, Will, I can't tell you how glad I am to hear you talk so sensibly
+about it."
+
+"It is not willingly that I say 'Yes.' Don't you go and think that."
+
+"No. But you do see we couldn't act otherwise?"
+
+"You must accept it--for this reason, and not for any other reason.
+Our hands are tied. If you refuse it, people would wonder."
+
+"Yes--yes. But, Will, you keep saying _you_, when it's really us. It
+will be _ours_, not just only mine, you must remember."
+
+"Ah, but I doubt if I could ever take you at your word, there."
+
+After this she sang at her household work. She took as a good sign the
+fact that he had spoken doubtfully, instead of formally repudiating
+her suggestion that they were to share alike in all the good things
+which the money might bring them. She thought it must mean that he was
+very near to forgiving her. Death had now almost wiped out
+_everything_. He was feeling more and more every day what she had felt
+from the beginning, that it was palpably absurd to go on harboring
+resentment.
+
+Free now from exaggerated estimates, with ideas readjusted to the
+measure of reality, and her natural common sense at work again, she
+thought of what the little fortune might truly do for them. It ought
+to yield a hundred pounds, twice fifty pounds a year--roughly two
+pounds a week coming in unearned. Why, it _was wealth_. On top of
+William's annual emoluments such an income would make them feel as if
+they were rolling in money.
+
+Visions immediately arose of all sorts of things that would now be
+within the scope of their means--choicer meals for William, aprons and
+caps for Mary, new curtains and much else new and delightful to
+beautify the home. Little excursions too--a regular seaside holiday
+during leave-time!
+
+Messrs. Cleaver had intimated that the London solicitors were ready to
+hand over the money, and Mavis was talking to her husband about its
+investment.
+
+"I trust your judgment, Will--and I'd like it put in both our names."
+
+"Oh, no, I couldn't quite consent to that."
+
+"I do wish you would. If it's invested well, I make out it ought to
+bring us a hundred a year."
+
+"Mavis," he said, thoughtfully, "it might be invested to bring more
+than that, if you were prepared to take a certain amount of risk."
+
+"Oh, I don't want any risk."
+
+"An' p'raps the risk, after all, would be covered by the security I'd
+offer you. That'd be for your lawyers to decide; it's not for me to
+urge the safety."
+
+"Will, what is it?"
+
+"I hesitate for this purpose. I want to lead you up to it, so that you
+shouldn't turn against the proposal without yourself or your
+representatives giving it consideration."
+
+"Will, I wish you'd tell me--I can't bear suspense."
+
+"Then here's the first question. If satisfied of the security, would
+you lend out the money on mortgage with a person who has the chance of
+setting up himself in an old-established business?"
+
+"What business?"
+
+"I'll tell you in a minute. Take the person first. You haven't asked
+about _him_. In a sense, his character--honesty and straight ways--is
+a part of the security. He is somebody you've known for a many years."
+
+"Who is it?"
+
+"Myself."
+
+"Will? What on earth do you mean?"
+
+"Mavis, it's like this--There, bide a bit."
+
+They had been sitting in the dusk after their high tea; and now Mary
+brought a lighted lamp into the room, and put it on the table between
+them.
+
+"All right, my girl. Never mind clearing away till I call for you."
+
+He waited until Mary had gone out of the room, and then went on
+talking. His face with the lamp-light full upon it looked very firm
+and serious, and his manner while he explained all these new ideas was
+strangely unemotional. He spoke not in the style of a husband to a
+wife, but of a business man proposing a partnership to another man.
+
+"It seems to me, viewing it all round, a wonderful good chance. An
+opening that isn't likely to come in one's way twice. Mr. Bates' son
+has bin and got himself into such a mess over a horse-racing
+transaction that he's had to make a bolt of it. I can't tell you the
+facts, because I don't rightly know them; but it's bad--something to
+do with checks that'll put him to hidin' for a long day, if he doesn't
+want to answer for it in a court o' law. Well, then, the old gentleman
+being worn out with private care, wishful to retire, and seeing a
+common cheat and waster in the one who ought by nature to succeed
+him, has offered me to take over the farm, the trade, an' the whole
+bag of tricks."
+
+"But, surely to goodness, Will, you don't think of giving up the post
+office?"
+
+"Yes, I do. I think of that, in any case."
+
+"But you love the work."
+
+"Used to, Mavis."
+
+"Don't you now?"
+
+"No. Mavis, it's like this." He had raised a hand to shade his eyes,
+as if the lamplight hurt them, and she could no longer see the
+expression of his face. But she observed a sudden change in his
+manner. He spoke now much in the same confidential tone that he had
+always employed in the old time when telling her of his most intimate
+affairs--in the happy time when he brought all his little troubles to
+her, and flattered her by saying that she never failed to make them
+easy to bear. "So far's the P.O. is concerned, all the heart has gone
+out of me. The events through which I've passed have altered my view
+of the entire affair. Where all seemed leading me on and on, and up
+and up, I see nothing before me now."
+
+"Promotion!"
+
+"I don't b'lieve I'd ever get it. The best I could hope for'd be that
+they'd leave me here to th' end o' my service life. And besides, if
+promotion comes tomorrow, I don't want it."
+
+"Will, let me say it at once. Take the money. I consent. Whatever you
+feel's best for you, that's what I want."
+
+He altogether ignored her interruption, and went on in the same tone.
+"I used to think it grand, and now it all seems nothing. I do assure
+you when I was down there handing out a halfpenny stamp or signing a
+two-shilling order, I used to feel large enough to burst with
+satisfaction. I felt 'I'm the king o' the castle.'--That was thrown in
+my teeth as how I appeared to others. Well, now, I feel like a brock
+in a barrel--or not so big as him. Just something small that's got
+into the wrong box by accident, and had the lid clapped to on it. I
+want room for my elbows, an' scope for my int'lect. I must get the sky
+over my head again, and the open roads under my feet. If I stopped
+down there much longer, I should go mad."
+
+"Then, my dear, you mustn't stop."
+
+"These last weeks--fairly determined to chuck it--I bin thinking o'
+the Colonies as affording advantages to any man who's got capacities
+in him; but now this chance comes nearer home, and it lies with you to
+say if you'll give me the help required for me to take it."
+
+"Yes," said Mavis, earnestly, "and more glad than words can say to
+think I'm able to do so."
+
+Indeed she was delighted. She had been deeply moved by all he told her
+about his distaste for the work he used to love, and she recognized
+that he had been magnanimous in refraining from reproaches, but rather
+implying a purely personal change of ideas as to the cause of
+disillusionment and depression. So that, jumping at the opportunity to
+prove that she counted his inclinations as higher than mere money, she
+would have accepted any scheme, however unpromising; but in fact the
+enterprise appeared to her judgment as quite gloriously hopeful. Every
+moment increased the charms that it presented; above all, its complete
+novelty fascinated, and with surprising quickness she found herself
+thinking almost exactly what her husband had thought in regard to
+their present existence. It seemed to her too that she was pining for
+a larger, freer environment, that this narrow home had become a
+permanent prison-house, and that she could never really be contented
+until she got away from it; then she thought of Vine-Pits Farm, the
+peaceful fields, the lovely woodland, the space, the air, the sunlight
+that one would enjoy out there; and then in another moment came the
+fear lest all this should prove too good to be true.
+
+"But, Will, however can Mr. Bates be willing to part with such a
+splendid business as his for no more than two thousand pounds?"
+
+"Ah, there you show your sense, Mavis." As he said this Dale took his
+hand from his forehead, and resumed his entirely matter-of-fact tone.
+"You must understand things aren't always what they seem. The business
+is not what it was."
+
+"But Mr. Bates is very rich, isn't he?"
+
+"He _ought_ to be, but he isn't. That son of his has bin eating him
+up, slow an' fast, for th' last ten years. The turnover of his trade
+is big enough, but the whole management of it has gone end-ways. From
+a man working with capital he's come down to a man financing things
+from hand to mouth. What's left to him now is strictly speaking his
+stock, his wagons, his horses, his lease, his household
+belongings--and whatever should be put down for the good-will."
+
+Then, continuing his purely businesslike exposition, he explained that
+he would have to make two engagements, one to his wife and one to Mr.
+Bates. All material property would be charged with Mavis' loan, and
+the value of the good-will would be repaid how and when he could repay
+it. Mr. Bates was content to risk that part of the bargain on his
+faith in Dale's personal integrity.
+
+"Don't say any more," cried Mavis. "I'm not understanding it, but I
+know it's all right. Do let's get it settled before Mr. Bates alters
+his mind."
+
+"It must be done formally, Mavis, through your lawyers. Mr. Cleaver is
+capable and trustworthy. It's to be a regular mortgage, properly tied
+up; and he must approve--"
+
+"I don't care whether he approves or doesn't. I approve."
+
+"Then I thank you," said Dale, gravely, "for the way you've met me,
+and I assure you I appreciate it. As to the trade itself, I b'lieve I
+shan't go wrong. It's not so new to me as people might suppose. I'm
+well aware of its principles; and, moreover, one trade's precious like
+another--and a man's faculties are bound to tell, no matter how you
+apply them."
+
+Mavis was overjoyed. When she sang to herself now while dressing of a
+morning the notes poured out loud and full, even when there was scarce
+a puff of breath behind them. She felt so proud and happy to think
+that fate had given her the power to help William, and that he had
+consented to avail himself of the power. Once more he had begun to
+lean on her. As in the past, so in the future, he would derive support
+from his poor little misunderstood, but always well-meaning Mavis.
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+
+By the end of September everything was arranged. Dale had ceased to be
+postmaster of Rodchurch; the purchase of the business had been
+completed; and Mr. Bates had moved out of Vine-Pits to a cottage near
+Otterford Mill, leaving behind him the bulk of his furniture as the
+property of the incomers. Thus the Dales would have no difficulty in
+furnishing the comparatively large house that henceforth was to be
+their home.
+
+For the last two days they had been living chaotically in rooms
+stripped to a woeful bareness; this morning Mary had gone along the
+Hadleigh Road with a wagon full of bedsteads, bedding, and household
+utensils; and now, late in the afternoon, the wagon stood at the post
+office door again, packed this time with a final load consisting of
+those treasures which had been held back for transit under their
+owners' charge.
+
+Mavis had already climbed up, and was settling herself on a high
+valley of rolled carpets between two mountain ranges formed by the
+piano and the parlor bookcases. With anxious eyes she looked at minor
+chains of packing-cases that contained the best china, the mantel
+ornaments, the hand-painted pictures. Inside a basket on her knees
+their cat was mewing disconsolately, despite well-buttered paws. The
+two big horses, one in front of the other, continuously tinkled the
+metal disks on their forehead bands; Mr. Allen and other neighbors
+came out of their shops; Miss Yorke and the clerks from the office
+filled the pavement; children gathered about the wagon staring
+silently, and Miss Waddy on the opposite pavement waved her
+handkerchief and said "Oh, dear! oh, dear!"
+
+"Good luck!"
+
+"Thank you, thank you kindly." Dale moved about briskly, shaking hands
+with every one. Already he had abandoned all trace of his ancient
+official costume. In cord breeches and leather gaiters, his straw hat
+on the back of his head, he looked thoroughly farmer-like, and he
+seemed to have assumed the jovial independent manner as well as the
+clothes appropriate to the man who has no other master but the winds
+and the weather.
+
+"So long, Mr. Allen. Put in a good word for me at the Kennels."
+
+"I will so, Mr. Dale."
+
+"Good-by, Mr. Silcox. Hope you'll honor us with a call whenever you're
+passing. And if you can, give me a lift in the _Courier_. I may say
+it's my intention to patronize their advertisement columns regular,
+soon's ever I begin to feel my feet under me."
+
+"See _Rodchurch Gossip_ next issue," said Mr. Silcox significantly.
+
+"Thanks. You're a trump."
+
+"Good-by, Miss Yorke." And he laughed. "'Pon my soul, I'm surprised
+it's still _Miss_ Yorke; but it'll be _Mrs._ before long, I warrant."
+
+"Oh, Mr. Dale!"
+
+"There, so long," and he shook Miss Yorke's hand warmly. "And take my
+excuse if I bin a bit of a slave-driver now and then. I didn't mean
+it."
+
+"We've no complaints," said one of the clerks. "Good luck, sir!"
+
+Then Dale told his carter to make a start of it, and the wagon
+creaked, jolted, slowly lumbered away.
+
+Though they moved at a foot pace, it was not easy traveling in the
+wagon; the china boxes bumped and rattled, the piano swayed so much
+that all its strings vibrated, and the cat leaped frantically in the
+basket; but Mavis felt no inconvenience. She was full of hope. For
+more than a mile Dale walked beside the shaft horse, echoing the "Coom
+in then" and "Oot thar" of the man with the leader, and the sound of
+the voices, the plod of the iron shoes, and the bell-like tinkle of
+the harness were all pleasant to hear. The whole thing seemed to her
+picturesque and interesting, like a small episode in the Old
+Testament, and imaginary words offered themselves as suitable to
+describe it. "Therefore that day her husband gathered all that was
+theirs, and set her behind his horses and they journeyed into another
+place."
+
+She smiled at her cleverness in inventing such good Bible language,
+and then the thought came to her mind that they were going into the
+promised land. Once she turned her head to get a last glimpse of the
+church tower, and perhaps be able to pick out the roof of the post
+office among the other roofs, but the high mass of furniture shut out
+all the view. Only the sky was visible, with the sun quite low, and so
+bright that it was almost blinding. And she thought that this chance
+of the hour being late and the sun being nearly down was a lucky omen.
+Straight ahead of them the road was sunlit, and the long slanting
+sunbeams appeared to hurry on before them as if to light up and
+glorify the land of promise. "If," she said to herself, "we get there
+before it has dipped and I catch the sunshine on the ricks, I shall
+know we are going to be happy."
+
+Then all at once she saw Dale's straw hat and face rise above the fore
+boards of the wagon. He had swung himself on the shaft to see how she
+was getting on.
+
+"All right, old lady?"
+
+"Yes--lovely."
+
+The tone of his voice had made her heart bound. It was the dear old
+voice, speaking to her just as he used to speak before their bad time
+began.
+
+"We'll be there sooner than you know where you are. I think I'll rest
+my bones a bit."
+
+Then he got into the wagon, and carefully clambering over impediments
+came toward her. For a moment as he stood over her the sunlight was on
+his face, and she, looking up at him, thought that he was not only a
+fine but quite a beautiful man. The light seemed to soften and yet
+ennoble his features, and his eyes, unblinking in the glare, were blue
+and clear as water. When he sat down close to her little nest she
+pushed the basket away from her, and raising her hand laid it on his
+knees. To her delight he put his hand on hers, and left it there. He
+was in shadow now, showing a dark profile, and again she admired
+him--her strong, big, handsome man, her man that she was pining for.
+
+"Will," she said tremulously, "don't move, but just look behind you,
+and tell me all you see."
+
+"I don't see anything, Mav, unless I heft meself up again."
+
+"No, sit as you are. It just bears out what you said. We're never more
+to look back. We're only to look forward. Will?"
+
+He had taken his hand away, and turned the back of his head toward
+her.
+
+"Will," she repeated; but he did not answer. "Will, my dear one, this
+_is_ going to be a fresh start, isn't it? Like a new beginning for
+us."
+
+"Yes," he said, very seriously, "that's what I build on its being.
+Take it so. You and I are beginning life again in our new home."
+
+"Bless you for saying it. The one thing I wished to hear."
+
+"Yes, we must help each other. I'll do--I mean to do. But, maybe,
+it'll be more 'v o' fight than I'm reckoning, and there's a many ways
+that you can make the fight easier--beyond the one great thing you've
+done a'ready."
+
+"I will, dear. I will."
+
+Then they were silent. The carter cracked his whip, shouted to his
+team, and whistled; and the horses, neither frightened by the whip nor
+excited by the whistling, drew the big wagon at exactly the same
+steady pace.
+
+And Mavis felt as if her throat had suddenly enlarged itself and
+become too big for her collar, while her whole breast was swelling and
+hardening until it seemed so rigidly immense that it would burst all
+her garments; it was as if her whole being, together with all the
+thoughts or memories that it contained felt the expansion of some
+force that had been long gathering and now swiftly was released. In
+all her life she had experienced no such sensations hitherto. She who
+had been passive under the desires of others now felt desire active in
+herself. It was not only that she wanted pardon, kindness,
+companionship, the things that she had been so systematically deprived
+of; she wanted the man himself, the partner, and the mate to whom
+nature had given her a right.
+
+Abruptly she changed her position, scrambling forward close against
+him, and put up both her hands to his shoulders.
+
+"Will, stoop your head. I want to whisper something."
+
+Then, as soon as he bent toward her, she clasped her hands behind his
+neck and tried to drag him down in a kiss.
+
+"What yer doin'? Let me be."
+
+"No, I won't. I won't." She was holding him with all her strength,
+pulling herself up since she could not pull him down. "Be nice to me."
+And as he recoiled she thrust forward her upturned face, the cheeks
+hard and white, the eyes burning, the mouth not quite closing even
+while she spoke. "I won't let you go, till you've kissed me and made
+it up for good an' all."
+
+She was acting now as instinctively as any wild animal of the woods.
+What had started in the zone of voluntary impulse had now passed into
+the ruling power of reflexes; every nerve of her body seemed to be
+thinking for itself, guiding her, and compelling her to struggle for
+the desired end. All this nonsense of high-falutin' morality must be
+swept aside; if he loved her still, he must admit that he loved her;
+it must be love or hate, but no more sham and pretense, no more of
+these half measures that made her a wife when people were looking, and
+an enemy, a culprit in disgrace, or a sexless business associate, when
+they two were alone behind drawn blinds.
+
+"Mav, you're shaming me. 'A' done. 'Aarve you tekken leave o' yer
+senses?"
+
+She felt him shiver as he resisted her; then in another moment he
+gripped her round the waist as brutally and violently as if he
+intended to pitch her out of the wagon, held her to him so fiercely
+that he crushed all the breath from her lungs, and gave her a long
+passionate mouth-to-mouth kiss. And it seemed to her that the strength
+and brutality of the embrace formed the one supreme gratification that
+she had been burning to obtain; she wanted to give herself to him as
+she had never done before, and if he crushed her and broke her and
+killed her in their joint rapture, she would drink death greedily as
+something inevitable to all those who empty the deep goblet of love.
+
+"There!" He took his lips away, and she sank back gasping. "You've 'ad
+yer way wi' me;" and he heaved a sigh that was as loud as a groan.
+"Oh, Mav, my girl, gi' me yer kisses--kiss me all night and all
+day--if on'y you make me forget."
+
+Her hat had tumbled off in the struggle, a mesh of brown hair was
+dangling over her shoulder, and she was still too much out of breath
+to speak. The wagon rolled heavily forward along the flat road, and
+the carter cracked his whip continuously to tell the horses they were
+nearly home. Presently Mavis got up, perched herself beside her
+husband, and whispered to him jerkily.
+
+"You've nothing to forget, dear. No looking back. But, oh, my darling,
+I'm going to be more than I ever was to you. I feel it. I _know_
+it--an' we'll be happy, happy, happy, so long as we live."
+
+She pressed her face against the sleeve of his jacket, and stroked his
+knee with as much luxurious pleasure as if the rough cord breeches had
+been made of the softest satin velvet.
+
+"See. Look straight ahead," and she raised her hand and pointed.
+
+Vine-Pits Farm was in sight. The stone house, the barns, the straw
+ricks, and the fruit trees all seeming to have clustered close
+together, to form a compact little kingdom of hope and joy.
+
+"Look, dear. How pretty--see the sunlight on the roofs and on the
+ricks. That's luck. All the straw is changing into gold. My old Will
+is going to make heaps of golden sovereigns as big as any rick."
+
+"Woo then. A-oo then." The carter stopped the horses outside the
+garden entrance. "Will the missis get down here at th' front door, or
+be us to go on into yaard?"
+
+Mrs. Dale got down here, took the cat-basket from her husband, and
+went gaily up the path to the open front door.
+
+"Don't let th' cat loose," Dale called after her warningly, "or she'll
+be back to Rodchurch like a streak o' greased lightning. She'll need
+acclim'tyzing all to-morrow."
+
+Mavis ran through the house to the kitchen, where Mary and a
+courtesying old woman received her. Then she scampered from room to
+room, uttering little cries of contentment. Often as she had seen and
+admired the house during the last few weeks, it had never seemed so
+perfectly delightful as it did to-day: with its low-ceiled cozy little
+rooms at the back, its high and imposing rooms in front, its broad
+staircase and square landing, it would be quite a little palace when
+all had been set to rights.
+
+Coming hurrying back to the hall, she saw her husband in the porch, a
+splendid dark figure with the last rays of yellow sunlight behind him.
+He paused bare-headed on the threshold, obviously not aware of her
+presence, and she was about to speak to him when he startled her by
+dropping on his knees and praying aloud.
+
+"O merciful Powers, give me grace and strength to lead a healthy
+fearless life in this house."
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+
+The Dales were beginning to prosper now, but their first winter had
+been an anxious, difficult time.
+
+Dale had made a common mistake in his calculations, and experience
+soon taught him that what is known as good-will, the most delicate and
+sensitive of all trade-values, can not by a mere stroke of the pen be
+transferred from one person to another. Solid customers turned truant;
+the business went down with terrifying velocity; and old Bates, who
+loyally came day after day to advise and assist, spoke with sincere
+regret. "William, I never foretold this. I must see what can be done.
+I'll leave no stone unturned." And he trotted about, touting for his
+successor, tramping long miles to beg for a continuance of favors that
+had unexpectedly ceased, but usually returning sadly to confess that
+his efforts had again been fruitless. They were gloomy evening hours,
+when the old and the young man sat together in the office by the
+roadway; and at night Mavis used to hear her sleeping husband moan and
+groan so piteously that she sometimes felt compelled to wake him.
+
+"What is it?" Awakened thus, he would spring up with a hoarse cry, and
+be almost out of the bed before she was able to restrain him.
+
+"It's nothing, dear. Only you were in one of your bad dreams, and I
+simply couldn't let you go on being tormented."
+
+"That's right," he used to mutter sleepily. "I don't want to dream.
+I've enough that's real."
+
+"Don't you worry, dear old boy. You're going to pull through grand--in
+the end. I _know you are_. Besides, if not--then we'll try something
+else."
+
+She always murmured such consolatory phrases until he fell asleep once
+more.
+
+The fact was that Bates had been respected by the well-to-do and loved
+by the humble; and Dale, out here, remained an unknown quantity.
+Anything of his fame as postmaster that had traveled along these two
+miles from Rodchurch did not help him. He was not liked. He felt it in
+the air, a dull inactive hostility, when talking to gentlefolks'
+coachmen or giving orders to his own servants. The coachmen could take
+no pleasure in patronizing him, nor the men in working for him. Mr.
+Bates advised him once or twice to cultivate a gentler and more
+ingratiating method of dealing with the people in his employ.
+
+"Perhaps, William, I'm to blame for having spoilt 'em a bit;--but it'd
+be good policy for you to take them as you find them, and get them
+bound to you before you begin drilling 'em. A soft word now and then,
+William--you don't know how far it goes sometimes."
+
+"What I complain of is this," said Dale; "they don't show any spirit.
+Every stroke o' bad luck I've had--every chance where they might step
+in with common sense, or extra care, or a spark of invention to save a
+situation for me--it's just as if they were a row o' turnips."
+
+And the strokes of bad luck were so many and so heavy. The elements
+seemed to be making war against him--such wet days as made it
+impossible to deliver hay without damage to it, and an accusation from
+somebody's stables that the last lot was poisoned; then frost, and two
+horses seriously injured on the ice-clothed roads; then February
+gales, wrecking the barn roofs, entailing costly repairs; then floods;
+and last of all _rats_. The unusual amount of land water had driven
+them to new haunts, and Dale's granaries were suddenly invaded. "Oh,
+William," said Mr. Bates, horror-stricken, "beware of rats. They are
+the worst foe. _One_ rat will mess up a mountain of grain."
+
+About the time of the vernal equinox there came a tempest in
+comparison with which all previous wind and rain were but a whispering
+and a sprinkling. Every door was being rattled as if by giant hands,
+the glass sang in the latticed windows, and the whole house seemed
+swaying, when Mary told her mistress that something had gone wrong
+with the big straw stack and that the master was attempting to climb
+to the top of it on the long ladder.
+
+Mavis instantly pulled up her skirt in true country fashion to make a
+cloak, and told Mary to help her open the kitchen door.
+
+"You bide where you be, Mrs. Dale," said the old charwoman. "You ben't
+goin' to be no use of any kind out there, and you may bring yourself
+to a misfortune."
+
+But Mavis insisted on struggling through the doorway, into the rude
+embrace of the weather. Great branches of the walnut tree were waving
+wildly, while little twigs and buds flew from apple trees like dust;
+the rain, not in drops but as it seemed in solid packets, struck her
+face and shoulders with such force that she could scarcely stand
+against it; a shallow wooden tub came bounding to her along the
+flagged path and passed like a sheet of brown paper; and just as she
+got to the corner of the buildings from which she could obtain a view
+of the rick-yard, thirty feet of pale fencing lay down upon the
+beehives and the rhubarb bed without a sound that was even faintly
+audible above the racket of the storm.
+
+But she had no eyes for anything except her husband, and no other
+thought than of the horrible peril in which he was placing himself.
+Four men clung to the bottom of the ladder, and yet, with Dale's
+weight half-way up to help them, could not for a moment keep it
+steady. On top of the rick one of the tarpaulin sheets had broken
+loose; the cruel wind was tearing beneath it, wrenching out pegs and
+cordage, snatching at thatch-hackle, and making the stout ropes that
+should have held the sheet hiss and dart like serpents.
+
+It seemed to her that the rick was as high as Mont Blanc, and that
+even on a placid summer day no one but a lunatic would want to scale
+it. Then she screamed, and went rushing forward.
+
+Dale, in the act of clambering from the top rung of the ladder, had
+been blown off, and was hanging to a rope over the edge of the stack.
+With extreme difficulty the men moved the ladder, and he succeeded in
+getting on it again.
+
+"Gi't up, sir. 'Tis mortally impossible." As well as Mavis, every one
+of them shouted an entreaty that he would come down.
+
+Probably he did not hear them, and certainly he did not obey them. He
+went up, not down. Then for half an hour he fought like a madman with
+the flapping sheet, and finally conquered it.
+
+Mavis, as she stared upward, saw the gray clouds driving so fast over
+the crest of the stack that they made it seem as if the whole yard was
+drifting away in the opposite direction; while her man, a poor little
+black insect painfully crawling here and there, desperately writhed as
+new billows surged up beneath him, labored at the rope, seemed to use
+feet, hands, and teeth in his frantic efforts against the overwhelming
+power that was opposed to him. She felt dazed and giddy, sick with
+fear, and yet glowing with admiration in the midst of her agonized
+anxiety.
+
+To the men it was a wonderful and exciting sight that had altogether
+stirred them from their usual turnip-like lethargy. When the master
+came down, all shaking and bleeding, they bellowed hearty compliments
+in his ear.
+
+"Now," said the old charwoman, when Mr. and Mrs. Dale returned to the
+kitchen, "you've a 'aad a nice skimmle-skammle of it, sir, an' you
+best back me up to send the missis to her bed, and bide there warm,
+and never budge. I means it," she added, with authority. "You ben't to
+put yourself in a caddle, Mrs. Dale, an' I know what I be talkin' of."
+
+After this the men appeared to work better for Dale; perhaps still
+somewhat sulkily whenever he pressed them, continuing to be more or
+less afraid of him, but not so keenly regretting the loss of their
+white-haired old master.
+
+The storm had brought back the floods, and they were now worse than
+anything that anybody remembered having ever seen. The feeding sources
+of the Rod River had broken all bounds; the lower parts of Hadleigh
+Wood had become a quagmire; and the volume of water passing under the
+road bridge was so great that many people thought this ancient
+structure to be in danger of collapsing. Over at Otterford Mill, the
+stream swept like a torrent through a chain of wide lakes; Mr. Bates'
+cottage was cut off from the highroad, and the meadows behind the
+neighboring Foxhound Kennels were deep under water.
+
+In these days Dale took to riding as the easiest means of getting
+about; and one afternoon when he had gone splashing across to see Mr.
+Bates, thence to pay a visit of polite canvass at the Kennels, and was
+now returning homeward by the lanes, he heard a dismal chorus of cries
+in the Mill meads.
+
+Forcing his clumsy horse through a gap in the hedge, he galloped along
+the sodden field tracks to the shifting scene of commotion. Three or
+four idle louts, a couple of children, and a farm-laborer were running
+by the swollen margin of the mill-stream, yelling forlornly, pointing
+at an object that showed itself now and again in the swirling center
+of the current. Plainly, somebody had chosen this most unpropitious
+season for an accidental bath, and his companions were sympathetically
+watching him drown, while not daring, not dreaming of, any foolhardy
+attempt at a rescue.
+
+"'Tis Veale, sir. A'bram Veale, sir. Theer!" And all the cries came
+loud and hearty. "Theer he goes ag'in. I see 'un come up and go under.
+Oo, oo! Ain't 'un trav'lin'!"
+
+"Catch th' 'orse!" shouted Dale; and next moment it was a double
+entertainment that offered itself to hurrying spectators.
+
+The water, charged with sediment from all the rich earth it had
+scoured over, was thick as soup; its brown wavelets broke in slimy
+froth, and its deepest swiftest course had a color of darkly shining
+lead beneath the pale gleams of March sunshine. In this leaden glitter
+the two men were swept away, seeming to be locked in each other's
+arms, their heads very rarely out of the water, their backs visible
+frequently; until at a boundary fence they vanished from the sight of
+attentive pursuers who could pursue no further; and seemed in the
+final glimpse as small and black as two otters fiercely fighting.
+
+"Laard's sake," said one of the louts, "I'd 'a' liked to 'a' seen 'em
+go over the weir and into the wheel--for 'tis to be, and there's
+nought can stop it now."
+
+The event, however, proved otherwise. Before the submerged weir was
+reached a kindly branch among the willows, stretching gnarled hands
+just above the flood level, gave the ready aid that no louts could
+offer. Here Dale contrived to hang until people came from the mill and
+fished him and his now unconscious burden out of their hazardous
+predicament.
+
+This little incident so stimulated Dale's servants that they began to
+work for him quite enthusiastically. It occurred to them that he was
+not only a good plucked 'un, but that, however hard his manner, his
+heart must possess a big soft spot in it, or he could never have so
+"put himself about for a rammucky pot-swilling feller like Abe Veale."
+
+Veale was truly a feckless, good-for-little creature. By trade a
+hurdle-maker, he lived in one of the few remaining mud cottages on the
+skirts of Hadleigh Upper Wood, and in his hovel he had bred an immense
+family. His wife had long since died; her mother, a toothless old
+crone, kept house for him and was supposed to look after the younger
+children; but generally the Veales and their domestic arrangements
+were considered as a survival of a barbaric state of society and a
+disgrace in these highly polished modern times. People said that Veale
+was half a gipsy, that his boys were growing up as hardy young
+poachers, and that every time he got drunk at the Barradine Arms he
+would himself produce wire nooses from his pocket, and offer to go out
+and snare a pheasant before the morning if anybody would pay for it in
+advance by another quart of ale.
+
+Drunk or sober now, he widely advertised a sincere sense of obligation
+to his preserver. He bothered Dale with too profuse acknowledgments;
+he came to the Vine-Pits kitchen door at all hours; and he would even
+stop the red-coated young gentlemen as they rode home from hunting, in
+order to supply them with unimpeachable details of all that had
+happened. He told the tale with the greatest gusto, and invariably
+began and ended in the same manner.
+
+"You sin it in th' paper, I make no doubt, but yer can 'aave it from
+me to its proper purpus. Mr. Dale he plunged without so much as
+tekking off of his getters and spurs." And then he described how,
+stupefied by his mortal danger, he treated Dale more like an enemy
+than a savior. "I gripped 'un, sir, tighter than a lad in his senses
+'d clip his sweetheart;" and he would pause and laugh. "Yes, I'd 'a'
+drowned 'un as well as myself if he'd 'a' let me. I fair tried to
+scrag 'un. But Mr. Dale he druv at me wi' 's fist, and kep' a bunching
+me off wi' 's knees, and then when all the wind and the wickedness was
+gone out o' me, he tuk me behind th' scruff a' the neck and just
+paddled me along like a dummy."
+
+At this point Veale would pause to laugh, before continuing. "Nor that
+wasn't all, nether. So soon as Mr. Dale catched his own breath he give
+me th' artificial respreation--saved my life second time when they'd
+lugged us on the bank. I was gone for a ghost; but I do hear--as
+they'll tell 'ee at th' mill--Mr. Dale he knelt acrost me a
+pump-handling my arms, pulling of my tongue, and bellows-blowing my
+ribs for a clock hour;" and Veale would laugh again, spit on the
+ground, and conclude his story. "Quaarts an' quaarts of waater they
+squeedged out of me afore the wind got back in--an' I don't seem's if
+I'd ever get free o' the taste o' that waater. Nothing won't settle
+it, no matter how 'ard I do try."
+
+The gentry who smilingly listened, knowing Veale for a queer rustic
+character of poor repute, gave him sixpences to assist in his efforts
+to quench an abnormal thirst. Talking together, they decided that the
+hero of the tale had done rather a fine thing in a very unostentatious
+way, and it occurred to several of them that pluck ought to be
+rewarded. If the chance came they would encourage Dale. The M.F.H. in
+fact made up his mind to reconsider matters, and see if he could not
+before long let Dale have an inning at the Kennels.
+
+Throughout this period and well into the hot weather of June Mavis was
+stanchly toiling, both as clerical assistant in the office and
+general servant in the house. It was she who did most of the cooking,
+no light task since meals had to be supplied for the carter and two of
+the other men. Mary always worked with a will; but old Mrs. Goudie,
+who came for charring twice a week, used to say that, in spite of
+being handicapped by the state of her health, the mistress worked
+harder than the maid.
+
+A swept hearth, a trimmed lamp, and the savory odor of well-cooked
+food, were what Dale might be sure of finding at the evening hour; and
+Mavis tried to give him something more. He must have peace at the end
+of the day, and thus be able to forget the day's disappointments, no
+matter how cruel they had been. She would not let him talk about the
+business at night. She said he must just eat, rest, and then sleep;
+but she allowed him to read, provided that he read real books and
+magazines, not his ledgers or those horrid trade journals.
+
+So after their supper they used to sit in the pleasant lamplight very
+quietly, near together and yet scarcely speaking to each other,
+feeling the restful joy of a companionship that had passed into that
+deeper zone where silence can be more eloquent than words. He was
+reading political economy for the purpose of opening his mind,
+"extending the scope of one's int'lect," as he said himself, and she
+watched him as he frowned at the page or puckered up his lips with a
+characteristic doggedly questioning doubtfulness. Certainly no words
+were needed then to enable her to interpret his thought. "Look here,
+my lad"--that was how he was mentally addressing a famous author--"I'm
+ready to go with you a fair distance; but I don't allow you to take
+me an inch further than my reasoning faculty tells me you are on the
+right road." When he frowned like this, she smiled and felt much
+tenderness. He would always be the same obstinate old dear: ready to
+set himself against the whole weight of immemorial authority, whether
+in literature or everyday life.
+
+She did not read, but with a large work-basket on a chair by her knees
+continued busily sewing until bedtime. And the tenderness that she
+felt as she stitched and stitched was overwhelmingly more than she
+could feel even for Will. When her work itself made her smile, all the
+intellectual expression seemed to go out of her face, and it really
+expressed nothing but a blankly unthinking ecstasy, whereas her smile
+at her husband just now had shown shrewd understanding, as well as
+immense kindness. In fact, at such moments, only the outer case of
+Mavis Dale remained in the snug little room, while the inward best
+part of her had gone on a very long journey. She could not now see the
+man with his book, or the walls of the room; the lamp had begun to
+shine with ineffable radiance; and she was temporarily a sewing-woman
+in paradise, stitching the ornamental flounces for dreams of glory.
+
+Her baby, a girl, was born at the end of June, exactly three-quarters
+of a year from the beginning of their new existence. The mother had
+what is called a bad time, and was slow to recover strength.
+Nevertheless, she was able to suckle the infant, who did well from its
+birth and throve rapidly.
+
+It was during the convalescent stage, one evening when he had come up
+to sit by her bedside, that Dale told her they had at last turned the
+corner.
+
+"Yes," he said, "orders are dropping in nicely. We're getting back all
+the good customers that slipped away from me, and some bettermost
+ones--such as the Hunt stables--that Mr. Bates himself had lost. You
+may take it as something to rely on that we're fairly round the corner
+of our long lane."
+
+Then, holding her hand and softly patting it, he praised her for the
+way in which she had helped him. "You've been better than your word,
+Mav; you've supported me something grand."
+
+And he added that henceforth he should insist on her doing less work,
+at any rate less household work. "There's more valuable things than
+burning your face over the kitchen fire, and roughing your arms with
+hot water. I'm going to be done with that messing of the men; I'm
+arranging their meals on another basis; I mean to keep house and yard
+as two distinct regions. And as to you, old lady, I intend to turn
+your dairy knowledge to account. Don't see why we shouldn't keep a cow
+or two--and poultry--and cultivate the bees a bit. Kitchen garden too.
+And, look here, I've engaged Mrs. Goudie to come every day instead of
+twice a week--and we shall want a nurse."
+
+But Mavis flatly refused to have any hired person coming between her
+and the transcendent joy of her life. She had waited long enough for a
+baby, and she proposed to keep the baby to herself.
+
+"However successful you come to be," she said to her husband,
+earnestly, "I shouldn't like you to make a fine lady of me. I want to
+go on feeling I'm useful to you. That's my pleasure--and if good luck
+took it from me, I'd almost wish the bad luck back again."
+
+"Hush," he said, gravely. "Don't speak of such a wish, even in joke."
+
+"I only meant I'd wish for the time since we came here. I wasn't
+thinking of anything before then."
+
+"All right;" and he stooped over her, and kissed her. "You've bin
+talking more'n enough, I dare say. Take care of yourself, and get well
+as fast as may be. For I can't do without you."
+
+"That's what I wanted to hear."
+
+"You don't take it for granted yet?"
+
+"No. I want you to say it every time I see you."
+
+"Good night--an' happy dreams."
+
+"Will!" Mavis' voice was full of reproach. "Are you going without
+kissing the baby?"
+
+Then Dale came back from the doorway, stooped again, and making his
+lips as light as a butterfly's wings, kissed his first-born.
+
+Before September was over Mavis had not only recovered her ordinary
+health, but had entered into such stores of new energy that nothing
+could hinder her from getting back into harness. She herself was
+astonished by her physical sensations. Languors that had seemed an
+essential part of her temperament ever since girlhood were now only
+memories; she felt more alive when passive now than during extreme
+excitement in the past; her whole body, from the surface to the bones,
+appeared to be larger and yet more compact. Even the muscles of her
+back and legs, which ought to have been relaxed and feeble after weeks
+of bed, had the tone and hardness that only exercise is supposed to
+induce; so that when standing or walking she experienced a curiously
+stimulating sense of solidity and power, as if her hold upon the
+ground was heavier and firmer than it had ever been, although she
+could move about from place to place with incredibly more lightness
+and ease.
+
+These new sensations were strong in her one morning when, Dale having
+risen at dawn, she determined to take a ramble or tour of inspection
+before the day's work began; and with the mere bodily well-being there
+was a mental vigorousness that made the notion of all future effort,
+whether casual or persistent, seem equally pleasurable.
+
+She came out through the front garden, and pausing a moment thought of
+all the things that ought to be done at the very first opportunity.
+This neglected garden was a mere tangle of untrimmed shrub and
+luxuriant weed, with just a few dahlias and hollyhocks fighting
+through the ruin of what had been pretty flower borders; and she
+thought how nice it would all look again when sufficient work had been
+put into it. Some of the broken flagstones of the path wanted
+replacing by sound ones; the orchard trees were full of dead wood; and
+the door and casements of the house sadly needed painting. Her
+thoughts flew about more strenuously than the belated bees that were
+searching high and low for non-existent pollen. This front of their
+house would look lovely with its casements and deep eaves painted
+white instead of gray; and if bright green shutters could at some time
+or other be added to the windows, one might expect artists to stop and
+make sketches of the most attractive homestead in Hampshire.
+
+She kissed the tips of her fingers to that rearward portion of the
+building where Mary guarded the cradle, and then went through the gate
+and along the highroad.
+
+It was a misty morning--almost a fog--the sun making at first but
+feeble attempts to pierce through the white veil. There would come a
+faint glow, a widening circle of yellow light; then almost immediately
+the circle contracted, changed from gold to silver, and for a moment
+one saw the sun itself looking like a bright new sixpence, and then it
+was altogether gone again. Out of the mist on her right hand floated
+the song of birds in a field. No rain having fallen during this month
+of September, the ground was dry and hard as iron, but the roadway lay
+deep in dust, and a continuous rolling cloud followed her firm
+footsteps. The air was sweet and fresh, although not light to breathe
+as it is in spring. One felt something of ripeness, maturity,
+completion--those harvest perfumes that one gets so strong in
+Switzerland and Northern Italy, together with the heavier touch of
+sun-dried earth, decaying fruit, turning fern. When the birds fell
+silent Mavis took up their song, walked faster; and all things on the
+earth and in the heaven over the earth seemed to be adding themselves
+together to increase the sum of her happiness.
+
+She loved, and was loved; she lived, and had given life--bud, blossom,
+and fruit, all nature and she were now in harmony.
+
+Presently the wood that stretched so dark and so grand on her left
+tempted her from the highroad. This was her first real walk, and she
+decided to make it a good one. She would aim for the Hadleigh rides,
+and, going on beyond Kibworth Rocks to the higher ground, get a view
+of the new buildings. Will had gone across to the far side of
+Rodchurch and could not be back to breakfast. It would not therefore
+matter if she were a little late.
+
+She passed rapidly through open glades, to which the great oaks and
+beeches still made solid walls. The foliage of the beech trees was
+merely touched with yellow here and there, while the oaks showed no
+sign of fading color, and beneath all the lower branches there were
+splendid deep shadows wherever the undergrowth of holly did not fill
+up the green wall. This was the true wild woodland, remnant of the
+ancient forest, the place of virgin timber, dense thickets, and
+natural openings, that tourists always praised beyond anything else.
+The stream ran babbling through it, with pretty little pools,
+cascades, and fords, all owning names that spoke of bygone times--such
+as White Doe's Leap, Knight's Well, and Monk's Crossing. Locally it
+was not, of course, so highly esteemed. Cottagers said it was "a
+lonesome, fearsome bit o'country," and, whether because of the ugly
+memories that hung about it, or in view of extremely modern stories of
+disagreements between Chase guardians and poachers, considered it an
+undesirable short cut after dark from anywhere to anywhere.
+
+To-day it seemed to Mavis friendly and pleasant as well as beautiful.
+The mist slowly rising was now high overhead, so that one could see to
+a considerable distance. Some fern-cutters in shirt-sleeves and slouch
+hats were already at work, cutting with rhythmic precision, calling to
+one another, and whistling tunefully.
+
+One or two of them greeted her as she passed.
+
+By the time she reached the straight rides and the fir trees the sun
+came bursting forth bravely, the shadows just danced before vanishing,
+the mist broke into rainbow streamers, and then there was nothing more
+between one's head and the milky blue sky. She walked within a
+stone's-throw of Kibworth Rocks, and did not feel a tremor, scarcely
+even a recollection. People nowadays came here from Rodchurch and
+Manninglea on Sunday afternoons, making it the goal for wagonette
+drives, wandering up and down, and gaping at a scene rendered
+interesting to them merely because it had once been the background of
+tragedy; and Mavis was thinking more of these Sunday visitors than of
+the dead man, as she hurried through the sunlight so near the spot
+where he had lain staring with glassy eyes throughout the darkness of
+a July night.
+
+She thought of him a little later, when she stood on the higher ground
+looking at what live men were constructing in fulfilment of his wish,
+and her mind did not hold the least tinge of bitterness. At present
+the Barradine Orphanage was simply an eye-sore to miles and miles of
+the country-side, but no doubt, as she thought, it would be all very
+fine when finished. The bad weather of the winter had caused progress
+to be rather slow; the red brickwork was only about ten feet out of
+the ground, but a shell of scaffolding enabled one to trace the
+general plan. It would be a central block with two long, low
+dependencies, apparently, and, as it seemed, there were to be terraces
+and leveled lawns all about it; a great deal of clearing work as well
+as building work would, however, be necessary before the whole thing
+could take shape and explain itself properly. She stood outside one of
+its new ugly fences, and wondered if Mr. Barradine's trustees had,
+after all, chosen the site wisely. Poor old gentleman, it would be
+unkind if his last fancies received scant attention. It was rather
+nice of him to have this idea of doing good after his death, to plot
+it all, and put it down on paper with such painstaking care.
+
+Truly she was thinking of him now as though he had been a total
+stranger, some important person that she had known well by name but
+never chanced to meet. She listened to the faint clinking of
+bricklayers' trowels, watched men with hods going slowly up and down
+ladders, men carrying poles, men unloading half a dozen carts; thought
+what a quantity of money was being expended, and how grateful in the
+future the little desolate children would be when their costly home
+was ready for them; and only as it were by accident did she remember
+that she too had cost the estate money, and perhaps also ought to be
+grateful. But she had long since ceased to think about the legacy.
+What the yokels would call her "small basket fortune" had served a
+purpose handsomely, and there was an end of it. The man from whom it
+came had gone as completely as the morning mist went when the sun
+began to shine.
+
+The harm he had done her was nothing. If she purposely dragged out its
+memory, it seemed much less strong and actual than half one's dreams.
+Incredible that little more than a year ago she had been in such dire
+and dreadful trouble.
+
+She struck the highroad again a little way short of the Abbey Cross
+Roads, and came swinging homeward with long strides, feeling healthy,
+hungry, happy. And the nearer she drew to home, the deeper grew the
+happiness. "Oh, what a lucky woman I am," she said to herself.
+
+And with a quite unconscious selfishness that is an essential
+attribute of joy, and that makes all very successful and contented
+people think themselves singled out, watched over, and especially
+guided by fate, she blessed and applauded the beneficently omniscient
+Providence which had given just enough worry in her youth to enable
+her to appreciate comfort in mature years, which had delayed
+motherhood until she could best bear a hearty child, which had wiped
+out Mr. Barradine and restored her husband's love, which, last of all,
+had removed Aunt Petherick from North Ride and sent her to live at the
+seaside.
+
+A small thing, this, perhaps; and yet a Providential boon, a filling
+of one's lap with bounties. There would have been great awkwardness in
+having Aunt so near, but forbidden to darken one's door. Will was very
+firm there: Auntie was not to be admitted at Vine-Pits on any pretext
+whatever. But it had all worked out so neatly, without the least
+friction. The new owner of the Abbey wanted North Ride. He had,
+however, been very kind about the lease or the absence of a lease, and
+had paid the tenant for life, as she described herself, to surrender
+possession. Auntie, one might therefore say, was not at all badly
+treated.
+
+As the master was away and no kind of state necessary, she breakfasted
+in the kitchen with Mary and Mrs. Goudie. Her baby was asleep in its
+cradle, which she gently swung with her foot while eating; and the
+three women all spoke whisperingly. The pots and pans were shining,
+the hearthstone was white as snow, and through the open doorway one
+had a pretty little picture of the back pathway, the end of the barn,
+and a drooping branch of the walnut trees. From the yard beyond came
+sounds of industrious activity--the rumble of a wagon being pulled
+from the pent-house, the thump of sacks being let down on the pulleys,
+and the intermittent buzz of a chaff-cutting machine.
+
+Presently somebody appeared on the pathway, and came slowly and shyly
+toward the door.
+
+"Oh, bother," said Mary. "If it isn't Mr. Druitt again."
+
+"Good mornin', mum," said the visitor, diffidently. "Would you be
+doing with an egg or so?"
+
+Mr. Druitt had been introduced by Mrs. Goudie as the higgler, or
+itinerant poulterer and greengrocer, who served the house in Mr.
+Bates' time. He was a thin middle-aged man, with light watery eyes, a
+straggling beard, and an astoundingly dilatory manner. He used to pull
+his pony and cart into the hedge or bank by the roadside, and leave
+them there an unconscionable time, while he pottered about the back
+doors of his customers, offering the articles that he had brought with
+him, or trying to obtain orders for other articles that he would bring
+next week; and although apparently so shy himself, no bruskness in
+others ever seemed to rebuff him. His arrival now broke up the
+breakfast party, and was accepted as a signal that the day's labors
+must really be attacked. Mrs. Goudie and Mary pushed back their chairs
+with a horrid scrooping noise, Mavis got up briskly, the baby awoke
+and began to cry.
+
+"No, thank you, Mr. Druitt. Nothing this morning."
+
+"I've some sweet-hearted cabbages outside."
+
+"No, thank you."
+
+"It's wonderful late to get 'em with any heart to 'em. I'll fetch
+'em."
+
+Thus, as was usual, the higgler went backward and forward between the
+door and his cart; and Mavis, with the baby on her arm, at intervals
+inspected various commodities. Eventually she purchased a capon for
+the Sunday dinner, paid for it, and bade Mr. Druitt good-by.
+
+"Good-by, mum--and much obliged."
+
+But then, quite ten minutes afterward, his shadow once more fell
+across the kitchen floor. He had not really gone yet. Here he was back
+again at the kitchen door, staring reflectively at his grubby little
+pocketbook.
+
+"Beg pardon--but did I mention the side o' bacon I've been promised
+for Tuesday. It's good bacon."
+
+Mavis Dale with courteous finality dismissed him; but Mary, whose
+ordinarily red cheeks had become a fiery crimson, spoke hotly and
+angrily.
+
+"Drat the man. I've no patience with him. He ought to know better,
+going on so."
+
+"But what harm does he do, poor fellow," said Mavis, indulgently,
+"except muddling away his own time?"
+
+"He's up to no good," said Mary; and she flounced across to the door,
+and looked out at the now empty path. "Hanging about like that! Why
+can't he keep away? I don't want him."
+
+Mrs. Goudie, at the sink, screwed up her wrinkled nut-cracker face,
+and chuckled.
+
+"No, mum, she don't want un. But he wants she."
+
+And, astonishing as it might seem, this was truly the case. The
+higgler had fallen in love with Mary; and she, apparently without a
+single explicit word, had understood the nature of the emotion that
+stirred his breast. He had somehow surrounded her with an atmosphere
+of admiration--anyhow he had made her understand.
+
+Mavis laughed gaily, and chaffed Mary about her conquest; and
+henceforth she more or less obliterated herself when this visitor
+called, and allowed the servant to conduct all transactions with him.
+
+Mary was always very stern, disparaging his goods, and beating down
+his prices; while he stood sheepishly grinning, and in no wise
+protesting against her harshness. He now of course stayed longer than
+ever, indeed only withdrew when Mary indignantly drove him away.
+
+"Be off, can't you?" cried Mary. "I'm ashamed of you."
+
+"Haw, haw," chuckled Mrs. Goudie. "Don't she peck at un fierce."
+
+"Yes, Mary," and Mrs. Dale laughed, much amused. "I do think you're
+rather cruel to him."
+
+"'Twill be t'other way roundabout one day, Mary, preaps."
+
+Then Mary tossed her head and bustled at her work. "I ain't afeard o'
+that day, Mrs. Goudie. He isn't going the right way to win me, I can
+tell him. I hate his sly ways."
+
+Mavis and the old charwoman thought that Mr. Druitt would win the
+prize in the end, and with a natural tendency toward match-making
+tacitly aided and abetted his queer courtship. Except for the
+disparity of years it seemed a desirable match. It was known that he
+had a tidy place, almost a farm, eight miles away on the edge of the
+down; and Mrs. Goudie, who confessed that she had merely encountered
+him higgling, said the tale ran that he was quite a warm man.
+
+And thus Mary's little romance, announcing itself so abruptly and
+developing itself so slowly, brought still another new interest to
+Vine-Pits kitchen. It was something vivid and bright and even
+fantastic in the midst of solidly useful facts, like the strange
+flower that blooms on a roadside merely because some high-flying
+strong-winged bird has carelessly happened to drop a seed.
+
+"What," thought Mavis, "can any of us do without love? And where
+should we be without the odd chances that bring love to us?"
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+
+Fat easy years came now after the hard and lean ones; and the Dales in
+the dual regions of home and trade were doing really well. Dale had a
+powerful decently-bred cob to ride; on Wednesdays, when he went into
+Old Manninglea for the Corn Market, he often wore a silk top-hat and
+always a black coat; and at all times he looked exactly what he was,
+an alert, industrious, straight-dealing personage who has risen
+considerably and who intends to rise still higher in the social scale.
+
+As to Mavis, she had another baby--a boy this time--and she was an
+infinitely proud mother as well as a very busy woman. She kept cows,
+poultry and bees; could and did distil a remarkably choice sloe gin,
+had achieved some reputation for her early peas and late lettuces, and
+had made the quadrangle in front of the house a sight that even
+tourists from London talked about. It blazed with color from May to
+November, and there was one of the Rodhaven drivers who on several
+occasions stopped his char-a-bancs to let the passengers have a long
+look at it. Wandering artists, too, fascinated by the stone walls, the
+flowers, the white paint, and the green shutters, would sometimes ring
+the bell and ask if Mrs. Dale let lodgings.
+
+Mrs. Dale was rather crushing to masculine intruders of this sort,
+especially when they adopted an off-handedly gallant air.
+
+In answering their questions she drawled slightly, and smiled in a
+manner that, although not contemptuous, might permit them to guess
+that they had made a tactless mistake.
+
+"Oh, no, we do not let lodgings."
+
+"Don't you really? I think you _ought_ to, you know."
+
+"Possibly," said Mavis, drawling and smiling. "But Mr. Dale and I do
+not think so. Of course if we did, we should put up a board, or
+notice--and you may observe that there isn't one."
+
+She was, however, always gentle and forbearing with wanderers of her
+own sex. To two ladies who expressed disappointment at finding no
+apartments and asked if she did not at least provide afternoon tea,
+she said at once, "Oh, certainly, I shall be delighted to give you
+some tea."
+
+They were tired, dusty, not young; and she showed them into the grand
+front parlor that contained her piano, pictures, well-bound books, and
+there laid the table and brought the tea with her own hands. Such a
+tea--the best china, thick cream, three sorts of jam, cakes, and jolly
+round home-made bannocks! The ladies were so pleased, until they
+became embarrassed. For of course when they wished to pay, Mavis could
+not accept payment.
+
+"Oh, indeed no. You're very welcome. I hope that you'll stop and rest
+as long as you like;" and faintly blushing she shied away from the
+open purse and hurried out of the room.
+
+"What on earth are we to do?" said one of the ladies.
+
+"I saw a child in the passage," said the other lady. "Let us offer the
+child a present."
+
+"Ah. That solves the difficulty. But how much? I suppose it must be
+half-a-crown."
+
+"_Nonsense!_" said the other lady, tartly. "That is more than the
+price of the whole meal if she had let us pay for it. A present of a
+shilling at the _outside_. No, a shilling is absurd. Sixpence."
+
+"Do you really think so?"
+
+"Yes, sixpence wrapped up in a bit of paper."
+
+"Then _you_ must offer it."
+
+And the other lady did. "Is that your little girl? Oh, what brown
+eyes--and mamma's pretty complexion. Good afternoon! We are so much
+obliged. And this is for _you_, dear--to buy sweeties."
+
+Mavis was not disposed to allow her small princess to take a tip from
+a stranger's hand; but natural good-breeding forced her to acquiesce.
+
+The ladies looked back at her, waved their hands by the garden gate,
+and went away talking.
+
+"The child never said 'Thank you.' Badly reared."
+
+"But the mother thanked you. I liked her face. She must have been
+distinctly good-looking."
+
+The artists thought her distinctly good-looking even now, and perhaps,
+after being repulsed in their quest for bed and board, drifted off
+into an idle dream of how they might have met her a few years ago when
+they were less famous but more magnetically attractive. What a sitter
+she would have been for them, if she wouldn't be anything else! They
+admired the extreme delicacy of her nose that seemed so narrow in the
+well-rounded face, the loose brown hair that showed such a red flash
+in it beneath her sunbonnet, the perfect modeling of full forearms,
+firm neck, and ample bosom, the whole poise of her graciously solid
+figure, at once so reposeful and so free. But it was the eyes
+principally that set them dreaming of vanished youth, abandoned hopes,
+and lost opportunities. Nowadays Mavis could meet the unduly
+interested regard of male investigators with a candid unvacillating
+outlook; there came no hint of feebleness in resistance, too ready
+submission, or temperamental proneness to surrender; but her eyes,
+whether she wished it or not, still served as messengers between all
+that was feminine in her and all that was masculine outside her; and,
+with no reason not to tell the truth, they told it boldly, seeming to
+say, "Yes, once I had much to give, and I gave every single bit of it
+to one man. I have nothing left now for cadgers, sneak-thieves, and
+other outsiders."
+
+She was a woman steadily completing her cycle. In fact, with her added
+weight, broadened contours and settled mental equilibrium, she had so
+changed from the slim, pallid, childish Mrs. Dale of the post office
+that any old Rodchurch friends might be forgiven for saying that they
+could scarcely recognize her.
+
+"Really shouldn't have known you," said one of them frankly. "You have
+furnished like a colt brought in from grass to corn."
+
+This outspoken old friend was Mr. Allen the saddler, who turned up one
+winter day when Vine-Pits had been thrown into a great state of
+excitement and confusion by the passage of the hunt right across the
+meadows behind the orchard. Just after dinner everybody had heard the
+horn sounding in the woods, with distant holloas and deep music of
+hounds, and then the pack came streaming out in full cry, and next
+moment all the horsemen were galloping over the fields and leaping the
+hedges. The women ran forth from the back of the house; the men
+abandoned their work. "Oo, oo! Look an' look." There were shouts of
+rapture each time the horses jumped. "Oo! Crimany! That _were_ a
+beauty!"
+
+Then in another minute Dale himself came galloping to the empty yard,
+rode his horse along the flags into the garden, and yelled to Mavis
+that she was to fetch trays of bread and cheese and bannocks as quick
+as life.
+
+"An' bring the white bob full of beer--an' whisky, an' water--an' some
+o' the sloe gin; an' devel knows how many glasses."
+
+Mrs. Dale and Mary, before one could look round, carried out into the
+yard all these light refreshments, and with them Dale regaled the
+large concourse of unexpected visitors that was pouring through the
+opened gates. His guests were grooms, second-horsemen, one or two
+farmers, and several dealers--the people who are rarely in a hurry
+when out hunting; and after them came pedestrians, a sturdy fellow in
+a red coat with a terrier in his pocket and a terrier under his arm, a
+keeper, a wood-cutter, Abraham Veale the hurdle-maker, and just
+riffraff--the very tail of the hunt, and, as the tail of the tail,
+that stupid trade-neglecting Mr. Allen. For a while the yard was full
+of animation, the horses pawing and snorting, Dale bustling
+hospitably, his wife filling the glasses and handing the food, and
+everybody talking who was not eating or drinking.
+
+Mr. Allen was exhausted, tottering on his skinny legs, but
+nevertheless burning with ardor for the chase.
+
+"They've changed foxes," he cried breathlessly. "They've lost the
+hunted fox, and they've only themselves to thank for it. I told them,
+and they wouldn't listen. I knew."
+
+"Ah, but you always know," said a second-horseman, grinning.
+
+"If Mr. Maltby," said Allen, "had cast back instead of forward last
+time I holloa'd, he'd have had the mask on his saddle rings by now."
+
+Then he sank down upon one of the upping-stocks, snatched a hunk of
+bread, munched hastily.
+
+"Mr. Allen, you've no cheese. Here, let me fill your glass again.
+How's Rodchurch?" Every time that Mavis passed, she asked a question.
+"Mr. Allen, how's Miss Waddy's sister?"
+
+"Dead," said Allen, with his mouth full.
+
+"Dead. Oh, that's sad!" Then next time it was: "How's Miss Yorke? Not
+married yet?"
+
+"No, nor likely to be."
+
+The horse-people soon began to move off again--"Thank you, Mr. Dale.
+Good night, Mr. Dale.... You've done us proper, sir.... Just what I
+wanted.... Good night, ma'am;"--but the foot-people lingered. The
+red-coated earth-digger, Veale, and one or two others, had got around
+Mr. Allen and were chaffing him irreverently.
+
+"There, that'll do," said Dale, joining the group and speaking with
+firmness. Then he politely offered to have a nag put into the gig and
+to send Mr. Allen home on wheels.
+
+"Thank you kindly," said Allen. "I'm not going home; but if your man
+can rattle me a mile or so up towards Beacon Hill, it's a hundred to
+one I shall drop in with them again. With the wind where it is, hounds
+are bound to push anything that's in front of them up to the high
+ground."
+
+As soon as Dale went to order his gig the clumsy facetiousness was
+renewed.
+
+"'Tes a pity you ben't a hound yersel, Mr. Allen."
+
+"Ah," said Veale, "if the wood pucks cud transform him on to all
+fours, what a farder he'd mek to th' next litter o' pops at the
+Kennels."
+
+"By gum," said the earth-digger, slapping his leg, "they pups would
+have noses. They wuddent never be at fault, would 'em?"
+
+Old Mrs. Goudie, who had a simple taste in raillery, was so convulsed
+by this jesting that she put down her tray in order to laugh at ease;
+and chiefly because she was laughing, Mary laughed also.
+
+"An' you know most o' the tricks o' foxes too, don't you, Mr. Allen?"
+
+"Now then," said Dale, returning, "that's enough, my lads. I dropped
+you the hint by now. You're welcome to as much more of my beer as you
+can carry, but you won't sauce my friends inside my gates--nor
+outside, either, if I chance to be there."
+
+"Aw right, sir."
+
+"Take no heed of them," said Allen. "It is only their ignorance;" and
+he staggered to his feet.
+
+Dale escorted the honored guest to the gig, then wiped his perspiring
+face, lighted a pipe; and then reproved Mary and Mrs. Goudie for
+unseemly mirth.
+
+They still had Mary with them, and, although they did not know it,
+were to enjoy her faithful service for some time to come. Now that
+Mrs. Dale grew her own vegetables, purchases from Mr. Druitt, the
+higgler, had become rare; only an occasional bit of bacon, or once in
+a way a couple of rabbits, a hare, a doubtfully obtained pheasant,
+could ever be required from him; so that the greater part of his
+frequent visits were admittedly paid to the servant and not to the
+mistress. But he proved an unconscionably slow courtier. Mary, for her
+part, when she was teased about him and asked if he did not yet show
+anxiety to reach the happy day, always tossed her head and said that
+she was in no hurry, that she doubted if she could ever tear herself
+away from Vine-Pits, and so on.
+
+Then, at last, a shocking discovery was made. Mary, after an afternoon
+out, came home with her face all red and blubbered, sat in the kitchen
+sobbing and rocking herself, and told Mavis how she had heard on
+unimpeachable authority that the higgler was a married man. He had
+always been married--and poor Mary confessed that she was very fond of
+him, although so angry with him for his disgraceful treatment of her.
+
+On the next visit of the higgler Dale was lying in wait for him.
+
+"Come inside, please. I'd like a few words with you, Mr. Druitt;" and
+the higgler was led through the kitchen, and up the three steps into
+the adjacent room.
+
+Here, as soon as the door had been shut, Mr. and Mrs. Dale both
+tackled him. Dale was very fine, like a magistrate, so dignified as
+well as so severe, accusing the culprit of playing fast and loose with
+a young woman, of arousing feelings in her bosom which he was not in
+a position to satisfy.
+
+"A girl," said Mavis, "that we consider under our charge, as much as
+if she was our daughter."
+
+"Who looks to us," said Dale, "for guardianship and protection."
+
+Mr. Druitt, sitting on the edge of his chair, smiling foolishly,
+nodded his head in the direction of the kitchen door, and gave a queer
+sort of wink.
+
+"Meaning _her?_"
+
+"Yes, who else should we mean?"
+
+"I've never said a word of love to her in my life."
+
+"Oh, how," cried Mavis, "can you make such a pretense?"
+
+"Because it's the truth."
+
+"But," said Mavis, indignantly, "you've made her fond of you. You've
+courted her."
+
+The higgler distinctly preened himself, and smiled archly. "Ah,
+there's a language of the eyes, which speaks perhaps when the lips are
+sealed."
+
+Mavis was angry and disgusted. "You, a married man!"
+
+Dale, outraged too, spoke with increasing sternness. "You don't deny
+you've got a wife?"
+
+The higgler answered very gravely. "Mr. Dale, that's my misfortune,
+not my fault. But my wife isn't going to last forever, and the day
+she's gone--that is, the day after I've buried her decently--I shall
+come here to Mary Parsons and say 'Mary'--mind you, I've never called
+her Mary yet--I shall say, 'Mary, my lips are unsealed, and I ask you
+to be my true and lawful second wife.'"
+
+They could make nothing of the higgler.
+
+"It's seven years," he went on, "since Doctor Hollin said to me, 'I
+have to warn you Mrs. Druitt isn't going to make old bones.' However,
+we find it a long job. There's a proverb, isn't there? Creaking
+doors!"
+
+Mavis was inexpressibly shocked. "How can you talk of your wife so?
+Have you no feelings for her?"
+
+"Mrs. Dale," said the higgler, solemnly, "I married my first wife for
+money, and I've been punished for my mistake. That's why I made up my
+mind I'd marry next time for love--in choosing a wholesome maiden and
+not asking what she'd got sewed in her petticoat or harbored in the
+bank;" and, nodding, he again gave his curious self-satisfied wink.
+"Mr. Dale, you tell her to wait patiently. I'll be true to her, if
+she'll be true to me." Then he rose, and smiling sheepishly, once more
+addressed Mrs. Dale. "The purpose of my call this morning was to say I
+shall have some _good_ bacon next week."
+
+Mavis refused the bacon, and Dale said a few words of stern rebuke.
+
+"I can tell you, Mr. Druitt, I take a very poor opinion of your
+manhood and proper feeling."
+
+Then Mavis interposed to check her husband. The fact was, she felt
+baffled by the situation and utterly at a loss as to what would be the
+best way of dealing with it. Whatever one might think of Mr. Druitt
+one's self, there was Mary to be considered. What would ultimately be
+best for her? The man was warm; and Mary, who was not growing younger,
+said she liked him.
+
+"I'll wish you good morning," said the higgler.
+
+Then, when they thought he had been long gone and Mavis was talking
+to Mary, he put in his head at the kitchen doorway.
+
+"Will this make any difference?" he asked shyly. "Should I call
+again--or do you forbid me the house?"
+
+The three women, Mavis, Mary and Mrs. Goudie, all looked at one
+another, quite perplexed.
+
+"Er--no," said Mavis, after a pause. "You can call. I may, just
+possibly, be wanting bacon next week."
+
+"It's a real beautiful side;" and, without a glance at Mary, he
+disappeared.
+
+Then Mary instantaneously decided that she would wait for him, and not
+break with him; and she asked Mrs. Dale to run out and tell him that
+she would wait.
+
+But that Mavis could not do. It would be too undignified. Mary must
+restrain her emotions till next week, and tell him herself.
+
+
+
+
+XV
+
+
+The little girl Rachel at the age of six was able to take interest in
+everything that happened, and to be a real companion who loved to help
+her mother at any important task. Thus one winter evening between tea
+and supper, when Mavis was most importantly engaged, she sat up late
+by special license and gave her company and aid in the little room
+behind the kitchen.
+
+"Now, see if you can find the blotting-paper over there on daddy's
+desk. Quietly, my darling. Very quietly--because we mustn't wake
+Billy."
+
+Billy, the little boy, was asleep in his cradle, near, but not too
+near, the cheerful fire; a bluish flicker that reminded one of the
+frost out of doors showed intermittently among the yellow and red
+flames; the wick of the lamp on the round table burned clearly; and in
+the mingling lamplight and firelight the whole room looked
+delightfully cozy and homelike. Mavis, with a body just pleasantly
+tired and a mind still comfortably active, paused before starting her
+labor in order luxuriously to feel the peaceful charm that was being
+shed forth by all her surroundings.
+
+More and more the very heart of their home life seemed to locate
+itself in this room, and so every day additional memories and
+associations wove themselves about the objects it contained. Rachel,
+young as she was, showed a marked predilection for it, loving it
+better than all other rooms. From the dawn of intelligence she had
+been fascinated by the two guns and the brass powder-flasks that hung
+high over the chimney-place; her first climbings and tumblings had
+been performed on the three steps that led to the kitchen; and she had
+addled her tender brains, as well as inflamed the natural greed which
+is so pardonable in infants, by what was to her a sort of differential
+calculus before she learned to discriminate nicely among the various
+jams kept by Mummy in the big cupboard.
+
+Nearly all the furniture, as well as the two guns, had belonged to Mr.
+Bates. It was solid, and very old--a tall-boy with a drawer that,
+opening out, made a writing-desk; a bureau with a latticed glass
+front; three chairs of the Chippendale farmhouse order; and one vast
+chair, covered with leather and adorned with nails, that had probably
+been dozed in by the hall-porter of some great mansion more than a
+century ago. Here and there Mavis had of course dabbed her small
+prettinesses--blue china and a clock on the mantel-shelf, colored
+cushions, photographs of the children, views of Rodchurch High Street,
+the Chase, Rodhaven Pier; and the old and the new, the useful and the
+ornamental, alike whispered to her of fulfilled desires, gratified
+fancies, and William Dale.
+
+It was her husband's room. Perhaps that formed the real source of all
+its charms, the essence or base of attraction that lay deep beneath
+visual presentations of chairs and fire-gleamings, or associations of
+ideas, or memories of past happiness. Those were his books, behind the
+latticed glass--the _Elocution Manual_, the _Elements of Rhetoric_,
+the ten-volumed _People's Encyclopedia_, that he had read, and still
+read so assiduously. It was here that he ate, drank, and mused. Here
+he did all of his work that wasn't real office work. Here he received
+such visitors as head coachmen, stud-grooms, and the huntsmen.
+
+In the cupboard with the jam-pots, there were two or three boxes of
+cigars, the famous sloe gin, and other liqueurs, for the entertainment
+of such highly esteemed visitors; and so long as one of them occupied
+the colossal armchair, her husband was quite a different Dale. He was
+then such a much better listener than usual, so quick to see a joke
+and so easy to be tickled by it, so debonair that he would swallow
+almost insulting criticism of his favorite politicians. As she thought
+of these things her eyelids fluttered and her lips parted mirthfully.
+She never asked any questions as to Dale's more secret methods of
+dealing with customers' servants. Obviously he got on well with them;
+and one might be quite certain that he did not offer any material
+compliments that were either traditionally illegitimate or open in the
+smallest degree to a suspicion of corrupt purpose.
+
+And she thought admiringly that her man was really a very wonderful
+man. Though so candid and straight, he could be grandly silent; he
+told his womankind all that he considered it good for them to know,
+and the rest he kept to himself; he had that quality of rulership
+without which manhood always seems deficient.
+
+"Mummy," said Rachel, "I do believe Mary is reading aloud."
+
+"Is she, darling? Yes, I think she is."
+
+Through the kitchen door one could hear a monotonous murmur.
+
+"D'you think she's reading fairy tales?"
+
+"Perhaps. Would you like to listen to her?"
+
+"Oh, no. I'd sooner stay and help you, Mummy."
+
+"Then so you shall, my angel; and I thank you for preferring my
+company."
+
+Mavis, with the little girl at her knee, got to work. She had
+purchased a large scrap-album, and was now to begin putting in her
+scraps. For a long time she had collected interesting extracts from
+the newspapers, more especially portions of old numbers of the
+_Rodhaven Courier_ which contained her husband's name.
+
+"Here, Rachel, we'll commence with this;" and she started the book
+with a long account of the ceremonial opening of the Barradine
+Orphanage. The report of a speech by "Mr. Dale of Vine-Pits Farm" at a
+political meeting was the second item, and other gems followed fast.
+
+Rachel assisted from time to time, by twice upsetting the paste pot,
+tearing a good many cuttings, and finally by tilting the heavy album
+off Mummy's lap to the floor.
+
+But Mavis thought all these actions rather spirited and charming than
+maladroit and annoying. They proved that Rachel was trying hard to be
+of use, and her too rapid and abrupt gestures were a pleasing evidence
+that the little creature possessed a vivacious and not a sluggish
+disposition. However, the crash of the album on the floor had awakened
+Billy, who was now crying lustily; and Rachel's license having long
+since expired, Mavis decided to send both her treasures to bed.
+Rachel resisted the edict, and, presently conducted up-stairs by Mary,
+bellowed more loudly than her brother; indeed for a little while the
+house was filled with the harsh sound of squalling. Yet this noise,
+though distressing, was as musical as harps and lutes to the mother's
+ears; and while old Mrs. Goudie in the kitchen was saying: "They
+children want a smart popping to learn them on'y to squawk when
+there's reason for squawking," Mavis was thinking: "Poor darlings, I'd
+go up and kiss them again, if Mary didn't always quiet them down
+quicker than I can."
+
+Alone with her newspaper snippets, Mavis did more reading than
+pasting. "Heroic Rescue at Otterford Mill"--that was the description
+of how Will saved good-for-nothing Abraham Veale. She knew it almost
+by heart, but she had to read it again. "Brave Deed at Manninglea
+Cross Station"--that was something that made her feel faint every time
+she thought of it, and she trembled now as she read in the snippet of
+how there had been a frightened dog on the line between the platforms,
+and how Will had jumped down in front of the approaching train and
+whisked the dog out of danger just in time.
+
+She folded her hands, puckered her forehead, and passed into a reverie
+about him. Combining with her intense admiration, there was a great
+horror of all this reckless courage. He would not have been so
+foolhardy years ago. It was against the principles that he had once
+laid down as limiting the risks that a brave man may run. It indicated
+a change in him, a change that she had never pondered on till now. She
+thought of him fighting the wind on top of their rick, and of several
+other incidents unchronicled by the press--of his going with the
+police at Old Manninglea when there was the bad riot, of his joining
+the Crown keepers when they went out to catch the poachers, of his
+wild performance when Mr. Creech's bull got loose. Goring bulls,
+bludgeoning men, tempest and flood--wherever and whatever the danger,
+he went straight to it. But it was not fair to her and the babes. His
+thrice precious life! And she grew cold as she thought that an
+accident--like a curtain descending when a stage play is over--might
+some day end all her joy.
+
+Then she thought once more of that dark period of their dual
+existence; and it was the last time that she was ever capable of
+thinking of it seriously and with any real concentration. Had that
+trouble left any permanent mark on him? Her own suffering had left no
+mark on her. It was gone so entirely that, as well as seeming
+incredible, it seemed badly invented, silly, preposterous. All that
+remained to her was just this one firm memory, that, strange or not,
+there had truly once been a time when his arms were not her shelter,
+and she dared not look into his face.
+
+But he was different from her; with a vastly more capacious brain, in
+which there was such ample room that perhaps the present did not even
+impinge upon the past, much less drive it out altogether. She who in
+the beginning had tacitly agreed with those who considered her the
+obvious superior now felt humbly pleased in recognizing that he was of
+grander, finer, and more delicate stuff than herself. And for the
+first and last time she was assailed by a disturbing doubt. Was he
+completely happy even now? He loved her, he loved his children, he
+loved his successful industry; yet sometimes when she found him alone
+his face was almost as somber as it had ever been.
+
+And those bad dreams of his still continued. At first, when things
+were all in jeopardy, it had seemed not unnatural that the troubles of
+the day should break his rest at night; but why should he dream now,
+when he was prosperous and without a single anxiety to distress him?
+Did he in sleep go back to that old storm of anger, jealousy, and
+grief about which he never thought during his waking hours?
+
+And again Mavis was actuated all unconsciously by the elemental
+selfishness that mingles with our joy. When we are happy we want
+others to be happy too, we can not brook their not being so; even
+transient darkness in those we love seems inimical to the light that
+is burning so cheerfully in ourselves. Mavis ceased to trouble herself
+with questions, and forgot that they remained unanswered.
+
+When Dale came in she was, however, more than ordinarily sweet to him,
+waiting on him, bringing the supper dishes, not sitting down until he
+was served, and watching him while he ate. She told him that she had
+been reading about the dog on the railway line, and that he was not to
+do such things. If he ever again felt such a wild impulse, he was to
+stifle it immediately by remembering his wife and bairns.
+
+"D'you understand, Will? We won't have it--and we all three think you
+ought to be ashamed of yourself for not knowing better. You're not a
+boy."
+
+"No," he said, "I shall be forty-two next year. Look here," and he
+pointed to his temples. "Look at my gray hair."
+
+"I can't see it."
+
+"But it's there, my dear, all the same. I am beginning to turn toward
+the sear and yellow leaf, as Shakespeare puts it."
+
+She admired the easy way in which he quoted Shakespeare, as if it was
+the most natural thing in the world to do. Indeed, all through supper
+she was admiring him. She thought how beautifully he spoke, expressing
+himself so elegantly, and with tones in his voice that every day
+seemed to sound a little more cultivated. At first after their arrival
+at Vine-Pits, being plunged again into the midst of purely rustic
+talk, he had fallen back in regard to his diction. Instinctively he
+reverted to the dialect that had been his own, and that was being used
+by everybody about him; but now one might say that he really had two
+languages--his rough patter for the yard and the fields, and his
+carefully-measured phrasing for the home, office, and upper circles.
+She understood that his constant reading and his unflagging desire for
+self-improvement were telling rapidly; and with a touch of sadness she
+wondered if, passing on always, he would finally leave her quite
+behind.
+
+No, while life lasted, he would hold to her. He would never shake her
+off now. Even if she were old and ugly, useless to him, a dead-weight
+upon his ascending progress, he would be true to her now. Even if his
+love died, the memory of it would keep him still hers. And she thought
+of the pity in him, as well as the strength. The man who could not
+resist the appeal of a poor little stray dog would not break faith
+with the mother of his children; and she thought, "Yes, whatever I say
+to him, I know really and truly that it was a nobler, better thing to
+risk all than to allow even a dog to perish. And I love him for not
+having hesitated then, even when I pray him not to do it again."
+
+Looking at him, she saw the gray hair that she had just now denied;
+and to her eyes these gray feathers at each side of the forehead not
+only increased his dignity, but gave him a fresh charm. The gray hair
+made him somehow more romantic. In her eyes his face was always
+growing more beautiful, always refining itself, always losing
+something that had been rather coarsely massive and gaining something
+that was new, spiritualized, and subtle.
+
+"What are you examining me like that for, Mav? A penny for your
+thoughts."
+
+"Shall I tell you truly?" and she laughed. "I was thinking if your
+looks continue to improve at this rate all the girls will get falling
+in love with you."
+
+"Go along with you."
+
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+
+In this manner the full and happy years began to glide past them.
+Their prosperity was now firmly established; the business grew; and
+money came in so nicely that Mrs. Dale's mortgage had been paid off
+and her two thousand pounds invested in gilt-edged securities, while
+Dale hoped very shortly to discharge the remainder of his obligation
+to Mr. Bates. They were, however, as economical as ever in their own
+way of life, although they permitted themselves some license in the
+generosity they had begun to practise with regard to their less
+fortunate neighbors. But they found, as so many have found before
+them, that in personal charity a little money goes a long way, and
+that the claims of the very poor, although sometimes noisy, are rarely
+excessive. Naturally they had to be careful for the sake of their
+children, the security of whose future must be the first
+consideration. Dale had promised the baby boy in his cradle "the
+advantages of a lib'ral education," and he intended to act up to this
+promise largely.
+
+"It is my wish," he said, "that the two of them shall enjoy all that I
+was myself deprived of."
+
+New scraps were continually being pasted into the album, and it seemed
+to Mavis that she ought to have bought a bigger one, if indeed any
+albums were made of a size sufficiently big to contain all the
+evidences of her husband's gratified ambition. Scarce a _Courier_ was
+published without "a bit" in it that referred to Mr. Dale of Vine-Pits
+Farm. He was really becoming quite a public character. He had been
+called to the District Council, on its foundation, as a personage who
+could not be left out. When the Otterford branch of the Fire Brigade
+was instituted all agreed in inviting Mr. Dale to be its captain; and
+four of the once sluggish yard-servants had immediately decided that
+they must follow their master wherever he led, and had enrolled
+themselves forthwith under his captaincy. He was a prominent figure at
+the Old Manninglea corn market, known by sight in its streets, and had
+recently been chosen as a member of its very select tradesmen's club.
+This was an affair truly different from that vulgar boozing circle at
+the Gauntlet Inn which he had denounced so contemptuously in old days.
+The Manninglea Club was solid and respectable, a pleasant
+meeting-place where he could take his midday meal after market
+business in company with men of substance and repute. He was on
+friendly terms with most of the farmers between the down country and
+Rodhaven Harbor; and last, but not least, the gentry all passed the
+time of day when they met him, and many would stop him on the
+high-roads for a chat in the most polite and jolly fashion.
+
+He confessed to Mavis that the sweetest thing in his success was the
+feeling of being no longer disliked.
+
+"Oh, Will, you never were disliked."
+
+"But that's just what I was. And I begin to get a glimmer of the
+reason why. I was reading an article in _Answers_ last week, and it
+seemed as if it had been written specially to enlighten me. It was
+about sympathy. The author, who didn't sign his name, but was
+ev'dently a man of powerful int'lect, said that without understanding
+you can't sympathize; and he went on to show that without sympathy the
+whole world would come to a standstill."
+
+"Ah," said Mavis, "that's the sort of difficult reading that you like.
+It's too deep for me."
+
+"It's plain as the nose on one's face, come to think of it. Sympathy
+is the key-note. It enables you to look at things from both sides--to
+put yourself in another man's place, and ask yourself the question,
+What should I be thinking and doing, if I was him?--I should say if I
+was he. In the old days I was very deficient in that. A fool just made
+me angry. Now I try to put myself in his place." He paused, and
+smiled. "Perhaps you'll say I'm there already--a fool myself."
+
+"Oh, I wouldn't go so far as to say that;" and Mavis smiled too. "Not
+_quite_ a fool, Will."
+
+He went on analyzing his characteristics, talking with great interest
+in the subject, and after a didactic style, but not with the heavy
+egoistic method that he had often employed years ago.
+
+"No, I never remarked that."
+
+"You know," he said presently, "in spite of all my bounce, I was a
+_shy_ man.
+
+"It's the fact, Mav. And my shyness came between me and others. I
+couldn't take them sufficiently free. I wanted all the overtures to
+come from them, and I was too ready to draw in my horns if they didn't
+seem to accept me straight at what I judged my own value. For a long
+while now it has been my endeavor to sink what was once described to
+me as my pers'nal equation. I don't think of myself at all, if I can
+help it; and the consequence is the shyness gets pushed into the
+background, my manner becomes more free and open, and people begin to
+treat me in a more friendly spirit."
+
+And he wound up his discourse by returning to the original cause of
+satisfaction.
+
+"Yes, I do think there are some now that like me for myself--not many,
+but just one or two, besides dear old Mr. Bates."
+
+"Everybody does. Why, look at that child, Norah. Only been here a
+month, and worships the ground you tread on."
+
+"Poor little mite. That's her notion of being grateful for what I did
+for her father. Does she eat just the same?"
+
+"Ravenous."
+
+"Don't stint her," said Dale, impressively. "Feed her _ad lib_. Give
+her all she'll swallow. It's the leeway she's got to make up;" and he
+turned his eyes toward the kitchen door. "Is she out there?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I spoke loud. You don't think she heard what I said?"
+
+"Oh, no. She's busy with Mrs. Goudie."
+
+"I wouldn't like for her to hear us discussing her victuals as though
+she was an animal."
+
+"You might have thought she was verily an animal," said Mavis, "if
+you'd seen her at the first meals we set before her. And even now it
+brings a lump into my throat to watch her."
+
+"Just so."
+
+"When I told her to undress that night to wash herself, she was a
+sight to break one's heart. Her poor little ribs were almost sticking
+through the skin; and, Will, I thought of one of ours ever being
+treated so."
+
+Dale got up from the table, his face glowing redly, his brows
+frowning; and he stretched his arms to their full length.
+
+"By Jupiter!" he said thickly, "if only Mrs. Neath had been a man, I'd
+'a' given him--well, at the least, I'd 'a' given him a piece of my
+mind. I'd have told him what I thought of him."
+
+"I promise you," said Mavis, "that I told Mrs. Neath what I thought of
+_her_."
+
+"An' I'm right glad you did."
+
+This new inmate under their roof was Norah Veale, a twelve-year-old
+daughter of the Hadleigh Wood hurdle-maker. Mavis, taking a present of
+tea and sugar to one of the Cross Roads cottages, had found her
+digging in the garden, and, struck by her pitiful aspect, had
+questioned her and elicited her history. It was a common enough one in
+those parts. Not being wanted at home, she had been "lent" to Mrs.
+Neath, the cottage woman, in exchange for her keep, and was
+mercilessly used by the borrower. She rose at dawn, worked as the
+regular household drudge till within an hour of school-time, then
+walked into Rodchurch for the day's schooling with a piece of dry
+bread in her pocket as dinner; and on her return from school worked
+again till late at night. She admitted that she felt always hungry,
+always tired, always miserable; that she suffered from cold at night
+in her wretched little bed; and that Mrs. Neath often beat her. She
+was a bright, intelligent child, black-haired, olive-complexioned,
+with lively blue eyes which expressed at once the natural
+trustfulness of youth, a certain boldness and wildness derived from
+gipsy ancestors, and a questioning wonder that this pleasant-looking
+world should be systematically ill-treating her.
+
+The horrid, lying, carneying old woman of the cottage received home
+truths instead of tea and sugar from Mavis Dale, who, with all her
+maternal feelings aroused, rushed off straightway to hunt for the
+neglectful father. She found him at the Barradine Arms, and demanded
+his permission to take away the child. Veale, although sadly bemused,
+at once said that he could refuse nothing to the wife of his
+preserver.
+
+"Oh, lor-a-mussy, yes, mum, you may 'aave my little Norrer an' do what
+you like wi' her. Bless her heart, I look on Norrer and her brothers
+to be the comfort o' my old age, but I wunt stan' in their light to
+interfere wi' what's best for any of 'em."
+
+Mavis then took Norah straight home with her to Vine-Pits, bathed her,
+fed her, clothed her, and made much of her. And Norah proved grateful,
+docile, amenable, doing all that Mrs. Dale told her to do; and from
+the first exhibiting an almost superstitious worship of Mr. Dale. For
+truly, as he himself had surmised, her little starved breast was
+overflowing with gratitude to the man who had saved her father. It
+mattered nothing to the children of the mud hovel that their father
+was not an exemplary character; they did not want him to be drowned;
+and Norah, hearing in extreme youth of the hero who had interposed
+between him and such a cruel death, had mentally built a pedestal for
+the hero and kept him on top of it ever since.
+
+It happened that about the time when Dale was preparing to pay off
+the last instalment of his debt, Mr. Bates unexpectedly applied for
+the money. He had never before shown the least anxiety for repayment;
+it had always been "Take your time, William. I know I'm in safe
+hands," and so forth; but now he said, "If you can make it convenient
+to you, William, it would be convenient to me."
+
+"Oh, certainly, Mr. Bates. You shall have it before the end of the
+week--and I hope you're going to act on the advice I ventured to offer
+last time; that is, put it in one of these Canadian Government
+guaranteed stocks."
+
+"I'm sure it was good advice, William--even if I didn't act on it."
+
+"Of course my orig'nal advice was what you ought to have acted on, Mr.
+Bates. That is to say, bought an annuity with your entire capital."
+
+"Ah, William, I really couldn't do that;" and Mr. Bates turned away
+his eyes, as if unable to support Dale's friendly regard. "Apart from
+these annuities for old folk being rather a dog-in-the-manger trick,
+I--well, one has one's private difficulties, William. One is not
+always a free agent."
+
+The demand for repayment, and with something of evasiveness or
+reticence in the old fellow's manner, greatly troubled Dale. Not at
+all from selfish motives; but because it confirmed a suspicion that he
+had long entertained. Although invisible locally, disgraced and hiding
+somewhere at a distance, that blackguardly son was probably still
+draining the good old man's resources.
+
+So many things pointed to the correctness of this supposition. On the
+interest of the money that Mavis and Dale had together paid him for
+the business, he should have been able to live very comfortably;
+whereas, in fact, his way of life was mean and sorry. His cottage was
+quite a decent dwelling, separated from the road by a nice long strip
+of garden, and with a miniature apple orchard behind it; but it showed
+all those signs of neglect that had been evident at Vine-Pits when the
+Dales first came there. He had no proper servant, but just pigged it
+anyhow with the occasional assistance of a woman and her husband. His
+clothes, though neatly brushed, were too shabby and overworn for a
+person of his position. And he was not a miser; he was a proud
+self-respecting man, who naturally would desire to maintain
+conventionally adequate state, were he able to do so.
+
+These thoughts worried Dale. He really loved Mr. Bates, thoroughly
+appreciated the great dignity and sweetness of his nature, and felt it
+to be a monstrous and intolerable thing that the dear old chap at the
+age of seventy-three, instead of being allowed to end his days in a
+happy, seemly style, should be as if were bled to death by a
+conscienceless reprobate. But what could one do? It was like the
+cruelties of the woods that one regrets, but can not prevent--the
+rabbits chased by the weasels, the pheasants killed by the foxes, the
+thrushes destroyed by the hawks.
+
+Any doubt that remained in the mind of Dale was soon dissipated. He
+told Mavis how he had seen Bates junior--a seedy, wicked-looking
+wretch now--lurking at dusk in the cottage porch, and how next morning
+he had ridden over to talk to Mr. Bates about this ill-omened visitor.
+Mr. Bates said it was true that his son had been there for two or
+three days, but he was now gone; and he declined to discuss the
+matter any further. "I can't speak of it, William. I thank you for
+meaning kindness, but it's a thing I can't speak of."
+
+Dale also told Mrs. Goudie that Richard Bates had shown himself in the
+neighborhood, and asked her if the fact was generally known. He was
+aware that Mrs. Goudie had almost as much regard for the old man as he
+had himself.
+
+"No, sir," said Mrs. Goudie, "I hadn't 'a' heard of it."
+
+"Then that proves how close he kept. No doubt he came and went as
+surreptitiously as he could. Let it be between ourselves, Mrs. Goudie.
+Don't spread the tale an inch beyond us three."
+
+"I will not, sir. But, oh, well-a-day, it's a bad bit o' news, sir. I
+did hope Mr. Bates was cured o' that runnin' sore."
+
+She had been summoned from the kitchen just before leaving for the
+night; and with her shawl over her head, her wrinkled face working,
+and her bony hands clasped she stood near the table and waited for Mr.
+Dale to give the signal for her to withdraw.
+
+"If you should see him, at any time, let me know, Mrs. Goudie."
+
+"I will, sir."
+
+"I might perhaps do good, if I could get hold of him on the quiet and
+address a few words to him."
+
+"I wish you'd break his neck for him, yes, I do, indeed I do. I could
+tell you things as 'd make any one say hanging was too good for him."
+
+And, encouraged to talk freely, Mrs. Goudie told Mavis and Dale, what
+indeed she had often told them before, of the shocking badness of
+Richard Bates and the ugly scenes that had taken place in this very
+house; of how he bullied his father to give him money, storming and
+raving like a lunatic when resisted; and of how the old fellow alone
+by himself had groaned and wept and prayed. Mrs. Goudie had heard him,
+after a most dreadful quarrel, praying out loud in his room up-stairs.
+
+"An' believe me, sir, he was a praying for his son all the
+time--imploring of the Lord to soften his heart like, and save him
+from the hell-fire that his conduct asked for. You know, sir, he's a
+very God-fearing man, Mr. Bates."
+
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+
+The action of the Dales in regard to Norah Veale did not pass
+unnoticed. "They do tell me," said humble folk quite far afield, "that
+Mr. Dale up to Vine-Pits hev adapted little Norrer Veale same as if
+'twas his own darter; and I sin her myself ridin' to her schoolin' in
+Mr. Dale's wagon. I allus held that Abe Veale was born a lucky one,
+fer nobody ever comes adapting my childer; an' how hey he kep' out o'
+jail all his days, if 'tisn't the luck?"
+
+Nearer home, so striking an instance of kindness encouraged the
+cottagers to do more freely what already they were doing with
+considerable freedom: that is, to regard Vine-Pits Farm, and
+especially the parts of it presided over by Mrs. Dale, as the proper
+place to go in all moments of embarrassment or tribulation. Thus the
+flagged path by the walnut tree, the wooden bench beneath the window,
+and the open kitchen door, tended to become a sort of court where
+Mavis had to listen to an ever-increasing number of applicants.
+
+It used to be: "Muvver hey sent me to tell you at once, Mum, she isn't
+no better but a good deal worse, and the doctor hev ordered her some
+strong soup for to nourish her stren'th;" or "Mr. Scull's compliments,
+and might he hev the loan of some butter agin;" or "Mrs. Craddock
+wishes you, Mum, to read this letter which she hey written out of her
+sickbed, and every word of it is no more than the truth, as I can
+vouch for. Mr. Craddock in his cups last night punished her pore face
+somethin' frightful. She can't go to her work, and there's not so much
+as a bite of bread or a sip of milk in the house."
+
+Mrs. Goudie declared that Mavis was often imposed upon; and, although
+Mavis herself wished to give wisely rather than blindly, endeavoring
+to govern warm impulse with cold reason, certainly very few people
+went away from the Vine-Pits back door empty-handed.
+
+The gentry, in their turn, learned the commonly accepted fact that Mr.
+and Mrs. Dale were charitably-minded as well as prosperous, and
+thought all the better of them, asked for subscriptions, and invited
+cooperation in various good works. So that their fame was always
+shining with a steadier brightness, and one might say that nowadays
+there appeared to be only a single objection occasionally hinted
+against this fortunate couple. Certain very old-fashioned people
+refrained from patronizing Dale's business or praising his private
+life, because of the regrettable and notorious circumstance that he
+never went to church.
+
+It could not be denied. During a good many years he had been to one
+funeral and two christenings; and, except for these rare occasions,
+had entirely abstained from attending any religious ceremonies. And
+Mavis too had gradually become slack in the performance of her
+spiritual duties. On Sunday mornings there was the dinner to think
+about. She still liked to cook the great weekly feast herself.
+Moreover, after six days of genuine labor, Sunday's fundamental
+purport as a day of rest is apt to overshadow its symbolic aspects as
+a day set apart for communion with things impalpable. The Abbey Church
+was too far off, even if it had not been out of the question for other
+reasons. It required a walk of two fat miles to get to Rodchurch, and
+one had to start early if one did not want to arrive there hot and
+flustered; again there was the risk of rain overtaking one in one's
+best dress. Every fine Sunday she used to talk at breakfast of
+intending to go to the morning service; and at dinner of intending to
+go to the evening service.
+
+If she carried either the first or the second intention into effect,
+it was Dale's custom to go along the road and meet her returning. And
+this he now prepared to do, on a warm dry April morning, when
+obviously there could be no fear of rain and she had set out in her
+best directly after breakfast.
+
+Dale loved the quiet and the freedom from interruption of these Sunday
+mornings; he enjoyed the luxury of being able to smoke in the office
+while he made up his books, and reveled in the lolling ease of the old
+porter's chair as he read Saturday's _Courier_ and the last number of
+_Answers_. To-day he was peculiarly conscious of the soothing Sunday
+hush that had fallen widely on the land. All the doors and windows
+stood open, so that the soft air flowed like water through and through
+the house, making it an undivided part of the one great generous
+flooding atmosphere, and giving sensations of vast space and free
+activities as well as those produced by guarded comfort and motionless
+repose. The only sounds that reached him were the droning of bees in a
+border of spring flowers, the pawing of a horse in the stables, the
+pipe of young voices in the orchard; and all three sounds were
+pleasant to his ear. How could they be otherwise; since they spoke of
+three such pleasant things as awakening life, rewarded toil, and
+contented fatherhood?
+
+When presently he went up-stairs to change his coat, he stood by a
+window and looked down at the peaceful little realm that fate had
+given to him. The sunlight was glittering on the red tiles of the
+clustered roofs, the brown thatch of the ricks, and the white
+cobblestones of a corner of the yard; and the blossom of pears and
+apples was pink and white, as if a light shower of colored snow had
+just fallen on the still leafless trees. Beneath the orchard branches
+he could see his children and Norah playing among the daffodils that
+grew wild in the grass; the light all about them was faintly blue and
+unceasingly tremulous and he stood watching, listening, smiling,
+thinking.
+
+He observed the gracefulness and slimness of his daughter's stockinged
+legs, and thought what a real little man his son seemed already, so
+sturdy on his pins. In his blue overalls he looked like a miniature
+ploughman in a smock-frock. Dale laughed when Billy scampered away
+resolutely, and Norah had to run to catch him.
+
+"Le' me go," roared Bill.
+
+"Na, na," said Norah, "you mustn't go brevetin' about so far. Bide wi'
+sister and me, an' chain the daffies."
+
+And Dale noticed the musical note in Norah's voice, almost like a wild
+bird singing. It was a pleasure to him to see the little maid making
+herself so useful; and it corroborated what Mavis had told him about
+her being splendid in taking care of the chicks, as well as keeping
+them happy and amused.
+
+He put on his black coat, fetched out a pair of brown dogskin gloves,
+and then, failing to find the silk hat, came to the top of the
+staircase and shouted for Mary.
+
+"My hat, Mary. Where in the name of reason is my hat?"
+
+His shouts broke the Sunday silence, filled the house with noise, went
+rolling through the open windows in swift vibrations. Norah Veale
+under the blossoming apple tree caught up the cry as though she had
+been an echo, and ran with the children after her.
+
+"Mary, the master's hat. Mary, Mary! Master wants his hat."
+
+Then she appeared at the foot of the stairs, with an anxious excited
+face and speaking breathlessly.
+
+"Mary can't leave th' Yorkshire pudden, sir; but she says she saw Mrs.
+Dale with th' hat in her hand after you wore it on Wednesday to
+Manninglea."
+
+"Yes, but where is it _now_, Norah?"
+
+"I do think Mrs. Dale must have put it in the cupboard under the
+stairs to get it safe out of Billy's way."
+
+And sure enough there the hat was. Both children pressed beside Norah
+to peep in with her when she opened the cupboard door. This hall
+cupboard was the most sacred and awe-inspiring receptacle in the whole
+house, because here were kept Dale's fireman's outfit always ready and
+handy to be snatched out at a moment's notice. Rachel gazed
+delightedly at the blue coat hanging extended, with the webbed steel
+on the shoulder-straps, at the helmet above, the great boots beneath,
+and the shining ax that dangled near an empty sleeve; but the sight
+was almost too tremendous for Billy. His lively young imagination
+could too readily inflate this shell of apparel with ogreish flesh and
+bone waiting to pounce on small intruders, and he clung rather
+timorously to Norah's skirt.
+
+"Daddy," said Rachel, "I wis' you'd wear your helmet to-day."
+
+"Oh, no, lassie, that wouldn't be seemly. This is more the thing for
+Sunday. Thank you, Norah." And having taken the silk hat, he laid his
+hand lightly on Norah's wavy black hair, and spoke to her very kindly.
+"Nothing like thought, Norah. I believe you've got a good little
+thinking-box under all this pretty hair, and you can't use it too
+much, my dear--specially so long as you're thinking about others."
+
+Norah, with her blue eyes fixed on the venerated master's face, seemed
+to tremble joyously under the caress and the compliment. She and the
+children came out into the front garden and stood at the gate to watch
+Dale march away down the white road. He looked grandly stiff, black
+and large, in his ceremonious costume--a daddy and a master to be
+proud of.
+
+He went only half-way to Rodchurch, and then sitting on a gate
+opposite the Baptist chapel indulged himself with another pipe. He
+made his halt here because several times when he had gone farther he
+had found Mavis accompanied by old Rodchurch acquaintances who had
+volunteered to escort her for a portion of the homeward journey, and
+he felt no inclination for this sort of chance society.
+
+Not a human being, not even the smallest sign of a man's habitation,
+was in sight; not a movement of bird or beast could be perceived in
+the stretching expanse of flat fields, across which huge cloud shadows
+passed slowly; the broad white road on either hand seemed to lead from
+nowhere to nowhere, and Dale, meditatively puffing out his tobacco
+smoke and watching it rise and vanish, had that sense of deep and
+almost solemn restfulness which comes whenever we realize that for any
+reason we are cut off from the possibility of communication with our
+kind. For a few moments he felt as a man feels all alone at the summit
+of a mountain, in the depths of an untrodden forest, on the limitless
+surface of a calm ocean. Yet, as he knew, there were men quite near to
+him. Across the road, not fifty yards away, the brick walls of the
+Baptist Chapel were hiding many men and women. Perhaps it was the
+complete isolation of this ugly building, the house of prayer pushed
+away into the desert far from all houses of laughter and talk, that
+had induced the idea of isolation in himself.
+
+If he listened, he could hear sounds made by men. Through the chapel
+windows there came a continuous murmur, like the buzzing of a monster
+bee under the dome of a glass hive--the voice of the pastor preaching
+his sermon. Then all at once came loud music, shuffling of seats,
+scraping of chairs; and a voluminous song poured out and upward in the
+silent air. Dale idly thought of this chorus as resembling the smoke
+from the pipe--something that went up a little way and faded long
+before it reached the sky.
+
+The music ceased. The congregation were leaving the chapel. Dale got
+off the gate, put his pipe in his pocket, and watched the humble
+worshipers as they came toward him. He knew them nearly all, and
+gravely returned their grave salutations as they passed by. They were
+maid-servants and men-servants from Rodchurch, old people and quite
+young people, a few laborers and cottage-women; and they all walked
+slowly, not at first talking to one another, but smiling with
+introspective vagueness. Dale observed their decent costume, their
+sober deportment, and leisurely gait, observed also a striking
+similarity in the expression of all the faces. They were like people
+who unwillingly awake and struggle to recall every detail of the dream
+they are being forced to relinquish. Observing them thus, one could
+not fail to understand that, at this moment at least, they all firmly
+believed that their just-finished song had been heard a very, very
+long way up.
+
+The road was empty again when the pastor came out and locked the
+chapel door behind him. He spoke to Dale with a gentle cheerfulness.
+
+"Good day, friend Dale."
+
+Dale, not too well pleased with this easy and familiar mode of
+address, replied stiffly.
+
+"I wish you good day, Mr. Osborn."
+
+"Good day. God's day. That's what it meant in the beginning, Mr.
+Dale."
+
+And Dale, resuming his seat on the gate, watched Mr. Osborn go
+plodding away toward Vine-Pits and the Cross Roads. This pastor, who
+had succeeded old Melling a few years ago, was a short, bearded man of
+sixty, and he lived in lodgings on the outskirts of Rodchurch.
+Evidently he was not going home to dinner. Perhaps he had some sick
+person to visit, and he might get a snack at the Barradine Arms or
+one of the cottages. It was said that his father had been a rich
+linen-draper in some North of England town; and that he himself would
+have inherited this flourishing business and its accumulated wealth,
+if he had not insisted on joining the ministry. But he threw up all to
+preach the Gospel. Dale thought of the nature of the faith that would
+make a man go and do a thing like that. It must be unquestioning,
+undoubting; a conviction that amounted to certainty.
+
+He did not see Mavis approaching. She called to him from a distance,
+and he sprang off the gate and hurried to meet her. Instinctively, as
+he drew near, he looked into her face, searching for the expression
+that he had noticed just now in those other faces. It was not there.
+She was hot and red after her walk; her eyes were full of life and
+gaiety; she seemed a fine, broad-blown, well-dressed dame who might
+have been returning from market instead of from church, and her first
+words spoke of practical affairs.
+
+"Holly Lodge is let again, Will, and Mr. Allen says the new gentleman
+keeps horses--because he's having the stables painted. You ought to
+send a circular at once, and make a call without delay."
+
+Dale took his pipe out of his pocket, and spoke in an absent tone.
+
+"I've been thinking what a rum world it is, Mav."
+
+"Yes, but a very nice world, Will;" and she slipped her arm in his, as
+they walked on together. "No, not another pipe. Don't take the edge
+off your appetite with any more smoking. There's good roast beef and
+Yorkshire pudding waiting for you. That is, if Mary hasn't made a mess
+of everything."
+
+
+
+
+XVIII
+
+
+On the evening of the next Sunday Dale was quietly going out of the
+house when Mavis offered to accompany him.
+
+"Off for a stroll, Will? If you can wait ten minutes, I'll come with
+you."
+
+But he excused himself from waiting, and further confessed that he
+preferred to be alone. He said he was in a thoughtful rather than a
+talkative mood to-night.
+
+"You understand, old girl?"
+
+"Yes, dear, I understand. You want to put on your considering cap
+about something."
+
+"That's just it, Mav. The considering cap. Ta-ta."
+
+Outside in the roadway Mr. Creech, a farmer, hindered him for a few
+minutes. Between him and Mr. Creech there were certain business
+arrangements now under negotiation, and it was impossible to avoid
+speaking of them. Dale, however, cut their chat as short as possible,
+and directly he had shaken off Mr. Creech he walked away briskly
+toward Rodchurch.
+
+He had intended to arrive at the Baptist Chapel before the evening
+service began, but now he was late. The congregation were all on their
+knees, and the pastor, standing in his desk or pulpit above a raised
+platform, had begun to pray aloud. Dale paused just inside the door,
+looking at his strange surroundings, and feeling the awkwardness of a
+person who enters a place that he has never seen before, and finds
+himself among a lot of people who have their own customs and usages,
+all of which are unknown to him. Then he noticed that a man was
+smiling at him and beckoning, and he bowed gravely and followed the
+hand. He was led up the little building to some empty chairs on a
+level with the platform, at right angles to the rows of benches, and
+close to a harmonium. Mr. Osborn, the pastor, had stopped praying, and
+he did not go on again until Dale was seated. No one else had looked
+up or seemed to be aware of the interruption caused by his entrance.
+
+He assumed a duly reverent attitude, not kneeling, but bending his
+body forward, and observed everything with great interest. There were
+many differences between the arrangements of this chapel and those of
+an ordinary church. The absence of an altar struck him as very
+remarkable. The large platform, with its balustrade and central perch,
+seemed to be altar, pulpit, and lectern all rolled into one--and choir
+too, since it was occupied by several men and a dozen girls and young
+women, who were all now on their knees while Mr. Osborn, looking very
+odd in purely civilian clothes, prayed loudly over their heads.
+
+He glanced at the high bare walls and narrow windows, and observed
+that, except for some stenciled texts, there was not the slightest
+attempt at decoration. Outside, the light was rapidly waning, and
+inside the building the general tone had a grayness and dimness that
+obliterated all the bright colors of the girls' dresses and hats. The
+circumstance that not a single face was visible produced a curious
+impression on one's mind. It made Dale feel for a moment as though he
+were improperly prying, behind people's backs, at matters that did not
+in the least concern him; and next moment he thought that all the gray
+stooping forms were exactly like those of ghosts. Then, in another
+moment, noticing with what rigid immobility they held themselves, he
+thought of them as being dead and waiting for some tremendous signal
+that should bring them to life again.
+
+"Now," said Mr. Osborn, "let us praise God by singing the hundred and
+twenty-sixth hymn."
+
+Then all the faces showed. It was like a flash of pallid light running
+to and fro along the benches as everybody changed the kneeling to the
+sitting posture; and Dale immediately felt that he had been placed in
+an uncomfortably conspicuous position. Far from being situated so that
+he could pry on the private affairs of others, he was where everybody
+could study him. He was alone, opposite to the entire crowd, instead
+of being comfortably absorbed in its mass.
+
+"Oh, thank you. Much obliged."
+
+Mr. Osborn, speaking from the pulpit, had said something to one of his
+young women, and she was leaning over the balustrade, smilingly
+offering Dale an open hymn-book.
+
+"I am afraid," she said, "that it's very small print; but I dare say
+you have good eyes."
+
+She spoke in the most friendly natural manner, exactly as one speaks
+to a visitor when one is anxious to make him feel welcome and at home.
+Dale, startled by this style of address in such a place, made a
+dignified bow.
+
+"Give him this," said Mr. Osborn, handing a book out of the pulpit.
+"It's a larger character--'long primer,' as I believe the printers
+call it. We'll have the lamps directly; but we are all of us rather
+partial to blind man's holiday--not to mention that oil is oil, and
+that Brother Spiers doesn't give it away. We know he couldn't afford
+to do that. But there it is--Take care of the pence."
+
+To Dale's astonishment, he heard a distinct chuckle here and there
+among the congregation. Then the same young woman, having found the
+correct page, handed him the large-type book. Then the man at the
+harmonium struck up, and the whole congregation burst into song.
+
+They sang with a fervent strength that he had never heard equaled. For
+a moment the powerful chorus seemed to shake the walls, to fill every
+cubic foot of air that the building contained, and then to go straight
+up, splitting the ugly roof, and out into the sky. Otherwise this hymn
+would have left one no space to breathe in. Dale felt a sudden rush of
+blood to the head, as if the pressure of vocal sound were about to
+produce suffocation; and at the same time he had the fantastic but
+almost irresistible idea that the whole congregation were singing
+solely at him, that they and their pastor had together planned to set
+him alone in this high place where he must bear the full brunt of the
+hymn while they all watched its effect upon him, and that the hymn
+itself had been specially and artfully chosen with a view to him and
+to nobody else.
+
+      "Hail, sov'reign love, that first began
+      The scheme to rescue fallen man!
+      Hail, matchless, free, eternal grace,
+      That gave my soul a hiding-place."
+
+With his face turned as much as possible from the singers, he stood
+very stiff and erect, staring at the printed page. Loudly as they had
+sung the first verse they seemed to sing the second verse more loudly.
+
+      "Against the God that rules the sky,
+      I fought with hand uplifted high;
+      Despised His rich abounding grace,
+      Too proud to seek a hiding-place."
+
+Dale braced himself, squared his shoulders and stood more erect than
+ever as they struck into the third verse.
+
+They sang louder than before: it seemed to him that they were
+screaming.
+
+      "But thus th' eternal counsel ran,
+      '_Almighty_ love, arrest that man!'"
+
+Dale closed the hymn-book, held it behind his back, and stared at the
+cross-beams of the roof until the hymn was over.
+
+After the hymn Mr. Osborn read a couple of chapters from the Bible,
+and Dale, seated again, understood how utterly unfounded had been his
+recent notion that these people were devoting any particular attention
+to him. He looked at them carefully. Obviously they had not a thought
+of him. The eyes of those near to him and far from him were alike
+fixed upon the pastor's face.
+
+But as soon as they sang again he experienced the same sensations
+again, felt a conviction that the hymn was aimed directly at him.
+
+      "Lord, when Thy Spirit deigns to show
+          The badness of our hearts,
+      Astonished at the amazing view,
+          The Soul with horror starts.
+
+      "Our staggering faith gives way to doubt,
+          Our courage yields to fear;
+      Shocked at the sight, we straight cry out,
+          'Can ever God dwell here?'
+
+      "None less than God's Almighty Son
+          Can move such loads of sin;
+      The water from his side must run,
+          To wash this dungeon clean."
+
+"Now, I think," said Mr. Osborn, "it is fairly lighting-up time, and
+that no one can accuse us of being extravagant if we call for the
+match-boxes. Brother Maghull, please get to work. And, yes, you too,
+Brother Hartley, if you will. You're always a dab at regulating them."
+
+Then the lamps were lighted; two or three men going round to do the
+work, the congregation generally assisting as much as they were able,
+while the pastor, watching all operations, made genial comments.
+
+"Thank you. Now we begin to see who's who, and what's what. I say,
+that's on the smoke, isn't it? I seem to smell something, or is it
+imagination? If the wicks are as badly trimmed as they were three
+Sundays ago, I shall be tempted to copy the procedure of the House of
+Commons, and _name_ a member." Then he smiled. "Yes, I shall name a
+certain young sister who must have turned clumsy-fingered because she
+was thinking of her fal-lals and her chignon, or her new hat, when
+she ought to have been thinking of her duty to our lamps."
+
+A ripple of gentle laughter, like a lightly dancing wave on a deep
+calm sea, passed from the platform to the outer door; the lamplighters
+went back to their seats; and the pastor with a change of voice said
+solemnly: "Friends, let us pray."
+
+Dale observed his manner of holding his hand to his forehead as if
+seeking inspiration, the almost spasmodic movements of his mouth, the
+sort of plaintive groan that started the prayer, and the steadily
+accumulating earnestness with which it went on.
+
+"O merciful and divine Father, supreme and omnipotent lord of Thy
+created universe, vouchsafe unto this little knot of Thy lowly
+creatures ..."
+
+It was a long prayer; and Dale, surmising it to be an extempore
+composition, admired Mr. Osborn's flow of language, command of erudite
+words, and success in bringing some very intricate sentences to an
+appropriate period.
+
+During the sermon Mr. Osborn several times aroused laughter by little
+homely jokes coming unexpectedly in the midst of his serious
+discourse; but Dale no longer felt surprise. He thought that he had
+caught their point of view, got the hang of the main scheme. These
+people were genuine believers, and entirely free from any affectation
+or pretense. They possessed no church-manner: thus, when they spoke to
+one another here, they did so as naturally as when they were speaking
+in the fields or on the highroads. Only when they spoke to God, could
+you hear the vibration and the thrill, the effort and the strain.
+
+And all at once his own self-consciousness vanished. He felt
+comfortable, quite at ease, and extraordinarily glad that he had
+dedicated an hour to the purpose of coming here.
+
+The lamplight enormously improved the appearance of the chapel; the
+genial yellow glow was surrounded by fine dark shadows that draped the
+ugly walls as if with soft curtains; there were golden glittering
+bands on the roof beams, and above them all had become black,
+impenetrable, mysterious. When one glanced up one might have had the
+night sky over one's head, for all one could see of the roof. The
+light shone bright on crooked backs, slightly distorted limbs, the
+pallor of sickness, the stains of rough weather; on girls meekly
+folding hands that daily scrub and scour; on laboring men stooping the
+shoulders that habitually carry weights; on spectacled old women with
+eyes worn out by incessantly peering at the tiny stitches of their
+untiring needles; but one would have looked in vain for any types even
+approximately similar to the stalwart well-balanced youths, the
+smooth-cheeked game-playing maidens, the prosperously healthful
+fathers and mothers of the established faith. Dale did not look for
+them, did not miss them, would not have wished them here.
+
+It might be said that there was not a single person of the whole
+gathering on whom there was not plainly printed, in one shape or
+another, the stamp of toil. That fact perhaps formed the root of the
+difference between this and a Church of England congregation. To
+Dale's mind, however, there was something else of a saliently
+differentiating character. Once again he was struck by the expression
+of all the faces. He thought how calm, how trustful, how quietly
+joyous these people must be feeling, in order to shine back at the
+lamps as steadily and clearly as the lamps were shining on them.
+
+"Friends, let us praise God by singing the hundred and tenth hymn
+before we separate."
+
+They all rose and began to sing their final song; and Dale observed
+that here and there, as the loud chorus swelled and flowed, singers
+would sink down upon their knees as though of a sudden impelled to
+silence and prayer.
+
+      "There is a fountain filled with blood,
+        Drawn from Emmanuel's veins;
+      And sinners plunged beneath that flood,
+        Lose all their guilty stains.
+
+      "The dying thief rejoiced to see
+        That fountain in his day;
+      And there may I, as vile as he,
+        Wash all my sins away."
+
+Dale abruptly sat down, leaned forward, and then knelt upon the
+boarded floor, hiding his face in his hands. He did not get up until
+the pastor had given the blessing and the people were moving out.
+
+
+
+
+XIX
+
+
+As so often happens toward the latter part of April, there had come a
+spell of unseasonably warm weather; thunder had been threatening for
+the last week, and now at the end of an oppressive day you could
+almost smell the electricity in the air.
+
+Mavis warned Dale that he would get a sousing, when he told her that
+he was obliged to go as far as Rodchurch.
+
+"Won't it do to-morrow, Will?"
+
+"No, I shan't have time to-morrow. Remember I'm not made of
+barley-sugar. I shouldn't melt, you know, even if I hadn't got my
+mack."
+
+Norah fetched him his foul weather hat, and ran for his umbrella.
+
+"No," he said, "I don't want that, my dear;" and he smiled at her very
+kindly. "Besides, if we're going to have a storm, an umbrella is just
+the article to bring the lightning down on my head."
+
+Norah pulled away the umbrella hastily, as though she would now have
+fought to the death rather than let him have it.
+
+"Don't wait supper, Mav. I may be latish."
+
+He walked fast, and his mackintosh made him uncomfortably warm. The
+rain held off, although now and then a few heavy drops fell ominously.
+It was quite dark--a premature darkness caused by the clouds that hung
+right across the sky. There seemed to be nobody on the move but
+himself; the street at Rodchurch was absolutely empty, the
+tobacconist's shop at the corner being alone awake and feebly busy,
+the oil lamps flickering in the puffs of a warm spring wind.
+
+He took one glance toward the post office, and then went right down
+the street and out upon the common. The house that he was seeking
+stood a little way off the road, and a broad beam of light from an
+open window proved of assistance as he crossed the broken and uneven
+ground. While he groped for the bell handle inside the dark porch he
+could hear, close at hand, a purring and whirring sound of wheels that
+he recognized as the unmistakable noise made by a carpenter's lathe.
+As soon as he rang the bell the lathe stopped working, and next moment
+the Baptist pastor came to the door.
+
+"Mr. Dale--is it not?
+
+"Yes--good evening, Mr. Osborn."
+
+"Pray come in."
+
+"Thank you. Could you spare time for a chat?"
+
+"Surely. I was expecting you."
+
+Dale drew back, and spoke coldly, almost rudely.
+
+"Indeed? I am not aware of any reason for your doing so."
+
+"I ought to have said, _hoping_ to see you."
+
+"Oh. May I ask why?"
+
+Mr. Osborn laughed contentedly. "Since I saw you at our service, you
+know. Please come into my room."
+
+It was not an attractive or nicely furnished room. All one side of it
+was occupied by the lathe, bench, and tools; and on this side the
+boards of the floor, with a carpet rolled back, were covered with
+wood shavings.
+
+"There, take off your wraps and be seated, Mr. Dale. I'll sort my
+rubbish. Stuffy night, isn't it?"
+
+Dale noticed that there was no bookcase, and he could not detect more
+than six books anywhere lying about. Perhaps there were some in the
+chiffonier. He would have expected to find quite a little library at a
+house tenanted by this sort of man.
+
+"What do you think of that?" And Mr. Osborn handed him the small round
+box which he had been turning. "I amuse myself so. It's my hobby."
+
+"You don't feel the want to read of an evening?"
+
+"No, I'm not a book-worm. But one has to do something; so I took up
+this. If folk chaff me"--and Mr. Osborn smiled and nodded his
+head--"well, I tell them that infinitely better people than I have
+done carpentering in their time. Of course they don't always follow
+the allusion."
+
+Dale himself did not follow it. He understood that this was light and
+airy conversation provided by Mr. Osborn for the amiable purpose of
+putting him at his ease. He had taken off the slouch hat and loose
+coat that had made him look like some rough shepherd or herdsman; and
+now, as he sat stiffly on a chair, showing his jacket, breeches, and
+gaiters, he looked like a farmer who had come to buy or to sell stock.
+His manner was altogether businesslike when, after clearing his
+throat, he explained the actual reason of the visit. If it would not
+be troubling Mr. Osborn too much, he desired to obtain information
+about Baptist tenets, adult baptism, total immersion, and so on. Mr.
+Osborn, declaring that it was no trouble, and in an equally
+businesslike manner, gave him the information.
+
+"Is there anything else I can tell you?"
+
+"I am afraid of putting you out."
+
+"Not in the least."
+
+"Well, then, if you're sure I don't trespass--Mr. Osborn, the kind way
+you're receiving me makes me venturesome. I see an ash-tray over
+there, proving you sometimes favor the weed. Would you mind if I took
+a whiff of tobacco--a pipe?"
+
+"Why, surely not."
+
+"You won't join me?"
+
+"No, thanks. But I'll tell you what I will do;" and Mr. Osborn emitted
+a chuckle. "I'll go on with my boxes, if you'll allow me."
+
+"I should greatly prefer it."
+
+"You know, I can listen just as well, while I'm fiddling away at my
+nonsense."
+
+"I find," said Dale, as he filled his pipe, "that I rely on smoking
+more and more. Seems with me to steady the nerves and clear the brain.
+I know there are others that it just fuddles."
+
+"Exactly."
+
+Mr. Osborn had gone back to the lathe, and the pleasantly soothing
+whir of the wheels was heard again, while a fountain of the finest
+possible shavings began to spin in the air. For a few moments Dale
+watched him at his work. His gray hair flopped about queerly; he made
+rapid precise movements; and he talked as though he still had his eyes
+on one, although his back was turned.
+
+"There are matches at your elbow, Mr. Dale--on that shelf--beside the
+flower-pot."
+
+"Thanks, Mr. Osborn."
+
+He wore a loose blue flannel coat, and Dale wondered if this was a
+garment that he had bought years ago to play cricket in. Perhaps he
+had belonged to a University. It was quite clear that he must have had
+an extremely lib'ral education to start with. And Dale thought again
+what he had thought just now in the porch--that one ought to be
+precious careful in dealing with a man of such natural and acquired
+powers.
+
+However, the fact that Mr. Osborn was continuing his work, and yet, as
+he had promised, at the same time listening properly, made the
+interview easier and Dale more comfortable. He recovered his
+self-confidence, and after puffing out a sufficient cloud of smoke,
+talked weightily and didactically.
+
+"I am desirous not to exaggerate; but I would like to state that I was
+well impressed by my experience of your ritual--if that is the correct
+term. I seemed to find what I had not found elsewhere. If I may speak
+quite openly, I would say it appeared to me there wasn't an ounce of
+humbug in your service."
+
+"Oh, I hope not."
+
+"Now, in the event of a person wishing to become a member--in short,
+to embrace the Baptist faith entirely, there are one or two points
+that I'd like to have cleared up."
+
+Then Dale asked a lot of questions; and the pastor, seeming to go on
+with the work, answered over his shoulder, or looking round for an
+instant only.
+
+Dale wished to learn all about the method of receiving adults; he
+asked also if anything in the nature of confession or absolute
+submission to the priest would be required. And the pastor said, "No,
+nothing of the sort." Such a person must of course bring a cleansed
+and purified heart to the ceremony, or it would be the very worst kind
+of humbug for him to present himself at all. But that was a matter
+which concerned him and God, who reads all hearts and knows all
+secrets. Mr. Osborn said it had never been the practise of Baptist
+ministers to insinuate themselves into the private secrets of their
+flocks. They left that to the Roman Catholics.
+
+Dale heartily commended the Baptist custom. He said that much of his
+objection to religion had been caused by what he read of the Roman
+Catholic faith. As a responsible man he could never bring himself to
+that abject submission to another man, however you sanctified and
+tricked out the other man; besides, no one of mature age cares to make
+a complete confession of his past life. There must always be things
+that he could not force himself to disclose--follies, indiscretions,
+perhaps the grievous mistakes which he himself wants to forget,
+knowing that improvement lies in determination for better conduct, and
+not in brooding on past failure.
+
+Mr. Osborn looked round, and used a gentle deprecating tone.
+
+"You speak of your objection to religion; but, Mr. Dale, you are a
+singularly religious man. You are, really."
+
+"I will postpone that part of it, if you please"--and Dale became
+rather stiff again--"but with the intention of adverting to it later.
+What I wish first to lay at rest is something in regard to the hymns
+employed on the occasion of my attendance. The numbers were one
+hundred and twenty-six, six hundred and fifty-nine, and one hundred
+and ten. Now I ask you as man to man, feeling sure you'll give me a
+straight answer: Were those hymns specially selected for the reason
+that I had chanced to drop in?"
+
+Mr. Osborn stopped work, looked round quickly, and his face was all
+bright and eager.
+
+"No. But did you feel there was a special message to you in them?"
+
+"I wouldn't put it quite like that," said Dale guardedly.
+
+"Because it so often happens. It has happened again and again--to my
+own knowledge."
+
+"You'll understand, Mr. Osborn, that I didn't take them as any way
+personal to myself--certainly not any way offensive; but it occurred
+to me that it might perhaps be the habit whenever a stranger dropped
+in to pick out hymns of strength, with a view to shaking him and
+warming him up, as it were."
+
+The pastor resumed his work. "Those hymns were given out the day
+before--Saturday. Sister Eldridge had asked for one hundred and
+twenty-six; number six hundred and fifty-nine was, as far as I
+remember, also bespoken; and I chose number one hundred and ten
+myself--because it is a great favorite of mine. So you see, Mr. Dale,
+at the time we settled on those hymns, we did not know that you were
+coming--and perhaps you did not know it yourself."
+
+"I did not know it," said Dale.
+
+"Tell me," said Mr. Osborn, "how doubt has assailed you."
+
+"Ah, there you put me a puzzling one;" and Dale puffed at his pipe
+laboriously.
+
+"You oughtn't to doubt, you know. You have what men prize--wife,
+children, and home. You thrive, and the world smiles on you."
+
+"Yes, I'm more than solvent. I hope to leave Mrs. Dale and the babes
+secure."
+
+"But you don't feel secure yourself?"
+
+"I banked a matter of seven hundred last year."
+
+"You know I didn't mean that." Mr. Osborn worked briskly, and sent the
+shavings almost to the ceiling. "But still--lots of men have told me
+that material prosperity renders faith easy and doubt difficult.
+That's the awful danger of trouble--the danger of thinking that God
+has deserted us. It's easiest to recognize His hand when all's going
+well with us. That's our poor human nature. And then when our sorrows
+come, it's the devil's innings, and he'll whisper: 'Where's God now?
+He isn't treating you very kindly, is He, in return for all your
+praying and kneeling and believing?'"
+
+"Yes, that just hits the nail on the head. It was what I said--at a
+period when trouble fell upon me. It was how the doubt came in and the
+belief went out. And nowadays, when, as you mention, things run smooth
+and I know I've much to be thankful for, the doubt holds firm. For one
+thing prob'bly, I read a great deal; I've crammed my head with
+science; can't ever have enough of it. But, of course, I'm but an
+ignorant man compared with you."
+
+"Oh, no."
+
+"Yes. I bow down to education--whenever I meet it. I needn't
+apologize--because I hadn't many advantages. I try to make up by
+application. I read, and I'm always thinking--and having mastered the
+rudiments of science, I can look with some comprehension at the whole
+scheme of nature. With the result that, viewing my own affairs in the
+same spirit that I view the whole bag of tricks, I ask myself that
+same old question of _Q. I. Bono._"
+
+"What's that?"
+
+"That's Latin," said Dale. "_Q. I. Bono._"
+
+"Oh, yes--exactly."
+
+"Where's the good? Whatever one has, it isn't enough if this life is
+all we've got to look to and there's nothing beyond it."
+
+Mr. Osborn had let the wheels run down. He came and sat opposite to
+Dale, and spoke very quietly.
+
+"There is everything beyond it."
+
+"And supposing that's so, one's difficulty begins bigger than before.
+It's the life-risk a million times larger all over again--success or
+failure, punishment or peace."
+
+"That's better than what happened to the match you threw into the
+fender--extinction."
+
+"I want to believe. Mr. Osborne, I wish to speak with honesty. I feel
+the need to believe. If you can make me believe, you'll do me a great
+service."
+
+"The service will be done, but it won't be I who does it."
+
+"I want to be saved. I want the day when you can tell me I have gained
+everlasting salvation."
+
+"The day will come; but it will not be my voice that tells you."
+
+Mr. Osborn got up to fetch one of the six shabby volumes, and when he
+had returned to his chair he went on talking.
+
+"What you should do is to take things quietly. You are a fine
+specimen, Mr. Dale, muscularly; but your nerves aren't quite so grand
+as your muscles." He said this just as doctors talk to patients, and
+as if Dale had been speaking of his bodily health. "Don't worry--and
+don't hurry. And I'd like to read you a passage here, to set your
+thoughts on the right line.... Well, well, I fancied I'd put a
+paper-mark. I shall only garble it if I try to quote from memory. It
+was Doctor Clifford, speaking about Jesus at our last Autumn Assembly.
+He says Jesus never put God forward as a severe judge, or hard
+taskmaster, but as His Father.... Ah, here we are. May I read it?"
+
+"Yes, I wish to hear it."
+
+"'God is Father; He is our Father. To Him'--speaking of Jesus--'and to
+us God is Father, and that means that we are in a deep and real sense
+His children, and, being children, then brothers to each other; for if
+God must be interpreted in terms of fatherhood, then man will never be
+interpreted accurately until he is interpreted in the terms of
+brotherhood.'" Mr. Osborn closed the book and laid his hand on Dale's
+knee. "How does that strike you, Brother Dale?"
+
+"It strikes me as beautifully worded--Brother Osborn."
+
+"That's how I want you to think of Him. A Father's love. Nothing
+strange nor new about it. Just what you used to be thinking as a boy,
+coming home to Father."
+
+"I can't remember my father," said Dale simply. "He died when I was a
+baby, and mother married again. I only knew a stepfather."
+
+"Then you'll know the real thing now, if you join us." Mr. Osborn
+beamed cheerfully. "Understand, I don't press you. Why should I? The
+pressure behind you is not of this earth; and if it's there, as I
+think it is, you'll no more resist it than the iron bolt resists the
+steam-ram. But what's steam and _horse_-power?" And he beamed all over
+his face. "This is ten thousand _angel_-power to the square inch."
+
+The rain began as Dale walked up the village street, in which no light
+except that of the public lamps was now showing. It fell sharply as he
+emerged into the open country, and then abruptly ceased. The odor of
+dust that has been partially moistened rose from the roadway; some
+dead leaves scurried in the ditch with a sound of small animals
+running for shelter; and he felt a heavy, tepid air upon his face, as
+if some large invisible person was breathing on him.
+
+Then the heavens opened, and a flood of light came pouring down. The
+thunder seemed simultaneous with the flash. It was a crashing roar
+that literally shook the ground. It was as if, without prelude or
+warning, every house in England had fallen, every gun fired, and every
+powder-magazine blown up. Dale stood still, trying to steady himself
+after the shock, and ascertaining that his eyes had not been blinded
+nor the drums of his ears broken.
+
+Then he walked on slowly, watching the storm. The lightning flooded
+and forked, the thunder boomed and banged; and it seemed to Dale that
+the whole world had been turned upside down. When one looked up at the
+illuminated sky, one seemed to be looking down at a mountainous
+landscape. The clouds, rent apart, torn, and shattered, were like
+masses of high hills, inky black on the summits, with copper-colored
+precipices and glistening purple slopes; and in remote depths of the
+valleys, where there should have been lakes of water, there were lakes
+of fire. In the intervals between the flashes, when suddenly the sky
+became dark, one had a sensation that the earth had swung right again,
+and that it was now under one's feet as usual instead of being over
+one's head.
+
+Dale plodding along thought of all he had read about thunder-storms.
+It was quite true, what he said to Norah. Lightning strikes the
+highest object. That was why trees had got such a bad name for
+themselves; although, as a fact, you were often a jolly sight safer
+under a tree than out in the open. Salisbury Plain, he had read, was
+the most dangerous place in England; for the reason that, because of
+its bareness, it made a six-foot man as conspicuous, upstanding an
+object as a church tower or a factory chimney would be elsewhere. And
+he thought that if any cattle had been left out in those wide flat
+fields near the Baptist Chapel, they were now in great peril. Mav's
+cows were all safe under cover.
+
+Then, stimulated by a new thought, he began to walk faster. He hurried
+on until he came to the middle of the flats; then, gropingly through
+the darkness, and swiftly through the light, he made his way to a gate
+that he had just seen standing high and solid between the low field
+banks. He climbed the gate, a leg on each side, to the top bar but
+one; and there, easily balancing himself, he stood high above every
+other object.
+
+And he thought: "If I am to be killed, I shall be killed now. I stand
+here at God's pleasure, to take me or leave me."
+
+He carefully observed the lightning. It fell like a live shot, a
+discharge of artillery aimed at a fixed point, and then bursting
+seemed to go out in all directions till it faded with a widespread
+glare. During this final glare after each discharge the land to its
+farthest horizon leaped into view. Thus he saw all at once the Baptist
+Chapel several hundred yards away, but seeming to be close ahead of
+him, much bigger than it actually was, looking familiar and yet
+strange--looking like the ark waiting to be floated as soon as the
+deluge should begin. At the same moment he saw the stones in the road,
+blades of grass at the side of the ditch, and nails on the gate-post
+near his foot.
+
+He stood calmly surveying the tremendous pageant, and thought in each
+roar and crash: "This must be the climax."
+
+That last flash had crimson streamers, and it swamped the road with
+violet waves. The fury and the splendor of the thing was overwhelming.
+Was it brought about by Nature's forces or God's machinery?
+Titanic--like a struggle between the divine and the evil power--some
+fresh rebellion of Satan just reported up there, and God, rightly
+indignant, giving the devil what for--or God angry with _man_! Very
+magnificent, whatever way you regarded it.
+
+The worst was over, and gradually the storm began to roll away.
+Holding his hands high above his head, he felt the rain-drops beat
+upon them, saw the lightning soften and grow pale, heard the thunder
+booming more gently, grumbling, whispering--as if it had been the
+voice of the Maker of heaven and earth, murmuring in sleep.
+
+Such a storm had naturally disturbed everything. Mavis and Norah were
+trembling on the lamplit threshold; horses rattled their head-stalls
+and stamped in the stables; even the bees were frightened in their
+hives. And a cock, thinking that so much light and noise must mean
+morning, had begun to crow hours before the proper time.
+
+Dale, listening to the cock's crow while he told Mavis he was safe and
+sound, thought of Peter, the well-meaning man who wanted to believe
+but could not always do so.
+
+
+
+
+XX
+
+
+When the time came for Dale to be baptized Mr. Osborn offered to
+perform the ceremony at dawn in the stream that runs through Hadleigh
+Wood; but Dale refused the offer. He said he would much prefer to have
+it done within four walls, in the evening, at what he supposed to be
+the usual place, the chapel. He added an expression of the hope that
+there would not be many people there.
+
+"There would only be a few of ourselves, true-hearted ones, in either
+event," said Mr. Osborn; "and out of doors is not unusual. I did it
+that way for George Hitching a year ago. We took him down to Kib Pool,
+and waited till the sun rose. Then in he went."
+
+And without urging Dale to change his mind, Mr. Osborn in a few words
+touched off the beauty of this baptismal scene. He described how the
+dew was like diamonds on the grass, and they stood all among the
+shadows, and the rising sun seemed to touch George Hitching's head
+before it touched anything else. "Then we and the birds began to sing
+together. I promise you it was uncommonly pretty, as well as very
+moving."
+
+Nevertheless, Dale remained quite firm. That idea of Hadleigh Wood at
+dawn held no attraction for him.
+
+So far he had said nothing of all this to Mavis, but now one night
+after supper he broached the subject. He had laid down his knife and
+fork, and she had brought him the tobacco jar. He sat filling his pipe
+slowly, and then instead of lighting it he put it meditatively aside.
+
+"Mavis, something has happened which will probably surprise you. I
+have found religion again."
+
+"Oh, Will, I am glad."
+
+Mavis was delighted; but when he told her that he was about to join
+the Baptists she did not feel so well pleased. She scarcely knew what
+to say. Why should he want to take the creed of dissenters, of quite
+common people? It was all very well for farm-laborers, sempstresses,
+and servants; but it did not seem good enough for her Will. Socially
+it was without doubt a retrograde step; and nowadays, when he got on
+capitally with the best of the gentlefolk, when they were all jolly
+and nice to him, it did seem a pity to go and mix himself up with a
+pack of ignorant underlings. The gentry, who of course all belonged to
+the Church of England, would not like it any better than she herself.
+
+Moreover, that notion of total immersion was extremely repugnant to
+her. A grown-up person, an important person, a member of the District
+Council, splashing about in a tank! She asked him many questions
+concerning the baptism itself, and he told her all that he knew about
+it. He did not tell her, however, of Mr. Osborn's proposal that the
+immersion should occur in the wood-stream.
+
+"What took your fancy, Will dear, with Mr. Osborn's teaching more than
+anybody else's?"
+
+Then he told her all that Mr. Osborn had said of the fatherly
+attributes of God, of the fact that men were veritably His children,
+and that for communion with God one must be as a child approaching a
+father.
+
+"Yes, dear, I'm sure that's true. But Mr. Norton would say just the
+same."
+
+"He never _has_ said it, Mav. That is, I never heard him say it."
+
+"Perhaps in those days you didn't note his words. I'm not arguing,
+dear. You must do whatever you judge right, and it will be right for
+me--if once you've done it. Only I do assure you what you repeated is
+altogether Church of England; and I feel certain Mr. Norton must have
+said it times and often."
+
+"Then perhaps he hasn't said it quite in the same way."
+
+When the evening arrived Mavis asked if she might come to the chapel,
+but he said "No." Her presence would distract his thoughts.
+
+"Very well, dear, I'll stay here. I shall say a prayer for you. I may
+do that?"
+
+"Yes, please do that."
+
+Throughout the ceremony, and afterward, he was very grave and
+dignified, plainly taking the whole matter with the most profound
+seriousness. He was silent and solemn throughout the rest of the
+evening; but he slept extraordinarily well at night. There were no
+dreams, no disturbances of any kind. He lay motionless, sleeping as
+peacefully as a little child.
+
+Tender thoughts filled the mind of his wife as she watched him. She
+thought of the ugly chapel, those stupid illiterate people, the dark
+water, the splashing and the noise; the clumsy absurdness of the whole
+rite; and yet, in spite of everything, she now felt the essential
+beauty of the idea itself. It seemed to her most beautiful when
+applied to this particular case--the strong brave man who in spirit
+and heart has made himself simple and guileless as a child, to be
+taken back to the Eternal Father of all children.
+
+
+
+
+XXI
+
+
+Outwardly his religion sat lightly on him, but inwardly it was solid
+and real. He took to reading aloud one chapter of the Gospel every
+night, and soon made a habit of adding a brief extempore prayer for
+the benefit of Mary, Norah Veale, and Mrs. Goudie, who regularly came
+from the kitchen to hear him. His reading and praying formed, of
+course, a marked innovation; but beyond it there were very few
+perceptible changes that could be traced to the fresh phase of mind
+into which he had now entered. And these few changes were traced or
+perceived by only one person, his wife.
+
+Mavis saw with satisfaction that the gentlefolk did not seemed to be
+huffed. Orders came in from several of those old-fashioned people who
+had hitherto held aloof, but who perhaps were at present generous
+enough to think that if you don't go to church, the next best thing is
+to go to chapel. The Baptists were not therefore standing in his way:
+they had caused no check to his success.
+
+He bought all the corn and hay which the neighboring farms could spare
+to sell, so that what others had grown and cut for miles round was
+carted straight into his rick-yard. During the hay harvest he appeared
+especially grand, riding about the fields on his horse, grave and
+watchful, really like a prince with vassals hard at work for him as
+far as the eye could see. On the last day he entertained the farmers
+to dinner in the best parlor, and afterward they all stood in the
+front garden, smoking cigars and praising Mrs. Dale's roses and
+carnations.
+
+Mavis too gave parties; but she as a rule exercised her hospitality at
+the back of the house, where the little court and the petitioners'
+bench near the kitchen door were more fully occupied than ever. Here
+took place the annual summer tea-party for the cottage women, when
+Mavis was quite like some squire's wife, being courtesied to,
+receiving votes of thanks, and taking innocent pleasure in the
+proudness of her position. A far bigger and more difficult affair was
+when she invited all the children from the Orphanage. Long trestle
+tables for the girls were set out on the grass paths of the kitchen
+garden, with a separate and more stately table for the matrons and
+governesses; urns had been borrowed, seats hired, mountains of food
+and fruit got ready; and nevertheless the heart of Mavis almost failed
+her when the two-and-two procession of blue-coated orphans began to
+arrive. It seemed endless, an army, and she felt that she had
+attempted something too big for her resources. However, everything
+went off splendidly. The orphans whooped for joy as they broke their
+formation and spread out, through the garden, far into the meadows.
+Out there they looked like large bluebells; and at tea, when their
+cloaks had been removed and their brown frocks showed, they looked
+like locusts. Locusts could scarcely have eaten more. After tea Dale's
+men came from the yard and brought the piano out of the house, and
+Mrs. Dale played with stiff fingers while Norah Veale, Rachel, and the
+orphans danced on the flags and up and down the grass paths. The poor
+little orphans stayed late, and left regretfully. They said it had
+been the treat of their lives.
+
+But the most interesting party and the one that Mavis enjoyed most
+came upon her unexpectedly.
+
+One week Mr. Druitt the higgler failed to pay his usual visit, and
+there was conjecture in the Vine-Pits kitchen as to the reason of his
+absence. He had never before allowed a week to pass without a call.
+Mavis asked Mary if he had written to her explaining his absence; and
+Mary said no, and that she felt very anxious.
+
+But next week he turned up, gay, jovial, looking ten years younger. He
+stood just inside the kitchen door, smiled at all, and winked most
+archly at Mary.
+
+"See this, Mary?" And he pointed to the band of black crape on his
+arm. "Know what that means, Mary?" Then he turned to Mavis. "I call
+her Mary now, because I can do it with a clear conscience, ma'am. I
+buried Mrs. Druitt yesterday."
+
+This meant a marriage feast for Mary; nor would the higgler permit of
+the least delay in its preparation. He was ardent to taste the
+felicity that had been so long postponed, and refused to listen to any
+appeals that might be addressed to his sense of propriety, the respect
+due to the departed, and so forth. Dale, inclined to say he would not
+put up with Druitt's nonsense, was overborne; chiefly because Mary,
+having been greatly scared by a facetious remark of her lover, at once
+took his part in the dispute. He had said, when she pleaded with him
+for a reasonable breathing-space, that he knew of as many other
+red-cheeked maids as there were morris-apples at akering-time. Mary
+then bustled with her trousseau, of which the cost was defrayed by the
+Dales.
+
+The charm of that party was its homelike, almost patriarchal
+character. A Saturday had been chosen to suit everybody's convenience,
+and the fickle June weather was kind to them. One long table was set
+out on the flags, in the shade of the house wall, close to the kitchen
+and the hot dishes; and the meal, which was substantial and lavish,
+lasted from about half-past three till five o'clock. Dale sat at the
+head of the table with his wife and the newly married couple; then
+there were a coachman and his daughter, and the higgler's best man;
+then Norah Veale and the children, and further off Mrs. Goudie, the
+dairymaid, and all the men from the yard. Mr. Bates had been asked,
+but he would not come. Abe Veale came unasked, to Nora's shame and
+indignation.
+
+"I thought," he said, "as Norrer's true farder, and owing my life to
+him who is her adapted farder, and so well beknown to Miss Parsons,
+that I wouldn't be otherwise than welcome."
+
+"You are welcome," said Dale quietly. "Be seated." And Norah felt
+intensely grateful to Dale and intensely disgusted with her parent.
+
+They ate and drank and laughed; and Norah was sweet with the children,
+taking them away before they had gorged themselves. Outside the shadow
+of the wall one had the vivid beauty of flowers, the perfume of fruit,
+and the lively play of the sunlight; with glimpses through the foliage
+of smooth meadow, sloped arable, and distant heath; the firm ground
+beneath them, the open sky above them, and all around them the
+contented atmosphere of home. All these things together confirmed
+Mavis in the feeling that she had reached the apotheosis of her
+party-giving.
+
+At the bottom of the table there was of course slight excess. The fun
+down there became rather broad. And old Mrs. Goudie made jokes which
+she reserved solely for weddings, and which she had better have kept
+to herself even then.
+
+Dale proposed the bride's health, and spoke in the dignified easy
+style of a man who is accustomed to addressing large audiences, but
+who is tactfully able to reduce the compass of his voice and the
+weight of his manner for friendly informal gatherings. He was only
+heavy--and not a bit too heavy--when he thanked Mary for the kindness
+she had always shown to him and his. Then he pointed to the gold
+locket that was his wedding present, and said that when she wore that
+round her neck, as she was wearing it now, "it reposed on a loyal,
+faithful heart." This caused Mary to weep.
+
+The opening of the higgler's speech was in deplorable taste--all about
+widowers making the best husbands. He said, "Widowers know what to
+expect; so they ain't disappointed. And if they've suffered in their
+first venture, it's an easy job for Number Two to please 'em;" and he
+winked to right and left. Mavis and Dale were looking uncomfortable.
+Fortunately, however, the speech improved toward the end of it.
+
+"All I ask of Mary is to look nice--and that she can't help doing,
+bless her bonny face; to speak nice--and that she can do if she tries,
+and copies Mrs. Dale; and to act nice--and in that she'll have an
+example under her eyes, for I mean to act uncommon nice to her."
+
+When, winking and bowing, he resumed his seat by Mary's side, the
+applause from the bottom of the table was vociferous. "Brayvo. He hev
+a said it smart. Never 'eard it better worded. Well done, Mr. Druitt."
+
+Half the flowers had lost their color in the extending shadow of the
+house before Mr. and Mrs. Druitt drove away. The higgler's pony
+groaned between the shafts of a cart that was much too big for him;
+rice and old shoes struck the wheels; Mrs. Goudie made her last joke;
+the men at the yard gate shouted; Norah and the children ran a little
+way along the road--and then the party was over.
+
+After a few days Mr. Druitt called exactly as usual to offer good
+bacon. "Mornin', ma'am. Mary sends her love, and the message that
+she's as happy as the day is long."
+
+"And I hope," said Mavis, "that you are happy too, Mr. Druitt."
+
+"Mrs. Dale," he said, "I don't reco'nize myself. When I think of the
+past and the present--"
+
+Mavis stopped him. He was of course going to disparage Number One, and
+she felt that to be so horrid of him.
+
+
+
+
+XXII
+
+
+The new housemaid was adequately filling Mary's place, and life at
+Vine-Pits as of old ran smoothly on. With increasing means the Dales
+still refrained from frivolous additions to household expenditure.
+Neither craved for further pomp or luxury; both took pleasure in
+amassing rather than in squandering.
+
+To get up early, work hard, and go to bed thoroughly tired--all this
+Mavis took for granted as a correct and undeviating program for one's
+days. Indeed in her complete satisfaction she tended naturally to a
+mental attitude that was taking for granted all phenomena, whether
+objective or subjective. The visible comforts of her home, the love of
+her husband, the bliss of being the mother of two perfect children,
+together with her contented thoughts in relation to each and all of
+these matters, were accepted as so intimately connected with the prime
+fact of her existence itself that no fear of possible disturbance or
+cessation ever troubled her. She no more thought of a break in the
+grand routine of placid joy than she thought of leaving off the
+process by which she filled and emptied her lungs when breathing.
+
+As perhaps is usual with the majority of successful people, she never
+considered whether the hour had not come for diminishing the effort
+that was producing the success. They had fixed no goal which when
+reached should be a resting-place as well as a winning-post.
+
+They were working for the future. The money they earned was for then,
+and not for now. But she very rarely thought of this remote period;
+and when she did, it was with absolute vagueness. A lot of money would
+be required for the children; and eventually she and Will would be
+old, feeble, unable to go on working, and then a modest amount of
+money would be required for themselves.
+
+Always in her early dreams of affluence she had pictured holidays, the
+excitement of traveling, and rapid changes of scene; yet, although
+since they first came to Vine-Pits they had not been away for a single
+staying holiday, she had no sense of missing something that might have
+been enjoyed. It would be absurd to drag Dale away from home while he
+was so busy. For herself it seemed quite sufficient change and
+excitement to drive over to Old Manninglea for an afternoon's severe
+shopping about six times a year.
+
+Now, of a sudden, Dale himself offered to give her a day out at the
+very first opportunity. Little Rachel had never seen the sea, and
+expressed a strong desire to look upon the wonders of the deep; so
+daddy promised to take her and her mother to Rodhaven Pier directly he
+was free enough to do so. In the end he chose a Sunday for this treat,
+saying that the better the day the better the deed.
+
+He came out of chapel before the sermon; they dined at noon, and
+started in good time to catch the train at Rodchurch Road. At the
+moment of departure, when the horse and wagonette stood ready, and
+Dale in his silk hat, black coat, and dogskin gloves was about to
+mount the box-seat, the boy Billy began to howl most pitifully because
+he was being left behind. Mavis, whose heartstrings were torn by the
+sight of her angel's tears and the sound of his yells, looked at Dale
+appealingly.
+
+"All right," said Dale. "Will you behave yourself, Billy, if we take
+you?"
+
+But this meant taking Norah too, because obviously Mavis could not
+manage both children unaided.
+
+"Norah," said Dale, impressively, "I give you two minutes, and no
+more, to get yourself and the boy ready."
+
+Mavis, overjoyed, put Rachel in the back of the wagonette, took her
+seat by her husband's side, and with sprightly chat endeavored to make
+two long minutes seem two short ones.
+
+"How nice the horse looks! Will, I do feel we are all in luck. Such a
+fine day too. Do you think your top hat is necessary? Wouldn't you be
+more comfortable in your straw?"
+
+"May be--but I don't think it would be the thing," said Dale. "We
+shall be sure to meet a lot of people we know."
+
+"I only thought you'd get it so dusty. Is it your best or the old
+one?"
+
+He did not answer, because just then Norah and Billy came rushing down
+the garden path.
+
+It proved an altogether delightful excursion. There was so little in
+it really, and yet long years afterward Mavis sometimes thought of it
+as perhaps the happiest day of her life. They drove through Rodchurch,
+past the post office, the church, and other interesting sights; then
+along the broader road beneath big trees, to the railway station.
+Billy sat between his parents, and did not behave too well, wriggling,
+contorting himself, threatening to jump out, and even grabbing for
+the reins.
+
+"It's his excitement," said Norah.
+
+"Yes, it's his excitement," said Mavis; and she and Norah talked
+reassuringly, as if to each other, but really at Dale. "He'll be all
+right, Norah, when he has had his run about."
+
+"Yes," sad Norah sagely, "children are like that. They must let off
+steam. As soon as they're tired they remember their manners and behave
+nicely."
+
+At the Station Inn Dale put up the horse and trap, and the journey was
+pursued by rail.
+
+The brightness and gaiety of Rodhaven charmed them all. They seemed to
+get out of the train into another climate, another world. Everything
+was new and strange--blazing sun with a wind that made you as cool as
+a cucumber; crowds and crowds of people, Salvation Army band,
+procession of volunteers; and the pier, the streamers, the sea--and
+the _sands_.
+
+Rachel scarcely glanced at Ocean's face: the sands were enough for
+her. They got away from the crowd, and played on the sands. Dale was
+so jolly with the children, running about, sportively chasing them,
+hunting for shells, popping the buds of seaweed; while Mavis sat on a
+dry bit of rock, looking large, red, overblown, and adored her family.
+The little boy soon became, frankly, a nuisance, wanting his sister's
+shells, refusing to catch daddy, wishing to paddle in his boots; and
+Dale, testy at last, very hot and perspiring said: "Ma lad, if you
+wear out my patience, you'll suffer for your conduct."
+
+Then, almost at the same moment, Dale's top hat blew off; and a mad
+chase ensued. The hat, like a live thing with the devil in it,
+bounded and curvetted wildly, doubled away from Dale, dodged Rachel,
+and sprang right over Norah's head, threatening to make for the open
+sea. Mavis had scrambled up; and she stood on the rock, a tragic
+figure, with a finger to her lip, watching the hat chase distractedly.
+Norah caught the hat in the end, and it was really not much the worse
+for its gambol.
+
+Mavis' first words were, "Is it your best?"
+
+"No," gasped Dale, very much out of breath; "my second-best."
+
+"Thank goodness," said Mavis.
+
+They made a fine solid meal at tea in a vast refreshment-hall on the
+sands; Mavis and Norah, with their hats on adjacent chairs and their
+hair untidy, helping the little ones to top and tail the first shrimps
+that they had ever encountered; Dale eating heaps of shrimps and
+drinking cup after cup of tea. The wind blew sand against the glass
+front of the hall--the smell of the sea mingled with the smell of the
+shrimps--and they were absolutely happy. But when all felt replete the
+boy began to cry, and soon howled. "I wis' I lived here always, yes, I
+do."
+
+"O Billy, you like home best."
+
+"No, I don't. I like this best. I hate home;" and he bellowed.
+
+"He's getting tired," said Norah sagely.
+
+"Yes," said Mavis. "That's all it is. He's getting tired."
+
+He fell asleep directly they got into the lamplit train; and Norah
+carried him from the station, carried him all the time the horse was
+being put to and they were getting ready to leave. "He's too much for
+you," said Dale kindly. "Give him to me."
+
+"Oh, no, sir."
+
+And Dale whispered approvingly to Mavis, saying that he liked Norah's
+grit.
+
+Then they drove home; Norah behind with the children, both of them
+sleeping now; and Dale and Mavis side by side in front, talking
+quietly as they passed beneath the dark trees and out beneath the
+bright stars.
+
+
+
+
+XXIII
+
+
+Norah was a treasure to them, and she seemed always to be improving.
+She had done with school now, but she evinced a commendable yearning
+for further cultivation, buying copy-books with her pocket-money,
+imitating Dale's clerkly hand; so that already at a pinch she was able
+to help in the office work. But proud as she felt when permitted to
+copy out accounts or circular letters, her pride did not spoil her for
+household labor. In fact she worked so stanchly at scrubbing,
+scouring, and so forth, as well as looking after the children, that
+for a long while Mavis did not detect how poor old Mrs. Goudie was
+failing, and leaving nearly all her duties to be performed by others.
+Moreover, in spite of having issued from the untidy hovel of those
+rammucky Veales, she showed an innate love of cleanliness and order,
+assiduously brushing her black hair and scrupulously washing her white
+skin.
+
+Only very rarely she gave a little trouble, and then both Dale and his
+wife attributed this naughtiness to the Veale origin, finding the
+explanation of a certain wildness in that strain of gipsy blood which,
+as was popularly supposed, ran down her pedigree. She disgraced
+herself when the circus menagerie passed the gates of Vine-Pits. She
+stood firm with the rest of them watching the great painted vans go
+by, and the droves of horses, and the tiny ponies; but when the
+elephants came she broke away. The size, the weirdness, the shuffling
+footsteps of these beasts made her beside herself. A lot of ragged
+children with great wicked-looking hobbledehoys from the Cross Roads,
+were trotting after the elephants; and Norah, joining this
+disreputable band, trotted also. She went all the way to Rodchurch,
+saw the immense tent set up on the Common, and probably crept inside
+to see the entertainment. She did not return for six hours, not till
+after dark.
+
+Another thing that made Mavis anxious and angry was Norah's
+ineradicable love of the woods. She never deserted work, but, if
+allowed any time to herself, she would go stealing off into Hadleigh
+Wood to pick flowers or bring back birds' eggs for the children. She
+knew perfectly well that she was to keep to the road or the field
+tracks, but the sylvan depths seemed to call her and she could not
+resist the call.
+
+Once when Norah had been troublesome in this respect, Mavis was so
+angry that she threatened her with corporal punishment.
+
+"Look here, my lass," said Mavis, unconsciously founding herself on
+the manner of her husband when administering rebuke, "if you can't
+obey what I tell you, I shall ask Mr. Dale to chastise you--yes, my
+lass, to give you a lesson you won't forget in a hurry." Norah hung
+her head and pouted. Then she looked up and spoke firmly.
+
+"He wouldn't do it. He's too kind."
+
+"Oh, yes, he would. Don't you make a mistake about that."
+
+"He _wouldn't_." Norah's eyes flashed; she stamped her foot, and
+turned on Mavis quite fiercely. "He's so good that he wouldn't hurt a
+fly, much less beat a girl. You've no right to say it--behind his
+back--what you know isn't true."
+
+"Be off to your work this instant," said Mavis, stamping also, "or
+I'll whip you myself." And she pursued Norah to the kitchen. "You dare
+to sauce me like that again as long as you live!"
+
+Before the evening was over, Norah, completely contrite, begged to be
+forgiven for her rudeness; and Mavis was only too ready both to
+forgive and to forget. She had felt quite shocked and upset by the
+girl's tantrums.
+
+It was almost immediately after this that Norah said she wished to be
+a Baptist, and to go to chapel with Mr. Dale.
+
+"Do you think," asked Dale, when informed of Norah's petition, "that
+it is genuine? Or is it just curiosity?"
+
+"I think it's genuine," said Mavis. "But no doubt she is influenced by
+the fact that _you_ go there. I do believe she'd wish to go
+anywhere--or do anything that you did."
+
+Dale questioned Norah seriously.
+
+"Why do you wish it? Speak to me with freedom, my dear."
+
+"I do want to be good, sir." And Norah burst into tears. "Oh, I do
+want to be good."
+
+"Then come with me," said Dale.
+
+Henceforth they two went to worship together every Sunday, and Mavis
+once or twice felt a twinge of regret that she herself had not been
+able to abandon the established church and join the Baptists with her
+husband. But that she could not do. The chapel was too ugly, its
+eastward wall too bare, its faith too painfully simple and
+matter-of-fact.
+
+She took great pains with Norah's Sunday costume, dressing her better
+than before, anxious that the girl should do them credit when seen
+with Dale in a public place; and Norah, all in her best, following
+after her master as he made his long strides down the road, trotted
+like a faithful little dog. She sat beside him in one of the front
+benches, breathing hard, and following the text with her finger, while
+Mr. Osborn read the Bible; and she blended her birdlike trills with
+Dale's strong bass when they both stood up to sing the hymns. Dale
+liked the note of her voice, took pleasure in observing her piety, and
+thoroughly enjoyed expounding any difficulties in the sermon while
+they walked home to dinner or to supper.
+
+If Dale stood outside the chapel talking to elders of the flock, Norah
+modestly withdrew to a little distance; or if he met people on the
+road and stopped to chat, she went on ahead, waiting respectfully, and
+only returning to his side when he walked on again alone. He always
+kept his eye on her, and saw that she was not being accosted
+unpleasantly by any undesirable acquaintance.
+
+Once, when Dale had stopped thus to talk to Mr. Maghull, there were
+two field-laborers leaning against a gate and discussing people as
+they passed. Neither of them was a Baptist. One was a stupid old man,
+and his would-be-funny chatter, at which the other kept guffawing,
+bothered Dale in his serious conversation with Mr. Maghull.
+
+"Be that little Norrer Veale?"
+
+"I dunno."
+
+"I do think that's little Norrer Veale, but I ben't sure."
+
+"Yes, it is," said Dale, turning and speaking sharply. "What about
+her?"
+
+"Lord, how she's coming on," said the old man. "She's an advertisement
+to your larder, sir;" and he stared at the girl. "Fillin' out into all
+a piece o' goods, ben't un?" Then he laughed, in peasant style. "Give
+her another year or two and she'll be a blink to set some un o' fire
+pretty quick, if she gets hedge-row walkin'."
+
+Dale felt annoyed by this rustic criticism, but he knew that there was
+substantial truth in it. Norah was developing rapidly, and showed
+distinct comeliness. As he walked after her he noticed her figure. It
+was still very slender, but it had roundnesses that would soon become
+rounder, and graceful curves that would swell with an ampler grace
+every month till she reached full growth. He was pleased when he
+thought of the good food that she had received in return for her good
+work. He thought, too, that he must tell Mavis to be watchful and
+careful, a real guardian, when this childlike bud burst into
+womanhood.
+
+He felt a glow of indignation at the mere idea of harm coming to her
+while she was under their care. Hands off, there. Any louts who
+attempted tricks would have him, William Dale, to reckon with.
+
+For years Dale had been a bad sleeper, but now he was a good sleeper;
+and Mavis traced this change directly to the calming effect of his
+religion. There could be no question that the improvement dated from
+that night on which he was baptized. Since then he had not once been
+troubled with bad dreams, and habitually he slept so soundly that he
+required a lot of rousing in the morning. Another change, among those
+slight differences that she fancied she observed in him, was his
+abstraction when reading. Formerly he used to seem particularly alert
+and vigorous whenever he sat with an open book before him; his whole
+air was that of lively expectation; the features worked; he was
+waiting for a passage that he did not agree with. Nowadays he seemed
+to read in a completely receptive spirit, without questioning, without
+doubting; and his face reflected the quiet confidence that he was
+adopting with regard to the author. He never looked up, or stopped to
+read out anything that struck him; he had withdrawn himself from
+every-day life and given himself to the world of the book; you had to
+speak two or three times, and quite loudly, before you could drag him
+back to material facts.
+
+Still another change, and one that affected them both, Mavis did not
+altogether attribute to the revival of her husband's religious belief;
+but she thought that this had accelerated its progress and confirmed
+its finality. It had begun after the birth of her second child. Then
+it was that the love between husband and wife purified itself still
+further; and the refining process had continued; they had passed
+onward and upward until the beautiful new feelings seemed firmly
+established, and, without a word spoken, all the old passion had been
+allowed to fade. It was quite another joy now when they kissed or lay
+locked in each other's arms: they were a father and a mother, a
+brother and sister, comrades--but no longer lovers.
+
+She was surprised once or twice to find how calmly and contentedly she
+thought about all this; without the least regret for something that
+was and had ceased to be; and without a vestige of the confusion of
+ideas which makes women in their ripening years cling to all belonging
+or seeming to belong to vanished youth, and to suffer under the loss
+of anything they possessed then, even though a better thing has come
+to them in its place. She was a woman completing her destined course;
+and so that the cycle-curve swept on unbroken, she would be as happy
+on the downward sweep as when the sweep was rising.
+
+But in these days, in spite of her mental tranquillity, she could not
+sleep well at night; she tossed and turned, muttered and started, as
+if the dreams and restlessness that had gone out of Will had found
+their way into her. For this reason they generally occupied different
+beds, and sometimes different rooms.
+
+Throughout this period while Mrs. Dale's bodily health was not on its
+normal level of excellence, Norah showed magnificent grit and
+altogether proved worth her weight in gold.
+
+Dale always remembered the night when she came to his room, and, after
+much beating on the door and calling him by name, at last succeeded in
+waking him. Mavis, who had unfortunately caught cold the day before,
+was now taken with violent colic, and suffering such pain that she
+could not restrain her groans and screams. Ethel, the new maid, was
+scared out of her wits by the sight of her afflicted mistress; Dale
+himself was alarmed; neither of them could do anything. But Norah did
+it all. She had sprung out of bed just as she was, rushed to the scene
+of disorder, snatched up the mistress' keys, then had procured and
+administered brandy. Then she rushed down-stairs again, lighted the
+fire, and began to boil water and to get flannel for hot compresses.
+
+Dale came down to the kitchen presently, and said that his wife was
+feeling easier; the brandy had done her good. Then, the anxiety having
+lessened, his attention was held by Norah's scanty attire. She was in
+her night-dress and nothing more, and even this garment was not
+sufficiently fastened; her black hair was tumbling loose about her
+shoulders, and she pattered here and there across the stone floor on
+her bare feet.
+
+He began to chide her, rather irritably. "You little fool, do you want
+to catch a chill as well--so's to make two invalids instead of one?
+Here, put on my jacket."
+
+"Oh, no, Mr. Dale."
+
+"Do as I tell you. Besides, it--well, it isn't seemly to be running
+about half naked."
+
+Norah flushed red in the candle-light, and clutched at her
+night-dress. Then she hastily put on Dale's jacket, which swamped her,
+going far down below her hips and making her seem a wonderfully
+strange figure.
+
+Next morning, when she was bringing him his breakfast, he talked to
+her of what had "passed a few hours ago."
+
+"Norah, my dear, I'm sorry I spoke sharply to you--just when you were
+doing all that you possibly could for us. But, you know, I didn't mean
+it a bit unkind."
+
+"Oh, no, sir," said Norah, shyly.
+
+It's only that I'm always a stickler for etiquette--and that sort of
+thing. I do so like what I call seemly conduct."
+
+"Yes, sir. I was ashamed the moment you spoke;" and Norah blushed
+again. "But truly I hadn't thought, sir. If I'd given it a thought,
+I'd never have done it."
+
+"No, you didn't think. And there's nothing on earth for you to be
+ashamed of. Far be it from me to put thoughts into your innocent
+little noddle which needn't come there yet a while. You'll
+understand--and it'll just be instinct to you then--that what's right
+for children is a bit odd and startling for those who're older. Now
+don't think any more about it."
+
+"I don't want to, sir--if you say so;" and Norah smiled comfortably
+once more.
+
+She made and laid his early breakfast for him every morning until
+Mavis was well enough to come down to do it herself, and Dale had
+never been better waited on or seen a daintier way of arranging a
+table. She always gave him a napkin, which was an unusual luxury, and
+she folded it in fantastic shapes; moreover, undeterred by the notions
+of economy or caution natural in a proprietor, she brought out pieces
+of the bettermost china that were rarely used by Mavis; she set one of
+the smallest and very best afternoon tea-cloths in such a manner that
+it looked like a diamond instead of a square, and on this, as central
+decoration, she placed a blue bowl full of flowers. Then, too, she had
+requisitioned the silver-plated cake basket for the newly-baked
+bannocks. The silver basket gave a touch of splendor that really made
+the table seem as if its proper situation was a grand London
+restaurant or a nobleman's mansion.
+
+"You want to spoil me, Norah," said Dale, watching her. Then he
+laughed. "But, my dear, all these pretty trickings and ornamentations
+are fairly wasted on me."
+
+"No, they aren't," said Norah, breathing hard, seeming to purr with
+pleasure. "They can't be wasted, if you've noticed them, Mr. Dale;"
+and as she lifted her head, she shook back the dark curling hair from
+her forehead. "P'raps they'd be wasted if you didn't know they were
+there."
+
+"Oh, we rough old chaps don't require such prettiness about them."
+
+Norah displayed her small white teeth in a broadening smile; then she
+looked at the revered master thoughtfully.
+
+"Why do you say you're _old_? You aren't really old, Mr. Dale."
+
+"Oh, aren't I? I wonder what you call old, lassie."
+
+"I call father old, and Mr. Bates--and Mrs. Goudie."
+
+"Well, I mayn't be as old as them--as they; but I think I'm like the
+walnut tree out there. I still stand up straight, but I fear me I've
+seen my best days.... There! What are you up to now?"
+
+She was lugging and pushing the great porter's chair from its corner.
+
+"I don't want that."
+
+"It's your chair, so why shouldn't you sit in it at breakfast as well
+as supper?" She brought it to the table, and looked at him over the
+back of it shyly, yet with a kind of defiance--much as his own
+children looked at him when they had made up their minds to be cheeky.
+"It's quite an old man's chair, sir--so it'll suit you nicely."
+
+He sat in the chair, amused by her impudence, but holding up his
+finger with mock reproof. She had run to the kitchen door, and she
+stood there for a moment laughing merrily. "Oh, you do look all a
+gran'father in that chair, Mr. Dale. You do, indeed."
+
+Next moment she was singing at her work outside in the kitchen. Then
+there came a silence; her shadow passed the window, and he guessed
+that she was taking a circuitous route to the room up-stairs where the
+children and Ethel were busily engaged in toilet operations. Rather
+than risk disturbing him at his breakfast by coming through here, she
+had gone right round the house and in again at the front door. She was
+always like that--always thinking of other people's comfort, never
+sparing her own labor.
+
+Then he heard her voice at a distance somewhere near the cowhouse. She
+had not gone up-stairs after all; she had gone out there on dairy
+business. Soon she came singing back--singing, he thought, as blithely
+as a lark; just as sweetly and tunefully as any bird one could name.
+
+Other people as well as Dale noticed the freshness and unforced music
+of Norah's singing, and it was not long before she received an
+invitation to sing among the regularly trained young women at the
+chapel.
+
+On the morning when she left Dale's side to take her place upon the
+platform she was woefully nervous. Dale too had been anxious, but
+directly he heard her voice--and he knew it so well that he at once
+distinguished it amid all the other voices that made up the platform
+chorus--he felt perfectly reassured. Her nervousness had not put her
+out of tune: she was acquitting herself admirably.
+
+They walked home together in a high state of gratification; and he
+hastened to tell Mavis that the little maid had achieved a success,
+and that Mr. Osborn had paid her a compliment at the door before
+everybody. Mavis was delighted. She ran to give kisses of
+congratulation, and she said that on her very next visit to Old
+Manninglea she would buy some stuff to make Norah a pretty new dress,
+which they would set to work on as soon as the evenings began to
+lengthen again.
+
+A considerable time elapsed before this kind intention became an
+accomplished fact; but in due course the dress was ready to wear, and
+Norah looked very nice when wearing it. As to color, it was of so
+lively a blue that it would permit no shadows even in its deepest
+folds; it was just a close-fitting brightness that made the girl seem
+to have shot up in a night to a form of much greater height and
+increased slenderness. Her hat was made of yellow straw, with a wreath
+of artificial daisies round the crown. When the tempered sunshine fell
+upon her as she stood up to sing, she looked like something composed
+of vivid color, light, and life--like a flower glowing in a garden, a
+kingfisher hovering over a stream, a rainbow trembling on the crest of
+a hill. Dale, watching her, thought that in comparison the other
+maidens on the platform were positively plain.
+
+He told Mavis afterward that he felt certain the dress had been
+admired, adding that Norah's general appearance did her the utmost
+credit. And that Sunday they both talked seriously about Norah's
+future.
+
+"You know," said Dale, "I feel it as a responsibility on us."
+
+"So do I," said Mavis.
+
+"Having taken it up, we must go through with it to the end. I mean,
+we must always stand her friends--and more than that, her guardians."
+
+"Of course."
+
+"In a sense," he went on, didactically, "we may have made a mistake in
+bringing her forward to the extent we've done."
+
+"How so, Will?"
+
+"I mean, if one wished to argue selfish--which of course I don't
+wish--well, the selfish view would be not to have drawn her out but
+rather keep her down a bit."
+
+"Oh, she'd be miserable if she didn't feel to be one of ourselves--and
+you always said let's treat her that way."
+
+"I know; and I don't go back on it. I was only stating the case of
+selfish policy, for the sake of argument. It's like this. The more
+useful you teach her to be, the more we're going to miss her when she
+leaves us."
+
+"She'll never leave us."
+
+"Won't she be thinking of taking service in some gentleman's family
+when you've perfected her, and rendered her really capable of filling
+a situation?"
+
+"Oh, no, she'd never want to go away from Vine-Pits."
+
+"Is that so? Well, of course I regard that as another feather in her
+cap. I'm glad to think she's properly devoted to you."
+
+"It isn't me," said Mavis. "It's you she's devoted to. It's been the
+same all along. I told you from the first that child just worshiped
+you. It's Mr. Dale. Mr. Dale is the cry with Norah always. She looks
+on me as very small potatoes," and Mavis laughed. "I don't mind. It's
+how I look on myself."
+
+Dale patted his wife's hand, and smiled. "Rubbish! But look here,
+Mav;" and he spoke very thoughtfully.
+
+"I don't wish ever to trade on Norah's gratitude. It may be, when the
+time comes, we shall have to decide for her. It may be that she'll do
+better for herself in the long run by going than by staying. If so, we
+mustn't be the barrier in her way. We must push her out into the
+world, even if she can't see the point of it. But all that lies far
+ahead. We needn't worry about it yet a while.... How old is Norah
+now?"
+
+"Seventeen."
+
+"No? Do you mean to say she has been with us five years?"
+
+"Yes. Every bit of five years."
+
+"Then how old is Rachel?"
+
+"Eleven."
+
+"And Billy?"
+
+"Five--and more."
+
+"My goodness, Mav," and Dale sighed, "how time goes." Then he rose
+from his chair, stretched himself, and sighed again. "_How_ time is
+going!"
+
+
+
+
+XXIV
+
+
+Another charwoman had now been engaged; and Mrs. Goudie, retiring on a
+small pension from the Dales, came to Vine-Pits only to pay her
+respects or now and then to appear as the least greedy and most
+deserving petitioner of all those who sat on the bench or stood
+waiting at the back door. Coming thus for a dole of tea, she asked
+Norah to inform Mr. Dale that young Bates--as he was still called--had
+again been seen in the neighborhood. As usual, he had come and gone
+furtively.
+
+Dale, duly receiving the message, frowned and shook his head
+ominously. He had never been able to get hold of young Bates, although
+Mrs. Goudie had reported several of these sinister reappearances, and
+probably nothing could have been gained by an interview with such a
+heartless scoundrel. So long as old Bates was weak enough to give,
+young Bates would be cruel enough to go on taking; and from the aspect
+of things it appeared that the too generous father would before long
+be altogether denuded. He was getting shabbier and shabbier in his
+apparel; his poor old face looked pinched and thin, and the talk was
+that he lived on starvation rations. It all seemed horrible to Dale--a
+thing that should not be permitted; and yet what could one do?
+
+He thought about it all next day, and it was more or less occupying
+his mind at dusk when he sat with Norah in the office clearing up for
+the night.
+
+"There, my dear, that'll do. You'll only hurt your eyes."
+
+"It's all right, Mr. Dale. I can see well enough just to finish."
+
+Dale was sitting at the table in the window and Norah stood at his
+desk beside the high stool, copying rows of figures out of a huge
+day-book. He turned his head and watched her for a minute or so in
+silence. Her dusky black hair was like a crown over her stooping face;
+her left elbow and hand lay on the desk; and the moving pen in her
+other hand pointed straight at the right shoulder, exactly as Dale had
+taught her to point it when she first began to imitate his
+copper-plate writing. She had been an apt pupil, and there was no
+mistake about the help she gave him nowadays. At the beginning he used
+to pretend a little, saying that her aid lightened his labors, merely
+to encourage and please her.
+
+"Now stop, lassie. This is what Mr. Osborn terms blind man's holiday.
+Shut the book."
+
+"I should have liked to finish," said Norah.
+
+Nevertheless she obeyed him, closing the book and putting her papers
+in a drawer.
+
+"Look here, if you _must_ be busy to the last moment, come over here
+nearer the light and address these envelopes for me--and I'll have a
+pipe."
+
+Norah came meekly to the window and took the chair that Dale had
+vacated for her. Standing close behind the chair and looking down upon
+her, he noticed the deft way in which her hands gathered the loose
+envelopes and stacked them; the shapeliness of her arms and
+shoulders; and the ivory whiteness of her cheek. It was the fading
+light that produced this effect, because she was not by any means a
+pale girl. Her skin, although white enough, had warm tones in it, and
+under it still warmer tones--a brownish glow, like a sunburn that had
+been transmitted by nomad ancestors who baked themselves under fierce
+southern skies centuries ago. The gipsy blood showed to that extent in
+her complexion, and to a greater extent in her hair.
+
+And suddenly he thought of what Mavis had been as a girl. _She_ had a
+white skin--if you please; much whiter than Norah's; but she was like
+this girl in many respects, was Mavis when he first saw her. She and
+Norah were as like as two peas out of one pod in the matter of looking
+fragile and yet firm, as gracefully delicate of form as it is possible
+to be without arousing any suspicion of debility or unhealthiness. The
+back of Mavis' stooping neck used to be exactly like this girl's--a
+smooth, round stem, without a crease or a speck on it, a solid,
+healthy neck, and yet so slender that his great hand would almost
+girdle it.
+
+"Aren't I doing right?" Norah looked up quickly. "I'm copying the
+addresses off the letters."
+
+"No, you're doing quite right." Dale put his hands in his pockets and
+moved away to the high stool. "What made you think you were doing
+wrong?"
+
+"Oh, I don't know. I always get nervous when you watch me and don't
+say anything."
+
+"Then we'll talk. There, I'll wait till you're through, and then we'll
+talk a bit."
+
+"I am through now," said Norah in a minute. "Shall I put the stamps
+on?"
+
+"No, don't trouble. I'll do it myself--and post 'em at the pillar."
+
+He had seated himself on the stool and had brought out his pipe. He
+looked at its bowl reflectively, and then began to talk to Norah about
+the children.
+
+"Don't you think, Norah, that we ought to be putting Billy out to
+school?"
+
+Mavis so far had acted as governess, with Norah to assist, and between
+them they had taught both children to read and write; but this home
+tuition could not go on indefinitely, and Dale thought that the time
+had already come when larger and bolder steps must be taken toward
+achieving that liberal education which he had solemnly promised his
+son and heir. He was always reading advertisements of attractive
+seaside schools, where the boy could secure home comforts, the
+rudiments of sound religious faith, as well as a good grounding in the
+humanities. Mavis, however, would not yet hear of a separation from
+her darling. She pleaded that he was such a _little_ fellow still; she
+prayed Will not to hurry.
+
+"Tell me what _you_ think about it, Norah--quite candidly."
+
+Norah had hesitated about replying; but she now said that she really
+thought Dale need not be in a hurry. Billy was so clever that when he
+did get to school he would learn faster than other boys; and she added
+that his departure from home would be "a dreadful wrinch for Mrs.
+Dale."
+
+"But it will be a wrench for her whenever it happens. In life one has
+to prepare one's self for _wrenches_--That, I fancy, is the better way
+of pronouncing the word. Yes, wrench after wrench, Norah--that's life;
+until the last great wrench comes--and, well, that _isn't_ life....
+Who was that passed the window?"
+
+Norah turned her bright young face to the window and peered out.
+
+"It's Mr. Bates, sir. How funny he looks!"
+
+"What d'you mean--funny?"
+
+"Walking so slow, and leaning on his great stick--as if he was a
+pilgrim."
+
+Dale had jumped off his stool; and he ran out to the road and begged
+the old man to come in.
+
+"Certainly, William," said Mr. Bates.
+
+He had cut himself a long staff from some woodland holly-tree, a rough
+prop that reached shoulder high, and on this he leaned heavily as soon
+as he stopped walking. He looked very old and very shaky.
+
+"Good evening, Miss Veale," he said courteously as he entered the
+office.
+
+"Oh, you mustn't call her _Miss_ Veale. She's Norah--one of us, you
+know." And as he spoke, Dale laid his hand on the back of Norah's neck
+to prevent her from rising. "She's our _multum in parvo_--making
+herself so useful to the wife and me that we can't think what we
+should ever do without her. Bide where you are a moment, Norah."
+
+Dale established his visitor on a chair that faced the rapidly waning
+light, and addressed him again with increased deference.
+
+"If you can spare a few minutes, there's a thing I'd like to speak to
+you about, Mr. Bates."
+
+"I can spare all the minutes between now and morning," said Mr. Bates
+cordially, "if I can be of the least service to you, William."
+
+As much now as in the beginning of the enterprise Bates held himself
+at the younger man's disposal, indeed liked nothing better than to
+give information and counsel whenever his prosperous successor was of
+a mind to accept either.
+
+"I won't keep you as long as that," said Dale, smiling; "but will you
+give us the pleasure of your company at supper?"
+
+"You're very kind, William, but I don't think I can."
+
+"Do, Mr. Bates. The wife will be as pleased as me--as I."
+
+The old fellow looked up at Dale hesitatingly; and Dale, looking down
+at his clean-shaven cheeks, bushy white eyebrows, and the long wisps
+of white hair brushed across his bald head, felt a great reverence. He
+would not look at the threadbare shabbiness of the gray cloth suit, or
+at the queer tints given by time and weather to the black felt hat
+that was being balanced on two shrunken knees.
+
+"I, ah, don't think I'll present myself before Mrs. Dale--ah, without
+more preparation than this. Besides, would it not put her out?"
+
+"No, indeed. Quite unceremonious--taking us exactly as you find
+us--pot-luck."
+
+"Then be it so. You are very good. Thank you, William."
+
+"Thank you, Mr. Bates." Dale seized upon the visitor's hat and stick.
+"Now you may cut along, Norah, and tell Mrs. Dale that Mr. Bates is
+kind enough to stay supper--without ceremony."
+
+Norah glided across the office to the inner door, and, going out,
+asked if she should bring a lamp.
+
+"Yes, bring the lamp in ten minutes--not before. There's light enough
+for two such old friends to chat together;" and Dale waited until she
+had shut the door. "Now, sir, this is kind and friendly. Give me your
+hand, Mr. Bates. I'd like to hold it in mine, while I say these few
+prelim'nary words."
+
+"Yes, William?" The old man had immediately offered his hand, and he
+looked up with a puzzled and anxious expression.
+
+"I merely wish to assure you, Mr. Bates, very sincerely, that if you
+at this moment could see right into my heart, you'd plainly see my
+respect, and what is more, my true affection for you, sir."
+
+"I believe it, William."
+
+"And it has always been a source of comfort to me to think that you,
+sir, have entertained a most kindly feeling to me, sir."
+
+Mr. Bates had averted his eyes, and he moved his feet restlessly, his
+demeanor seeming to indicate that he regretted having accepted the
+supper invitation and was perhaps desirous of withdrawing his
+acceptance.
+
+"I hope," Dale went on, "I haven't been presumptuous in my estimate of
+your feeling, sir."
+
+"No." And the old man looked up again. His eyes, his whole face had
+grown soft, and the tone of his voice was firm, yet rather low and
+very sweet. "No, William, my feeling for you began in taking note of
+your sharpness combined with your steady ways, and it has ended in
+love."
+
+"That's a large word, Mr. Bates."
+
+"It's no larger than the truth."
+
+"Then I say 'Thank you, sir, for the honor you have done me.'" Dale
+pressed the old chap's hand, dropped it, and returned to the high
+stool. "And now, after what has passed between us two, man to man,
+you'll credit me with no disrespectfulness if I make bold to let fall
+certain remarks."
+
+Bates nodded his white head and stared at the floor.
+
+"There's a thing, sir, that I particularly want to say. It is about
+yourself, sir--"
+
+"Go on, William," said Mr. Bates, "and get it over. I know what you're
+after, of course--something about Richard. Well, I'll take it from
+you. I wouldn't take it from any one else."
+
+"D'you remember all you used to advise me about the danger of rats,
+telling me to fight 'em as if it was the devil himself, horns and
+tail, and not just so many stinking little avaricious rodents? You
+said, one rat was sufficient to mess me up."
+
+Mr. Bates nodded.
+
+"And you knew what you were talking about--no one better. And for why?
+Because it was your own story you were telling me, in the form of a
+parable."
+
+"You're wrong there, William."
+
+"Not a bit. You'd had one rat--but, by Jupiter, he was a whooping big
+'un, and he'd eaten your grain, and messed you up--he'd ruined your
+business, and well-nigh broken your heart, and practically done for
+you."
+
+"Have you finished?" asked Mr. Bates, with dignity.
+
+"Yes, sir--almost;" and Dale in the most earnest manner besought his
+old friend to resist any further attacks from that wicked son. "I do
+implore you, sir, not to be weak and fullish. Don't take him to your
+boosum. He's a rat still--an' he'll gnaw and devour the little that's
+left to you, so sure as I sit here."
+
+But it was all no use, as he could easily see. Mr. Bates raised his
+eyes, moved his feet, and then spoke gently but proudly.
+
+"I thank you, William, for your well-meant intentions. I have listened
+to what you wished to say. Now shall we talk of something else?"
+
+"Yes--but with just this one proviso added. Will you remember that I
+am your banker, for the full half of what the banker's worth? If the
+pinch comes, draw on me."
+
+"I thank you again, William. But I shan't need help."
+
+"I think you will."
+
+"Then to speak quite truly, I couldn't take help, William, I really
+couldn't."
+
+"Why not? Think of all you've done for me. Don't deny me the pleasure
+of doing something for you."
+
+"I'll consider, William. Please let it rest there."
+
+Dale could say no more and they both sat silent for a little while.
+Then old Bates spoke again.
+
+"William," he said, "if you'll excuse me, I really won't stay. You
+have--to tell the truth--agitated me."
+
+"Indeed I'm sorry, sir. But don't punish me by going."
+
+"I am not quite up to merry-making."
+
+Just then Norah arrived, carrying the lamp, and Dale turned to her for
+aid.
+
+"Norah, speak for me. Mr. Bates says he won't stay. Tell him how
+disappointed we shall be."
+
+"Oh, do stay, Mr. Bates," said Norah. "It'll be such a disappointment
+to Mr. Dale."
+
+"Some other evening, Miss--ah, Norah. But you must excuse me this
+time."
+
+And, having picked up his hat and stick, Mr. Bates bade them good
+night.
+
+Dale and Norah went out into the road and watched him as he walked
+away.
+
+"There, Norah;" and Dale, slipping his arm within hers, drew her
+closer to his side. "Look with all your eyes. You'll never see a
+better man than that."
+
+They watched him till he disappeared in the gathering darkness; and he
+seemed just like a pilgrim with his staff, slowly approaching the end
+of a cruelly long journey.
+
+
+
+
+XXV
+
+
+It was perhaps a month after this when Dale heard news which plainly
+indicated that the wicked son had completed his horrible task. He had
+eaten up all that there was to eat.
+
+Mr. Osborn said that old Bates had given his landlord notice, and he
+was leaving his cottage almost immediately. The matter had been
+brought to the pastor's knowledge because one of the Baptist
+congregation thought of taking the cottage, and had asked Mr. Osborn's
+advice.
+
+Other people, who professed to know more than Mr. Osborn, said it was
+true that Bates had given notice, but it was also true that he owed
+two quarters' rent and that the landlord was determined to have his
+money. To this end everything the cottage contained would be seized
+and sold. And what would happen to Mr. Bates when not only his house
+was gone, but all his sticks of furniture too?
+
+"It do seem a pity he ben't a young orphan female instead of a
+wore-out old man, for then he cud move on into Barradine Home and be
+fed on the best for naught."
+
+The cottage and other cottages about Otterford Mill, although close to
+the Abbey estate, did not belong to it. They were the property of
+various small owners, and Bates' landlord, as Dale knew, was a
+tradesman at Old Manninglea.
+
+Dale, having heard the news on a Sunday evening, put his check-book in
+his pocket very early next morning and rode over the heath to the
+market town. There he saw Bates' landlord, readily obtained leave to
+withdraw the notice, cleared off the arrears, and paid rent for a year
+in advance. Then he rode straight to Otterford Mill.
+
+"Good morning, William. Pray come in. But will your horse stand quiet
+there?"
+
+"Oh, yes, sir. He'll stand quiet enough. Only too glad of the chance
+to stand. I keep him moving, you know."
+
+"Don't he ever get jerking at the rein, and break his bridle?"
+
+"If he did he wouldn't run away. He'd be too ashamed of himself for
+what he'd done."
+
+"Then step inside, William," said Mr. Bates once more.
+
+He ushered Dale into a bare, sad-looking room; and the whole cottage
+smelled of nakedness, famine, misery.
+
+"Now, my dear old friend," said Dale cheerily, "what's all this
+whispering that reaches my ears _in re_ you thinking of changing your
+quarters and leaving us?"
+
+"It's the truth, William. I can't afford these premises any longer."
+
+"Oh, come, we can't have that. We haven't so many friends that we can
+put up with losing the one we value most of all."
+
+Then he told Mr. Bates what he had done at Manninglea.
+
+The old man frowned, flushed, and began to tremble.
+
+"You shouldn't 'a' done that, William. It was a liberty. I must write
+and say my notice holds good."
+
+Then there was a brief but most painful conversation, Dale nearly
+shedding tears while he pleaded to be allowed on this one occasion to
+act as banker, and Bates resolutely refusing help, refusing even to
+admit how much help was needed.
+
+"William," he said obdurately, "I recognize your kind intention--but
+you've made a mistake. You shouldn't have done it, without a word to
+me. I can only repeat, it was a liberty."
+
+Dale of course apologized, but went on pleading. It was all no use.
+Obviously Mr. Bates' pride had been wounded to the quick. He was
+white, shaky, so old, so feeble, and yet firm as a rock. Never till
+now had he spoken to Dale in such tones of stiff reproof.
+
+"William, we'll say no more. I have paid my way all my days, and at my
+present age it's a bit too late to start differently."
+
+His last words were: "I shall write next post to confirm the notice."
+
+And he did so.
+
+Then the tale ran round that Mr. Bates was going to the workhouse.
+People declared that he had ceded all his furniture to the landlord,
+who could now sell it quietly and advantageously, in a manner which
+would yield more than enough to wipe out the debt. Perhaps there might
+even be a trifling balance in the debtor's favor eventually; but
+meanwhile the homeless and stickless old gentleman would fall as
+another burden on the rates to which he had so long subscribed.
+
+It was curious, perhaps, but the humble folk spoke of him as the old
+gentleman, and not as the old man, all at once giving him the title
+which they only now began to think he had fairly earned as a master
+and employer, an important personage who used to drive about in gigs,
+wear a black coat at church, and always have a kind word for you when
+you touched your cap to him.
+
+"'Tis all a pity but so 'tis, and can't be gainsaid. Th' old gentleman
+hev come down so low, that 'tis the Union and nought else."
+
+"Is that for sure?"
+
+"Oh, yes, for certain sure. He is a-goin' into workhouse to-morrow
+maarning."
+
+But he did not go there.
+
+In the morning some one came running into Dale's yard, and shouted
+what had happened since dark last night.
+
+"Th' old gentleman hev a done fer hisself."
+
+He had been found hanging from the biggest of the apple trees behind
+his cottage. He had set a ladder against the tree, gone up it, fixed
+the rope firmly, put the noose round his neck, and stepped off into
+the air. That was the way they did for themselves in this part of
+Hampshire.
+
+
+
+
+XXVI
+
+
+The suicide of Mr. Bates had a great effect on Dale. The sadness and
+regret that he felt at the time continued to tinge his thoughts for a
+long while afterward. He could not shake off the horror of that
+midnight scene, as he imagined it--the God-fearing man breaking the
+divine laws, the man full of years who was so near the grave and yet
+could not wait till it received him naturally, the poor feeble old
+creature taxing all his remnant of strength to knock out the small
+spark of life that already had begun to gleam so dimly. How long did
+he take to drag and raise the ladder, pausing to recover breath,
+holding his side and coughing, then again toiling?
+
+Another thing that depressed Dale's spirits was the departure of Mr.
+Osborn, who had gone to the Midlands to take up the ministry of a
+large church in a large town. And never had Dale more felt the want of
+priestly support than at this period. The new pastor was a young man
+who preached eloquently, but Dale would not be able to talk to him as
+he had talked to Osborn.
+
+Mavis observed again what she had not seen for ages, the gloom on her
+husband's face when he sat alone, or thought that he was alone. The
+dull brooding look that spoiled his aspect at such times was like the
+shadow of a dark cloud on a field; but as in the past the shadow went
+rapidly, and she fancied she could chase it away as surely as if she
+had been the sunshine. She would have been startled and pained if she
+could have seen his face now, as he rode from Manninglea after
+luncheon at the club.
+
+It was a wet spring day, with dark clouds hanging low over the heath,
+a cold wind cheeping, soughing, sighing; and Dale's face was darker
+and sadder than the day. Before mounting his horse in the hotel yard
+at Manninglea he had gone to the station and bought _The Times_
+newspaper; now he drew the paper out of his pocket, and sheltering it
+with his rain cloak, read an advertisement on the front page.
+
+The advertisement told him that a London hospital gratefully
+acknowledged the receipt of one hundred pounds, being the twenty-first
+donation from the same hand, and making two thousand and twenty pounds
+as the total received to date. In accordance with the request of their
+anonymous benefactor, they inserted this notice, and they offered at
+the same time their heartfelt thanks.
+
+Dale tore out the advertisement and threw away the rest of the paper.
+
+To his mind, this money was the payment of a very old debt. The amount
+of his first charitable donation sent nearly fifteen years ago, had
+been twenty pounds. That, the most urgent part of the debt,
+represented the four bank-notes given to the wife by Mr. Barradine in
+London. The other twenty instalments made up the amount of the legacy
+that came to her at his death. Mavis had lent the money to her
+husband, had in due course received a similar sum of money from him,
+and she held it now safely invested; but, as Dale told himself, she
+did not in truth hold one penny of the dead man's gifts. All that she
+had now was the gift of him, Dale; and the money that soiled her hands
+in touching it, the money that had burned his brain, the filthy gold
+that had made him half-mad to think of, had gone to strangers whom
+neither of them had ever seen. He had been slow about it; but, thank
+God, he had done at last what he wanted to do at the very beginning.
+
+He folded the scrap of paper that was his receipt or quittance, put it
+in his breast pocket, and rode on at a foot-pace. He was absolutely
+alone, not a soul in sight wherever he turned his eyes, not a beast,
+not a bird moving, the desolate brown heath and the sad gray sky alike
+empty of life; straight ahead, about a mile distant, lay the Cross
+Roads, the tavern, and the small hamlet of cottages, but as yet they
+were hidden by a rise of the intervening ground; only the fringe of
+cultivated land at the point where it met the barren waste indicated
+the work or proximity of mankind. His face grew still darker as he
+approached these fields and saw the cluster of houses on their edge.
+He looked at the deep ditch that surrounded the outermost field; then
+turning his head looked again at the heath, its bleak contours
+mounting gradually till they showed an ugly ridge beyond which the
+downs swelled up soft and vague against the hanging curtain of clouds.
+And he thought of what lay on the far side of this long grass rampart
+of down country--the fat-soiled valley, the other railway line, the
+trains from the West of England, full of queer people, running by
+night as well as by day.
+
+As he passed the Barradine Arms, he saw three louts leaning against a
+dry bit of wall under the eaves of an outhouse. They stared at him
+stupidly, not speaking or touching their caps, just loutishly
+staring; and he stared at them with black severity. He thought how he
+himself had been like one of those oafs, living in a cottage not so
+many miles from this spot. No one now seemed to remember his humble
+birth, his unhappy youth, his sordid home. Other people forgot
+everything; while he could forget nothing.
+
+At the Cross Roads he drew rein for a moment, as if undecided as to
+which way to turn. Before going home he had to pay a business call,
+and his destination was straight ahead of him, about four miles off as
+the crow flies. The quickest way to get there, the line nearest to the
+crow's line, would be to leave the road here and ride through Hadleigh
+Wood, under the bare beeches, among the somber pines, along the gloomy
+rides; and the alternative route would be to turn to the right, hold
+to the open road, and follow its deflected course past the Abbey gates
+and park, and all round the wild forest. That way would be three miles
+longer than the other way. He turned his horse's head to the right;
+and as he went on by the road, he was thinking of the terrible chapter
+in his life that closed with the death of Mr. Barradine.
+
+Nearly fifteen years ago; yet in all that time, although dwelling so
+near to the tragic fateful wood, he had been into it only once--and
+then he had gone there with the hounds and jolly loud-voiced riders,
+cub-hunting, on a bright September morning. The wood symbolized
+everything that he wished to forget. And he thought that if he were
+really a rich man--not a poor little well-to-do trader, but a fabulous
+millionaire--he'd buy all this woodland, cut down every tree, chase
+away every shadow, and grow corn in the sunlight. He would buy
+woodland and parkland too--he would burn Aunt Petherick's hidden
+cottage, the Abbey with its inner, outer and middle courtyards, yes,
+and its church also; he would burn and fell, and grub and plough, and
+then plant the seeds of corn that symbolize the resurrection of life;
+and the sun should shine on a wide yellow sea, with waves of hope
+rippling across it as the ripened ears bowed and rose; and there
+should be no trace or stain to mark the submerged slime that had held
+corruption and death. Then, if he could do that, he would have nothing
+to remind him of all he had gone through in the past.
+
+Nothing to remind him?
+
+It made no difference whether the Abbey towers and the North Ride
+chimneys were visible or invisible; no screen of trees, whether
+leafless as now or carrying the full weight of foliage, could really
+screen them from him; they were inside him, together with all that
+they had once signified, a part of himself. If he did not look at them
+with introspective eyes, if he ignored their existence, if he
+succeeded in not thinking of them, there was always something else,
+inside him or outside him, to carry his thoughts back into the black
+bad time.
+
+At this moment it was the Orphanage, with its wet red roofs and
+dripping white verandas. His road took him close in front of it--a
+lengthy stretch of building composed of a central block that contained
+the hall and schoolrooms, and two lesser and lower blocks connected by
+cloisters. He glanced at these blocks--long and low, only a ground
+floor and an upper story--and noticed the veranda and broad balconies.
+The girls slept here, as Mavis had told him; the younger in one block
+and the older in the other block. The whole institution had an air of
+old-established order and unceasing care; all the paint was new and
+clean; the gardens and terraces, with hedges and shrubs that had grown
+high and thick, were beautifully kept; not a weed showed in borders or
+paths; the copper bell in the belfry turret was so well polished that
+it seemed to shine, even though no glint of sunlight touched it. As he
+rode by he heard the sound of children's voices, and, raising himself
+in his stirrups, looked over the clipped yew hedge that guarded the
+lower garden from the roadway. A dozen or fifteen small blue-cloaks
+were romping joyously under one of the verandas, and perhaps twenty of
+the bigger blue-cloaks were soberly parading two by two in a cloister.
+
+Nothing carried him back so promptly and surely as the sight of these
+blue-cloaked girls, and scarcely a day ever passed without his seeing
+them. Two by two they were incessantly tramping the roads for miles
+round. He could not walk, ride, or drive without meeting them. When he
+heard their footsteps and knew that they were coming marching by
+Vine-Pits, he turned his back to the office window, or went into the
+depths of granary or stable. He had hated that day when Mavis brought
+them off the road and into the heart of his home.
+
+With the sound of their shrill cries and merry laughter lingering in
+his ears he rode on.
+
+What a hideous and damnable mockery! This was the monument of that
+good kind man, the late Mr. Barradine. Every red tile, every dab of
+white paint, every square inch of clean gravel, gave substance and
+solidity to the lasting fame of that dear sweet gentleman. Visitors
+to the neighborhood always stopped their carriages or motor cars
+outside the Orphanage gates, questioned and gaped, sent in their
+cards, begged for permission to go all over it. Inside, no doubt they
+admired the rows of clean white beds, some of them quite little cots,
+others big enough for almost full-grown bouncing lasses; they stood
+with hushed breath before his portrait in the refectory hall or his
+bust on the stairs; and perhaps they patted the cheeks of some pretty
+inmate and asked if, when saying her prayers, she always included the
+name of the patron saint. On high occasions clergymen and bishops
+came, there to hiccough and weep over his blessed memory. Great lords
+and ladies praised him, newspaper writers praised him, ignorant fools
+in cottages praised him; and to high and low the crowning grace of his
+glorious charity was the selection of the softer, gentler, and too
+often downtrodden sex as the object of such tender care. That was what
+set the sentimental rivers flowing. It proved the innate gentleness
+and sweetness of him who was now an angel in Heaven. When it came to
+choosing the guests for the lovely home he had built in his mind, he
+had said: "I will not fill it with a lot of hulking boys. Boys are
+naturally rough and coarse animals, and can generally fight their way
+out on top, no matter how stiff the struggle. Give me so many graceful
+delicate girls; pretty helpless things, dainty little innocent
+fascinating creatures; not necessarily fatherless girls, but
+unprotected girls--girls that grievously need protection."
+
+And Dale thought how the man, when he was alive, dealt with any
+innocent unprotected girl who chanced to fall into his power. In
+imagination he saw him taking care of Mavis, when she was young and
+tender, and scarcely knew right from wrong. In imagination he saw it
+all again--the pattings and pawings, the scheming and devising, the
+luring and ensnaring--Barradine and Mavis--the man of many years and
+the girl of few years, the serpent and the dove, the destroyer and the
+destroyed. Those torturing mental pictures glowed and took form, and
+were as vivid now as when, in the hour of his grief and despair, he
+first made them and saw them.
+
+This departed saint, whose memory had become as a fragrance of myrrh,
+whose name sounded like the clinking of an incense-pot swung by devout
+hands, whose monument stood firm as a temple built upon the rock, was
+simply a dirty old beast for whom no excuse could be possible. What
+worse crime can there be than that of befouling youth? Who is a worse
+enemy to the commonweal than he who snatches and steals for his
+transient gratification treasures that are accumulating to make some
+honest man's life-long joy? Such wanton abuse of society's law and
+nature's plan is the unpardonable sin; it is sin as monstrous as the
+enormities that brought down fire upon the dwellers in the cities of
+the plain.
+
+To Dale the idea of an offense so gross that its perpetrator deserved
+neither pity nor mercy was if anything stronger now than when it had
+first entered and filled his mind.
+
+Yet it seemed to him that now, after all the years that had gone by,
+he could for the first time perfectly understand the dark and shameful
+tangle of emotions through which the sinner moved onward to his sin.
+It seemed that with luminous clearness he could look right into the
+corrupt heart of the dead man. He could understand all, though he
+could forgive nothing. He could measure the force of every thought and
+sensation that had pushed the dead man on and on.
+
+After middle-age the blood grows stagnant, habit dulls the edge of
+appetite, a weariness of the mind and of the body makes one cease to
+taste well-used delights; a strong new stimulus is required to revive
+the emotional life that is sinking to decay. Such a stimulus must not
+only be strong and new, it must be light, delicate, altogether
+strange. The effect it produces is due to charm and spell as much as
+to substance and form.
+
+To people who are elderly, youth itself, merely because it is youth,
+exercises a tremendous fascination. It sheds an atmosphere that is
+pleasant to breathe. It seems like a fountain of life in which, if we
+might bathe, we should take some rejuvenating virtue as well as a
+soothing bliss. There is a common saying that it makes one feel young
+just to consort with young people.
+
+Then imagine the selfish unprincipled wretch who at the same time
+feels the new stimulus, experiences the mysterious fascination, and
+craves for the revivifying delight. Putting himself in the sinner's
+place, Dale could realize the pressure that drove him to his sin. He
+could estimate the fearful temptation offered by the mere presence of
+the fresh young innocent creature that one has begun to think about in
+this improper manner. She comes and she goes before one's eyes,
+piercing them with her beauty; she fills one with desire as wine fills
+a cup; she absorbs one, whether she knows it or not, dominates,
+overwhelms, makes one her sick and fainting slave. And suppose that
+while one becomes her slave one remains her master. To what a gigantic
+growth the temptation must rush up each time that one thinks she is
+utterly in one's power! How irresistible it must seem if she herself
+does not aid one to resist it, if through her ignorance or childish
+faith she invites the disaster one is struggling to avoid, if instead
+of flying from her danger she draws nearer and nearer to it.
+
+But to yield to such temptation, however tremendous it may be, is
+abominable, disgusting, and inexpressibly base. No explanation can
+palliate or apology prevail--the crime remains the same crime, and he
+who commits it is not fit to live with decent upright men. That was
+what Dale had felt fifteen years ago, and he felt it with increased
+conviction now because of the religious faith that had become his
+guide and comfort. To a believing Baptist there is a peculiar
+sacredness, in unsullied innocence.
+
+Two hours afterward, when he had transacted his business and drew near
+to home, he was still thinking of Mr. Barradine and the Orphanage for
+unguarded innocent girls. He shook himself in the saddle, squared his
+shoulders, and held up his head as he rode into the yard.
+
+"Here, take my horse," he said sternly, as he swung his foot out of
+the stirrup.
+
+Then, at the sound of a voice behind him, he felt a little shiver run
+down his spine, like the cold touch of superstitious fear.
+
+It was only Norah calling to him. She had come out into the rain to
+tell him that Mavis Dale had gone to Rodchurch and could not be back
+to tea.
+
+
+
+
+XXVII
+
+
+A lassitude descended upon him. Things that had always seemed easy
+began to seem difficult; little bits of extra work that used to be
+full of pleasure now brought a fatigue that he felt he must evade;
+interests that he had allowed to widen without limit all at once
+contracted and shrank to nothing.
+
+He surprised Mavis by telling her that he had resigned his membership
+of the District Council. During the last winter he had retired from
+the fire brigade, and Mavis thoroughly approved of this retirement;
+but she thought it rather a pity that he should cease to be a
+councilor. She had always liked the sound of his official designation.
+Councilor Dale sounded so very grand.
+
+The fire brigade had proved a disappointment to him. Since its
+enrollment he and his men had often been useful at minor
+conflagrations, of ricks, cottage thatch, and kitchen flues; but they
+had never been given a chance of really distinguishing themselves.
+They had saved no lives, nor met with any perilous risks. However, the
+captain's retirement was made the occasion of showing the regard and
+respect in which Mr. Dale was held by the whole neighborhood. Secretly
+subscriptions had been collected for the purpose of giving Mr. Dale a
+testimonial, and at a very large meeting in the Rodchurch Schoolroom,
+it was presented by one of the most important local gentlemen. "Mr.
+Dale," said Sir Reginald, "our worthy vicar has mentioned the fact
+that I have come here to-night at some slight personal inconvenience;
+but I can assure you that if the inconvenience had been very much
+greater I should have come all the same." (Considerable cheering.)
+"And in handing you this inscribed watch and accompanying chain, I
+desire to assure you on behalf of all here"--and so on. Dale, for his
+part, said that "had he guessed this testimonial was on foot, he might
+have been tempted to burk it, because he could not have
+conscientiously countenanced it. But now accepting it, although he did
+not desire it, he felt quite overcome by it. Nevertheless he would
+ever value it." (Loud and prolonged cheers.) The record of all these
+proceedings, faithfully set forth in the _Rodhaven District Courier_,
+formed the proudest and finest snippet in Mavis' bulging scrap album;
+and brought moisture to her eyes each time that she examined it anew.
+
+"I was never more pleased," she said, "than when I knew you wouldn't
+ever have to wear your fire helmet again; but now I'm wondering if you
+won't _miss_ the Council."
+
+"No, Mav, I shan't miss it."
+
+"One thing I'm sure of--they'll miss _you_."
+
+"They'll get on very well without me, my dear." And then he told her
+that he was not quite the man he had been. "I'm not so greedy nowadays
+for every opportunity of spouting out my opinions; and I've come to
+think one's private work is enough, without putting public work on top
+of it. You'll understand, I don't mean that I want to fold my hands
+and sit quiet for the rest of my days. But I do seem to feel the need
+of taking things a little lighter than I used to do."
+
+This explanation was more than sufficient for Mavis; she
+sympathetically praised him for his wisdom in dropping the silly old
+useless Council.
+
+But it was later this evening, or perhaps one evening a little
+afterward, when something he said set her thoughts moving so fast that
+they rushed on from sympathy to apprehensive anxiety.
+
+He spoke with unusual kindness about her family, and asked if she had
+suffered any real discomfort because of his having forbidden
+intercourse with all the Petherick relations. She said "No." Then he
+said he had been actuated by the best intentions; and he further added
+that all his experience of the world led him to believe that one got
+on a great deal better by one's self than if chocked up with uncles
+and cousins and aunts. "So I should hope, Mav, that you'd never now
+feel the wish to mend what I took the decision of breaking. I mean,
+especially as your people have mostly scattered and gone from these
+parts, that you'd never, however you were situated, wish to hunt them
+all out and bring them back to your doors again." Mavis dutifully and
+honestly said that her own experience had led her to similar
+conclusions. She thought that relatives were often more trouble than
+they were worth, and she promised never to attempt a regathering of
+the scattered Petherick clan.
+
+"You know," he said, "if anything happened to me, you'd be all right.
+I have made my will long ago. There's a copy of it in there," and he
+pointed to the lower part of the bureau; "while th' instrument itself
+lies snug in Mr. Cleaver's safe, over at Manninglea."
+
+"Oh, for goodness' sake, don't speak of it. I can't bear even to hear
+the word." And then, taking alarm, she said he must be feeling really
+ill, or such things as wills would never have come into his head.
+"Tell me the truth, dear. Tell me what you do feel--truly." And she
+asked him all sorts of questions about his health, begging him to
+consult a doctor without a day's delay.
+
+"Only a bit tired, Mav--and that's what I never used to feel."
+
+"No, you never did. And I don't at all understand it."
+
+"It's quite natural, my dear."
+
+"Not natural to you."
+
+Then he took her hand, pressed it affectionately, and laughed in his
+old jolly way. "My dear, it's nothing--just an excuse for slacking off
+now and then. Remember, Mav, I am not a chicken. I shall be fifty
+before th' end of this year."
+
+He convinced her that there was no cause for her anxiety; and only too
+happy not to have to be anxious, she thought no more of this strange
+thing that her untiring Will now sometimes knew what tiredness meant.
+
+But his lassitude increased. He uttered no further hints about it to
+anybody; he endeavored to conceal it; he refused to admit its extent
+even to himself. On certain days to think made him weary, to be active
+and bustling was an impossibility. Instinct seemed to whisper that he
+was passing through still another phase, that presently he would be
+all right again--just as vigorous and energetic as in the past; and
+that meanwhile he should not flog and spur himself, but just rest
+patiently until all his force returned to him.
+
+Since to do anything was a severe effort, he had better do nothing. He
+ceased to bother about Billy's schooling. He postponed making his
+harvest arrangements; he forgot to answer a letter asking for an
+estimate, and one Thursday he omitted to wind the clocks. He tried to
+let his beard grow, in order to escape the trouble of shaving. It grew
+during three days; but the effect was so disfiguring--a stiff stubble
+of gray, hiding his fine strong chin, and spreading high on his
+bronzed cheeks--that Norah and Mavis implored him to desist. Even
+Ethel the housemaid ventured to say how very glad she felt when he
+shaved again.
+
+The month of May was hot and enervating; the month of June was wet and
+depressing. Day after day the rain beat threateningly against the
+windows, and night after night it dripped with a melancholy patter
+from the eaves. On three successive Sundays Dale considered the rain
+an adequate excuse for not going to chapel. He and Norah had a very
+short informal service within sound and within smell of the roast beef
+that was being cooked close by in the kitchen, and afterward he
+meditatively read the Bible to himself while Norah laid the cloth for
+dinner.
+
+He had said that he did not want to fold his hands and sit quiet for
+the remainder of his existence; but that was precisely what he desired
+to do for the moment. He allowed Norah to relieve him of more and more
+of his office duties, and he idly watched her as she stood bending her
+neck over the tall desk or sat stooping her back and squaring her
+elbows at the writing-table. And still sitting himself, he would
+maintain long desultory conversations with her about nothing in
+particular when, having completed the tasks that he had entrusted to
+her, she moved here and there about the office tidying up for the
+night.
+
+Thus on an evening toward the end of June he talked to her about love
+and the married state. It had been raining all day long, and though no
+rain fell at the moment, one felt that more was coming. The air was
+saturated with moisture; heavy odors of sodden vegetation crept
+through the open window; and one saw a mist like steam beginning to
+rise from the fields beyond the roadway. Mr. Furnival, the new pastor,
+had just passed by; and it was his appearance that started the
+conversation.
+
+"He is a conscientious talented young man," said Dale; "and with
+experience he will ripen. At present he seems to me deficient in
+sympathy."
+
+"Yes, so he does," said Norah, as she opened the desk drawer.
+
+"He hasn't the knack of putting himself in the place of other people.
+There's something cold and cheerless in his preaching--I don't say as
+if he didn't feel it all himself, but as if he hadn't yet caught the
+knack of imparting his feelings to others."
+
+"No more he has," said Norah, putting away her papers.
+
+"Between you and me and the post," said Dale, "I don't like him."
+
+"No more do I."
+
+"What! Don't you like Mr. Furnival either?"
+
+Norah shook her head and said "No" emphatically.
+
+"But he is handsome, Norah. I call him undoubtedly a handsome man.
+And they tell me that the girls are falling in love with him."
+
+Norah laughed, and said that, if Mr. Dale had been correctly informed,
+she was sorry for the taste of the girls.
+
+"Then you don't admire his looks, Norah?"
+
+"It rather surprises me, because I should have thought he was just the
+sort of person to attract and fascinate the other sex--a bachelor too,
+without ties, able to take advantage of any success in that line that
+came his way. I mean, of course, by offering marriage to the party who
+fancied him."
+
+Norah said again that she thought nothing of Mr. Furnival's alleged
+handsomeness. She considered him a namby-pamby.
+
+"You are young still. Perhaps I oughtn't to talk like this--putting
+nonsense in your head. But it'll come there sure enough of its own
+accord. Your turn will come. You'll fall in love one day, Norah."
+
+Norah, putting the big account-books back on the shelf over the desk,
+did not answer.
+
+"You've never fallen in love yet, have you?"
+
+Norah would not answer.
+
+"Ah, well." Dale got up from his chair, and stretched himself. "But
+you'll have to marry some day, you know."
+
+"Oh, no, I shan't."
+
+"Oh, yes, my dear, you will. That's a thing there's no harm for girls
+to think of, because it's what they've got to prepare themselves for."
+And Dale delivered a serious little homily on the duties and pleasures
+of wedlock, and concluded by telling Norah that when she had chosen
+an honest proper sort of young fellow, neither himself nor Mrs. Dale
+would stand in the way of her future happiness. "Yes, my dear, you'll
+leave us then; and we shall miss you greatly--both of us will miss you
+very greatly, but we shan't either of us consider that. And you
+mustn't consider it yourself. It's nature--quite proper and correct
+that under those circumstances you should leave us."
+
+"Never," said Norah. "Never--unless you send me away;" and stooping
+her head on her arms, she began to cry.
+
+"Oh, my dear, don't cry," said Dale bruskly. "What in the name of
+reason is there to cry about?"
+
+"Then say you won't send me away," sobbed Norah. "Promise me you won't
+do that."
+
+"Of course I won't," said Dale, in the same brusk tone. "That is,
+unless I'm morally certain that--"
+
+"No, no--never."
+
+"Oh, don't be silly. Dry your eyes, and be sensible;" and Dale,
+plunging his hands in his pockets, hurried out of the office.
+
+He walked as far as the Baptist Chapel, and straight back again; and
+before he got home he made a solemn resolution to rouse himself from
+the idle lethargic state into which he felt himself slipping deeper
+and deeper. Thinking about business and other matters, he decided now
+that the odd weariness which he had been experiencing must be
+struggled with, and not submitted to. There was no sense in calmly
+accepting such a mental and bodily condition. It might be different if
+there was anything organically wrong with him; but he was really as
+strong and fit as ever--only a bit tired; but he thought with scorn of
+the folly of allowing dark days and foul weather to influence one's
+spirits or one's capacity for effort. That sort of rubbish is well
+enough for rich old maids who go about the world with a maid, a
+hot-water bottle, and a poll parrot; but it is degrading and
+undignified in a successful business man who has a wife and two
+children to work for, whether the sun shines or the sky is overcast.
+
+At supper he told Mavis that he was going to make a long round of it
+next day, starting early, and riding far to pay several calls that
+were overdue. He added that he would not require Norah's assistance in
+the office, either to-morrow or for some time to come.
+
+"I fear me," he said, "that I've been selfish, and abused the
+privilege of taking her away to act as secretary, and thereby thrown
+more on you."
+
+"Not a bit," said Mavis. "Take her just as long as she makes herself
+useful."
+
+"She has done fine," said Dale, "and lifted a lot off my shoulders.
+But now I feel I'm all clear, and I restore her to her proper place
+and duties."
+
+Mavis, if aware of the fact, would have thought it curious that Dale
+had spoken to Norah of falling in love, because she herself was at
+this time worried by thoughts of such possibilities with regard to the
+girl. She noticed various changes in Norah's manner and deportment.
+Norah, although Dale said she worked well enough for him in the
+office, showed a perceptible slackness at her household tasks. She
+seemed to have lost interest, especially in all kitchen work; she was
+often careless in dusting and cleaning the parlor, and had done one or
+two very clumsy things--such as breaking tea-cups when washing up--as
+if her wits had gone wool-gathering instead of being concentrated on
+the job in hand. Her temper, too, was not so even and agreeable as it
+ought to have been. She was distinctly irritable once or twice to the
+children, when they were trying to play with her as of old, and not,
+as she declared, wilfully teasing her. And once or twice when she was
+reproved, there had come some nasty little flashes of rebellion.
+
+Mavis, seeking any reason for this slight deterioration of conduct and
+steadiness, wondered if Norah by chance had a little secret love
+affair up her sleeve. That would account for everything. But if so,
+who could it be who was upsetting her? Girls, even at what matrons
+call the silly age, can not give scope to their silliness without
+opportunities; and there were no visitors to the house, and certainly
+none of the men in the yard, who could conceivably be carrying on with
+her.
+
+Then the suspicions of Mavis were aroused by discovering that Norah
+was at her old tricks again. If you sent her as messenger of charity
+to one of the cottages, and more still if you gave her an hour or two
+for herself, she went stealing off into the forbidden woods. She had
+been seen doing it twice, and, as Mavis suspected, had done it often
+without being seen. She knew that she wasn't allowed to do it. There
+was the plain house-rule that neither she nor Ethel were ever to leave
+the roads when they were out alone. Yet she broke the rule; and Mavis
+now suspected that she did not break this rule in order to pick wild
+flowers and look at green leaves but to meet a sweetheart.
+
+Mavis, thinking about it, was at once angry and apprehensive. A fine
+thing for all of them, if the little fool came to trouble and disgrace
+that way. She would not immediately bother Dale about it; but she
+promptly tackled Norah, roundly accused her of improper behavior,
+expressed a firm conviction that she was playing the fool with some
+young man, and threatened to lay the whole matter before the master.
+
+"D'you understand, Norah? We won't put up with it--not for a moment.
+We're not going to let you make yourself the talk of the place and
+bring us to shame into the bargain."
+
+Norah, alternately flushing and turning pale, defended herself with
+vigor. She was indignant not with the threats, but with the suspicion.
+She swore that she had never for one instant thought of a young man,
+much less spoken to or made appointments with a young man; and that
+she had broken the house-rule simply because she found it almost
+impossible to keep it. She had always loved wandering about under the
+trees: she used to go there all alone as a baby, and she thought it
+unreasonable that she might not go there alone as a grown-up person.
+
+Norah's indignant tone suggested complete innocence, and Mavis felt
+relieved in mind, but yet not quite sure whether the girl was really
+telling the truth.
+
+She indirectly returned to the charge on the following Sunday, when
+Norah was about to start for her afternoon out.
+
+"Norah, I want a word with you."
+
+The girl came back along the flagged path to the kitchen door.
+
+"It's just this, Norah. You'll please to remember what I've told you,
+and act accordingly."
+
+Norah turned her head and answered over her shoulder, rather sullenly,
+as Mavis thought.
+
+"All right. I remember."
+
+"Don't answer me like that," said Mavis sharply. "And please to
+remember your manners, and look at people when you speak to them."
+
+"All right," said Norah again, and, as Mavis judged, very sullenly
+this time.
+
+"Look you here, young lady," she said, with increasing warmth. "I'm
+not going to stand any of your nonsense--and of that I give you fair
+warning. Now you just answer me in a seemly manner and tell me exactly
+where you are going this afternoon, or I'll send you straight back
+into the house to take off your finery and not go out at all."
+
+Dale, close by in the little sitting-room, heard his wife's voice
+raised thus angrily, closed the book that was lying open on his knees,
+and came to the window.
+
+"What's wrong, Mav?"
+
+"It's Norah offering me her sauce, and I won't put up with it."
+
+Dale, with the book in his hand, came out through the kitchen, and
+stood by Mavis on the stone flags.
+
+"Norah," he said seriously, "you must always be good, and do whatever
+Mrs. Dale tells you."
+
+"Yes, but that's just what she doesn't do;" and Mavis explained that,
+in spite of repeated orders, Norah had several times gone mooning off
+into the woods all by herself. "So now I'm reminding her, and asking
+where she means to go this afternoon."
+
+Norah, with her eyes on the flags, said that she would go to
+Rodchurch.
+
+"Very good," said Mavis. "Then now you've answered, you may go."
+
+When Norah had disappeared round the corner of the house, Mavis
+talked to her husband apologetically and confidentially.
+
+"Will, dear, I'm sorry I disturbed you when you were reading;" and
+glancing at the book in his hand, she felt ashamed of her recent
+warmth. "I couldn't help blowing her up, and I'll tell you why." Then
+she spoke of the necessity of keeping a sharp eye and a firm hand on a
+girl of Norah's age and attractions; and she further mentioned her
+suspicion, now almost entirely allayed, of some secret carryings-on.
+
+"Oh, I don't think there's anything of that sort," said Dale. "No, I
+may say I'm morally sure Norah isn't deceiving you there."
+
+"I'm glad you think so. Yes, it's what I think myself. I should have
+bowled her out if there'd been anything going on. But, Will, there's
+other dangers for her--worse dangers."
+
+"What dangers, Mavis?"
+
+"Well, all the lads naturally are looking at her. Norah has come on
+faster than you may have noticed. I don't want her to mix herself up
+with any of those louts that hang about the Cross Roads."
+
+"No."
+
+"And she'll come across them for certain if she gets trapesing through
+the trees like she does. There's her brothers would bring them
+together. Besides, it isn't _safe_--at her age. You know yourself
+what's always been said of it."
+
+"Quite so," said Dale. "You are wise, Mavis--very wise to be watchful
+and careful."
+
+Then he returned to the sitting-room, settled himself again in the
+porter's chair, and reopened his book at the place where he had been
+interrupted.
+
+It was the New Testament; and just now, while reading the twenty-first
+chapter of Saint Matthew, he had enjoyed a clear vision of Christ's
+entry into Jerusalem. Making his picture from materials supplied by an
+article in the _People's Encyclopedia_, he seemed to be able to see
+the ancient city and its exotic life as the Redeemer and the disciples
+must have seen it on that memorable day. Here were the narrow streets
+and the crowded market-places; the towers and domes; the strangely
+garbed traders, laden camels, gorgeous Roman soldiers, brown-faced
+priests, black-bodied slaves; sunlit hills high above one, distant
+faintly blue mountains far ahead of one--a thronged labyrinth of
+shadow and light, of noise and confusion, of pomp and squalor.
+
+But the picture was gone, the dream was broken, the hope was darkened.
+He tried to bring it all back again, and failed utterly. He could not
+think of Christ riding into Jerusalem; he could only think of Norah
+walking along the road to Rodchurch.
+
+
+
+
+XXVIII
+
+
+Extreme heat came that year with the opening of July, and the
+atmosphere at night seemed as oppressive as in the day.
+
+After an unusually wet June the foliage was rich and dense, but
+flowers were few and poor--except the roses, which had prospered
+greatly. Throughout the daylight hours trees close at hand looked
+solid, as if composed of some unbending green material; while those a
+little way off were rather firm, presenting the appearance of trees
+during heavy rain. Indeed that was the appearance of the whole
+scene--a country-side being drenched and rendered vague by a heavy
+downpour; but it was sheer heat that was descending, with never an
+atom of moisture in it.
+
+The shadows beneath the trees were absolutely black, impenetrable; a
+dark cave under each ring of leaves. Then toward nightfall this shadow
+grew lighter and lighter, until it was a transparent grayness into
+which one could see quite clearly. Thus a girl and a man sitting under
+a hedgerow elm five or six hundred yards away were distinct objects,
+although perhaps themselves unaware that they had gradually lost their
+shelter and become conspicuous.
+
+Dale, crossing his fields and staring at these two figures, for a
+moment fancied that one of them was Norah. Yet that would have been an
+impossibility, because he had just left her behind him at the house;
+and she could not have swum round in a great half-circle, through the
+drowsy air, to confront him at a distant point where he did not expect
+to see her. But the heat made one stupid and slow-witted. This man and
+woman were farmer Creech's people, and they had come sauntering along
+the edge of uncut grass to make lazy love to each other. Dale turned
+aside to avoid disturbing them.
+
+As he returned toward the house presently, he thought of Norah's
+unwonted pallor. Poor child, the heat seemed to be trying her more
+than anybody. And he thought of how wan and limp and sad she looked
+early this morning, when he had again sent her out of his office and
+flatly refused to let her do any more writing or tidying for him. Even
+her red lips had gone pale; she dropped her head; her white eyelids
+and black lashes fluttered as she looked up at him piteously, seeming
+to ask: "What have I done that you treat me like this, oh, my cruel
+master?" He had driven his hands deep into his pockets, had shrugged
+his shoulders, and spoken almost roughly--telling her to go about her
+business, and not bother. He thought if he gave her time to do it, she
+might cry again; and he did not want to see any more of her tears.
+
+But off and on throughout the day he had watched her when she did not
+in the least know that she was being observed. Just after breakfast he
+had watched her as she scrubbed the kitchen floor, and had noticed the
+pretty lines of her figure in these sprawling attitudes--her ankles,
+stockings, and the upturned soles of her buckle-shoes.
+
+He was watching her when she came up from the dairy with the pail that
+held Mavis' afternoon supply of milk, and he noticed her stretched
+arm, bare to the elbow, and the other arm balancing, the tilted body
+helping also to maintain equilibrium. Almost more than she could
+manage--why didn't that broad-backed thick-legged lump of a dairy-maid
+carry the house-pail? He would have liked to go out and carry the pail
+himself; but that was one of the many things which he must carefully
+refrain from doing.
+
+And all day long, though he saw her so often, he never once heard her
+sing. She made no song over her work, as used to be her habit. He
+wondered if Mavis was not working her too hard in this terribly
+exhausting weather. He wondered also if he would ever be able to say
+quite naturally what he had for so long wished to say and felt he
+ought to say--that Norah must be given a holiday, that she must be
+sent somewhere at a considerable distance and stay there in charge of
+kind and respectable people for an indefinite period. Mavis might
+consider the suggestion so strange; and it might be impossible to
+explain that, strange as it seemed, it was nevertheless full of
+wisdom--a suggestion that should be acted upon without an instant's
+delay.
+
+The supper table had been brought out into the open air, and it stood
+upon the flagged path, where they had spread their hospitable feast
+for the higgler's wedding. Norah was coming in and out of the kitchen,
+and Dale sat watching her as she arranged knives, forks, and glasses.
+Both the children were to be of the party; and they might stay up as
+late as they pleased, because as it was too hot to sleep in their
+beds, it did not matter how long the young people remained out of
+them. They were now roaming about the orchard with Mavis, hunting for
+a coolness that did not exist anywhere except in one's memory, and
+their voices sounded at intervals languidly.
+
+More and more color was now perceptible; distances were extending;
+lines of meager flowers, crimson and blue as well as white, showed in
+a border of the kitchen garden; and the sky, seeming to lift and
+brighten, was a faint orange above the horizon and a most delicate
+rose tint toward the zenith--so that till half-past eight, or later,
+one had the illusion that the night was going to be more brightly
+lighted than the day.
+
+Nobody had much appetite for supper, but they all sat a long while at
+the table, glad to rest if they could not eat, hoping that when they
+moved from their chairs they would find the temperature lower within
+the house walls than outside them. Mavis gave little oppressed sighs
+as she fanned her jolly round face and broad matronly chest with a
+copy of the _Courier_. Ethel, who to-night seemed an extraordinarily
+cumbrous awkward creature, flumped the dishes down on the table and
+shuffled away on her big flat feet. Norah glided to and fro, now here,
+now there, pouring out milk and water for the children, and ducking
+prettily when a bat came close to her white face and black hair.
+
+"What, Norah," said Mavis, laughing, "you a country girl, and afraid
+of a flitter-mouse!"
+
+"Yes," said Billy, "she's afraid of the flitty-mouse. Isn't she a
+coward? You are a coward, Norah."
+
+And then the laugh was turned against Billy; for the bat passing again
+and lower than before, Billy himself ducked and crouched
+automatically.
+
+"Who's the coward now, young sir?"
+
+"I don't mind anything that has wings," said Rachel. "It's what goes
+creeping and crawling that I'm afraid of."
+
+"I don't mind ear-wigs," said Billy defiantly.
+
+And Dale, while he talked without interest and ate without appetite,
+watched Norah. She had changed her gown an hour ago, and obviously
+when changing had discarded the burden of under-petticoats; this other
+gown hung close and yet limp about her limbs, modeling itself to each
+slim length and shapely curve; and he thought it made her look like
+the statue of a Grecian hand-maiden-such as he had seen many years
+before in illustrations of learned books. When she stood near him, he
+noticed nothing but the blackness of her hair or the whiteness of her
+cheeks; and then he thought she looked somehow wild and fantastic,
+like a person that one can see only in dreams. But whether she was
+near him or at a little distance, so long as she remained in sight, he
+was unintermittently conscious that the essential charm that she shed
+forth could be traced directly to her youth.
+
+"Good night, daddy."
+
+"Good night, Rachel."
+
+His daughter had kissed him, and she stood between his knees while he
+patted her and caressed her. She too was young and fresh and
+sweet-smelling; and yet the touch of her purified one. So long as he
+was holding her, it seemed to him that a father's love is so great and
+so pure that there can not be any other love in the world.
+
+But a minute afterward, when his own girl had gone and the other girl
+was again before his eyes, all the impure unworthy unpermissible
+desires came rushing back upon him.
+
+They lighted lamps in the kitchen presently, and he sat staring at the
+open doorway, alone now, after the table had been cleared. The doorway
+seemed like an empty picture-frame. But each time that Norah came and
+stood there looking out for a moment, the picture was in its frame.
+With the light behind her, she was just a thin black figure; and he
+thought how slight, how weak and small a thing to possess such
+tremendous, almost irresistible power over him.
+
+Next evening, between tea-time and supper-time, Norah absented herself
+without leave. Mavis did not miss her at first. Then she thought that
+very probably the girl was wandering about with the children, or
+gossiping with the maid at the dairy; but then old Mrs. Goudie, who
+had come to pay a call at the back door, said she had met Norah and
+had a chat with her "up th' road." On being further examined, Mrs.
+Goudie said that Norah, after bidding her good night, had got over the
+stile at the second footpath into Hadleigh Wood.
+
+Mavis at once became angry and suspicious again, and she went to her
+husband to report this act of rebellion. The office was empty, but she
+found him at the yard. He was in his shirt-sleeves, sitting on a
+corn-bin, and he seemed to be greatly troubled by what she told him
+that she wished him to do. She asked him to go into the wood himself
+and spy out Norah quietly, and see if she was really alone there.
+
+"Oh, I don't much like this job, Mav. Besides, it's to hunt for a
+needle in a bundle of hay. How do I know which way the lass has gone?"
+
+"I'm telling you she went in at the second path. She won't have gone
+far. Probably you'll come upon her this side of the rides--along by
+the stream, very likely."
+
+But Dale still showed reluctance to undertake the detective mission.
+
+"Then I must go," said Mavis. "I can't put up with this sort of thing,
+and I mean to stop it. She must be made to understand once for all--"
+
+"Very well," said Dale; and he got off the corn-bin and picked up his
+jacket.
+
+"She'll pay more heed to you than she would to me. But, one word,
+Will. If you catch her with a young man don't go and lose your temper
+with him. Don't bother about him. Just bring the young minx straight
+home."
+
+"An' suppose there's no young man."
+
+"Bring her back just the same, and lecture her all the way on her
+disobedience--and the trouble and annoyance she is giving us. Tell her
+we're not going to stand any more of it."
+
+"Very well."
+
+He walked along the road at a fairly brisk pace until he came to the
+second stile, and then he stood hesitatingly. The firs grew thick
+here, and the shadows that they cast were dark and opaque, encroaching
+on the pathway, making it a narrow strip of dim light that would lead
+one into the mysterious and gloomy depths of the wood.
+
+He crossed the stile, and went along the path very slowly, pausing now
+and then to listen. There was not a sound; the whole wood was as
+silent as the grave.
+
+Presently the fir-trees on each side of him opened out a little, and
+here and there beeches and ashes appeared; then the path passed
+through a glade, the shadows receded, and he had a sensation of being
+more free and able to breathe better. If he kept on by the path he
+would soon come to the main ride, that long widely cut avenue which
+goes close to Kibworth Rocks and gives access to the other straight
+cuts leading to the Abbey park. He left the path and struck across
+through the trees, making a line that would take him soon to the
+wildest part of the ancient Chase, and that, if he pursued it far
+enough, would eventually bring him out on the big ride near the rocks.
+
+The dark stiff firs gave place to solemnly magnificent beeches; glade
+succeeded glade; thickets of holly and hawthorn dense as a savage
+jungle tried to baffle one's approach to lawnlike spaces where the
+grass grew finely as in a garden, and the white stems of the high
+trees looked like pillars of a splendid church; the stream ran
+silently and secretly, not flashing when it swept out under the sky,
+or murmuring when it slid down tiny cascades beneath the branches.
+
+Dale was following the stream, whether it showed itself or hid itself,
+and could have found his way blindfold. He knew the wood by night as
+well as he knew it by day.
+
+He stopped on the edge of the biggest of all the glades, looked about
+him cautiously, advanced slowly, and stopped again to wipe the
+perspiration from his forehead. He was very near to the main ride now;
+straight ahead of him, say two hundred yards away, on the other side
+of the invisible ride lay the invisible rocks.
+
+One of the beech-trees had fallen, and been left as it fell two months
+ago. Most of its tender young foliage had shriveled and died, but on
+branches near its upturned roots a few leaves were bright and green,
+still drawing life from the ruined trunk. Dale stood by the fallen
+tree, looking out across the glade. It was all silent and beautiful,
+with that curious effect of increasing light which made the distances
+clearer every moment, gave more color to the earth and a more tender
+glow to the sky.
+
+Then he saw her, a long way off, coming from the direction of the ride
+through the trees; and he felt the pressure of blood pumping into his
+head, the weight on his lungs, the laboring pain of his heart, that a
+man might feel just before he sinks to the ground in an apoplectic
+fit.
+
+She was all alone, sauntering toward him with her hands full of
+flowers. She had no hat, and she was wearing the same loose frock that
+she wore last night.
+
+With the gesture that had become habitual to him, Dale put his hands
+in his pockets--those wicked hands that no prison could much longer
+hold, that would defy control, that seemed now to be stretched forth
+across all the intervening space to touch the face and limbs they
+hungered for. He moved away from the shadow by the fallen tree,
+stepped out into the open, went slowly to meet her, and his longing
+was intolerably acute. He was sick and mad with longing: he wanted her
+as a man dying of thirst wants the water that will save his life.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Dale, how you hev made me jump!"
+
+At sight of him she dropped the flowers and raised one of her hands to
+press it against her breast. She had been so startled that she still
+breathed fast, almost pantingly; but her lips were smiling, and her
+eyes shone with pleasure.
+
+"Now look here, Norah; this won't do--no, really this won't do." He
+had taken his hands out of his pockets and clasped them behind his
+back. He too was breathing fast, though he spoke deliberately and
+rather thickly. "No, all this sort of thing won't do; it can't be
+allowed;" and he laid his right hand on her shoulder.
+
+"I'm sorry," she said, watching his face intently.
+
+"You mustn't go and moon about by yourself, like this. You know you
+mustn't, don't you?"
+
+"Yes, I know. But I couldn't stay indoors."
+
+He had slid his hand downward, and was holding her arm above the
+elbow. "It is very disobedient. Often and often Mrs. Dale has told you
+that you mustn't come here."
+
+"I know," she said humbly.
+
+"So now, you see, I am sent to fetch you--and to tell you that you
+mustn't do it." He was struggling hard to speak in his ordinary tone
+of voice, but failing. And his imitation of his usual fatherly manner,
+as he held her arm and led her along, was clumsy and laborious. He
+stopped moving when they reached the prostrate beech-tree, but
+continued to talk to her, saying the same things again and again.
+"Norah, it can not be allowed. You mustn't be disobedient. We can't
+allow it."
+
+They lingered by the tree, she looking at him all the time, and he
+scarcely ever looking at her, but glancing about him furtively. Then
+they sat down side by side on one of the great branches, and as if
+unconsciously he began to caress her.
+
+"Is Mrs. Dale very angry with me?"
+
+"Yes, Norah, she is angry. You can't be surprised at that."
+
+"Not so angry that she won't never forgive me?"
+
+"Oh, no, she's not so angry as all that."
+
+"But she isn't fond of me, as she used to be."
+
+"Yes, of course she is, Norah." His arm was round her waist, and he
+lifted her upon his lap, and held her there. "We are both very fond of
+you."
+
+"_You_ are," she whispered. "I know that.... I should die if you ever
+turned so as not to care for me;" and she nestled against him.
+
+"Norah."
+
+With a last assumption of the fatherly manner he stooped and kissed
+her forehead. Then she raised her lips to his, and they kissed slowly.
+
+"Norah," he muttered. "Oh, Norah."
+
+He felt as though almost swooning from delight. It was a rapture that
+he had never known--a voluptuous joy that yet brought with it complete
+appeasement to nerves and pulses.
+
+"Norah, Norah;" and he continued to kiss her lips and mutter her name.
+
+All thought had gone. It was as though all that was trouble and pain
+inside him had melted into sweet streams of delight--streams of fire;
+but a magical flame that soothes and restores, instead of burning and
+destroying. He went on fondling her, glorying in her freshness, her
+immature grace, her youthful beauty. And she was silent and passive,
+yielding to his gentle movements, pressing close if he held her to
+him, relaxing the pressure and becoming limp if he wished to see her
+face and held her from him, making him understand by messages through
+every sense channel that she was his absolutely.
+
+Then after a while she began to talk in the pretty birdlike whisper
+that enchanted and enthralled him.
+
+"Why didn't she want me to come here--really?"
+
+"She--she thought you came to meet some lad."
+
+"Oh, no;" and she gave a little laugh, and pressed against him. "It's
+the truth, what I've always answered to her. I came because I couldn't
+help it. Shall I tell you all my secrets--secrets I've never told any
+one?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Ever since I was a child--quite small--I hev always thought something
+wondersome would happen to me in Hadleigh Wood."
+
+"Why should you think that?"
+
+He had sat up stiffly, and while she clung whispering at his breast he
+looked out over her head, glancing his eyes in all directions.
+Straight in front of him across the glade, the great beeches were gray
+and ghostly, and beyond them in the strip that concealed the ride it
+seemed that the shadows had suddenly thickened and blackened.
+
+"I'll tell you. But _you_ tell me something first. Does Mrs. Dale
+think this place is haunted?"
+
+He changed his attitude abruptly, put his hands on her shoulders and
+held her away from him, so that he could see her face.
+
+"What was it you asked me?"
+
+"Does she fancy the wood is haunted?"
+
+"No, why?"
+
+"I believe she does."
+
+"Rubbish. Why should she?"
+
+"They used to say it was. Granny used to say so. She gave me some
+dreadful whippings for coming here. Poor Granny was just like Mrs.
+Dale about it--always saying it wasn't right for me to come here."
+
+Dale had settled the girl on his knees so that she sat now without any
+support from him. His hands had dropped to the rough surface of the
+tree; and he spoke in his ordinary voice.
+
+"Look here, Norah, never mind for a moment what your Granny said. Tell
+me what it was that my wife said."
+
+"When do you mean? Last time she was angry?"
+
+"I mean, whatever she said--and whenever she said it--about ghosts or
+hauntings."
+
+"Oh, a long time ago. It was to Mrs. Goudie."
+
+"I expect you misunderstood her. But I'd like to know what first put
+such nonsense into your head--that Mrs. Dale thought the wood was
+haunted. Can't you remember exactly what she did say?"
+
+"She said something about the gentleman's being killed here, and she
+wondered at the people coming a Sundays like they used to."
+
+"Was that all?"
+
+"No, she said something about it would serve them right for their
+pains if they saw the gentleman's ghost."
+
+Dale grunted. "That was just her joke. There are no such things as
+ghosts."
+
+"Aren't there?" Norah laughed softly and happily, and snuggled down
+again with her face against his jacket. "_You_ aren't a ghost--though
+you made me jump, yes, you did. But I wasn't afraid of you."
+
+"Hush," he muttered. "Norah, don't go on--don't." His hands were still
+on the tree, rigidly fixed there, and he sat bolt upright, staring
+out over her head.
+
+"Why not? You said I might tell my secrets. I wasn't afraid. I thought
+'Oh, aren't I glad I done what Mrs. Dale told me not to--and come into
+my wondersome, wondersome wood, and drawn _you_ after me!'"
+
+"Norah, stop."
+
+"Why? You're glad too, aren't you? I _know_ you are. I knew it when
+you came walking so tall and so quiet; an' I thought 'This is it--what
+I always hoped for--wonders to happen to me in Hadleigh Wood.' But I
+was afraid of the wood once--more afraid than Granny knew. I wouldn't
+tell her."
+
+"What d'you mean? What wouldn't you tell her?"
+
+"What I'd seen here."
+
+"What had you seen?"
+
+"I kep' it as my great secret--but I'll tell you, because you've found
+out all my secrets, now, haven't you?"
+
+"Well, let's hear it."
+
+"I saw a man hiding, crawling, ready to spring out on me."
+
+"Oh. When was that?"
+
+"Ages and ages ago, when I was almost a baby."
+
+"Heft yourself, Norah. I want to get up, an' stretch ma legs."
+
+The gentle soothing fire had faded--an invincible coldness crept on
+slow-moving blood from his heart to his brain. The girl was safe now.
+He would not injure her to-night. He got up, and stood looking down at
+her.
+
+"Well," he said quietly, "let's hear some more. What sort of a man was
+it?"
+
+"A wild man--with water dripping off him. He had crept out of the
+river."
+
+"Do you mean--a sort of ghost or demon?"
+
+"I didn't know."
+
+"Not like an ordinary man--not like any other man you've ever seen?"
+
+"Oh, no. All wild--fierce and dreadful. Not standing upright--more
+like an animal in the shape of a man."
+
+"But surely you told your Granny, or somebody?"
+
+"No. I've never told a soul except you."
+
+"An' you say you were scared, though?"
+
+"Oh, I was, rarely scared."
+
+"Then you must have told your Granny, or one of 'em. You've forgotten,
+but I expect you told people at the time."
+
+"I didn't. I didn't dare to at first. I thought he'd come after me, if
+I did. I was afraid."
+
+Dale grunted again. "An' d'you mean to say you'd the grit in you to
+come back here all the same, after that?"
+
+"Not for a little while. Then I did. I was all a twitter, so
+frightened still, but I was fascinated for to do it too--just to see."
+
+"But you never saw him again."
+
+"No, and then I began to think it was all a fancy. D'you think it was
+a fancy, and not real?"
+
+"My dear girl, no;" and Dale shrugged his shoulders. "You prob'ly saw
+some poor devil of a tramp who had slept here, and was getting on the
+move after his night's rest." Then he took a step away from the tree,
+and spoke curtly. "Come. We must go home."
+
+Norah sprang off the tree, hurried to his side, and, with her hands
+linked about his arm, looked up at him anxiously.
+
+"Yes, but it's all right, isn't it? You're not angry with me--not
+turning against me?"
+
+"No, it's all right."
+
+"Then, don't let's go. Let's stay here a little longer"
+
+"No, we must go--or Mrs. Dale will be coming to fetch us;" and he
+began to walk briskly. "And look here, Norah. I shall inform her I
+found you here by yourself, and I have lectured you at full length,
+and you've said you'll be good for the future. So don't answer back if
+she speaks sharp."
+
+"Oh, I don't mind what she says now;" and Norah laughed happily as she
+trotted after him through the trees.
+
+That evening he sat outside on the bench long after the supper table
+had been taken away and the kitchen door closed. Quite late, when
+Mavis spoke to him from an upper window, he said he must have one more
+pipe before he turned in.
+
+Norah had been singing in the kitchen while she washed the plates;
+then he had heard her humming softly in the sitting-room; now she had
+gone up-stairs and was silent. The thoughts and sensations that had
+been suddenly and strangely inhibited a few hours ago came into play
+again, warmed his blood once more, repossessed his brain. Soon he was
+impotent to struggle against them. As he sat huddled and motionless,
+he revived each memory and wilfully renewed its delight. The brick
+walls, the timber beams, the flooring boards, and plastered partitions
+could not divide her from him; though hidden at a distance, she shed
+emanations, fiery atoms, darting sparks, that infallibly reached him:
+when he closed his eyes in order not to see the empty space before
+him, she herself was here. He could feel again the light weight of her
+body upon his knees, her hair brushed against his chin, her face gave
+itself to his lips.
+
+Then more remote memories came to join the recent memories, deepening
+the spell that subjugated him. He thought of her crying when he teased
+her about love and marriage, and when her poor little innocent heart
+was bursting because of his pretense of not understanding that she
+craved for no love but his. And he thought of how she had looked in
+the middle of the night when he covered her with his jacket, and she
+stood before him trembling and blushing, with her hair all tumbling
+loose. That had been one of the mental pictures which he could not
+even make dim, much less obliterate.
+
+He groaned, got up from the bench, and walked very slowly round the
+kitchen and behind the house. The first breath of air that he had
+noticed for days was stirring the leaves, and he saw the new moon like
+a golden sickle poised above the broken summit of a hayrick. It was a
+serenely beautiful nights with an atmosphere undoubtedly cooler than
+any they had had of late; he looked at the peaceful fields, and the
+fruit trees and the barn roof, all so gently, imperceptibly touched by
+the young and tender moonbeams; and he thought that the thin yellow
+crescent was being watched by thousands and thousands of eyes, that
+men were turning their money, and wishing for luck, for fame, or for
+satisfied love. But he only of all men might not wish for the desire
+of his heart, and to him only the moon could bring nothing but pain.
+
+He went through the kitchen garden, and stood under an apple tree
+staring back at the window of her room. And still older memories
+sprang up and grew strong, so that they might attack and overcome and
+utterly undo him. The wild bad fancies of his adolescence came
+thronging upon him. Imagination and fact entangled themselves; the
+past and the present fused, and became one vast throbbing distress. He
+thought if he crept beneath the window and called to her, she would
+answer his call. If he told her to do so, she would come out in her
+night-dress--she would walk bare-footed through the fields, and plunge
+with him into the wonderful wood. If he told her to do it, she would
+go into the stream, and dance and splash--realizing that old
+dream--the white-bodied nymph of the wood for him to leap at and carry
+off into the gloom. He wrenched himself round, and made his way
+rapidly from the garden to the meadow. He could not support his
+thoughts. The proximity of the girl was driving him mad.
+
+All through the little meadow and again in the wider fields the air
+had a soft fragrance; the sky was high and quite clear, with a few
+stars; the whole earth, for as much as he could see of it, seemed to
+be sleeping in a deep delightful peace. Beyond his fences there were
+the neighbors' farms, and then there were the heath, the hills; and
+beyond these, other counties, other countries, the rest of the turning
+globe, the universe it turned in--and once again he had that feeling
+of infinite smallness, the insect unfairly matched against a solar
+system, the speck of dust whirled as the biggest stars are whirled,
+inexorably.
+
+At the confines of his land he leaned upon a gate, groaning and
+praying.
+
+"O Christ Jesus, Redeemer of mankind, why hast Thou deserted me? O God
+the Father, Lord and Judge, why dost Thou torment me so?"
+
+
+
+
+XXIX
+
+
+Very early in the morning he told Mavis that he felt sure they ought
+to send Norah away on a holiday for the good of her health.
+
+"This hot weather has been a severe test for all of us," he said; "and
+of course what I should consider equally advisable would be to send
+you and the children along with her, but I suppose--"
+
+"What, me go away just when you're going to cut the grass!"
+
+"Very well," he said, "I won't urge it. But as to Norah, that's a
+decision I've come to; so please don't question it. She's been working
+too hard--"
+
+"Did she complain to you yesterday, when you lectured her?"
+
+"No. Not a word. An' she'll prob'ly resist the idea. But she must be
+overruled, because my mind is made up. So now the only question that
+remains is--where are you to send her? What about that place for
+servants resting--at Bournemouth, the place Mrs. Norton collects
+subscriptions for?"
+
+"Yes, I might ask Mrs. Norton if she could spare us a ticket."
+
+"No, send the girl as a paying guest. I don't grudge any reasonable
+expense. Or again there's Mrs. Creech's daughter-in-law, over at
+S'thaampton Water."
+
+"Oh, there's half a dozen people I could think of--"
+
+"All right," he said; "but I want it done now, straight away. And
+look here, Mav. Take this thing off my shoulders, and don't let me be
+bothered. I shouldn't have decided it, if I didn't know it was right.
+I've a long and difficult day before me. You just hop into the gig,
+and Tom'll drive you round--to see Mrs. Norton or anybody else. Only
+let me hear by dinner-time that the arrangement is made."
+
+"You shall," said Mavis cheerfully.
+
+"Thank you, Mav. You're always a trump. You never fail one."
+
+What had seemed an insuperable difficulty was thus in a moment
+accomplished. His quietly authoritative tone had made Mavis accept the
+thing not only easily but without a doubt or question, and he thought
+remorsefully that, except for his sneaking, cowardly delay, all this
+might have occurred a month ago. He felt a distinct lightening of the
+trouble as he went back into his own room, and then the weight of it
+fell upon him again. He had succeeded so far as Mavis was concerned;
+but how about Norah?
+
+He stood meditating in front of the looking-glass before he began to
+shave. When he picked up the shaving-brush, he noticed that his hand
+was trembling--not much, yet quite visibly. It never used to do that,
+and he looked at it with disgust. It seemed to him like an old man's
+hand.
+
+Then he began to study his face in the glass. No one would have
+guessed that this was a man who had been praying all night. The whole
+face showed those signs of fatigue that come after base pleasures,
+after riotous waste of energy, after long hours of debauch. It seemed
+to him that his gray hair was finer of texture than it ought to be,
+hanging straight and thin, with no strength in it; that his eyes were
+too dim, that the flesh underneath them had puffed out loosely, and
+that his lower lip was drooping slackly--and he shuddered in disgust.
+It seemed to him that his face changed and grew uglier as he looked at
+it. It was becoming like an old man's face he had seen years ago.
+
+In spite of the slight shakiness of his hand he managed to shave
+himself without a cut, and he was just about to wash the soap away
+when he heard a sound of lamentation on the lower floor. It was Norah
+loudly bewailing herself. Mavis had gone down-stairs and published his
+sentence of banishment.
+
+Suppose that the girl betrayed their secret. Suppose that she was even
+now telling his wife what had happened in the wood. Well, he must go
+down to them and flatly deny whatever Norah said. But he tingled and
+grew hot with a most miserable shame; his heart quailed at the mere
+notion of the sickening, disgraceful character of such a scene--he,
+the highly respected Mr. Dale, the good upright religious man, being
+accused by a little servant girl and having to rebut her accusations
+in the presence of his wife.
+
+He dipped his head in the basin, and even when under the cold water
+the tips of his ears seemed as if they were on fire. He must go
+down-stairs the moment he had cooled his face; but he would go as some
+wretched schoolboy goes to the headmaster's room when he guesses that
+his unforgivable beastliness has been discovered, and that first a
+thrashing and then expulsion are awaiting him.
+
+Some of the lying words that he must utter suggested themselves. "Oh,
+Norah, this is a poor return you are making for all my kindness.
+Aren't you ashamed to stand there and tell such ungrateful
+false-hoods. Ma lass, your cheek surprises me. I wonder you can look
+me in the face."
+
+But it would be Mavis, and not Norah, who would look him in the
+face--and she would read the truth there. She would see it staring at
+her in his shifting eyes, his slack lip, and his weak frown. Her first
+glance at him would be loyal and frank, just an eager flash of love
+and confidence, seeming to say, "Be quick, Will, and put your foot on
+this viper that we've both of us warmed, and that is trying to bite
+me;" then she would turn pale, avert her head, and drop upon a chair.
+And for why? Because she had seen the nauseating truth, and her heart
+was almost broken.
+
+Then he suddenly understood that there was no real danger of all this.
+It was only his own sense of guilt that unnerved him. Nothing had
+happened in the wood. If he behaved quietly and sensibly, he would be
+altogether safe, and Mavis would never guess. Truly all that he had to
+conceal was that he had been stopped on the very brink of his sin,
+that but for a startling interference, an almost miraculous
+interference, the wicked thoughts would infallibly have found their
+outlet in wicked deeds.
+
+If Norah said he took her on his knees and kissed her, Mavis would
+think nothing of it--would not even think it undignified; would merely
+take as one more evidence of his kindly nature the fact that, instead
+of upbraiding the silly child, he had embraced her. If the girl howled
+and said she did not want to go because she was fond of him, Mavis
+would think nothing of that either. Mavis knew it already, and had
+never thought anything of it.
+
+Therefore if he did not betray himself, the girl could not betray him.
+All that was required of him was just to maintain an ordinary air of
+ingenuousness. He had done enough acting in his life to be at home
+when dissimulating. He must do a little more successful acting now.
+
+After a minute or so he went down-stairs, and was outwardly staid and
+calm, looking as he had looked on hundreds of mornings: the good kind
+father of a household, whose only care is the happiness and welfare of
+those who are dependent on him.
+
+Directly he entered the breakfast-room Norah ran sobbing to him and
+clung to his hand.
+
+"She is sending me away. Oh, don't let her do it. You promised you
+wouldn't. Oh, why do you let her do it?"
+
+"This is _my_ plan, Norah," he said gently; "not Mrs. Dale's. I wish
+it--and I ask you not to make a fuss."
+
+"I've told her," said Mavis, "that it's only for her own good; and
+that she'll be back here in a fortnight or three weeks. But she seems
+to think we want to be rid of her forever."
+
+"No, no," said Dale. "Nothing of the sort. It's merely for the good of
+your health--and not in any way as a punishment for your having been
+rather disobedient."
+
+"Why, I'm sure," said Mavis cheerfully, "most girls would jump for joy
+at the chance. You'll enjoy yourself, and have all a happy time."
+
+"No, I shan't," Norah cried. "I shall be miserable;" and she looked
+up at Dale despairingly. "Do you promise I'm really and truly to come
+back?"
+
+"Of course I do. And it's all on the cards that Mrs. Dale and Rachel
+and Bill may follow you before your holiday is over."
+
+"Oh, I doubt that," said Mavis.
+
+"No," cried Norah, "when I'm gone you'll turn against me, and forget
+me. I shall never see you again, and I shall die. I can't bear it."
+And she began to sob wildly.
+
+Then Dale, standing big and firm, although each sob tore at his
+entrails, pacified and reassured the girl. He said that she must not
+be "fullish," she must be "good and sensible," she must fall in with
+the views of those "older and wiser" than herself; finally, after his
+arguments and admonitions, he laid his hand on her bowed head as if
+silently giving a patriarchal blessing; and Mavis watched and admired,
+and loved him for his noble generosity in taking so much trouble about
+the poor little waif that had no real claim on him.
+
+"There," she said, "dry your eyes, Norah. Mr. Dale has told you he
+wishes it, and that ought to be enough for you."
+
+And then Norah said she would do what Mr. Dale wished, even if she
+died in doing it.
+
+"Oh, stuff, stuff," said Mavis, laughing cheerily. "I never heard such
+talk. Now come along with me, and get the breakfast things;" and she
+took Norah down the steps into the kitchen.
+
+Norah came back to lay the cloth presently, and would have rushed into
+Dale's arms, if he had not motioned to her to keep away, and laid a
+finger on his lips warningly. But he could not prevent her from
+whispering to him across the table.
+
+"Will you come and see me, wherever it is?"
+
+"Perhaps."
+
+"Come and see me without _her_. Come all for me, by yourself."
+
+Dale did more work in that one morning than he had done for months.
+The wet season had naturally postponed the hay-making, but negligence
+was postponing it still further; now at last he gave all necessary
+orders. But it was only his own grass that he had to deal with.
+Letting everything drift, he had not made any of the usual
+arrangements with his neighbors; this year he would not have to ride
+grandly round and watch dozens of men and women laboring for him; and
+there would be no farmers' banquet or speeches or cigar-smoking.
+
+When he came in to dinner he found Mavis all hot and red, but pleased
+with herself after her bustling activities. The whole business was
+settled. Norah was to go as a paying guest to that place at
+Bournemouth, and Mavis would drive her over to Rodchurch Road and put
+her into the four-fifteen train. At the station they would meet a girl
+called Nellie Evans, whom by a happy chance Mrs. Norton was
+despatching to-day; and so the two girls could travel together, and
+prevent each other from being a fool when they changed trains at the
+junction; and altogether nothing could have turned out better or
+nicer.
+
+Mavis, babbling contentedly all through dinner, harped on the niceness
+both of people and things. Mrs. Norton, and indeed everybody else, had
+been so nice about it. All Rodchurch had seemed anxious to assist Mr.
+and Mrs. Dale in contriving their little maid's holiday. "And it is
+nice," said Mavis simply, "to be treated like that." Mrs. Norton had
+taken her all round the vicarage garden, and she had never seen it
+looking nicer. "Although the flowers aren't anything to boast of, any
+more than ours are."
+
+"And what _do_ you think? Here's a bit of news you'll be sorry to
+hear, though it mayn't surprise you." Then Mavis related how it had
+been necessary to procure some sort of trunk to hold Norah's things,
+because there wasn't a single presentable bit of luggage in the house,
+and she had discovered exactly what she wanted--something that was not
+immoderate, appearing solid, yet not heavy--at the new shop that had
+recently been opened at the bottom of the village near the Gauntlet
+Inn. First, however, she had gone to their old friend the saddler's,
+wanting to see if she could buy the box there. But Mr. Allen's shop
+was empty, woe-begone, dirty with cobwebs, dead flies, and mud on the
+window; and Mr. Allen himself was ill in bed, being nursed hand and
+foot, and fed like a baby, by poor Mrs. Allen. He had been stricken
+down by some dreadful form of rheumatism, and three doctors had said
+the same thing--that he had brought this calamity upon himself by his
+ridiculous, ceaseless tramping after the hounds.
+
+Dale nodded and smiled, or made his face appropriately grave, while
+Mavis prattled to him; but truly his mind was occupied only by Norah.
+She came in and out of the room, looking pale and limp and resigned;
+she knew all about the trunk, and that it was up-stairs and that
+already the mistress and Ethel had begun to pack it; she was
+submitting to destiny, but out of her soft blue eyes there shot a
+glance now and then that made him quiver with pain.
+
+He went out of the house the moment dinner was finished, and kept
+moving about, now in the office, now in the yard, never still. Then,
+when he was pottering round and round the office for the fiftieth time
+in two hours, he heard a footstep, and Norah came--to whisper and
+cling to him, to make him kiss her again; to penetrate him with her
+ineffable sweetness; to plant the seeds of inextinguishable desire in
+the last few cells and fibers of his brain that as yet she had not
+reached.
+
+"I don't ast you to stand in th' road when we drive away. I'd rather
+not. Say good-by to me now, when there's nobody watchin'."
+
+Then he had to take her in his arms once more; and they stood close to
+the door, far from the window, pressed heart to heart, mute,
+throbbing.
+
+"I'm kissing you," she whispered presently, "but you're not kissing
+me. Kiss me."
+
+And he obeyed her.
+
+"No," she whispered. "Different from that. Kiss me like you did
+yesterday."
+
+"Very well," he said hoarsely. "This is the good-by kiss. This is
+good-by." And once again he felt the swift lambent ecstasy of a love
+that he had never till now guessed at; a joy beyond words, beyond
+dreams, beyond belief. "Now, you must go;" and he slowly released
+himself, and held her at arm's length. "That was our good-by. Good-by,
+my Norah--my darling--good-by." Then he went to the table in front of
+the window, and sat down.
+
+She came a little way from the door, and spoke to him before going out
+and along the passage.
+
+"I shan't mind now--however miserable I am--because I know it's all
+right. An' I promise to be good, an' do all I'm told, an' always be
+your own Norah."
+
+Then she left him--the gray-haired respected Mr. Dale of Vine-Pits
+Farm, sitting in his office window for all the world to see; looking
+livid, shaky, old; and feeling like a Christian missionary in some
+far-off heathen land, who, having preached to the gang of pirates into
+whose hands he had fallen, lies now at the roadside with all his
+inside torn away, and waits for birds with beaks or beasts with claws
+to come and finish him.
+
+Before the horse was put into the wagonette and the trunk brought
+down-stairs, Dale had left the house and gone some distance along the
+road in the direction of the Barradine Arms. Even if Norah had not
+said that he need not be there at the moment of departure, he would
+have been unable to remain. He could not stand by and see her piteous
+face, her slender figure, her forlorn gestures, while they carried her
+off--the poor little weak thing sent away from hearth and home, cast
+out among strangers because any spot on the earth, however bare or
+hard, had become a better shelter for her than the place that should
+have been sacredly secure.
+
+He walked heavily, with a leaden heart and leaden feet; his eyes
+downcast, not glancing at the dark trees on one side or the bright
+fields on, the other. But after passing the first of the woodland
+paths and before coming to the second, he looked up. He had heard the
+sound of many footsteps and the murmur of many voices. All those
+blue-cloaked orphans, two and two, an endless procession, were
+advancing toward him.
+
+Never had the sight and the sound of them been so horribly distasteful
+to him. They were still a long way off, and he thought he could dodge
+them, at any rate avoid meeting them face to face, if he hurried on to
+the second footpath and dived into the wood there. But then it seemed
+as if he had stupidly miscalculated the distance, or that his legs
+were failing him, or that the girls came sweeping down the road at an
+impossibly rapid pace; so that they were right upon him just as he
+reached the stile. He drew aside, and, feeling that it was too late
+now to turn his back, watched them as they passed.
+
+The mistresses must have issued a sudden order of silence, for they
+all went by without so much as a whisper. There were fifty of them,
+but they seemed to be thousands. Dressed in their light blue summer
+cloaks, golden-haired, brown-haired, a very few black-haired, they
+passed two by two, with the little ones first, and bigger and bigger
+girls behind--an ascending scale of size, so that he had the illusion
+of seeing a girl grow up under his eyes, change in a minute instead of
+in years from the small sexless imp that is like an amusing toy, to
+the full-breasted creature that is so nearly a woman as to be
+dangerous to herself and to everybody else.
+
+Not one of them spoke, but all of them, little and big, looked at
+him--very shyly, and yet with intense interest. He stood staring after
+them, and presently their tuneful young voices sounded again, filled
+the air with virginal music. He swung his leg over the stile, and
+went along the path through the trees where he had followed Norah
+yesterday.
+
+He had not intended to leave the highroad, but it was as if that dead
+man's girls had driven him into the wood to get away from their shyly
+questioning eyes. He might meet them again if he stayed out there. In
+here he could be alone with his thoughts.
+
+To-day there was plenty of sunlight, and instead of turning off the
+path he went straight on to the main ride. This too was bright with
+sunshine, a splendid broad avenue that was shut close on either side
+by the thickly planted firs; the mossy track seeming soft as a bed,
+and the sky like an immensely high canopy of delicate blue gauze. A
+heron crossed quickly but easily, making only three flaps of its
+powerful wings before it disappeared; there was an unceasing hum of
+insects; and two wood-cutters came by and wished Dale good afternoon
+and touched their weather-stained hats.
+
+"Good afternoon," he said, in a friendly tone. "A bit cooler and
+pleasanter to-day, isn't it?"
+
+"You're right, sir. 'Bout time too."
+
+Then he walked on, alone with his thoughts again, along the wide
+sunlit ride toward Kibworth Rocks; and a phrase kept echoing in his
+ears, sounding as if he said it aloud. "It is the finger of God. It is
+the finger of God." He was quoting himself really, because he had once
+used that phrase in a pompously effective manner. Could one repeat it
+as effectively in regard to what happened near here yesterday? Could
+one dare to say that the finger of God interposed, touching his blood
+with ice, making his muscles relax, forcing him to loosen his hold on
+the delicious morsel that like a beast of prey he was about to devour
+and enjoy.
+
+He walked with hunched shoulders and lowered head, but there was great
+resolution, even an odd sort of swaggering defiance in his gait. He
+stopped short, raised his head, and looked about him at a certain
+point of the ride. Here he was very near to the open glade where he
+met Norah; but he was nearer still to the strewn boulders, jagged
+ridges, and hollow clefts of Kibworth Rocks. If he left the ride, he
+would see them, brown and gray, glittering in the sunshine.
+
+And he thought again of those fifty orphans or waifs. Why weren't they
+here to bow and do honor to him who had been the friend of girls in
+life and who was the guardian angel of girls in death? This was the
+hallowed spot, the benefactor's resting-place till devout hands raised
+him and priests sang over him, the rocky shrine of their patron saint.
+
+Dale grunted, shook himself, and went off the ride in the opposite
+direction--to tread the moss that had been crushed by Norah's
+footsteps, to push against the branches that had touched her
+shoulders, to see the dead flowers that had dropped from her hands. He
+found a shriveled sprig or two of her woodland posy, and carried them
+to the fallen beech tree.
+
+She was gone now--already a long way from him--at the railway station,
+with ticket bought, and box labeled, waiting for the train to take her
+still farther from him. Only a heron could fly fast enough to get to
+her now before the train possessed her. And he quoted himself again,
+really saying the words aloud this time. "Good-by--my darling--good-by,
+good-by."
+
+That was what he meant when he gave her the last kiss. He had said so.
+He had called it the last kiss. But she--poor lamb--thought it was the
+last kiss till next time; that it was good-by for three weeks, not
+good-by forever. He must never see her again. There could be no two
+ways about _that_ decision. He mustn't palter, or trifle, or
+shilly-shally about that iron certainty. But how without Heaven's
+unceasing aid would he have strength to keep such a vow?
+
+And sitting on the tree, and thinking for a little while about himself
+rather than about her, he endeavored to survey his situation in the
+logical clear-sighted way that had once been customary with him. To
+what a blank no-thoroughfare he had brought himself. What a damnable
+mess he had made of his peaceful, happy home.
+
+Of course he had known for a long time what was the matter with him.
+His disgust with himself at the revelation of his own weakness dated
+from a long time ago; but the progress of his passing from perfectly
+pure and normal thoughts about the girl to cravings that he struggled
+with as morbid impurities was so subtle that it defied analysis. At
+first when he put his hand on her head, or patted her shoulder, every
+thought behind the fatherly gesture was itself fatherly; and then,
+without anything to startle one by a recognition of change, the time
+had come when he felt a slight thrill in touching her, when he was
+always seeking occasions or excuses for doing it, when the wider the
+contact the more massive was his satisfaction. Her white neck, her
+round fore-arms, her thin wrists, irresistibly attracted a caress. He
+could not keep his hands off her--and it distressed and worried him
+whenever he saw anybody else doing quite innocently what he did with
+an unavowable purpose. Perhaps this was the real cause of his dislike
+for the new pastor. After Mr. Furnival's initial appearance at the
+chapel, they all three walked a little way together, and the
+good-looking young man paid Norah compliments about her singing, and
+held her hand and patted it. Nothing could have been more innoxious,
+more completely ministerial; and yet Dale had felt that he would like
+to take the clerical gentleman by the collar of his black coat and the
+seat of his gray trousers, and send him sprawling over a quick-set
+hedge into a ploughed field.
+
+He knew then the nature of the poison that had crept insidiously into
+his blood and was beginning to spread and rage with deadly power. He
+fought against it bravely, he fought against it despairingly. He hoped
+that chance would cure him, he prayed that heaven would cleanse him.
+
+He would not believe that his ruin was irretrievable. That would be
+too monstrous and absurd. Because, except for this expanding trouble,
+everything inside him, all the main component parts that made up the
+vast and still solid thinking organism which had been labeled for
+external observers by the name of William Dale, remained quite
+unchanged. His religious faith stood absolutely firm, was strengthened
+rather than shaken; he regarded his wife with exactly the same
+affection; he loved his children as much as, more than ever; only this
+astounding dreadful new thing was added to him: he worshiped Norah.
+
+In his struggles to free himself from the new mental growth, he had
+turned to his children. Instinct seemed to say that from them and
+through them should come an influence sufficiently potent to resist
+temptation, however tremendous. He felt so proud of the boy. Billy was
+never afraid of him, looked at him so firmly even when threatened,
+holding up the pink and white face, with its soft unformed features
+and yet a determined set to the chin and mouth already--a real little
+man. Dale took his son's hand in his, took Billy with him into the
+granary, the hay loft, or across the fields, cut bits of willow and
+showed how to make a whistle, took a hedge sparrow's nest and blew the
+eggs; and the boy was proud and happy in such noble society, but he
+could not exorcise the evil spell for his grand companion.
+
+Nor could Rachel give freedom. Dale embraced his daughter with the
+truest paternal fervor, pumping up sweet clean love from deep
+unsullied wells, thinking honestly and as of old so long as she stood
+by his side. At such moments he forced himself to imagine a man
+playing the fool with Rachel, and immediately there came a full normal
+explosion of parental rage; and he knew, without the possibility of
+doubt, that such a man had better never have been born than encounter
+Rachel's father. But these imaginations could not help him. Thoughts
+about Rachel and thoughts about Norah, which once had mingled, were
+now like two rivers running side by side but never meeting.
+
+Again, what had rendered the fight hopeless was his recognition of the
+overwhelming fact that the spell was mutual. It was not only that he
+wanted her, Norah wanted him. There lay the sweetly venomous throb of
+the poison. In her eyes he was _not_ old; his gray hair did not appall
+her, his rugged frame did not repel her. All night and all day,
+during months, yes, during years, she had told him: "You are _not_
+old; you _need_ not be old; _I_ can make you young."
+
+He thought, as he had thought again and again, of her artlessness, her
+ignorance, and her total absence of compunction. It seemed so
+wonderful. She drifted toward him as the petal of a flower comes on
+running water, as corn seeds blow through the air, as anything small
+and light obeying a natural law. She did not in the least understand
+social conventions. She was not troubled with one thought of right or
+wrong; she neither meditated nor remembered. How wonderful. The ten
+commandments and the catechism that she knew by heart, all the hymns
+she had sung and all the sermons she had heard, did not exert the
+faintest restraining influence. They had no real meaning for her
+probably, and she could not therefore bring them into relation with
+concrete facts. In her innocence, in her virginal simplicity, she
+would keep the book of life close--sealed until he opened it roughly
+for her at its ugliest page.
+
+He, or somebody else!
+
+Suddenly he threw away the faded wood-blossoms, sprang up from the
+tree, and paced to and fro. A wave of revolt came sweeping through and
+through him. Was he not making mountains out of mole-hills?
+
+If he could trample down all this sentimental fiddle-de-dee, what was
+the plain English of the case so far as she was concerned? Unbidden,
+innumerable circumstances stored from local knowledge offered
+themselves as guides for argument. Take any girl of that class--well,
+what are her chances? Why, you are lucky if you keep 'em straight
+until the time comes to send 'em out into domestic service; their
+parents scarcely expect it, barely seem to desire it. But after that
+time, when they get among strangers and there's nobody with an eye on
+them, they fall as victims--if you choose to call it so--to the first
+marauder--to the young master, the nephew home for his Christmas
+holidays, or the man who comes to tune the piano. If not himself, it
+would be somebody else.
+
+And he thought. "Blast it all, am I a man or a mouse? Who's to judge
+me, or stan' in my way, if I do what I please? Suppose it's found out,
+well, it must be smoothed over, covered up, and put behind the
+fireplace. I shan't be Number One that's bin th' same road!" and he
+remembered how lightly other married men, his neighbors, country
+farmers, or town tradesmen, amused themselves with their servants, and
+how their middle-aged wives just had to grin and bear it. "An' Mavis,"
+he thought, "can do the same. Heavens an' earth, I've got an answer
+ready if she tries to make a fuss, or wants to take the dinner-bell
+and go round as public crier--an answer that ought to flatten her as
+if a traction engine had bin over her. 'My lass, who began it? Bring
+out your slate and put it alongside mine, an' we'll see which looks
+dirtiest, all said and done.'" While he was thinking in this manner,
+his face became very ugly, with hard deep lines in it, and about the
+mouth that cruel pouting expression once seen by Mavis.
+
+He came back to the tree; and sat down, letting his hands hang loose,
+his head droop, and his shoulders contract. The fire had gone cold
+again.
+
+Now he felt only disgust and horror. Norah's ignorance and disregard
+of moral precepts, or readiness to yield to the snares of unlicensed
+joy, were summed up in the better and truer word innocence. The
+greater her weakness, the greater his wickedness. If he could not save
+her from others, he could save her from himself. Then if she fell, it
+would at least be a natural fall. It would not be a foul betrayal of
+youth by age; it would not be the sort of degraded crime that makes
+angels weep, and ordinary people change into judges and executioners.
+
+When a man has reached a certain time of life he must not crave for
+forbidden delights, he must not permit himself to be eaten up with new
+desire, he must not risk destroying a girl's soul for the
+gratification of his own body. If he does, he commits the unpardonable
+sin. And there is no excuse for him.
+
+The Devil's reasonings to which a few minutes ago he had listened
+greedily were specious, futile, utterly false. That sort of argument
+might do for other men--might do for every other man in the wide
+world--but it would not do for _him_, William Dale. Its acceptance
+would knock the very ground from under his feet.
+
+For, if there could be any excuse, why had he killed Everard
+Barradine?
+
+
+
+
+XXX
+
+
+Then Dale lived again for the hundred thousandth time in the thoughts
+and passions of that distant period.
+
+The forest glade grew dim, vanished. He was lying on the grass in a
+London park, and Mavis' confession rang through the buzzing of his
+ears, through the chaos of his mind. It seemed that the whole of his
+small imagined world had gone to pieces, and the immensity of the real
+world had been left to him in exchange--crushing him with an idea of
+its unexplored vastness, of its many countries, its myriad races. And
+yet, big as it all was, it could not provide breathing space for that
+man and himself.
+
+Soon this became an oppressive certainty. Life under the new
+conditions had been rendered unendurable. And then there grew up the
+one solid determination, that he must stand face to face with his
+enemy and call him to account. It must _at last_ be man to man. He
+must tell the man what he thought of him, call him filthy names, strip
+him of every shred of dignity--and strike him. A few blows of scorn
+might suffice--a backhander across the snout, a few swishes with a
+stick, a kick behind when he turned. He was too rottenly weak a thing
+to fight with.
+
+His mind refused to go further than this. However deeply and darkly it
+was working below the surface of consciousness, it gave him no
+further directions than this.
+
+He got rid of his wife. That was the first move in the game--anyhow.
+He did not want to think about her now; she would be dealt with again
+later on. At present he wished to concentrate all his attention on the
+other one.
+
+He took a bed for himself in a humbler and cheaper house farther west,
+a little nearer to the house of his enemy; and almost all that day he
+spent in thinking how and where he should obtain the meeting he longed
+for. He understood at once that it would be hopeless to attempt such
+an interview at Grosvenor Place. In imagination he saw himself
+escorted by servants to that tank-like room at the back of the
+mansion--the room where the man had treated him as dirt, where his
+first instinct of distrust had been aroused, where all those
+photographs of girls had subtly suggested the questioning doubts that
+led him on to suspicion and discovery. The man would come again to
+this room, with his tired eyes and baggy cheeks and drooping lip;
+would stare contemptuously; and at the first words of abuse, he would
+ring a bell, call for servants, call for the police, and have the
+visitor ignominiously turned out. "Policeman, this ruffian has been
+threatening me. He is an ill-conditioned dog that I've been
+systematically kind to, and he now seems to have taken leave of his
+senses and accuses me of injuring him. For the sake of his wife, who
+is a good respectful sort of person, I do not give him in charge. But
+I ask you to keep an eye on him. And if he dares to return to my door,
+just cart him off to the police station." No, that would not do at
+all. He and Mr. Barradine must meet somewhere quietly and
+comfortably, out of reach of electric bells, butlers, and police
+officers.
+
+That first night after the confession he slept sound and long. In the
+morning when he woke, feeling refreshed and strengthened, his
+determination to bring about the interview had assumed an iron
+firmness, as if all night it had been beaten on the anvil of his
+thoughts while he lay idle. But he was no nearer to devising a scheme
+that should give effect to the determination.
+
+Mr. Barradine had said that he was going down to the Abbey to-morrow,
+or next day, Friday, at latest; and in the course of this Wednesday
+morning Dale decided that the interview must be delayed. It was
+impossible up here. It would be much easier to arrange down there. He
+must wait until Mr. Barradine went down to Hampshire, and go down
+after him. He could call at the Abbey, where the man would be more
+accessible than up here; and, by restraining himself, by simulating
+his usual manner, by lulling the man to a false security, he could
+lure him out of the house--get him out into the open air, away from
+his servants, perhaps beyond the gardens and as far off as the park
+copses. Then when they were alone, they two, at a distance from the
+possibility of interruption, Dale could drop the mask of subservience,
+turn upon him, and say "Now--"
+
+No, that would not do. It was all childish. For a thousand obscure
+reasons it would not do at all.
+
+Then, brooding over his wife's confession--the things she had merely
+hinted at as well as the things she had explicitly stated--he
+remembered how in the beginning the wood near Long Ride was their
+meeting-place, how the man had met her there, and led her slowly
+beneath the trees to the cottage of the procuress. And then an
+inspiration came. A note to be sent in his wife's name, as soon as Mr.
+Barradine got home to the Abbey. "Meet me in the West Gate copse. I
+want to show my gratitude"--or--"I want to thank you again"--something
+of that sort. "Meet me at the end of North Ride by the Heronry. I will
+be there if possible four o'clock to-morrow. If not there to-morrow, I
+will be there next day. Mavis."
+
+He wrote such a letter, in a hand sufficiently like his wife's. Yes,
+that would fetch him. The old devil would have no suspicions.
+
+Then a cold shiver ran down his spine. It was a thought rising from
+the depths, warning him, terrifying him. The note would remain
+_afterward_. If Mr. Barradine did not destroy it--and very likely he
+would not do so--the note would be found afterward. But after what?
+
+He tore up the note, tore it into tiny pieces. It seemed to him that
+he had escaped from a danger. His plan had been the idea of a madman.
+But why? With his skin still cold and clammy, he found himself
+whispering words which sounded explanatory, but which did not explain:
+"Suppose a mistake occurred. Yes, suppose a mistake occurred." Then
+trying to think quietly and sensibly, instead of in this fluttered,
+erratic way, he forced himself to interpret the real significance of
+the whisper. Well, suppose he struck too hard, and too often. But
+again there came the blankness--an abrupt check to thought--the depths
+refusing to give anything more to the surface.
+
+He decided that he would go down to Hampshire secretly, letting no
+one know of his movements; and, stationing himself at some likely spot
+near the Abbey, he would wait till chance brought them face to face.
+Yes, that would do. Almost immediately he chose Hadleigh Wood as the
+place to hide in. Instinct seemed to have suggested the wood rather
+than any point nearer to the Abbey, and instinct now ordered him to go
+there and nowhere else. It was a likely road to so many parts; it was
+full of good hiding-places; and, although it was tricky, with its
+close thickets suddenly terminating on the edge of unexpected open
+spaces, he knew it all as well as the back of his right hand. He could
+lie snug, or range about cautiously, seeing but unseen; and he would
+not have long to wait before the grand gentleman passed by on his way
+to or from the Abbey park.
+
+He had got it now. This was right; and he laid all his plans
+accordingly. First he pawned his silver watch and chain, so obtaining
+a little money without bothering anybody. The pawnbroker's shop was in
+Chapel Street, and he went on along the Edgware Road and up a narrow
+street in search of a shop where he could procure a suit of old
+clothes. Here again it was as though instinct guided him, because he
+had no knowledge of London and did not know where to look for a
+slop-shop; but he pushed on, noticing that the houses were shabby, and
+feeling sure that he would soon find what he wanted. And this
+happened. All at once he was among the second-hand clothes; every shop
+on both sides of the street invited him--the whole street at this
+sordid end of it was trying to help him. For a very few shillings he
+bought just the garments that he had imagined--loose and big made of
+drab canvas or drill, the suit of overalls that had been worn by some
+kind of mechanic, with two vast inside pockets to the jacket, in which
+the wearer had carried tools, food, and his bottle of drink. Dale also
+bought a common soft felt hat, a thing you could pull down over your
+eyes and ears, and make into any shape you pleased.
+
+When he put on the suit and the hat in his bedroom, he felt satisfied
+with their appearance. He said to himself, "After I have slept out a
+night, and got plenty of earth stains and muck on this greasy old
+canvas, I shall look just a tramp wandered from the highroad, and no
+one will recognize me if they do chance to see me--that is, unless I
+take my hat off. And I don't do _that_, until I take it off for the
+purpose of being recognized by _him_."
+
+He locked the suit of overalls and the slouch hat safely in his bag.
+But next day he brought out the hat, and wore it while making a very
+careful tour of inspection in the neighborhood of the Grosvenor Place
+mansion. Approaching it from the western side he spied out the lie of
+the land, found a mews that had an entrance in the side street, and
+judged that this mews contained Mr. Barradine's horses and carriages.
+This proved to be true. Sauntering up and down, and lurking at corners
+on the side street, Dale waited and watched. Always seeming to be
+strolling away from the house, but glancing back over his shoulder now
+and then, he saw Mr. Barradine's brougham come out of the mews and
+stand at Mr. Barradine's door. No luggage was brought down the steps:
+Mr. Barradine was merely starting for a drive about town. Dale came in
+the evening and observed the house as he strolled along the main
+thoroughfare of Grosvenor Place. There were lights in several rooms,
+and the window of the porch showed that the hail was lighted up. Mr.
+Barradine had said that he hoped to be able to get home to-day, but
+evidently his journey had been postponed until to-morrow. He had said
+he would go on Friday at the latest.
+
+He did not, however, go on Friday. Dale kept the house under
+observation off and on all day, and again in the evening. Mr.
+Barradine went out driving twice; but the carriage brought him back
+each time. How many more postponements? Would he go to-morrow? Yes, he
+would go to-morrow; but this involved more delay. It would be useless
+to follow him to-morrow, because he would never pass through the wood
+on Sunday. No, he would spend Sunday inside his park-rails, going to
+the Abbey church, walking about the garden, looking at the stables and
+the dairy. Moreover, Sunday would be the one dangerous day in the
+woods--nobody at work, everybody free to wander; young men with their
+sweethearts coming off the rides for privacy; cottagers with squoils
+hunting the squirrels all through church time perhaps. Dale ground his
+teeth, shook his fist at the lighted windows, and thought. "If he does
+not go to-morrow--I can't wait. My self-control will be exhausted, and
+I shall certainly do something fullish."
+
+But Mr. Barradine went home that Saturday. Between ten and eleven in
+the morning the brougham stood at the door, a four-wheeled cab was
+fetched and loaded with luggage, and the two vehicles drove off round
+the corner southward on their way to Waterloo. And Dale felt his
+spirits lightening and a fierce gaiety filling his breast. The time
+of inaction was nearly over; this hateful sitting down under one's
+wrongs would not last long now; soon he would be doing something. He
+took quite a pleasant walk through Chelsea, and over the river to
+Lambeth, where, after a snack of lunch, he read the newspapers in a
+Public Library. The Library was a quiet, convenient resort; and
+yesterday he had written a letter there, to Mr. Ridgett at Rodchurch
+Post Office--not because he really had anything to communicate, but
+because it seemed necessary, or at least wise, to send off a letter
+from London.
+
+He enjoyed a good night's rest, and lay in bed till late on Sunday
+afternoon. He intended to travel by the mail train--the train that
+left Waterloo at ten-fifteen, and went through the night dropping
+post-bags all the way down the line; and it was extremely improbable
+that he would meet any Rodchurch friends in this train, but he
+understood that the dangerous part of his proceedings would begin when
+he got to Waterloo, and he was a little worried, even muddled, as to
+how and where to change his clothes--or rather to put on that canvas
+suit over his ordinary clothes. If he made the change here, and any
+one saw him going out, it might seem a bit odd.
+
+But then his confusion of ideas passed off, and all became clear. He
+must change at the last possible moment, of course; and he thought,
+"Why am I so muddled about such simple things? I must pull myself
+together. Of course I don't mind being seen in London; it is down
+there that I don't wish to be seen. Anybody is welcome to see me till
+I'm started, an' perhaps the more people that see me the better."
+
+He therefore shaved, and dressed neatly and carefully; packed his
+valise with the bowler hat in it, turned up the brim of the common
+slouch hat and wore it jauntily. The overalls were rolled in an
+unobtrusive brown-paper parcel to be carried under the arm; and,
+having paid for his bedroom, he went out at about eight o'clock,
+walking boldly through the streets--just as Mr. Dale of Rodchurch,
+dressed in blue serge and not in his best black coat--Mr. Dale dressed
+for the holidays, with a rakish go-as-you-please soft hat instead of
+the ceremonious hard-brimmed bowler, and not too proud to carry his
+bag and parcel for himself.
+
+All straightforward now. It would be still Mr. Dale at Waterloo,
+depositing the bag at the cloak-room, buying a ticket, and getting
+into the train with his brown-paper parcel. Only Mr. Dale would get
+lost on the journey, and a queer shabby customer would emerge at the
+other end.
+
+But he allowed himself to modify the plan slightly. It was necessary
+that he should have a good meal and also procure food to take with
+him, and for these purposes he went to an eating-house in the York
+Road. This turned out to be just the place he required--a room with
+tables where diners could sit as long as they chose, a counter spread
+out with edibles to be absorbed standing, and the company consisting
+of cabmen from the station ranks, some railway porters, and a few
+humble travelers.
+
+He ordered a large beef-steak; and he ate like a boa-constrictor,
+thinking the while: "This ought to stick to my ribs. I can't put away
+too much now, because it may come to short commons if the luck's
+against me." Then after the meal there came a temptation to hurry up
+his program, and get through some of the little difficulties at once.
+He observed his surroundings. The place was fuller now than when he
+came in; the atmosphere was thick with tobacco smoke and the steam of
+hot food; the kitchen was at its busiest; and at the counter the
+stupid-looking girl in charge was handing over refreshments so fast
+that it seemed as if soon there would be none left.
+
+He paid a waitress for his supper, and then went into the dark little
+lavatory behind the room and put on his canvas suit. Coming out into
+the room again, he intended to say something about having slipped on
+his overalls for a night job; but nothing of the kind was necessary.
+Nobody cared, nobody noticed. His difficulty was to make the counter
+girl attend to him at all. He spoke to her bruskly at last; and then
+she sold him slices of cold meat, cheese, biscuits, a lot of chocolate
+and some nuts, with which he filled those two inner pockets of his
+jacket. They had become his larders now.
+
+There were not more than a dozen passengers in the whole train, and no
+one on the platform at Waterloo took the faintest notice of him.
+
+No one noticed him three hours later when he left the train at a
+station short of Manninglea Cross; and soon he was far from other men,
+striking across the dark country, with the stars high over his head,
+and his native air blowing into his lungs. He came down over the heath
+on the Abbey side of the Cross Roads, and reached Hadleigh Wood just
+before dawn.
+
+He felt at home now, alone with the wild animals, on ground that he
+had learned the tricks of when he was like a wild animal himself. He
+knew his wood as well as any of them. He could make lairs beneath the
+hollies, glide imperceptibly among the trees, crawl on his belly from
+tussock to tussock, and startle the very foxes by creeping quite close
+before they smelled peril. So he hid and glided as the sun climbed the
+sky, and then waited and watched when the sun was high, now here, now
+there, but always very near the open rides along which people would be
+passing. And that day many passed, but not the man he wanted.
+
+He was three days and nights in the wood; and on the morning of the
+fourth day somebody saw him.
+
+He had moved stealthily to the stream to drink, and while creeping
+back on hands and knees among some holly bushes by a glade, he paused
+suddenly. Out there on the grass, so small that she had not shown
+above the lowest bushes, there was a little girl--a child of about
+five, in a tattered pinafore, picking daisies and making a daisy
+chain. Breathless and with a beating heart, he watched her, and he
+dared not move forward into the sunlight or backward into the shade.
+She had not seen him yet. She was playing with the chain of flowers--a
+small wood goblin sprung out of nowhere, a little black-haired devil
+fired up from hell through the solid earth and out into this empty
+glade to squat there right in his track. Then she stood upon her feet,
+and admired the length of the chain as she held it dangling.
+
+Then she dropped the chain, gave a little cry like the note of a
+frightened bird, and scampered away--never looking back.
+
+Never looking back. But she had seen him. He tried to hope that she
+had not seen him.
+
+He was hungry now. His provisions were exhausted; he had eaten nothing
+since last night, and he felt excited and fretful. He said to
+himself: "If to-day my enemy is not delivered into my hands, I must go
+out into the open and seek him at all risks, at all costs." It was a
+dominant idea now. Nothing else mattered.
+
+But that day the man came. When the day was almost over, when the
+whole wood was fading to the neutral tints of dusk, he came. He was on
+horseback, sitting easily and proudly, and his chestnut horse paced
+daintily and noiselessly over the moss.
+
+Dale took off his hat. Then presently he came out of the bracken into
+the ride, gripped the horse by its bridle, and spoke to the rider.
+
+"Halloa! Dale? But, my good fellow, what the deuce--Damn you, let go.
+What are you trying to--"
+
+"I'll show you. Yes, you"--and violent, obscene, incoherent words came
+pouring from Dale in a high-pitched querulous voice. All his set
+speeches had been blown to the clouds by the blast of his passion. All
+his plans exploded in flame at the sight of the man's face--the eyes
+that had gloated over Mavis' reluctant body, the lips that had fed on
+her enforced kisses. But what did the words matter? Any words were
+sufficient. They could understand each other without words now.
+
+He was holding the bridle firmly, pulling the horse's head round; and
+he grasped Mr. Barradine's foot, got it out of the stirrup, and
+jerking the whole leg upward, pitched him out of the saddle. The
+horse, released, sprang away, jumping this way, that way, as it dashed
+through the brake to the rocks--the clatter of its hoofs sounded on
+the rocks, and the last glimpse of it showed its empty saddle and the
+two flying stirrup-irons.
+
+Dale was mad now--the devil loose in him--only conscious of
+unappeasable rage and hatred, as he struck with his fists, beating the
+man down every time he tried to get up, and kicking at the man's head
+when he lay prostrate.
+
+Then there came a brief pause of extraordinary deep quiet, a sudden
+cessation of all perceptible sounds and movements. Dale was confused,
+dazed, breathing hard. That was a dead man sprawling there--what you
+call a corpse, a bleeding carcass. Dale looked at him. Beneath his
+last kick, the skull had cracked like a well-tapped egg.
+
+As abruptly as if his legs had been knocked from under him Dale sat
+down, and endeavored to think.
+
+Then it was as if all his thought and the action resulting from his
+thought were beyond his control. In all that he did he seemed to be
+governed by instinct.
+
+At any minute some one might pass by. He must drag the body out of
+sight. And the instinctive thoughts came rapidly, each one as the
+necessity for it arose. He must leave no foot-prints, or as few as
+possible. He unlaced and pulled off his boots, and, noticing the blood
+on them, made a mental note to wash them as soon as he could find time
+to do so.
+
+He took the dead man by the heels, and dragged him cautiously toward
+the rocks--seeking the zigzag line taken by the galloping horse. That
+was the chance. Instinct directed and explained the task--to make it
+seem that the horse had dragged him, and battered his life out over
+the rocks. A good chance. Those stirrups didn't come out. He might
+truly have been dragged by one of them.
+
+The track of the horse was lost directly the rocks began. Dale left
+the body, and cautiously clambered upon the rocks to see if any living
+thing observed him.
+
+Then he took the corpse by the heels again, and hauled it over the
+jagged surfaces and through the hollows--conscious all the while of
+great pain--and finally left it in a cleft, staring stupidly upward.
+He hurried back to the ride, and sat down by the rank-smelling bracken
+where he had left his boots. He was startled when he looked at his
+feet--their soles were covered with blood. He thought it was the dead
+man's blood, but then discovered it was his own. He had torn his feet
+to pieces on the rocks. He put on his boots in agony, picked up his
+hat, and limped away through the hollies into the gloom of the pines.
+Down in the stream, with the water rippling over his ankles, he stood
+and listened.
+
+What to do next? They had not yet discovered the dead man; but it
+seemed to him that they would do so in another minute or two. He tried
+to think logically, but could not. It seemed now necessary to get
+clear away before the body was seen--get as far off as possible.
+Vaguely it occurred to him that he should wait here till night, and it
+was still only dusk. But then he had a clear vision of the wood at
+night--lanterns moving in every direction, men's voices, a cordon of
+men all round the wood. Yes, that would be the state of affairs when
+they had found the body and were beginning to look for the murderer.
+This wood was a death-trap. He forgot the pain in his feet, and began
+to run with the long trotting stride of a hunted stag, careless now of
+the crash of the bushes and fern as he swung through them.
+
+He paused crouching on the edge of the wood, then came out over the
+bank, across a road, and into the fields. With arched back he went
+along the deep ditch of the first field, through a gap, and into the
+ditch of the next field. To his right lay Vine-Pits Farm; to his left
+lay the Cross Roads, the Barradine Arms, the clustered cottages. He
+ran on, in ditch after ditch, under hedges and banks, swinging
+left-handed in a wide detour till he came to the last of the fields
+and the highroad to Old Manninglea.
+
+But he had to wait here. He saw laborers on the road, and waited till
+they were gone. Then he crept through the gap where the ditch went
+under the road culvert, crossed this second road, and ran stooping on
+the open heath.
+
+The sky was red, with terrible clouds; and a wind followed him,
+keeping his spine cold, although all the rest of him was burning. When
+he looked back he fancied that he saw men moving, and that he heard
+distant shoutings from Beacon Hill. Rain fell--not much of it, just
+showers, wetting his hands, and mingling with the perspiration in
+front, but making him colder behind; and he muttered to cheer himself.
+"That's luck. That'll wash away the blood. Yes, that's luck. Yes, I
+must take it for a good sign--bit o' luck."
+
+He walked and ran for miles--over the bare downs, through the fertile
+valleys, and alongside the other railway line; and late that night he
+got into a feeding train for Salisbury, where, he was told, he would
+catch a West of England express for London.
+
+There was delay at Salisbury, and he ate some food and drank some
+brandy.
+
+Then at last he found himself in the London train, in an empty
+compartment of a corridor coach. He sat with folded arms, his hat
+pulled low on his forehead, his eyes peering suspiciously out of the
+window, or at the door of the corridor. Whenever anybody went by in
+the corridor, he stooped his head lower and pretended to be asleep.
+
+There were strange people in this train--soldiers and sailors from
+Devonport; some foreigners too, or people dressed up to look like
+foreigners; numbers of men also who kept their heads down as he was
+doing, as if for some jolly good private reason. Who the hell were
+they really? Detectives?
+
+The train was going so fast now that it rocked to and fro, and hummed
+and sang; but it seemed to Dale to be standing still--to be going
+backward. This illusion was so strong for some moments that he jumped
+up and went out into the corridor, to look down at the permanent way
+on that side also. The lamplight from the train showed on both sides
+that the sleepers, the chairs, the gravel, slipped and slid in the
+correct direction. The train was flying, simply flying along the inner
+up-track of the four sets of metals.
+
+"I mustn't be so fullish," he kept saying to himself. "I'm all safe
+now."
+
+A sudden noise of voices drew him to the corridor; and he stood
+holding a hand-rail, watching the leather walls and the gangway that
+led into the next coach leap and dance and bob and sink, while he
+listened eagerly. The roar of the train was so great here that he
+could not catch what the hidden men were saying, but he understood
+that they were sailors making too much noise and a railway guard
+rebuking them. "It's nothing to do with me," he said to himself. "Why
+_am_ I so fullish?"
+
+He returned to the compartment, sat with his shoulder to the corridor,
+and brooded dully and heavily. All that fiery trouble about Mavis and
+her being dishonored had gone out of his mind as if forever; the
+grievance and the rage and the hatred had gone too; temporarily there
+was nothing but a most ponderous self-pity.
+
+"What a mess this is," he thought. "What a hash I've made of it. What
+a cruel thing to happen to me. What an awful hole I've put myself
+into."
+
+The train swept onward, and he began to doze. Then after a while he
+slept and dreamed. He dreamed that he was here in this train, not
+fettered, but spell-bound, unable to move and hide, only able to
+understand what was happening and to suffer from his perception of the
+hideous predicament that he was in. Another train, on another of the
+four tracks, was racing after this train, was overhauling it, was
+infallibly catching it. Mysteriously he could see into this following,
+hunting train--it was a train full of policemen, magistrates, wardens,
+judges, hangmen: all the offended majesty of the law.
+
+He woke shivering, after this first taste of a murderer's dreams. His
+punishment had begun.
+
+It was daylight at Waterloo, and he slunk in terror; but things had to
+be done. He washed himself as well as he could, took off his dirty
+canvas, got his bag from the cloak-room and hurried away. No questions
+were asked, no bones made about giving him a room at a house in
+Stamford Street; and he at once went to bed and slept profoundly.
+
+When he woke this time he was quite calm, and able to think clearly
+again.
+
+He went out late in the afternoon, and saw a message for him on
+newspaper bills: "Fatal Accident to ex-Cabinet Minister." Then, having
+bought a paper, he read the very brief report of the accident. He
+stood gasping, and then drew deep breaths. The _Accident_. Oh, the joy
+of seeing that word! No suspicion so far. It was working out just as
+one might hope.
+
+And it seemed that his courage, so lamentably shaken, began to return
+to him. He felt more himself. He marched off to a post office, and
+sent his telegram to Mavis: "Evening paper says fatal accident to Mr.
+Barradine. Is this true?" The main purpose of the telegram was to
+prove that here he was in London, where he had been last Friday, and
+where he had remained during all the intervening time; its secondary
+purpose was to put on record at the earliest possible moment his
+surprise--surprise so complete that he could scarcely believe the sad
+news. He gave his utmost care to the wording of the telegram and was
+satisfied with the result. The turn of words seemed perfectly natural.
+
+Then, having despatched his telegram, he hurried off to call at Mr.
+Barradine's house in Grosvenor Place--to make some anxious inquiries.
+
+There were people at the door, ladies and gentlemen among them, and
+the servants looked white and agitated as they answered questions.
+Dale pushed his way up the steps almost into the hall, acting
+consternation and grief--the honest, rather rough country fellow, the
+loyal dependent who forgets his good manners in his sorrow at the
+death of the chieftain. He would not go away, when the other callers
+had departed. He told the butler of the services rendered to him by
+Mr. Barradine. "Not more'n ten days ago."
+
+"Don't you remember me? I came here to thank him for his kindness."
+
+"Ah, yes," said the agitated butler, "he was a kind gentleman, and no
+mistake."
+
+"_Kind!_ I should think he was. Well, well!" And Dale stood nodding
+his head dolefully. Then he went away slowly and sadly, and he kept on
+nodding his head in the same doleful manner long after the door was
+shut--just on the chance that the servants might look out of the hail
+windows and see it before he vanished round the corner.
+
+He could think now, as well as he had ever done. It was of prime
+importance that no outsiders should ever learn that Everard Barradine
+had injured him. This guided him henceforth. It settled the course of
+his life there and then. He must return to Mavis; he must by his
+demeanor cover the intrigue--or so act that if people came to know of
+it, they would suppose either that he was ignorant of his shame or
+that he was a complaisant husband, taking advantage of the situation
+and pocketing all gifts from his wife's protector. No motive for the
+crime. That was his guide-post.
+
+In the night he got rid of the canvas suit and slouch hat. Next day he
+went home to Rodchurch Post Office, and, speaking to Mavis of Mr.
+Barradine's death, uttered that terrific blasphemy. "_It is the finger
+of God._"
+
+
+
+
+XXXI
+
+
+He acted his part well, and everything worked out easily--more easily
+than one could have dared to hope for.
+
+Not a soul was thinking about him. He had to assert himself, thrust
+himself forward, before people in the village would so much as notice
+that he had come back among them again. The inquest, as he gathered,
+was going to be a matter of form: it seemed doubtful if the
+authorities would even make an examination of the ground over there.
+All was to be as nice as nice for him.
+
+Yet he was afraid. Fear possed him--this sneaking, torturing,
+emasculating passion that he had never known hitherto was now always
+with him. He lay alone in the camp-bedstead sweating and funking. The
+events of the day made him seem safe, but he felt that he would not be
+really safe for ages and ages. Throughout the night he was going over
+the list of his idiotic mistakes, upbraiding himself, cursing himself
+for a hundred acts of brainless folly. The plan had been sound enough:
+it was the accomplishment of the plan that had been so damnably
+rotten.
+
+Why had he changed his addresses in that preposterous fashion? Instead
+of providing himself with useful materials for an alibi, he had just
+made a lot of inexplicable movements. Then the pawning of the
+watch--in a false name. How could he ever explain _that_? Anybody
+short of money may put his ticker up the spout, but no one has the
+right to assume an alias. And the buying of the clothes and hat.
+Instead of bargaining, as innocent people do, however small the price
+demanded, he just dabbed down the money. He must have appeared to be
+in the devil's own hurry to get the things and cut off with them. The
+two men at that shop must have noticed his peculiarities as a
+customer. They would be able to pick him out in the biggest crowd that
+ever assembled in a magistrate's court.
+
+But far worse had been his watchings and prowlings round and about the
+house in Grosvenor Place. Could he have blundered upon anything more
+full of certain peril? Why, to stand still for ten minutes in London
+is to invite the attention of the police. Their very motto or
+watchword is "Move on;" and for every policeman in helmet and buttons
+there are three policemen in plain clothes to make sure that people
+_are_ moving on. While watching that house he had been watched
+himself.
+
+Then, again, the insane episode of the eating-house--the wild
+hastening of his program, the untimely change of appearance in that
+thronged room--and his rudeness to the woman behind the counter. With
+anguish he remembered, or fancied he remembered, that she had looked
+at him resentfully seeming to say as she studied his face. "I'm sizing
+you up. Yes, I won't forget you--you brute."
+
+His bag too--left by him at Waterloo for a solid proof that he was
+_not_ in London as he pretended. The bag was at the cloak-room all
+right when he came to fetch it, but perhaps in the meantime it had
+been to Scotland Yard and back again. Besides, Waterloo was a station
+he should never once have showed his nose in; the link between
+Waterloo and home was too close--his own line--the railway whose staff
+was replenished by people from his own part of the country. While he
+was feeling glad that the passengers were strangers, perhaps a porter
+was saying to a mate: "There goes the postmaster of Rodchurch. He and
+I were boys together. I should know him anywhere, though it's ten
+years since I last saw William Dale." He ought to have used Paddington
+Station--he could have got to Salisbury that way, and gone into the
+woods the way he came out of them.
+
+Last of all, that child in the glade--a child strayed from one of the
+cottages, or the child of some woodcutter who had brought her with
+him, who was perhaps a very little way off, who listened to the tale
+of what the child had seen five minutes after she had seen it. Of
+course nothing much would be thought of the child's tale at first; but
+it would assume importance directly suspicion had been aroused; it
+would link up with other circumstances, it would suggest new ideas and
+further researches to the minds of detectives, it might be the clue
+that eventually hanged him.
+
+It seemed to Dale as he went over things in this quivering, quaking
+manner that, from the little girl weaving flowers back to the two Jews
+selling slops, he had recruited an army of witnesses to denounce and
+destroy him.
+
+Only in one respect had he not bungled. He got rid of the clothes and
+hat all right. Cut and torn into narrow stripes they had gone
+comfortably down the drains of the temperance hotel in Stamford
+Street. That was a night's wise labor. But the labor and thoughtful
+care had come too late, on top of all the previous folly.
+
+And he said to himself, "It's prob'ly all up with me. This quiet is
+the usual trick of the p'lice to throw you off the scent. They're
+playin' wi' me. They let me sim to run free, because they know they
+can 'aarve me when they want me."
+
+With such thoughts, he went down-stairs of a morning to talk jovially
+with Ridgett, to chaff Miss Yorke; and with the thoughts unchanged he
+came up-stairs to glower at Mavis across the breakfast-table.
+
+His thoughts in regard to Mavis were extraordinarily complicated. At
+first he had been horribly afraid of her--dreading their meeting as a
+crisis, a turning-point, an awful bit of touch-and-go work. It seemed
+that she of all people would be the one to suspect the truth. When she
+heard of the man's death, surely the idea _must_ have flashed into her
+mind: "This is Will's doing." But then perhaps, when no facts appeared
+to support the idea, she might have abandoned it. Nevertheless it
+would readily come flashing back again--and again, and again.
+
+To his delight, however, he saw that she did not suspect now, and
+there was nothing to show that she ever had suspected. And he thought
+in the midst of his great relief: "How stupid she is really. Any other
+woman would have put two and two together. But she is a stupid woman.
+Stupidity is the key-note to her character--and it furnishes the
+explanation of half her wrong-doing."
+
+This reflection was comforting, but he still considered her to be a
+source of terrible danger to him. For the moment at least, all his
+resentment about her past unchasteness and her recent escapade was
+entirely obliterated; it was a closed chapter; he did not seem to care
+two pence about it--that is, he did not feel any torment of jealousy.
+The offense was expiated. But he must not on any account let her see
+this--no, because it might lead her, stupid as she was, to trace the
+reason. He knew himself that if Mr. Barradine had died otherwise than
+by his blows, he would have felt quite differently toward Mavis. He
+would have felt then "The swine has escaped me. We are not quits. That
+dirty turn is not paid for." He would have continued to smart under
+the affront to his pride as a man, and association with Mavis would
+have still been impossible.
+
+Logically, then, he must act out these other feelings; Mavis must see
+him as he would have been under those conditions. But it made it all
+so difficult--two parts to render adequately instead of one. In the
+monstrous egotism produced by his fear, he thought it uncommonly rough
+luck that the wife who ought to have been dutifully assisting him
+should thus add to his cares and worries. Sometimes he had to struggle
+against insane longings to take her into his confidence, and compel
+her to do her fair share of the job--to say, slap out, "It's you, my
+lady, who've landed me in this tight place; so the least you can do is
+to help pull me into open country."
+
+Moreover, as the days and nights passed, instincts that were more
+human and natural made him crave for re-union. He yearned to be
+friends with her again. He felt that if he could safely make it up,
+cuddle her as he used to do, hold her hands and arms when he went to
+sleep, he would derive fortitude and support against his fear, even
+if he obtained no aid from her in dodging the law.
+
+He thought during the inquest that the fear had reached its climax.
+Nothing that could come in the future would be as bad as this. Yet all
+the time he was telling himself, "There is no cause for the fear. It
+is quite baseless. All is going as nice as nice."
+
+Indeed, if he had conducted the proceedings himself, he could not have
+wished to arrange anything differently. The whole affair was more like
+a civilian funeral service--a rite supplemental to the church
+funeral--than a businesslike inquiry into the circumstances and
+occasion of a person's death. A sergeant and constable were present,
+but apparently for no reason whatever. Allen talked nonsense, grooms
+and servants talked nonsense, everybody paid compliments to the
+deceased--and really that was all. At last Mr. Hollis, the coroner,
+said the very words that Dale would have liked to put into his
+mouth--something to the effect that they had done their melancholy
+duty and that it would be useless to ask any more questions.
+
+But Dale, sitting firmly and staring gloomily, felt an internal
+paroxysm of terror. Near the lofty doors of the fine state room common
+folk stood whispering and nudging one another--cottagers, carters,
+woodcutters; and Dale thought "Now I'm in for it. One of those chaps
+is going to come forward and tell the coroner that his little girl saw
+a strange man in the wood." He imagined it all so strongly that it
+almost seemed to happen. "Beg pardon, your honor, I don't rightly know
+as, it's wuth mentionin', but my lil' young 'un see'd a scarecrow sort
+of a feller not far from they rocks, the mornin' afore."
+
+It did not, however, happen. Nothing happened.
+
+And nothing happened when he came to the Abbey again to attend the
+real burial service--except that he found how wrong he had been in
+supposing that the fear had reached its highest point. He nearly
+fainted when he saw all those policemen--the entire park seeming to be
+full of them, a blue helmet under every tree, a glittering line of
+buttons that stretched through the courtyards and right round the
+church. Inside the church he said to himself, "They've got me now.
+They'll tap me on the shoulder as I come out."
+
+Standing in the open air again he wondered at the respite that had
+been allowed, and thought, "Yes, but that is always their way. They
+never show their hand until they have collected all the evidence. The
+detectives, who've been on my track from the word 'go,' prob'ly
+advised the relatives to accept the thing as an accident in order to
+hoodwink the murderer. The tip was given to that coroner not to probe
+deep, because they weren't ready yet with their case;" and it suddenly
+occurred to him that he had left deep footsteps in the wood, and that
+plaster casts had been made of all these impressions.
+
+He looked across a gravestone in the crowded churchyard and saw a
+strange man who was staring at the ground. A detective? He believed
+that this man was watching his feet, measuring them, saying to
+himself, "Yes, those are the feet that will fit my plaster cast."
+
+After the funeral he began to grow calmer, and soon he was able to
+believe during long periods of each day that the most considerable
+risks were now over.
+
+Then came news of the legacy to Mavis--the cursed money that he
+hated, that threw him back into the earlier distress concerning his
+wife's shame, that restored vividness to the thoughts which had faded
+in presence of the one overpowering thought of his own imminent peril.
+
+But here again he was governed by what he had set before himself as
+his unfailing guide-post--the necessity to conceal any motive for an
+act of vengeance. What would people think if he refused the money? It
+was a question not easy to answer, and the guide-post seemed to point
+in two opposite directions. He was harassed by terrible doubt until he
+and Mavis went to see the solicitor at Old Manninglea. During the
+conversation over there he assured himself that the solicitor saw
+nothing odd in the legacy, and made no guess at there having been an
+intrigue between Mavis and the benefactor; and further he ascertained
+that this was only one of several similar legacies. All was clear
+then: the guide-post pointed one way now: they must take the money.
+
+But this necessity shook Dale badly again. It seemed as if the man so
+tightly put away in his lead coffin and stone vault was not done with
+yet. It was as if one could never be free from his influence, as if,
+dead or alive, he exercised power over one. Dale resisted such
+superstitious fancies in vain. They upset him; and the fear returned,
+bigger than before.
+
+It was irrational, bone-crumbling fear--something that defied
+argument, that nothing could allay. It was like the elemental passion
+felt by the hunted animal--not fear of death, but the anguish of the
+live thing which must perforce struggle to escape death, although
+prolonged flight is worse than that from which it flies.
+
+Dale had no real fear of death--nor even fear of the gallows. If the
+worst came, he could face death bravely. He was quite sure of that.
+Then, as he told himself thousands of times, it was absurd to be so
+shaken by terror. Terror of what? And he thought, "It is because of
+the uncertainty. But there too, how absurdly fullish I am; for there
+is no _real_ uncertainty. My crime can not and will not be discovered.
+If I were to go now and accuse myself, people would not credit me."
+
+He thought also, in intervals between the paroxysms, "I suppose what
+I've been feeling is what all murderers feel. It is this that makes
+men go and give themselves up to the police after they have got off
+scot free. They are safe, but they never can believe they're safe;
+they can't stand the strain, and if they didn't stop it, they'd go
+mad. So they give themselves up--just go get a bit o' quiet. And that
+is what I shall do, if this goes on much longer. I'd sooner be turned
+off short and sharp with a broken neck than die of exhaustion in a
+padded cell."
+
+Then suddenly chance gave the hateful money an immense value,
+converted it into a means of escape from the outer life whose monotony
+and narrowness were assisting the cruelly wide inner life to drive him
+mad.
+
+He went to Vine-Pits, and the strangeness of his surroundings, the
+difficulties, the hard work, produced a salutary effect upon him; but
+most of all he drew strength and courage from the renewal of love
+between Mavis and himself. That was most wonderful--like a new birth,
+rather than a reanimation. They loved each other as a freshly married
+couple, as a boy and girl who have just returned from their
+honeymoon, and who say, "We shall feel just the same when the time
+comes to keep our silver wedding."
+
+So he toiled comfortably, almost happily. Mavis was perfectly happy,
+and he found increasing solace in the knowledge of this fact.
+
+Thence onward his busy days were free from fear, except for the
+transient panics which, as he surmised, he would be subject to for the
+remainder of his life. They did not matter, because he could control
+them to the extent of preventing the slightest outward manifestation.
+All at once while transacting business he would feel the inward
+collapse, deadly cold, a sensation that his intestines had been
+changed from close-knitted substance to water; and he would think
+"This person"--a farmer, a servant, old Mr. Bates, anybody--"suspects
+my secret. He guessed it a long while ago. Or he has just discovered
+the proofs of guilt." Nevertheless he went on talking in exactly the
+same tone of voice, without a contraction of a single facial muscle,
+with nothing at all shown unless perhaps a bead of perspiration on his
+forehead.
+
+"Good morning, sir. Many thanks, sir.... Yes, Mr. Envill, the stuff
+shall be at your stables by one P.M. sharp. I'm making it my pride to
+obey all orders punctually, whether big or small."
+
+Thus he got on comfortably enough during the daylight waking hours.
+But the fear that had gone out of the days had made its home in the
+night. Sleep was now its stronghold.
+
+His dreams were terrible. They were like immense highly-colored
+fabrics reeling off the vast gray thought-loom--that dreadful thought
+machine that worked as well when the workshop was darkened as when
+all the lamps were burning. Their pattern displayed infinite variety
+of detail, but a constant similarity in the main design.
+
+They began by his being happy and light-hearted, that is, he was
+_innocent_; and then gradually the horrible fact returned to his
+memory. Recently, or a long time ago, he had killed a man. That was
+always the end of the dream; his lightness and gaiety of spirits
+vanished, and he felt again the load that he was eternally forced to
+carry on his conscience.
+
+The details of one form in which the dream worked itself out were
+repeated hundreds of times. There was a strange man who at first made
+himself extremely agreeable, and yet in spite of all his amiability
+Dale did not like him. Nevertheless there was some mysterious
+necessity to keep friends with him, even to kow-tow to him. And Dale
+gradually felt sure that he and this man had met before, and that the
+man knew it, but for some sinister purpose concealed his knowledge.
+They went about together in gay and lively scenes, and the man grew
+more and more hateful to Dale--becoming insolent, making disparaging
+remarks, sneering openly; and laughing when Dale only tittered in a
+nervous way and swallowed all insults. And Dale could not do
+otherwise, because he was afraid of the man.
+
+And finally this false friend disclosed his true hostile character in
+some strikingly painful manner.
+
+For instance, the man would make Dale take off his boots for him in
+some public place. They were together in a place like the lounge of
+some grand music-hall; the electric light shone brilliantly, a band
+played at a distance, the gaily dressed crowd gathered round
+them--young London swells with white waistcoats, pretty painted women,
+old men and young girls, and all of them watching, all contemptuously
+amused, all grinning because they understood that, though so big and
+strong, he was at heart a pitiful sort of poltroon, and that his
+companion was showing him up publicly. "Yes, you shall take my boots
+off for me. That's all you're fit for." And in spite of his anguish of
+resentment, Dale dared not refuse. The man had moved to a divan, he
+reclined upon his back, lifted his feet; and Dale, pretending to laugh
+it off as a bit of fun, took him by the heels.
+
+Then he uttered a terrified cry--because he saw it was Barradine,
+dead, battered, with glassy staring eyes. All the people rushed away
+screaming, the lights went out, the music ceased: Dale was alone, at
+dusk, in a rocky wilderness, still dragging the dead man by the heels.
+
+And then he would wake--to find Mavis bending over him, to hear her
+saying, "My dearest, you are sleeping on your back, and it is making
+you dream." He clung to her desperately, muttering, "Quite right, Mav.
+Don't let me dream. It's a fullish trick--dreaming."
+
+Then he would settle himself to sleep again, thinking, "It is all no
+use. I love my wife; I bless her for the generous way in which she has
+risked all that money to give me a fresh start; I enjoy the work; I
+believe I may succeed with the business--but I shall never know real
+peace of mind. And sooner or later my crime will be brought home to
+me. It is always so. I've read it in the papers a dozen times.
+Murderers never get off altogether. Years and years pass; but at last
+justice overtakes them."
+
+Already, although he did not recognize it, had come remorse for the
+wickedness of his deed. He had no regret for the fact itself, and not
+the slightest pity for the victim. Mr. Barradine had got no more than
+he deserved, the only proper adequate punishment for his offenses; but
+Dale knew that, according to the tenets of all religions, God does not
+allow private individuals to mete out punishment, however well
+deserved--especially not the death penalty.
+
+He resolutely revived his idea of the dead man as a thing unfit to
+live--just a brute, without a man's healthy instincts--a foul
+debauchee, ruining sweet and comely innocence whenever he could get at
+it. Such a wretch would be executed by any sensible community. In new
+countries they would lynch him as soon as they caught him--"A lot of
+chaps like myself would ride off their farms, heft him up on the
+nearest tree, and empty their revolvers into him. And it wouldn't be a
+murder: it would be a rough and ready execution. Well, I did the job
+by myself, without sharing the responsibility with my pals; and I
+consider myself an executioner, not a murderer."
+
+He could now always make the hate and horror return and be as strong
+as they had ever been, and thus solidify the argument whereby he found
+his justification; no mercy is possible for such brutes.
+Subconsciously he was always striving to reinforce it; as if the voice
+of that logical faculty which he admired as his highest attribute were
+always whispering advice, reminding him: "This is your strong point.
+It is the only firm ground you stand on. You can't possibly hope to
+justify yourself to other people; but if you don't justify yourself to
+yourself, then you are truly done for."
+
+And he used to think: "I have justified myself to myself all along. I
+was never one who considered human life so sacred as some try to make
+out. Why should it be? Aren't we proved to be animals--along with the
+rest? The parsons own it nowadays themselves, allowing a man's soul to
+be what God counts most important, but not going so far as to say any
+animal's soul isn't immortal too. Then where's the sacredness? If it's
+right to kill a vicious dog or a poisonous snake, how is it so wrong
+to out a man that won't behave himself?"
+
+Insensibly this consideration had the greatest possible effect on his
+conduct. Without advancing step by step in a reasoned progress, he
+understood that any one holding his views on human life generally
+should not attach an excessive value to his own individual life. He
+must carry his life lightly, and be ready to lay it down without a lot
+of fuss. Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. He acted on the
+maxim, risking his life freely, courting dangers that he would have
+avoided in the days before the day on which he executed Mr. Barradine.
+
+Executed--yes. But God would not have authorized him, although Judge
+Lynch would. God would say: "It must be left to Me. I will attend to
+it in My own good time. From My point of view perhaps, keeping the man
+alive is in truth his punishment, and to kill him is to let him off.
+You have come blundering with your finite intelligence into the
+department of omniscient wisdom. Instead of interpreting My laws, you
+have set up a law of your own invention."
+
+And Dale sometimes thought: "But there isn't any God. All that is my
+eye and my elbow. I believed it once, but I shall never believe it
+again."
+
+His thoughts about God's laws were curious, and baffling to himself.
+They had been always there, always active, but in a manner secondary
+and faint when compared with his thoughts about his infringement of
+men's laws. Faith in God had seemed to be quite gone. It used to
+permeate his entire mind; and yet it dropped out as though it had been
+only in one corner of his mind, and a hole had been made under that
+corner for it to fall through. Now he sometimes had the notion that it
+went out through many holes, as if it had been forcibly ejected, and
+that his whole mind was left in a shattered and unstable condition.
+
+Then it began to seem that the faith had not truly been altogether got
+rid of. Fragments of it remained.
+
+Rapidly then he reached the certainty that he wished to have the faith
+back again. His was an orderly solid mind that could not do with
+cracks and holes in it, trimness, neatness, and firmness of outer wall
+were necessary to its well-being; openness to windy doubts ruined it.
+He felt that an accidental universe was the wrong box for it. He
+wanted to believe in the God who created order out of chaos, the God
+who settled cut-and-dried plans for the whole of creation--yes, the
+God made in man's image, and yet the Maker and Ruler of man.
+
+And some days he did believe, and some days he couldn't. But all at
+once an idea came, first soothing then cheering him. He thought:
+"Whether I believe or not, I'll take it for granted. I'll act as if
+God is real."
+
+He did so, acting as if God were believed in as truly by him as by the
+most stanch believers. He clung to the idea. It seemed to be the way
+out of all his troubles. He would make peace with God--then there
+would be no need to bother about men, or offer any confession of his
+guilt to _them_.
+
+He grew calmer now. Doing things had always suited him better than
+brooding over things. His new determination illuminated the reason for
+reckless adventures, and lifted their purpose to a higher plane. He
+thought now that he held his life at God's will--to be given back to
+God at a moment's notice.
+
+This thought made him calmer still, made him strong, almost made him
+happy. A life for a life. He would expiate his offense in God's good
+time. So no danger was too big for William Dale to face; his courage
+became a byword; gentlefolk and peasants alike admired and wondered.
+
+Out of the consistent course of action came the consistency of the
+thought that was governing the action. Assumption of the reality of
+God as a working hypothesis led to conviction of the existence of God.
+
+Yet strangely and unexpectedly the attempt to formalize his faith
+almost shook his faith out of him again. Although throughout the
+episode of his acceptance by the Baptists he seemed so stolid and
+matter-of-fact, he was truly suffering storms of emotion. He fell a
+prey to old illusions; that unreasoning fear returned; he was thrown
+back into the state of terrified egoism which rendered lofty
+impersonal meditation beyond attainment.
+
+That evening when for the first time he went to the Baptist Chapel,
+the illusion was strong upon him that every man, woman, and child in
+the congregation had discovered his secret. When they all stood up to
+sing, it seemed that he was naked, defenseless, utterly at their
+mercy. With every word of their carefully selected hymn they were
+telling him that they knew all about him. When they began their third
+verse, they simply roared a denunciation straight at him:
+
+      "But thus th' eternal counsel ran:
+      'Almighty love, _arrest that man_.'"
+
+And the second and third hymns were just as bad, shaking him to
+pieces, tumbling him headlong into the terror he had felt when his
+crime was no more than a week old. The rest of the service entranced
+and delighted him, made him think: "These people are in touch with
+God, and their God is full of love and mercy. If He would accept me, I
+should feel safe." At the end of the service he knelt, praying for
+this to happen. Then he went home and doubted.
+
+The fear was on him again in the beginning of his interview with Mr.
+Osborn the pastor. He thought: "This man has seen through me. He
+knows. Perhaps his past experiences have taught him to be quick in
+spotting criminals. He may have been a prison chaplain some time or
+other. Anyhow, he knows; and he'll try to get a confession out of me,
+as sure as I sit here." But the beauty of the conception of God as
+unfolded by Mr. Osborn banished the fear. He thought: "If I had been
+told these things before, I should have never ceased to believe. I
+feel it through and through me. This is God; and if I am not too
+late, if He will still accept me, I shall be saved. Christ, the
+friend, the brother of man--same as described by Mr. Osborn two
+minutes ago--can do it for me if He will. He can take me home to
+Father." A verse of one of those hymns echoed in his ears:
+
+      "None less than God's Almighty Son
+        Can move such loads of sin;
+      The water from His side must run,
+        To wash this dungeon clean."
+
+And once more he prayed to the God of the Baptists; and then once more
+doubted.
+
+While he was walking home, he thought: "It is too good to be true.
+Perhaps I'm fullish to pin my trust to it. Do I believe in it all, or
+do I not?" He wanted a sign; and when the storm of thunder and
+lightning burst like the most tremendous sign one could ask for, he
+seized this opportunity of risking his life, and said: "Now I stand
+here for God to take me or leave me."
+
+He was left, not taken. The fear vanished, the doubt passed, and he
+made his way into the Baptist Church exactly as if, as Mr. Osborn had
+said, there was an irresistible pressure behind him, and he could not
+make his way anywhere else.
+
+It was all right after his baptism. He knew then that he would never
+doubt again. The faith was permanent now: it would last as long as he
+himself lasted. He had no more evil dreams. He slept soundly, as a man
+sleeps when he has got home late after a tiring journey. And in the
+morning and the evening of each day he thanked God for having
+accepted him.
+
+Then came the years of tranquillity, the respite from pain, his golden
+time. He was prosperous, respected; he had a loved and loving wife,
+and lovely lovable children; he had grain in his barns, money in his
+bank, peace in his mind. He felt too all the better part in him
+growing bigger and bigger; religion, in simplifying his ideas, had
+increased their value; his intellectual power seemed wider and more
+comprehensive when exercised with regard to all things that can be
+learned, now that he had entirely ceased to exercise it with regard to
+things that must not be questioned.
+
+And then there had happened something that was like the knocking down
+of a house of cards, the blowing out of a paper lantern, or the
+obliteration of a picture scratched on sand when the inrushing tide
+sweeps over it.
+
+His soul turned sick at the thought that God had not accepted, but
+rejected him. God refused his offer of humble homage, had seen the
+latent wickedness in him, had kept him alive until he also could see
+and loathe himself for what he really was--a wretch who in wishes and
+cravings, if not in accomplished facts, was as vile as the man he had
+slain.
+
+
+
+
+XXXII
+
+
+Dale's meditations had carried him backward and forward through the
+past years, and left him against the blank wall of the present.
+
+He was sitting on the fallen beech tree in the woodland glade. The sun
+had set, and the night promised to be darker than recent nights; when
+he looked at the grand gold watch given to him by his admirers, he
+could only just see its hands. Nearly nine o'clock. He had been here a
+long while. It was hours and hours since Norah went away. He sighed
+wearily, got up, and walked back to his empty home.
+
+Quite empty--that was the impression it made upon his mind both
+to-night and all next day. He looked at it in the bright morning
+sunshine, across the meadows, while the scythes laid down the first
+long swathes of fragrant grass, and it seemed merely the shell of a
+house. He looked at it in the midday glare, as he came up the field to
+his dinner, and it seemed cold and black and cheerless. He looked at
+it in the softer, kinder light of late afternoon, and it seemed to him
+tragically sad--a monument of woe rather than a house, a fantastic
+tomb built in the shape of a house in order to symbolize the homely
+joy that had perished on this spot.
+
+Yet smoke was rising from its chimneys, sound issuing from its
+windows. All day long it had been full of active cheerful life. It and
+the fields were happy in the animating harvest toil. Men with
+harvesters' hats, women with sunbonnets, cracked their rustic jokes,
+laughed, and sang at their labor; Mavis cooked food, filled the big
+white bobs with beer, sent out bannocks and tin bottles of tea; Dale's
+children had rakes and played at hay-making. Only the master, the
+husband, the father, was unhappy.
+
+No one knew it, of course. To other people he appeared to be just the
+same as usual, naturally preoccupied with thoughts about the weather
+as one always is at grass-cutting time, giving his orders firmly, and
+seeing that they were obeyed promptly, smiling and nodding when you
+showed yourself handy, frowning and looking rather black if you did
+anything "okkard or feckless." Who could have guessed, as he looked at
+his watch and then at the sky, that he was thinking: "It wants five
+minutes of noon, and she is prob'ly out on what they term an
+esplanade. There is a nice breeze down there, comin' to her over the
+waater, blowin' her hair a bit loose, flappin' her skirts, sendin' out
+her neck ribbon like a little flag behind her. It's all jolly, wi' the
+mil'tary band, an' the smell o' the waves, an' crowds an' crowds o'
+people--an' she won't have occasion to think o' me. P'raps they've bid
+her wear her best--the white frock Mavis gave her, with the stockings
+to match, and the new buckle-shoes--and likely young lads'll eye her
+all over as they pass. Yes, she's seeing now the young uns--the mates
+for her age--the proper article to make a photograph of a suitable
+pair; and she'll soon stop thinking anything about me, if she hasn't
+done it a'ready."
+
+He was in his office still thinking of her, after the busy day, when
+the postman brought the last delivery of letters.
+
+"Good evening, sir. Only three to-night."
+
+"Thank you. Good night, George," and Dale had a friendly smile for
+this old acquaintance.
+
+Postman George was growing fat and heavy, betraying signs of age. He
+had been a sprightly telegraph boy when Dale was postmaster of
+Rodchurch.
+
+"Good night, sir. Fine weather for the hay."
+
+"Yes, capital."
+
+When the postman had gone Dale stood trembling. One of the letters was
+from her. He felt unnerved by the mere sight of her handwriting on the
+envelope--the hand that was so like his own, the hand that she had
+taught herself by laborious study and imitation of his official
+copper-plate; and he thought, "If I was wise I shouldn't open it. If I
+was strong enough, I should just burn it, without reading. For,
+whatever's inside, it's going to make me one bit more desp'rate than I
+am now."
+
+He snatched up his hat, went out of the house, and walked along the
+road holding her letter pressed tight against his heart. There was a
+gentle air that floated pleasantly over the fields, and in spite of
+all the heavy rain that had fallen such a little while ago, the white
+dust rose in high clouds when a motor-car came whizzing by. After the
+car two timber wagons crept slowly, and then there were children
+trailing a broken perambulator; but directly the road became vacant
+again, he leaned against a gate and opened the envelope. He had felt
+that he must be quite alone when he read what she said to him, and had
+intended to go farther, but he could not wait any more.
+
+"Sir, I beg to say"--That was how he had taught her to begin all
+letters: she knew no other mode of address. "I beg to say this is a
+very large place and you can see the sea from the bedrooms."
+
+He read on; and his pleasure was so exquisite and his pain so
+laceratingly sharp that the sky and the acids swam round and round.
+
+... "There's nice girls here, one or two. Nellie Evans do all she can
+to make me not so miserable She has a sweetheart at Rodchurch. They
+all have their boys if you believe their talk.
+
+"And all the marks at the end are the sweet kisses I give my boy. For
+you are my boy now--my own secret one, and I am your loving girl
+
+                                                     "Norah."
+
+She was thinking only of him; she wanted no one younger and handsomer;
+in her eyes and thoughts he was not old: he was her boy. Those words
+had a terrible effect upon him. They entered his blood as if they had
+been an injection of some sweetly narcotic drug; thy lanced deep into
+his bowels as if they had been a surgeon's knife; they made him like a
+half-anesthetized patient who at the same time dreams of paradise and
+feels that he is bleeding to death.
+
+"You are my boy ... and I am your loving girl."
+
+He moved from the gate, hurried along the dusty road, and entered
+Hadleigh Wood at the first footpath. As he got over the stile he was
+saying to himself, "This letter finishes me. I can't go on with it
+after this. I'm done for."
+
+Then, as he walked in the cool silence beneath the dark firs, he held
+her letter to his lips--kissed the inked crosses that she had set as
+marks to represent her kisses--counted and kissed them and counted
+them until his hot tears blinded him.
+
+She wanted him; she longed for him; he was her boy.
+
+He could get to her to-night. She was only twenty or twenty-two miles
+away, as the crow flies--say half an hour's journey if one had the
+wings of a heron. He could rush home, jump into his gig, and send the
+horse at a gallop; he could get there by road or rail, somehow; he
+could telegraph, telling her not to go to bed, telling her to go to
+the station and wait for him there.
+
+Then he would walk with her in the moonlight by the sea, on the wet
+sand, close to the breaking waves. When they came back to the
+Institution no light would be showing from any of the windows, and she
+might say, "I'm shut out. When they come down to let me in, won't they
+make a fuss?" But he would say, "You are not going in there again."
+"What," she would say, "are you taking me back to Vine-Pits after only
+two days? Don't you think Mrs. Dale will be angry?"
+
+Then he would say, "I'm not taking you back. I'm going to take you
+half across the world with me. I've tried hard, Norah, but I can't do
+without you. I own up, I'm beat, I take the consequences. I'm not
+good, I'm bad. I've done wicked things, and now I'm ripe for the
+crowning wickedness. I'm going to break my wife's heart, dishonor my
+children's name, and take you down to hell with me."
+
+Or if he could not say and do all that, he might at least do this. He
+could pick her up in his arms and wade out to sea with her; he could
+whisper and kiss and wade until the ribbed sand went from under his
+feet; and then he would swim, go on whispering, kissing, and swimming
+until his strength failed him--yes, he could drown himself and her, so
+that they died locked fast in each other's arms, taking in death the
+embraces that had been denied them in life.
+
+He was crying now as a child cries, abandoning himself to his tears,
+not troubling to wipe them away, temporarily overcome by self-pity.
+But soon he shook off this particular form of weakness, and thought,
+"What nonsense comes into a man's head, when he's once off his right
+balance--such wild nonsense, such mad nonsense. Drown _her_, poor
+innocent. Make her pay _my_ bill. Think of it even--when I'd swim the
+Atlantic to save her life, if it was in danger."
+
+And then the thought that had been the impetus or origin of these
+fantastic imaginations presented itself again, and more strongly than
+before. He said to himself, "This letter is my death-warrant. I can't
+go on. It is my death-warrant."
+
+He had made straight for the main ride, and he walked straight along
+it in the direction of Kibworth Rocks. As he drew toward them it was
+as if the spirit of the dead man called him, seeming to say: "Come and
+keep me company. Our old quarrel is over. You and I understand each
+other _now_. We are two of a kind, just as like as two hogs from one
+litter--you the sanctimonious psalm-singer and I the conscienceless
+profligate--we are brothers at last in our beastliness."
+
+Dale walked with his hands clasped behind his back, thoughtfully
+looking at the trees, and trying to suppress his wild imaginations.
+But he could not suppress them. The dead man seemed to say, "Don't be
+a humbug, don't pretend. You know we are alike. Why, when you looked
+in the glass the other day, you _saw_ the resemblance. You saw my
+puffy eye-orbits and my pendulous lip in your own face."
+
+Dale shrugged his shoulders, held his head high, and grunted fiercely.
+But when he was abreast of the rocks, this imagined voice seemed to
+speak to him again.
+
+"You and I have drawn so near together that there's only one
+difference now--that you are alive and I am dead. But even that
+difference will be gone soon."
+
+And Dale, walking on rather slower than before, made an odd gesture of
+his left hand, a wave of hand and arm together, as of a dignified
+well-to-do citizen waving off some impudent mendicant: seeming to say,
+"Be damned to you. Just you lie quiet where I put you, and don't
+worry. I decline to have anything to do with you, or to allow the
+slightest communication between us. I simply don't recognize you--nor
+will I ever admit again that I see the faintest resemblance. If I
+wished, I could explain why. Only I shan't condescend to do
+so--certainly not to _you_."
+
+Out of the big ride he went into one of the narrower cuts, and
+followed it until he came to the woodside boundary of the Barradine
+Orphanage. This was where Mavis had stood looking at it years ago,
+when the building was in course of construction. The wooden fence that
+she had thought so stiff and ugly then was all weak and old, green and
+moss-covered, completely broken down in many places. Inside, the
+privet hedge had grown broad and thick; and this barrier, although
+any one could easily thrust himself through it, was evidently
+considered sufficient, since no trouble had been taken to repair the
+outer fence. Indeed, what protective barriers could be needed for such
+an enclosure? It contained no money or other kind of treasure; and
+who, however base, would attack or in any way threaten a lot of
+children?
+
+Dale looked at the top of the belfry tower and the roof of the central
+block, and thought of it as a temple of youth, a sacred place
+dedicated to the worship of tender and innocent life. He moved through
+the trees and found a point where, on higher ground, he could look
+across into the garden and see a part of the terrace and verandas.
+None of the girls was visible. They had been gathered into those
+hospitable walls for the night.
+
+Presently he thought he heard them singing. Yes, that was an evening
+hymn. The girls were thanking God for the long daylight of a summer's
+day, before they lay down to rest, to sleep, to forget they were alive
+till God's sun rose again.
+
+And Dale began once more to think of God. To-night he would not fly
+from the sound of the girls' voices. All that reluctance and distaste
+was over and done with; it belonged to the time when he was still
+struggling against the inevitable drift of his inclinations. Now he
+had passed to a state of mind that nothing external could really
+affect.
+
+"The finger of God"--Yes, those were unforgivable words. He stretched
+himself at full length upon the ground, leaned his head on his elbow,
+and lay musing.
+
+He taxed his imagination in order to give himself a concept of what
+such a tremendous figure of speech should in truth convey. One said
+finger, of course, because one wished to imply that no effort was
+used, scarcely any of the divine force drawn upon--just as one says of
+a man, he did so-and-so with a turn of the wrist, that is, quite
+easily, without putting his back into it. Yes, he thought, that's
+about right. Then to make up something for an instance, just to spread
+the idea as big as it ought properly to be, one might say that once
+upon a time God gave our sun and all the other suns the slightest push
+with His finger, _and they haven't done moving yet_.
+
+And it seemed to him that, look where one pleased, one could see the
+real work of the finger of God. It had been giving him, William Dale,
+faint imperceptible pushes for fifteen years, and see now at the end
+where it had pushed him. First it had pushed him upward, higher and
+higher, to a position of conspicuous pride, to the topmost summit of a
+fair mountain, where he could look round and say, "I have all that I
+pined for. This is the world's castle, and I am the king of the
+castle." Then it had begun to push him down the other side of this
+mountain, the dark side, the side that was always in shadow, downward
+and still downward to the miasmic unhealthy plain where all was
+rankness, downward to the level of corruption and death. Yes, it had
+brought him, the bold, proud law-maker, down and down till he stood no
+higher than the victim of his law.
+
+He remembered the common phrase--so often employed by
+himself--comparing mice with men. Am I a man or a mouse? And it seemed
+that no cat had ever played with a mouse as the Infinite Ruling Power
+of the universe had been playing with the man William Dale. He had
+been allowed to break loose, to frisk and jump, to fancy he was free
+to run right round the earth if he wished to do so; and all the while
+he had truly been a prisoner, the helpless prey of his captor, held
+close to the place of ultimate doom.
+
+If he had been promptly convicted and hanged, it would have been no
+punishment at all compared with what was happening now. The long delay
+was the essential part of the punishment, and of the lesson. The fact
+that no one suspected his crime had given him the period of agonized
+suspense, with all those dream-torments, the fear of death which was
+worse than death itself.
+
+He thought of all the things that had appeared to be blind chances but
+were really stern decrees. The true function of the money that came
+from the dead man's hand was to keep him always on the rack of memory.
+And with the aid of the money he had been made to move a little nearer
+to the site of his crime. He had been made to buy Bates' business so
+that he might dwell right up against Hadleigh Wood, see it every day
+from his windows, hear it whispering to him every night when he was
+not asleep and dreaming of it. But for that apparently lucky chance of
+Mr. Bates' retirement, he would have gone to some splendid new
+country, and severing ties of locality, would have shattered
+associations of ideas, and been _able to forget_. He had made up his
+mind to go to one of the Australian colonies and make a fresh start
+there. But that didn't match with God's intentions by any manner of
+means.
+
+His thoughts returned to Norah, and here again--here more plainly
+than anywhere else--he saw the work of God. It was wonderful and
+awe-inspiring how God had selected the instrument that should destroy
+him. He felt that he could have resisted the charms of any other girl
+in the world except this one. In mysterious ways Norah's fascination
+was potent over him, while it might have been quite feeble in its
+effects with regard to other men. But for Dale she represented the
+solid embodiment of imagined seductiveness, allurement, supreme
+feminine charm; that flicker of wild blood in her was to him an
+essential attraction, and it linked itself inexplicably with the
+amorous reveries of far-off days when, young and free and wild
+himself, he loved the woodland glades instead of hating them.
+
+The selected instrument--Yes, she was the one girl on earth who could
+have been safely employed to achieve God's double purpose of
+overwhelming him with base passion and bringing his lesson home to him
+simultaneously. No other girl that ever was born could have aroused
+such desire in him, and yet have slipped unscathed out of his arms at
+the very moment when the consummation of his sin seemed unavoidable.
+Any other girl must herself have been sacrificed in destroying him;
+only the child who had frightened him in the wood could
+instantaneously, by a few unconsidered words, have taken all the fire
+out of him and changed his heart to a lump of ice. That was a stroke
+of the Master: most Godlike in its care for the innocent and its
+confusion of the guilty.
+
+He remembered how grievously he had dreaded this child--the little
+black-haired elf that had seen him hiding. It had made him shiver to
+think of her--the small woodland demon, the devil's spy whose lisping
+treble might be distinct and loud enough to utter his death sentence.
+A thousand times he had wondered about her--thinking: "She is growing
+up. She belongs here;" looking in the faces of cottagers' children and
+asking himself: "Are you she? Or you? Or you?" Then he had left off
+thinking about her.
+
+She had come into his life again, into his very home, and he had never
+once asked himself: "Is Norah she?" No, because God would not allow
+him to do so; it had suited God's purpose to paralyze the outlet of
+all natural thought in that direction. So she grew tall and strong
+under his eyes--the dreaded imp of the wood eating his food, squatting
+at his own fireside; changing into the imagined nymph of the wood that
+he had seen only in dreams; becoming the very spirit of the wood--yes,
+the wood's avenging spirit.
+
+He moved from his recumbent position, sat up, and drew out Norah's
+letter from the breast pocket of his jacket. He read her letter again,
+and his sadness and despair deepened. There was no revolt now; he felt
+nothing but black misery. He thought: "I used to fear that she would
+be the means of my death, and now death is coming from her. This
+letter is my death-warrant."
+
+There was no other way out of his troubles. Life had become
+unendurable; he could not go on with it. And this thought became now a
+fixed determination. He must copy the example of other and better men;
+he must do for himself, as old Bates and many others had done for
+themselves when they found their lives too hard for them.
+
+If he didn't--oh, the whole thing was hopeless. Suppose that he
+rebelled against this cruel necessity. No, he saw too plainly the
+torment that would lie before him--disgrace, grief of wife and
+children, soon all the world wishing him dead. And no joy. The girl
+would be taken from him. The world--or God--would never allow him to
+hide and be happy with her.
+
+Suppose he were to carry her off to the Colonies, and attempt to begin
+the new life that he had planned fifteen years ago. Impossible--he was
+too old; nearly all his strength had gone from him; the mere idea of
+fighting his way uphill again filled him with a sick fatigue. And the
+girl, when she saw him failing, physically and mentally, would desert
+him. _Her_ love could not last--it was too unnatural; and when,
+contrasting him with other men, she saw that he was feeble, exhausted,
+utterly worn out, she would shake off the bondage of his
+companionship. No, there was no possible hope for the future of such a
+union.
+
+He thought: "Other men at fifty are often hale and hearty, chock-full
+of vigor. But that's not my case." He felt that, though his frame
+remained stout enough, he had exhausted his whole supply of
+nerve-force; and this was due not to length of years, but to the pace
+at which he had lived them. He thought: "That is what has whacked me
+out--the rate I've gone. If I'd been some rich swell treating himself
+to a harem of women, horse-racing, gambling at cards; or if I'd been
+one of these City gentlemen floating companies, speculating on the
+Stock Exchange, and so on; or if I'd been a Parliament man spouting
+all night, going round at elections all day, people would have said:
+'Oh, what a mighty pity he doesn't give himself a proper chance, but
+lives too fast.' Yet those men would all be reposing of themselves
+compared with _me_. It stands to reason. It could not be otherwise.
+And for why? Because a _murderer_ lives other men's years in one of
+his minutes--and the wear and tear on him is more than the Derby
+Race-Course, the Houses of Parliament, and the Stock Exchange all
+rolled into one crowd would ever feel if they went on exciting
+themselves from now to the Day of Judgment."
+
+And again he felt self-pity, but of another kind than that which had
+stirred him an hour ago. Now it was clear-sighted, analytical, almost
+free from weakness. He thought: "It is a bit rough--it is rather hard,
+rather cruel on me, all said and done. For I know that I might have
+bin a good man. The good lay in me--it only wanted drawing out." He
+remembered the elevating effect of his love for Mavis, how through all
+the time of his belief in her purity he had tried to purify himself,
+to purge away all the grossness and sensualness that, as he vainly
+fancied, made him unworthy to be the mate of so immaculate a creature;
+but he was not allowed to continue the purifying process; her horrible
+revelation ended it--knocked the sense out of it, made it
+preposterously absurd. "If Mavis had been in the beginning what she
+has come to be at last, she would have kept me on the highroad to
+Heaven." But all the chances had gone against him. "My father failed
+me, my mother failed me, my wife failed me."
+
+"The worst faults I had in my prime were conceit and uppishness, but
+they only came from my ignorance. They'd have been wiped out of me at
+the start, if I'd had the true advantages of education; regular
+school training, such as gentlemen's sons enjoy, would have made all
+the difference. It's all very well to talk about educating yourself
+and rising in the world at the same time, but it can't be done.
+There's a season for everything, and the best part of education must
+be over before you begin to fight for a position. Otherwise the
+handicap is too heavy."
+
+His pity for himself became more poignant; yet still there was nothing
+weakening in it, at least nothing that tended to alter his
+determination. "No," he thought, "take me all round, I couldn't
+originally have bin meant to turn out a wrong un. I've never bin mean
+or sneaking or envious in my dealings with other people. I've never
+spared myself to give a helping hand to those who treated me decently.
+And no one will ever guess the kindly sentiments I entertained for
+many other men, or the pleasure I derived the few times I could feel:
+'This chap is one I respect, and he seems to like me.' I wanted to be
+liked, but the gift o' making myself liked was denied me. Yet, except
+for being cast down into sin, I should have got over _that_
+difficulty. I was on the right road there too. By enlarging my mind
+I'd become more sympathetic. Though always a shy man really and truly,
+I was learning to smother the false effects of my shyness."
+
+Thinking thus of his mind, and his long-continued efforts to improve
+its powers, he felt: "To go and extinguish all this is an awful thing
+to have to do."
+
+Still his determination was not altered. The mystery of that great
+pageant, the mental life of William Dale, could not be permitted to
+unfold itself any further. It must cease with a snap and a jerk, much
+as when the electric current becomes too strong for a small
+incandescent lamp and the bulb bursts, the filaments fuse, and all
+that the lamp was showing disappears in darkness.
+
+Yes, darkness without a glimmer of hope.
+
+The finger of God--one can't get away from it. If it pushes you toward
+the light, then rejoice exceedingly and with a loud voice; if it
+pushes you into the dark, then swallow your tongue and go silently. It
+seemed to Dale that he comprehended the whole scope and purport of his
+doom, and that God's tremendous logic made the justice of his doom
+unanswerable. He understood that the law which he had himself set up
+was to be binding now. He must execute himself, as he had executed
+Everard Barradine. It is for this, the hour of hopelessness and
+despair, that God has been waiting. Now it is God's good time. God has
+slowly taught him his worthlessness and infamy, so that he may die
+despairing.
+
+
+
+
+XXXIII
+
+
+"Mavis," he said, after supper that evening "I've noticed a branch at
+the top of the walnut tree that doesn't look to me too safe. I must
+lop that tree first chance I get--or we shall have an accident."
+
+Next morning he was up and dressed before the sun rose, and he came
+down-stairs very softly, carrying his boots in his hands, and pausing
+now and then to listen. The house was quite silent, with no one
+stirring yet except himself. He sat on the lowest step of the stairs
+and put on his boots, listened again, then quietly let himself out of
+the front door.
+
+On the threshold the cool morning air rushed into his lungs, expanding
+them widely, making him draw deep breaths merely for the pleasure of
+tasting its freshness and sweetness. The light was still gray and dim,
+and the buildings round the yard were vague and shadowy. In the garden
+there was a delicious perfume of roses--those most beautiful of all
+flowers pouring out their fragrant charms, although their glory of
+color had not yet burst forth from the shadows of night.
+
+Moving like a shadow himself, he hurried noiselessly to his work. One
+of the shorter ladders would be long enough to reach the lower
+branches, and he could climb from them as high as he wished. He
+fetched the ladder from the yard, fixed it in position against the
+walnut tree, and then went back to the yard for the other things he
+wanted.
+
+In the loft where the tools were kept he remained much longer than he
+had intended. At first there was scarcely any light at all up here,
+and, having stupidly forgotten to bring a box of matches, he had to
+grope about fumblingly; but gradually the light improved. He found a
+saw, and, attaching it to a light cord, slung it round his neck in the
+approved woodman fashion. The saw would be carried merely for the sake
+of appearances. Then he hunted for the particular rope that he
+required for his purposes, and could not find it. He had seen it two
+days ago, neatly rolled, in the corner with other tackle; but now the
+corner was all untidy, a confused mass of cordage, and the good new
+strong rope was concealing itself beneath weak old rubbish. He knew
+that he could trust this rope, because it was the exact fellow of the
+one on the pulleys--and with the pulley rope they let down loads that
+were a good deal heavier than any man.
+
+Then all at once a ray of light shot through a chink in the boarded
+wall, and came like a straight rainbow across the dusty gray floor and
+into the corner where he stood stooping. His rope was there right
+enough, showing itself conspicuously, seeming to rise on its coils
+like a snake and slip its sinuous neck into his hands, so that he had
+picked it up and taken it from the corner before he knew what he was
+doing.
+
+It was necessary to arrange things with care, but he was a strangely
+long time in making his running noose and satisfying himself that it
+could not possibly give way or anyhow fail. He was also slow in making
+a stop-knot at the part of the rope that he proposed to attach to the
+tree, and he felt an extraordinary obtuseness of intelligence while
+making the calculations that he had so many times thought out during
+the night. "Yes," he said to himself, "twice the length of my arms.
+That's quite right. Six feet is twice the length of my arms--but I'll
+try it again. Yes--quite all right. Must be. That's a six foot drop.
+That's what I decided--a six foot drop. The rope'll stand that. But it
+mightn't stand more. An' less than six feet mightn't be enough either.
+Yes, that's right."
+
+Then he thought: "I am wasting time." He was conscious of an
+imperative necessity for speed and a great danger in acting too
+hurriedly; and a queer idea came to him that while in this loft he had
+been having a series of cataleptic fits--sudden blanknesses, total
+arrests of volition if not of consciousness, during which he had stood
+still, listening or staring, but not doing anything to the rope.
+
+He came down from the loft, and in the doorway below a flood of bright
+sunlight dazzled him. The sun had risen, Some of Mavis' pigeons were
+cooing gently on the granary roof, a horse in the stables began to
+whinny, and two of the men came whistling round the outer barn into
+the yard.
+
+"Good mornin', sir."
+
+"Good morning."
+
+"Another nice day we are goin' to 'aarve, sir."
+
+"Yes, looks like it."
+
+Seeing his rope and saw, the men asked if there was a job on hand in
+which they were to help; but he told them "No." He was only going to
+take down a small branch out of the walnut tree, and he could do it
+without any assistance.
+
+Then the men went into the stables, and Dale passed through the
+kitchen garden to the back of the house. Beneath the walnut tree he
+slung the coiled rope over one shoulder and under the other arm; and
+then he slowly ascended the ladder, saying to himself: "I am on the
+steps of my scaffold. The scaffold steps. I am going up the scaffold
+steps." From the top of the ladder he got upon a branch, and, putting
+his arms about the stem, began to climb. "Yes," he said to himself,
+"my gallows tree. I am going up the gallows tree. This is my gallows
+tree;" and he climbed nimbly and firmly.
+
+The green leaves were all round him, a green tent with pretty
+loopholes through which he could take peeps at the home that was on
+the point of vanishing forever from his eyes. He paused on a level
+with the broad eaves, and looked through between branches at a window
+on the first floor landing. The casements stood wide open; the square
+of glass glittered; the muslin curtains just stirred, trembled
+whitely. Far down below his feet were the flagged pathway, the wooden
+bench, and three shining milk-pans.
+
+He climbed higher; and it seemed to him that from the moment he left
+the ground till now he had been like a drowsy man shaking off his
+sloth, like a drugged man recovering consciousness, like a man who was
+supposed to be dead rapidly coming to life again. With every inch
+added to the height from the ground, he felt stronger, more active,
+fuller of nervous and muscular energy. His fingers gripped each branch
+as firmly as if they had been iron clamps; his feet, encumbered by
+the stout boots, seemed to catch hold and cling to the slightest
+irregularities of the smooth bark as skilfully and tenaciously as if
+they had been the prehensile paws of a cat; not a touch of vertigo
+troubled him; he felt as fearless and splendidly alive as when he
+climbed tall trees for buzzards' eggs thirty-three years ago.
+
+Soon he had climbed so high that he knew it would not be safe to climb
+higher. He must stop here. At this point the main stem was still thick
+enough to take the shock that in a minute he would give it. Above this
+point it might not stand the strain. Besides, this was high enough for
+appearances. He was within reach of the branch that had some decayed
+wood at the top of it. Sitting astride a branch close to the stem, he
+adjusted and fixed his rope, binding it round and round the stem and
+over and under the branch, reefing it, making it taut and trim so that
+no strain could loosen it; and all the while he was conscious of the
+power in his arms and hands, the volume of air in his lungs, the flow
+of blood in his veins, the nervous force bracing and hardening his
+muscles. The rope was fast now. Now he assured himself that its free
+length--the part from the tree to the noose--was absolutely correct as
+to its amount. Nothing remained to do, nothing but to stand upon the
+branch, fix the noose round his neck, and step off into the air.
+
+Lightly and easily he changed his position, stood upon the branch,
+holding the stem with his left hand, the noose with his right; and the
+life in him pulsed and throbbed with furious strength. It tingled
+through and through him, filled him as if he had been a battery
+overstored with electricity, shot out at his extremities in lightning
+flashes.
+
+In this final position his head had emerged into a leafless space, so
+that he could see in all directions; could look down at the house, at
+that open window, the kitchen door, and the flagged path; could look
+at the barn roofs, the rick-yard, the beehives; could look at his
+fields, where the grass lay drying; or could look away at woodland, at
+heath, at distant hill. He paused purposely to give himself one last
+look round at all he was leaving.
+
+Yes, here was the world--the bitterly sweet world, smiling once more
+as it wakes from sleep. Looking down at it he felt an agony of regret.
+How intolerably cruel his doom. Why should he of all mortals have been
+made to suffer so? But God's law--his own law. Mentally he was
+obeying, but physically he was in fierce revolt. Every fiber of him,
+every drop of blood, every minute nerve-cell was crying out against
+the execution.
+
+The sunlight flowed across the fields in golden waves, the colors of
+the flowers sprang out, the soft cool air was like a supremely
+magnificent wine that could give old nerveless men the strength of
+young giants; and the very marrow of his bones seemed to shrink and
+scream for mercy. "Ought to 'a' done it at night," he said to himself.
+"Mr. Bates didn't wait till daylight. In the dark--that's it. At the
+prisons they give you a bonnet--extinguishing cap; high walls all
+round you too; and they do it at the double quick--hoicked out of your
+cell and pinioned in one movement, bundled through the shed, and begun
+to dance before you can think. Darkness, the sound of a bell, and the
+chaplain's whisper, 'Merciful Lord, receive this sinner.' And I've
+heard say they stupefy 'em first, make 'em so drunk they don't know
+where they are while they shove 'em into nowhere.... Very easy
+compared with this set-out;" and he groaned. "O God, you've fairly put
+top weight on me--and no mistake."
+
+But he would have done it if he had not heard his daughter's voice.
+
+Rachel had come to the open window, and she uttered a frightened cry
+at sight of him perched high in the tree.
+
+"Oh, dads, do take care!"
+
+Next moment her mother came to the window; and they stood side by
+side, each with a hand to her eyes, watching him in the same attitude
+of anxiety.
+
+"Don't speak to him," whispered Mavis; and Dale heard the whisper as
+clearly as if it had been close against his ear.
+
+He could not do it before them. He had been too slow about it; he
+could not darken their lives with the visible horror of it. And it
+seemed to him that he had not sufficiently thought of its effect upon
+them. The whole thing had been clumsily planned. Just at first, when
+he was found hanging dead with the saw dangling from his neck, it
+might have been believed that he had slipped and fallen, and hanged
+himself by accident; but afterward all would have known that it was
+suicide. The truth would have been betrayed by the running noose, by
+recollections of Mr. Bates, and by everybody's knowledge of an ancient
+local custom.
+
+"All right," he said. "Don't alarm yourselves, my dears. I must give
+this job up, Mavis. I can't quite reach where I wanted to."
+
+"Mind how you come down," said Mavis. "Do come down carefully."
+
+"Yes, dads," said Rachel, "do _please_ come down carefully."
+
+He climbed down slowly, feeling no joy in his respite, saying to
+himself: "I must think of some other way. I must finish with the
+hay-making, get the rick complete, and clear up everything in the
+office--so's at least poor Mav'll find things all ship-shape when she
+has to take over and manage without me. My hurry to get it through was
+selfishness; for, after all, I've best part of three weeks to do it
+in. The on'y real necessity is to have it done before Norah comes
+home."
+
+And again he thought of the finger of God. This clumsy hurried
+execution had been refused by God. He was being pushed away, so that
+the last glimpse of his eyes should not see the pleasant picture of
+home.
+
+He must do it privately, secretly, in a lonely spot; and he must spare
+no pains, must plot and scheme till he contrived all the convincing
+details of a likely accident. That was how he had killed Everard
+Barradine; and he must arrange matters similarly for himself.
+
+
+
+
+XXXIV
+
+
+Two or three days passed. The busy yet peaceful life of home and
+fields was going on; the hay had been carried; the rick was made, and
+the rick-sheet covered a handsome pile.
+
+Dale worked hard, quite in his old untiring way, and seemed just his
+natural self; but truly he was mentally detached from the surrounding
+scene. For the second time in his life, and to a greater extent than
+the first time, he was subjugated and controlled by one dominant idea.
+Throughout each day all things around him were dreamlike and
+unsubstantial, and he performed many actions as automatically as if he
+had been a somnambulist. He walked and talked or rode on the shaft of
+a wagon without in the least troubling to think what he was doing, and
+every time his thought became active it seemed to spring into vigor
+again merely to obey the prompting of the inner voice that now
+governed him.
+
+Thus while sitting on the wagon shaft he thought: "If I pitched myself
+off and let the wheels go over me, that would be _likely_, just the
+accident that fools are always making, but it wouldn't fulfil the
+other conditions that have been laid on me. Also it might fail. I
+might only mess myself up, and not quite kill myself."
+
+Half an hour afterward, as he walked beside the empty wagon back to
+his hay fields, he was still hammering away at the dominant idea.
+
+A gun and a hedge--no accident can be more common than that. Say you
+want to shoot some rats that have been showing their ugly whiskers in
+the field ditches; take your gun, well charged, and blow your brains
+out among the brambles of an untrimmed hedge.
+
+Or these motor-cars! He thought of the way they came racing down the
+highroad from Old Manninglea. How would it be to wait for one of these
+buzzing, crashing, stinking road monsters over there on the edge of
+the heath, and jump out just in front of it? If one stooped down and
+took the full shock on one's forehead, it would mean a mess that there
+would be no patching together again. But one could not attempt that in
+daylight, because the driver would jam the breaks on, swerve round
+one, do anything desperate rather than run into one. And if he could
+not avoid one, he would tell everybody at the inquest that it was a
+plain suicide and nothing else. There would be passengers in the car
+too, who would also swear to its being a suicide. And at night these
+traveling cars have such powerful head-lamps that the roadway is
+lighted up for a hundred yards in front of them. Even at night, they
+would recognize it as suicide.
+
+Toward dusk every evening external things became more real, and his
+hold on life tightening, he suffered more acutely in each hour that
+passed. Night after night he went back to Hadleigh Wood. It was the
+wood of despair, the focal point of all his pain, and he was drawn to
+it irresistibly through the gathering darkness.
+
+On the second evening he found it difficult to get away. Mavis
+stopped him, asked him some domestic question, and then began to talk
+about a new suit of clothes for their boy. He was alive again now,
+emerged from his somnambulistic state, and he gave full attention to
+this matter of Billy's new serge suit; nevertheless, all at once she
+apologized for troubling him, and inquired if he had anything on his
+mind.
+
+"No, Mav, of course not."
+
+"Are you sure, Will? Do tell me if you've something worrying you."
+
+"What should I have to worry me?" and he put his arm round her ample
+waist, and gave her an affectionate squeeze.
+
+"The hay's all right, isn't it?"
+
+"Yes, everything is all right.... You can't do better than you've
+suggested about Billy. Take him with you to Manninglea--and, look
+here, if Mr. Jones can't fit him properly out of stock, let him make
+the suit to measure. Don't consider the extra expense. We can afford
+it."
+
+"Thank you, Will." Mavis was delighted. "You've told me to do the very
+thing I wanted to do; but of course I'd never have done it without
+your authority. I've been longing to see the little chap in clothes
+regularly cut out and finished for him, and nobody else."
+
+Going through the yard Dale was stopped by his men. The foreman wanted
+directions for to-morrow's work; the carter asked for three new tires;
+the stableman regretted to be compelled to report that one of the
+horses had broken his manger rack.
+
+As he finally came out on the road, Dale was thinking, "Soon now I
+shall be gone, but everything here will be just the same. They will
+all of them find that they can do very well without me: the men, the
+children, Mavis--yes, even Norah. Mavis will be the one who will
+grieve for me. Norah will suffer most, but it will be only for a
+little while. She'll take another sweetheart--a real sweetheart this
+time, and she'll marry, and give birth to babies; and it will be to
+her as if I had died a hundred years ago, as if I had never lived at
+all, as if I'd been somebody she'd read of in a story-book, or
+somebody she'd dreamed about in one of those silly nasty sort of
+dreams which young girls can't help having, but are ashamed to
+remember and always try to forget."
+
+Mavis, however, would wish to remember him, and be sorry when she
+found his image fading. She would struggle to keep it bright and
+fresh. She would grieve long and sincerely--and then she would be
+quite happy. She wouldn't marry again; she wouldn't do anything
+foolish. "No," he thought, "she'll just devote herself to the bairns,
+working for them late and early, and managing the business as well as
+I have managed it myself. She'll be cheated a bit here and there, as a
+woman always is--but, all said and done, she'll do very well without
+me. Customers will support her--the word will go round. 'Don't let's
+turn our backs on the widow of that poor fellow Dale.'"
+
+And he thought, with a bitterness of heart that almost made him sick,
+that perhaps after his death many people might speak well of him; that
+certainly in the little world of Vine-Pits Farm and the Cross Road
+cottages there would be a natural inclination to exaggerate his few
+good qualities and be gentle to his innumerable faults; so that a
+sort of legend of virtue would weave itself about his memory, making
+him a humble, insignificant, but local saint--to be placed at a
+respectful distance and yet not too far from the shrine of that great
+and illustrious saint the late Mr. Barradine. "Of course," people
+might say, "one was a grand gentleman, and the other only a common
+fellow who had raised himself a bit by hard work; but both of 'em were
+good kind men, and both no doubt have met with the reward of their
+goodness up there in Heaven."
+
+As soon as he got into the wood he hurried as rapidly as he could
+toward Kibworth Rocks; and then when he got near them he walked slowly
+up and down the ride, with his head bowed and his hands clasped behind
+his back. And each evening the same thing happened. Visions of Norah
+assailed him; he passed again through the tortures of yearning desire
+that he had felt when he first read her letter; and he said to
+himself, "If proof was wanted, here's the proof. This would show me,
+if I didn't know already, that I must do it."
+
+In imagination he saw her sitting alone on a balk of timber by the
+sea. Her hands lay loose in her lap; her neck was bent; her whole
+attitude indicated dejection, loneliness, sadness. She was thinking
+about him. She was thinking, "How cruel of him not to answer my sad
+little letter. He can't be so busy but what he could have found time
+to send me a few lines with his own hand. Just half a sheet of paper
+would have been enough--with one or two ink crosses at the end, to
+show me he prized the kisses that I put in my letter to him. It was
+brutal, yes, and cowardly, to make Mrs. Dale write instead. If Mrs.
+Dale hadn't written telling me he'd received my letter, I couldn't
+have found it in my heart to believe that he'd treat me so abominably
+cruel."
+
+And, groaning, he spoke to this mental picture that he had evoked for
+his renewed torment. "Norah, my sweet one, I can't help myself.
+Commands have been laid upon me. I'm no longer free to do what I
+please. Norah, don't look away from me. Turn to your boy--let him see
+your dear eyes, though the sight of them makes him bleed." And the
+thought-picture obeyed him. He saw the entrancing oval of the face
+instead of its delicate profile, looked into the profound beauty of
+her eyes, felt that her warm red lips were close in front of him, and
+that he would go raving mad if they did not come closer still and let
+him kiss them.
+
+After such spasms of burning pain he was temporarily exhausted; he
+felt completely emptied of emotional power, as if his nerves had
+delivered so fierce a discharge that they must cease from working
+until time and repose had allowed them to replenish themselves. Then,
+so long as this state lasted, his love for the girl was deprived of
+all material for passion; it was as though the highest thinking part
+of him had been cut off from the sensational mass, and only the top of
+his head served to keep alive his memory of the girl.
+
+Then he thought of her with a fantastic longing that seemed to him
+beautiful, immaterial, and innocent. He said to himself, "I don't
+shirk my punishment. I'm going to take it. But fair's fair--There's no
+occasion to make myself out worse than I really am. Norah has taken
+hold of me a great deal more by my int'lect than by the low animal
+kind of feelings that are the mark of the abject sinner. I can't live
+without her; but if I might live with her, I feel I could be content
+to let it all remain quite innocent between us. Yes, I feel I could be
+happy with her just as a companion, provided she and I were alone
+together, far away from everybody else--yes, I'd take my happiness on
+those terms, that she was never to be anything else to me but just
+that."
+
+But soon those treacherous nerves restored themselves, the upper and
+lower parts of him were all one again, and the diffuse yet darting
+pain returned. Anger came too. It seemed that the dead man mocked him,
+went on softly laughing at him.
+
+"What a humbug you are"--he gave the dead man words--"what a colossal
+humbug. You and your nice Sunday go-to-meeting thoughts. It's so easy,
+isn't it? to dress up one's rottenness in pretty sentimental twaddle.
+But you don't deceive anybody. You don't even deceive yourself, not
+for three minutes at a stretch. You know that underneath all your
+humbugging pretenses the black sin is unchanged. You are no better and
+no worse than I was. You are exactly the same as me."
+
+And Dale, breaking his own rule, or forgetting in his anger that he
+had refused to discuss things with this imaginary voice, answered
+wrathfully.
+
+"This girl cares for me--that's the difference between us. She offers
+me love. And that's something you never had."
+
+"How do you know?" said the dead man. "Your Mavis was one of many.
+And, besides, don't be so sure that Mavis wasn't fond of me. She never
+ran away from me. She came when I whistled for her."
+
+Dale brandished his arms wildly, turned round, and stared at the
+pine-trees and the bracken. It seemed to him that some imperishable
+essence of the man was really here, mingling with the shadows,
+floating in the dusky air; and that possibly over there among the
+rocks, if one went to look for it, one might see a simulacrum of the
+man's bodily shape--perhaps only a gray shadowy outlined form, the
+odious stranger of dreams, but more vague than in the dreams,
+stretched on his back, holding up his blood-stained boots, and
+grinning all over his battered face.
+
+"Yes, perhaps so," said the voice. "But I notice that you don't come
+in to look for me. You keep to the ride still. Now you've got so very
+close to me, why do you turn shy of the last little bit? Is it that
+you wish me to save you trouble by showing myself?"
+
+And Dale made gestures of semi-insane fury, and spoke in a loud,
+hoarse voice.
+
+"Yes, show yourself if you want to. You 'aarve my leave. Come out an'
+stan' here before me. I'm not afraid of you--now or hereafter."
+
+"Hereafter--hereafter--hereafter." As Dale moved away slowly, the dead
+man seemed to mock him, to laugh at him derisively. "Hereafter--yes,
+that's a big word. Yes, go and talk that out with God."
+
+He went up one of the narrow tracks that led toward the dead man's
+Orphanage, intending to look at it and perhaps hear again the evening
+hymn; but before he got to those broken fences he turned and began to
+wander aimlessly through the trees. All his mind was now full of the
+awful thought of God, and of the eternal punishment to which he
+believed God had condemned him.
+
+Christ had tried to save him; but the other two persons of the Holy
+Blessed and Glorious Trinity had interposed, had prevented Christ from
+holding any further communication with him, and together had issued
+the fearful decree. That was it. Christ had not deserted him; he had
+lost the right ever to approach Christ again. That accounted for
+everything--the unutterable desolation, the dark despair, the
+overwhelming necessity of death without one ray of hope.
+
+All that lovely and comforting faith in the endless loving mercy of
+God the Son, the Redeemer of mankind, the Friend and sometime Comrade
+of man, was to prove useless to him; the gentle creed of the Baptists
+could not be applied to so vile a case as his; he was at handygrips
+with the dread Jehovah, the mighty Judge, the offended King of
+creation.
+
+Three Persons and one God--yes, but such different Persons; and
+thinking of the triple mystery, he imagined that two of its component
+parts had probably seen through him from the very beginning of his
+religious fervor. Only the other part, the part that he wished was the
+whole, had believed in him and gone on believing in him until it was
+forbidden to do so any more.
+
+The awe and reverence that he felt while he thought in this manner
+made him bow his head and keep his eyes humbly downcast, as one not
+daring to look upward to the heavenly throne; yet, profound and
+sincere as was his reverential awe, he unhesitatingly translated all
+the sublime mystery of the skies into the simple terms that alone
+possess plain meaning to man's limited intelligence. Nothing in the
+naturally courageous bent of his mind prevented him; everything in his
+experiences of the Baptists, with their constant habit of homely
+illustration, encouraged him to do so.
+
+He imagined the First and the Third Persons of the Trinity seated
+royally but vaguely amid the clouds, all about them a splendor of
+light like that of sunset or dawn, melodious music faintly
+perceptible, exquisitely beautiful forms of angels rising on white
+wings, hovering obediently, fading obediently--but they themselves,
+the Lords of Life and of Death, the Masters of Time and Space, were
+two tangible concrete old men--two venerable wise old men--the
+ultimate strained extended conception of two powerful, honored,
+high-placed old men. And they talked as men would talk--not in the
+human vocabulary, but conveying to each other, _somehow_, human
+ideas--about the man William Dale.
+
+It was at the period of his conversion or repentance or baptism, and
+they were speaking to each other of Their Beloved Son and His newest
+recruit. And God the Father seemed to say that He would hope for the
+best--although, as they Both knew, Christ was too easily imposed on.
+And God the Holy Ghost pursed His lips, and shook His head, and said,
+"Take it from Me, this fellow Dale will turn out badly"--seeming to
+add or explain that it was a mere pretense and no true repentance. "He
+has _never_ repented of his crime. But of course he is anxious about
+his future, and would try any trick to escape the punishment he has
+richly deserved."
+
+All this was terribly real to him, and he imagined the dread scene
+more strongly every moment. Those Two went on debating his
+case--becoming now so solidly presented to his imagination that he
+could see Them, the purple color of Their robes, the halo of light as
+in a painted window, Their forms, Their faces. God the Father was not
+unlike old Mr. Bates, except that He had a long beard and that there
+mingled with the candid dignity of His expression a consciousness of
+sovereign power. The Holy Ghost was clean-shaven, very thin, with
+sharp clearly-cut features as of somebody who does not enjoy robust
+health, and with a slight but painful suggestion of a Roman Catholic
+priest who habitually goes deep into private secrets and is never
+really satisfied until he has extracted the fullest possible
+confessions. He was the One that Dale had never so much cared
+about--the _difficult_ member of the firm, the sleeping partner who
+never really slept, who professed to keep himself in the background,
+but who quietly asserted himself in important moments and proved
+infinitely the hardest of the Three.
+
+And so it had been in this case. Since time is nothing, and then and
+now are all one, Dale imagined that while his Judges talked of him in
+Heaven his whole earthly career had flashed onward to its end; so that
+he and all that concerned him was disposed of at one continuous
+sitting. Thus, without a pause, the Holy Ghost was already saying,
+"You see I was right in my first view of the affair. Dale is
+disgracing himself again. Now You and I must not allow any further
+communication between Our dear Son and such an impostor."
+
+Then Christ pleaded for him, prayed for mercy. Christ, although
+invisible, was certainly there, imploring mercy for the man he had
+trusted and loved; and, in spite of the fact that He remained unseen,
+His mere presence glorified and magnified the heavenly scene. The
+light grew softer and yet more supremely radiant; hosts of angels
+soared and hovered in vast spaces between the rolling clouds; a
+vibrating echo of the divine pity swept like music far and near.
+
+But the Holy Ghost brought forward a large strongly-bound volume,
+opened it, and said very quietly, "Let Me show You what We have
+against him in the book." And at sight of the book Dale shivered and
+grew cold to the core of his spine. He knew perfectly well what was
+entered in the book, and he thought, "It stands to reason They could
+never get over _that_. I might have known all along _that_ would do
+for me, an' there was no getting round it."
+
+"This is his record," the voice of the implacable Judge continued;
+"not what I have attributed to him as secret thought, but words taken
+down as spoken by his own mouth. Having committed his crime, he had
+the calm audacity--_to lay the blame on US_.... Yes, here is the
+entry. This is the statement verbatim: 'It is the finger of God'."
+
+And Christ seemed to plead in an agony of grief still strove to
+lighten the punishment of the pitiful worm that he had deigned to call
+His brother man. "Oh, he didn't mean it."
+
+"He _said_ it," replied the Holy Ghost, dryly.
+
+"But he didn't think what he was saying--he has been sorry for it ever
+since."
+
+"Yet, frankly," said the Holy Ghost, "I can not see that he has made
+a single effort to put things straight, by removing the blame to the
+proper quarter--that is, to himself."
+
+Nevertheless, Christ still pleaded, could not be silenced, must go on
+struggling to save this one man--because He was the Savior of all men,
+because He was Christ. He was there, certainly, infallibly, although
+quite invisible--He was there, kneeling at the feet of the other Two,
+praying, weeping:--He was there, filling Heaven with inconsolable woe
+because, although His myriad suns shone bright as when He lighted them
+and His universe swung steady and true in His measureless void, one
+microscopic speck of dirt only just big enough to hold immortal life
+was in danger of eternal death.
+
+All these imaginations were absolutely real to Dale, an approximate
+conception of the truth which he could not doubt; and he thought:
+"Need I wonder if I have not had the slightest glimpse of His face? It
+is my doom. Christ is cut off from me. So far as human time counts,
+the communication was broken that afternoon when I was seeming to see
+him as he rode into Jerusalem and my hankerings after Norah seemed to
+snap the thread.
+
+"I was judged at that moment. It was my doom--never more, here or
+there, to look upon His face."
+
+
+
+
+XXXV
+
+
+It was the evening of another day; and Dale stood motionless in the
+ride, close to Kibworth Rocks.
+
+The twilight was fading rapidly; clouds that had crept up from the
+east filled the sky, and presaged a dark and probably a stormy night.
+Every now and then a gust of angry wind shook the tops of the fir
+trees; then the air was still and heavy again, and then the wind came
+back a little fiercer than before. Dale felt sure that there would be
+rain presently, and he thought: "If his ghost is really lying in
+there, it'll get as wet as that first night when the showers washed
+away all the blood."
+
+He stared and listened, but to-night he could not fancy that he heard
+the dead man calling to him. He could not invent any appropriate
+conversation. It seemed to him that the ugly phantom was refusing to
+talk, that it had become sulky, or that it was pretending not to be
+there at all in order to effect a most insidious purpose. Yes, that
+must be the explanation. It wanted to entice and lure him off the
+ride--to make him venture right in there among the rocks, so that he
+might be shown the thing that had haunted him in dreams.
+
+"Very well," said Dale, "so be it. That's the idea. All right. I
+agree."
+
+He did not, however, move for another minute or so. He was thinking
+hard, and listening eagerly. But he could hear no sound, could
+imagine no sound, other than that made by the wind.
+
+Then he moved, and, examining the ground, made his way slowly from the
+ride to the rocks, thinking the while, "It's impossible to follow my
+exact footsteps, because things have changed--but this was about the
+line I took with him."
+
+Forcing himself through a tangle of holly and hawthorn, he came out
+into the open space and his feet struck against stone. In front of him
+the rocks rose darkly against the waning light, and he began to
+clamber about among them, over smooth round surfaces, along narrow
+gullies, and by cruel jagged ridges, seeking to find the exact spot
+where he had left the dead body. "It was about here," he said, after a
+time. "It was close by here. Prob'bly down there, where the foxgloves
+and the blackberries have taken root. Anyhow, that's near enough. I've
+come as near as I can;" and he sat down upon the ledge just above this
+hollow, and looked about him, attentively, in all directions.
+
+The wind had ceased to blow; not a leaf stirred; silence reigned over
+the strewn boulders. Downward, where the ground fell away to a deep
+chasm, everything was indistinct; to the west, beneath banked masses
+of cloud, the last glow of the sunset showed in blood-red bands, and
+on this side all the intervening trees were black as ink; all about
+him the shadows filled every hollow, and the rocks were like shoals or
+reefs above the surface of a stagnant sea.
+
+The place was a wilderness, a solitude, the dead and barren landscape
+of dreams--quite empty, unoccupied, a place that even ghosts would
+shun. He sat thinking, and listening; and soon it occurred to him
+that, though all seemed so dead and so silent, this place was really
+full of life. He heard the faint buzz of belated bees questing in
+tufts of heather or foxglove bells, a bat flitted over his head, some
+small furred thing scuttled past his feet; and in the air there were
+thousands of winged insects, whose tiny voices one could hear by
+straining one's ears. Listening intently for such murmurs, he thought:
+"Perhaps really and truly one has not any right to kill the smallest
+of these gnats. All that stuff about self-protection, an' struggle for
+existence, is just fiddle-de-dee in so far's God's concerned. He never
+meant it, an' never will approve of it. It's just nature's hatefulness
+and cruelty--not permitted or intended, an' to be put right some day."
+
+It grew darker and darker, and the shadows rose all round him till he
+was like a man who had climbed out of the gray sea upon the only rock
+that was not yet submerged. When he got up presently and looked down
+at the hollow where he believed the corpse had lain, he could no
+longer see it. It was gone, lost in shadow.
+
+Then he knelt upon his rock, and prayed--offered up the last agonized
+prayer of a despairing human soul. "O God--have mercy on me just so
+far's this. Don't let me die hopeless. I've submitted myself into Your
+hands. I don't complain. I don't question. I'm going to do it. But
+don't send me out in total darkness. Give me a blink of light--just
+one blink o' light before I go."
+
+Was it this that had been wanted, this that had been waited for--the
+true acknowledgment, the true submission, the cry for mercy of the
+repentant creature who has already tasted more than the bitterness of
+death?
+
+He rose from his knees, and without once looking back left the rocks
+and came through the thicket to the ride. It grew darker, the clouds
+dropped still lower, and the wind again blew fierce and strong. He
+left the broad ride and sauntered along one of the narrow tracks. He
+could hear the wind as it tore through slender branches high above his
+head, but down here it did not touch him; and he strolled on slowly,
+feeling extraordinarily calm, full of a great reverence and wonder,
+not noticing external things because he wished to maintain this
+strange inward peace.
+
+Then soon the voluminous but indefinite sensations of mental
+tranquillity concentrated their soothing messages to make the comfort
+of one definite thought, and Dale said to himself: "Christ has
+returned to me."
+
+And then he saw Him--not for an instant believing that he really saw
+Him, that he had passed from the order of common facts into the realm
+of miracles, that the usual laws of heaven had been broken by a
+special material manifestation, or anything of that sort; but that he
+saw Him with the beautifully clear visualization for which he had
+longed and prayed. And it seemed to him that the power of his thoughts
+took a splendid leap, and that he could now understand everything that
+hitherto had been unintelligible and inexplicable. Very God, and very
+man. Yes, this was the man--a man after his own heart--the comrade
+with whom one could work shoulder to shoulder and never know
+fatigue--the unfailing friend whom one dared not flatter or slobber
+over, but the grip of whose hand gave self-respect and the glance of
+whose eyes swept the evil out of one's breast. And this was God
+too--the only God that men can worship without fear; Whose power is so
+great that it makes one's head split to think of, and Whose love is
+greater than His power.
+
+And the voice of Christ seemed to speak to him, not by the channel of
+crudely imagined words, but in a transcendent joy that was sent
+thrilling through and through him.
+
+"Then I need not despair," he said to himself. "That was the voice of
+Christ telling me to hope."
+
+He strolled on with bowed head, and remembered the night when he sat
+in Mr. Osborn's little room, staring at the carpenter's bench, and
+struggling between belief and doubt. He had said: "I want to be saved.
+I want the day when you can tell me I have gained everlasting
+salvation." And Mr. Osborn had answered him: "The day will come; but
+it will not be my voice that tells you."
+
+It was dark, but he did not mind the darkness. He walked on, not
+knowing where he was going, and time passed without his thinking Of
+the lateness of the hour. He had forgotten his wife and his home; he
+had forgotten Norah; he had forgotten all his pain.
+
+Then the odd and unexpected character of an external object made an
+impression sufficiently strong to rouse him from his reverie, and he
+thought dreamily: "What is that? Why, yes, it is what I was asking
+for--a blink of light."
+
+Suddenly, straight in front of him, he saw the gleam again. What could
+it be? Then something right ahead, in the darkness of the trees, a
+bright flicker--as might be made by a man waving a lantern. There it
+was again, but brighter than before, quite a long way off. And he
+walked on faster.
+
+Then, looking up, he saw a red glow in the sky, and he thought: "The
+heath is on fire." He walked faster, saw a column of crimson smoke and
+a great tongue of flame above the pine trees, and thought: "It is much
+nearer than the heath. It must be right on the edge of the wood."
+
+He ran now, and soon the track was brightly lighted and confused
+sounds grew plain--shouting of voices, the galloping of a horse, the
+clamorous ringing of a bell. The trees opened out and he was running
+along the high ground above those broken fences, looking down at the
+Orphanage gardens, at men clustered like black ants, at solid
+buildings that seemed to send forth sheets, lakes, and seas of flame.
+
+He rushed down the slope, burst through wooden barriers and leafy
+screens, shouting as he came. In the glare on the upper terraces there
+were many people--men, women, children; some of the men vainly
+endeavoring to fix and work unused hose-pipes; others dragging away
+furniture, curtains, carpets that lay in heaps near the central hall;
+the greatest number of them struggling with ladders, advancing and
+recoiling in front of the low block at the further end of the
+building.
+
+"Are they all out?" shouted Dale. "Have they all been got out?"
+
+Terror-stricken voices answered as he passed. "There's seven they
+can't get at.... Seven have been left.... They're the little ones."
+
+And running in the fiery glare, he thought: "Yes, mercy has been
+vouchsafed me. This is my chance."
+
+All things were plain to him; there was nothing that he could not
+understand. This fire must have broken out in the low block he had
+passed, and at first it seemed insignificant; as a precautionary
+measure the girls were fetched out of that block; the bell had been
+rung, and a messenger was sent galloping to summon the engine and
+brigade which would not arrive for an hour; and the stupid guardians
+of the place had wasted precious minutes in what they considered
+another precaution only, carrying furniture from the big hall. Nothing
+was done at the further block, because that appeared to be in no
+danger. They hadn't reckoned with the wind. The wind had sent the fire
+licking up the woodwork, dancing over slates and tiles, springing at
+the roof of the hall; and all at once the far block was involved. A
+furnace blast of flame leaped at it, billowing waves of smoke rolled
+through it; and it crackled and screamed and blazed. The bigger girls
+had just time to escape; but the children, seven of the smallest, were
+left on the upper floor.
+
+"It's Mr. Dale. Oh, Mr. Dale, 'tis pitiful. You can hear 'em squealin'
+up theer. Oh, Mr. Dale, sir, what can us do?"
+
+The heat was tremendous, and as the men came staggering back they
+pushed him away. Then they clustered round him, each face like a fiery
+mask, and yelled to make themselves heard above the noise of the wind
+and the flames, the clatter of failing stone, and the cries of
+hysterical women.
+
+He broke free from them, stood alone near the burning shell of the
+veranda, and hoarsely shouted from there. "Come on, ma lads. Give me
+the ladder. Don't shrink or skulk. Come on. If I can stan' it--so can
+you. Fetch those floor-rugs."
+
+He was almost breathless, but joy seemed to give force to his laboring
+lungs. He was thinking: "Mercy has been shown. I have been reserved
+for this. Instead of destroying that one child, I am to save these
+other children."
+
+He had no doubt; he knew that he would do it. Nothing could stop the
+man who was doing his appointed work.
+
+To all others the thing seemed impossible. He had taken off his jacket
+and put it over his head, and the women became silent when they saw
+him climb high on the ladder and spring blindfold through the flames.
+The ladder fell with half its length on fire and then smoldered like a
+shattered torch. Then they saw clouds of smoke pouring outward from a
+window; and the flames on the balcony lessened and grew dim, as if
+choked by the smoke. Then there came a shout, and the men with the
+stretched rug moved stanchly to his call.
+
+He was out again on the balcony, with a child in his arms.
+
+"That's one," he shouted, as he dropped her to the men below. "I
+b'lieve they're all alive."
+
+So he came and went, rapid and sure, carrying his burdens. "That's
+two.... That's three.... That's four. They're well-nigh
+suffocated--but they're alive." He crawled on the floor to find them,
+snatched the blankets and sheets off the beds, wrapped them from head
+to foot. "That's five.... That's six. She has fainted--but she's
+alive."
+
+On the balcony the red-hot metal had burned his feet nearly to the
+bone, his blistered hands were big and soft as boxing gloves, even the
+air in his lungs was on fire. While he crawled and groped between the
+beds for the last of the children, the floor began to bulge and sag,
+and fragments of the plaster ceiling rained upon his head and back.
+
+"That's seven. Fainted. Wants air.... Still alive."
+
+They all shouted to him. "Don't go back, sir. There's no more. You've
+got 'em all out now. Oh, sir, don't go back."
+
+But he went, gasping for breath, and muttering, "May be another.
+P'raps there's another. Better see."
+
+He had got to the middle of the room when the floor gave way under
+him; and almost at the same moment there was a crash and the whole
+roof fell in. He went down amid the sudden wreck, down to a narrow
+couch of wood and stone, where he lay and still could think. He was
+pinned with an iron beam across his chest, in darkness, with the roar
+of the flames just above his head; smashed, mangled, roasting; but
+still full of a joy and hope that obliterated pain. He whispered
+faintly: "O God the Father and God the Holy Ghost, accept this my
+expiation."
+
+And he whispered again.
+
+"This fire has cleansed me. O Christ, take me to Thy bosom, white and
+spotless as the driven snow."
+
+That was his last thought. There came another crash, a rending pang,
+and peace.
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DEVIL'S GARDEN***
+
+
+******* This file should be named 14605.txt or 14605.zip *******
+
+
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/4/6/0/14605
+
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+https://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at https://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/pglaf.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at https://www.gutenberg.org/about/contact
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit https://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/donate
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including including checks, online payments and credit card
+donations.  To donate, please visit:
+https://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     https://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
+