1 files changed, 17319 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/19191.txt b/19191.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..7b55c1e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/19191.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,17319 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Fruit of the Tree, by Edith Wharton
+
+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 Fruit of the Tree
+
+Author: Edith Wharton
+
+Illustrator: Alonzo Kimball
+
+Release Date: September 6, 2006 [EBook #19191]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FRUIT OF THE TREE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Barbara Tozier, Bill Tozier, Melissa Er-Raqabi
+and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+THE FRUIT OF THE TREE
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: He stood by her in silence, his eyes on the injured
+man.]
+
+
+
+
+THE FRUIT OF THE TREE
+BY
+EDITH WHARTON
+
+WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY ALONZO KIMBALL
+
+
+
+
+NEW YORK
+CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
+MDCCCCVII
+
+
+
+
+COPYRIGHT, 1907, BY CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
+
+[Illustration: mark]
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+_He stood by her in silence, his eyes on the injured man_  _Frontispiece_
+_"No--I shall have to ask you to take my word for it"_     _Facing p. 82_
+_Half-way up the slope they met_                            130
+
+
+
+
+BOOK I
+
+
+
+
+THE FRUIT OF THE TREE
+
+I
+
+
+IN the surgical ward of the Hope Hospital at Hanaford, a nurse was
+bending over a young man whose bandaged right hand and arm lay stretched
+along the bed.
+
+His head stirred uneasily, and slipping her arm behind him she effected
+a professional readjustment of the pillows. "Is that better?"
+
+As she leaned over, he lifted his anxious bewildered eyes, deep-sunk
+under ridges of suffering. "I don't s'pose there's any kind of a show
+for me, is there?" he asked, pointing with his free hand--the stained
+seamed hand of the mechanic--to the inert bundle on the quilt.
+
+Her only immediate answer was to wipe the dampness from his forehead;
+then she said: "We'll talk about that to-morrow."
+
+"Why not now?"
+
+"Because Dr. Disbrow can't tell till the inflammation goes down."
+
+"Will it go down by to-morrow?"
+
+"It will begin to, if you don't excite yourself and keep up the fever."
+
+"Excite myself? I--there's four of 'em at home----"
+
+"Well, then there are four reasons for keeping quiet," she rejoined.
+
+She did not use, in speaking, the soothing inflection of her trade: she
+seemed to disdain to cajole or trick the sufferer. Her full young voice
+kept its cool note of authority, her sympathy revealing itself only in
+the expert touch of her hands and the constant vigilance of her dark
+steady eyes. This vigilance softened to pity as the patient turned his
+head away with a groan. His free left hand continued to travel the
+sheet, clasping and unclasping itself in contortions of feverish unrest.
+It was as though all the anguish of his mutilation found expression in
+that lonely hand, left without work in the world now that its mate was
+useless.
+
+The nurse felt a touch on her shoulder, and rose to face the matron, a
+sharp-featured woman with a soft intonation.
+
+"This is Mr. Amherst, Miss Brent. The assistant manager from the mills.
+He wishes to see Dillon."
+
+John Amherst's step was singularly noiseless. The nurse, sensitive by
+nature and training to all physical characteristics, was struck at once
+by the contrast between his alert face and figure and the silent way in
+which he moved. She noticed, too, that the same contrast was repeated in
+the face itself, its spare energetic outline, with the high nose and
+compressed lips of the mover of men, being curiously modified by the
+veiled inward gaze of the grey eyes he turned on her. It was one of the
+interests of Justine Brent's crowded yet lonely life to attempt a rapid
+mental classification of the persons she met; but the contradictions in
+Amherst's face baffled her, and she murmured inwardly "I don't know" as
+she drew aside to let him approach the bed. He stood by her in silence,
+his hands clasped behind him, his eyes on the injured man, who lay
+motionless, as if sunk in a lethargy. The matron, at the call of another
+nurse, had minced away down the ward, committing Amherst with a glance
+to Miss Brent; and the two remained alone by the bed.
+
+After a pause, Amherst moved toward the window beyond the empty cot
+adjoining Dillon's. One of the white screens used to isolate dying
+patients had been placed against this cot, which was the last at that
+end of the ward, and the space beyond formed a secluded corner, where a
+few words could be exchanged out of reach of the eyes in the other beds.
+
+"Is he asleep?" Amherst asked, as Miss Brent joined him.
+
+Miss Brent glanced at him again. His voice betokened not merely
+education, but something different and deeper--the familiar habit of
+gentle speech; and his shabby clothes--carefully brushed, but ill-cut
+and worn along the seams--sat on him easily, and with the same
+difference.
+
+"The morphine has made him drowsy," she answered. "The wounds were
+dressed about an hour ago, and the doctor gave him a hypodermic."
+
+"The wounds--how many are there?"
+
+"Besides the hand, his arm is badly torn up to the elbow."
+
+Amherst listened with bent head and frowning brow.
+
+"What do you think of the case?"
+
+She hesitated. "Dr. Disbrow hasn't said----"
+
+"And it's not your business to?" He smiled slightly. "I know hospital
+etiquette. But I have a particular reason for asking." He broke off and
+looked at her again, his veiled gaze sharpening to a glance of
+concentrated attention. "You're not one of the regular nurses, are you?
+Your dress seems to be of a different colour."
+
+She smiled at the "seems to be," which denoted a tardy and imperfect
+apprehension of the difference between dark-blue linen and white.
+
+"No: I happened to be staying at Hanaford, and hearing that they were in
+want of a surgical nurse, I offered my help."
+
+Amherst nodded. "So much the better. Is there any place where I can say
+two words to you?"
+
+"I could hardly leave the ward now, unless Mrs. Ogan comes back."
+
+"I don't care to have you call Mrs. Ogan," he interposed quickly. "When
+do you go off duty?"
+
+She looked at him in surprise. "If what you want to ask about
+is--anything connected with the management of things here--you know
+we're not supposed to talk of our patients outside of the hospital."
+
+"I know. But I am going to ask you to break through the rule--in that
+poor fellow's behalf."
+
+A protest wavered on her lip, but he held her eyes steadily, with a
+glint of good-humour behind his determination. "When do you go off
+duty?"
+
+"At six."
+
+"I'll wait at the corner of South Street and walk a little way with you.
+Let me put my case, and if you're not convinced you can refuse to
+answer."
+
+"Very well," she said, without farther hesitation; and Amherst, with a
+slight nod of farewell, passed through the door near which they had been
+standing.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+WHEN Justine Brent emerged from the Hope Hospital the October dusk had
+fallen and the wide suburban street was almost dark, except when the
+illuminated bulk of an electric car flashed by under the maples.
+
+She crossed the tracks and approached the narrower thoroughfare where
+Amherst awaited her. He hung back a moment, and she was amused to see
+that he failed to identify the uniformed nurse with the girl in her trim
+dark dress, soberly complete in all its accessories, who advanced to
+him, smiling under her little veil.
+
+"Thank you," he said as he turned and walked beside her. "Is this your
+way?"
+
+"I am staying in Oak Street. But it's just as short to go by Maplewood
+Avenue."
+
+"Yes; and quieter."
+
+For a few yards they walked on in silence, their long steps falling
+naturally into time, though Amherst was somewhat taller than his
+companion.
+
+At length he said: "I suppose you know nothing about the relation
+between Hope Hospital and the Westmore Mills."
+
+"Only that the hospital was endowed by one of the Westmore family."
+
+"Yes; an old Miss Hope, a great-aunt of Westmore's. But there is more
+than that between them--all kinds of subterranean passages." He paused,
+and began again: "For instance, Dr. Disbrow married the sister of our
+manager's wife."
+
+"Your chief at the mills?"
+
+"Yes," he said with a slight grimace. "So you see, if Truscomb--the
+manager--thinks one of the mill-hands is only slightly injured, it's
+natural that his brother-in-law, Dr. Disbrow, should take an optimistic
+view of the case."
+
+"Natural? I don't know----"
+
+"Don't you think it's natural that a man should be influenced by his
+wife?"
+
+"Not where his professional honour is concerned."
+
+Amherst smiled. "That sounds very young--if you'll excuse my saying so.
+Well, I won't go on to insinuate that, Truscomb being high in favour
+with the Westmores, and the Westmores having a lien on the hospital,
+Disbrow's position there is also bound up with his taking--more or
+less--the same view as Truscomb's."
+
+Miss Brent had paused abruptly on the deserted pavement.
+
+"No, don't go on--if you want me to think well of you," she flashed out.
+
+Amherst met the thrust composedly, perceiving, as she turned to face
+him, that what she resented was not so much his insinuation against his
+superiors as his allusion to the youthfulness of her sentiments. She
+was, in fact, as he now noticed, still young enough to dislike being
+excused for her youth. In her severe uniform of blue linen, her dusky
+skin darkened by the nurse's cap, and by the pale background of the
+hospital walls, she had seemed older, more competent and experienced;
+but he now saw how fresh was the pale curve of her cheek, and how
+smooth the brow clasped in close waves of hair.
+
+"I began at the wrong end," he acknowledged. "But let me put Dillon's
+case before you dismiss me."
+
+She softened. "It is only because of my interest in that poor fellow
+that I am here----"
+
+"Because you think he needs help--and that you can help him?"
+
+But she held back once more. "Please tell me about him first," she said,
+walking on.
+
+Amherst met the request with another question. "I wonder how much you
+know about factory life?"
+
+"Oh, next to nothing. Just what I've managed to pick up in these two
+days at the hospital."
+
+He glanced at her small determined profile under its dark roll of hair,
+and said, half to himself: "That might be a good deal."
+
+She took no notice of this, and he went on: "Well, I won't try to put
+the general situation before you, though Dillon's accident is really the
+result of it. He works in the carding room, and on the day of the
+accident his 'card' stopped suddenly, and he put his hand behind him to
+get a tool he needed out of his trouser-pocket. He reached back a little
+too far, and the card behind him caught his hand in its million of
+diamond-pointed wires. Truscomb and the overseer of the room maintain
+that the accident was due to his own carelessness; but the hands say
+that it was caused by the fact of the cards being too near together, and
+that just such an accident was bound to happen sooner or later."
+
+Miss Brent drew an eager breath. "And what do _you_ say?"
+
+"That they're right: the carding-room is shamefully overcrowded. Dillon
+hasn't been in it long--he worked his way up at the mills from being a
+bobbin-boy--and he hadn't yet learned how cautious a man must be in
+there. The cards are so close to each other that even the old hands run
+narrow risks, and it takes the cleverest operative some time to learn
+that he must calculate every movement to a fraction of an inch."
+
+"But why do they crowd the rooms in that way?"
+
+"To get the maximum of profit out of the minimum of floor-space. It
+costs more to increase the floor-space than to maim an operative now and
+then."
+
+"I see. Go on," she murmured.
+
+"That's the first point; here is the second. Dr. Disbrow told Truscomb
+this morning that Dillon's hand would certainly be saved, and that he
+might get back to work in a couple of months if the company would
+present him with an artificial finger or two."
+
+Miss Brent faced him with a flush of indignation. "Mr. Amherst--who gave
+you this version of Dr. Disbrow's report?"
+
+"The manager himself."
+
+"Verbally?"
+
+"No--he showed me Disbrow's letter."
+
+For a moment or two they walked on silently through the quiet street;
+then she said, in a voice still stirred with feeling: "As I told you
+this afternoon, Dr. Disbrow has said nothing in my hearing."
+
+"And Mrs. Ogan?"
+
+"Oh, Mrs. Ogan--" Her voice broke in a ripple of irony. "Mrs. Ogan
+'feels it to be such a beautiful dispensation, my dear, that, owing to a
+death that very morning in the surgical ward, we happened to have a bed
+ready for the poor man within three hours of the accident.'" She had
+exchanged her deep throat-tones for a high reedy note which perfectly
+simulated the matron's lady-like inflections.
+
+Amherst, at the change, turned on her with a boyish burst of laughter:
+she joined in it, and for a moment they were blent in that closest of
+unions, the discovery of a common fund of humour.
+
+She was the first to grow grave. "That three hours' delay didn't help
+matters--how is it there is no emergency hospital at the mills?"
+
+Amherst laughed again, but in a different key. "That's part of the
+larger question, which we haven't time for now." He waited a moment, and
+then added: "You've not yet given me your own impression of Dillon's
+case."
+
+"You shall have it, if you saw that letter. Dillon will certainly lose
+his hand--and probably the whole arm." She spoke with a thrilling of her
+slight frame that transformed the dispassionate professional into a girl
+shaken with indignant pity.
+
+Amherst stood still before her. "Good God! Never anything but useless
+lumber?"
+
+"Never----"
+
+"And he won't die?"
+
+"Alas!"
+
+"He has a consumptive wife and three children. She ruined her health
+swallowing cotton-dust at the factory," Amherst continued.
+
+"So she told me yesterday."
+
+He turned in surprise. "You've had a talk with her?"
+
+"I went out to Westmore last night. I was haunted by her face when she
+came to the hospital. She looks forty, but she told me she was only
+twenty-six." Miss Brent paused to steady her voice. "It's the curse of
+my trade that it's always tempting me to interfere in cases where I can
+do no possible good. The fact is, I'm not fit to be a nurse--I shall
+live and die a wretched sentimentalist!" she ended, with an angry dash
+at the tears on her veil.
+
+Her companion walked on in silence till she had regained her composure.
+Then he said: "What did you think of Westmore?"
+
+"I think it's one of the worst places I ever saw--and I am not unused to
+slums. It looks so dead. The slums of big cities are much more
+cheerful."
+
+He made no answer, and after a moment she asked: "Does the cotton-dust
+always affect the lungs?"
+
+"It's likely to, where there is the least phthisical tendency. But of
+course the harm could be immensely reduced by taking up the old rough
+floors which hold the dust, and by thorough cleanliness and
+ventilation."
+
+"What does the company do in such cases? Where an operative breaks down
+at twenty-five?"
+
+"The company says there was a phthisical tendency."
+
+"And will they give nothing in return for the two lives they have
+taken?"
+
+"They will probably pay for Dillon's care at the hospital, and they have
+taken the wife back as a scrubber."
+
+"To clean those uncleanable floors? She's not fit for it!"
+
+"She must work, fit for it or not; and there is less strain in scrubbing
+than in bending over the looms or cards. The pay is lower, of course,
+but she's very grateful for being taken back at all, now that she's no
+longer a first-class worker."
+
+Miss Brent's face glowed with a fine wrath. "She can't possibly stand
+more than two or three months of it without breaking down!"
+
+"Well, you see they've told her that in less than that time her husband
+will be at work again."
+
+"And what will the company do for them when the wife is a hopeless
+invalid, and the husband a cripple?"
+
+Amherst again uttered the dry laugh with which he had met her suggestion
+of an emergency hospital. "I know what I should do if I could get
+anywhere near Dillon--give him an overdose of morphine, and let the
+widow collect his life-insurance, and make a fresh start."
+
+She looked at him curiously. "Should you, I wonder?"
+
+"If I saw the suffering as you see it, and knew the circumstances as I
+know them, I believe I should feel justified--" He broke off. "In your
+work, don't you ever feel tempted to set a poor devil free?"
+
+She mused. "One might...but perhaps the professional instinct to save
+would always come first."
+
+"To save--what? When all the good of life is gone?"
+
+"I daresay," she sighed, "poor Dillon would do it himself if he
+could--when he realizes that all the good _is_ gone."
+
+"Yes, but he can't do it himself; and it's the irony of such cases that
+his employers, after ruining his life, will do all they can to patch up
+the ruins."
+
+"But that at least ought to count in their favour."
+
+"Perhaps; if--" He paused, as though reluctant to lay himself open once
+more to the charge of uncharitableness; and suddenly she exclaimed,
+looking about her: "I didn't notice we had walked so far down Maplewood
+Avenue!"
+
+They had turned a few minutes previously into the wide thoroughfare
+crowning the high ground which is covered by the residential quarter of
+Hanaford. Here the spacious houses, withdrawn behind shrubberies and
+lawns, revealed in their silhouettes every form of architectural
+experiment, from the symmetrical pre-Revolutionary structure, with its
+classic portico and clipped box-borders, to the latest outbreak in
+boulders and Moorish tiles.
+
+Amherst followed his companion's glance with surprise. "We _have_ gone a
+block or two out of our way. I always forget where I am when I'm talking
+about anything that interests me."
+
+Miss Brent looked at her watch. "My friends don't dine till seven, and I
+can get home in time by taking a Grove Street car," she said.
+
+"If you don't mind walking a little farther you can take a Liberty
+Street car instead. They run oftener, and you will get home just as
+soon."
+
+She made a gesture of assent, and as they walked on he continued: "I
+haven't yet explained why I am so anxious to get an unbiassed opinion of
+Dillon's case."
+
+She looked at him in surprise. "What you've told me about Dr. Disbrow
+and your manager is surely enough."
+
+"Well, hardly, considering that I am Truscomb's subordinate. I shouldn't
+have committed a breach of professional etiquette, or asked you to do
+so, if I hadn't a hope of bettering things; but I have, and that is why
+I've held on at Westmore for the last few months, instead of getting out
+of it altogether."
+
+"I'm glad of that," she said quickly.
+
+"The owner of the mills--young Richard Westmore--died last winter," he
+went on, "and my hope--it's no more--is that the new broom may sweep a
+little cleaner."
+
+"Who is the new broom?"
+
+"Westmore left everything to his widow, and she is coming here to-morrow
+to look into the management of the mills."
+
+"Coming? She doesn't live here, then?"
+
+"At Hanaford? Heaven forbid! It's an anomaly nowadays for the employer
+to live near the employed. The Westmores have always lived in New
+York--and I believe they have a big place on Long Island."
+
+"Well, at any rate she _is_ coming, and that ought to be a good sign.
+Did she never show any interest in the mills during her husband's life?"
+
+"Not as far as I know. I've been at Westmore three years, and she's not
+been seen there in my time. She is very young, and Westmore himself
+didn't care. It was a case of inherited money. He drew the dividends,
+and Truscomb did the rest."
+
+Miss Brent reflected. "I don't know much about the constitution of
+companies--but I suppose Mrs. Westmore doesn't unite all the offices in
+her own person. Is there no one to stand between Truscomb and the
+operatives?"
+
+"Oh, the company, on paper, shows the usual official hierarchy. Richard
+Westmore, of course, was president, and since his death the former
+treasurer--Halford Gaines--has replaced him, and his son, Westmore
+Gaines, has been appointed treasurer. You can see by the names that it's
+all in the family. Halford Gaines married a Miss Westmore, and
+represents the clan at Hanaford--leads society, and keeps up the social
+credit of the name. As treasurer, Mr. Halford Gaines kept strictly to
+his special business, and always refused to interfere between Truscomb
+and the operatives. As president he will probably follow the same
+policy, the more so as it fits in with his inherited respect for the
+_status quo_, and his blissful ignorance of economics."
+
+"And the new treasurer--young Gaines? Is there no hope of his breaking
+away from the family tradition?"
+
+"Westy Gaines has a better head than his father; but he hates Hanaford
+and the mills, and his chief object in life is to be taken for a New
+Yorker. So far he hasn't been here much, except for the quarterly
+meetings, and his routine work is done by another cousin--you perceive
+that Westmore is a nest of nepotism."
+
+Miss Brent's work among the poor had developed her interest in social
+problems, and she followed these details attentively.
+
+"Well, the outlook is not encouraging, but perhaps Mrs. Westmore's
+coming will make a change. I suppose she has more power than any one."
+
+"She might have, if she chose to exert it, for her husband was really
+the whole company. The official cousins hold only a few shares apiece."
+
+"Perhaps, then, her visit will open her eyes. Who knows but poor
+Dillon's case may help others--prove a beautiful dispensation, as Mrs.
+Ogan would say?"
+
+"It does come terribly pat as an illustration of some of the abuses I
+want to have remedied. The difficulty will be to get the lady's ear.
+That's her house we're coming to, by the way."
+
+An electric street-lamp irradiated the leafless trees and stone
+gate-posts of the building before them. Though gardens extended behind
+it, the house stood so near the pavement that only two short flights of
+steps intervened between the gate-posts and the portico. Light shone
+from every window of the pompous rusticated facade--in the turreted
+"Tuscan villa" style of the 'fifties--and as Miss Brent and Amherst
+approached, their advance was checked by a group of persons who were
+just descending from two carriages at the door.
+
+The lamp-light showed every detail of dress and countenance in the
+party, which consisted of two men, one slightly lame, with a long white
+moustache and a distinguished nose, the other short, lean and
+professional, and of two ladies and their laden attendants.
+
+"Why, that must be her party arriving!" Miss Brent exclaimed; and as she
+spoke the younger of the two ladies, turning back to her maid, exposed
+to the glare of the electric light a fair pale face shadowed by the
+projection of her widow's veil.
+
+"Is that Mrs. Westmore?" Miss Brent whispered; and as Amherst muttered:
+"I suppose so; I've never seen her----" she continued excitedly: "She
+looks so like--do you know what her name was before she married?"
+
+He drew his brows together in a hopeless effort of remembrance. "I don't
+know--I must have heard--but I never can recall people's names."
+
+"That's bad, for a leader of men!" she said mockingly, and he answered,
+as though touched on a sore point: "I mean people who don't count. I
+never forget an operative's name or face."
+
+"One can never tell who may be going to count," she rejoined
+sententiously.
+
+He dwelt on this in silence while they walked on catching as they
+passed a glimpse of the red-carpeted Westmore hall on which the glass
+doors were just being closed. At length he roused himself to ask: "Does
+Mrs. Westmore look like some one you know?"
+
+"I fancied so--a girl who was at the Sacred Heart in Paris with me. But
+isn't this my corner?" she exclaimed, as they turned into another
+street, down which a laden car was descending.
+
+Its approach left them time for no more than a hurried hand-clasp, and
+when Miss Brent had been absorbed into the packed interior her
+companion, as his habit was, stood for a while where she had left him,
+gazing at some indefinite point in space; then, waking to a sudden
+consciousness of his surroundings, he walked off toward the centre of
+the town.
+
+At the junction of two business streets he met an empty car marked
+"Westmore," and springing into it, seated himself in a corner and drew
+out a pocket Shakespeare. He read on, indifferent to his surroundings,
+till the car left the asphalt streets and illuminated shop-fronts for a
+grey intermediate region of mud and macadam. Then he pocketed his volume
+and sat looking out into the gloom.
+
+The houses grew less frequent, with darker gaps of night between; and
+the rare street-lamps shone on cracked pavements, crooked
+telegraph-poles, hoardings tapestried with patent-medicine posters, and
+all the mean desolation of an American industrial suburb. Farther on
+there came a weed-grown field or two, then a row of operatives' houses,
+the showy gables of the "Eldorado" road-house--the only building in
+Westmore on which fresh paint was freely lavished--then the company
+"store," the machine shops and other out-buildings, the vast forbidding
+bulk of the factories looming above the river-bend, and the sudden
+neatness of the manager's turf and privet hedges. The scene was so
+familiar to Amherst that he had lost the habit of comparison, and his
+absorption in the moral and material needs of the workers sometimes made
+him forget the outward setting of their lives. But to-night he recalled
+the nurse's comment--"it looks so dead"--and the phrase roused him to a
+fresh perception of the scene. With sudden disgust he saw the sordidness
+of it all--the poor monotonous houses, the trampled grass-banks, the
+lean dogs prowling in refuse-heaps, the reflection of a crooked gas-lamp
+in a stagnant loop of the river; and he asked himself how it was
+possible to put any sense of moral beauty into lives bounded forever by
+the low horizon of the factory. There is a fortuitous ugliness that has
+life and hope in it: the ugliness of overcrowded city streets, of the
+rush and drive of packed activities; but this out-spread meanness of the
+suburban working colony, uncircumscribed by any pressure of surrounding
+life, and sunk into blank acceptance of its isolation, its banishment
+from beauty and variety and surprise, seemed to Amherst the very
+negation of hope and life.
+
+"She's right," he mused--"it's dead--stone dead: there isn't a drop of
+wholesome blood left in it."
+
+The Moosuc River valley, in the hollow of which, for that river's sake,
+the Westmore mills had been planted, lingered in the memory of
+pre-industrial Hanaford as the pleasantest suburb of the town. Here,
+beyond a region of orchards and farm-houses, several "leading citizens"
+had placed, above the river-bank, their prim wood-cut "residences," with
+porticoes and terraced lawns; and from the chief of these, Hopewood,
+brought into the Westmore family by the Miss Hope who had married an
+earlier Westmore, the grim mill-village had been carved. The pillared
+"residences" had, after this, inevitably fallen to base uses; but the
+old house at Hopewood, in its wooded grounds, remained, neglected but
+intact, beyond the first bend of the river, deserted as a dwelling but
+"held" in anticipation of rising values, when the inevitable growth of
+Westmore should increase the demand for small building lots. Whenever
+Amherst's eyes were refreshed by the hanging foliage above the roofs of
+Westmore, he longed to convert the abandoned country-seat into a park
+and playground for the mill-hands; but he knew that the company counted
+on the gradual sale of Hopewood as a source of profit. No--the mill-town
+would not grow beautiful as it grew larger--rather, in obedience to the
+grim law of industrial prosperity, it would soon lose its one lingering
+grace and spread out in unmitigated ugliness, devouring green fields and
+shaded slopes like some insect-plague consuming the land. The conditions
+were familiar enough to Amherst; and their apparent inevitableness
+mocked the hopes he had based on Mrs. Westmore's arrival.
+
+"Where every stone is piled on another, through the whole stupid
+structure of selfishness and egotism, how can one be pulled out without
+making the whole thing topple? And whatever they're blind to, they
+always see that," he mused, reaching up for the strap of the car.
+
+He walked a few yards beyond the manager's house, and turned down a side
+street lined with scattered cottages. Approaching one of these by a
+gravelled path he pushed open the door, and entered a sitting-room where
+a green-shaded lamp shone pleasantly on bookshelves and a crowded
+writing-table.
+
+A brisk little woman in black, laying down the evening paper as she
+rose, lifted her hands to his tall shoulders.
+
+"Well, mother," he said, stooping to her kiss.
+
+"You're late, John," she smiled back at him, not reproachfully, but with
+affection.
+
+She was a wonderfully compact and active creature, with face so young
+and hair so white that she looked as unreal as a stage mother till a
+close view revealed the fine lines that experience had drawn about her
+mouth and eyes. The eyes themselves, brightly black and glancing, had
+none of the veiled depths of her son's gaze. Their look was outward, on
+a world which had dealt her hard blows and few favours, but in which her
+interest was still fresh, amused and unabated.
+
+Amherst glanced at his watch. "Never mind--Duplain will be later still.
+I had to go into Hanaford, and he is replacing me at the office."
+
+"So much the better, dear: we can have a minute to ourselves. Sit down
+and tell me what kept you."
+
+She picked up her knitting as she spoke, having the kind of hands that
+find repose in ceaseless small activities. Her son could not remember a
+time when he had not seen those small hands in motion--shaping garments,
+darning rents, repairing furniture, exploring the inner economy of
+clocks. "I make a sort of rag-carpet of the odd minutes," she had once
+explained to a friend who wondered at her turning to her needlework in
+the moment's interval between other tasks.
+
+Amherst threw himself wearily into a chair. "I was trying to find out
+something about Dillon's case," he said.
+
+His mother turned a quick glance toward the door, rose to close it, and
+reseated herself.
+
+"Well?"
+
+"I managed to have a talk with his nurse when she went off duty this
+evening."
+
+"The nurse? I wonder you could get her to speak."
+
+"Luckily she's not the regular incumbent, but a volunteer who happened
+to be here on a visit. As it was, I had some difficulty in making her
+talk--till I told her of Disbrow's letter."
+
+Mrs. Amherst lifted her bright glance from the needles. "He's very bad,
+then?"
+
+"Hopelessly maimed!"
+
+She shivered and cast down her eyes. "Do you suppose she really knows?"
+
+"She struck me as quite competent to judge."
+
+"A volunteer, you say, here on a visit? What is her name?"
+
+He raised his head with a vague look. "I never thought of asking her."
+
+Mrs. Amherst laughed. "How like you! Did she say with whom she was
+staying?"
+
+"I think she said in Oak Street--but she didn't mention any name."
+
+Mrs. Amherst wrinkled her brows thoughtfully. "I wonder if she's not the
+thin dark girl I saw the other day with Mrs. Harry Dressel. Was she tall
+and rather handsome?"
+
+"I don't know," murmured Amherst indifferently. As a rule he was
+humorously resigned to his mother's habit of deserting the general for
+the particular, and following some irrelevant thread of association in
+utter disregard of the main issue. But to-night, preoccupied with his
+subject, and incapable of conceiving how anyone else could be unaffected
+by it, he resented her indifference as a sign of incurable frivolity.
+
+"How she can live close to such suffering and forget it!" was his
+thought; then, with a movement of self-reproach, he remembered that the
+work flying through her fingers was to take shape as a garment for one
+of the infant Dillons. "She takes her pity out in action, like that
+quiet nurse, who was as cool as a drum-major till she took off her
+uniform--and then!" His face softened at the recollection of the girl's
+outbreak. Much as he admired, in theory, the woman who kept a calm
+exterior in emergencies, he had all a man's desire to know that the
+springs of feeling lay close to the unruffled surface.
+
+Mrs. Amherst had risen and crossed over to his chair. She leaned on it a
+moment, pushing the tossed brown hair from his forehead.
+
+"John, have you considered what you mean to do next?"
+
+He threw back his head to meet her gaze.
+
+"About this Dillon case," she continued. "How are all these
+investigations going to help you?"
+
+Their eyes rested on each other for a moment; then he said coldly: "You
+are afraid I am going to lose my place."
+
+She flushed like a girl and murmured: "It's not the kind of place I ever
+wanted to see you in!"
+
+"I know it," he returned in a gentler tone, clasping one of the hands on
+his chair-back. "I ought to have followed a profession, like my
+grandfather; but my father's blood was too strong in me. I should never
+have been content as anything but a working-man."
+
+"How can you call your father a working-man? He had a genius for
+mechanics, and if he had lived he would have been as great in his way as
+any statesman or lawyer."
+
+Amherst smiled. "Greater, to my thinking; but he gave me his
+hard-working hands without the genius to create with them. I wish I had
+inherited more from him, or less; but I must make the best of what I am,
+rather than try to be somebody else." He laid her hand caressingly
+against his cheek. "It's hard on you, mother--but you must bear with
+me."
+
+"I have never complained, John; but now you've chosen your work, it's
+natural that I should want you to stick to it."
+
+He rose with an impatient gesture. "Never fear; I could easily get
+another job----"
+
+"What? If Truscomb black-listed you? Do you forget that Scotch overseer
+who was here when we came?"
+
+"And whom Truscomb hounded out of the trade? I remember him," said
+Amherst grimly; "but I have an idea I am going to do the hounding this
+time."
+
+His mother sighed, but her reply was cut short by the noisy opening of
+the outer door. Amherst seemed to hear the sound with relief. "There's
+Duplain," he said, going into the passage; but on the threshold he
+encountered, not the young Alsatian overseer who boarded with them, but
+a small boy who said breathlessly: "Mr. Truscomb wants you to come down
+bimeby."
+
+"This evening? To the office?"
+
+"No--he's sick a-bed."
+
+The blood rushed to Amherst's face, and he had to press his lips close
+to check an exclamation. "Say I'll come as soon as I've had supper," he
+said.
+
+The boy vanished, and Amherst turned back to the sitting-room.
+"Truscomb's ill--he has sent for me; and I saw Mrs. Westmore arriving
+tonight! Have supper, mother--we won't wait for Duplain." His face still
+glowed with excitement, and his eyes were dark with the concentration of
+his inward vision.
+
+"Oh, John, John!" Mrs. Amherst sighed, crossing the passage to the
+kitchen.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+AT the manager's door Amherst was met by Mrs. Truscomb, a large flushed
+woman in a soiled wrapper and diamond earrings.
+
+"Mr. Truscomb's very sick. He ought not to see you. The doctor thinks--"
+she began.
+
+Dr. Disbrow, at this point, emerged from the sitting-room. He was a pale
+man, with a beard of mixed grey-and-drab, and a voice of the same
+indeterminate quality.
+
+"Good evening, Mr. Amherst. Truscomb is pretty poorly--on the edge of
+pneumonia, I'm afraid. As he seems anxious to see you I think you'd
+better go up for two minutes--not more, please." He paused, and went on
+with a smile: "You won't excite him, of course--nothing unpleasant----"
+
+"He's worried himself sick over that wretched Dillon," Mrs. Truscomb
+interposed, draping her wrapper majestically about an indignant bosom.
+
+"That's it--puts too much heart into his work. But we'll have Dillon all
+right before long," the physician genially declared.
+
+Mrs. Truscomb, with a reluctant gesture, led Amherst up the handsomely
+carpeted stairs to the room where her husband lay, a prey to the cares
+of office. She ushered the young man in, and withdrew to the next room,
+where he heard her coughing at intervals, as if to remind him that he
+was under observation.
+
+The manager of the Westmore mills was not the type of man that Amherst's
+comments on his superior suggested. As he sat propped against the
+pillows, with a brick-red flush on his cheek-bones, he seemed at first
+glance to belong to the innumerable army of American business men--the
+sallow, undersized, lacklustre drudges who have never lifted their heads
+from the ledger. Even his eye, now bright with fever, was dull and
+non-committal in daily life; and perhaps only the ramifications of his
+wrinkles could have revealed what particular ambitions had seamed his
+soul.
+
+"Good evening, Amherst. I'm down with a confounded cold."
+
+"I'm sorry to hear it," the young man forced himself to say.
+
+"Can't get my breath--that's the trouble." Truscomb paused and gasped.
+"I've just heard that Mrs. Westmore is here--and I want you to go
+round--tomorrow morning--" He had to break off once more.
+
+"Yes, sir," said Amherst, his heart leaping.
+
+"Needn't see her--ask for her father, Mr. Langhope. Tell him what the
+doctor says--I'll be on my legs in a day or two--ask 'em to wait till I
+can take 'em over the mills."
+
+He shot one of his fugitive glances at his assistant, and held up a bony
+hand. "Wait a minute. On your way there, stop and notify Mr. Gaines. He
+was to meet them here. You understand?"
+
+"Yes, sir," said Amherst; and at that moment Mrs. Truscomb appeared on
+the threshold.
+
+"I must ask you to come now, Mr. Amherst," she began haughtily; but a
+glance from her husband reduced her to a heaving pink nonentity.
+
+"Hold on, Amherst. I hear you've been in to Hanaford. Did you go to the
+hospital?"
+
+"Ezra--" his wife murmured: he looked through her.
+
+"Yes," said Amherst.
+
+Truscomb's face seemed to grow smaller and dryer. He transferred his
+look from his wife to his assistant.
+
+"All right. You'll just bear in mind that it's Disbrow's business to
+report Dillon's case to Mrs. Westmore? You're to confine yourself to my
+message. Is that clear?"
+
+"Perfectly clear. Goodnight," Amherst answered, as he turned to follow
+Mrs. Truscomb.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+That same evening, four persons were seated under the bronze chandelier
+in the red satin drawing-room of the Westmore mansion. One of the four,
+the young lady in widow's weeds whose face had arrested Miss Brent's
+attention that afternoon, rose from a massively upholstered sofa and
+drifted over to the fireplace near which her father sat.
+
+"Didn't I tell you it was awful, father?" she sighed, leaning
+despondently against the high carved mantelpiece surmounted by a bronze
+clock in the form of an obelisk.
+
+Mr. Langhope, who sat smoking, with one faultlessly-clad leg crossed on
+the other, and his ebony stick reposing against the arm of his chair,
+raised his clear ironical eyes to her face.
+
+"As an archaeologist," he said, with a comprehensive wave of his hand, "I
+find it positively interesting. I should really like to come here and
+dig."
+
+There were no lamps in the room, and the numerous gas-jets of the
+chandelier shed their lights impartially on ponderously framed canvases
+of the Bay of Naples and the Hudson in Autumn, on Carrara busts and
+bronze Indians on velvet pedestals.
+
+"All this," murmured Mr. Langhope, "is getting to be as rare as the
+giant sequoias. In another fifty years we shall have collectors fighting
+for that Bay of Naples."
+
+Bessy Westmore turned from him impatiently. When she felt deeply on any
+subject her father's flippancy annoyed her.
+
+"_You_ can see, Maria," she said, seating herself beside the other lady
+of the party, "why I couldn't possibly live here."
+
+Mrs. Eustace Ansell, immediately after dinner, had bent her slender back
+above the velvet-covered writing-table, where an inkstand of Vienna
+ormolu offered its empty cup to her pen. Being habitually charged with a
+voluminous correspondence, she had foreseen this contingency and met it
+by despatching her maid for her own writing-case, which was now
+outspread before her in all its complex neatness; but at Bessy's appeal
+she wiped her pen, and turned a sympathetic gaze on her companion.
+
+Mrs. Ansell's face drew all its charm from its adaptability. It was a
+different face to each speaker: now kindling with irony, now gently
+maternal, now charged with abstract meditation--and few paused to
+reflect that, in each case, it was merely the mirror held up to some one
+else's view of life.
+
+"It needs doing over," she admitted, following the widow's melancholy
+glance about the room. "But you are a spoilt child to complain. Think of
+having a house of your own to come to, instead of having to put up at
+the Hanaford hotel!"
+
+Mrs. Westmore's attention was arrested by the first part of the reply.
+
+"Doing over? Why in the world should I do it over? No one could expect
+me to come here _now_--could they, Mr. Tredegar?" she exclaimed,
+transferring her appeal to the fourth member of the party.
+
+Mr. Tredegar, the family lawyer, who had deemed it his duty to accompany
+the widow on her visit of inspection, was strolling up and down the room
+with short pompous steps, a cigar between his lips, and his arms behind
+him. He cocked his sparrow-like head, scanned the offending apartment,
+and terminated his survey by resting his eyes on Mrs. Westmore's
+charming petulant face.
+
+"It all depends," he replied axiomatically, "how large an income you
+require."
+
+Mr. Tredegar uttered this remark with the air of one who pronounces on
+an important point in law: his lightest observation seemed a decision
+handed down from the bench to which he had never ascended. He restored
+the cigar to his lips, and sought approval in Mrs. Ansell's expressive
+eye.
+
+"Ah, that's it, Bessy. You've that to remember," the older lady
+murmured, as if struck by the profundity of the remark.
+
+Mrs. Westmore made an impatient gesture. "We've always had money
+enough--Dick was perfectly satisfied." Her voice trembled a little on
+her husband's name. "And you don't know what the place is like by
+daylight--and the people who come to call!"
+
+"Of course you needn't see any one now, dear," Mrs. Ansell reminded her,
+"except the Halford Gaineses."
+
+"I am sure they're bad enough. Juliana Gaines will say: 'My dear, is
+that the way widows' veils are worn in New York this autumn?' and
+Halford will insist on our going to one of those awful family dinners,
+all Madeira and terrapin."
+
+"It's too early for terrapin," Mrs. Ansell smiled consolingly; but Bessy
+had reverted to her argument. "Besides, what difference would my coming
+here make? I shall never understand anything about business," she
+declared.
+
+Mr. Tredegar pondered, and once more removed his cigar. "The necessity
+has never arisen. But now that you find yourself in almost sole control
+of a large property----"
+
+Mr. Langhope laughed gently. "Apply yourself, Bessy. Bring your masterly
+intellect to bear on the industrial problem."
+
+Mrs. Ansell restored the innumerable implements to her writing-case, and
+laid her arm with a caressing gesture on Mrs. Westmore's shoulder.
+"Don't tease her. She's tired, and she misses the baby."
+
+"I shall get a telegram tomorrow morning," exclaimed the young mother,
+brightening.
+
+"Of course you will. 'Cicely has just eaten two boiled eggs and a bowl
+of porridge, and is bearing up wonderfully.'"
+
+She drew Mrs. Westmore persuasively to her feet, but the widow refused
+to relinquish her hold on her grievance.
+
+"You all think I'm extravagant and careless about money," she broke out,
+addressing the room in general from the shelter of Mrs. Ansell's
+embrace; "but I know one thing: If I had my way I should begin to
+economize by selling this horrible house, instead of leaving it shut up
+from one year's end to another."
+
+Her father looked up: proposals of retrenchment always struck him as
+business-like when they did not affect his own expenditure. "What do you
+think of that, eh, Tredegar?"
+
+The eminent lawyer drew in his thin lips. "From the point of view of
+policy, I think unfavourably of it," he pronounced.
+
+Bessy's face clouded, and Mrs. Ansell argued gently: "Really, it's too
+late to look so far into the future. Remember, my dear, that we are due
+at the mills tomorrow at ten."
+
+The reminder that she must rise early had the effect of hastening Mrs.
+Westmore's withdrawal, and the two ladies, after an exchange of
+goodnights, left the men to their cigars.
+
+Mr. Langhope was the first to speak.
+
+"Bessy's as hopelessly vague about business as I am, Tredegar. Why the
+deuce Westmore left her everything outright--but he was only a heedless
+boy himself."
+
+"Yes. The way he allowed things to go, it's a wonder there was anything
+to leave. This Truscomb must be an able fellow."
+
+"Devoted to Dick's interests, I've always understood."
+
+"He makes the mills pay well, at any rate, and that's not so easy
+nowadays. But on general principles it's as well he should see that we
+mean to look into everything thoroughly. Of course Halford Gaines will
+never be more than a good figure-head, but Truscomb must be made to
+understand that Mrs. Westmore intends to interest herself personally in
+the business."
+
+"Oh, by all means--of course--" Mr. Langhope assented, his light smile
+stiffening into a yawn at the mere suggestion.
+
+He rose with an effort, supporting himself on his stick. "I think I'll
+turn in myself. There's not a readable book in that God-forsaken
+library, and I believe Maria Ansell has gone off with my volume of
+Loti."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The next morning, when Amherst presented himself at the Westmore door,
+he had decided to follow his chief's instructions to the letter, and ask
+for Mr. Langhope only. The decision had cost him a struggle, for his
+heart was big with its purpose; but though he knew that he must soon
+place himself in open opposition to Truscomb, he recognized the prudence
+of deferring the declaration of war as long as possible.
+
+On his round of the mills, that morning, he had paused in the room where
+Mrs. Dillon knelt beside her mop and pail, and had found her, to his
+surprise, comparatively reassured and cheerful. Dr. Disbrow, she told
+him, had been in the previous evening, and had told her to take heart
+about Jim, and left her enough money to get along for a week--and a
+wonderful new cough-mixture that he'd put up for her special. Amherst
+found it difficult to listen calmly, with the nurse's words still in his
+ears, and the sight before him of Mrs. Dillon's lean shoulder-blades
+travelling painfully up and down with the sweep of the mop.
+
+"I don't suppose that cost Truscomb ten dollars," he said to himself, as
+the lift lowered him to the factory door; but another voice argued that
+he had no right to accuse Disbrow of acting as his brother-in-law's
+agent, when the gift to Mrs. Dillon might have been prompted by his own
+kindness of heart.
+
+"And what prompted the lie about her husband? Well, perhaps he's an
+incurable optimist," he summed up, springing into the Hanaford car.
+
+By the time he reached Mrs. Westmore's door his wrath had subsided, and
+he felt that he had himself well in hand. He had taken unusual pains
+with his appearance that morning--or rather his mother, learning of the
+errand on which Truscomb had sent him, had laid out his
+carefully-brushed Sunday clothes, and adjusted his tie with skilful
+fingers. "You'd really be handsome, Johnny, if you were only a little
+vainer," she said, pushing him away to survey the result; and when he
+stared at her, repeating: "I never heard that vanity made a man
+better-looking," she responded gaily: "Oh, up to a certain point,
+because it teaches him how to use what he's got. So remember," she
+charged him, as he smiled and took up his hat, "that you're going to see
+a pretty young woman, and that you're not a hundred years old yourself."
+
+"I'll try to," he answered, humouring her, "but as I've been forbidden
+to ask for her, I am afraid your efforts will be wasted."
+
+The servant to whom he gave his message showed him into the library,
+with a request that he should wait; and there, to his surprise, he
+found, not the white-moustached gentleman whom he had guessed the night
+before to be Mr. Langhope, but a young lady in deep black, who turned on
+him a look of not unfriendly enquiry.
+
+It was not Bessy's habit to anticipate the clock; but her distaste for
+her surroundings, and the impatience to have done with the tedious
+duties awaiting her, had sent her downstairs before the rest of the
+party. Her life had been so free from tiresome obligations that she had
+but a small stock of patience to meet them with; and already, after a
+night at Hanaford, she was pining to get back to the comforts of her own
+country-house, the soft rut of her daily habits, the funny chatter of
+her little girl, the long stride of her Irish hunter across the
+Hempstead plains--to everything, in short, that made it conceivably
+worth while to get up in the morning.
+
+The servant who ushered in Amherst, thinking the room empty, had not
+mentioned his name; and for a moment he and his hostess examined each
+other in silence, Bessy puzzled at the unannounced appearance of a
+good-looking young man who might have been some one she had met and
+forgotten, while Amherst felt his self-possession slipping away into the
+depths of a pair of eyes so dark-lashed and deeply blue that his only
+thought was one of wonder at his previous indifference to women's eyes.
+
+"Mrs. Westmore?" he asked, restored to self-command by the perception
+that his longed-for opportunity was at hand; and Bessy, his voice
+confirming the inference she had drawn from his appearance, replied with
+a smile: "I am Mrs. Westmore. But if you have come to see me, I ought to
+tell you that in a moment I shall be obliged to go out to our mills. I
+have a business appointment with our manager, but if----"
+
+She broke off, gracefully waiting for him to insert his explanation.
+
+"I have come from the manager; I am John Amherst--your assistant
+manager," he added, as the mention of his name apparently conveyed no
+enlightenment.
+
+Mrs. Westmore's face changed, and she let slip a murmur of surprise
+that would certainly have flattered Amherst's mother if she could have
+heard it; but it had an opposite effect on the young man, who inwardly
+accused himself of having tried to disguise his trade by not putting on
+his everyday clothes.
+
+"How stupid of me! I took you for--I had no idea; I didn't expect Mr.
+Truscomb here," his employer faltered in embarrassment; then their eyes
+met and both smiled.
+
+"Mr. Truscomb sent me to tell you that he is ill, and will not be able
+to show you the mills today. I didn't mean to ask for you--I was told to
+give the message to Mr. Langhope," Amherst scrupulously explained,
+trying to repress the sudden note of joy in his voice.
+
+He was subject to the unobservant man's acute flashes of vision, and
+Mrs. Westmore's beauty was like a blinding light abruptly turned on eyes
+subdued to obscurity. As he spoke, his glance passed from her face to
+her hair, and remained caught in its meshes. He had never seen such
+hair--it did not seem to grow in the usual orderly way, but bubbled up
+all over her head in independent clusters of brightness, breaking, about
+the brow, the temples, the nape, into little irrelevant waves and eddies
+of light, with dusky hollows of softness where the hand might plunge. It
+takes but the throb of a nerve to carry such a complex impression from
+the eye to the mind, but the object of the throb had perhaps felt the
+electric flash of its passage, for her colour rose while Amherst spoke.
+
+"Ah, here is my father now," she said with a vague accent of relief, as
+Mr. Langhope's stick was heard tapping its way across the hall.
+
+When he entered, accompanied by Mrs. Ansell, his sharp glance of
+surprise at her visitor told her that he was as much misled as herself,
+and gave her a sense of being agreeably justified in her blunder. "If
+_father_ thinks you're a gentleman----" her shining eyes seemed to say,
+as she explained: "This is Mr. Amherst, father: Mr. Truscomb has sent
+him."
+
+"Mr. Amherst?" Langhope, with extended hand, echoed affably but vaguely;
+and it became clear that neither Mrs. Westmore nor her father had ever
+before heard the name of their assistant manager.
+
+The discovery stung Amherst to a somewhat unreasoning resentment; and
+while he was trying to subordinate this sentiment to the larger feelings
+with which he had entered the house, Mrs. Ansell, turning her eyes on
+him, said gently: "Your name is unusual. I had a friend named Lucy Warne
+who married a very clever man--a mechanical genius----"
+
+Amherst's face cleared. "My father _was_ a genius; and my mother is Lucy
+Warne," he said, won by the soft look and the persuasive voice.
+
+"What a delightful coincidence! We were girls together at Albany. You
+must remember Judge Warne?" she said, turning to Mr. Langhope, who,
+twirling his white moustache, murmured, a shade less cordially: "Of
+course--of course--delightful--most interesting."
+
+Amherst did not notice the difference. His perceptions were already
+enveloped in the caress that emanated from Mrs. Ansell's voice and
+smile; and he only asked himself vaguely if it were possible that this
+graceful woman, with her sunny autumnal air, could really be his
+mother's contemporary. But the question brought an instant reaction of
+bitterness.
+
+"Poverty is the only thing that makes people old nowadays," he
+reflected, painfully conscious of his own share in the hardships his
+mother had endured; and when Mrs. Ansell went on: "I must go and see
+her--you must let me take her by surprise," he said stiffly: "We live
+out at the mills, a long way from here."
+
+"Oh, we're going there this morning," she rejoined, unrebuffed by what
+she probably took for a mere social awkwardness, while Mrs. Westmore
+interposed: "But, Maria, Mr. Truscomb is ill, and has sent Mr. Amherst
+to say that we are not to come."
+
+"Yes: so Gaines has just telephoned. It's most unfortunate," Mr.
+Langhope grumbled. He too was already beginning to chafe at the
+uncongenial exile of Hanaford, and he shared his daughter's desire to
+despatch the tiresome business before them.
+
+Mr. Tredegar had meanwhile appeared, and when Amherst had been named to
+him, and had received his Olympian nod, Bessy anxiously imparted her
+difficulty.
+
+"But how ill is Mr. Truscomb? Do you think he can take us over the mills
+tomorrow?" she appealed to Amherst.
+
+"I'm afraid not; I am sure he can't. He has a touch of bronchitis."
+
+This announcement was met by a general outcry, in which sympathy for the
+manager was not the predominating note. Mrs. Ansell saved the situation
+by breathing feelingly: "Poor man!" and after a decent echo of the
+phrase, and a doubtful glance at her father, Mrs. Westmore said: "If
+it's bronchitis he may be ill for days, and what in the world are we to
+do?"
+
+"Pack up and come back later," suggested Mr. Langhope briskly; but while
+Bessy sighed "Oh, that dreadful journey!" Mr. Tredegar interposed with
+authority: "One moment, Langhope, please. Mr. Amherst, is Mrs. Westmore
+expected at the mills?"
+
+"Yes, I believe they know she is coming."
+
+"Then I think, my dear, that to go back to New York without showing
+yourself would, under the circumstances, be--er--an error in judgment."
+
+"Good Lord, Tredegar, you don't expect to keep us kicking our heels here
+for days?" her father ejaculated.
+
+"I can certainly not afford to employ mine in that manner for even a
+fraction of a day," rejoined the lawyer, always acutely resentful of the
+suggestion that he had a disengaged moment; "but meanwhile----"
+
+"Father," Bessy interposed, with an eagerly flushing cheek, "don't you
+see that the only thing for us to do is to go over the mills now--at
+once--with Mr. Amherst?"
+
+Mr. Langhope stared: he was always adventurously ready to unmake plans,
+but it flustered him to be called on to remake them. "Eh--what? Now--at
+once? But Gaines was to have gone with us, and how on earth are we to
+get at him? He telephoned me that, as the visit was given up, he should
+ride out to his farm."
+
+"Oh, never mind--or, at least, all the better!" his daughter urged. "We
+can see the mills just as well without him; and we shall get on so much
+more quickly."
+
+"Well--well--what do you say, Tredegar?" murmured Mr. Langhope, allured
+by her last argument; and Bessy, clasping her hands, summed up
+enthusiastically: "And I shall understand so much better without a lot
+of people trying to explain to me at once!"
+
+Her sudden enthusiasm surprised no one, for even Mrs. Ansell, expert as
+she was in the interpreting of tones, set it down to the natural desire
+to have done as quickly as might be with Hanaford.
+
+"Mrs. Westmore has left her little girl at home," she said to Amherst,
+with a smile intended to counteract the possible ill-effect of the
+impression.
+
+But Amherst suspected no slight in his employer's eagerness to visit
+Westmore. His overmastering thought was one of joy as the fulness of his
+opportunity broke on him. To show her the mills himself--to bring her
+face to face with her people, unhampered by Truscomb's jealous
+vigilance, and Truscomb's false explanations; to see the angel of pity
+stir the depths of those unfathomable eyes, when they rested, perhaps
+for the first time, on suffering that it was in their power to smile
+away as easily as they had smiled away his own distrust--all this the
+wonderful moment had brought him, and thoughts and arguments thronged so
+hot on his lips that he kept silence, fearing lest he should say too
+much.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+JOHN AMHERST was no one-sided idealist. He felt keenly the growing
+complexity of the relation between employer and worker, the seeming
+hopelessness of permanently harmonizing their claims, the recurring
+necessity of fresh compromises and adjustments. He hated rant, demagogy,
+the rash formulating of emotional theories; and his contempt for bad
+logic and subjective judgments led him to regard with distrust the
+panaceas offered for the cure of economic evils. But his heart ached
+for the bitter throes with which the human machine moves on. He felt the
+menace of industrial conditions when viewed collectively, their
+poignancy when studied in the individual lives of the toilers among whom
+his lot was cast; and clearly as he saw the need of a philosophic survey
+of the question, he was sure that only through sympathy with its
+personal, human side could a solution be reached. The disappearance of
+the old familiar contact between master and man seemed to him one of the
+great wrongs of the new industrial situation. That the breach must be
+farther widened by the ultimate substitution of the stock-company for
+the individual employer--a fact obvious to any student of economic
+tendencies--presented to Amherst's mind one of the most painful problems
+in the scheme of social readjustment. But it was characteristic of him
+to dwell rather on the removal of immediate difficulties than in the
+contemplation of those to come, and while the individual employer was
+still to be reckoned with, the main thing was to bring him closer to his
+workers. Till he entered personally into their hardships and
+aspirations--till he learned what they wanted and why they wanted
+it--Amherst believed that no mere law-making, however enlightened, could
+create a wholesome relation between the two.
+
+This feeling was uppermost as he sat with Mrs. Westmore in the carriage
+which was carrying them to the mills. He had meant to take the trolley
+back to Westmore, but at a murmured word from Mr. Tredegar Bessy had
+offered him a seat at her side, leaving others to follow. This
+culmination of his hopes--the unlooked-for chance of a half-hour alone
+with her--left Amherst oppressed with the swiftness of the minutes. He
+had so much to say--so much to prepare her for--yet how begin, while he
+was in utter ignorance of her character and her point of view, and while
+her lovely nearness left him so little chance of perceiving anything
+except itself?
+
+But he was not often the victim of his sensations, and presently there
+emerged, out of the very consciousness of her grace and her
+completeness, a clearer sense of the conditions which, in a measure, had
+gone to produce them. Her dress could not have hung in such subtle
+folds, her white chin have nestled in such rich depths of fur, the
+pearls in her ears have given back the light from such pure curves, if
+thin shoulders in shapeless gingham had not bent, day in, day out, above
+the bobbins and carders, and weary ears throbbed even at night with the
+tumult of the looms. Amherst, however, felt no sensational resentment at
+the contrast. He had lived too much with ugliness and want not to
+believe in human nature's abiding need of their opposite. He was glad
+there was room for such beauty in the world, and sure that its purpose
+was an ameliorating one, if only it could be used as a beautiful spirit
+would use it.
+
+The carriage had turned into one of the nondescript thoroughfares, half
+incipient street, half decaying lane, which dismally linked the
+mill-village to Hanaford. Bessy looked out on the ruts, the hoardings,
+the starved trees dangling their palsied leaves in the radiant October
+light; then she sighed: "What a good day for a gallop!"
+
+Amherst felt a momentary chill, but the naturalness of the exclamation
+disarmed him, and the words called up thrilling memories of his own
+college days, when he had ridden his grandfather's horses in the famous
+hunting valley not a hundred miles from Hanaford.
+
+Bessy met his smile with a glow of understanding. "You like riding too,
+I'm sure?"
+
+"I used to; but I haven't been in the saddle for years. Factory managers
+don't keep hunters," he said laughing.
+
+Her murmur of embarrassment showed that she took this as an apologetic
+allusion to his reduced condition, and in his haste to correct this
+impression he added: "If I regretted anything in my other life, it would
+certainly be a gallop on a day like this; but I chose my trade
+deliberately, and I've never been sorry for my choice."
+
+He had hardly spoken when he felt the inappropriateness of this avowal;
+but her prompt response showed him, a moment later, that it was, after
+all, the straightest way to his end.
+
+"You find the work interesting? I'm sure it must be. You'll think me
+very ignorant--my husband and I came here so seldom...I feel as if I
+ought to know so much more about it," she explained.
+
+At last the note for which he waited had been struck. "Won't you try
+to--now you're here? There's so much worth knowing," he broke out
+impetuously.
+
+Mrs. Westmore coloured, but rather with surprise than displeasure. "I'm
+very stupid--I've no head for business--but I will try to," she said.
+
+"It's not business that I mean; it's the personal relation--just the
+thing the business point of view leaves out. Financially, I don't
+suppose your mills could be better run; but there are over seven hundred
+women working in them, and there's so much to be done, just for them and
+their children."
+
+He caught a faint hint of withdrawal in her tone. "I have always
+understood that Mr. Truscomb did everything----"
+
+Amherst flushed; but he was beyond caring for the personal rebuff. "Do
+you leave it to your little girl's nurses to do everything for her?" he
+asked.
+
+Her surprise seemed about to verge on annoyance: he saw the preliminary
+ruffling of the woman who is put to the trouble of defending her
+dignity. "Really, I don't see--" she began with distant politeness; then
+her face changed and melted, and again her blood spoke for her before
+her lips.
+
+"I am glad you told me that, Mr. Amherst. Of course I want to do
+whatever I can. I should like you to point out everything----"
+
+Amherst's resolve had been taken while she spoke. He _would_ point out
+everything, would stretch his opportunity to its limit. All thoughts of
+personal prudence were flung to the winds--her blush and tone had routed
+the waiting policy. He would declare war on Truscomb at once, and take
+the chance of dismissal. At least, before he went he would have brought
+this exquisite creature face to face with the wrongs from which her
+luxuries were drawn, and set in motion the regenerating impulses of
+indignation and pity. He did not stop to weigh the permanent advantage
+of this course. His only feeling was that the chance would never again
+be given him--that if he let her go away, back to her usual life, with
+eyes unopened and heart untouched, there would be no hope of her ever
+returning. It was far better that he should leave for good, and that she
+should come back, as come back she must, more and more often, if once
+she could be made to feel the crying need of her presence.
+
+But where was he to begin? How give her even a glimpse of the packed and
+intricate situation?
+
+"Mrs. Westmore," he said, "there's no time to say much now, but before
+we get to the mills I want to ask you a favour. If, as you go through
+them, you see anything that seems to need explaining, will you let me
+come and tell you about it tonight? I say tonight," he added, meeting
+her look of enquiry, "because later--tomorrow even--I might not have the
+chance. There are some things--a good many--in the management of the
+mills that Mr. Truscomb doesn't see as I do. I don't mean business
+questions: wages and dividends and so on--those are out of my province.
+I speak merely in the line of my own work--my care of the hands, and
+what I believe they need and don't get under the present system.
+Naturally, if Mr. Truscomb were well, I shouldn't have had this chance
+of putting the case to you; but since it's come my way, I must seize it
+and take the consequences."
+
+Even as he spoke, by a swift reaction of thought, those consequences
+rose before him in all their seriousness. It was not only, or chiefly,
+that he feared to lose his place; though he knew his mother had not
+spoken lightly in instancing the case of the foreman whom Truscomb, to
+gratify a personal spite, had for months kept out of a job in his trade.
+And there were special reasons why Amherst should heed her warning. In
+adopting a manual trade, instead of one of the gentlemanly professions
+which the men of her family had always followed, he had not only
+disappointed her hopes, and to a great extent thrown away the benefits
+of the education she had pinched herself to give him, but had disturbed
+all the habits of her life by removing her from her normal surroundings
+to the depressing exile of a factory-settlement. However much he blamed
+himself for exacting this sacrifice, it had been made so cheerfully that
+the consciousness of it never clouded his life with his mother; but her
+self-effacement made him the more alive to his own obligations, and
+having placed her in a difficult situation he had always been careful
+not to increase its difficulties by any imprudence in his conduct toward
+his employers. Yet, grave as these considerations were, they were really
+less potent than his personal desire to remain at Westmore. Lightly as
+he had just resolved to risk the chance of dismissal, all his future was
+bound up in the hope of retaining his place. His heart was in the work
+at Westmore, and the fear of not being able to get other employment was
+a small factor in his intense desire to keep his post. What he really
+wanted was to speak out, and yet escape the consequences: by some
+miraculous reversal of probability to retain his position and yet effect
+Truscomb's removal. The idea was so fantastic that he felt it merely as
+a quickening of all his activities, a tremendous pressure of will along
+undetermined lines. He had no wish to take the manager's place; but his
+dream was to see Truscomb superseded by a man of the new school, in
+sympathy with the awakening social movement--a man sufficiently
+practical to "run" the mills successfully, yet imaginative enough to
+regard that task as the least of his duties. He saw the promise of such
+a man in Louis Duplain, the overseer who boarded with Mrs. Amherst: a
+young fellow of Alsatian extraction, a mill-hand from childhood, who had
+worked at his trade in Europe as well as in America, and who united with
+more manual skill, and a greater nearness to the workman's standpoint,
+all Amherst's enthusiasm for the experiments in social betterment that
+were making in some of the English and continental factories. His
+strongest wish was to see such a man as Duplain in control at Westmore
+before he himself turned to the larger work which he had begun to see
+before him as the sequel to his factory-training.
+
+All these thoughts swept through him in the instant's pause before Mrs.
+Westmore, responding to his last appeal, said with a graceful eagerness:
+"Yes, you must come tonight. I want to hear all you can tell me--and if
+there is anything wrong you must show me how I can make it better."
+
+"I'll show her, and Truscomb shan't turn me out for it," was the vow he
+passionately registered as the carriage drew up at the office-door of
+the main building.
+
+How this impossible result was to be achieved he had no farther time to
+consider, for in another moment the rest of the party had entered the
+factory with them, and speech was followed up in the roar of the
+machinery.
+
+Amherst's zeal for his cause was always quickened by the sight of the
+mills in action. He loved the work itself as much as he hated the
+conditions under which it was done; and he longed to see on the
+operatives' faces something of the ardour that lit up his own when he
+entered the work-rooms. It was this passion for machinery that at school
+had turned him from his books, at college had drawn him to the courses
+least in the line of his destined profession; and it always seized on
+him afresh when he was face to face with the monstrous energies of the
+mills. It was not only the sense of power that thrilled him--he felt a
+beauty in the ordered activity of the whole intricate organism, in the
+rhythm of dancing bobbins and revolving cards, the swift continuous
+outpour of doublers and ribbon-laps, the steady ripple of the long
+ply-frames, the terrible gnashing play of the looms--all these varying
+subordinate motions, gathered up into the throb of the great engines
+which fed the giant's arteries, and were in turn ruled by the invisible
+action of quick thought and obedient hands, always produced in Amherst a
+responsive rush of life.
+
+He knew this sensation was too specialized to affect his companions; but
+he expected Mrs. Westmore to be all the more alive to the other
+side--the dark side of monotonous human toil, of the banquet of flesh
+and blood and brain perpetually served up to the monster whose
+insatiable jaws the looms so grimly typified. Truscomb, as he had told
+her, was a good manager from the profit-taking standpoint. Since it was
+profitable to keep the machinery in order, he maintained throughout the
+factory a high standard of mechanical supervision, except where one or
+two favoured overseers--for Truscomb was given to favoritism--shirked
+the duties of their departments. But it was of the essence of Truscomb's
+policy--and not the least of the qualities which made him a "paying"
+manager--that he saved money scrupulously where its outlay would not
+have resulted in larger earnings. To keep the floors scrubbed, the
+cotton-dust swept up, the rooms freshly whitewashed and well-ventilated,
+far from adding the smallest fraction to the quarterly dividends, would
+have deducted from them the slight cost of this additional labour; and
+Truscomb therefore economized on scrubbers, sweepers and window-washers,
+and on all expenses connected with improved ventilation and other
+hygienic precautions. Though the whole factory was over-crowded, the
+newest buildings were more carefully planned, and had the usual sanitary
+improvements; but the old mills had been left in their original state,
+and even those most recently built were fast lapsing into squalor. It
+was no wonder, therefore, that workers imprisoned within such walls
+should reflect their long hours of deadening toil in dull eyes and
+anaemic skins, and in the dreary lassitude with which they bent to their
+tasks.
+
+Surely, Amherst argued, Mrs. Westmore must feel this; must feel it all
+the more keenly, coming from an atmosphere so different, from a life
+where, as he instinctively divined, all was in harmony with her own
+graceful person. But a deep disappointment awaited him. He was still
+under the spell of their last moments in the carriage, when her face and
+voice had promised so much, when she had seemed so deeply, if vaguely,
+stirred by his appeal. But as they passed from one resounding room to
+the other--from the dull throb of the carding-room, the groan of the
+ply-frames, the long steady pound of the slashers, back to the angry
+shriek of the fierce unappeasable looms--the light faded from her eyes
+and she looked merely bewildered and stunned.
+
+Amherst, hardened to the din of the factory, could not measure its
+effect on nerves accustomed to the subdued sounds and spacious
+stillnesses which are the last refinement of luxury. Habit had made him
+unconscious of that malicious multiplication and subdivision of noise
+that kept every point of consciousness vibrating to a different note, so
+that while one set of nerves was torn as with pincers by the dominant
+scream of the looms, others were thrilled with a separate pain by the
+ceaseless accompaniment of drumming, hissing, grating and crashing that
+shook the great building. Amherst felt this tumult only as part of the
+atmosphere of the mills; and to ears trained like his own he could make
+his voice heard without difficulty. But his attempts at speech were
+unintelligible to Mrs. Westmore and her companions, and after vainly
+trying to communicate with him by signs they hurried on as if to escape
+as quickly as possible from the pursuing whirlwind.
+
+Amherst could not allow for the depressing effect of this enforced
+silence. He did not see that if Bessy could have questioned him the
+currents of sympathy might have remained open between them, whereas,
+compelled to walk in silence through interminable ranks of meaningless
+machines, to which the human workers seemed mere automatic appendages,
+she lost all perception of what the scene meant. He had forgotten, too,
+that the swift apprehension of suffering in others is as much the result
+of training as the immediate perception of beauty. Both perceptions may
+be inborn, but if they are not they can be developed only through the
+discipline of experience.
+
+"That girl in the hospital would have seen it all," he reflected, as the
+vision of Miss Brent's small incisive profile rose before him; but the
+next moment he caught the light on Mrs. Westmore's hair, as she bent
+above a card, and the paler image faded like a late moon in the sunrise.
+
+Meanwhile Mrs. Ansell, seeing that the detailed inspection of the
+buildings was as trying to Mr. Langhope's lameness as to his daughter's
+nerves, had proposed to turn back with him and drive to Mrs. Amherst's,
+where he might leave her to call while the others were completing their
+rounds. It was one of Mrs. Ansell's gifts to detect the first symptoms
+of _ennui_ in her companions, and produce a remedy as patly as old
+ladies whisk out a scent-bottle or a cough-lozenge; and Mr. Langhope's
+look of relief showed the timeliness of her suggestion.
+
+Amherst was too preoccupied to wonder how his mother would take this
+visit; but he welcomed Mr. Langhope's departure, hoping that the
+withdrawal of his ironic smile would leave his daughter open to gentler
+influences. Mr. Tredegar, meanwhile, was projecting his dry glance over
+the scene, trying to converse by signs with the overseers of the
+different rooms, and pausing now and then to contemplate, not so much
+the workers themselves as the special tasks which engaged them.
+
+How these spectators of the party's progress were affected by Mrs.
+Westmore's appearance, even Amherst, for all his sympathy with their
+views, could not detect. They knew that she was the new owner, that a
+disproportionate amount of the result of their toil would in future pass
+through her hands, spread carpets for her steps, and hang a setting of
+beauty about her eyes; but the knowledge seemed to produce no special
+interest in her personality. A change of employer was not likely to make
+any change in their lot: their welfare would probably continue to depend
+on Truscomb's favour. The men hardly raised their heads as Mrs. Westmore
+passed; the women stared, but with curiosity rather than interest; and
+Amherst could not tell whether their sullenness reacted on Mrs.
+Westmore, or whether they were unconsciously chilled by her
+indifference. The result was the same: the distance between them seemed
+to increase instead of diminishing; and he smiled ironically to think of
+the form his appeal had taken--"If you see anything that seems to need
+explaining." Why, she saw nothing--nothing but the greasy floor under
+her feet, the cotton-dust in her eyes, the dizzy incomprehensible
+whirring of innumerable belts and wheels! Once out of it all, she would
+make haste to forget the dreary scene without pausing to ask for any
+explanation of its dreariness.
+
+In the intensity of his disappointment he sought a pretext to cut short
+the tour of the buildings, that he might remove his eyes from the face
+he had so vainly watched for any sign of awakening. And then, as he
+despaired of it, the change came.
+
+They had entered the principal carding-room, and were half-way down its
+long central passage, when Mr. Tredegar, who led the procession, paused
+before one of the cards.
+
+"What's that?" he asked, pointing to a ragged strip of black cloth tied
+conspicuously to the frame of the card.
+
+The overseer of the room, a florid young man with dissipated eyes, who,
+at Amherst's signal, had attached himself to the party, stopped short
+and turned a furious glance on the surrounding operatives.
+
+"What in hell...? It's the first I seen of it," he exclaimed, making an
+ineffectual attempt to snatch the mourning emblem from its place.
+
+At the same instant the midday whistle boomed through the building, and
+at the signal the machinery stopped, and silence fell on the mills. The
+more distant workers at once left their posts to catch up the hats and
+coats heaped untidily in the corners; but those nearer by, attracted by
+the commotion around the card, stood spell-bound, fixing the visitors
+with a dull stare.
+
+Amherst had reddened to the roots of his hair. He knew in a flash what
+the token signified, and the sight stirred his pity; but it also jarred
+on his strong sense of discipline, and he turned sternly to the
+operatives.
+
+"What does this mean?"
+
+There was a short silence; then one of the hands, a thin bent man with
+mystic eyes, raised his head and spoke.
+
+"We done that for Dillon," he said.
+
+Amherst's glance swept the crowded faces. "But Dillon was not killed,"
+he exclaimed, while the overseer, drawing out his pen-knife, ripped off
+the cloth and tossed it contemptuously into a heap of cotton-refuse at
+his feet.
+
+"Might better ha' been," came from another hand; and a deep "That's so"
+of corroboration ran through the knot of workers.
+
+Amherst felt a touch on his arm, and met Mrs. Westmore's eyes. "What has
+happened? What do they mean?" she asked in a startled voice.
+
+"There was an accident here two days ago: a man got caught in the card
+behind him, and his right hand was badly crushed."
+
+Mr. Tredegar intervened with his dry note of command. "How serious is
+the accident? How did it happen?" he enquired.
+
+"Through the man's own carelessness--ask the manager," the overseer
+interposed before Amherst could answer.
+
+A deep murmur of dissent ran through the crowd, but Amherst, without
+noticing the overseer's reply, said to Mr. Tredegar: "He's at the Hope
+Hospital. He will lose his hand, and probably the whole arm."
+
+He had not meant to add this last phrase. However strongly his
+sympathies were aroused, it was against his rule, at such a time, to say
+anything which might inflame the quick passions of the workers: he had
+meant to make light of the accident, and dismiss the operatives with a
+sharp word of reproof. But Mrs. Westmore's face was close to his: he saw
+the pity in her eyes, and feared, if he checked its expression, that he
+might never again have the chance of calling it forth.
+
+"His right arm? How terrible! But then he will never be able to work
+again!" she exclaimed, in all the horror of a first confrontation with
+the inexorable fate of the poor.
+
+Her eyes turned from Amherst and rested on the faces pressing about her.
+There were many women's faces among them--the faces of fagged
+middle-age, and of sallow sedentary girlhood. For the first time Mrs.
+Westmore seemed to feel the bond of blood between herself and these dim
+creatures of the underworld: as Amherst watched her the lovely miracle
+was wrought. Her pallour gave way to a quick rush of colour, her eyes
+widened like a frightened child's, and two tears rose and rolled slowly
+down her face.
+
+"Oh, why wasn't I told? Is he married? Has he children? What does it
+matter whose fault it was?" she cried, her questions pouring out
+disconnectedly on a wave of anger and compassion.
+
+"It warn't his fault.... The cards are too close.... It'll happen
+again.... He's got three kids at home," broke from the operatives; and
+suddenly a voice exclaimed "Here's his wife now," and the crowd divided
+to make way for Mrs. Dillon, who, passing through the farther end of the
+room, had been waylaid and dragged toward the group.
+
+She hung back, shrinking from the murderous machine, which she beheld
+for the first time since her husband's accident; then she saw Amherst,
+guessed the identity of the lady at his side, and flushed up to her
+haggard forehead. Mrs. Dillon had been good-looking in her earlier
+youth, and sufficient prettiness lingered in her hollow-cheeked face to
+show how much more had been sacrificed to sickness and unwholesome toil.
+
+"Oh, ma'am, ma'am, it warn't Jim's fault--there ain't a steadier man
+living. The cards is too crowded," she sobbed out.
+
+Some of the other women began to cry: a wave of sympathy ran through
+the circle, and Mrs. Westmore moved forward with an answering
+exclamation. "You poor creature...you poor creature...." She opened her
+arms to Mrs. Dillon, and the scrubber's sobs were buried on her
+employer's breast.
+
+"I will go to the hospital--I will come and see you--I will see that
+everything is done," Bessy reiterated. "But why are you here? How is it
+that you have had to leave your children?" She freed herself to turn a
+reproachful glance on Amherst. "You don't mean to tell me that, at such
+a time, you keep the poor woman at work?"
+
+"Mrs. Dillon has not been working here lately," Amherst answered. "The
+manager took her back to-day at her own request, that she might earn
+something while her husband was in hospital."
+
+Mrs. Westmore's eyes shone indignantly. "Earn something? But surely----"
+
+She met a silencing look from Mr. Tredegar, who had stepped between Mrs.
+Dillon and herself.
+
+"My dear child, no one doubts--none of these good people doubt--that you
+will look into the case, and do all you can to alleviate it; but let me
+suggest that this is hardly the place----"
+
+She turned from him with an appealing glance at Amherst.
+
+"I think," the latter said, as their eyes met, "that you had better let
+me dismiss the hands: they have only an hour at midday."
+
+She signed her assent, and he turned to the operatives and said quietly:
+"You have heard Mrs. Westmore's promise; now take yourselves off, and
+give her a clear way to the stairs."
+
+They dropped back, and Mr. Tredegar drew Bessy's arm through his; but as
+he began to move away she turned and laid her hand on Mrs. Dillon's
+shoulder.
+
+"You must not stay here--you must go back to the children. I will make
+it right with Mr. Truscomb," she said in a reassuring whisper; then,
+through her tears, she smiled a farewell at the lingering knot of
+operatives, and followed her companions to the door.
+
+In silence they descended the many stairs and crossed the shabby
+unfenced grass-plot between the mills and the manager's office. It was
+not till they reached the carriage that Mrs. Westmore spoke.
+
+"But Maria is waiting for us--we must call for her!" she said, rousing
+herself; and as Amherst opened the carriage-door she added: "You will
+show us the way? You will drive with us?"
+
+During the drive Bessy remained silent, as if re-absorbed in the
+distress of the scene she had just witnessed; and Amherst found himself
+automatically answering Mr. Tredegar's questions, while his own mind
+had no room for anything but the sense of her tremulous lips and of her
+eyes enlarged by tears. He had been too much engrossed in the momentous
+issues of her visit to the mills to remember that she had promised to
+call at his mother's for Mrs. Ansell; but now that they were on their
+way thither he found himself wishing that the visit might have been
+avoided. He was too proud of his mother to feel any doubt of the
+impression she would produce; but what would Mrs. Westmore think of
+their way of living, of the cheap jauntiness of the cottage, and the
+smell of cooking penetrating all its thin partitions? Duplain, too,
+would be coming in for dinner; and Amherst, in spite of his liking for
+the young overseer, became conscious of a rather overbearing freedom in
+his manner, the kind of misplaced ease which the new-made American
+affects as the readiest sign of equality. All these trifles, usually
+non-existent or supremely indifferent to Amherst, now assumed a sudden
+importance, behind which he detected the uneasy desire that Mrs.
+Westmore should not regard him as less of her own class than his
+connections and his bringing-up entitled him to be thought. In a flash
+he saw what he had forfeited by his choice of a calling--equal contact
+with the little circle of people who gave life its crowning grace and
+facility; and the next moment he was blushing at this reversal of his
+standards, and wondering, almost contemptuously, what could be the
+nature of the woman whose mere presence could produce such a change.
+
+But there was no struggling against her influence; and as, the night
+before, he had looked at Westmore with the nurse's eyes, so he now found
+himself seeing his house as it must appear to Mrs. Westmore. He noticed
+the shabby yellow paint of the palings, the neglected garden of their
+neighbour, the week's wash flaunting itself indecently through the
+denuded shrubs about the kitchen porch; and as he admitted his
+companions to the narrow passage he was assailed by the expected whiff
+of "boiled dinner," with which the steam of wash-tubs was intimately
+mingled.
+
+Duplain was in the passage; he had just come out of the kitchen, and the
+fact that he had been washing his hands in the sink was made evident by
+his rolled-back shirt-sleeves, and by the shiny redness of the knuckles
+he was running through his stiff black hair.
+
+"Hallo, John," he said, in his aggressive voice, which rose abruptly at
+sight of Amherst's companions; and at the same moment the frowsy
+maid-of-all-work, crimson from stooping over the kitchen stove, thrust
+her head out to call after him: "See here, Mr. Duplain, don't you leave
+your cravat laying round in my dough."
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+MRS. WESTMORE stayed just long enough not to break in too abruptly on
+the flow of her friend's reminiscences, and to impress herself on Mrs.
+Amherst's delighted eyes as an embodiment of tactfulness and
+grace--looking sympathetically about the little room, which, with its
+books, its casts, its photographs of memorable pictures, seemed, after
+all, a not incongruous setting to her charms; so that when she rose to
+go, saying, as her hand met Amherst's, "Tonight, then, you must tell me
+all about those poor Dillons," he had the sense of having penetrated so
+far into her intimacy that a new Westmore must inevitably result from
+their next meeting.
+
+"Say, John--the boss is a looker," Duplain commented across the
+dinner-table, with the slangy grossness he sometimes affected; but
+Amherst left it to his mother to look a quiet rebuke, feeling himself
+too aloof from such contacts to resent them.
+
+He had to rouse himself with an effort to take in the overseer's next
+observation. "There was another lady at the office this morning,"
+Duplain went on, while the two men lit their cigars in the porch.
+"Asking after you--tried to get me to show her over the mills when I
+said you were busy."
+
+"Asking after me? What did she look like?"
+
+"Well, her face was kinder white and small, with an awful lot of black
+hair fitting close to it. Said she came from Hope Hospital."
+
+Amherst looked up. "Did you show her over?" he asked with sudden
+interest.
+
+Duplain laughed slangily. "What? Me? And have Truscomb get on to it and
+turn me down? How'd I know she wasn't a yellow reporter?"
+
+Amherst uttered an impatient exclamation. "I wish to heaven a yellow
+reporter _would_ go through these mills, and show them up in head-lines
+a yard high!"
+
+He regretted not having seen the nurse again: he felt sure she would
+have been interested in the working of the mills, and quick to notice
+the signs of discouragement and ill-health in the workers' faces; but a
+moment later his regret was dispelled by the thought of his visit to
+Mrs. Westmore. The afternoon hours dragged slowly by in the office,
+where he was bound to his desk by Truscomb's continued absence; but at
+length the evening whistle blew, the clerks in the outer room caught
+their hats from the rack, Duplain presented himself with the day's
+report, and the two men were free to walk home.
+
+Two hours later Amherst was mounting Mrs. Westmore's steps; and his hand
+was on the bell when the door opened and Dr. Disbrow came out. The
+physician drew back, as if surprised and slightly disconcerted; but his
+smile promptly effaced all signs of vexation, and he held his hand out
+affably.
+
+"A fine evening, Mr. Amherst. I'm glad to say I have been able to bring
+Mrs. Westmore an excellent report of both patients--Mr. Truscomb, I
+mean, and poor Dillon. This mild weather is all in their favour, and I
+hope my brother-in-law will be about in a day or two." He passed on with
+a nod.
+
+Amherst was once more shown into the library where he had found Mrs.
+Westmore that morning; but on this occasion it was Mr. Tredegar who rose
+to meet him, and curtly waved him to a seat at a respectful distance
+from his own. Amherst at once felt a change of atmosphere, and it was
+easy to guess that the lowering of temperature was due to Dr. Disbrow's
+recent visit. The thought roused the young man's combative instincts,
+and caused him to say, as Mr. Tredegar continued to survey him in
+silence from the depths of a capacious easy-chair: "I understood from
+Mrs. Westmore that she wished to see me this evening."
+
+It was the wrong note, and he knew it; but he had been unable to conceal
+his sense of the vague current of opposition in the air.
+
+"Quite so: I believe she asked you to come," Mr. Tredegar assented,
+laying his hands together vertically, and surveying Amherst above the
+acute angle formed by his parched finger-tips. As he leaned back,
+small, dry, dictatorial, in the careless finish of his evening dress
+and pearl-studded shirt-front, his appearance put the finishing touch to
+Amherst's irritation. He felt the incongruousness of his rough clothes
+in this atmosphere of after-dinner ease, the mud on his walking-boots,
+the clinging cotton-dust which seemed to have entered into the very
+pores of the skin; and again his annoyance escaped in his voice.
+
+"Perhaps I have come too early--" he began; but Mr. Tredegar interposed
+with glacial amenity: "No, I believe you are exactly on time; but Mrs.
+Westmore is unexpectedly detained. The fact is, Mr. and Mrs. Halford
+Gaines are dining with her, and she has delegated to me the duty of
+hearing what you have to say."
+
+Amherst hesitated. His impulse was to exclaim: "There is no duty about
+it!" but a moment's thought showed the folly of thus throwing up the
+game. With the prospect of Truscomb's being about again in a day or two,
+it might well be that this was his last chance of reaching Mrs.
+Westmore's ear; and he was bound to put his case while he could,
+irrespective of personal feeling. But his disappointment was too keen to
+be denied, and after a pause he said: "Could I not speak with Mrs.
+Westmore later?"
+
+Mr. Tredegar's cool survey deepened to a frown. The young man's
+importunity was really out of proportion to what he signified. "Mrs.
+Westmore has asked me to replace her," he said, putting his previous
+statement more concisely.
+
+"Then I am not to see her at all?" Amherst exclaimed; and the lawyer
+replied indifferently: "I am afraid not, as she leaves tomorrow."
+
+Mr. Tredegar was in his element when refusing a favour. Not that he was
+by nature unkind; he was, indeed, capable of a cold beneficence; but to
+deny what it was in his power to accord was the readiest way of
+proclaiming his authority, that power of loosing and binding which made
+him regard himself as almost consecrated to his office.
+
+Having sacrificed to this principle, he felt free to add as a gratuitous
+concession to politeness: "You are perhaps not aware that I am Mrs.
+Westmore's lawyer, and one of the executors under her husband's will."
+
+He dropped this negligently, as though conscious of the absurdity of
+presenting his credentials to a subordinate; but his manner no longer
+incensed Amherst: it merely strengthened his resolve to sink all sense
+of affront in the supreme effort of obtaining a hearing.
+
+"With that stuffed canary to advise her," he reflected, "there's no hope
+for her unless I can assert myself now"; and the unconscious wording of
+his thought expressed his inward sense that Bessy Westmore stood in
+greater need of help than her work-people.
+
+Still he hesitated, hardly knowing how to begin. To Mr. Tredegar he was
+no more than an underling, without authority to speak in his superior's
+absence; and the lack of an official warrant, which he could have
+disregarded in appealing to Mrs. Westmore, made it hard for him to find
+a good opening in addressing her representative. He saw, too, from Mr.
+Tredegar's protracted silence, that the latter counted on the effect of
+this embarrassment, and was resolved not to minimize it by giving him a
+lead; and this had the effect of increasing his caution.
+
+He looked up and met the lawyer's eye. "Mrs. Westmore," he began, "asked
+me to let her know something about the condition of the people at the
+mills----"
+
+Mr. Tredegar raised his hand. "Excuse me," he said. "I understood from
+Mrs. Westmore that it was you who asked her permission to call this
+evening and set forth certain grievances on the part of the operatives."
+
+Amherst reddened. "I did ask her--yes. But I don't in any sense
+represent the operatives. I simply wanted to say a word for them."
+
+Mr. Tredegar folded his hands again, and crossed one lean little leg
+over the other, bringing into his line of vision the glossy tip of a
+patent-leather pump, which he studied for a moment in silence.
+
+"Does Mr. Truscomb know of your intention?" he then enquired.
+
+"No, sir," Amherst answered energetically, glad that he had forced the
+lawyer out of his passive tactics. "I am here on my own
+responsibility--and in direct opposition to my own interests," he
+continued with a slight smile. "I know that my proceeding is quite out
+of order, and that I have, personally, everything to lose by it, and in
+a larger way probably very little to gain; but I thought Mrs. Westmore's
+attention ought to be called to certain conditions at the mills, and no
+one else seemed likely to speak of them."
+
+"May I ask why you assume that Mr. Truscomb will not do so when he has
+the opportunity?"
+
+Amherst could not repress a smile. "Because it is owing to Mr. Truscomb
+that they exist."
+
+"The real object of your visit then," said Mr. Tredegar, speaking with
+deliberation, "is--er--an underhand attack on your manager's methods?"
+
+Amherst's face darkened, but he kept his temper. "I see nothing
+especially underhand in my course----"
+
+"Except," the other interposed ironically, "that you have waited to
+speak till Mr. Truscomb was not in a position to defend himself."
+
+"I never had the chance before. It was at Mrs. Westmore's own suggestion
+that I took her over the mills, and feeling as I do I should have
+thought it cowardly to shirk the chance of pointing out to her the
+conditions there."
+
+Mr. Tredegar mused, his eyes still bent on his gently-oscillating foot.
+Whenever a sufficient pressure from without parted the fog of
+self-complacency in which he moved, he had a shrewd enough outlook on
+men and motives; and it may be that the vigorous ring of Amherst's
+answer had effected this momentary clearing of the air.
+
+At any rate, his next words were spoken in a more accessible tone. "To
+what conditions do you refer?"
+
+"To the conditions under which the mill-hands work and live--to the
+whole management of the mills, in fact, in relation to the people
+employed."
+
+"That is a large question. Pardon my possible ignorance--" Mr. Tredegar
+paused to make sure that his hearer took in the full irony of this--"but
+surely in this state there are liability and inspection laws for the
+protection of the operatives?"
+
+"There are such laws, yes--but most of them are either a dead letter, or
+else so easily evaded that no employer thinks of conforming to them."
+
+"No employer? Then your specific charge against the Westmore mills is
+part of a general arraignment of all employers of labour?"
+
+"By no means, sir. I only meant that, where the hands are well treated,
+it is due rather to the personal good-will of the employer than to any
+fear of the law."
+
+"And in what respect do you think the Westmore hands unfairly treated?"
+
+Amherst paused to measure his words. "The question, as you say, is a
+large one," he rejoined. "It has its roots in the way the business is
+organized--in the traditional attitude of the company toward the
+operatives. I hoped that Mrs. Westmore might return to the mills--might
+visit some of the people in their houses. Seeing their way of living, it
+might have occurred to her to ask a reason for it--and one enquiry would
+have led to another. She spoke this morning of going to the hospital to
+see Dillon."
+
+"She did go to the hospital: I went with her. But as Dillon was
+sleeping, and as the matron told us he was much better--a piece of news
+which, I am happy to say, Dr. Disbrow has just confirmed--she did not go
+up to the ward."
+
+Amherst was silent, and Mr. Tredegar pursued: "I gather, from your
+bringing up Dillon's case, that for some reason you consider it typical
+of the defects you find in Mr. Truscomb's management. Suppose,
+therefore, we drop generalizations, and confine ourselves to the
+particular instance. What wrong, in your view, has been done the
+Dillons?"
+
+He turned, as he spoke, to extract a cigar from the box at his elbow.
+"Let me offer you one, Mr. Amherst: we shall talk more comfortably," he
+suggested with distant affability; but Amherst, with a gesture of
+refusal, plunged into his exposition of the Dillon case. He tried to put
+the facts succinctly, presenting them in their bare ugliness, without
+emotional drapery; setting forth Dillon's good record for sobriety and
+skill, dwelling on the fact that his wife's ill-health was the result of
+perfectly remediable conditions in the work-rooms, and giving his
+reasons for the belief that the accident had been caused, not by
+Dillon's carelessness, but by the over-crowding of the carding-room. Mr.
+Tredegar listened attentively, though the cloud of cigar-smoke between
+himself and Amherst masked from the latter his possible changes of
+expression. When he removed his cigar, his face looked smaller than
+ever, as though desiccated by the fumes of the tobacco.
+
+"Have you ever called Mr. Gaines's attention to these matters?"
+
+"No: that would have been useless. He has always refused to discuss the
+condition of the mills with any one but the manager."
+
+"H'm--that would seem to prove that Mr. Gaines, who lives here, sees as
+much reason for trusting Truscomb's judgment as Mr. Westmore, who
+delegated his authority from a distance."
+
+Amherst did not take this up, and after a pause Mr. Tredegar went on:
+"You know, of course, the answers I might make to such an indictment. As
+a lawyer, I might call your attention to the employe's waiver of risk,
+to the strong chances of contributory negligence, and so on; but happily
+in this case such arguments are superfluous. You are apparently not
+aware that Dillon's injury is much slighter than it ought to be to serve
+your purpose. Dr. Disbrow has just told us that he will probably get off
+with the loss of a finger; and I need hardly say that, whatever may have
+been Dillon's own share in causing the accident--and as to this, as you
+admit, opinions differ--Mrs. Westmore will assume all the expenses of
+his nursing, besides making a liberal gift to his wife." Mr. Tredegar
+laid down his cigar and drew forth a silver-mounted note-case. "Here, in
+fact," he continued, "is a cheque which she asks you to transmit, and
+which, as I think you will agree, ought to silence, on your part as well
+as Mrs. Dillon's, any criticism of Mrs. Westmore's dealings with her
+operatives."
+
+The blood rose to Amherst's forehead, and he just restrained himself
+from pushing back the cheque which Mr. Tredegar had laid on the table
+between them.
+
+"There is no question of criticizing Mrs. Westmore's dealings with her
+operatives--as far as I know, she has had none as yet," he rejoined,
+unable to control his voice as completely as his hand. "And the proof
+of it is the impunity with which her agents deceive her--in this case,
+for instance, of Dillon's injury. Dr. Disbrow, who is Mr. Truscomb's
+brother-in-law, and apt to be influenced by his views, assures you that
+the man will get off with the loss of a finger; but some one equally
+competent to speak told me last night that he would lose not only his
+hand but his arm."
+
+Amherst's voice had swelled to a deep note of anger, and with his tossed
+hair, and eyes darkening under furrowed brows, he presented an image of
+revolutionary violence which deepened the disdain on Mr. Tredegar's lip.
+
+"Some one equally competent to speak? Are you prepared to name this
+anonymous authority?"
+
+Amherst hesitated. "No--I shall have to ask you to take my word for it,"
+he returned with a shade of embarrassment.
+
+"Ah--" Mr. Tredegar murmured, giving to the expressive syllable its
+utmost measure of decent exultation.
+
+Amherst quivered under the thin lash, and broke out: "It is all you have
+required of Dr. Disbrow--" but at this point Mr. Tredegar rose to his
+feet.
+
+"My dear sir, your resorting to such arguments convinces me that nothing
+is to be gained by prolonging our talk. I will not even take up your
+insinuations against two of the most respected men in the
+community--such charges reflect only on those who make them."
+
+Amherst, whose flame of anger had subsided with the sudden sense of its
+futility, received this in silence, and the lawyer, reassured, continued
+with a touch of condescension: "My only specific charge from Mrs.
+Westmore was to hand you this cheque; but, in spite of what has passed,
+I take it upon myself to add, in her behalf, that your conduct of today
+will not be allowed to weigh against your record at the mills, and that
+the extraordinary charges you have seen fit to bring against your
+superiors will--if not repeated--simply be ignored."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When, the next morning at about ten, Mrs. Eustace Ansell joined herself
+to the two gentlemen who still lingered over a desultory breakfast in
+Mrs. Westmore's dining-room, she responded to their greeting with less
+than her usual vivacity.
+
+[Illustration: "No--I shall have to ask you to take my word for it."]
+
+It was one of Mrs. Ansell's arts to bring to the breakfast-table just
+the right shade of sprightliness, a warmth subdued by discretion as the
+early sunlight is tempered by the lingering coolness of night. She was,
+in short, as fresh, as temperate, as the hour, yet without the
+concomitant chill which too often marks its human atmosphere: rather her
+soft effulgence dissipated the morning frosts, opening pinched spirits
+to a promise of midday warmth. But on this occasion a mist of
+uncertainty hung on her smile, and veiled the glance which she turned
+on the contents of the heavy silver dishes successively presented to her
+notice. When, at the conclusion of this ceremony, the servants had
+withdrawn, she continued for a moment to stir her tea in silence, while
+her glance travelled from Mr. Tredegar, sunk in his morning mail, to Mr.
+Langhope, who leaned back resignedly in his chair, trying to solace
+himself with Hanaford Banner, till midday should bring him a sight of
+the metropolitan press.
+
+"I suppose you know," she said suddenly, "that Bessy has telegraphed for
+Cicely, and made her arrangements to stay here another week."
+
+Mr. Langhope's stick slipped to the floor with the sudden displacement
+of his whole lounging person, and Mr. Tredegar, removing his
+tortoise-shell reading-glasses, put them hastily into their case, as
+though to declare for instant departure.
+
+"My dear Maria--" Mr. Langhope gasped, while she rose and restored his
+stick.
+
+"She considers it, then, her duty to wait and see Truscomb?" the lawyer
+asked; and Mrs. Ansell, regaining her seat, murmured discreetly: "She
+puts it so--yes."
+
+"My dear Maria--" Mr. Langhope repeated helplessly, tossing aside his
+paper and drawing his chair up to the table.
+
+"But it would be perfectly easy to return: it is quite unnecessary to
+wait here for his recovery," Mr. Tredegar pursued, as though setting
+forth a fact which had not hitherto presented itself to the more limited
+intelligence of his hearers.
+
+Mr. Langhope emitted a short laugh, and Mrs. Ansell answered gently:
+"She says she detests the long journey."
+
+Mr. Tredegar rose and gathered up his letters with a gesture of
+annoyance. "In that case--if I had been notified earlier of this
+decision, I might have caught the morning train," he interrupted
+himself, glancing resentfully at his watch.
+
+"Oh, don't leave us, Tredegar," Mr. Langhope entreated. "We'll reason
+with her--we'll persuade her to go back by the three-forty."
+
+Mrs. Ansell smiled. "She telegraphed at seven. Cicely and the governess
+are already on their way."
+
+"At seven? But, my dear friend, why on earth didn't you tell us?"
+
+"I didn't know till a few minutes ago. Bessy called me in as I was
+coming down."
+
+"Ah--" Mr. Langhope murmured, meeting her eyes for a fraction of a
+second. In the encounter, she appeared to communicate something more
+than she had spoken, for as he stooped to pick up his paper he said,
+more easily: "My dear Tredegar, if we're in a box there's no reason why
+we should force you into it too. Ring for Ropes, and we'll look up a
+train for you."
+
+Mr. Tredegar appeared slightly ruffled at this prompt acquiescence in
+his threatened departure. "Of course, if I had been notified in advance,
+I might have arranged to postpone my engagements another day; but in any
+case, it is quite out of the question that I should return in a
+week--and quite unnecessary," he added, snapping his lips shut as though
+he were closing his last portmanteau.
+
+"Oh, quite--quite," Mr. Langhope assented. "It isn't, in fact, in the
+least necessary for any of us either to stay on now or to return.
+Truscomb could come to Long Island when he recovers, and answer any
+questions we may have to put; but if Bessy has sent for the child, we
+must of course put off going for today--at least I must," he added
+sighing, "and, though I know it's out of the question to exact such a
+sacrifice from you, I have a faint hope that our delightful friend here,
+with the altruistic spirit of her sex----"
+
+"Oh, I shall enjoy it--my maid is unpacking," Mrs. Ansell gaily
+affirmed; and Mr. Tredegar, shrugging his shoulders, said curtly: "In
+that case I will ring for the time-table."
+
+When he had withdrawn to consult it in the seclusion of the library, and
+Mrs. Ansell, affecting a sudden desire for a second cup of tea, had
+reseated herself to await the replenishment of the kettle, Mr. Langhope
+exchanged his own chair for a place at her side.
+
+"Now what on earth does this mean?" he asked, lighting a cigarette in
+response to her slight nod of consent.
+
+Mrs. Ansell's gaze lost itself in the depths of the empty tea-pot.
+
+"A number of things--or any one of them," she said at length, extending
+her arm toward the tea-caddy.
+
+"For instance--?" he rejoined, following appreciatively the movements of
+her long slim hands.
+
+She raised her head and met his eyes. "For instance: it may mean--don't
+resent the suggestion--that you and Mr. Tredegar were not quite
+well-advised in persuading her not to see Mr. Amherst yesterday
+evening."
+
+Mr. Langhope uttered an exclamation of surprise.
+
+"But, my dear Maria--in the name of reason...why, after the doctor's
+visit--after his coming here last night, at Truscomb's request, to put
+the actual facts before her--should she have gone over the whole
+business again with this interfering young fellow? How, in fact, could
+she have done so," he added, after vainly waiting for her reply,
+"without putting a sort of slight on Truscomb, who is, after all, the
+only person entitled to speak with authority?"
+
+Mrs. Ansell received his outburst in silence, and the butler,
+reappearing with the kettle and fresh toast, gave her the chance to
+prolong her pause for a full minute. When the door had closed on him,
+she said: "Judged by reason, your arguments are unanswerable; but when
+it comes to a question of feeling----"
+
+"Feeling? What kind of feeling? You don't mean to suggest anything so
+preposterous as that Bessy----?"
+
+She made a gesture of smiling protest. "I confess it is to be regretted
+that his mother is a lady, and that he looks--you must have noticed
+it?--so amazingly like the portraits of the young Schiller. But I only
+meant that Bessy forms all her opinions emotionally; and that she must
+have been very strongly affected by the scene Mr. Tredegar described to
+us."
+
+"Ah," Mr. Langhope interjected, replying first to her parenthesis, "how
+a woman of your good sense stumbled on that idea of hunting up the
+mother--!" but Mrs. Ansell answered, with a slight grimace: "My dear
+Henry, if you could see the house they live in you'd think I had been
+providentially guided there!" and, reverting to the main issue, he went
+on fretfully: "But why, after hearing the true version of the facts,
+should Bessy still be influenced by that sensational scene? Even if it
+was not, as Tredegar suspects, cooked up expressly to take her in, she
+must see that the hospital doctor is, after all, as likely as any one to
+know how the accident really happened, and how seriously the fellow is
+hurt."
+
+"There's the point. Why should Bessy believe Dr. Disbrow rather than Mr.
+Amherst?"
+
+"For the best of reasons--because Disbrow has nothing to gain by
+distorting the facts, whereas this young Amherst, as Tredegar pointed
+out, has the very obvious desire to give Truscomb a bad name and shove
+himself into his place."
+
+Mrs. Ansell contemplatively turned the rings upon her fingers. "From
+what I saw of Amherst I'm inclined to think that, if that is his object,
+he is too clever to have shown his hand so soon. But if you are right,
+was there not all the more reason for letting Bessy see him and find out
+as soon as possible what he was aiming at?"
+
+"If one could have trusted her to find out--but you credit my poor child
+with more penetration than I've ever seen in her."
+
+"Perhaps you've looked for it at the wrong time--and about the wrong
+things. Bessy has the penetration of the heart."
+
+"The heart! You make mine jump when you use such expressions."
+
+"Oh, I use this one in a general sense. But I want to help you to keep
+it from acquiring a more restricted significance."
+
+"Restricted--to the young man himself?"
+
+Mrs. Ansell's expressive hands seemed to commit the question to fate.
+"All I ask you to consider for the present is that Bessy is quite
+unoccupied and excessively bored."
+
+"Bored? Why, she has everything on earth she can want!"
+
+"The ideal state for producing boredom--the only atmosphere in which it
+really thrives. And besides--to be humanly inconsistent--there's just
+one thing she hasn't got."
+
+"Well?" Mr. Langhope groaned, fortifying himself with a second
+cigarette.
+
+"An occupation for that rudimentary little organ, the mention of which
+makes you jump."
+
+"There you go again! Good heavens, Maria, do you want to encourage her
+to fall in love?"
+
+"Not with a man, just at present, but with a hobby, an interest, by all
+means. If she doesn't, the man will take the place of the
+interest--there's a vacuum to be filled, and human nature abhors a
+vacuum."
+
+Mr. Langhope shrugged his shoulders. "I don't follow you. She adored her
+husband."
+
+His friend's fine smile was like a magnifying glass silently applied to
+the gross stupidity of his remark. "Oh, I don't say it was a great
+passion--but they got on perfectly," he corrected himself.
+
+"So perfectly that you must expect her to want a little storm and stress
+for a change. The mere fact that you and Mr. Tredegar objected to her
+seeing Mr. Amherst last night has roused the spirit of opposition in
+her. A year ago she hadn't any spirit of opposition."
+
+"There was nothing for her to oppose--poor Dick made her life so
+preposterously easy."
+
+"My ingenuous friend! Do you still think that's any reason? The fact is,
+Bessy wasn't awake, she wasn't even born, then.... She is now, and you
+know the infant's first conscious joy is to smash things."
+
+"It will be rather an expensive joy if the mills are the first thing she
+smashes."
+
+"Oh I imagine the mills are pretty substantial. I should, I own," Mrs.
+Ansell smiled, "not object to seeing her try her teeth on them."
+
+"Which, in terms of practical conduct, means----?"
+
+"That I advise you not to disapprove of her staying on, or of her
+investigating the young man's charges. You must remember that another
+peculiarity of the infant mind is to tire soonest of the toy that no one
+tries to take away from it."
+
+"_Que diable!_ But suppose Truscomb turns rusty at this very unusual
+form of procedure? Perhaps you don't quite know how completely he
+represents the prosperity of the mills."
+
+"All the more reason," Mrs. Ansell persisted, rising at the sound of Mr.
+Tredegar's approach. "For don't you perceive, my poor distracted friend,
+that if Truscomb turns rusty, as he undoubtedly will, the inevitable
+result will be his manager's dismissal--and that thereafter there will
+presumably be peace in Warsaw?"
+
+"Ah, you divinely wicked woman!" cried Mr. Langhope, snatching at an
+appreciative pressure of her hand as the lawyer reappeared in the
+doorway.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+
+BEFORE daylight that same morning Amherst, dressing by the gas-flame
+above his cheap wash-stand, strove to bring some order into his angry
+thoughts. It humbled him to feel his purpose tossing rudderless on
+unruly waves of emotion, yet strive as he would he could not regain a
+hold on it. The events of the last twenty-four hours had been too rapid
+and unexpected for him to preserve his usual clear feeling of mastery;
+and he had, besides, to reckon with the first complete surprise of his
+senses. His way of life had excluded him from all contact with the
+subtler feminine influences, and the primitive side of the relation left
+his imagination untouched. He was therefore the more assailable by those
+refined forms of the ancient spell that lurk in delicacy of feeling
+interpreted by loveliness of face. By his own choice he had cut himself
+off from all possibility of such communion; had accepted complete
+abstinence for that part of his nature which might have offered a
+refuge from the stern prose of his daily task. But his personal
+indifference to his surroundings--deliberately encouraged as a defiance
+to the attractions of the life he had renounced--proved no defence
+against this appeal; rather, the meanness of his surroundings combined
+with his inherited refinement of taste to deepen the effect of Bessy's
+charm.
+
+As he reviewed the incidents of the past hours, a reaction of
+self-derision came to his aid. What was this exquisite opportunity from
+which he had cut himself off? What, to reduce the question to a personal
+issue, had Mrs. Westmore said or done that, on the part of a plain
+woman, would have quickened his pulses by the least fraction of a
+second? Why, it was only the old story of the length of Cleopatra's
+nose! Because her eyes were a heavenly vehicle for sympathy, because her
+voice was pitched to thrill the tender chords, he had been deluded into
+thinking that she understood and responded to his appeal. And her own
+emotions had been wrought upon by means as cheap: it was only the
+obvious, theatrical side of the incident that had affected her. If
+Dillon's wife had been old and ugly, would she have been clasped to her
+employer's bosom? A more expert knowledge of the sex would have told
+Amherst that such ready sympathy is likely to be followed by as prompt a
+reaction of indifference. Luckily Mrs. Westmore's course had served as a
+corrective for his lack of experience; she had even, as it appeared,
+been at some pains to hasten the process of disillusionment. This timely
+discipline left him blushing at his own insincerity; for he now saw that
+he had risked his future not because of his zeal for the welfare of the
+mill-hands, but because Mrs. Westmore's look was like sunshine on his
+frozen senses, and because he was resolved, at any cost, to arrest her
+attention, to associate himself with her by the only means in his power.
+
+Well, he deserved to fail with such an end in view; and the futility of
+his scheme was matched by the vanity of his purpose. In the cold light
+of disenchantment it seemed as though he had tried to build an
+impregnable fortress out of nursery blocks. How could he have foreseen
+anything but failure for so preposterous an attempt? His breach of
+discipline would of course be reported at once to Mr. Gaines and
+Truscomb; and the manager, already jealous of his assistant's popularity
+with the hands, which was a tacit criticism of his own methods, would
+promptly seize the pretext to be rid of him. Amherst was aware that only
+his technical efficiency, and his knack of getting the maximum of work
+out of the operatives, had secured him from Truscomb's animosity. From
+the outset there had been small sympathy between the two; but the
+scarcity of competent and hard-working assistants had made Truscomb
+endure him for what he was worth to the mills. Now, however, his own
+folly had put the match to the manager's smouldering dislike, and he saw
+himself, in consequence, discharged and black-listed, and perhaps
+roaming for months in quest of a job. He knew the efficiency of that
+far-reaching system of defamation whereby the employers of labour pursue
+and punish the subordinate who incurs their displeasure. In the case of
+a mere operative this secret persecution often worked complete ruin; and
+even to a man of Amherst's worth it opened the dispiriting prospect of a
+long struggle for rehabilitation.
+
+Deep down, he suffered most at the thought that his blow for the
+operatives had failed; but on the surface it was the manner of his
+failure that exasperated him. For it seemed to prove him unfit for the
+very work to which he was drawn: that yearning to help the world forward
+that, in some natures, sets the measure to which the personal adventure
+must keep step. Amherst had hitherto felt himself secured by his insight
+and self-control from the emotional errors besetting the way of the
+enthusiast; and behold, he had stumbled into the first sentimental trap
+in his path, and tricked his eyes with a Christmas-chromo vision of
+lovely woman dispensing coals and blankets! Luckily, though such wounds
+to his self-confidence cut deep, he could apply to them the antiseptic
+of an unfailing humour; and before he had finished dressing, the
+picture of his wide schemes of social reform contracting to a blue-eyed
+philanthropy of cheques and groceries, had provoked a reaction of
+laughter. Perhaps the laughter came too soon, and rang too loud, to be
+true to the core; but at any rate it healed the edges of his hurt, and
+gave him a sound surface of composure.
+
+But he could not laugh away the thought of the trials to which his
+intemperance had probably exposed his mother; and when, at the
+breakfast-table, from which Duplain had already departed, she broke into
+praise of their visitor, it was like a burning irritant on his wound.
+
+"What a face, John! Of course I don't often see people of that kind
+now--" the words, falling from her too simply to be reproachful, wrung
+him, for that, all the more--"but I'm sure that kind of soft loveliness
+is rare everywhere; like a sweet summer morning with the mist on it. The
+Gaines girls, now, are my idea of the modern type; very handsome, of
+course, but you see just _how_ handsome the first minute. I like a story
+that keeps one wondering till the end. It was very kind of Maria
+Ansell," Mrs. Amherst wandered happily on, "to come and hunt me out
+yesterday, and I enjoyed our quiet talk about old times. But what I
+liked best was seeing Mrs. Westmore--and, oh, John, if she came to live
+here, what a benediction to the mills!"
+
+Amherst was silent, moved most of all by the unimpaired simplicity of
+heart with which his mother could take up past relations, and open her
+meagre life to the high visitations of grace and fashion, without a
+tinge of self-consciousness or apology. "I shall never be as genuine as
+that," he thought, remembering how he had wished to have Mrs. Westmore
+know that he was of her own class. How mixed our passions are, and how
+elastic must be the word that would cover any one of them! Amherst's, at
+that moment, were all stained with the deep wound to his self-love.
+
+The discolouration he carried in his eye made the mill-village seem more
+than commonly cheerless and ugly as he walked over to the office after
+breakfast. Beyond the grim roof-line of the factories a dazzle of rays
+sent upward from banked white clouds the promise of another brilliant
+day; and he reflected that Mrs. Westmore would soon be speeding home to
+the joy of a gallop over the plains.
+
+Far different was the task that awaited him--yet it gave him a pang to
+think that he might be performing it for the last time. In spite of Mr.
+Tredegar's assurances, he was certain that the report of his conduct
+must by this time have reached the President, and been transmitted to
+Truscomb; the latter was better that morning, and the next day he would
+doubtless call his rebellious assistant to account. Amherst, meanwhile,
+took up his routine with a dull heart. Even should his offense be
+condoned, his occupation presented, in itself, little future to a man
+without money or powerful connections. Money! He had spurned the thought
+of it in choosing his work, yet he now saw that, without its aid, he was
+powerless to accomplish the object to which his personal desires had
+been sacrificed. His love of his craft had gradually been merged in the
+larger love for his fellow-workers, and in the resulting desire to lift
+and widen their lot. He had once fancied that this end might be attained
+by an internal revolution in the management of the Westmore mills; that
+he might succeed in creating an industrial object-lesson conspicuous
+enough to point the way to wiser law-making and juster relations between
+the classes. But the last hours' experiences had shown him how vain it
+was to assault single-handed the strong barrier between money and
+labour, and how his own dash at the breach had only thrust him farther
+back into the obscure ranks of the stragglers. It was, after all, only
+through politics that he could return successfully to the attack; and
+financial independence was the needful preliminary to a political
+career. If he had stuck to the law he might, by this time, have been
+nearer his goal; but then the gold might not have mattered, since it was
+only by living among the workers that he had learned to care for their
+fate. And rather than have forfeited that poignant yet mighty vision of
+the onward groping of the mass, rather than have missed the widening of
+his own nature that had come through sharing their hopes and pains, he
+would still have turned from the easier way, have chosen the deeper
+initiation rather than the readier attainment.
+
+But this philosophic view of the situation was a mere thread of light on
+the farthest verge of his sky: much nearer were the clouds of immediate
+care, amid which his own folly, and his mother's possible suffering from
+it, loomed darkest; and these considerations made him resolve that, if
+his insubordination were overlooked, he would swallow the affront of a
+pardon, and continue for the present in the mechanical performance of
+his duties. He had just brought himself to this leaden state of
+acquiescence when one of the clerks in the outer office thrust his head
+in to say: "A lady asking for you--" and looking up, Amherst beheld
+Bessy Westmore.
+
+She came in alone, with an air of high self-possession in marked
+contrast to her timidity and indecision of the previous day. Amherst
+thought she looked taller, more majestic; so readily may the upward
+slant of a soft chin, the firmer line of yielding brows, add a cubit to
+the outward woman. Her aspect was so commanding that he fancied she had
+come to express her disapproval of his conduct, to rebuke him for lack
+of respect to Mr. Tredegar; but a moment later it became clear, even to
+his inexperienced perceptions, that it was not to himself that her
+challenge was directed.
+
+She advanced toward the seat he had moved forward, but in her absorption
+forgot to seat herself, and stood with her clasped hands resting on the
+back of the chair.
+
+"I have come back to talk to you," she began, in her sweet voice with
+its occasional quick lift of appeal. "I knew that, in Mr. Truscomb's
+absence, it would be hard for you to leave the mills, and there are one
+or two things I want you to explain before I go away--some of the
+things, for instance, that you spoke to Mr. Tredegar about last night."
+
+Amherst's feeling of constraint returned. "I'm afraid I expressed myself
+badly; I may have annoyed him--" he began.
+
+She smiled this away, as though irrelevant to the main issue. "Perhaps
+you don't quite understand each other--but I am sure you can make it
+clear to me." She sank into the chair, resting one arm on the edge of
+the desk behind which he had resumed his place. "That is the reason why
+I came alone," she continued. "I never can understand when a lot of
+people are trying to tell me a thing all at once. And I don't suppose I
+care as much as a man would--a lawyer especially--about the forms that
+ought to be observed. All I want is to find out what is wrong and how to
+remedy it."
+
+Her blue eyes met Amherst's in a look that flowed like warmth about his
+heart. How should he have doubted that her feelings were as exquisite as
+her means of expressing them? The iron bands of distrust were loosened
+from his spirit, and he blushed for his cheap scepticism of the morning.
+In a woman so evidently nurtured in dependence, whose views had been
+formed, and her actions directed, by the most conventional influences,
+the mere fact of coming alone to Westmore, in open defiance of her
+advisers, bespoke a persistence of purpose that put his doubts to shame.
+
+"It will make a great difference to the people here if you interest
+yourself in them," he rejoined. "I tried to explain to Mr. Tredegar that
+I had no wish to criticise the business management of the mills--even if
+there had been any excuse for my doing so--but that I was sure the
+condition of the operatives could be very much improved, without
+permanent harm to the business, by any one who felt a personal sympathy
+for them; and in the end I believe such sympathy produces better work,
+and so benefits the employer materially."
+
+She listened with her gentle look of trust, as though committing to him,
+with the good faith of a child, her ignorance, her credulity, her little
+rudimentary convictions and her little tentative aspirations, relying on
+him not to abuse or misdirect them in the boundless supremacy of his
+masculine understanding.
+
+"That is just what I want you to explain to me," she said. "But first I
+should like to know more about the poor man who was hurt. I meant to see
+his wife yesterday, but Mr. Gaines told me she would be at work till
+six, and it would have been difficult to go after that. I _did_ go to
+the hospital; but the man was sleeping--is Dillon his name?--and the
+matron told us he was much better. Dr. Disbrow came in the evening and
+said the same thing--told us it was all a false report about his having
+been so badly hurt, and that Mr. Truscomb was very much annoyed when he
+heard of your having said, before the operatives, that Dillon would lose
+his arm."
+
+Amherst smiled. "Ah--Mr. Truscomb heard that? Well, he's right to be
+annoyed: I ought not to have said it when I did. But unfortunately I am
+not the only one to be punished. The operative who tied on the black
+cloth was dismissed this morning."
+
+Mrs. Westmore flamed up. "Dismissed for that? Oh, how unjust--how
+cruel!"
+
+"You must look at both sides of the case," said Amherst, finding it much
+easier to remain temperate in the glow he had kindled than if he had had
+to force his own heat into frozen veins. "Of course any act of
+insubordination must be reprimanded--but I think a reprimand would have
+been enough."
+
+It gave him an undeniable throb of pleasure to find that she was not to
+be checked by such arguments. "But he shall be put back--I won't have
+any one discharged for such a reason! You must find him for me at
+once--you must tell him----"
+
+Once more Amherst gently restrained her. "If you'll forgive my saying
+so, I think it is better to let him go, and take his chance of getting
+work elsewhere. If he were taken back he might be made to suffer. As
+things are organized here, the hands are very much at the mercy of the
+overseers, and the overseer in that room would be likely to make it
+uncomfortable for a hand who had so openly defied him."
+
+With a heavy sigh she bent her puzzled brows on him. "How complicated it
+is! I wonder if I shall ever understand it all. _You_ don't think
+Dillon's accident was his own fault, then?"
+
+"Certainly not; there are too many cards in that room. I pointed out the
+fact to Mr. Truscomb when the new machines were set up three years ago.
+An operative may be ever so expert with his fingers, and yet not learn
+to measure his ordinary movements quite as accurately as if he were an
+automaton; and that is what a man must do to be safe in the
+carding-room."
+
+She sighed again. "The more you tell me, the more difficult it all
+seems. Why is the carding-room so over-crowded?"
+
+"To make it pay better," Amherst returned bluntly; and the colour
+flushed her sensitive skin.
+
+He thought she was about to punish him for his plain-speaking; but she
+went on after a pause: "What you say is dreadful. Each thing seems to
+lead back to another--and I feel so ignorant of it all." She hesitated
+again, and then said, turning her bluest glance on him: "I am going to
+be quite frank with you, Mr. Amherst. Mr. Tredegar repeated to me what
+you said to him last night, and I think he was annoyed that you were
+unwilling to give any proof of the charges you made."
+
+"Charges? Ah," Amherst exclaimed, with a start of recollection, "he
+means my refusing to say who told me that Dr. Disbrow was not telling
+the truth about Dillon?"
+
+"Yes. He said that was a very grave accusation to make, and that no one
+should have made it without being able to give proof."
+
+"That is quite true, theoretically. But in this case it would be easy
+for you or Mr. Tredegar to find out whether I was right."
+
+"But Mr. Tredegar said you refused to say who told you."
+
+"I was bound to, as it happened. But I am not bound to prevent your
+trying to get the same information."
+
+"Ah--" she murmured understandingly; and, a sudden thought striking him,
+he went on, with a glance at the clock: "If you really wish to judge for
+yourself, why not go to the hospital now? I shall be free in five
+minutes, and could go with you if you wish it."
+
+Amherst had remembered the nurse's cry of recognition when she saw Mrs.
+Westmore's face under the street-lamp; and it immediately occurred to
+him that, if the two women had really known each other, Mrs. Westmore
+would have no difficulty in obtaining the information she wanted; while,
+even if they met as strangers, the dark-eyed girl's perspicacity might
+still be trusted to come to their aid. It remained only to be seen how
+Mrs. Westmore would take his suggestion; but some instinct was already
+telling him that the highhanded method was the one she really preferred.
+
+"To the hospital--now? I should like it of all things," she exclaimed,
+rising with what seemed an almost childish zest in the adventure. "Of
+course that is the best way of finding out. I ought to have insisted on
+seeing Dillon yesterday--but I begin to think the matron didn't want me
+to."
+
+Amherst left this inference to work itself out in her mind, contenting
+himself, as they drove back to Hanaford, with answering her questions
+about Dillon's family, the ages of his children, and his wife's health.
+Her enquiries, he noticed, did not extend from the particular to the
+general: her curiosity, as yet, was too purely personal and emotional to
+lead to any larger consideration of the question. But this larger view
+might grow out of the investigation of Dillon's case; and meanwhile
+Amherst's own purposes were momentarily lost in the sweet confusion of
+feeling her near him--of seeing the exquisite grain of her skin, the way
+her lashes grew out of a dusky line on the edge of the white lids, the
+way her hair, stealing in spirals of light from brow to ear, wavered off
+into a fruity down on the edge of the cheek.
+
+At the hospital they were protestingly admitted by Mrs. Ogan, though the
+official "visitors' hour" was not till the afternoon; and beside the
+sufferer's bed, Amherst saw again that sudden flowering of compassion
+which seemed the key to his companion's beauty: as though her lips had
+been formed for consolation and her hands for tender offices. It was
+clear enough that Dillon, still sunk in a torpor broken by feverish
+tossings, was making no perceptible progress toward recovery; and Mrs.
+Ogan was reduced to murmuring some technical explanation about the state
+of the wound while Bessy hung above him with reassuring murmurs as to
+his wife's fate, and promises that the children should be cared for.
+
+Amherst had noticed, on entering, that a new nurse--a gaping young woman
+instantly lost in the study of Mrs. Westmore's toilet--had replaced the
+dark-eyed attendant of the day before; and supposing that the latter was
+temporarily off duty, he asked Mrs. Ogan if she might be seen.
+
+The matron's face was a picture of genteel perplexity. "The other nurse?
+Our regular surgical nurse, Miss Golden, is ill--Miss Hibbs, here, is
+replacing her for the present." She indicated the gaping damsel; then,
+as Amherst persisted: "Ah," she wondered negligently, "do you mean the
+young lady you saw here yesterday? Certainly--I had forgotten: Miss
+Brent was merely a--er--temporary substitute. I believe she was
+recommended to Dr. Disbrow by one of his patients; but we found her
+quite unsuitable--in fact, unfitted--and the doctor discharged her this
+morning."
+
+Mrs. Westmore had drawn near, and while the matron delivered her
+explanation, with an uneasy sorting and shifting of words, a quick
+signal of intelligence passed between her hearers. "You see?" Amherst's
+eyes exclaimed; "I see--they have sent her away because she told you,"
+Bessy's flashed back in wrath, and his answering look did not deny her
+inference.
+
+"Do you know where she has gone?" Amherst enquired; but Mrs. Ogan,
+permitting her brows a faint lift of surprise, replied that she had no
+idea of Miss Brent's movements, beyond having heard that she was to
+leave Hanaford immediately
+
+In the carriage Bessy exclaimed: "It was the nurse, of course--if we
+could only find her! Brent--did Mrs. Ogan say her name was Brent?"
+
+"Do you know the name?"
+
+"Yes--at least--but it couldn't, of course, be the girl I knew----"
+
+"Miss Brent saw you the night you arrived, and thought she recognized
+you. She said you and she had been at some school or convent together."
+
+"The Sacred Heart? Then it _is_ Justine Brent! I heard they had lost
+their money--I haven't seen her for years. But how strange that she
+should be a hospital nurse! And why is she at Hanaford, I wonder?"
+
+"She was here only on a visit; she didn't tell me where she lived. She
+said she heard that a surgical nurse was wanted at the hospital, and
+volunteered her services; I'm afraid she got small thanks for them."
+
+"Do you really think they sent her away for talking to you? How do you
+suppose they found out?"
+
+"I waited for her last night when she left the hospital, and I suppose
+Mrs. Ogan or one of the doctors saw us. It was thoughtless of me,"
+Amherst exclaimed with compunction.
+
+"I wish I had seen her--poor Justine! We were the greatest friends at
+the convent. She was the ringleader in all our mischief--I never saw any
+one so quick and clever. I suppose her fun is all gone now."
+
+For a moment Mrs. Westmore's mind continued to linger among her
+memories; then she reverted to the question of the Dillons, and of what
+might best be done for them if Miss Brent's fears should be realized.
+
+As the carriage neared her door she turned to her companion with
+extended hand. "Thank you so much, Mr. Amherst. I am glad you suggested
+that Mr. Truscomb should find some work for Dillon about the office. But
+I must talk to you about this again--can you come in this evening?"
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+
+AMHERST could never afterward regain a detailed impression of the weeks
+that followed. They lived in his memory chiefly as exponents of the
+unforeseen, nothing he had looked for having come to pass in the way or
+at the time expected; while the whole movement of life was like the
+noon-day flow of a river, in which the separate ripples of brightness
+are all merged in one blinding glitter. His recurring conferences with
+Mrs. Westmore formed, as it were, the small surprising kernel of fact
+about which sensations gathered and grew with the swift ripening of a
+magician's fruit. That she should remain on at Hanaford to look into the
+condition of the mills did not, in itself, seem surprising to Amherst;
+for his short phase of doubt had been succeeded by an abundant inflow of
+faith in her intentions. It satisfied his inner craving for harmony that
+her face and spirit should, after all, so corroborate and complete each
+other; that it needed no moral sophistry to adjust her acts to her
+appearance, her words to the promise of her smile. But her immediate
+confidence in him, her resolve to support him in his avowed
+insubordination, to ignore, with the royal license of her sex, all that
+was irregular and inexpedient in asking his guidance while the whole
+official strength of the company darkened the background with a
+gathering storm of disapproval--this sense of being the glove flung by
+her hand in the face of convention, quickened astonishingly the flow of
+Amherst's sensations. It was as though a mountain-climber, braced to the
+strain of a hard ascent, should suddenly see the way break into roses,
+and level itself in a path for his feet.
+
+On his second visit he found the two ladies together, and Mrs. Ansell's
+smile of approval seemed to cast a social sanction on the episode, to
+classify it as comfortably usual and unimportant. He could see that her
+friend's manner put Bessy at ease, helping her to ask her own questions,
+and to reflect on his suggestions, with less bewilderment and more
+self-confidence. Mrs. Ansell had the faculty of restoring to her the
+belief in her reasoning powers that her father could dissolve in a
+monosyllable.
+
+The talk, on this occasion, had turned mainly on the future of the
+Dillon family, on the best means of compensating for the accident, and,
+incidentally, on the care of the young children of the mill-colony.
+Though Amherst did not believe in the extremer forms of industrial
+paternalism, he was yet of opinion that, where married women were
+employed, the employer should care for their children. He had been
+gradually, and somewhat reluctantly, brought to this conviction by the
+many instances of unavoidable neglect and suffering among the children
+of the women-workers at Westmore; and Mrs. Westmore took up the scheme
+with all the ardour of her young motherliness, quivering at the thought
+of hungry or ailing children while her Cicely, leaning a silken head
+against her, lifted puzzled eyes to her face.
+
+On the larger problems of the case it was less easy to fix Bessy's
+attention; but Amherst was far from being one of the extreme theorists
+who reject temporary remedies lest they defer the day of general
+renewal, and since he looked on every gain in the material condition of
+the mill-hands as a step in their moral growth, he was quite willing to
+hold back his fundamental plans while he discussed the establishment of
+a nursery, and of a night-school for the boys in the mills.
+
+The third time he called, he found Mr. Langhope and Mr. Halford Gaines
+of the company. The President of the Westmore mills was a trim
+middle-sized man, whose high pink varnish of good living would have
+turned to purple could he have known Mr. Langhope's opinion of his
+jewelled shirt-front and the padded shoulders of his evening-coat.
+Happily he had no inkling of these views, and was fortified in his
+command of the situation by an unimpaired confidence in his own
+appearance; while Mr. Langhope, discreetly withdrawn behind a veil of
+cigar-smoke, let his silence play like a fine criticism over the various
+phases of the discussion.
+
+It was a surprise to Amherst to find himself in Mr. Gaines's presence.
+The President, secluded in his high office, seldom visited the mills,
+and when there showed no consciousness of any presence lower than
+Truscomb's; and Amherst's first thought was that, in the manager's
+enforced absence, he was to be called to account by the head of the
+firm. But he was affably welcomed by Mr. Gaines, who made it clear that
+his ostensible purpose in coming was to hear Amherst's views as to the
+proposed night-schools and nursery. These were pointedly alluded to as
+Mrs. Westmore's projects, and the young man was made to feel that he was
+merely called in as a temporary adviser in Truscomb's absence. This was,
+in fact, the position Amherst preferred to take, and he scrupulously
+restricted himself to the answering of questions, letting Mrs. Westmore
+unfold his plans as though they had been her own. "It is much better,"
+he reflected, "that they should all think so, and she too, for Truscomb
+will be on his legs again in a day or two, and then my hours will be
+numbered."
+
+Meanwhile he was surprised to find Mr. Gaines oddly amenable to the
+proposed innovations, which he appeared to regard as new fashions in
+mill-management, to be adopted for the same cogent reasons as a new cut
+in coat-tails.
+
+"Of course we want to be up-to-date--there's no reason why the Westmore
+mills shouldn't do as well by their people as any mills in the country,"
+he affirmed, in the tone of the entertainer accustomed to say: "I want
+the thing done handsomely." But he seemed even less conscious than Mrs.
+Westmore that each particular wrong could be traced back to a radical
+vice in the system. He appeared to think that every murmur of assent to
+her proposals passed the sponge, once for all, over the difficulty
+propounded: as though a problem in algebra should be solved by wiping it
+off the blackboard.
+
+"My dear Bessy, we all owe you a debt of gratitude for coming here, and
+bringing, so to speak, a fresh eye to bear on the subject. If I've been,
+perhaps, a little too exclusively absorbed in making the mills
+profitable, my friend Langhope will, I believe, not be the first
+to--er--cast a stone at me." Mr. Gaines, who was the soul of delicacy,
+stumbled a little over the awkward associations connected with this
+figure, but, picking himself up, hastened on to affirm: "And in that
+respect, I think we can challenge comparison with any industry in the
+state; but I am the first to admit that there may be another side, a
+side that it takes a woman--a mother--to see. For instance," he threw in
+jocosely, "I flatter myself that I know how to order a good dinner; but
+I always leave the flowers to my wife. And if you'll permit me to say
+so," he went on, encouraged by the felicity of his image, "I believe it
+will produce a most pleasing effect--not only on the operatives
+themselves, but on the whole of Hanaford--on our own set of people
+especially--to have you come here and interest yourself in
+the--er--philanthropic side of the work."
+
+Bessy coloured a little. She blushed easily, and was perhaps not
+over-discriminating as to the quality of praise received; but under her
+ripple of pleasure a stronger feeling stirred, and she said hastily: "I
+am afraid I never should have thought of these things if Mr. Amherst had
+not pointed them out to me."
+
+Mr. Gaines met this blandly. "Very gratifying to Mr. Amherst to have you
+put it in that way; and I am sure we all appreciate his valuable hints.
+Truscomb himself could not have been more helpful, though his larger
+experience will no doubt be useful later on, in developing
+and--er--modifying your plans."
+
+It was difficult to reconcile this large view of the moral issue with
+the existence of abuses which made the management of the Westmore mills
+as unpleasantly notorious in one section of the community as it was
+agreeably notable in another. But Amherst was impartial enough to see
+that Mr. Gaines was unconscious of the incongruities of the situation.
+He left the reconciling of incompatibles to Truscomb with the simple
+faith of the believer committing a like task to his maker: it was in the
+manager's mind that the dark processes of adjustment took place. Mr.
+Gaines cultivated the convenient and popular idea that by ignoring
+wrongs one is not so much condoning as actually denying their existence;
+and in pursuance of this belief he devoutly abstained from studying the
+conditions at Westmore.
+
+A farther surprise awaited Amherst when Truscomb reappeared in the
+office. The manager was always a man of few words; and for the first
+days his intercourse with his assistant was restricted to asking
+questions and issuing orders. Soon afterward, it became known that
+Dillon's arm was to be amputated, and that afternoon Truscomb was
+summoned to see Mrs. Westmore. When he returned he sent for Amherst; and
+the young man felt sure that his hour had come.
+
+He was at dinner when the message reached him, and he knew from the
+tightening of his mother's lips that she too interpreted it in the same
+way. He was glad that Duplain's presence kept her from speaking her
+fears; and he thanked her inwardly for the smile with which she watched
+him go.
+
+That evening, when he returned, the smile was still at its post; but it
+dropped away wearily as he said, with his hands on her shoulders: "Don't
+worry, mother; I don't know exactly what's happening, but we're not
+blacklisted yet."
+
+Mrs. Amherst had immediately taken up her work, letting her nervous
+tension find its usual escape through her finger-tips. Her needles
+flagged as she lifted her eyes to his.
+
+"Something _is_ happening, then?" she murmured.
+
+"Oh, a number of things, evidently--but though I'm in the heart of them,
+I can't yet make out how they are going to affect me."
+
+His mother's glance twinkled in time with the flash of her needles.
+"There's always a safe place in the heart of a storm," she said
+shrewdly; and Amherst rejoined with a laugh: "Well, if it's Truscomb's
+heart, I don't know that it's particularly safe for me."
+
+"Tell me just what he said, John," she begged, making no attempt to
+carry the pleasantry farther, though its possibilities still seemed to
+flicker about her lip; and Amherst proceeded to recount his talk with
+the manager.
+
+Truscomb, it appeared, had made no allusion to Dillon; his avowed
+purpose in summoning his assistant had been to discuss with the latter
+the question of the proposed nursery and schools. Mrs. Westmore, at
+Amherst's suggestion, had presented these projects as her own; but the
+question of a site having come up, she had mentioned to Truscomb his
+assistant's proposal that the company should buy for the purpose the
+notorious Eldorado. The road-house in question had always been one of
+the most destructive influences in the mill-colony, and Amherst had made
+one or two indirect attempts to have the building converted to other
+uses; but the persistent opposition he encountered gave colour to the
+popular report that the manager took a high toll from the landlord.
+
+It therefore at once occurred to Amherst to suggest the purchase of the
+property to Mrs. Westmore; and he was not surprised to find that
+Truscomb's opposition to the scheme centred in the choice of the
+building. But even at this point the manager betrayed no open
+resistance; he seemed tacitly to admit Amherst's right to discuss the
+proposed plans, and even to be consulted concerning the choice of a
+site. He was ready with a dozen good reasons against the purchase of the
+road-house; but here also he proceeded with a discretion unexampled in
+his dealings with his subordinates. He acknowledged the harm done by the
+dance-hall, but objected that he could not conscientiously advise the
+company to pay the extortionate price at which it was held, and reminded
+Amherst that, if that particular source of offense were removed, others
+would inevitably spring up to replace it; marshalling the usual
+temporizing arguments of tolerance and expediency, with no marked change
+from his usual tone, till, just as the interview was ending, he asked,
+with a sudden drop to conciliation, if the assistant manager had
+anything to complain of in the treatment he received.
+
+This came as such a surprise to Amherst that before he had collected
+himself he found Truscomb ambiguously but unmistakably offering
+him--with the practised indirection of the man accustomed to cover his
+share in such transactions--a substantial "consideration" for dropping
+the matter of the road-house. It was incredible, yet it had really
+happened: the all-powerful Truscomb, who held Westmore in the hollow of
+his hand, had stooped to bribing his assistant because he was afraid to
+deal with him in a more summary manner. Amherst's leap of anger at the
+offer was curbed by the instant perception of its cause. He had no time
+to search for a reason; he could only rally himself to meet the
+unintelligible with a composure as abysmal as Truscomb's; and his voice
+still rang with the wonder of the incident as he retailed it to his
+mother.
+
+"Think of what it means, mother, for a young woman like Mrs. Westmore,
+without any experience or any habit of authority, to come here, and at
+the first glimpse of injustice, to be so revolted that she finds the
+courage and cleverness to put her little hand to the machine and
+reverse the engines--for it's nothing less that she's done! Oh, I know
+there'll be a reaction--the pendulum's sure to swing back: but you'll
+see it won't swing _as far_. Of course I shall go in the end--but
+Truscomb may go too: Jove, if I could pull him down on me, like
+what's-his-name and the pillars of the temple!"
+
+He had risen and was measuring the little sitting-room with his long
+strides, his head flung back and his eyes dark with the inward look his
+mother had not always cared to see there. But now her own glance seemed
+to have caught a ray from his, and the knitting flowed from her hands
+like the thread of fate, as she sat silent, letting him exhale his hopes
+and his wonder, and murmuring only, when he dropped again to the chair
+at her side: "You won't go, Johnny--you won't go."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mrs. Westmore lingered on for over two weeks, and during that time
+Amherst was able, in various directions, to develop her interest in the
+mill-workers. His own schemes involved a complete readjustment of the
+relation between the company and the hands: the suppression of the
+obsolete company "store" and tenements, which had so long sapped the
+thrift and ambition of the workers; the transformation of the Hopewood
+grounds into a park and athletic field, and the division of its
+remaining acres into building lots for the mill-hands; the establishing
+of a library, a dispensary and emergency hospital, and various other
+centres of humanizing influence; but he refrained from letting her see
+that his present suggestion was only a part of this larger plan, lest
+her growing sympathy should be checked. He had in his mother an example
+of the mind accessible only to concrete impressions: the mind which
+could die for the particular instance, yet remain serenely indifferent
+to its causes. To Mrs. Amherst, her son's work had been interesting
+simply because it _was_ his work: remove his presence from Westmore, and
+the whole industrial problem became to her as non-existent as star-dust
+to the naked eye. And in Bessy Westmore he divined a nature of the same
+quality--divined, but no longer criticized it. Was not that
+concentration on the personal issue just the compensating grace of her
+sex? Did it not offer a warm tint of human inconsistency to eyes chilled
+by contemplating life in the mass? It pleased Amherst for the moment to
+class himself with the impersonal student of social problems, though in
+truth his interest in them had its source in an imagination as open as
+Bessy's to the pathos of the personal appeal. But if he had the same
+sensitiveness, how inferior were his means of expressing it! Again and
+again, during their talks, he had the feeling which had come to him when
+she bent over Dillon's bed--that her exquisite lines were, in some
+mystical sense, the visible flowering of her nature, that they had taken
+shape in response to the inward motions of the heart.
+
+To a young man ruled by high enthusiasms there can be no more dazzling
+adventure than to work this miracle in the tender creature who yields
+her mind to his--to see, as it were, the blossoming of the spiritual
+seed in forms of heightened loveliness, the bluer beam of the eye, the
+richer curve of the lip, all the physical currents of life quickening
+under the breath of a kindled thought. It did not occur to him that any
+other emotion had effected the change he perceived. Bessy Westmore had
+in full measure that gift of unconscious hypocrisy which enables a woman
+to make the man in whom she is interested believe that she enters into
+all his thoughts. She had--more than this--the gift of self-deception,
+supreme happiness of the unreflecting nature, whereby she was able to
+believe herself solely engrossed in the subjects they discussed, to
+regard him as the mere spokesman of important ideas, thus saving their
+intercourse from present constraint, and from the awkward contemplation
+of future contingencies. So, in obedience to the ancient sorcery of
+life, these two groped for and found each other in regions seemingly so
+remote from the accredited domain of romance that it would have been as
+a great surprise to them to learn whither they had strayed as to see
+the arid streets of Westmore suddenly bursting into leaf.
+
+With Mrs. Westmore's departure Amherst, for the first time, became aware
+of a certain flatness in his life. His daily task seemed dull and
+purposeless, and he was galled by Truscomb's studied forbearance, under
+which he suspected a quickly accumulating store of animosity. He almost
+longed for some collision which would release the manager's pent-up
+resentment; yet he dreaded increasingly any accident that might make his
+stay at Westmore impossible.
+
+It was on Sundays, when he was freed from his weekly task, that he was
+most at the mercy of these opposing feelings. They drove him forth on
+long solitary walks beyond the town, walks ending most often in the
+deserted grounds of Hopewood, beautiful now in the ruined gold of
+October. As he sat under the beech-limbs above the river, watching its
+brown current sweep the willow-roots of the banks, he thought how this
+same current, within its next short reach, passed from wooded seclusion
+to the noise and pollution of the mills. So his own life seemed to have
+passed once more from the tranced flow of the last weeks into its old
+channel of unillumined labour. But other thoughts came to him too: the
+vision of converting that melancholy pleasure-ground into an outlet for
+the cramped lives of the mill-workers; and he pictured the weed-grown
+lawns and paths thronged with holiday-makers, and the slopes nearer the
+factories dotted with houses and gardens.
+
+An unexpected event revived these hopes. A few days before Christmas it
+became known to Hanaford that Mrs. Westmore would return for the
+holidays. Cicely was drooping in town air, and Bessy had persuaded Mr.
+Langhope that the bracing cold of Hanaford would be better for the child
+than the milder atmosphere of Long Island. They reappeared, and brought
+with them a breath of holiday cheerfulness such as Westmore had never
+known. It had always been the rule at the mills to let the operatives
+take their pleasure as they saw fit, and the Eldorado and the Hanaford
+saloons throve on this policy. But Mrs. Westmore arrived full of festal
+projects. There was to be a giant Christmas tree for the mill-children,
+a supper on the same scale for the operatives, and a bout of skating and
+coasting at Hopewood for the older lads--the "band" and "bobbin" boys in
+whom Amherst had always felt a special interest. The Gaines ladies,
+resolved to show themselves at home in the latest philanthropic
+fashions, actively seconded Bessy's endeavours, and for a week Westmore
+basked under a sudden heat-wave of beneficence.
+
+The time had passed when Amherst might have made light of such efforts.
+With Bessy Westmore smiling up, holly-laden, from the foot of the ladder
+on which she kept him perched, how could he question the efficacy of
+hanging the opening-room with Christmas wreaths, or the ultimate benefit
+of gorging the operatives with turkey and sheathing their offspring in
+red mittens? It was just like the end of a story-book with a pretty
+moral, and Amherst was in the mood to be as much taken by the tinsel as
+the youngest mill-baby held up to gape at the tree.
+
+At the New Year, when Mrs. Westmore left, the negotiations for the
+purchase of the Eldorado were well advanced, and it was understood that
+on their completion she was to return for the opening of the
+night-school and nursery. Suddenly, however, it became known that the
+proprietor of the road-house had decided not to sell. Amherst heard of
+the decision from Duplain, and at once foresaw the inevitable
+result--that Mrs. Westmore's plan would be given up owing to the
+difficulty of finding another site. Mr. Gaines and Truscomb had both
+discountenanced the erection of a special building for what was, after
+all, only a tentative enterprise. Among the purchasable houses in
+Westmore no other was suited to the purpose, and they had, therefore, a
+good excuse for advising Bessy to defer her experiment.
+
+Almost at the same time, however, another piece of news changed the
+aspect of affairs. A scandalous occurrence at the Eldorado, witnesses to
+which were unexpectedly forthcoming, put it in Amherst's power to
+threaten the landlord with exposure unless he should at once accept the
+company's offer and withdraw from Westmore. Amherst had no long time to
+consider the best means of putting this threat into effect. He knew it
+was not only idle to appeal to Truscomb, but essential to keep the facts
+from him till the deed was done; yet how obtain the authority to act
+without him? The seemingly insuperable difficulties of the situation
+whetted Amherst's craving for a struggle. He thought first of writing to
+Mrs. Westmore;, but now that the spell of her presence was withdrawn he
+felt how hard it would be to make her understand the need of prompt and
+secret action; and besides, was it likely that, at such short notice,
+she could command the needful funds? Prudence opposed the attempt, and
+on reflection he decided to appeal to Mr. Gaines, hoping that the
+flagrancy of the case would rouse the President from his usual attitude
+of indifference.
+
+Mr. Gaines was roused to the extent of showing a profound resentment
+against the cause of his disturbance. He relieved his sense of
+responsibility by some didactic remarks on the vicious tendencies of the
+working-classes, and concluded with the reflection that the more you did
+for them the less thanks you got. But when Amherst showed an
+unwillingness to let the matter rest on this time-honoured aphorism, the
+President retrenched himself behind ambiguities, suggestions that they
+should await Mrs. Westmore's return, and general considerations of a
+pessimistic nature, tapering off into a gloomy view of the weather.
+
+"By God, I'll write to her!" Amherst exclaimed, as the Gaines portals
+closed on him; and all the way back to Westmore he was busy marshalling
+his arguments and entreaties.
+
+He wrote the letter that night, but did not post it. Some unavowed
+distrust of her restrained him--a distrust not of her heart but of her
+intelligence. He felt that the whole future of Westmore was at stake,
+and decided to await the development of the next twenty-four hours. The
+letter was still in his pocket when, after dinner, he was summoned to
+the office by Truscomb.
+
+That evening, when he returned home, he entered the little sitting-room
+without speaking. His mother sat there alone, in her usual place--how
+many nights he had seen the lamplight slant at that particular angle
+across her fresh cheek and the fine wrinkles about her eyes! He was
+going to add another wrinkle to the number now--soon they would creep
+down and encroach upon the smoothness of the cheek.
+
+She looked up and saw that his glance was turned to the crowded
+bookshelves behind her.
+
+"There must be nearly a thousand of them," he said as their eyes met.
+
+"Books? Yes--with your father's. Why--were you thinking...?" She started
+up suddenly and crossed over to him.
+
+"Too many for wanderers," he continued, drawing her hands to his breast;
+then, as she clung to him, weeping and trembling a little: "It had to
+be, mother," he said, kissing her penitently where the fine wrinkles
+died into the cheek.
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+
+AMHERST'S dismissal was not to take effect for a month; and in the
+interval he addressed himself steadily to his task.
+
+He went through the routine of the work numbly; but his intercourse with
+the hands tugged at deep fibres of feelings. He had always shared, as
+far as his duties allowed, in the cares and interests of their few free
+hours: the hours when the automatic appendages of the giant machine
+became men and women again, with desires and passions of their own.
+Under Amherst's influence the mixed elements of the mill-community had
+begun to crystallize into social groups: his books had served as an
+improvised lending-library, he had organized a club, a rudimentary
+orchestra, and various other means of binding together the better
+spirits of the community. With the older men, the attractions of the
+Eldorado, and kindred inducements, often worked against him; but among
+the younger hands, and especially the boys, he had gained a personal
+ascendency that it was bitter to relinquish.
+
+It was the severing of this tie that cost him most pain in the final
+days at Westmore; and after he had done what he could to console his
+mother, and to put himself in the way of getting work elsewhere, he
+tried to see what might be saved out of the ruins of the little polity
+he had built up. He hoped his influence might at least persist in the
+form of an awakened instinct of fellowship; and he gave every spare hour
+to strengthening the links he had tried to form. The boys, at any rate,
+would be honestly sorry to have him go: not, indeed, from the profounder
+reasons that affected him, but because he had not only stood
+persistently between the overseers and themselves, but had recognized
+their right to fun after work-hours as well as their right to protection
+while they worked.
+
+In the glow of Mrs. Westmore's Christmas visitation an athletic club had
+been formed, and leave obtained to use the Hopewood grounds for Saturday
+afternoon sports; and thither Amherst continued to conduct the boys
+after the mills closed at the week-end. His last Saturday had now come:
+a shining afternoon of late February, with a red sunset bending above
+frozen river and slopes of unruffled snow. For an hour or more he had
+led the usual sports, coasting down the steep descent from the house to
+the edge of the woods, and skating and playing hockey on the rough
+river-ice which eager hands kept clear after every snow-storm. He always
+felt the contagion of these sports: the glow of movement, the tumult of
+young voices, the sting of the winter air, roused all the boyhood in his
+blood. But today he had to force himself through his part in the
+performance. To the very last, as he now saw, he had hoped for a sign in
+the heavens: not the reversal of his own sentence--for, merely on
+disciplinary grounds, he perceived that to be impossible--but something
+pointing to a change in the management of the mills, some proof that
+Mrs. Westmore's intervention had betokened more than a passing impulse
+of compassion. Surely she would not accept without question the
+abandonment of her favourite scheme; and if she came back to put the
+question, the answer would lay bare the whole situation.... So Amherst's
+hopes had persuaded him; but the day before he had heard that she was to
+sail for Europe. The report, first announced in the papers, had been
+confirmed by his mother, who brought back from a visit to Hanaford the
+news that Mrs. Westmore was leaving at once for an indefinite period,
+and that the Hanaford house was to be closed. Irony would have been the
+readiest caustic for the wound inflicted; but Amherst, for that very
+reason, disdained it. He would not taint his disappointment with
+mockery, but would leave it among the unspoiled sadnesses of life....
+
+He flung himself into the boys' sports with his usual energy, meaning
+that their last Saturday with him should be their merriest; but he went
+through his part mechanically, and was glad when the sun began to dip
+toward the rim of the woods.
+
+He was standing on the ice, where the river widened just below the
+house, when a jingle of bells broke on the still air, and he saw a
+sleigh driven rapidly up the avenue. Amherst watched it in surprise.
+Who, at that hour, could be invading the winter solitude of Hopewood?
+The sleigh halted near the closed house, and a muffled figure, alighting
+alone, began to move down the snowy slope toward the skaters.
+
+In an instant he had torn off his skates and was bounding up the bank.
+He would have known the figure anywhere--known that lovely poise of the
+head, the mixture of hesitancy and quickness in the light tread which
+even the snow could not impede. Half-way up the slope to the house they
+met, and Mrs. Westmore held out her hand. Face and lips, as she stood
+above him, glowed with her swift passage through the evening air, and in
+the blaze of the sunset she seemed saturated with heavenly fires.
+
+"I drove out to find you--they told me you were here--I arrived this
+morning, quite suddenly...."
+
+She broke off, as though the encounter had checked her ardour instead of
+kindling it; but he drew no discouragement from her tone.
+
+"I hoped you would come before I left--I knew you would!" he exclaimed;
+and at his last words her face clouded anxiously.
+
+"I didn't know you were leaving Westmore till yesterday--the day
+before--I got a letter...." Again she wavered, perceptibly trusting her
+difficulty to him, in the sweet way he had been trying to forget; and he
+answered with recovered energy: "The great thing is that you should be
+here."
+
+She shook her head at his optimism. "What can I do if you go?"
+
+"You can give me a chance, before I go, to tell you a little about some
+of the loose ends I am leaving."
+
+"But why are you leaving them? I don't understand. Is it inevitable?"
+
+"Inevitable," he returned, with an odd glow of satisfaction in the word;
+and as her eyes besought him, he added, smiling: "I've been dismissed,
+you see; and from the manager's standpoint I think I deserved it. But
+the best part of my work needn't go with me--and that is what I should
+like to speak to you about. As assistant manager I can easily be
+replaced--have been, I understand, already; but among these boys here I
+should like to think that a little of me stayed--and it will, if
+you'll let me tell you what I've been doing."
+
+[Illustration: Half-way up the slope to the house they met.]
+
+She glanced away from him at the busy throng on the ice and at the other
+black cluster above the coasting-slide.
+
+"How they're enjoying it!" she murmured. "What a pity it was never done
+before! And who will keep it up when you're gone?"
+
+"You," he answered, meeting her eyes again; and as she coloured a little
+under his look he went on quickly: "Will you come over and look at the
+coasting? The time is almost up. One more slide and they'll be packing
+off to supper."
+
+She nodded "yes," and they walked in silence over the white lawn,
+criss-crossed with tramplings of happy feet, to the ridge from which the
+coasters started on their run. Amherst's object in turning the talk had
+been to gain a moment's respite. He could not bear to waste his perfect
+hour in futile explanations: he wanted to keep it undisturbed by any
+thought of the future. And the same feeling seemed to possess his
+companion, for she did not speak again till they reached the knoll where
+the boys were gathered.
+
+A sled packed with them hung on the brink: with a last shout it was off,
+dipping down the incline with the long curved flight of a swallow,
+flashing across the wide meadow at the base of the hill, and tossed
+upward again by its own impetus, till it vanished in the dark rim of
+wood on the opposite height. The lads waiting on the knoll sang out for
+joy, and Bessy clapped her hands and joined with them.
+
+"What fun! I wish I'd brought Cicely! I've not coasted for years," she
+laughed out, as the second detachment of boys heaped themselves on
+another sled and shot down. Amherst looked at her with a smile. He saw
+that every other feeling had vanished in the exhilaration of watching
+the flight of the sleds. She had forgotten why she had come--forgotten
+her distress at his dismissal--forgotten everything but the spell of the
+long white slope, and the tingle of cold in her veins.
+
+"Shall we go down? Should you like it?" he asked, feeling no resentment
+under the heightened glow of his pulses.
+
+"Oh, do take me--I shall love it!" Her eyes shone like a child's--she
+might have been a lovelier embodiment of the shouting boyhood about
+them.
+
+The first band of coasters, sled at heels, had by this time already
+covered a third of the homeward stretch; but Amherst was too impatient
+to wait. Plunging down to the meadow he caught up the sled-rope, and
+raced back with the pack of rejoicing youth in his wake. The sharp climb
+up the hill seemed to fill his lungs with flame: his whole body burned
+with a strange intensity of life. As he reached the top, a distant bell
+rang across the fields from Westmore, and the boys began to snatch up
+their coats and mufflers.
+
+"Be off with you--I'll look after the sleds," Amherst called to them as
+they dispersed; then he turned for a moment to see that the skaters
+below were also heeding the summons.
+
+A cold pallor lay on the river-banks and on the low meadow beneath the
+knoll; but the woodland opposite stood black against scarlet vapours
+that ravelled off in sheer light toward a sky hung with an icy moon.
+
+Amherst drew up the sled and held it steady while Bessy, seating
+herself, tucked her furs close with little breaks of laughter; then he
+placed himself in front.
+
+"Ready?" he cried over his shoulder, and "Ready!" she called back.
+
+Their craft quivered under them, hanging an instant over the long
+stretch of whiteness below; the level sun dazzled their eyes, and the
+first plunge seemed to dash them down into darkness. Amherst heard a cry
+of glee behind him; then all sounds were lost in the whistle of air
+humming by like the flight of a million arrows. They had dropped below
+the sunset and were tearing through the clear nether twilight of the
+descent; then, with a bound, the sled met the level, and shot away
+across the meadow toward the opposite height. It seemed to Amherst as
+though his body had been left behind, and only the spirit in him rode
+the wild blue currents of galloping air; but as the sled's rush began to
+slacken with the strain of the last ascent he was recalled to himself by
+the touch of the breathing warmth at his back. Bessy had put out a hand
+to steady herself, and as she leaned forward, gripping his arm, a flying
+end of her furs swept his face. There was a delicious pang in being thus
+caught back to life; and as the sled stopped, and he sprang to his feet,
+he still glowed with the sensation. Bessy too was under the spell. In
+the dusk of the beech-grove where they had landed, he could barely
+distinguish her features; but her eyes shone on him, and he heard her
+quick breathing as he stooped to help her to her feet.
+
+"Oh, how beautiful--it's the only thing better than a good gallop!"
+
+She leaned against a tree-bole, panting a little, and loosening her
+furs.
+
+"What a pity it's too dark to begin again!" she sighed, looking about
+her through the dim weaving of leafless boughs.
+
+"It's not so dark in the open--we might have one more," he proposed; but
+she shook her head, seized by a new whim.
+
+"It's so still and delicious in here--did you hear the snow fall when
+that squirrel jumped across to the pine?" She tilted her head, narrowing
+her lids as she peered upward. "There he is! One gets used to the
+light.... Look! See his little eyes shining down at us!"
+
+As Amherst looked where she pointed, the squirrel leapt to another tree,
+and they stole on after him through the hushed wood, guided by his grey
+flashes in the dimness. Here and there, in a break of the snow, they
+trod on a bed of wet leaves that gave out a breath of hidden life, or a
+hemlock twig dashed its spicy scent into their faces. As they grew used
+to the twilight their eyes began to distinguish countless delicate
+gradations of tint: cold mottlings of grey-black boles against the snow,
+wet russets of drifted beech-leaves, a distant network of mauve twigs
+melting into the woodland haze. And in the silence just such fine
+gradations of sound became audible: the soft drop of loosened
+snow-lumps, a stir of startled wings, the creak of a dead branch,
+somewhere far off in darkness.
+
+They walked on, still in silence, as though they had entered the glade
+of an enchanted forest and were powerless to turn back or to break the
+hush with a word. They made no pretense of following the squirrel any
+longer; he had flashed away to a high tree-top, from which his ironical
+chatter pattered down on their unheeding ears. Amherst's sensations were
+not of that highest order of happiness where mind and heart mingle their
+elements in the strong draught of life: it was a languid fume that stole
+through him from the cup at his lips. But after the sense of defeat and
+failure which the last weeks had brought, the reaction was too exquisite
+to be analyzed. All he asked of the moment was its immediate
+sweetness....
+
+They had reached the brink of a rocky glen where a little brook still
+sent its thread of sound through mufflings of ice and huddled branches.
+Bessy stood still a moment, bending her head to the sweet cold tinkle;
+then she moved away and said slowly: "We must go back."
+
+As they turned to retrace their steps a yellow line of light through the
+tree-trunks showed them that they had not, after all, gone very deep
+into the wood. A few minutes' walk would restore them to the lingering
+daylight, and on the farther side of the meadow stood the sleigh which
+was to carry Bessy back to Hanaford. A sudden sense of the evanescence
+of the moment roused Amherst from his absorption. Before the next change
+in the fading light he would be back again among the ugly realities of
+life. Did she, too, hate to return to them? Or why else did she walk so
+slowly--why did she seem as much afraid as himself to break the silence
+that held them in its magic circle?
+
+A dead pine-branch caught in the edge of her skirt, and she stood still
+while Amherst bent down to release her. As she turned to help him he
+looked up with a smile.
+
+"The wood doesn't want to let you go," he said.
+
+She made no reply, and he added, rising: "But you'll come back to
+it--you'll come back often, I hope."
+
+He could not see her face in the dimness, but her voice trembled a
+little as she answered: "I will do what you tell me--but I shall be
+alone--against all the others: they don't understand."
+
+The simplicity, the helplessness, of the avowal, appealed to him not as
+a weakness but as a grace. He understood what she was really saying:
+"How can you desert me? How can you put this great responsibility on me,
+and then leave me to bear it alone?" and in the light of her unuttered
+appeal his action seemed almost like cruelty. Why had he opened her eyes
+to wrongs she had no strength to redress without his aid?
+
+He could only answer, as he walked beside her toward the edge of the
+wood: "You will not be alone--in time you will make the others
+understand; in time they will be with you."
+
+"Ah, you don't believe that!" she exclaimed, pausing suddenly, and
+speaking with an intensity of reproach that amazed him.
+
+"I hope it, at any rate," he rejoined, pausing also. "And I'm sure that
+if you will come here oftener--if you'll really live among your
+people----"
+
+"How can you say that, when you're deserting them?" she broke in, with a
+feminine excess of inconsequence that fairly dashed the words from his
+lips.
+
+"Deserting them? Don't you understand----?"
+
+"I understand that you've made Mr. Gaines and Truscomb angry--yes; but
+if I should insist on your staying----"
+
+Amherst felt the blood rush to his forehead. "No--no, it's not
+possible!" he exclaimed, with a vehemence addressed more to himself than
+to her.
+
+"Then what will happen at the mills?"
+
+"Oh, some one else will be found--the new ideas are stirring everywhere.
+And if you'll only come back here, and help my successor----"
+
+"Do you think they are likely to choose any one else with your ideas?"
+she interposed with unexpected acuteness; and after a short silence he
+answered: "Not immediately, perhaps; but in time--in time there will be
+improvements."
+
+"As if the poor people could wait! Oh, it's cruel, cruel of you to go!"
+
+Her voice broke in a throb of entreaty that went to his inmost fibres.
+
+"You don't understand. It's impossible in the present state of things
+that I should do any good by staying."
+
+"Then you refuse? Even if I were to insist on their asking you to stay,
+you would still refuse?" she persisted.
+
+"Yes--I should still refuse."
+
+She made no answer, but moved a few steps nearer to the edge of the
+wood. The meadow was just below them now, and the sleigh in plain sight
+on the height beyond. Their steps made no sound on the sodden drifts
+underfoot, and in the silence he thought he heard a catch in her
+breathing. It was enough to make the brimming moment overflow. He stood
+still before her and bent his head to hers.
+
+"Bessy!" he said, with sudden vehemence.
+
+She did not speak or move, but in the quickened state of his perceptions
+he became aware that she was silently weeping. The gathering darkness
+under the trees enveloped them. It absorbed her outline into the shadowy
+background of the wood, from which her face emerged in a faint spot of
+pallor; and the same obscurity seemed to envelop his faculties, merging
+the hard facts of life in a blur of feeling in which the distinctest
+impression was the sweet sense of her tears.
+
+"Bessy!" he exclaimed again; and as he drew a step nearer he felt her
+yield to him, and bury her sobs against his arm.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK II
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+
+"BUT, Justine----"
+
+Mrs. Harry Dressel, seated in the June freshness of her Oak Street
+drawing-room, and harmonizing by her high lights and hard edges with the
+white-and-gold angularities of the best furniture, cast a rebuking eye
+on her friend Miss Brent, who stood arranging in a glass bowl the
+handful of roses she had just brought in from the garden.
+
+Mrs. Dressel's intonation made it clear that the entrance of Miss Brent
+had been the signal for renewing an argument which the latter had
+perhaps left the room to escape.
+
+"When you were here three years ago, Justine, I could understand your
+not wanting to go out, because you were in mourning for your mother--and
+besides, you'd volunteered for that bad surgical case in the Hope
+Hospital. But now that you've come back for a rest and a change I can't
+imagine why you persist in shutting yourself up--unless, of course," she
+concluded, in a higher key of reproach, "it's because you think so
+little of Hanaford society----"
+
+Justine Brent, putting the last rose in place, turned from her task with
+a protesting gesture.
+
+"My dear Effie, who am I to think little of any society, when I belong
+to none?" She passed a last light touch over the flowers, and crossing
+the room, brushed her friend's hand with the same caressing gesture.
+
+Mrs. Dressel met it with an unrelenting turn of her plump shoulder,
+murmuring: "Oh, if you take _that_ tone!" And on Miss Brent's gaily
+rejoining: "Isn't it better than to have other people take it for me?"
+she replied, with an air of affront that expressed itself in a ruffling
+of her whole pretty person: "If you'll excuse my saying so, Justine, the
+fact that you are staying with _me_ would be enough to make you welcome
+anywhere in Hanaford!"
+
+"I'm sure of it, dear; so sure that my horrid pride rather resents being
+floated in on the high tide of such overwhelming credentials."
+
+Mrs. Dressel glanced up doubtfully at the dark face laughing down on
+her. Though she was president of the Maplewood Avenue Book-club, and
+habitually figured in the society column of the "Banner" as one of the
+intellectual leaders of Hanaford, there were moments when her
+self-confidence trembled before Justine's light sallies. It was absurd,
+of course, given the relative situations of the two; and Mrs. Dressel,
+behind her friend's back, was quickly reassured by the thought that
+Justine was only a hospital nurse, who had to work for her living, and
+had really never "been anywhere"; but when Miss Brent's verbal arrows
+were flying, it seemed somehow of more immediate consequence that she
+was fairly well-connected, and lived in New York. No one placed a higher
+value on the abstract qualities of wit and irony than Mrs. Dressel; the
+difficulty was that she never quite knew when Justine's retorts were
+loaded, or when her own susceptibilities were the target aimed at; and
+between her desire to appear to take the joke, and the fear of being
+ridiculed without knowing it, her pretty face often presented an
+interesting study in perplexity. As usual, she now took refuge in
+bringing the talk back to a personal issue.
+
+"I can't imagine," she said, "why you won't go to the Gaines's
+garden-party. It's always the most brilliant affair of the season; and
+this year, with the John Amhersts here, and all their party--that
+fascinating Mrs. Eustace Ansell, and Mrs. Amherst's father, old Mr.
+Langhope, who is quite as quick and clever as _you_ are--you certainly
+can't accuse us of being dull and provincial!"
+
+Miss Brent smiled. "As far as I can remember, Effie, it is always you
+who accuse others of bringing that charge against Hanaford. For my part,
+I know too little of it to have formed any opinion; but whatever it may
+have to offer me, I am painfully conscious of having, at present,
+nothing but your kind commendation to give in return."
+
+Mrs. Dressel rose impatiently. "How absurdly you talk! You're a little
+thinner than usual, and I don't like those dark lines under your eyes;
+but Westy Gaines told me yesterday that he thought you handsomer than
+ever, and that it was intensely becoming to some women to look
+over-tired."
+
+"It's lucky I'm one of that kind," Miss Brent rejoined, between a sigh
+and a laugh, "and there's every promise of my getting handsomer every
+day if somebody doesn't soon arrest the geometrical progression of my
+good looks by giving me the chance to take a year's rest!"
+
+As she spoke, she stretched her arms above her head, with a gesture
+revealing the suppleness of her slim young frame, but also its tenuity
+of structure--the frailness of throat and shoulders, and the play of
+bones in the delicate neck. Justine Brent had one of those imponderable
+bodies that seem a mere pinch of matter shot through with light and
+colour. Though she did not flush easily, auroral lights ran under her
+clear skin, were lost in the shadows of her hair, and broke again in her
+eyes; and her voice seemed to shoot light too, as though her smile
+flashed back from her words as they fell--all her features being so
+fluid and changeful that the one solid thing about her was the massing
+of dense black hair which clasped her face like the noble metal of some
+antique bust.
+
+Mrs. Dressel's face softened at the note of weariness in the girl's
+voice. "Are you very tired, dear?" she asked drawing her down to a seat
+on the sofa.
+
+"Yes, and no--not so much bodily, perhaps, as in spirit." Justine Brent
+drew her brows together, and stared moodily at the thin brown hands
+interwoven between Mrs. Dressel's plump fingers. Seated thus, with
+hollowed shoulders and brooding head, she might have figured a young
+sibyl bowed above some mystery of fate; but the next moment her face,
+inclining toward her friend's, cast off its shadows and resumed the look
+of a plaintive child.
+
+"The worst of it is that I don't look forward with any interest to
+taking up the old drudgery again. Of course that loss of interest may be
+merely physical--I should call it so in a nervous patient, no doubt. But
+in myself it seems different--it seems to go to the roots of the world.
+You know it was always the imaginative side of my work that helped me
+over the ugly details--the pity and beauty that disinfected the physical
+horror; but now that feeling is lost, and only the mortal disgust
+remains. Oh, Effie, I don't want to be a ministering angel any more--I
+want to be uncertain, coy and hard to please. I want something dazzling
+and unaccountable to happen to me--something new and unlived and
+indescribable!"
+
+She snatched herself with a laugh from the bewildered Effie, and
+flinging up her arms again, spun on a light heel across the polished
+floor.
+
+"Well, then," murmured Mrs. Dressel with gentle obstinacy, "I can't see
+why in the world you won't go to the Gaines's garden-party!" And caught
+in the whirlwind of her friend's incomprehensible mirth, she still
+persisted, as she ducked her blonde head to it: "If you'll only let me
+lend you my dress with the Irish lace, you'll look smarter than anybody
+there...."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Before her toilet mirror, an hour later, Justine Brent seemed in a way
+to fulfill Mrs. Dressel's prediction. So mirror-like herself, she could
+no more help reflecting the happy effect of a bow or a feather than the
+subtler influence of word and look; and her face and figure were so new
+to the advantages of dress that, at four-and-twenty, she still produced
+the effect of a young girl in her first "good" frock. In Mrs. Dressel's
+festal raiment, which her dark tints subdued to a quiet elegance, she
+was like the golden core of a pale rose illuminating and scenting its
+petals.
+
+Three years of solitary life, following on a youth of confidential
+intimacy with the mother she had lost, had produced in her the quaint
+habit of half-loud soliloquy. "Fine feathers, Justine!" she laughed back
+at her laughing image. "You look like a phoenix risen from your ashes.
+But slip back into your own plumage, and you'll be no more than a little
+brown bird without a song!"
+
+The luxurious suggestions of her dress, and the way her warm youth
+became it, drew her back to memories of a childhood nestled in beauty
+and gentle ways, before her handsome prodigal father had died, and her
+mother's face had grown pinched in the long struggle with poverty. But
+those memories were after all less dear to Justine than the grey years
+following, when, growing up, she had helped to clear a space in the
+wilderness for their tiny hearth-fire, when her own efforts had fed the
+flame and roofed it in from the weather. A great heat, kindled at that
+hearth, had burned in her veins, making her devour her work, lighting
+and warming the long cold days, and reddening the horizon through dark
+passages of revolt and failure; and she felt all the more deeply the
+chill of reaction that set in with her mother's death.
+
+She thought she had chosen her work as a nurse in a spirit of high
+disinterestedness; but in the first hours of her bereavement it seemed
+as though only the personal aim had sustained her. For a while, after
+this, her sick people became to her mere bundles of disintegrating
+matter, and she shrank from physical pain with a distaste the deeper
+because, mechanically, she could not help working on to relieve it.
+Gradually her sound nature passed out of this morbid phase, and she took
+up her task with deeper pity if less exalted ardour; glad to do her part
+in the vast impersonal labour of easing the world's misery, but longing
+with all the warm instincts of youth for a special load to lift, a
+single hand to clasp.
+
+Ah, it was cruel to be alive, to be young, to bubble with springs of
+mirth and tenderness and folly, and to live in perpetual contact with
+decay and pain--to look persistently into the grey face of death without
+having lifted even a corner of life's veil! Now and then, when she felt
+her youth flame through the sheath of dullness which was gradually
+enclosing it, she rebelled at the conditions that tied a spirit like
+hers to its monotonous task, while others, without a quiver of wings on
+their dull shoulders, or a note of music in their hearts, had the whole
+wide world to range through, and saw in it no more than a frightful
+emptiness to be shut out with tight walls of habit....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A tap on the door announced Mrs. Dressel, garbed for conquest, and
+bestowing on her brilliant person the last anxious touches of the artist
+reluctant to part from a masterpiece.
+
+"My dear, how well you look! I _knew_ that dress would be becoming!" she
+exclaimed, generously transferring her self-approval to Justine; and
+adding, as the latter moved toward her: "I wish Westy Gaines could see
+you now!"
+
+"Well, he will presently," Miss Brent rejoined, ignoring the slight
+stress on the name.
+
+Mrs. Dressel continued to brood on her maternally. "Justine--I wish
+you'd tell me! You say you hate the life you're leading now--but isn't
+there somebody who might----?"
+
+"Give me another, with lace dresses in it?" Justine's slight shrug might
+have seemed theatrical, had it not been a part of the ceaseless dramatic
+play of her flexible person. "There might be, perhaps...only I'm not
+sure--" She broke off whimsically.
+
+"Not sure of what?"
+
+"That this kind of dress might not always be a little tight on the
+shoulders."
+
+"Tight on the shoulders? What do you mean, Justine? My clothes simply
+_hang_ on you!"
+
+"Oh, Effie dear, don't you remember the fable of the wings under the
+skin, that sprout when one meets a pair of kindred shoulders?" And, as
+Mrs. Dressel bent on her a brow of unenlightenment--"Well, it doesn't
+matter: I only meant that I've always been afraid good clothes might
+keep my wings from sprouting!" She turned back to the glass, giving
+herself a last light touch such as she had bestowed on the roses.
+
+"And that reminds me," she continued--"how about Mr. Amherst's wings?"
+
+"John Amherst?" Mrs. Dressel brightened into immediate attention. "Why,
+do you know him?"
+
+"Not as the owner of the Westmore Mills; but I came across him as their
+assistant manager three years ago, at the Hope Hospital, and he was
+starting a very promising pair then. I wonder if they're doing as well
+under his new coat."
+
+"I'm not sure that I understand you when you talk poetry," said Mrs.
+Dressel with less interest; "but personally I can't say I like John
+Amherst--and he is certainly not worthy of such a lovely woman as Mrs.
+Westmore. Of course she would never let any one see that she's not
+perfectly happy; but I'm told he has given them all a great deal of
+trouble by interfering in the management of the mills, and his manner is
+so cold and sarcastic--the truth is, I suppose he's never quite at ease
+in society. _Her_ family have never been really reconciled to the
+marriage; and Westy Gaines says----"
+
+"Ah, Westy Gaines _would_," Justine interposed lightly. "But if Mrs.
+Amherst is really the Bessy Langhope I used to know it must be rather a
+struggle for the wings!"
+
+Mrs. Dressel's flagging interest settled on the one glimpse of fact in
+this statement. "It's such a coincidence that you should have known her
+too! Was she always so perfectly fascinating? I wish I knew how she
+gives that look to her hair!"
+
+Justine gathered up the lace sunshade and long gloves which her friend
+had lent her. "There was not much more that was genuine about her
+character--that was her very own, I mean--than there is about my
+appearance at this moment. She was always the dearest little chameleon
+in the world, taking everybody's colour in the most flattering way, and
+giving back, I must say, a most charming reflection--if you'll excuse
+the mixed metaphor; but when one got her by herself, with no reflections
+to catch, one found she hadn't any particular colour of her own. One of
+the girls used to say she ought to wear a tag, because she was so easily
+mislaid---- Now then, I'm ready!"
+
+Justine advanced to the door, and Mrs. Dressel followed her downstairs,
+reflecting with pardonable complacency that one of the disadvantages of
+being clever was that it tempted one to say sarcastic things of other
+women--than which she could imagine no more crying social error.
+
+During the drive to the garden-party, Justine's thoughts, drawn to the
+past by the mention of Bessy Langhope's name, reverted to the comic
+inconsequences of her own lot--to that persistent irrelevance of
+incident that had once made her compare herself to an actor always
+playing his part before the wrong stage-setting. Was there not, for
+instance, a mocking incongruity in the fact that a creature so leaping
+with life should have, for chief outlet, the narrow mental channel of
+the excellent couple between whom she was now being borne to the Gaines
+garden-party? All her friendships were the result of propinquity or of
+early association, and fate had held her imprisoned in a circle of
+well-to-do mediocrity, peopled by just such figures as those of the
+kindly and prosperous Dressels. Effie Dressel, the daughter of a cousin
+of Mrs. Brent's, had obscurely but safely allied herself with the heavy
+blond young man who was to succeed his father as President of the Union
+Bank, and who was already regarded by the "solid business interests" of
+Hanaford as possessing talents likely to carry him far in the
+development of the paternal fortunes. Harry Dressel's honest countenance
+gave no evidence of peculiar astuteness, and he was in fact rather the
+product of special conditions than of an irresistible bent. He had the
+sound Saxon love of games, and the most interesting game he had ever
+been taught was "business." He was a simple domestic being, and
+according to Hanaford standards the most obvious obligation of the
+husband and father was to make his family richer. If Harry Dressel had
+ever formulated his aims, he might have said that he wanted to be the
+man whom Hanaford most respected, and that was only another way of
+saying, the richest man in Hanaford. Effie embraced his creed with a
+zeal facilitated by such evidence of its soundness as a growing income
+and the early prospects of a carriage. Her mother-in-law, a kind old
+lady with a simple unquestioning love of money, had told her on her
+wedding day that Harry's one object would always be to make his family
+proud of him; and the recent purchase of the victoria in which Justine
+and the Dressels were now seated was regarded by the family as a
+striking fulfillment of this prophecy.
+
+In the course of her hospital work Justine had of necessity run across
+far different types; but from the connections thus offered she was often
+held back by the subtler shades of taste that civilize human
+intercourse. Her world, in short, had been chiefly peopled by the dull
+or the crude, and, hemmed in between the two, she had created for
+herself an inner kingdom where the fastidiousness she had to set aside
+in her outward relations recovered its full sway. There must be actual
+beings worthy of admission to this secret precinct, but hitherto they
+had not come her way; and the sense that they were somewhere just out of
+reach still gave an edge of youthful curiosity to each encounter with a
+new group of people.
+
+Certainly, Mrs. Gaines's garden-party seemed an unlikely field for the
+exercise of such curiosity: Justine's few glimpses of Hanaford society
+had revealed it as rather a dull thick body, with a surface stimulated
+only by ill-advised references to the life of larger capitals; and the
+concentrated essence of social Hanaford was of course to be found at the
+Gaines entertainments. It presented itself, however, in the rich June
+afternoon, on the long shadows of the well-kept lawn, and among the
+paths of the rose-garden, in its most amiable aspect; and to Justine,
+wearied by habitual contact with ugliness and suffering, there was pure
+delight in the verdant setting of the picture, and in the light
+harmonious tints of the figures peopling it. If the company was dull, it
+was at least decorative; and poverty, misery and dirt were shut out by
+the placid unconsciousness of the guests as securely as by the leafy
+barriers of the garden.
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+
+"AH, Mrs. Dressel, we were on the lookout for you--waiting for the
+curtain to rise. Your friend Miss Brent? Juliana, Mrs. Dressel's friend
+Miss Brent----"
+
+Near the brilliantly-striped marquee that formed the axis of the Gaines
+garden-parties, Mr. Halford Gaines, a few paces from his wife and
+daughters, stood radiating a royal welcome on the stream of visitors
+pouring across the lawn. It was only to eyes perverted by a different
+social perspective that there could be any doubt as to the importance
+of the Gaines entertainments. To Hanaford itself they were epoch-making;
+and if any rebellious spirit had cherished a doubt of the fact, it would
+have been quelled by the official majesty of Mr. Gaines's frock-coat and
+the comprehensive cordiality of his manner.
+
+There were moments when New York hung like a disquieting cloud on the
+social horizon of Mrs. Gaines and her daughters; but to Halford Gaines
+Hanaford was all in all. As an exponent of the popular and patriotic
+"good-enough-for-me" theory he stood in high favour at the Hanaford
+Club, where a too-keen consciousness of the metropolis was alternately
+combated by easy allusion and studied omission, and where the unsettled
+fancies of youth were chastened and steadied by the reflection that, if
+Hanaford was good enough for Halford Gaines, it must offer opportunities
+commensurate with the largest ideas of life.
+
+Never did Mr. Gaines's manner bear richer witness to what could be
+extracted from Hanaford than when he was in the act of applying to it
+the powerful pressure of his hospitality. The resultant essence was so
+bubbling with social exhilaration that, to its producer at any rate, its
+somewhat mixed ingredients were lost in one highly flavoured draught.
+Under ordinary circumstances no one discriminated more keenly than Mr.
+Gaines between different shades of social importance; but any one who
+was entertained by him was momentarily ennobled by the fact, and not all
+the anxious telegraphy of his wife and daughters could, for instance,
+recall to him that the striking young woman in Mrs. Dressel's wake was
+only some obscure protegee, whom it was odd of Effie to have brought,
+and whose presence was quite unnecessary to emphasize.
+
+"Juliana, Miss Brent tells me she has never seen our roses. Oh, there
+are other roses in Hanaford, Miss Brent; I don't mean to imply that no
+one else attempts them; but unless you can afford to give _carte
+blanche_ to your man--and mine happens to be something of a
+specialist...well, if you'll come with me, I'll let them speak for
+themselves. I always say that if people want to know what we can do they
+must come and see--they'll never find out from _me_!"
+
+A more emphatic signal from his wife arrested Mr. Gaines as he was in
+the act of leading Miss Brent away.
+
+"Eh?--What? The Amhersts and Mrs. Ansell? You must excuse me then, I'm
+afraid--but Westy shall take you. Westy, my boy, it's an ill-wind.... I
+want you to show this young lady our roses." And Mr. Gaines, with
+mingled reluctance and satisfaction, turned away to receive the most
+important guests of the day.
+
+It had not needed his father's summons to draw the expert Westy to Miss
+Brent: he was already gravitating toward her, with the nonchalance bred
+of cosmopolitan successes, but with a directness of aim due also to his
+larger opportunities of comparison.
+
+"The roses will do," he explained, as he guided her through the
+increasing circle of guests about his mother; and in answer to Justine's
+glance of enquiry: "To get you away, I mean. They're not much in
+themselves, you know; but everything of the governor's always begins
+with a capital letter."
+
+"Oh, but these roses deserve to," Justine exclaimed, as they paused
+under the evergreen archway at the farther end of the lawn.
+
+"I don't know--not if you've been in England," Westy murmured, watching
+furtively for the impression produced, on one who had presumably not, by
+the great blush of colour massed against its dusky background of clipped
+evergreens.
+
+Justine smiled. "I _have_ been--but I've been in the slums since; in
+horrible places that the least of those flowers would have lighted up
+like a lamp."
+
+Westy's guarded glance imprudently softened. "It's the beastliest kind
+of a shame, your ever having had to do such work----"
+
+"Oh, _had_ to?" she flashed back at him disconcertingly. "It was my
+choice, you know: there was a time when I couldn't live without it.
+Philanthropy is one of the subtlest forms of self-indulgence."
+
+Westy met this with a vague laugh. If a chap who was as knowing as the
+devil _did_, once in a way, indulge himself in the luxury of talking
+recklessly to a girl with exceptional eyes, it was rather upsetting to
+discover in those eyes no consciousness of the risk he had taken!
+
+"But I _am_ rather tired of it now," she continued, and his look grew
+guarded again. After all, they were all the same--except in that
+particular matter of the eyes. At the thought, he risked another look,
+hung on the sharp edge of betrayal, and was snatched back, not by the
+manly instinct of self-preservation, but by some imp of mockery lurking
+in the depths that lured him.
+
+He recovered his balance and took refuge in a tone of worldly ease. "I
+saw a chap the other day who said he knew you when you were at Saint
+Elizabeth's--wasn't that the name of your hospital?"
+
+Justine assented. "One of the doctors, I suppose. Where did you meet
+him?"
+
+Ah, _now_ she should see! He summoned his utmost carelessness of tone.
+"Down on Long Island last week--I was spending Sunday with the
+Amhersts." He held up the glittering fact to her, and watched for the
+least little blink of awe; but her lids never trembled. It was a
+confession of social blindness which painfully negatived Mrs. Dressel's
+hint that she knew the Amhersts; if she had even known _of_ them, she
+could not so fatally have missed his point.
+
+"Long Island?" She drew her brows together in puzzled retrospection. "I
+wonder if it could have been Stephen Wyant? I heard he had taken over
+his uncle's practice somewhere near New York."
+
+"Wyant--that's the name. He's the doctor at Clifton, the nearest town to
+the Amhersts' place. Little Cicely had a cold--Cicely Westmore, you
+know--a small cousin of mine, by the way--" he switched a rose-branch
+loftily out of her path, explaining, as she moved on, that Cicely was
+the daughter of Mrs. Amherst's first marriage to Richard Westmore.
+"That's the way I happened to see this Dr. Wyant. Bessy--Mrs.
+Amherst--asked him to stop to luncheon, after he'd seen the kid. He
+seems rather a discontented sort of a chap--grumbling at not having a
+New York practice. I should have thought he had rather a snug berth,
+down there at Lynbrook, with all those swells to dose."
+
+Justine smiled. "Dr. Wyant is ambitious, and swells don't have as
+interesting diseases as poor people. One gets tired of giving them bread
+pills for imaginary ailments. But Dr. Wyant is not strong himself and I
+fancy a country practice is better for him than hard work in town."
+
+"You think him clever though, do you?" Westy enquired absently. He was
+already bored with the subject of the Long Island doctor, and vexed at
+the lack of perception that led his companion to show more concern in
+the fortunes of a country practitioner than in the fact of his own visit
+to the Amhersts; but the topic was a safe one, and it was agreeable to
+see how her face kindled when she was interested.
+
+Justine mused on his question. "I think he has very great promise--which
+he is almost certain not to fulfill," she answered with a sigh which
+seemed to Westy's anxious ear to betray a more than professional
+interest in the person referred to.
+
+"Oh, come now--why not? With the Amhersts to give him a start--I heard
+my cousin recommending him to a lot of people the other day----"
+
+"Oh, he may become a fashionable doctor," Justine assented
+indifferently; to which her companion rejoined, with a puzzled stare:
+"That's just what I mean--with Bessy backing him!"
+
+"Has Mrs. Amherst become such a power, then?" Justine asked, taking up
+the coveted theme just as he despaired of attracting her to it.
+
+"My cousin?" he stretched the two syllables to the cracking-point.
+"Well, she's awfully rich, you know; and there's nobody smarter. Don't
+you think so?"
+
+"I don't know; it's so long since I've seen her."
+
+He brightened. "You _did_ know her, then?" But the discovery made her
+obtuseness the more inexplicable!
+
+"Oh, centuries ago: in another world."
+
+"_Centuries_--I like that!" Westy gallantly protested, his ardour
+kindling as she swam once more within his social ken. "And Amherst? You
+know him too, I suppose? By Jove, here he is now----"
+
+He signalled a tall figure strolling slowly toward them with bent head
+and brooding gaze. Justine's eye had retained a vivid image of the man
+with whom, scarcely three years earlier, she had lived through a moment
+of such poignant intimacy, and she recognized at once his lean outline,
+and the keen spring of his features, still veiled by the same look of
+inward absorption. She noticed, as he raised his hat in response to
+Westy Gaines's greeting, that the vertical lines between his brows had
+deepened; and a moment later she was aware that this change was the
+visible token of others which went deeper than the fact of his good
+clothes and his general air of leisure and well-being--changes
+perceptible to her only in the startled sense of how prosperity had aged
+him.
+
+"Hallo, Amherst--trying to get under cover?" Westy jovially accosted
+him, with a significant gesture toward the crowded lawn from which the
+new-comer had evidently fled. "I was just telling Miss Brent that this
+is the safest place on these painful occasions--Oh, confound it, it's
+not as safe as I thought! Here's one of my sisters making for me!"
+
+There ensued a short conflict of words, before his feeble flutter of
+resistance was borne down by a resolute Miss Gaines who, as she swept
+him back to the marquee, cried out to Amherst that her mother was asking
+for him too; and then Justine had time to observe that her remaining
+companion had no intention of responding to his hostess's appeal.
+
+Westy, in naming her, had laid just enough stress on the name to let it
+serve as a reminder or an introduction, as circumstances might decide,
+and she saw that Amherst, roused from his abstraction by the proffered
+clue, was holding his hand out doubtfully.
+
+"I think we haven't met for some years," he said.
+
+Justine smiled. "I have a better reason than you for remembering the
+exact date;" and in response to his look of surprise she added: "You
+made me commit a professional breach of faith, and I've never known
+since whether to be glad or sorry."
+
+Amherst still bent on her the gaze which seemed to find in external
+details an obstacle rather than a help to recognition; but suddenly his
+face cleared. "It was you who told me the truth about poor Dillon! I
+couldn't imagine why I seemed to see you in such a different
+setting...."
+
+"Oh, I'm disguised as a lady this afternoon," she said smiling. "But I'm
+glad you saw through the disguise."
+
+He smiled back at her. "Are you? Why?"
+
+"It seems to make it--if it's so transparent--less of a sham, less of a
+dishonesty," she began impulsively, and then paused again, a little
+annoyed at the overemphasis of her words. Why was she explaining and
+excusing herself to this stranger? Did she propose to tell him next that
+she had borrowed her dress from Effie Dressel? To cover her confusion
+she went on with a slight laugh: "But you haven't told me."
+
+"What was I to tell you?"
+
+"Whether to be glad or sorry that I broke my vow and told the truth
+about Dillon."
+
+They were standing face to face in the solitude of the garden-walk,
+forgetful of everything but the sudden surprised sense of intimacy that
+had marked their former brief communion. Justine had raised her eyes
+half-laughingly to Amherst, but they dropped before the unexpected
+seriousness of his.
+
+"Why do you want to know?" he asked.
+
+She made an effort to sustain the note of pleasantry.
+
+"Well--it might, for instance, determine my future conduct. You see I'm
+still a nurse, and such problems are always likely to present
+themselves."
+
+"Ah, then don't!"
+
+"Don't?"
+
+"I mean--" He hesitated a moment, reaching up to break a rose from the
+branch that tapped his shoulder. "I was only thinking what risks we run
+when we scramble into the chariot of the gods and try to do the driving.
+Be passive--be passive, and you'll be happier!"
+
+"Oh, as to that--!" She swept it aside with one of her airy motions.
+"But Dillon, for instance--would _he_ have been happier if I'd been
+passive?"
+
+Amherst seemed to ponder. "There again--how can one tell?"
+
+"And the risk's not worth taking?"
+
+"No!"
+
+She paused, and they looked at each other again. "Do you mean that
+seriously, I wonder? Do you----"
+
+"Act on it myself? God forbid! The gods drive so badly. There's poor
+Dillon...he happened to be in their way...as we all are at times." He
+pulled himself up, and went on in a matter-of-fact tone: "In Dillon's
+case, however, my axioms don't apply. When my wife heard the truth she
+was, of course, immensely kind to him; and if it hadn't been for you she
+might never have known."
+
+Justine smiled. "I think you would have found out--I was only the humble
+instrument. But now--" she hesitated--"now you must be able to do so
+much--"
+
+Amherst lifted his head, and she saw the colour rise under his fair
+skin. "Out at Westmore? You've never been there since? Yes--my wife has
+made some changes; but it's all so problematic--and one would have to
+live here...."
+
+"You don't, then?"
+
+He answered by an imperceptible shrug. "Of course I'm here often; and
+she comes now and then. But the journey's tiresome, and it is not always
+easy for her to get away." He checked himself, and Justine saw that he,
+in turn, was suddenly conscious of the incongruity of explaining and
+extenuating his personal situation to a stranger. "But then we're _not_
+strangers!" a voice in her exulted, just as he added, with an
+embarrassed attempt to efface and yet justify his moment of expansion:
+"That reminds me--I think you know my wife. I heard her asking Mrs.
+Dressel about you. She wants so much to see you."
+
+The transition had been effected, at the expense of dramatic interest,
+but to the obvious triumph of social observances; and to Justine, after
+all, regaining at his side the group about the marquee, the interest was
+not so much diminished as shifted to the no less suggestive problem of
+studying the friend of her youth in the unexpected character of John
+Amherst's wife.
+
+Meanwhile, however, during the brief transit across the Gaines
+greensward, her thoughts were still busy with Amherst. She had seen at
+once that the peculiar sense of intimacy reawakened by their meeting had
+been chilled and deflected by her first allusion to the topic which had
+previously brought them together: Amherst had drawn back as soon as she
+named the mills. What could be the cause of his reluctance? When they
+had last met, the subject burned within him: her being in actual fact a
+stranger had not, then, been an obstacle to his confidences. Now that he
+was master at Westmore it was plain that another tone became him--that
+his situation necessitated a greater reserve; but her enquiry did not
+imply the least wish to overstep this restriction: it merely showed her
+remembrance of his frankly-avowed interest in the operatives. Justine
+was struck by the fact that so natural an allusion should put him on the
+defensive. She did not for a moment believe that he had lost his
+interest in the mills; and that his point of view should have shifted
+with the fact of ownership she rejected as an equally superficial
+reading of his character. The man with whom she had talked at Dillon's
+bedside was one in whom the ruling purposes had already shaped
+themselves, and to whom life, in whatever form it came, must henceforth
+take their mould. As she reached this point in her analysis, it occurred
+to her that his shrinking from the subject might well imply not
+indifference, but a deeper preoccupation: a preoccupation for some
+reason suppressed and almost disavowed, yet sustaining the more
+intensely its painful hidden life. From this inference it was but a leap
+of thought to the next--that the cause of the change must be sought
+outside of himself, in some external influence strong enough to modify
+the innate lines of his character. And where could such an influence be
+more obviously sought than in the marriage which had transformed the
+assistant manager of the Westmore Mills not, indeed, into their
+owner--that would rather have tended to simplify the problem--but into
+the husband of Mrs. Westmore? After all, the mills were Bessy's--and for
+a farther understanding of the case it remained to find out what manner
+of person Bessy had become.
+
+Justine's first impression, as her friend's charming arms received
+her--with an eagerness of welcome not lost on the suspended judgment of
+feminine Hanaford--the immediate impression was of a gain of emphasis,
+of individuality, as though the fluid creature she remembered had belied
+her prediction, and run at last into a definite mould. Yes--Bessy had
+acquired an outline: a graceful one, as became her early promise, though
+with, perhaps, a little more sharpness of edge than her youthful texture
+had promised. But the side she turned to her friend was still all
+softness--had in it a hint of the old pliancy, the impulse to lean and
+enlace, that at once woke in Justine the corresponding instinct of
+guidance and protection, so that their first kiss, before a word was
+spoken, carried the two back to the precise relation in which their
+school-days had left them. So easy a reversion to the past left no room
+for the sense of subsequent changes by which such reunions are sometimes
+embarrassed. Justine's sympathies had, instinctively, and almost at
+once, transferred themselves to Bessy's side--passing over at a leap
+the pained recognition that there _were_ sides already--and Bessy had
+gathered up Justine into the circle of gentle self-absorption which left
+her very dimly aware of any distinctive characteristic in her friends
+except that of their affection for herself--since she asked only, as she
+appealingly put it, that they should all be "dreadfully fond" of her.
+
+"And I've wanted you so often, Justine: you're the only clever person
+I'm not afraid of, because your cleverness always used to make things
+clear instead of confusing them. I've asked so many people about
+you--but I never heard a word till just the other day--wasn't it
+odd?--when our new doctor at Rushton happened to say that he knew you.
+I've been rather unwell lately--nervous and tired, and sleeping
+badly--and he told me I ought to keep perfectly quiet, and be under the
+care of a nurse who could make me do as she chose: just such a nurse as
+a wonderful Miss Brent he had known at St. Elizabeth's, whose patients
+obeyed her as if she'd been the colonel of a regiment. His description
+made me laugh, it reminded me so much of the way you used to make me do
+what you wanted at the convent--and then it suddenly occurred to me that
+I had heard of you having gone in for nursing, and we compared notes,
+and I found it was really you! Wasn't it odd that we should discover
+each other in that way? I daresay we might have passed in the street
+and never known it--I'm sure I must be horribly changed...."
+
+Thus Bessy discoursed, in the semi-isolation to which, under an
+overarching beech-tree, the discretion of their hostess had allowed the
+two friends to withdraw for the freer exchange of confidences. There
+was, at first sight, nothing in her aspect to bear out Mrs. Amherst's
+plaintive allusion to her health, but Justine, who knew that she had
+lost a baby a few months previously, assumed that the effect of this
+shock still lingered, though evidently mitigated by a reviving interest
+in pretty clothes and the other ornamental accessories of life.
+Certainly Bessy Amherst had grown into the full loveliness which her
+childhood promised. She had the kind of finished prettiness that
+declares itself early, holds its own through the awkward transitions of
+girlhood, and resists the strain of all later vicissitudes, as though
+miraculously preserved in some clear medium impenetrable to the wear and
+tear of living.
+
+"You absurd child! You've not changed a bit except to grow more so!"
+Justine laughed, paying amused tribute to the childish craving for "a
+compliment" that still betrayed itself in Bessy's eyes.
+
+"Well, _you_ have, then, Justine--you've grown extraordinarily
+handsome!"
+
+"That _is_ extraordinary of me, certainly," the other acknowledged
+gaily. "But then think what room for improvement there was--and how
+much time I've had to improve in!"
+
+"It is a long time, isn't it?" Bessy assented. "I feel so intimate,
+still, with the old Justine of the convent, and I don't know the new one
+a bit. Just think--I've a great girl of my own, almost as old as we were
+when we went to the Sacred Heart: But perhaps you don't know anything
+about me either. You see, I married again two years ago, and my poor
+baby died last March...so I have only Cicely. It was such a
+disappointment--I wanted a boy dreadfully, and I understand little
+babies so much better than a big girl like Cicely.... Oh, dear, here is
+Juliana Gaines bringing up some more tiresome people! It's such a bore,
+but John says I must know them all. Well, thank goodness we've only one
+more day in this dreadful place--and of course I shall see you, dear,
+before we go...."
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+
+AFTER conducting Miss Brent to his wife, John Amherst, by the exercise
+of considerable strategic skill, had once more contrived to detach
+himself from the throng on the lawn, and, regaining a path in the
+shrubbery, had taken refuge on the verandah of the house.
+
+Here, under the shade of the awning, two ladies were seated in a
+seclusion agreeably tempered by the distant strains of the Hanaford
+band, and by the shifting prospect of the groups below them.
+
+"Ah, here he is now!" the younger of the two exclaimed, turning on
+Amherst the smile of intelligence that Mrs. Eustace Ansell was in the
+habit of substituting for the idle preliminaries of conversation. "We
+were not talking of you, though," she added as Amherst took the seat to
+which his mother beckoned him, "but of Bessy--which, I suppose, is
+almost as indiscreet."
+
+She added the last phrase after an imperceptible pause, and as if in
+deprecation of the hardly more perceptible frown which, at the mention
+of his wife's name, had deepened the lines between Amherst's brows.
+
+"Indiscreet of his own mother and his wife's friend?" Mrs. Amherst
+protested, laying her trimly-gloved hand on her son's arm; while the
+latter, with his eyes on her companion, said slowly: "Mrs. Ansell knows
+that indiscretion is the last fault of which her friends are likely to
+accuse her."
+
+"_Raison de plus_, you mean?" she laughed, meeting squarely the
+challenge that passed between them under Mrs. Amherst's puzzled gaze.
+"Well, if I take advantage of my reputation for discretion to meddle a
+little now and then, at least I do so in a good cause. I was just saying
+how much I wish that you would take Bessy to Europe; and I am so sure
+of my cause, in this case, that I am going to leave it to your mother to
+give you my reasons."
+
+She rose as she spoke, not with any sign of haste or embarrassment, but
+as if gracefully recognizing the desire of mother and son to be alone
+together; but Amherst, rising also, made a motion to detain her.
+
+"No one else will be able to put your reasons half so convincingly," he
+said with a slight smile, "and I am sure my mother would much rather be
+spared the attempt."
+
+Mrs. Ansell met the smile as freely as she had met the challenge. "My
+dear Lucy," she rejoined, laying, as she reseated herself, a light
+caress on Mrs. Amherst's hand, "I'm sorry to be flattered at your
+expense, but it's not in human nature to resist such an appeal. You
+see," she added, raising her eyes to Amherst, "how sure I am of
+myself--and of _you_, when you've heard me."
+
+"Oh, John is always ready to hear one," his mother murmured innocently.
+
+"Well, I don't know that I shall even ask him to do as much as that--I'm
+so sure, after all, that my suggestion carries its explanation with it."
+
+There was a moment's pause, during which Amherst let his eyes wander
+absently over the dissolving groups on the lawn.
+
+"The suggestion that I should take Bessy to Europe?" He paused again.
+"When--next autumn?"
+
+"No: now--at once. On a long honeymoon."
+
+He frowned slightly at the last word, passing it by to revert to the
+direct answer to his question.
+
+"At once? No--I can't see that the suggestion carries its explanation
+with it."
+
+Mrs. Ansell looked at him hesitatingly. She was conscious of the
+ill-chosen word that still reverberated between them, and the unwonted
+sense of having blundered made her, for the moment, less completely
+mistress of herself.
+
+"Ah, you'll see farther presently--" She rose again, unfurling her lace
+sunshade, as if to give a touch of definiteness to her action. "It's
+not, after all," she added, with a sweet frankness, "a case for
+argument, and still less for persuasion. My reasons are excellent--I
+should insist on putting them to you myself if they were not! But
+they're so good that I can leave you to find them out--and to back them
+up with your own, which will probably be a great deal better."
+
+She summed up with a light nod, which included both Amherst and his
+mother, and turning to descend the verandah steps, waved a signal to Mr.
+Langhope, who was limping disconsolately toward the house.
+
+"What has she been saying to you, mother?" Amherst asked, returning to
+his seat beside his mother.
+
+Mrs. Amherst replied by a shake of her head and a raised forefinger of
+reproval. "Now, Johnny, I won't answer a single question till you smooth
+out those lines between your eyes."
+
+Her son relaxed his frown to smile back at her. "Well, dear, there have
+to be some wrinkles in every family, and as you absolutely refuse to
+take your share--" His eyes rested affectionately on the frosty sparkle
+of her charming old face, which had, in its setting of recovered
+prosperity, the freshness of a sunny winter morning, when the very snow
+gives out a suggestion of warmth.
+
+He remembered how, on the evening of his dismissal from the mills, he
+had paused on the threshold of their sitting-room to watch her a moment
+in the lamplight, and had thought with bitter compunction of the fresh
+wrinkle he was about to add to the lines about her eyes. The three years
+which followed had effaced that wrinkle and veiled the others in a tardy
+bloom of well-being. From the moment of turning her back on Westmore,
+and establishing herself in the pretty little house at Hanaford which
+her son's wife had placed at her disposal, Mrs. Amherst had shed all
+traces of the difficult years; and the fact that his marriage had
+enabled him to set free, before it was too late, the pent-up springs of
+her youthfulness, sometimes seemed to Amherst the clearest gain in his
+life's confused total of profit and loss. It was, at any rate, the sense
+of Bessy's share in the change that softened his voice when he spoke of
+her to his mother.
+
+"Now, then, if I present a sufficiently unruffled surface, let us go
+back to Mrs. Ansell--for I confess that her mysterious reasons are not
+yet apparent to me."
+
+Mrs. Amherst looked deprecatingly at her son. "Maria Ansell is devoted
+to you too, John----"
+
+"Of course she is! It's her _role_ to be devoted to
+everybody--especially to her enemies."
+
+"Her enemies?"
+
+"Oh, I didn't intend any personal application. But why does she want me
+to take Bessy abroad?"
+
+"She and Mr. Langhope think that Bessy is not looking well."
+
+Amherst paused, and the frown showed itself for a moment. "What do _you_
+think, mother?"
+
+"I hadn't noticed it myself: Bessy seems to me prettier than ever. But
+perhaps she has less colour--and she complains of not sleeping. Maria
+thinks she still frets over the baby."
+
+Amherst made an impatient gesture. "Is Europe the only panacea?"
+
+"You should consider, John, that Bessy is used to change and amusement.
+I think you sometimes forget that other people haven't your faculty of
+absorbing themselves in a single interest. And Maria says that the new
+doctor at Clifton, whom they seem to think so clever, is very anxious
+that Bessy should go to Europe this summer."
+
+"No doubt; and so is every one else: I mean her father and old
+Tredegar--and your friend Mrs. Ansell not least."
+
+Mrs. Amherst lifted her bright black eyes to his. "Well, then--if they
+all think she needs it----"
+
+"Good heavens, if travel were what she needed!--Why, we've never stopped
+travelling since we married. We've been everywhere on the globe except
+at Hanaford--this is her second visit here in three years!" He rose and
+took a rapid turn across the deserted verandah. "It's not because her
+health requires it--it's to get me away from Westmore, to prevent things
+being done there that ought to be done!" he broke out vehemently,
+halting again before his mother.
+
+The aged pink faded from Mrs. Amherst's face, but her eyes retained
+their lively glitter. "To prevent things being done? What a strange
+thing to say!"
+
+"I shouldn't have said it if I hadn't seen you falling under Mrs.
+Ansell's spell."
+
+His mother had a gesture which showed from whom he had inherited his
+impulsive movements. "Really, my son--!" She folded her hands, and added
+after a pause of self-recovery: "If you mean that I have ever attempted
+to interfere----"
+
+"No, no: but when they pervert things so damnably----"
+
+"John!"
+
+He dropped into his chair again, and pushed the hair from his forehead
+with a groan.
+
+"Well, then--put it that they have as much right to their view as I
+have: I only want you to see what it is. Whenever I try to do anything
+at Westmore--to give a real start to the work that Bessy and I planned
+together--some pretext is found to stop it: to pack us off to the ends
+of the earth, to cry out against reducing her income, to encourage her
+in some new extravagance to which the work at the mills must be
+sacrificed!"
+
+Mrs. Amherst, growing pale under this outbreak, assured herself by a
+nervous backward glance that their privacy was still uninvaded; then her
+eyes returned to her son's face.
+
+"John--are you sure you're not sacrificing your wife to the mills?"
+
+He grew pale in turn, and they looked at each other for a moment without
+speaking.
+
+"You see it as they do, then?" he rejoined with a discouraged sigh.
+
+"I see it as any old woman would, who had my experiences to look back
+to."
+
+"Mother!" he exclaimed.
+
+She smiled composedly. "Do you think I mean that as a reproach? That's
+because men will never understand women--least of all, sons their
+mothers. No real mother wants to come first; she puts her son's career
+ahead of everything. But it's different with a wife--and a wife as much
+in love as Bessy."
+
+Amherst looked away. "I should have thought that was a reason----"
+
+"That would reconcile her to being set aside, to counting only second in
+your plans?"
+
+"They were _her_ plans when we married!"
+
+"Ah, my dear--!" She paused on that, letting her shrewd old glance, and
+all the delicate lines of experience in her face, supply what farther
+comment the ineptitude of his argument invited.
+
+He took the full measure of her meaning, receiving it in a baffled
+silence that continued as she rose and gathered her lace mantle about
+her, as if to signify that their confidences could not, on such an
+occasion, be farther prolonged without singularity. Then he stood up
+also and joined her, resting his hand on hers while she leaned on the
+verandah rail.
+
+"Poor mother! And I've kept you to myself all this time, and spoiled
+your good afternoon."
+
+"No, dear; I was a little tired, and had slipped away to be quiet." She
+paused, and then went on, persuasively giving back his pressure: "I know
+how you feel about doing your duty, John; but now that things are so
+comfortably settled, isn't it a pity to unsettle them?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Amherst had intended, on leaving his mother, to rejoin Bessy, whom he
+could still discern, on the lawn, in absorbed communion with Miss Brent;
+but after what had passed it seemed impossible, for the moment, to
+recover the garden-party tone, and he made his escape through the house
+while a trio of Cuban singers, who formed the crowning number of the
+entertainment, gathered the company in a denser circle about their
+guitars.
+
+As he walked on aimlessly under the deep June shadows of Maplewood
+Avenue his mother's last words formed an ironical accompaniment to his
+thoughts. "Now that things are comfortably settled--" he knew so well
+what that elastic epithet covered! Himself, for instance, ensconced in
+the impenetrable prosperity of his wonderful marriage; herself too
+(unconsciously, dear soul!), so happily tucked away in a cranny of that
+new and spacious life, and no more able to conceive why existing
+conditions should be disturbed than the bird in the eaves understands
+why the house should be torn down. Well--he had learned at last what his
+experience with his poor, valiant, puzzled mother might have taught him:
+that one must never ask from women any view but the personal one, any
+measure of conduct but that of their own pains and pleasures. She,
+indeed, had borne undauntedly enough the brunt of their earlier trials;
+but that was merely because, as she said, the mother's instinct bade her
+heap all her private hopes on the great devouring altar of her son's
+ambition; it was not because she had ever, in the very least, understood
+or sympathized with his aims.
+
+And Bessy--? Perhaps if their little son had lived she might in turn
+have obeyed the world-old instinct of self-effacement--but now! He
+remembered with an intenser self-derision that, not even in the first
+surprise of his passion, had he deluded himself with the idea that Bessy
+Westmore was an exception to her sex. He had argued rather that, being
+only a lovelier product of the common mould, she would abound in the
+adaptabilities and pliancies which the lords of the earth have seen fit
+to cultivate in their companions. She would care for his aims because
+they were his. During their precipitate wooing, and through the first
+brief months of marriage, this profound and original theory had been
+gratifyingly confirmed; then its perfect surface had begun to show a
+flaw. Amherst had always conveniently supposed that the poet's line
+summed up the good woman's rule of ethics: _He for God only, she for God
+in him._ It was for the god in him, surely, that she had loved him: for
+that first glimpse of an "ampler ether, a diviner air" that he had
+brought into her cramped and curtained life. He could never, now, evoke
+that earlier delusion without feeling on its still-tender surface the
+keen edge of Mrs. Ansell's smile. She, no doubt, could have told him at
+any time why Bessy had married him: it was for his _beaux yeux_, as Mrs.
+Ansell would have put it--because he was young, handsome, persecuted, an
+ardent lover if not a subtle one--because Bessy had met him at the fatal
+moment, because her family had opposed the marriage--because, in brief,
+the gods, that day, may have been a little short of amusement. Well,
+they were having their laugh out now--there were moments when high
+heaven seemed to ring with it....
+
+With these thoughts at his heels Amherst strode on, overtaken now and
+again by the wheels of departing guests from the garden-party, and
+knowing, as they passed him, what was in their minds--envy of his
+success, admiration of his cleverness in achieving it, and a little
+half-contemptuous pity for his wife, who, with her wealth and looks,
+might have done so much better. Certainly, if the case could have been
+put to Hanaford--the Hanaford of the Gaines garden-party--it would have
+sided with Bessy to a voice. And how much justice was there in what he
+felt would have been the unanimous verdict of her class? Was his mother
+right in hinting that he was sacrificing Bessy to the mills? But the
+mills _were_ Bessy--at least he had thought so when he married her!
+They were her particular form of contact with life, the expression of
+her relation to her fellow-men, her pretext, her opportunity--unless
+they were merely a vast purse in which to plunge for her pin-money! He
+had fancied it would rest with him to determine from which of these
+stand-points she should view Westmore; and at the outset she had
+enthusiastically viewed it from his. In her eager adoption of his ideas
+she had made a pet of the mills, organizing the Mothers' Club, laying
+out a recreation-ground on the Hopewood property, and playing with
+pretty plans in water-colour for the Emergency Hospital and the building
+which was to contain the night-schools, library and gymnasium; but even
+these minor projects--which he had urged her to take up as a means of
+learning their essential dependence on his larger scheme--were soon to
+be set aside by obstacles of a material order. Bessy always wanted
+money--not a great deal, but, as she reasonably put it, "enough"--and
+who was to blame if her father and Mr. Tredegar, each in his different
+capacity, felt obliged to point out that every philanthropic outlay at
+Westmore must entail a corresponding reduction in her income? Perhaps if
+she could have been oftener at Hanaford these arguments would have been
+counteracted, for she was tender-hearted, and prompt to relieve such
+suffering as she saw about her; but her imagination was not active, and
+it was easy for her to forget painful sights when they were not under
+her eye. This was perhaps--half-consciously--one of the reasons why she
+avoided Hanaford; why, as Amherst exclaimed, they had been everywhere
+since their marriage but to the place where their obligations called
+them. There had, at any rate, always been some good excuse for not
+returning there, and consequently for postponing the work of improvement
+which, it was generally felt, her husband could not fitly begin till she
+_had_ returned and gone over the ground with him. After their marriage,
+and especially in view of the comment excited by that romantic incident,
+it was impossible not to yield to her wish that they should go abroad
+for a few months; then, before her confinement, the doctors had exacted
+that she should be spared all fatigue and worry; and after the baby's
+death Amherst had felt with her too tenderly to venture an immediate
+return to unwelcome questions.
+
+For by this time it had become clear to him that such questions were,
+and always would be, unwelcome to her. As the easiest means of escaping
+them, she had once more dismissed the whole problem to the vague and
+tiresome sphere of "business," whence he had succeeded in detaching it
+for a moment in the early days of their union. Her first husband--poor
+unappreciated Westmore!--had always spared her the boredom of
+"business," and Halford Gaines and Mr. Tredegar were ready to show her
+the same consideration; it was part of the modern code of chivalry that
+lovely woman should not be bothered about ways and means. But Bessy was
+too much the wife--and the wife in love--to consent that her husband's
+views on the management of the mills should be totally disregarded.
+Precisely because her advisers looked unfavourably on his intervention,
+she felt bound--if only in defense of her illusions--to maintain and
+emphasize it. The mills were, in fact, the official "platform" on which
+she had married: Amherst's devoted _role_ at Westmore had justified the
+unconventionality of the step. And so she was committed--the more
+helplessly for her dense misintelligence of both sides of the
+question--to the policy of conciliating the opposing influences which
+had so uncomfortably chosen to fight out their case on the field of her
+poor little existence: theoretically siding with her husband, but
+surreptitiously, as he well knew, giving aid and comfort to the enemy,
+who were really defending her own cause.
+
+All this Amherst saw with that cruel insight which had replaced his
+former blindness. He was, in truth, more ashamed of the insight than of
+the blindness: it seemed to him horribly cold-blooded to be thus
+analyzing, after two years of marriage, the source of his wife's
+inconsistencies. And, partly for this reason, he had put off from month
+to month the final question of the future management of the mills, and
+of the radical changes to be made there if his system were to prevail.
+But the time had come when, if Bessy had to turn to Westmore for the
+justification of her marriage, he had even more need of calling upon it
+for the same service. He had not, assuredly, married her because of
+Westmore; but he would scarcely have contemplated marriage with a rich
+woman unless the source of her wealth had offered him some such
+opportunity as Westmore presented. His special training, and the natural
+bent of his mind, qualified him, in what had once seemed a predestined
+manner, to help Bessy to use her power nobly, for her own uplifting as
+well as for that of Westmore; and so the mills became, incongruously
+enough, the plank of safety to which both clung in their sense of
+impending disaster.
+
+It was not that Amherst feared the temptation to idleness if this outlet
+for his activity were cut off. He had long since found that the luxury
+with which his wife surrounded him merely quickened his natural bent for
+hard work and hard fare. He recalled with a touch of bitterness how he
+had once regretted having separated himself from his mother's class, and
+how seductive for a moment, to both mind and senses, that other life had
+appeared. Well--he knew it now, and it had neither charm nor peril for
+him. Capua must have been a dull place to one who had once drunk the joy
+of battle. What he dreaded was not that he should learn to love the
+life of ease, but that he should grow to loathe it uncontrollably, as
+the symbol of his mental and spiritual bondage. And Westmore was his
+safety-valve, his refuge--if he were cut off from Westmore what remained
+to him? It was not only the work he had found to his hand, but the one
+work for which his hand was fitted. It was his life that he was fighting
+for in insisting that now at last, before the close of this
+long-deferred visit to Hanaford, the question of the mills should be
+faced and settled. He had made that clear to Bessy, in a scene he still
+shrank from recalling; for it was of the essence of his somewhat
+unbending integrity that he would not trick her into a confused
+surrender to the personal influence he still possessed over her, but
+must seek to convince her by the tedious process of argument and
+exposition, against which she knew no defense but tears and petulance.
+But he had, at any rate, gained her consent to his setting forth his
+views at the meeting of directors the next morning; and meanwhile he had
+meant to be extraordinarily patient and reasonable with her, till the
+hint of Mrs. Ansell's stratagem produced in him a fresh reaction of
+distrust.
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+
+THAT evening when dinner ended, Mrs. Ansell, with a glance through the
+tall dining-room windows, had suggested to Bessy that it would be
+pleasanter to take coffee on the verandah; but Amherst detained his wife
+with a glance.
+
+"I should like Bessy to stay," he said.
+
+The dining-room being on the cool side the house, with a refreshing
+outlook on the garden, the men preferred to smoke there rather than in
+the stuffily-draped Oriental apartment destined to such rites; and Bessy
+Amherst, with a faint sigh, sank back into her seat, while Mrs. Ansell
+drifted out through one of the open windows.
+
+The men surrounding Richard Westmore's table were the same who nearly
+three years earlier had gathered in his house for the same purpose: the
+discussion of conditions at the mills. The only perceptible change in
+the relation to each other of the persons composing this group was that
+John Amherst was now the host of the other two, instead of being a
+subordinate called in for cross-examination; but he was so indifferent,
+or at least so heedless, a host--so forgetful, for instance, of Mr.
+Tredegar's preference for a "light" cigar, and of Mr. Langhope's
+feelings on the duty of making the Westmore madeira circulate with the
+sun--that the change was manifest only in his evening-dress, and in the
+fact of his sitting at the foot of the table.
+
+If Amherst was conscious of the contrast thus implied, it was only as a
+restriction on his freedom. As far as the welfare of Westmore was
+concerned he would rather have stood before his companions as the
+assistant manager of the mills than as the husband of their owner; and
+it seemed to him, as he looked back, that he had done very little with
+the opportunity which looked so great in the light of his present
+restrictions. What he _had_ done with it--the use to which, as
+unfriendly critics might insinuate, he had so adroitly put it--had
+landed him, ironically enough, in the ugly _impasse_ of a situation from
+which no issue seemed possible without some wasteful sacrifice of
+feeling.
+
+His wife's feelings, for example, were already revealing themselves in
+an impatient play of her fan that made her father presently lean forward
+to suggest: "If we men are to talk shop, is it necessary to keep Bessy
+in this hot room?"
+
+Amherst rose and opened the window behind his wife's chair.
+
+"There's a breeze from the west--the room will be cooler now," he said,
+returning to his seat.
+
+"Oh, I don't mind--" Bessy murmured, in a tone intended to give her
+companions the full measure of what she was being called on to endure.
+
+Mr. Tredegar coughed slightly. "May I trouble you for that other box of
+cigars, Amherst? No, _not_ the Cabanas." Bessy rose and handed him the
+box on which his glance significantly rested. "Ah, thank you, my dear. I
+was about to ask," he continued, looking about for the cigar-lighter,
+which flamed unheeded at Amherst's elbow, "what special purpose will be
+served by a preliminary review of the questions to be discussed
+tomorrow."
+
+"Ah--exactly," murmured Mr. Langhope. "The madeira, my dear John?
+No--ah--_please_--to the left!"
+
+Amherst impatiently reversed the direction in which he had set the
+precious vessel moving, and turned to Mr. Tredegar, who was
+conspicuously lighting his cigar with a match extracted from his
+waist-coat pocket.
+
+"The purpose is to define my position in the matter; and I prefer that
+Bessy should do this with your help rather than with mine."
+
+Mr. Tredegar surveyed his cigar through drooping lids, as though the
+question propounded by Amherst were perched on its tip.
+
+"Is not your position naturally involved in and defined by hers? You
+will excuse my saying that--technically speaking, of course--I cannot
+distinctly conceive of it as having any separate existence."
+
+Mr. Tredegar spoke with the deliberate mildness that was regarded as his
+most effective weapon at the bar, since it was likely to abash those
+who were too intelligent to be propitiated by it.
+
+"Certainly it is involved in hers," Amherst agreed; "but how far that
+defines it is just what I have waited till now to find out."
+
+Bessy at this point recalled her presence by a restless turn of her
+graceful person, and her father, with an affectionate glance at her,
+interposed amicably: "But surely--according to old-fashioned ideas--it
+implies identity of interests?"
+
+"Yes; but whose interests?" Amherst asked.
+
+"Why--your wife's, man! She owns the mills."
+
+Amherst hesitated. "I would rather talk of my wife's interest in the
+mills than of her interests there; but we'll keep to the plural if you
+prefer it. Personally, I believe the terms should be interchangeable in
+the conduct of such a business."
+
+"Ah--I'm glad to hear that," said Mr. Tredegar quickly, "since it's
+precisely the view we all take."
+
+Amherst's colour rose. "Definitions are ambiguous," he said. "Before you
+adopt mine, perhaps I had better develop it a little farther. What I
+mean is, that Bessy's interests in Westmore should be regulated by her
+interest in it--in its welfare as a social body, aside from its success
+as a commercial enterprise. If we agree on this definition, we are at
+one as to the other: namely that my relation to the matter is defined by
+hers."
+
+He paused a moment, as if to give his wife time to contribute some sign
+of assent and encouragement; but she maintained a puzzled silence and he
+went on: "There is nothing new in this. I have tried to make Bessy
+understand from the beginning what obligations I thought the ownership
+of Westmore entailed, and how I hoped to help her fulfill them; but ever
+since our marriage all definite discussion of the subject has been put
+off for one cause or another, and that is my reason for urging that it
+should be brought up at the directors' meeting tomorrow."
+
+There was another pause, during which Bessy glanced tentatively at Mr.
+Tredegar, and then said, with a lovely rise of colour: "But, John, I
+sometimes think you forget how much has been done at Westmore--the
+Mothers' Club, and the play-ground, and all--in the way of carrying out
+your ideas."
+
+Mr. Tredegar discreetly dropped his glance to his cigar, and Mr.
+Langhope sounded an irrepressible note of approval and encouragement.
+
+Amherst smiled. "No, I have not forgotten; and I am grateful to you for
+giving my ideas a trial. But what has been done hitherto is purely
+superficial." Bessy's eyes clouded, and he added hastily: "Don't think I
+undervalue it for that reason--heaven knows the surface of life needs
+improving! But it's like picking flowers and sticking them in the ground
+to make a garden--unless you transplant the flower with its roots, and
+prepare the soil to receive it, your garden will be faded tomorrow. No
+radical changes have yet been made at Westmore; and it is of radical
+changes that I want to speak."
+
+Bessy's look grew more pained, and Mr. Langhope exclaimed with unwonted
+irascibility: "Upon my soul, Amherst, the tone you take about what your
+wife has done doesn't strike me as the likeliest way of encouraging her
+to do more!"
+
+"I don't want to encourage her to do more on such a basis--the sooner
+she sees the futility of it the better for Westmore!"
+
+"The futility--?" Bessy broke out, with a flutter of tears in her voice;
+but before her father could intervene Mr. Tredegar had raised his hand
+with the gesture of one accustomed to wield the gavel.
+
+"My dear child, I see Amherst's point, and it is best, as he says, that
+you should see it too. What he desires, as I understand it, is the
+complete reconstruction of the present state of things at Westmore; and
+he is right in saying that all your good works there--night-schools, and
+nursery, and so forth--leave that issue untouched."
+
+A smile quivered under Mr. Langhope's moustache. He and Amherst both
+knew that Mr. Tredegar's feint of recognizing the justice of his
+adversary's claim was merely the first step to annihilating it; but
+Bessy could never be made to understand this, and always felt herself
+deserted and betrayed when any side but her own was given a hearing.
+
+"I'm sorry if all I have tried to do at Westmore is useless--but I
+suppose I shall never understand business," she murmured, vainly seeking
+consolation in her father's eye.
+
+"This is not business," Amherst broke in. "It's the question of your
+personal relation to the people there--the last thing that business
+considers."
+
+Mr. Langhope uttered an impatient exclamation. "I wish to heaven the
+owner of the mills had made it clear just what that relation was to be!"
+
+"I think he did, sir," Amherst answered steadily, "in leaving his wife
+the unrestricted control of the property."
+
+He had reddened under Mr. Langhope's thrust, but his voice betrayed no
+irritation, and Bessy rewarded him with an unexpected beam of sympathy:
+she was always up in arms at the least sign of his being treated as an
+intruder.
+
+"I am sure, papa," she said, a little tremulously, "that poor Richard,
+though he knew I was not clever, felt he could trust me to take the best
+advice----"
+
+"Ah, that's all we ask of you, my child!" her father sighed, while Mr.
+Tredegar drily interposed: "We are merely losing time by this
+digression. Let me suggest that Amherst should give us an idea of the
+changes he wishes to make at Westmore."
+
+Amherst, as he turned to answer, remembered with what ardent faith in
+his powers of persuasion he had responded to the same appeal three years
+earlier. He had thought then that all his cause needed was a hearing;
+now he knew that the practical man's readiness to let the idealist talk
+corresponds with the busy parent's permission to destructive infancy to
+"run out and play." They would let him state his case to the four
+corners of the earth--if only he did not expect them to act on it! It
+was their policy to let him exhaust himself in argument and exhortation,
+to listen to him so politely and patiently that if he failed to enforce
+his ideas it should not be for lack of opportunity to expound them....
+And the alternative struck him as hardly less to be feared. Supposing
+that the incredible happened, that his reasons prevailed with his wife,
+and, through her, with the others--at what cost would the victory be
+won? Would Bessy ever forgive him for winning it? And what would his
+situation be, if it left him in control of Westmore but estranged from
+his wife?
+
+He recalled suddenly a phrase he had used that afternoon to the
+dark-eyed girl at the garden-party: "What risks we run when we scramble
+into the chariot of the gods!" And at the same instant he heard her
+retort, and saw her fine gesture of defiance. How could he ever have
+doubted that the thing was worth doing at whatever cost? Something in
+him--some secret lurking element of weakness and evasion--shrank out of
+sight in the light of her question: "Do _you_ act on that?" and the "God
+forbid!" he had instantly flashed back to her. He turned to Mr. Tredegar
+with his answer.
+
+Amherst knew that any large theoretical exposition of the case would be
+as much wasted on the two men as on his wife. To gain his point he must
+take only one step at a time, and it seemed to him that the first thing
+needed at Westmore was that the hands should work and live under
+healthier conditions. To attain this, two important changes were
+necessary: the floor-space of the mills must be enlarged, and the
+company must cease to rent out tenements, and give the operatives the
+opportunity to buy land for themselves. Both these changes involved the
+upheaval of the existing order. Whenever the Westmore mills had been
+enlarged, it had been for the sole purpose of increasing the revenues of
+the company; and now Amherst asked that these revenues should be
+materially and permanently reduced. As to the suppression of the company
+tenement, such a measure struck at the roots of the baneful paternalism
+which was choking out every germ of initiative in the workman. Once the
+operatives had room to work in, and the hope of homes of their own to
+go to when work was over, Amherst was willing to trust to time for the
+satisfaction of their other needs. He believed that a sounder
+understanding of these needs would develop on both sides the moment the
+employers proved their good faith by the deliberate and permanent
+sacrifice of excessive gain to the well-being of the employed; and once
+the two had learned to regard each other not as antagonists but as
+collaborators, a long step would have been taken toward a readjustment
+of the whole industrial relation. In regard to general and distant
+results, Amherst tried not to be too sanguine, even in his own thoughts.
+His aim was to remedy the abuse nearest at hand, in the hope of thus
+getting gradually closer to the central evil; and, had his action been
+unhampered, he would still have preferred the longer and more circuitous
+path of practical experiment to the sweeping adoption of a new
+industrial system.
+
+But his demands, moderate as they were, assumed in his hearers the
+consciousness of a moral claim superior to the obligation of making
+one's business "pay"; and it was the futility of this assumption that
+chilled the arguments on his lips, since in the orthodox creed of the
+business world it was a weakness and not a strength to be content with
+five per cent where ten was obtainable. Business was one thing,
+philanthropy another; and the enthusiasts who tried combining them were
+usually reduced, after a brief flight, to paying fifty cents on the
+dollar, and handing over their stock to a promoter presumably unhampered
+by humanitarian ideals.
+
+Amherst knew that this was the answer with which his plea would be met;
+knew, moreover, that the plea was given a hearing simply because his
+judges deemed it so pitiably easy to refute. But the knowledge, once he
+had begun to speak, fanned his argument to a white heat of pleading,
+since, with failure so plainly ahead, small concessions and compromises
+were not worth making. Reason would be wasted on all; but eloquence
+might at least prevail with Bessy....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When, late that night, he went upstairs after long pacings of the
+garden, he was surprised to see a light in her room. She was not given
+to midnight study, and fearing that she might be ill he knocked at her
+door. There was no answer, and after a short pause he turned the handle
+and entered.
+
+In the great canopied Westmore couch, her arms flung upward and her
+hands clasped beneath her head, she lay staring fretfully at the globe
+of electric light which hung from the centre of the embossed and gilded
+ceiling. Seen thus, with the soft curves of throat and arms revealed,
+and her face childishly set in a cloud of loosened hair, she looked no
+older than Cicely--and, like Cicely, inaccessible to grown-up arguments
+and the stronger logic of experience.
+
+It was a trick of hers, in such moods, to ignore any attempt to attract
+her notice; and Amherst was prepared for her remaining motionless as he
+paused on the threshold and then advanced toward the middle of the room.
+There had been a time when he would have been exasperated by her
+pretense of not seeing him, but a deep weariness of spirit now dulled
+him to these surface pricks.
+
+"I was afraid you were not well when I saw the light burning," he began.
+
+"Thank you--I am quite well," she answered in a colourless voice,
+without turning her head.
+
+"Shall I put it out, then? You can't sleep with such a glare in your
+eyes."
+
+"I should not sleep at any rate; and I hate to lie awake in the dark."
+
+"Why shouldn't you sleep?" He moved nearer, looking down compassionately
+on her perturbed face and struggling lips.
+
+She lay silent a moment; then she faltered out: "B--because I'm so
+unhappy!"
+
+The pretense of indifference was swept away by a gush of childish sobs
+as she flung over on her side and buried her face in the embroidered
+pillows.
+
+Amherst, bending down, laid a quieting hand on her shoulder. "Bessy----"
+
+She sobbed on.
+
+He seated himself silently in the arm-chair beside the bed, and kept his
+soothing hold on her shoulder. The time had come when he went through
+all these accustomed acts of pacification as mechanically as a nurse
+soothing a fretful child. And once he had thought her weeping eloquent!
+He looked about him at the spacious room, with its heavy hangings of
+damask and the thick velvet carpet which stifled his steps. Everywhere
+were the graceful tokens of her presence--the vast lace-draped
+toilet-table strewn with silver and crystal, the embroidered muslin
+cushions heaped on the lounge, the little rose-lined slippers she had
+just put off, the lace wrapper, with a scent of violets in its folds,
+which he had pushed aside when he sat down beside her; and he remembered
+how full of a mysterious and intimate charm these things had once
+appeared to him. It was characteristic that the remembrance made him
+more patient with her now. Perhaps, after all, it was his failure that
+she was crying over....
+
+"Don't be unhappy. You decided as seemed best to you," he said.
+
+She pressed her handkerchief against her lips, still keeping her head
+averted. "But I hate all these arguments and disputes. Why should you
+unsettle everything?" she murmured.
+
+His mother's words! Involuntarily he removed his hand from her
+shoulder, though he still remained seated by the bed.
+
+"You are right. I see the uselessness of it," he assented, with an
+uncontrollable note of irony.
+
+She turned her head at the tone, and fixed her plaintive brimming eyes
+on him. "You _are_ angry with me!"
+
+"Was that troubling you?" He leaned forward again, with compassion in
+his face. _Sancta simplicitas!_ was the thought within him.
+
+"I am not angry," he went on; "be reasonable and try to sleep."
+
+She started upright, the light masses of her hair floating about her
+like silken sea-weed lifted on an invisible tide. "Don't talk like that!
+I can't endure to be humoured like a baby. I am unhappy because I can't
+see why all these wretched questions should be dragged into our life. I
+hate to have you always disagreeing with Mr. Tredegar, who is so clever
+and has so much experience; and yet I hate to see you give way to him,
+because that makes it appear as if...as if...."
+
+"He didn't care a straw for my ideas?" Amherst smiled. "Well, he
+doesn't--and I never dreamed of making him. So don't worry about that
+either."
+
+"You never dreamed of making him care for your ideas? But then why do
+you----"
+
+"Why do I go on setting them forth at such great length?" Amherst smiled
+again. "To convince you--that's my only ambition."
+
+She stared at him, shaking her head back to toss a loose lock from her
+puzzled eyes. A tear still shone on her lashes, but with the motion it
+fell and trembled down her cheek.
+
+"To convince _me_? But you know I am so ignorant of such things."
+
+"Most women are."
+
+"I never pretended to understand anything about--economics, or whatever
+you call it."
+
+"No."
+
+"Then how----"
+
+He turned and looked at her gently. "I thought you might have begun to
+understand something about _me_."
+
+"About you?" The colour flowered softly under her clear skin.
+
+"About what my ideas on such subjects were likely to be worth--judging
+from what you know of me in other respects." He paused and glanced away
+from her. "Well," he concluded deliberately, "I suppose I've had my
+answer tonight."
+
+"Oh, John----!"
+
+He rose and wandered across the room, pausing a moment to finger
+absently the trinkets on the dressing-table. The act recalled with a
+curious vividness certain dulled sensations of their first days
+together, when to handle and examine these frail little accessories of
+her toilet had been part of the wonder and amusement of his new
+existence. He could still hear her laugh as she leaned over him,
+watching his mystified look in the glass, till their reflected eyes met
+there and drew down her lips to his. He laid down the fragrant
+powder-puff he had been turning slowly between his fingers, and moved
+back toward the bed. In the interval he had reached a decision.
+
+"Well--isn't it natural that I should think so?" he began again, as he
+stood beside her. "When we married I never expected you to care or know
+much about economics. It isn't a quality a man usually chooses his wife
+for. But I had a fancy--perhaps it shows my conceit--that when we had
+lived together a year or two, and you'd found out what kind of a fellow
+I was in other ways--ways any woman can judge of--I had a fancy that you
+might take my opinions on faith when it came to my own special
+business--the thing I'm generally supposed to know about."
+
+He knew that he was touching a sensitive chord, for Bessy had to the
+full her sex's pride of possessorship. He was human and faulty till
+others criticized him--then he became a god. But in this case a
+conflicting influence restrained her from complete response to his
+appeal.
+
+"I _do_ feel sure you know--about the treatment of the hands and all
+that; but you said yourself once--the first time we ever talked about
+Westmore--that the business part was different----"
+
+Here it was again, the ancient ineradicable belief in the separable body
+and soul! Even an industrial organization was supposed to be subject to
+the old theological distinction, and Bessy was ready to co-operate with
+her husband in the emancipation of Westmore's spiritual part if only its
+body remained under the law.
+
+Amherst controlled his impatience, as it was always easy for him to do
+when he had fixed on a definite line of conduct.
+
+"It was my situation that was different; not what you call the business
+part. That is inextricably bound up with the treatment of the hands. If
+I am to have anything to do with the mills now I can deal with them only
+as your representative; and as such I am bound to take in the whole
+question."
+
+Bessy's face clouded: was he going into it all again? But he read her
+look and went on reassuringly: "That was what I meant by saying that I
+hoped you would take me on faith. If I want the welfare of Westmore it's
+above all, I believe, because I want Westmore to see you as _I_ do--as
+the dispenser of happiness, who could not endure to benefit by any wrong
+or injustice to others."
+
+"Of course, of course I don't want to do them injustice!"
+
+"Well, then----"
+
+He had seated himself beside her again, clasping in his the hand with
+which she was fretting the lace-edged sheet. He felt her restless
+fingers surrender slowly, and her eyes turned to him in appeal.
+
+"But I care for what people say of you too! And you know--it's horrid,
+but one must consider it--if they say you're spending my money
+imprudently...." The blood rose to her neck and face. "I don't mind for
+myself...even if I have to give up as many things as papa and Mr.
+Tredegar think...but there is Cicely...and if people said...."
+
+"If people said I was spending Cicely's money on improving the condition
+of the people to whose work she will some day owe all her wealth--"
+Amherst paused: "Well, I would rather hear that said of me than any
+other thing I can think of, except one."
+
+"Except what?"
+
+"That I was doing it with her mother's help and approval."
+
+She drew a long tremulous sigh: he knew it was always a relief to her to
+have him assert himself strongly. But a residue of resistance still
+clouded her mind.
+
+"I should always want to help you, of course; but if Mr. Tredegar and
+Halford Gaines think your plan unbusinesslike----"
+
+"Mr. Tredegar and Halford Gaines are certain to think it so. And that is
+why I said, just now, that it comes, in the end, to your choosing
+between us; taking them on experience or taking me on faith."
+
+She looked at him wistfully. "Of course I should expect to give up
+things.... You wouldn't want me to live here?"
+
+"I should not ask you to," he said, half-smiling.
+
+"I suppose there would be a good many things we couldn't do----"
+
+"You would certainly have less money for a number of years; after that,
+I believe you would have more rather than less; but I should not want
+you to think that, beyond a reasonable point, the prosperity of the
+mills was ever to be measured by your dividends."
+
+"No." She leaned back wearily among the pillows. "I suppose, for
+instance, we should have to give up Europe this summer----?"
+
+Here at last was the bottom of her thought! It was always on the
+immediate pleasure that her soul hung: she had not enough imagination to
+look beyond, even in the projecting of her own desires. And it was on
+his knowledge of this limitation that Amherst had deliberately built.
+
+"I don't see how you could go to Europe," he said.
+
+"The doctor thinks I need it," she faltered.
+
+"In that case, of course--" He stood up, not abruptly, or with any show
+of irritation, but as if accepting this as her final answer. "What you
+need most, in the meantime, is a little sleep," he said. "I will tell
+your maid not to disturb you in the morning." He had returned to his
+soothing way of speech, as though definitely resigned to the inutility
+of farther argument. "And I will say goodbye now," he continued,
+"because I shall probably take an early train, before you wake----"
+
+She sat up with a start. "An early train? Why, where are you going?"
+
+"I must go to Chicago some time this month, and as I shall not be wanted
+here tomorrow I might as well run out there at once, and join you next
+week at Lynbrook."
+
+Bessy had grown pale. "But I don't understand----"
+
+Their eyes met. "Can't you understand that I am human enough to prefer,
+under the circumstances, not being present at tomorrow's meeting?" he
+said with a dry laugh.
+
+She sank back with a moan of discouragement, turning her face away as he
+began to move toward his room.
+
+"Shall I put the light out?" he asked, pausing with his hand on the
+electric button.
+
+"Yes, please."
+
+He pushed in the button and walked on, guided through the obscurity by
+the line of light under his door. As he reached the threshold he heard a
+little choking cry.
+
+"John--oh, John!"
+
+He paused.
+
+"I can't _bear_ it!" The sobs increased.
+
+"Bear what?"
+
+"That you should hate me----"
+
+"Don't be foolish," he said, groping for his door-handle.
+
+"But you do hate me--and I deserve it!"
+
+"Nonsense, dear. Try to sleep."
+
+"I can't sleep till you've forgiven me. Say you don't hate me! I'll do
+anything...only say you don't hate me!"
+
+He stood still a moment, thinking; then he turned back, and made his way
+across the room to her side. As he sat down beside her, he felt her arms
+reach for his neck and her wet face press itself against his cheek.
+
+"I'll do anything..." she sobbed; and in the darkness he held her to him
+and hated his victory.
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+
+MRS. ANSELL was engaged in what she called picking up threads. She had
+been abroad for the summer--had, in, fact, transferred herself but a few
+hours earlier from her returning steamer to the little station at
+Lynbrook--and was now, in the bright September afternoon, which left her
+in sole possession of the terrace of Lynbrook House, using that pleasant
+eminence as a point of observation from which to gather up some of the
+loose ends of history dropped at her departure.
+
+It might have been thought that the actual scene out-spread below
+her--the descending gardens, the tennis-courts, the farm-lands sloping
+away to the blue sea-like shimmer of the Hempstead plains--offered, at
+the moment, little material for her purpose; but that was to view them
+with a superficial eye. Mrs. Ansell's trained gaze was, for example,
+greatly enlightened by the fact that the tennis-courts were fringed by a
+group of people indolently watchful of the figures agitating themselves
+about the nets; and that, as she turned her head toward the entrance
+avenue, the receding view of a station omnibus, followed by a
+luggage-cart, announced that more guests were to be added to those who
+had almost taxed to its limits the expansibility of the luncheon-table.
+
+All this, to the initiated eye, was full of suggestion; but its
+significance was as nothing to that presented by the approach of two
+figures which, as Mrs. Ansell watched, detached themselves from the
+cluster about the tennis-ground and struck, obliquely and at a desultory
+pace, across the lawn toward the terrace. The figures--those of a slight
+young man with stooping shoulders, and of a lady equally youthful but
+slenderly erect--moved forward in absorbed communion, as if unconscious
+of their surroundings and indefinite as to their direction, till, on the
+brink of the wide grass terrace just below their observer's parapet,
+they paused a moment and faced each other in closer speech. This
+interchange of words, though brief in measure of time, lasted long
+enough to add a vivid strand to Mrs. Ansell's thickening skein; then, on
+a gesture of the lady's, and without signs of formal leave-taking, the
+young man struck into a path which regained the entrance avenue, while
+his companion, quickening her pace, crossed the grass terrace and
+mounted the wide stone steps sweeping up to the house.
+
+These brought her out on the upper terrace a few yards from Mrs.
+Ansell's post, and exposed her, unprepared, to the full beam of welcome
+which that lady's rapid advance threw like a searchlight across her
+path.
+
+"Dear Miss Brent! I was just wondering how it was that I hadn't seen you
+before." Mrs. Ansell, as she spoke, drew the girl's hand into a long
+soft clasp which served to keep them confronted while she delicately
+groped for whatever thread the encounter seemed to proffer.
+
+Justine made no attempt to evade the scrutiny to which she found herself
+exposed; she merely released her hand by a movement instinctively
+evasive of the mechanical endearment, explaining, with a smile that
+softened the gesture: "I was out with Cicely when you arrived. We've
+just come in."
+
+"The dear child! I haven't seen her either." Mrs. Ansell continued to
+bestow upon the speaker's clear dark face an intensity of attention in
+which, for the moment, Cicely had no perceptible share. "I hear you are
+teaching her botany, and all kinds of wonderful things."
+
+Justine smiled again. "I am trying to teach her to wonder: that is the
+hardest faculty to cultivate in the modern child."
+
+"Yes--I suppose so; in myself," Mrs. Ansell admitted with a responsive
+brightness, "I find it develops with age. The world is a remarkable
+place." She threw this off absently, as though leaving Miss Brent to
+apply it either to the inorganic phenomena with which Cicely was
+supposed to be occupied, or to those subtler manifestations that engaged
+her own attention.
+
+"It's a great thing," she continued, "for Bessy to have had your
+help--for Cicely, and for herself too. There is so much that I want you
+to tell me about her. As an old friend I want the benefit of your
+fresher eye."
+
+"About Bessy?" Justine hesitated, letting her glance drift to the
+distant group still anchored about the tennis-nets. "Don't you find her
+looking better?"
+
+"Than when I left? So much so that I was unduly disturbed, just now, by
+seeing that clever little doctor--it _was_ he, wasn't it, who came up
+the lawn with you?"
+
+"Dr. Wyant? Yes." Miss Brent hesitated again. "But he merely
+called--with a message."
+
+"Not professionally? _Tant mieux!_ The truth is, I was anxious about
+Bessy when I left--I thought she ought to have gone abroad for a change.
+But, as it turns out, her little excursion with you did as well."
+
+"I think she only needed rest. Perhaps her six weeks in the Adirondacks
+were better than Europe."
+
+"Ah, under _your_ care--that made them better!" Mrs. Ansell in turn
+hesitated, the lines of her face melting and changing as if a rapid
+stage-hand had shifted them. When she spoke again they were as open as a
+public square, but also as destitute of personal significance, as flat
+and smooth as the painted drop before the real scene it hides.
+
+"I have always thought that Bessy, for all her health and activity,
+needs as much care as Cicely--the kind of care a clever friend can give.
+She is so wasteful of her strength and her nerves, and so unwilling to
+listen to reason. Poor Dick Westmore watched over her as if she were a
+baby; but perhaps Mr. Amherst, who must have been used to such a
+different type of woman, doesn't realize...and then he's so little
+here...." The drop was lit up by a smile that seemed to make it more
+impenetrable. "As an old friend I can't help telling you how much I hope
+she is to have you with her for a long time--a long, long time."
+
+Miss Brent bent her head in slight acknowledgment of the tribute. "Oh,
+soon she will not need any care----"
+
+"My dear Miss Brent, she will always need it!" Mrs. Ansell made a
+movement inviting the young girl to share the bench from which, at the
+latter's approach, she had risen. "But perhaps there is not enough in
+such a life to satisfy your professional energies."
+
+She seated herself, and after an imperceptible pause Justine sank into
+the seat beside her. "I am very glad, just now, to give my energies a
+holiday," she said, leaning back with a little sigh of retrospective
+weariness.
+
+"You are tired too? Bessy wrote me you had been quite used up by a
+trying case after we saw you at Hanaford."
+
+Miss Brent smiled. "When a nurse is fit for work she calls a trying case
+a 'beautiful' one."
+
+"But meanwhile--?" Mrs. Ansell shone on her with elder-sisterly
+solicitude. "Meanwhile, why not stay on with Cicely--above all, with
+Bessy? Surely she's a 'beautiful' case too."
+
+"Isn't she?" Justine laughingly agreed.
+
+"And if you want to be tried--" Mrs. Ansell swept the scene with a
+slight lift of her philosophic shoulders--"you'll find there are trials
+enough everywhere."
+
+Her companion started up with a glance at the small watch on her breast.
+"One of them is that it's already after four, and that I must see that
+tea is sent down to the tennis-ground, and the new arrivals looked
+after."
+
+"I saw the omnibus on its way to the station. Are many more people
+coming?"
+
+"Five or six, I believe. The house is usually full for Sunday."
+
+Mrs. Ansell made a slight motion to detain her. "And when is Mr. Amherst
+expected?"
+
+Miss Brent's pale cheek seemed to take on a darker tone of ivory, and
+her glance dropped from her companion's face to the vivid stretch of
+gardens at their feet. "Bessy has not told me," she said.
+
+"Ah--" the older woman rejoined, looking also toward the gardens, as if
+to intercept Miss Brent's glance in its flight. The latter stood still a
+moment, with the appearance of not wishing to evade whatever else her
+companion might have to say; then she moved away, entering the house by
+one window just as Mr. Langhope emerged from it by another.
+
+The sound of his stick tapping across the bricks roused Mrs. Ansell from
+her musings, but she showed her sense of his presence simply by
+returning to the bench she had just left; and accepting this mute
+invitation, Mr. Langhope crossed the terrace and seated himself at her
+side.
+
+When he had done so they continued to look at each other without
+speaking, after the manner of old friends possessed of occult means of
+communication; and as the result of this inward colloquy Mr. Langhope at
+length said: "Well, what do you make of it?"
+
+"What do _you_?" she rejoined, turning full upon him a face so released
+from its usual defences and disguises that it looked at once older and
+more simple than the countenance she presented to the world.
+
+Mr. Langhope waved a deprecating hand. "I want your fresher
+impressions."
+
+"That's what I just now said to Miss Brent."
+
+"You've been talking to Miss Brent?"
+
+"Only a flying word--she had to go and look after the new arrivals."
+
+Mr. Langhope's attention deepened. "Well, what did you say to her?"
+
+"Wouldn't you rather hear what she said to _me_?"
+
+He smiled. "A good cross-examiner always gets the answers he wants. Let
+me hear your side, and I shall know hers."
+
+"I should say that applied only to stupid cross-examiners; or to those
+who have stupid subjects to deal with. And Miss Brent is not stupid, you
+know."
+
+"Far from it! What else do you make out?"
+
+"I make out that she's in possession."
+
+"Here?"
+
+"Don't look startled. Do you dislike her?"
+
+"Heaven forbid--with those eyes! She has a wit of her own, too--and she
+certainly makes things easier for Bessy."
+
+"She guards her carefully, at any rate. I could find out nothing."
+
+"About Bessy?"
+
+"About the general situation."
+
+"Including Miss Brent?"
+
+Mrs. Ansell smiled faintly. "I made one little discovery about her."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"She's intimate with the new doctor."
+
+"Wyant?" Mr. Langhope's interest dropped. "What of that? I believe she
+knew him before."
+
+"I daresay. It's of no special importance, except as giving us a
+possible clue to her character. She strikes me as interesting and
+mysterious."
+
+Mr. Langhope smiled. "The things your imagination does for you!"
+
+"It helps me to see that we may find Miss Brent useful as a friend."
+
+"A friend?"
+
+"An ally." She paused, as if searching for a word. "She may restore the
+equilibrium."
+
+Mr. Langhope's handsome face darkened. "Open Bessy's eyes to Amherst?
+Damn him!" he said quietly.
+
+Mrs. Ansell let the imprecation pass. "When was he last here?" she
+asked.
+
+"Five or six weeks ago--for one night. His only visit since she came
+back from the Adirondacks."
+
+"What do you think his motive is? He must know what he risks in losing
+his hold on Bessy."
+
+"His motive? With your eye for them, can you ask? A devouring ambition,
+that's all! Haven't you noticed that, in all except the biggest minds,
+ambition takes the form of wanting to command where one has had to obey?
+Amherst has been made to toe the line at Westmore, and now he wants
+Truscomb--yes, and Halford Gaines, too!--to do the same. That's the
+secret of his servant-of-the-people pose--gad, I believe it's the whole
+secret of his marriage! He's devouring my daughter's substance to pay
+off an old score against the mills. He'll never rest till he has
+Truscomb out, and some creature of his own in command--and then, _vogue
+la galere_! If it were women, now," Mr. Langhope summed up impatiently,
+"one could understand it, at his age, and with that damned romantic
+head--but to be put aside for a lot of low mongrelly socialist
+mill-hands--ah, my poor girl--my poor girl!"
+
+Mrs. Ansell mused. "You didn't write me that things were so bad. There's
+been no actual quarrel?" she asked.
+
+"How can there be, when the poor child does all he wants? He's simply
+too busy to come and thank her!"
+
+"Too busy at Hanaford?"
+
+"So he says. Introducing the golden age at Westmore--it's likely to be
+the age of copper at Lynbrook."
+
+Mrs. Ansell drew a meditative breath. "I was thinking of that. I
+understood that Bessy would have to retrench while the changes at
+Westmore were going on."
+
+"Well--didn't she give up Europe, and cable over to countermand her new
+motor?"
+
+"But the life here! This mob of people! Miss Brent tells me the house is
+full for every week-end."
+
+"Would you have my daughter cut off from all her friends?"
+
+Mrs. Ansell met this promptly. "From some of the new ones, at any rate!
+Have you heard who has just arrived?"
+
+Mr. Langhope's hesitation showed a tinge of embarrassment. "I'm not
+sure--some one has always just arrived."
+
+"Well, the Fenton Carburys, then!" Mrs. Ansell left it to her tone to
+annotate the announcement.
+
+Mr. Langhope raised his eyebrows slightly. "Are they likely to be an
+exceptionally costly pleasure?"
+
+"If you're trying to prove that I haven't kept to the point--I can
+assure you that I'm well within it!"
+
+"But since the good Blanche has got her divorce and married Carbury,
+wherein do they differ from other week-end automata?"
+
+"Because most divorced women marry again to be respectable."
+
+Mr. Langhope smiled faintly. "Yes--that's their punishment. But it would
+be too dull for Blanche."
+
+"Precisely. _She_ married again to see Ned Bowfort!"
+
+"Ah--that may yet be hers!"
+
+Mrs. Ansell sighed at his perversity. "Meanwhile, she's brought him
+here, and it is unnatural to see Bessy lending herself to such
+combinations."
+
+"You're corrupted by a glimpse of the old societies. Here Bowfort and
+Carbury are simply hands at bridge."
+
+"Old hands at it--yes! And the bridge is another point: Bessy never used
+to play for money."
+
+"Well, she may make something, and offset her husband's prodigalities."
+
+"There again--with this _train de vie_, how on earth are both ends to
+meet?"
+
+Mr. Langhope grown suddenly grave, struck his cane resoundingly on the
+terrace. "Westmore and Lynbrook? I don't want them to--I want them to
+get farther and farther apart!"
+
+She cast on him a look of startled divination. "You want Bessy to go on
+spending too much money?"
+
+"How can I help it if it costs?"
+
+"If what costs--?" She stopped, her eyes still wide; then their glances
+crossed, and she exclaimed: "If your scheme costs? It _is_ your scheme,
+then?"
+
+He shrugged his shoulders again. "It's a passive attitude----"
+
+"Ah, the deepest plans are that!" Mr. Langhope uttered no protest, and
+she continued to piece her conjectures together. "But you expect it to
+lead up to something active. Do you want a rupture?"
+
+"I want him brought back to his senses."
+
+"Do you think that will bring him back to _her_?"
+
+"Where the devil else will he have to go?"
+
+Mrs. Ansell's eyes dropped toward the gardens, across which desultory
+knots of people were straggling back from the ended tennis-match. "Ah,
+here they all come," she said, rising with a half-sigh; and as she stood
+watching the advance of the brightly-tinted groups she added slowly:
+"It's ingenious--but you don't understand him."
+
+Mr. Langhope stroked his moustache. "Perhaps not," he assented
+thoughtfully. "But suppose we go in before they join us? I want to show
+you a set of Ming I picked up the other day for Bessy. I flatter myself
+I _do_ understand Ming."
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+
+JUSTINE BRENT, her household duties discharged, had gone upstairs to her
+room, a little turret chamber projecting above the wide terrace below,
+from which the sounds of lively intercourse now rose increasingly to her
+window.
+
+Bessy, she knew, would have preferred to have her remain with the party
+from whom these evidences of gaiety proceeded. Mrs. Amherst had grown to
+depend on her friend's nearness. She liked to feel that Justine's quick
+hand and eye were always in waiting on her impulses, prompt to interpret
+and execute them without any exertion of her own. Bessy combined great
+zeal in the pursuit of sport--a tireless passion for the saddle, the
+golf-course, the tennis-court--with an almost oriental inertia within
+doors, an indolence of body and brain that made her shrink from the
+active obligations of hospitality, though she had grown to depend more
+and more on the distractions of a crowded house.
+
+But Justine, though grateful, and anxious to show her gratitude, was
+unwilling to add to her other duties that of joining in the amusements
+of the house-party. She made no pretense of effacing herself when she
+thought her presence might be useful--but, even if she had cared for the
+diversions in favour at Lynbrook, a certain unavowed pride would have
+kept her from participating in them on the same footing with Bessy's
+guests. She was not in the least ashamed of her position in the
+household, but she chose that every one else should be aware of it, that
+she should not for an instant be taken for one of the nomadic damsels
+who form the camp-followers of the great army of pleasure. Yet even on
+this point her sensitiveness was not exaggerated. Adversity has a deft
+hand at gathering loose strands of impulse into character, and Justine's
+early contact with different phases of experience had given her a fairly
+clear view of life in the round, what might be called a sound working
+topography of its relative heights and depths. She was not seriously
+afraid of being taken for anything but what she really was, and still
+less did she fear to become, by force of propinquity and suggestion, the
+kind of being for whom she might be temporarily taken.
+
+When, at Bessy's summons, she had joined the latter at her camp in the
+Adirondacks, the transition from a fatiguing "case" at Hanaford to a
+life in which sylvan freedom was artfully blent with the most studied
+personal luxury, had come as a delicious refreshment to body and brain.
+She was weary, for the moment, of ugliness, pain and hard work, and life
+seemed to recover its meaning under the aspect of a graceful leisure.
+Lynbrook also, whither she had been persuaded to go with Bessy at the
+end of their woodland cure, had at first amused and interested her. The
+big house on its spreading terraces, with windows looking over bright
+gardens to the hazy distances of the plains, seemed a haven of harmless
+ease and gaiety. Justine was sensitive to the finer graces of luxurious
+living, to the warm lights on old pictures and bronzes, the soft
+mingling of tints in faded rugs and panellings of time-warmed oak. And
+the existence to which this background formed a setting seemed at first
+to have the same decorative qualities. It was pleasant, for once, to be
+among people whose chief business was to look well and take life
+lightly, and Justine's own buoyancy of nature won her immediate access
+among the amiable persons who peopled Bessy's week-end parties. If they
+had only abounded a little more in their own line she might have
+succumbed to their spell. But it seemed to her that they missed the
+poetry of their situation, transacting their pleasures with the dreary
+method and shortness of view of a race tethered to the ledger. Even the
+verbal flexibility which had made her feel that she was in a world of
+freer ideas, soon revealed itself as a form of flight from them, in
+which the race was distinctly to the swift; and Justine's phase of
+passive enjoyment passed with the return of her physical and mental
+activity. She was a creature tingling with energy, a little fleeting
+particle of the power that moves the sun and the other stars, and the
+deadening influences of the life at Lynbrook roused these tendencies to
+greater intensity, as a suffocated person will suddenly develop abnormal
+strength in the struggle for air.
+
+She did not, indeed, regret having come. She was glad to be with Bessy,
+partly because of the childish friendship which had left such deep
+traces in her lonely heart, and partly because what she had seen of her
+friend's situation stirred in her all the impulses of sympathy and
+service; but the idea of continuing in such a life, of sinking into any
+of the positions of semi-dependence that an adroit and handsome girl may
+create for herself in a fashionable woman's train--this possibility
+never presented itself to Justine till Mrs. Ansell, that afternoon, had
+put it into words. And to hear it was to revolt from it with all the
+strength of her inmost nature. The thought of the future troubled her,
+not so much materially--for she had a light bird-like trust in the
+morrow's fare--but because her own tendencies seemed to have grown less
+clear, because she could not rest in them for guidance as she had once
+done. The renewal of bodily activity had not brought back her faith in
+her calling: her work had lost the light of consecration. She no longer
+felt herself predestined to nurse the sick for the rest of her life, and
+in her inexperience she reproached herself with this instability. Youth
+and womanhood were in fact crying out in her for their individual
+satisfaction; but instincts as deep-seated protected her from even a
+momentary illusion as to the nature of this demand. She wanted
+happiness, and a life of her own, as passionately as young
+flesh-and-blood had ever wanted them; but they must come bathed in the
+light of imagination and penetrated by the sense of larger affinities.
+She could not conceive of shutting herself into a little citadel of
+personal well-being while the great tides of existence rolled on
+unheeded outside. Whether they swept treasure to her feet, or strewed
+her life with wreckage, she felt, even now; that her place was there, on
+the banks, in sound and sight of the great current; and just in
+proportion as the scheme of life at Lynbrook succeeded in shutting out
+all sense of that vaster human consciousness, so did its voice speak
+more thrillingly within her.
+
+Somewhere, she felt--but, alas! still out of reach--was the life she
+longed for, a life in which high chances of doing should be mated with
+the finer forms of enjoying. But what title had she to a share in such
+an existence? Why, none but her sense of what it was worth--and what did
+that count for, in a world which used all its resources to barricade
+itself against all its opportunities? She knew there were girls who
+sought, by what is called a "good" marriage, an escape into the outer
+world, of doing and thinking--utilizing an empty brain and full pocket
+as the key to these envied fields. Some such chance the life at Lynbrook
+seemed likely enough to offer--one is not, at Justine's age and with her
+penetration, any more blind to the poise of one's head than to the turn
+of one's ideas; but here the subtler obstacles of taste and pride
+intervened. Not even Bessy's transparent manoeuvrings, her tender
+solicitude for her friend's happiness, could for a moment weaken
+Justine's resistance. If she must marry without love--and this was
+growing conceivable to her--she must at least merge her craving for
+personal happiness in some view of life in harmony with hers.
+
+A tap on her door interrupted these musings, to one aspect of which
+Bessy Amherst's entrance seemed suddenly to give visible expression.
+
+"Why did you run off, Justine? You promised to be down-stairs when I
+came back from tennis."
+
+"_Till_ you came back--wasn't it, dear?" Justine corrected with a smile,
+pushing her arm-chair forward as Bessy continued to linger irresolutely
+in the doorway. "I saw that there was a fresh supply of tea in the
+drawing-room, and I knew you would be there before the omnibus came from
+the station."
+
+"Oh, I was there--but everybody was asking for you----"
+
+"Everybody?" Justine gave a mocking lift to her dark eyebrows.
+
+"Well--Westy Gaines, at any rate; the moment he set foot in the house!"
+Bessy declared with a laugh as she dropped into the arm-chair.
+
+Justine echoed the laugh, but offered no comment on the statement which
+accompanied it, and for a moment both women were silent, Bessy tilting
+her pretty discontented head against the back of the chair, so that her
+eyes were on a level with those of her friend, who leaned near her in
+the embrasure of the window.
+
+"I can't understand you, Justine. You know well enough what he's come
+back for."
+
+"In order to dazzle Hanaford with the fact that he has been staying at
+Lynbrook!"
+
+"Nonsense--the novelty of that has worn off. He's been here three times
+since we came back."
+
+"You are admirably hospitable to your family----"
+
+Bessy let her pretty ringed hands fall with a discouraged gesture. "Why
+do you find him so much worse than--than other people?"
+
+Justine's eye-brows rose again. "In the same capacity? You speak as if I
+had boundless opportunities of comparison."
+
+"Well, you've Dr. Wyant!" Mrs. Amherst suddenly flung back at her.
+
+Justine coloured under the unexpected thrust, but met her friend's eyes
+steadily. "As an alternative to Westy? Well, if I were on a desert
+island--but I'm not!" she concluded with a careless laugh.
+
+Bessy frowned and sighed. "You can't mean that, of the two--?" She
+paused and then went on doubtfully: "It's because he's cleverer?"
+
+"Dr. Wyant?" Justine smiled. "It's not making an enormous claim for
+him!"
+
+"Oh, I know Westy's not brilliant; but stupid men are not always the
+hardest to live with." She sighed again, and turned on Justine a glance
+charged with conjugal experience.
+
+Justine had sunk into the window-seat, her thin hands clasping her knee,
+in the attitude habitual to her meditative moments. "Perhaps not," she
+assented; "but I don't know that I should care for a man who made life
+easy; I should want some one who made it interesting."
+
+Bessy met this with a pitying exclamation. "Don't imagine you invented
+that! Every girl thinks it. Afterwards she finds out that it's much
+pleasanter to be thought interesting herself."
+
+She spoke with a bitterness that issued strangely from her lips. It was
+this bitterness which gave her soft personality the sharp edge that
+Justine had felt in it on the day of their meeting at Hanaford.
+
+The girl, at first, had tried to defend herself from these
+scarcely-veiled confidences, distasteful enough in themselves, and
+placing her, if she listened, in an attitude of implied disloyalty to
+the man under whose roof they were spoken. But a precocious experience
+of life had taught her that emotions too strong for the nature
+containing them turn, by some law of spiritual chemistry, into a
+rankling poison; and she had therefore resigned herself to serving as a
+kind of outlet for Bessy's pent-up discontent. It was not that her
+friend's grievance appealed to her personal sympathies; she had learned
+enough of the situation to give her moral assent unreservedly to the
+other side. But it was characteristic of Justine that where she
+sympathized least she sometimes pitied most. Like all quick spirits she
+was often intolerant of dulness; yet when the intolerance passed it left
+a residue of compassion for the very incapacity at which she chafed. It
+seemed to her that the tragic crises in wedded life usually turned on
+the stupidity of one of the two concerned; and of the two victims of
+such a catastrophe she felt most for the one whose limitations had
+probably brought it about. After all, there could be no imprisonment as
+cruel as that of being bounded by a hard small nature. Not to be
+penetrable at all points to the shifting lights, the wandering music of
+the world--she could imagine no physical disability as cramping as that.
+How the little parched soul, in solitary confinement for life, must pine
+and dwindle in its blind cranny of self-love!
+
+To be one's self wide open to the currents of life does not always
+contribute to an understanding of narrower natures; but in Justine the
+personal emotions were enriched and deepened by a sense of participation
+in all that the world about her was doing, suffering and enjoying; and
+this sense found expression in the instinct of ministry and solace. She
+was by nature a redresser, a restorer; and in her work, as she had once
+told Amherst, the longing to help and direct, to hasten on by personal
+intervention time's slow and clumsy processes, had often been in
+conflict with the restrictions imposed by her profession. But she had no
+idle desire to probe the depths of other lives; and where there seemed
+no hope of serving she shrank from fruitless confidences. She was
+beginning to feel this to be the case with Bessy Amherst. To touch the
+rock was not enough, if there were but a few drops within it; yet in
+this barrenness lay the pathos of the situation--and after all, may not
+the scanty spring be fed from a fuller current?
+
+"I'm not sure about that," she said, answering her friend's last words
+after a deep pause of deliberation. "I mean about its being so pleasant
+to be found interesting. I'm sure the passive part is always the dull
+one: life has been a great deal more thrilling since we found out that
+we revolved about the sun, instead of sitting still and fancying that
+all the planets were dancing attendance on us. After all, they were
+_not_; and it's rather humiliating to think how the morning stars must
+have laughed together about it!"
+
+There was no self-complacency in Justine's eagerness to help. It was far
+easier for her to express it in action than in counsel, to grope for the
+path with her friend than to point the way to it; and when she had to
+speak she took refuge in figures to escape the pedantry of appearing to
+advise. But it was not only to Mrs. Dressel that her parables were dark,
+and the blank look in Bessy's eyes soon snatched her down from the
+height of metaphor.
+
+"I mean," she continued with a smile, "that, as human nature is
+constituted, it has got to find its real self--the self to be interested
+in--outside of what we conventionally call 'self': the particular
+Justine or Bessy who is clamouring for her particular morsel of life.
+You see, self isn't a thing one can keep in a box--bits of it keep
+escaping, and flying off to lodge in all sorts of unexpected crannies;
+we come across scraps of ourselves in the most unlikely places--as I
+believe you would in Westmore, if you'd only go back there and look for
+them!"
+
+Bessy's lip trembled and the colour sprang to her face; but she answered
+with a flash of irritation: "Why doesn't _he_ look for me there,
+then--if he still wants to find me?"
+
+"Ah--it's for him to look here--to find himself _here_," Justine
+murmured.
+
+"Well, he never comes here! That's his answer."
+
+"He will--he will! Only, when he does, let him find you."
+
+"Find me? I don't understand. How can he, when he never sees me? I'm no
+more to him than the carpet on the floor!"
+
+Justine smiled again. "Well--be that then! The thing is to _be_."
+
+"Under his feet? Thank you! Is that what you mean to marry for? It's not
+what husbands admire in one, you know!"
+
+"No." Justine stood up with a sense of stealing discouragement. "But I
+don't think I want to be admired----"
+
+"Ah, that's because you know you are!" broke from the depths of the
+other's bitterness.
+
+The tone smote Justine, and she dropped into the seat at her friend's
+side, silently laying a hand on Bessy's feverishly-clasped fingers.
+
+"Oh, don't let us talk about me," complained the latter, from whose lips
+the subject was never long absent. "And you mustn't think I _want_ you
+to marry, Justine; not for myself, I mean--I'd so much rather keep you
+here. I feel much less lonely when you're with me. But you say you won't
+stay--and it's too dreadful to think of your going back to that dreary
+hospital."
+
+"But you know the hospital's not dreary to me," Justine interposed;
+"it's the most interesting place I've ever known."
+
+Mrs. Amherst smiled indulgently on this extravagance. "A great many
+people go through the craze for philanthropy--" she began in the tone of
+mature experience; but Justine interrupted her with a laugh.
+
+"Philanthropy? I'm not philanthropic. I don't think I ever felt inclined
+to do good in the abstract--any more than to do ill! I can't remember
+that I ever planned out a course of conduct in my life. It's only," she
+went on, with a puzzled frown, as if honestly trying to analyze her
+motives, "it's only that I'm so fatally interested in people that before
+I know it I've slipped into their skins; and then, of course, if
+anything goes wrong with them, it's just as if it had gone wrong with
+me; and I can't help trying to rescue myself from _their_ troubles! I
+suppose it's what you'd call meddling--and so should I, if I could only
+remember that the other people were not myself!"
+
+Bessy received this with the mild tolerance of superior wisdom. Once
+safe on the tried ground of traditional authority, she always felt
+herself Justine's superior. "That's all very well now--you see the
+romantic side of it," she said, as if humouring her friend's vagaries.
+"But in time you'll want something else; you'll want a husband and
+children--a life of your own. And then you'll have to be more practical.
+It's ridiculous to pretend that comfort and money don't make a
+difference. And if you married a rich man, just think what a lot of good
+you could do! Westy will be very well off--and I'm sure he'd let you
+endow hospitals and things. Think how interesting it would be to build a
+ward in the very hospital where you'd been a nurse! I read something
+like that in a novel the other day--it was beautifully described. All
+the nurses and doctors that the heroine had worked with were there to
+receive her...and her little boy went about and gave toys to the
+crippled children...."
+
+If the speaker's concluding instance hardly produced the effect she had
+intended, it was perhaps only because Justine's attention had been
+arrested by the earlier part of the argument. It was strange to have
+marriage urged on her by a woman who had twice failed to find happiness
+in it--strange, and yet how vivid a sign that, even to a nature absorbed
+in its personal demands, not happiness but completeness is the inmost
+craving! "A life of your own"--that was what even Bessy, in her obscure
+way, felt to be best worth suffering for. And how was a spirit like
+Justine's, thrilling with youth and sympathy, to conceive of an isolated
+existence as the final answer to that craving? A life circumscribed by
+one's own poor personal consciousness would not be life at all--far
+better the "adventure of the diver" than the shivering alone on the
+bank! Bessy, reading encouragement in her silence, returned her
+hand-clasp with an affectionate pressure.
+
+"You _would_ like that, Justine?" she said, secretly proud of having hit
+on the convincing argument.
+
+"To endow hospitals with your cousin's money? No; I should want
+something much more exciting!"
+
+Bessy's face kindled. "You mean travelling abroad--and I suppose New
+York in winter?"
+
+Justine broke into a laugh. "I was thinking of your cousin himself when
+I spoke." And to Bessy's disappointed cry--"Then it _is_ Dr. Wyant,
+after all?" she answered lightly, and without resenting the challenge:
+"I don't know. Suppose we leave it to the oracle."
+
+"The oracle?"
+
+"Time. His question-and-answer department is generally the most reliable
+in the long run." She started up, gently drawing Bessy to her feet. "And
+just at present he reminds me that it's nearly six, and that you
+promised Cicely to go and see her before you dress for dinner."
+
+Bessy rose obediently. "Does he remind you of _your_ promises too? You
+said you'd come down to dinner tonight."
+
+"Did I?" Justine hesitated. "Well, I'm coming," she said, smiling and
+kissing her friend.
+
+
+
+
+XV
+
+
+WHEN the door closed on Mrs. Amherst a resolve which had taken shape in
+Justine's mind during their talk together made her seat herself at her
+writing-table, where, after a moment's musing over her suspended pen,
+she wrote and addressed a hurried note. This business despatched, she
+put on her hat and jacket, and letter in hand passed down the corridor
+from her room, and descended to the entrance-hall below. She might have
+consigned her missive to the post-box which conspicuously tendered its
+services from a table near the door; but to do so would delay the
+letter's despatch till morning, and she felt a sudden impatience to see
+it start.
+
+The tumult on the terrace had transferred itself within doors, and as
+Justine went down the stairs she heard the click of cues from the
+billiard-room, the talk and laughter of belated bridge-players, the
+movement of servants gathering up tea-cups and mending fires. She had
+hoped to find the hall empty, but the sight of Westy Gaines's figure
+looming watchfully on the threshold of the smoking-room gave her, at the
+last bend of the stairs, a little start of annoyance. He would want to
+know where she was going, he would offer to go with her, and it would
+take some time and not a little emphasis to make him understand that his
+society was not desired.
+
+This was the thought that flashed through Justine's mind as she reached
+the landing; but the next moment it gave way to a contradictory feeling.
+Westy Gaines was not alone in the hall. From under the stairway rose the
+voices of a group ensconced in that popular retreat about a chess-board;
+and as Justine reached the last turn of the stairs she perceived that
+Mason Winch, an earnest youth with advanced views on political economy,
+was engaged, to the diversion of a circle of spectators, in teaching the
+Telfer girls chess. The futility of trying to fix the spasmodic
+attention of this effervescent couple, and their instructor's grave
+unconsciousness of the fact, constituted, for the lookers-on, the
+peculiar diversion of the scene. It was of course inevitable that young
+Winch, on his arrival at Lynbrook, should have succumbed at once to the
+tumultuous charms of the Telfer manner, which was equally attractive to
+inarticulate youth and to tired and talked-out middle-age; but that he
+should have perceived no resistance in their minds to the deliberative
+processes of the game of chess, was, even to the Telfers themselves, a
+source of unmitigated gaiety. Nothing seemed to them funnier than that
+any one should credit them with any mental capacity; and they had
+inexhaustibly amusing ways of drawing out and showing off each other's
+ignorance.
+
+It was on this scene that Westy's appreciative eyes had been fixed till
+Justine's appearance drew them to herself. He pronounced her name
+joyfully, and moved forward to greet her; but as their hands met she
+understood that he did not mean to press his company upon her. Under the
+eye of the Lynbrook circle he was chary of marked demonstrations, and
+even Mrs. Amherst's approval could not, at such moments, bridge over the
+gap between himself and the object of his attentions. A Gaines was a
+Gaines in the last analysis, and apart from any pleasing accident of
+personality; but what was Miss Brent but the transient vehicle of those
+graces which Providence has provided for the delectation of the
+privileged sex?
+
+These influences were visible in the temperate warmth of Westy's manner,
+and in his way of keeping a backward eye on the mute interchange of
+comment about the chess-board. At another time his embarrassment would
+have amused Justine; but the feelings stirred by her talk with Bessy had
+not subsided, and she recognized with a sting of mortification the
+resemblance between her view of the Lynbrook set and its estimate of
+herself. If Bessy's friends were negligible to her she was almost
+non-existent to them; and, as against herself, they were overwhelmingly
+provided with tangible means of proving their case.
+
+Such considerations, at a given moment, may prevail decisively even with
+a nature armed against them by insight and irony; and the mere fact that
+Westy Gaines did not mean to join her, and that he was withheld from
+doing so by the invisible pressure of the Lynbrook standards, had the
+effect of precipitating Justine's floating intentions.
+
+If anything farther had been needed to hasten this result, it would have
+been accomplished by the sound of footsteps which, over-taking her a
+dozen yards from the house, announced her admirer's impetuous if tardy
+pursuit. The act of dismissing him, though it took but a word and was
+effected with a laugh, left her pride quivering with a hurt the more
+painful because she would not acknowledge it. That she should waste a
+moment's resentment on the conduct of a person so unimportant as poor
+Westy, showed her in a flash the intrinsic falseness of her position at
+Lynbrook. She saw that to disdain the life about her had not kept her
+intact from it; and the knowledge made her feel anew the need of some
+strong decentralizing influence, some purifying influx of emotion and
+activity.
+
+She had walked on quickly through the clear October twilight, which was
+still saturated with the after-glow of a vivid sunset; and a few minutes
+brought her to the village stretching along the turnpike beyond the
+Lynbrook gates. The new post-office dominated the row of shabby houses
+and "stores" set disjointedly under reddening maples, and its arched
+doorway formed the centre of Lynbrook's evening intercourse.
+
+Justine, hastening toward the knot of loungers on the threshold, had no
+consciousness of anything outside of her own thoughts; and as she
+mounted the steps she was surprised to see Dr. Wyant detach himself from
+the group and advance to meet her.
+
+"May I post your letter?" he asked, lifting his hat.
+
+His gesture uncovered the close-curling hair of a small
+delicately-finished head just saved from effeminacy by the vigorous jut
+of heavy eye-brows meeting above full grey eyes. The eyes again, at
+first sight, might have struck one as too expressive, or as expressing
+things too purely decorative for the purposes of a young country doctor
+with a growing practice; but this estimate was corrected by an
+unexpected abruptness in their owner's voice and manner. Perhaps the
+final impression produced on a close observer by Dr. Stephen Wyant would
+have been that the contradictory qualities of which he was compounded
+had not yet been brought into equilibrium by the hand of time.
+
+Justine, in reply to his question, had drawn back a step, slipping her
+letter into the breast of her jacket.
+
+"That is hardly worth while, since it was addressed to you," she
+answered with a slight smile as she turned to descend the post-office
+steps.
+
+Wyant, still carrying his hat, and walking with quick uneven steps,
+followed her in silence till they had passed beyond earshot of the
+loiterers on the threshold; then, in the shade of the maple boughs, he
+pulled up and faced her.
+
+"You've written to say that I may come tomorrow?"
+
+Justine hesitated. "Yes," she said at length.
+
+"Good God! You give royally!" he broke out, pushing his hand with a
+nervous gesture through the thin dark curls on his forehead.
+
+Justine laughed, with a trace of nervousness in her own tone. "And you
+talk--well, imperially! Aren't you afraid to bankrupt the language?"
+
+"What do you mean?" he said, staring.
+
+"What do _you_ mean? I have merely said that I would see you
+tomorrow----"
+
+"Well," he retorted, "that's enough for my happiness!"
+
+She sounded her light laugh again. "I'm glad to know you're so easily
+pleased."
+
+"I'm not! But you couldn't have done a cruel thing without a struggle;
+and since you're ready to give me my answer tomorrow, I know it can't
+be a cruel one."
+
+They had begun to walk onward as they talked, but at this she halted.
+"Please don't take that tone. I dislike sentimentality!" she exclaimed,
+with a tinge of imperiousness that was a surprise to her own ears.
+
+It was not the first time in the course of her friendship with Stephen
+Wyant that she had been startled by this intervention of something
+within her that resisted and almost resented his homage. When they were
+apart, she was conscious only of the community of interests and
+sympathies that had first drawn them together. Why was it then--since
+his looks were of the kind generally thought to stand a suitor in good
+stead--that whenever they had met of late she had been subject to these
+rushes of obscure hostility, the half-physical, half-moral shrinking
+from some indefinable element in his nature against which she was
+constrained to defend herself by perpetual pleasantry and evasion?
+
+To Wyant, at any rate, the answer was not far to seek. His pale face
+reflected the disdain in hers as he returned ironically: "A thousand
+pardons; I know I'm not always in the key."
+
+"The key?"
+
+"I haven't yet acquired the Lynbrook tone. You must make allowances for
+my lack of opportunity."
+
+The retort on Justine's lips dropped to silence, as though his words
+had in fact brought an answer to her inward questioning. Could it be
+that he was right--that her shrinking from him was the result of an
+increased sensitiveness to faults of taste that she would once have
+despised herself for noticing? When she had first known him, in her work
+at St. Elizabeth's some three years earlier, his excesses of manner had
+seemed to her merely the boyish tokens of a richness of nature not yet
+controlled by experience. Though Wyant was somewhat older than herself
+there had always been an element of protection in her feeling for him,
+and it was perhaps this element which formed the real ground of her
+liking. It was, at any rate, uppermost as she returned, with a softened
+gleam of mockery: "Since you are so sure of my answer I hardly know why
+I should see you tomorrow."
+
+"You mean me to take it now?" he exclaimed.
+
+"I don't mean you to take it at all till it's given--above all not to
+take it for granted!"
+
+His jutting brows drew together again. "Ah, I can't split hairs with
+you. Won't you put me out of my misery?"
+
+She smiled, but not unkindly. "Do you want an anaesthetic?"
+
+"No--a clean cut with the knife!"
+
+"You forget that we're not allowed to despatch hopeless cases--more's
+the pity!"
+
+He flushed to the roots of his thin hair. "Hopeless cases? That's it,
+then--that's my answer?"
+
+They had reached the point where, at the farther edge of the straggling
+settlement, the tiled roof of the railway-station fronted the
+post-office cupola; and the shriek of a whistle now reminded Justine
+that the spot was not propitious to private talk. She halted a moment
+before speaking.
+
+"I have no answer to give you now but the one in my note--that I'll see
+you tomorrow."
+
+"But if you're sure of knowing tomorrow you must know now!"
+
+Their eyes met, his eloquently pleading, hers kind but still
+impenetrable. "If I knew now, you should know too. Please be content
+with that," she rejoined.
+
+"How can I be, when a day may make such a difference? When I know that
+every influence about you is fighting against me?"
+
+The words flashed a refracted light far down into the causes of her own
+uncertainty.
+
+"Ah," she said, drawing a little away from him, "I'm not so sure that I
+don't like a fight!"
+
+"Is that why you won't give in?" He moved toward her with a despairing
+gesture. "If I let you go now, you're lost to me!"
+
+She stood her ground, facing him with a quick lift of the head. "If you
+don't let me go I certainly am," she said; and he drew back, as if
+conscious of the uselessness of the struggle. His submission, as usual,
+had a disarming effect on her irritation, and she held out her hand.
+"Come tomorrow at three," she said, her voice and manner suddenly
+seeming to give back the hope she had withheld from him.
+
+He seized on her hand with an inarticulate murmur; but at the same
+moment a louder whistle and the thunder of an approaching train reminded
+her of the impossibility of prolonging the scene. She was ordinarily
+careless of appearances, but while she was Mrs. Amherst's guest she did
+not care to be seen romantically loitering through the twilight with
+Stephen Wyant; and she freed herself with a quick goodbye.
+
+He gave her a last look, hesitating and imploring; then, in obedience to
+her gesture, he turned away and strode off in the opposite direction.
+
+As soon as he had left her she began to retrace her steps toward
+Lynbrook House; but instead of traversing the whole length of the
+village she passed through a turnstile in the park fencing, taking a
+more circuitous but quieter way home.
+
+She walked on slowly through the dusk, wishing to give herself time to
+think over her conversation with Wyant. Now that she was alone again, it
+seemed to her that the part she had played had been both inconsistent
+and undignified. When she had written to Wyant that she would see him on
+the morrow she had done so with the clear understanding that she was to
+give, at that meeting, a definite answer to his offer of marriage; and
+during her talk with Bessy she had suddenly, and, as it seemed to her,
+irrevocably, decided that the answer should be favourable. From the
+first days of her acquaintance with Wyant she had appreciated his
+intelligence and had been stimulated by his zeal for his work. He had
+remained only six months at Saint Elizabeth's, and though his feeling
+for her had even then been manifest, it had been kept from expression by
+the restraint of their professional relation, and by her absorption in
+her duties. It was only when they had met again at Lynbrook that she had
+begun to feel a personal interest in him. His youthful promise seemed
+nearer fulfillment than she had once thought possible, and the contrast
+he presented to the young men in Bessy's train was really all in his
+favour. He had gained in strength and steadiness without losing his high
+flashes of enthusiasm; and though, even now, she was not in love with
+him, she began to feel that the union of their common interests might
+create a life full and useful enough to preclude the possibility of
+vague repinings. It would, at any rate, take her out of the stagnant
+circle of her present existence, and restore her to contact with the
+fruitful energies of life.
+
+All this had seemed quite clear when she wrote her letter; why, then,
+had she not made use of their chance encounter to give her answer,
+instead of capriciously postponing it? The act might have been that of a
+self-conscious girl in her teens; but neither inexperience nor coquetry
+had prompted it. She had merely yielded to the spirit of resistance that
+Wyant's presence had of late aroused in her; and the possibility that
+this resistance might be due to some sense of his social defects, his
+lack of measure and facility, was so humiliating that for a moment she
+stood still in the path, half-meaning to turn back and overtake him----
+
+As she paused she was surprised to hear a man's step behind her; and the
+thought that it might be Wyant's brought about another revulsion of
+feeling. What right had he to pursue her in this way, to dog her steps
+even into the Lynbrook grounds? She was sure that his persistent
+attentions had already attracted the notice of Bessy's visitors; and
+that he should thus force himself on her after her dismissal seemed
+suddenly to make their whole relation ridiculous.
+
+She turned about to rebuke him, and found herself face to face with John
+Amherst.
+
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+
+AMHERST, on leaving the train at Lynbrook, had paused in doubt on the
+empty platform. His return was unexpected, and no carriage awaited him;
+but he caught the signal of the village cab-driver's ready whip.
+Amherst, however, felt a sudden desire to postpone the moment of
+arrival, and consigning his luggage to the cab he walked away toward the
+turnstile through which Justine had passed. In thus taking the longest
+way home he was yielding another point to his reluctance. He knew that
+at that hour his wife's visitors might still be assembled in the
+drawing-room, and he wished to avoid making his unannounced entrance
+among them.
+
+It was not till now that he felt the embarrassment of such an arrival.
+For some time past he had known that he ought to go back to Lynbrook,
+but he had not known how to tell Bessy that he was coming. Lack of habit
+made him inexpert in the art of easy transitions, and his inability to
+bridge over awkward gaps had often put him at a disadvantage with his
+wife and her friends. He had not yet learned the importance of observing
+the forms which made up the daily ceremonial of their lives, and at
+present there was just enough soreness between himself and Bessy to make
+such observances more difficult than usual.
+
+There had been no open estrangement, but peace had been preserved at the
+cost of a slowly accumulated tale of grievances on both sides. Since
+Amherst had won his point about the mills, the danger he had foreseen
+had been realized: his victory at Westmore had been a defeat at
+Lynbrook. It would be too crude to say that his wife had made him pay
+for her public concession by the private disregard of his wishes; and if
+something of this sort had actually resulted, his sense of fairness told
+him that it was merely the natural reaction of a soft nature against the
+momentary strain of self-denial. At first he had been hardly aware of
+this consequence of his triumph. The joy of being able to work his will
+at Westmore obscured all lesser emotions; and his sentiment for Bessy
+had long since shrunk into one of those shallow pools of feeling which a
+sudden tide might fill, but which could never again be the deep
+perennial spring from which his life was fed.
+
+The need of remaining continuously at Hanaford while the first changes
+were making had increased the strain of the situation. He had never
+expected that Bessy would stay there with him--had perhaps, at heart,
+hardly wished it--and her plan of going to the Adirondacks with Miss
+Brent seemed to him a satisfactory alternative to the European trip she
+had renounced. He felt as relieved as though some one had taken off his
+hands the task of amusing a restless child, and he let his wife go
+without suspecting that the moment might be a decisive one between them.
+But it had not occurred to Bessy that any one could regard six weeks in
+the Adirondacks as an adequate substitute for a summer abroad. She felt
+that her sacrifice deserved recognition, and personal devotion was the
+only form of recognition which could satisfy her. She had expected
+Amherst to join her at the camp, but he did not come; and when she went
+back to Long Island she did not stop to see him, though Hanaford lay in
+her way. At the moment of her return the work at the mills made it
+impossible for him to go to Lynbrook; and thus the weeks drifted on
+without their meeting.
+
+At last, urged by his mother, he had gone down to Long Island for a
+night; but though, on that occasion, he had announced his coming, he
+found the house full, and the whole party except Mr. Langhope in the act
+of starting off to a dinner in the neighbourhood. He was of course
+expected to go too, and Bessy appeared hurt when he declared that he was
+too tired and preferred to remain with Mr. Langhope; but she did not
+suggest staying at home herself, and drove off in a mood of exuberant
+gaiety. Amherst had been too busy all his life to know what intricacies
+of perversion a sentimental grievance may develop in an unoccupied mind,
+and he saw in Bessy's act only a sign of indifference. The next day she
+complained to him of money difficulties, as though surprised that her
+income had been suddenly cut down; and when he reminded her that she had
+consented of her own will to this temporary reduction, she burst into
+tears and accused him of caring only for Westmore.
+
+He went away exasperated by her inconsequence, and bills from Lynbrook
+continued to pour in on him. In the first days of their marriage, Bessy
+had put him in charge of her exchequer, and she was too indolent--and at
+heart perhaps too sensitive--to ask him to renounce the charge. It was
+clear to him, therefore, how little she was observing the spirit of
+their compact, and his mind was tormented by the anticipation of
+financial embarrassments. He wrote her a letter of gentle expostulation,
+but in her answer she ignored his remonstrance; and after that silence
+fell between them.
+
+The only way to break this silence was to return to Lynbrook; but now
+that he had come back, he did not know what step to take next. Something
+in the atmosphere of his wife's existence seemed to paralyze his
+will-power. When all about her spoke a language so different from his
+own, how could he hope to make himself heard? He knew that her family
+and her immediate friends--Mr. Langhope, the Gaineses, Mrs. Ansell and
+Mr. Tredegar--far from being means of communication, were so many
+sentinels ready to raise the drawbridge and drop the portcullis at his
+approach. They were all in league to stifle the incipient feelings he
+had roused in Bessy, to push her back into the deadening routine of her
+former life, and the only voice that might conceivably speak for him was
+Miss Brent's.
+
+The "case" which, unexpectedly presented to her by one of the Hope
+Hospital physicians, had detained Justine at Hanaford during the month
+of June, was the means of establishing a friendship between herself and
+Amherst. They did not meet often, or get to know each other very well;
+but he saw her occasionally at his mother's and at Mrs. Dressel's, and
+once he took her out to Westmore, to consult her about the emergency
+hospital which was to be included among the first improvements there.
+The expedition had been memorable to both; and when, some two weeks
+later, Bessy wrote suggesting that she should take Miss Brent to the
+Adirondacks, it seemed to Amherst that there was no one whom he would
+rather have his wife choose as her companion.
+
+He was much too busy at the time to cultivate or analyze his feeling for
+Miss Brent; he rested vaguely in the thought of her, as of the "nicest"
+girl he had ever met, and was frankly pleased when accident brought them
+together; but the seeds left in both their minds by these chance
+encounters had not yet begun to germinate.
+
+So unperceived had been their gradual growth in intimacy that it was a
+surprise to Amherst to find himself suddenly thinking of her as a means
+of communication with his wife; but the thought gave him such
+encouragement that, when he saw Justine in the path before him he went
+toward her with unusual eagerness.
+
+Justine, on her part, felt an equal pleasure. She knew that Bessy did
+not expect her husband, and that his prolonged absence had already been
+the cause of malicious comment at Lynbrook; and she caught at the hope
+that this sudden return might betoken a more favourable turn of affairs.
+
+"Oh, I am so glad to see you!" she exclaimed; and her tone had the
+effect of completing his reassurance, his happy sense that she would
+understand and help him.
+
+"I wanted to see you too," he began confusedly; then, conscious of the
+intimacy of the phrase, he added with a slight laugh: "The fact is, I'm
+a culprit looking for a peace-maker."
+
+"A culprit?"
+
+"I've been so tied down at the mills that I didn't know, till yesterday,
+just when I could break away; and in the hurry of leaving--" He paused
+again, checked by the impossibility of uttering, to the girl before him,
+the little conventional falsehoods which formed the small currency of
+Bessy's circle. Not that any scruple of probity restrained him: in
+trifling matters he recognized the usefulness of such counters in the
+social game; but when he was with Justine he always felt the obscure
+need of letting his real self be seen.
+
+"I was stupid enough not to telegraph," he said, "and I am afraid my
+wife will think me negligent: she often has to reproach me for my sins
+of omission, and this time I know they are many."
+
+The girl received this in silence, less from embarrassment than from
+surprise; for she had already guessed that it was as difficult for
+Amherst to touch, even lightly, on his private affairs, as it was
+instinctive with his wife to pour her grievances into any willing ear.
+Justine's first thought was one of gratification that he should have
+spoken, and of eagerness to facilitate the saying of whatever he wished
+to say; but before she could answer he went on hastily: "The fact is,
+Bessy does not know how complicated the work at Westmore is; and when I
+caught sight of you just now I was thinking that you are the only one of
+her friends who has any technical understanding of what I am trying to
+do, and who might consequently help her to see how hard it is for me to
+take my hand from the plough."
+
+Justine listened gravely, longing to cry out her comprehension and
+sympathy, but restrained by the sense that the moment was a critical
+one, where impulse must not be trusted too far. It was quite possible
+that a reaction of pride might cause Amherst to repent even so guarded
+an avowal; and if that happened, he might never forgive her for having
+encouraged him to speak. She looked up at him with a smile.
+
+"Why not tell Bessy yourself? Your understanding of the case is a good
+deal clearer than mine or any one else's."
+
+"Oh, Bessy is tired of hearing about it from me; and besides--" She
+detected a shade of disappointment in his tone, and was sorry she had
+said anything which might seem meant to discourage his confidence. It
+occurred to her also that she had been insincere in not telling him at
+once that she had already been let into the secret of his domestic
+differences: she felt the same craving as Amherst for absolute openness
+between them.
+
+"I know," she said, almost timidly, "that Bessy has not been quite
+content of late to have you give so much time to Westmore, and perhaps
+she herself thinks it is because the work there does not interest her;
+but I believe it is for a different reason."
+
+"What reason?" he asked with a look of surprise.
+
+"Because Westmore takes you from her; because she thinks you are happier
+there than at Lynbrook."
+
+The day had faded so rapidly that it was no longer possible for the
+speakers to see each other's faces, and it was easier for both to
+communicate through the veil of deepening obscurity.
+
+"But, good heavens, she might be there with me--she's as much needed
+there as I am!" Amherst exclaimed.
+
+"Yes; but you must remember that it's against all her habits--and
+against the point of view of every one about her--that she should lead
+that kind of life; and meanwhile----"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Meanwhile, isn't it expedient that you should, a little more, lead
+hers?"
+
+Always the same answer to his restless questioning! His mother's answer,
+the answer of Bessy and her friends. He had somehow hoped that the girl
+at his side would find a different solution to the problem, and his
+disappointment escaped in a bitter exclamation.
+
+"But Westmore is my life--hers too, if she knew it! I can't desert it
+now without being as false to her as to myself!"
+
+As he spoke, he was overcome once more by the hopelessness of trying to
+put his case clearly. How could Justine, for all her quickness and
+sympathy, understand a situation of which the deeper elements were
+necessarily unknown to her? The advice she gave him was natural enough,
+and on her lips it seemed not the counsel of a shallow expediency, but
+the plea of compassion and understanding. But she knew nothing of the
+long struggle for mutual adjustment which had culminated in this crisis
+between himself and his wife, and she could therefore not see that, if
+he yielded his point, and gave up his work at Westmore, the concession
+would mean not renewal but destruction. He felt that he should hate
+Bessy if he won her back at that price; and the violence of his feeling
+frightened him. It was, in truth, as he had said, his own life that he
+was fighting for. If he gave up Westmore he could not fall back on the
+futile activities of Lynbrook, and fate might yet have some lower
+alternative to offer. He could trust to his own strength and
+self-command while his energies had a normal outlet; but idleness and
+self-indulgence might work in him like a dangerous drug.
+
+Justine kept steadily to her point. "Westmore must be foremost to both
+of you in time; I don't see how either of you can escape that. But the
+realization of it must come to Bessy through _you_, and for that reason
+I think that you ought to be more patient--that you ought even to put
+the question aside for a time and enter a little more into her life
+while she is learning to understand yours." As she ended, it seemed to
+her that what she had said was trite and ineffectual, and yet that it
+might have passed the measure of discretion; and, torn between two
+doubts, she added hastily: "But you have done just that in coming back
+now--that is the real solution of the problem."
+
+While she spoke they passed out of the wood-path they had been
+following, and rounding a mass of shrubbery emerged on the lawn below
+the terraces. The long bulk of the house lay above them, dark against
+the lingering gleam of the west, with brightly-lit windows marking its
+irregular outline; and the sight produced in Amherst and Justine a vague
+sense of helplessness and constraint. It was impossible to speak with
+the same freedom, confronted by that substantial symbol of the accepted
+order, which seemed to glare down on them in massive disdain of their
+puny efforts to deflect the course of events: and Amherst, without
+reverting to her last words, asked after a moment if his wife had many
+guests.
+
+He listened in silence while Justine ran over the list of names--the
+Telfer girls and their brother, Mason Winch and Westy Gaines, a cluster
+of young bridge-playing couples, and, among the last arrivals, the
+Fenton Carburys and Ned Bowfort. The names were all familiar to
+Amherst--he knew they represented the flower of week-end fashion; but he
+did not remember having seen the Carburys among his wife's guests, and
+his mind paused on the name, seeking to regain some lost impression
+connected with it. But it evoked, like the others, merely the confused
+sense of stridency and unrest which he had brought away from his last
+Lynbrook visit; and this reminiscence made him ask Miss Brent, when her
+list was ended, if she did not think that so continuous a succession of
+visitors was too tiring for Bessy.
+
+"I sometimes think it tires her more than she knows; but I hope she can
+be persuaded to take better care of herself now that Mrs. Ansell has
+come back."
+
+Amherst halted abruptly. "Is Mrs. Ansell here?"
+
+"She arrived from Europe today."
+
+"And Mr. Langhope too, I suppose?"
+
+"Yes. He came from Newport about ten days ago."
+
+Amherst checked himself, conscious that his questions betrayed the fact
+that he and his wife no longer wrote to each other. The same thought
+appeared to strike Justine, and they walked across the lawn in silence,
+hastening their steps involuntarily, as though to escape the oppressive
+weight of the words which had passed between them. But Justine was
+unwilling that this fruitless sense of oppression should be the final
+outcome of their talk; and when they reached the upper terrace she
+paused and turned impulsively to Amherst. As she did so, the light from
+an uncurtained window fell on her face, which glowed with the inner
+brightness kindled in it by moments of strong feeling.
+
+"I am sure of one thing--Bessy will be very, very glad that you have
+come," she exclaimed.
+
+"Thank you," he answered.
+
+Their hands met mechanically, and she turned away and entered the house.
+
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+
+BESSY had not seen her little girl that day, and filled with compunction
+by Justine's reminder, she hastened directly to the school-room.
+
+Of late, in certain moods, her maternal tenderness had been clouded by a
+sense of uneasiness in the child's presence, for Cicely was the argument
+most effectually used by Mr. Langhope and Mr. Tredegar in their efforts
+to check the triumph of Amherst's ideas. Bessy, still unable to form an
+independent opinion on the harassing question of the mills, continued to
+oscillate between the views of the contending parties, now regarding
+Cicely as an innocent victim and herself as an unnatural mother,
+sacrificing her child's prospects to further Amherst's enterprise, and
+now conscious of a vague animosity against the little girl, as the chief
+cause of the dissensions which had so soon clouded the skies of her
+second marriage. Then again, there were moments when Cicely's rosy bloom
+reminded her bitterly of the child she had lost--the son on whom her
+ambitions had been fixed. It seemed to her now that if their boy had
+lived she might have kept Amherst's love and have played a more
+important part in his life; and brooding on the tragedy of the child's
+sickly existence she resented the contrast of Cicely's brightness and
+vigour. The result was that in her treatment of her daughter she
+alternated between moments of exaggerated devotion and days of neglect,
+never long happy away from the little girl, yet restless and
+self-tormenting in her presence.
+
+After her talk with Justine she felt more than usually disturbed, as she
+always did when her unprofitable impulses of self-exposure had subsided.
+Bessy's mind was not made for introspection, and chance had burdened it
+with unintelligible problems. She felt herself the victim of
+circumstances to which her imagination attributed the deliberate malice
+that children ascribe to the furniture they run against in playing. This
+helped her to cultivate a sense of helpless injury and to disdain in
+advance the advice she was perpetually seeking. How absurd it was, for
+instance, to suppose that a girl could understand the feelings of a
+married woman! Justine's suggestion that she should humble herself still
+farther to Amherst merely left in Bessy's mind a rankling sense of being
+misunderstood and undervalued by those to whom she turned in her
+extremity, and she said to herself, in a phrase that sounded well in her
+own ears, that sooner or later every woman must learn to fight her
+battles alone.
+
+In this mood she entered the room where Cicely was at supper with her
+governess, and enveloped the child in a whirl of passionate caresses.
+But Cicely had inherited the soberer Westmore temper, and her mother's
+spasmodic endearments always had a repressive effect on her. She
+dutifully returned a small fraction of Bessy's kisses, and then, with an
+air of relief, addressed herself once more to her bread and marmalade.
+
+"You don't seem a bit glad to see me!" Bessy exclaimed, while the little
+governess made a nervous pretence of being greatly amused at this
+prodigious paradox, and Cicely, setting down her silver mug, asked
+judicially: "Why should I be gladder than other days? It isn't a
+birthday."
+
+This Cordelia-like answer cut Bessy to the quick. "You horrid child to
+say such a cruel thing when you know I love you better and better every
+minute! But you don't care for me any longer because Justine has taken
+you away from me!"
+
+This last charge had sprung into her mind in the act of uttering it, but
+now that it was spoken it instantly assumed the proportions of a fact,
+and seemed to furnish another justification for her wretchedness. Bessy
+was not naturally jealous, but her imagination was thrall to the spoken
+word, and it gave her a sudden incomprehensible relief to associate
+Justine with the obscure causes of her suffering.
+
+"I know she's cleverer than I am, and more amusing, and can tell you
+about plants and animals and things...and I daresay she tells you how
+tiresome and stupid I am...."
+
+She sprang up suddenly, abashed by Cicely's astonished gaze, and by the
+governess's tremulous attempt to continue to treat the scene as one of
+"Mamma's" most successful pleasantries.
+
+"Don't mind me--my head aches horribly. I think I'll rush off for a
+gallop on Impulse before dinner. Miss Dill, Cicely's nails are a
+sight--I suppose that comes of grubbing up wild-flowers."
+
+And with this parting shot at Justine's pursuits she swept out of the
+school-room, leaving pupil and teacher plunged in a stricken silence
+from which Cicely at length emerged to say, with the candour that Miss
+Dill dreaded more than any punishable offense: "Mother's prettiest--but
+I do like Justine the best."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was nearly dark when Bessy mounted the horse which had been hastily
+saddled in response to her order; but it was her habit to ride out alone
+at all hours, and of late nothing but a hard gallop had availed to quiet
+her nerves. Her craving for occupation had increased as her life became
+more dispersed and agitated, and the need to fill every hour drove her
+to excesses of bodily exertion, since other forms of activity were
+unknown to her.
+
+As she cantered along under the twilight sky, with a strong sea-breeze
+in her face, the rush of air and the effort of steadying her nervous
+thoroughbred filled her with a glow of bodily energy from which her
+thoughts emerged somewhat cleansed of their bitterness.
+
+She had been odious to poor little Cicely, for whom she now felt a
+sudden remorseful yearning which almost made her turn her horse's head
+homeward, that she might dash upstairs and do penance beside the child's
+bed. And that she should have accused Justine of taking Cicely from her!
+It frightened her to find herself thinking evil of Justine. Bessy, whose
+perceptions were keen enough in certain directions, knew that her second
+marriage had changed her relation to all her former circle of friends.
+Though they still rallied about her, keeping up the convenient habit of
+familiar intercourse, she had begun to be aware that their view of her
+had in it an element of criticism and compassion. She had once fancied
+that Amherst's good looks, and the other qualities she had seen in him,
+would immediately make him free of the charmed circle in which she
+moved; but she was discouraged by his disregard of his opportunities,
+and above all by the fundamental differences in his view of life. He was
+never common or ridiculous, but she saw that he would never acquire the
+small social facilities. He was fond of exercise, but it bored him to
+talk of it. The men's smoking-room anecdotes did not amuse him, he was
+unmoved by the fluctuations of the stock-market, he could not tell one
+card from another, and his perfunctory attempts at billiards had once
+caused Mr. Langhope to murmur, in his daughter's hearing: "Ah, that's
+the test--I always said so!"
+
+Thus debarred from what seemed to Bessy the chief points of contact with
+life, how could Amherst hope to impose himself on minds versed in these
+larger relations? As the sense of his social insufficiency grew on her,
+Bessy became more sensitive to that latent criticism of her marriage
+which--intolerable thought!--involved a judgment on herself. She was
+increasingly eager for the approval and applause of her little audience,
+yet increasingly distrustful of their sincerity, and more miserably
+persuaded that she and her husband were the butt of some of their most
+effective stories. She knew also that rumours of the disagreement about
+Westmore were abroad, and the suspicion that Amherst's conduct was the
+subject of unfriendly comment provoked in her a reaction of loyalty to
+his ideas....
+
+From this turmoil of conflicting influences only her friendship with
+Justine Brent remained secure. Though Justine's adaptability made it
+easy for her to fit into the Lynbrook life, Bessy knew that she stood as
+much outside of it as Amherst. She could never, for instance, be
+influenced by what Maria Ansell and the Gaineses and the Telfers
+thought. She had her own criteria of conduct, unintelligible to Bessy,
+but giving her an independence of mind on which her friend leaned in a
+kind of blind security. And that even her faith in Justine should
+suddenly be poisoned by a jealous thought seemed to prove that the
+consequences of her marriage were gradually infecting her whole life.
+Bessy could conceive of masculine devotion only as subservient to its
+divinity's least wish, and she argued that if Amherst had really loved
+her he could not so lightly have disturbed the foundations of her world.
+And so her tormented thoughts, perpetually circling on themselves,
+reverted once more to their central grievance--the failure of her
+marriage. If her own love had died out it would have been much
+simpler--she was surrounded by examples of the mutual evasion of a
+troublesome tie. There was Blanche Carbury, for instance, with whom she
+had lately struck up an absorbing friendship...it was perfectly clear
+that Blanche Carbury wondered how much more she was going to stand! But
+it was the torment of Bessy's situation that it involved a radical
+contradiction, that she still loved Amherst though she could not forgive
+him for having married her.
+
+Perhaps what she most suffered from was his too-prompt acceptance of the
+semi-estrangement between them. After nearly three years of marriage she
+had still to learn that it was Amherst's way to wrestle with the angel
+till dawn, and then to go about his other business. Her own mind could
+revolve in the same grievance as interminably as a squirrel in its
+wheel, and her husband's habit of casting off the accepted fact seemed
+to betoken poverty of feeling. If only he had striven a little harder to
+keep her--if, even now, he would come back to her, and make her feel
+that she was more to him than those wretched mills!
+
+When she turned her mare toward Lynbrook, the longing to see Amherst was
+again uppermost. He had not written for weeks--she had been obliged to
+tell Maria Ansell that she knew nothing of his plans, and it mortified
+her to think that every one was aware of his neglect. Yet, even now, if
+on reaching the house she should find a telegram to say that he was
+coming, the weight of loneliness would be lifted, and everything in life
+would seem different....
+
+Her high-strung mare, scenting the homeward road, and excited by the
+fantastic play of wayside lights and shadows, swept her along at a wild
+gallop with which the fevered rush of her thoughts kept pace, and when
+she reached the house she dropped from the saddle with aching wrists and
+brain benumbed.
+
+She entered by a side door, to avoid meeting any one, and ran upstairs
+at once, knowing that she had barely time to dress for dinner. As she
+opened the door of her sitting-room some one rose from the chair by the
+fire, and she stood still, facing her husband....
+
+It was the moment both had desired, yet when it came it found them
+tongue-tied and helpless.
+
+Bessy was the first to speak. "When did you get here? You never wrote me
+you were coming!"
+
+Amherst advanced toward her, holding out his hand. "No; you must forgive
+me. I have been very busy," he said.
+
+Always the same excuse! The same thrusting at her of the hateful fact
+that Westmore came first, and that she must put up with whatever was
+left of his time and thoughts!
+
+"You are always too busy to let me hear from you," she said coldly, and
+the hand which had sprung toward his fell back to her side.
+
+Even then, if he had only said frankly: "It was too difficult--I didn't
+know how," the note of truth would have reached and moved her; but he
+had striven for the tone of ease and self-restraint that was habitual
+among her friends, and as usual his attempt had been a failure.
+
+"I am sorry--I'm a bad hand at writing," he rejoined; and his evil
+genius prompted him to add: "I hope my coming is not inconvenient?"
+
+The colour rose to Bessy's face. "Of course not. But it must seem rather
+odd to our visitors that I should know so little of your plans."
+
+At this he humbled himself still farther. "I know I don't think enough
+about appearances--I'll try to do better the next time."
+
+Appearances! He spoke as if she had been reproaching him for a breach of
+etiquette...it never occurred to him that the cry came from her
+humiliated heart! The tide of warmth that always enveloped her in his
+presence was receding, and in its place a chill fluid seemed to creep up
+slowly to her throat and lips.
+
+In Amherst, meanwhile, the opposite process was taking place. His wife
+was still to him the most beautiful woman in the world, or rather,
+perhaps, the only woman to whose beauty his eyes had been opened. That
+beauty could never again penetrate to his heart, but it still touched
+his senses, not with passion but with a caressing kindliness, such as
+one might feel for the bright movements of a bird or a kitten. It seemed
+to plead with him not to ask of her more than she could give--to be
+content with the outward grace and not seek in it an inner meaning. He
+moved toward her again, and took her passive hands in his.
+
+"You look tired. Why do you ride so late?"
+
+"Oh, I just wanted to give Impulse a gallop. I hadn't time to take her
+out earlier, and if I let the grooms exercise her they'll spoil her
+mouth."
+
+Amherst frowned. "You ought not to ride that mare alone at night. She
+shies at everything after dark."
+
+"She's the only horse I care for--the others are all cows," she
+murmured, releasing her hands impatiently.
+
+"Well, you must take me with you the next time you ride her."
+
+She softened a little, in spite of herself. Riding was the only
+amusement he cared to share with her, and the thought of a long gallop
+across the plains at his side brought back the warmth to her veins.
+
+"Yes, we'll go tomorrow. How long do you mean to stay?" she asked,
+looking up at him eagerly.
+
+He was pleased that she should wish to know, yet the question
+embarrassed him, for it was necessary that he should be back at Westmore
+within three days, and he could not put her off with an evasion.
+
+Bessy saw his hesitation, and her colour rose again. "I only asked," she
+explained, "because there is to be a fancy ball at the Hunt Club on the
+twentieth, and I thought of giving a big dinner here first."
+
+Amherst did not understand that she too had her inarticulate moments,
+and that the allusion to the fancy ball was improvised to hide an
+eagerness to which he had been too slow in responding. He thought she
+had enquired about his plans only that he might not again interfere with
+the arrangements of her dinner-table. If that was all she cared about,
+it became suddenly easy to tell her that he could not stay, and he
+answered lightly: "Fancy balls are a little out of my line; but at any
+rate I shall have to be back at the mills the day after tomorrow."
+
+The disappointment brought a rush of bitterness to her lips. "The day
+after tomorrow? It seems hardly worth while to have come so far for two
+days!"
+
+"Oh, I don't mind the journey--and there are one or two matters I must
+consult you about."
+
+There could hardly have been a more ill-advised answer, but Amherst was
+reckless now. If she cared for his coming only that he might fill a
+place at a fancy-dress dinner, he would let her see that he had come
+only because he had to go through the form of submitting to her certain
+measures to be taken at Westmore.
+
+Bessy was beginning to feel the physical reaction of her struggle with
+the mare. The fatigue which at first had deadened her nerves now woke
+them to acuter sensibility, and an appealing word from her husband would
+have drawn her to his arms. But his answer seemed to drive all the blood
+back to her heart.
+
+"I don't see why you still go through the form of consulting me about
+Westmore, when you have always done just as you pleased there, without
+regard to me or Cicely."
+
+Amherst made no answer, silenced by the discouragement of hearing the
+same old grievance on her lips; and she too seemed struck, after she had
+spoken, by the unprofitableness of such retorts.
+
+"It doesn't matter--of course I'll do whatever you wish," she went on
+listlessly. "But I could have sent my signature, if that is all you came
+for----"
+
+"Thanks," said Amherst coldly. "I shall remember that the next time."
+
+They stood silent for a moment, he with his eyes fixed on her, she with
+averted head, twisting her riding-whip between her fingers; then she
+said suddenly: "We shall be late for dinner," and passing into her
+dressing-room she closed the door.
+
+Amherst roused himself as she disappeared.
+
+"Bessy!" he exclaimed, moving toward her; but as he approached the door
+he heard her maid's voice within, and turning away he went to his own
+room.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Bessy came down late to dinner, with vivid cheeks and an air of
+improvised ease; and the manner of her entrance, combined with her
+husband's unannounced arrival, produced in their observant guests the
+sense of latent complications. Mr. Langhope, though evidently unaware of
+his son-in-law's return till they greeted each other in the
+drawing-room, was too good a card-player to betray surprise, and Mrs.
+Ansell outdid herself in the delicate art of taking everything for
+granted; but these very dissimulations sharpened the perception of the
+other guests, whom long practice had rendered expert in interpreting
+such signs.
+
+Of all this Justine Brent was aware; and conscious also that, by every
+one but herself, the suspected estrangement between the Amhersts was
+regarded as turning merely on the question of money. To the greater
+number of persons present there was, in fact, no other conceivable
+source of conjugal discord, since every known complication could be
+adjusted by means of the universal lubricant. It was this unanimity of
+view which bound together in the compactness of a new feudalism the
+members of Bessy Amherst's world; which supplied them with their
+pass-words and social tests, and defended them securely against the
+insidious attack of ideas.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Genius of History, capriciously directing the antics of its
+marionettes, sometimes lets the drama languish through a series of
+unrelated episodes, and then, suddenly quickening the pace, packs into
+one scene the stuff of a dozen. The chance meeting of Amherst and
+Justine, seemingly of no significance to either, contained the germ of
+developments of which both had begun to be aware before the evening was
+over. Their short talk--the first really intimate exchange of words
+between them--had the effect of creating a sense of solidarity that grew
+apace in the atmosphere of the Lynbrook dinner-table.
+
+Justine was always reluctant to take part in Bessy's week-end dinners,
+but as she descended the stairs that evening she did not regret having
+promised to be present. She frankly wanted to see Amherst again--his
+tone, his view of life, reinforced her own convictions, restored her
+faith in the reality and importance of all that Lynbrook ignored and
+excluded. Her extreme sensitiveness to surrounding vibrations of thought
+and feeling told her, as she glanced at him between the flowers and
+candles of the long dinner-table, that he too was obscurely aware of the
+same effect; and it flashed across her that they were unconsciously
+drawn together by the fact that they were the only two strangers in the
+room. Every one else had the same standpoint, spoke the same language,
+drew on the same stock of allusions, used the same weights and measures
+in estimating persons and actions. Between Mr. Langhope's indolent
+acuteness of mind and the rudimentary processes of the rosy Telfers
+there was a difference of degree but not of kind. If Mr. Langhope viewed
+the spectacle more objectively, it was not because he had outlived the
+sense of its importance, but because years of experience had
+familiarized him with its minutest details; and this familiarity with
+the world he lived in had bred a profound contempt for any other.
+
+In no way could the points of contact between Amherst and Justine Brent
+have been more vividly brought out than by their tacit exclusion from
+the currents of opinion about them. Amherst, seated in unsmiling
+endurance at the foot of the table, between Mrs. Ansell, with her
+carefully-distributed affabilities, and Blanche Carbury, with her
+reckless hurling of conversational pebbles, seemed to Justine as much of
+a stranger as herself among the people to whom his marriage had
+introduced him. So strongly did she feel the sense of their common
+isolation that it was no surprise to her, when the men reappeared in the
+drawing-room after dinner, to have her host thread his way, between the
+unfolding bridge-tables, straight to the corner where she sat. Amherst's
+methods in the drawing-room were still as direct as in the cotton-mill.
+He always went up at once to the person he sought, without preliminary
+waste of tactics; and on this occasion Justine, without knowing what had
+passed between himself and Bessy, suspected from the appearance of both
+that their talk had resulted in increasing Amherst's desire to be with
+some one to whom he could speak freely and naturally on the subject
+nearest his heart.
+
+She began at once to question him about Westmore, and the change in his
+face showed that his work was still a refuge from all that made life
+disheartening and unintelligible. Whatever convictions had been thwarted
+or impaired in him, his faith in the importance of his task remained
+unshaken; and the firmness with which he held to it filled Justine with
+a sense of his strength. The feeling kindled her own desire to escape
+again into the world of deeds, yet by a sudden reaction it checked the
+growing inclination for Stephen Wyant that had resulted from her revolt
+against Lynbrook. Here was a man as careless as Wyant of the minor
+forms, yet her appreciation of him was not affected by the lack of
+adaptability that she accused herself of criticizing in her suitor. She
+began to see that it was not the sense of Wyant's social deficiencies
+that had held her back; and the discovery at once set free her judgment
+of him, enabling her to penetrate to the real causes of her reluctance.
+She understood now that the flaw she felt was far deeper than any defect
+of manner. It was the sense in him of something unstable and
+incalculable, something at once weak and violent, that was brought to
+light by the contrast of Amherst's quiet resolution. Here was a man whom
+no gusts of chance could deflect from his purpose; while she felt that
+the career to which Wyant had so ardently given himself would always be
+at the mercy of his passing emotions.
+
+As the distinction grew clearer, Justine trembled to think that she had
+so nearly pledged herself, without the excuse of love, to a man whose
+failings she could judge so lucidly.... But had she ever really thought
+of marrying Wyant? While she continued to talk with Amherst such a
+possibility became more and more remote, till she began to feel it was
+no more than a haunting dream. But her promise to see Wyant the next
+day reminded her of the nearness of her peril. How could she have played
+with her fate so lightly--she, who held her life so dear because she
+felt in it such untried powers of action and emotion? She continued to
+listen to Amherst's account of his work, with enough outward
+self-possession to place the right comment and put the right question,
+yet conscious only of the quiet strength she was absorbing from his
+presence, of the way in which his words, his voice, his mere nearness
+were slowly steadying and clarifying her will.
+
+In the smoking-room, after the ladies had gone upstairs, Amherst
+continued to acquit himself mechanically of his duties, against the
+incongruous back-ground of his predecessor's remarkable
+sporting-prints--for it was characteristic of his relation to Lynbrook
+that his life there was carried on in the setting of foils and
+boxing-gloves, firearms and racing-trophies, which had expressed Dick
+Westmore's ideals. Never very keenly alive to his material surroundings,
+and quite unconscious of the irony of this proximity, Amherst had come
+to accept his wife's guests as unquestioningly as their background, and
+with the same sense of their being an inevitable part of his new life.
+Their talk was no more intelligible to him than the red and yellow
+hieroglyphics of the racing-prints, and he smoked in silence while Mr.
+Langhope discoursed to Westy Gaines on the recent sale of Chinese
+porcelains at which he had been lucky enough to pick up the set of Ming
+for his daughter, and Mason Winch expounded to a group of languid
+listeners the essential dependence of the labouring-man on the
+prosperity of Wall Street. In a retired corner, Ned Bowfort was
+imparting facts of a more personal nature to a chosen following who
+hailed with suppressed enjoyment the murmured mention of proper names;
+and now and then Amherst found himself obliged to say to Fenton Carbury,
+who with one accord had been left on his hands, "Yes, I understand the
+flat-tread tire is best," or, "There's a good deal to be said for the
+low tension magneto----"
+
+But all the while his conscious thoughts were absorbed in the
+remembrance of his talk with Justine Brent. He had left his wife's
+presence in that state of moral lassitude when the strongest hopes droop
+under the infection of indifference and hostility, and the effort of
+attainment seems out of all proportion to the end in view; but as he
+listened to Justine all his energies sprang to life again. Here at last
+was some one who felt the urgency of his task: her every word and look
+confirmed her comment of the afternoon: "Westmore must be foremost to
+you both in time--I don't see how either of you can escape it."
+
+She saw it, as he did, to be the special outlet offered for the
+expression of what he was worth to the world; and with the knowledge
+that one other person recognized his call, it sounded again loudly in
+his heart. Yes, he would go on, patiently and persistently, conquering
+obstacles, suffering delay, enduring criticism--hardest of all, bearing
+with his wife's deepening indifference and distrust. Justine had said
+"Westmore must be foremost to you both," and he would prove that she was
+right--spite of the powers leagued against him he would win over Bessy
+in the end!
+
+Those observers who had been struck by the length and animation of Miss
+Brent's talk with her host--and among whom Mrs. Ansell and Westy Gaines
+were foremost--would hardly have believed how small a part her personal
+charms had played in attracting him. Amherst was still under the power
+of the other kind of beauty--the soft graces personifying the first
+triumph of sex in his heart--and Justine's dark slenderness could not at
+once dispel the milder image. He watched her with pleasure while she
+talked, but her face interested him only as the vehicle of her
+ideas--she looked as a girl must look who felt and thought as she did.
+He was aware that everything about her was quick and fine and supple,
+and that the muscles of character lay close to the surface of feeling;
+but the interpenetration of spirit and flesh that made her body seem
+like the bright projection of her mind left him unconscious of anything
+but the oneness of their thoughts.
+
+So these two, in their hour of doubt, poured strength into each other's
+hearts, each unconscious of what they gave, and of its hidden power of
+renewing their own purposes.
+
+
+
+
+XVIII
+
+
+IF Mr. Langhope had ever stooped to such facile triumphs as that summed
+up in the convenient "I told you so," he would have loosed the phrase on
+Mrs. Ansell in the course of a colloquy which these two, the next
+afternoon, were at some pains to defend from the incursions of the
+Lynbrook house-party.
+
+Mrs. Ansell was the kind of woman who could encircle herself with
+privacy on an excursion-boat and create a nook in an hotel drawing-room,
+but it taxed even her ingenuity to segregate herself from the Telfers.
+When the feat was accomplished, and it became evident that Mr. Langhope
+could yield himself securely to the joys of confidential discourse, he
+paused on the brink of disclosure to say: "It's as well I saved that
+Ming from the ruins."
+
+"What ruins?" she exclaimed, her startled look giving him the full
+benefit of the effect he was seeking to produce.
+
+He addressed himself deliberately to the selecting and lighting of a
+cigarette. "Truscomb is down and out--resigned, 'the wise it call.' And
+the alterations at Westmore are going to cost a great deal more than my
+experienced son-in-law expected. This is Westy's morning budget--he and
+Amherst had it out last night. I tell my poor girl that at least she'll
+lose nothing when the _bibelots_ I've bought for her go up the spout."
+
+Mrs. Ansell received this with a troubled countenance. "What has become
+of Bessy? I've not seen her since luncheon."
+
+"No. She and Blanche Carbury have motored over to dine with the Nick
+Ledgers at Islip."
+
+"Did you see her before she left?"
+
+"For a moment, but she said very little. Westy tells me that Amherst
+hints at leasing the New York house. One can understand that she's left
+speechless."
+
+Mrs. Ansell, at this, sat bolt upright. "The New York house?" But she
+broke off to add, with seeming irrelevance: "If you knew how I detest
+Blanche Carbury!"
+
+Mr. Langhope made a gesture of semi-acquiescence. "She is not the friend
+I should have chosen for Bessy--but we know that Providence makes use of
+strange instruments."
+
+"Providence and Blanche Carbury?" She stared at him. "Ah, you are
+profoundly corrupt!"
+
+"I have the coarse masculine habit of looking facts in the face.
+Woman-like, you prefer to make use of them privately, and cut them when
+you meet in public."
+
+"Blanche is not the kind of fact I should care to make use of under any
+circumstances whatever!"
+
+"No one asks you to. Simply regard her as a force of nature--let her
+alone, and don't put up too many lightning-rods."
+
+She raised her eyes to his face. "Do you really mean that you want Bessy
+to get a divorce?"
+
+"Your style is elliptical, dear Maria; but divorce does not frighten me
+very much. It has grown almost as painless as modern dentistry."
+
+"It's our odious insensibility that makes it so!"
+
+Mr. Langhope received this with the mildness of suspended judgment. "How
+else, then, do you propose that Bessy shall save what is left of her
+money?"
+
+"I would rather see her save what is left of her happiness. Bessy will
+never be happy in the new way."
+
+"What do you call the new way?"
+
+"Launching one's boat over a human body--or several, as the case may
+be!"
+
+"But don't you see that, as an expedient to bring this madman to
+reason----"
+
+"I've told you that you don't understand him!"
+
+Mr. Langhope turned on her with what would have been a show of temper in
+any one less provided with shades of manner. "Well, then, explain him,
+for God's sake!"
+
+"I might explain him by saying that she's still in love with him."
+
+"Ah, if you're still imprisoned in the old formulas!"
+
+Mrs. Ansell confronted him with a grave face. "Isn't that precisely what
+Bessy is? Isn't she one of the most harrowing victims of the plan of
+bringing up our girls in the double bondage of expediency and unreality,
+corrupting their bodies with luxury and their brains with sentiment, and
+leaving them to reconcile the two as best they can, or lose their souls
+in the attempt?"
+
+Mr. Langhope smiled. "I may observe that, with my poor child so early
+left alone to me, I supposed I was doing my best in committing her
+guidance to some of the most admirable women I know."
+
+"Of whom I was one--and not the least lamentable example of the system!
+Of course the only thing that saves us from their vengeance," Mrs.
+Ansell added, "is that so few of them ever stop to think...."
+
+"And yet, as I make out, it's precisely what you would have Bessy do!"
+
+"It's what neither you nor I can help her doing. You've given her just
+acuteness enough to question, without consecutiveness enough to explain.
+But if she must perish in the struggle--and I see no hope for her--"
+cried Mrs. Ansell, starting suddenly and dramatically to her feet, "at
+least let her perish defending her ideals and not denying them--even if
+she has to sell the New York house and all your china pots into the
+bargain!"
+
+Mr. Langhope, rising also, deprecatingly lifted his hands, "If that's
+what you call saving me from her vengeance--sending the crockery
+crashing round my ears!" And, as she turned away without any pretense of
+capping his pleasantry, he added, with a gleam of friendly malice: "I
+suppose you're going to the Hunt ball as Cassandra?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Amherst, that morning, had sought out his wife with the definite resolve
+to efface the unhappy impression of their previous talk. He blamed
+himself for having been too easily repelled by her impatience. As the
+stronger of the two, with the power of a fixed purpose to sustain him,
+he should have allowed for the instability of her impulses, and above
+all for the automatic influences of habit.
+
+Knowing that she did not keep early hours he delayed till ten o'clock to
+present himself at her sitting-room door, but the maid who answered his
+knock informed him that Mrs. Amherst was not yet up.
+
+His reply that he would wait did not appear to hasten the leisurely
+process of her toilet, and he had the room to himself for a full
+half-hour. Many months had passed since he had spent so long a time in
+it, and though habitually unobservant of external details, he now found
+an outlet for his restlessness in mechanically noting the intimate
+appurtenances of Bessy's life. He was at first merely conscious of a
+soothing harmony of line and colour, extending from the blurred tints of
+the rug to the subdued gleam of light on old picture-frames and on the
+slender flanks of porcelain vases; but gradually he began to notice how
+every chair and screen and cushion, and even every trifling utensil on
+the inlaid writing-desk, had been chosen with reference to the whole
+composition, and to the minutest requirements of a fastidious leisure. A
+few months ago this studied setting, if he had thought of it at all,
+would have justified itself as expressing the pretty woman's natural
+affinity with pretty toys; but now it was the cost of it that struck
+him. He was beginning to learn from Bessy's bills that no commodity is
+taxed as high as beauty, and the beauty about him filled him with sudden
+repugnance, as the disguise of the evil influences that were separating
+his wife's life from his.
+
+But with her entrance he dismissed the thought, and tried to meet her as
+if nothing stood in the way of their full communion. Her hair, still wet
+from the bath, broke from its dryad-like knot in dusky rings and spirals
+threaded with gold, and from her loose flexible draperies, and her whole
+person as she moved, there came a scent of youth and morning freshness.
+Her beauty touched him, and made it easier for him to humble himself.
+
+"I was stupid and disagreeable last night. I can never say what I want
+when I have to count the minutes, and I've come back now for a quiet
+talk," he began.
+
+A shade of distrust passed over Bessy's face. "About business?" she
+asked, pausing a few feet away from him.
+
+"Don't let us give it that name!" He went up to her and drew her two
+hands into his. "You used to call it our work--won't you go back to that
+way of looking at it?"
+
+Her hands resisted his pressure. "I didn't know, then, that it was going
+to be the only thing you cared for----"
+
+But for her own sake he would not let her go on. "Some day I shall make
+you see how much my caring for it means my caring for you. But
+meanwhile," he urged, "won't you overcome your aversion to the subject,
+and bear with it as my work, if you no longer care to think of it as
+yours?"
+
+Bessy, freeing herself, sat down on the edge of the straight-backed
+chair near the desk, as though to mark the parenthetical nature of the
+interview.
+
+"I know you think me stupid--but wives are not usually expected to go
+into all the details of their husband's business. I have told you to do
+whatever you wish at Westmore, and I can't see why that is not enough."
+
+Amherst looked at her in surprise. Something in her quick mechanical
+utterance suggested that not only the thought but the actual words she
+spoke had been inspired, and he fancied he heard in them an echo of
+Blanche Carbury's tones. Though Bessy's intimacy with Mrs. Carbury was
+of such recent date, fragments of unheeded smoking-room gossip now
+recurred to confirm the vague antipathy which Amherst had felt for her
+the previous evening.
+
+"I know that, among your friends, wives are not expected to interest
+themselves in their husbands' work, and if the mills were mine I should
+try to conform to the custom, though I should always think it a pity
+that the questions that fill a man's thoughts should be ruled out of his
+talk with his wife; but as it is, I am only your representative at
+Westmore, and I don't see how we can help having the subject come up
+between us."
+
+Bessy remained silent, not as if acquiescing in his plea, but as though
+her own small stock of arguments had temporarily failed her; and he went
+on, enlarging on his theme with a careful avoidance of technical terms,
+and with the constant effort to keep the human and personal side of the
+question before her.
+
+She listened without comment, her eyes fixed on a little jewelled
+letter-opener which she had picked up from the writing-table, and which
+she continued to turn in her fingers while he spoke.
+
+The full development of Amherst's plans at Westmore, besides resulting,
+as he had foreseen, in Truscomb's resignation, and in Halford Gaines's
+outspoken resistance to the new policy, had necessitated a larger
+immediate outlay of capital than the first estimates demanded, and
+Amherst, in putting his case to Bessy, was prepared to have her meet it
+on the old ground of the disapproval of all her advisers. But when he
+had ended she merely said, without looking up from the toy in her hand:
+"I always expected that you would need a great deal more money than you
+thought."
+
+The comment touched him at his most vulnerable point. "But you see why?
+You understand how the work has gone on growing--?"
+
+His wife lifted her head to glance at him for a moment. "I am not sure
+that I understand," she said indifferently; "but if another loan is
+necessary, of course I will sign the note for it."
+
+The words checked his reply by bringing up, before he was prepared to
+deal with it, the other and more embarrassing aspect of the question. He
+had hoped to reawaken in Bessy some feeling for the urgency of his task
+before having to take up the subject of its cost; but her cold
+anticipation of his demands as part of a disagreeable business to be
+despatched and put out of mind, doubled the difficulty of what he had
+left to say; and it occurred to him that she had perhaps foreseen and
+reckoned on this result.
+
+He met her eyes gravely. "Another loan _is_ necessary; but if any proper
+provision is to be made for paying it back, your expenses will have to
+be cut down a good deal for the next few months."
+
+The blood leapt to Bessy's face. "My expenses? You seem to forget how
+much I've had to cut them down already."
+
+"The household bills certainly don't show it. They are increasing
+steadily, and there have been some very heavy incidental payments
+lately."
+
+"What do you mean by incidental payments?"
+
+"Well, there was the pair of cobs you bought last month----"
+
+She returned to a resigned contemplation of the letter-opener. "With
+only one motor, one must have more horses, of course."
+
+"The stables seemed to me fairly full before. But if you required more
+horses, I don't see why, at this particular moment, it was also
+necessary to buy a set of Chinese vases for twenty-five hundred
+dollars."
+
+Bessy, at this, lifted her head with an air of decision that surprised
+him. Her blush had faded as quickly as it came, and he noticed that she
+was pale to the lips.
+
+"I know you don't care about such things; but I had an exceptional
+chance of securing the vases at a low price--they are really worth
+twice as much--and Dick always wanted a set of Ming for the drawing-room
+mantelpiece."
+
+Richard Westmore's name was always tacitly avoided between them, for in
+Amherst's case the disagreeable sense of dependence on a dead man's
+bounty increased that feeling of obscure constraint and repugnance which
+any reminder of the first husband's existence is wont to produce in his
+successor.
+
+He reddened at the reply, and Bessy, profiting by an embarrassment which
+she had perhaps consciously provoked, went on hastily, and as if by
+rote: "I have left you perfectly free to do as you think best at the
+mills, but this perpetual discussion of my personal expenses is very
+unpleasant to me, as I am sure it must be to you, and in future I think
+it would be much better for us to have separate accounts."
+
+"Separate accounts?" Amherst echoed in genuine astonishment.
+
+"I should like my personal expenses to be under my own control again--I
+have never been used to accounting for every penny I spend."
+
+The vertical lines deepened between Amherst's brows. "You are of course
+free to spend your money as you like--and I thought you were doing so
+when you authorized me, last spring, to begin the changes at Westmore."
+
+Her lip trembled. "Do you reproach me for that? I didn't
+understand...you took advantage...."
+
+"Oh!" he exclaimed.
+
+At his tone the blood rushed back to her face. "It was my fault, of
+course--I only wanted to please you----"
+
+Amherst was silent, confronted by the sudden sense of his own
+responsibility. What she said was true--he had known, when he exacted
+the sacrifice, that she made it only to please him, on an impulse of
+reawakened feeling, and not from any real recognition of a larger duty.
+The perception of this made him answer gently: "I am willing to take any
+blame you think I deserve; but it won't help us now to go back to the
+past. It is more important that we should come to an understanding about
+the future. If by keeping your personal account separate, you mean that
+you wish to resume control of your whole income, then you ought to
+understand that the improvements at the mills will have to be dropped at
+once, and things there go back to their old state."
+
+She started up with an impatient gesture. "Oh, I should like never to
+hear of the mills again!"
+
+He looked at her a moment in silence. "Am I to take that as your
+answer?"
+
+She walked toward her door without returning his look. "Of course," she
+murmured, "you will end by doing as you please."
+
+The retort moved him, for he heard in it the cry of her wounded pride.
+He longed to be able to cry out in return that Westmore was nothing to
+him, that all he asked was to see her happy.... But it was not true, and
+his manhood revolted from the deception. Besides, its effect would be
+only temporary--would wear no better than her vain efforts to simulate
+an interest in his work. Between them, forever, were the insurmountable
+barriers of character, of education, of habit--and yet it was not in him
+to believe that any barrier was insurmountable.
+
+"Bessy," he exclaimed, following her, "don't let us part in this
+way----"
+
+She paused with her hand on her dressing-room door. "It is time to dress
+for church," she objected, turning to glance at the little gilt clock on
+the chimney-piece.
+
+"For church?" Amherst stared, wondering that at such a crisis she should
+have remained detached enough to take note of the hour.
+
+"You forget," she replied, with an air of gentle reproof, "that before
+we married I was in the habit of going to church every Sunday."
+
+"Yes--to be sure. Would you not like me to go with you?" he rejoined
+gently, as if roused to the consciousness of another omission in the
+long list of his social shortcomings; for church-going, at Lynbrook, had
+always struck him as a purely social observance.
+
+But Bessy had opened the door of her dressing-room. "I much prefer that
+you should do what you like," she said as she passed from the room.
+
+Amherst made no farther attempt to detain her, and the door closed on
+her as though it were closing on a chapter in their lives.
+
+"That's the end of it!" he murmured, picking up the letter-opener she
+had been playing with, and twirling it absently in his fingers. But
+nothing in life ever ends, and the next moment a new question confronted
+him--how was the next chapter to open?
+
+
+
+
+BOOK III
+
+
+
+
+XIX
+
+
+IT was late in October when Amherst returned to Lynbrook.
+
+He had begun to learn, in the interval, the lesson most difficult to his
+direct and trenchant nature: that compromise is the law of married life.
+On the afternoon of his talk with his wife he had sought her out,
+determined to make a final effort to clear up the situation between
+them; but he learned that, immediately after luncheon, she had gone off
+in the motor with Mrs. Carbury and two men of the party, leaving word
+that they would probably not be back till evening. It cost Amherst a
+struggle, when he had humbled himself to receive this information from
+the butler, not to pack his portmanteau and take the first train for
+Hanaford; but he was still under the influence of Justine Brent's words,
+and also of his own feeling that, at this juncture, a break between
+himself and Bessy would be final.
+
+He stayed on accordingly, enduring as best he might the mute observation
+of the household, and the gentle irony of Mr. Langhope's attentions; and
+before he left Lynbrook, two days later, a provisional understanding had
+been reached.
+
+His wife proved more firm than he had foreseen in her resolve to regain
+control of her income, and the talk between them ended in reciprocal
+concessions, Bessy consenting to let the town house for the winter and
+remain at Lynbrook, while Amherst agreed to restrict his improvements at
+Westmore to such alterations as had already been begun, and to reduce
+the expenditure on these as much as possible. It was virtually the
+defeat of his policy, and he had to suffer the decent triumph of the
+Gaineses, as well as the bitterer pang of his foiled aspirations. In
+spite of the opposition of the directors, he had taken advantage of
+Truscomb's resignation to put Duplain at the head of the mills; but the
+new manager's outspoken disgust at the company's change of plan made it
+clear that he would not remain long at Westmore, and it was one of the
+miseries of Amherst's situation that he could not give the reasons for
+his defection, but must bear to figure in Duplain's terse vocabulary as
+a "quitter." The difficulty of finding a new manager expert enough to
+satisfy the directors, yet in sympathy with his own social theories,
+made Amherst fear that Duplain's withdrawal would open the way for
+Truscomb's reinstatement, an outcome on which he suspected Halford
+Gaines had always counted; and this possibility loomed before him as the
+final defeat of his hopes.
+
+Meanwhile the issues ahead had at least the merit of keeping him busy.
+The task of modifying and retrenching his plans contrasted drearily with
+the hopeful activity of the past months, but he had an iron capacity for
+hard work under adverse conditions, and the fact of being too busy for
+thought helped him to wear through the days. This pressure of work
+relieved him, at first, from too close consideration of his relation to
+Bessy. He had yielded up his dearest hopes at her wish, and for the
+moment his renunciation had set a chasm between them; but gradually he
+saw that, as he was patching together the ruins of his Westmore plans,
+so he must presently apply himself to the reconstruction of his married
+life.
+
+Before leaving Lynbrook he had had a last word with Miss Brent; not a
+word of confidence--for the same sense of reserve kept both from any
+explicit renewal of their moment's intimacy--but one of those exchanges
+of commonplace phrase that circumstances may be left to charge with
+special meaning. Justine had merely asked if he were really leaving and,
+on his assenting, had exclaimed quickly: "But you will come back soon?"
+
+"I shall certainly come back," he answered; and after a pause he added:
+"I shall find you here? You will remain at Lynbrook?"
+
+On her part also there was a shade of hesitation; then she said with a
+smile: "Yes, I shall stay."
+
+His look brightened. "And you'll write me if anything--if Bessy should
+not be well?"
+
+"I will write you," she promised; and a few weeks after his return to
+Hanaford he had, in fact, received a short note from her. Its ostensible
+purpose was to reassure him as to Bessy's health, which had certainly
+grown stronger since Dr. Wyant had persuaded her, at the close of the
+last house-party, to accord herself a period of quiet; but (the writer
+added) now that Mr. Langhope and Mrs. Ansell had also left, the quiet
+was perhaps too complete, and Bessy's nerves were beginning to suffer
+from the reaction.
+
+Amherst had no difficulty in interpreting this brief communication. "I
+have succeeded in dispersing the people who are always keeping you and
+your wife apart; now is your chance: come and take it." That was what
+Miss Brent's letter meant; and his answer was a telegram to Bessy,
+announcing his return to Long Island.
+
+The step was not an easy one; but decisive action, however hard, was
+always easier to Amherst than the ensuing interval of readjustment. To
+come to Lynbrook had required a strong effort of will; but the effort of
+remaining there called into play less disciplined faculties.
+
+Amherst had always been used to doing things; now he had to resign
+himself to enduring a state of things. The material facilities of the
+life about him, the way in which the machinery of the great empty house
+ran on like some complex apparatus working in the void, increased the
+exasperation of his nerves. Dr. Wyant's suggestion--which Amherst
+suspected Justine of having prompted--that Mrs. Amherst should cancel
+her autumn engagements, and give herself up to a quiet outdoor life with
+her husband, seemed to present the very opportunity these two distracted
+spirits needed to find and repossess each other. But, though Amherst was
+grateful to Bessy for having dismissed her visitors--partly to please
+him, as he guessed--yet he found the routine of the establishment more
+oppressive than when the house was full. If he could have been alone
+with her in a quiet corner--the despised cottage at Westmore, even!--he
+fancied they might still have been brought together by restricted space
+and the familiar exigencies of life. All the primitive necessities which
+bind together, through their recurring daily wants, natures fated to
+find no higher point of union, had been carefully eliminated from the
+life at Lynbrook, where material needs were not only provided for but
+anticipated by a hidden mechanism that filled the house with the
+perpetual sense of invisible attendance. Though Amherst knew that he and
+Bessy could never meet in the region of great issues, he thought he
+might have regained the way to her heart, and found relief from his own
+inaction, in the small ministrations of daily life; but the next moment
+he smiled to picture Bessy in surroundings where the clocks were not
+wound of themselves and the doors did not fly open at her approach.
+Those thick-crowding cares and drudgeries which serve as merciful
+screens between so many discordant natures would have been as
+intolerable to her as was to Amherst the great glare of leisure in which
+he and she were now confronted.
+
+He saw that Bessy was in the state of propitiatory eagerness which
+always followed on her gaining a point in their long duel; and he could
+guess that she was tremulously anxious not only to make up to him, by
+all the arts she knew, for the sacrifice she had exacted, but also to
+conceal from every one the fact that, as Mr. Langhope bluntly put it, he
+had been "brought to terms." Amherst was touched by her efforts, and
+half-ashamed of his own inability to respond to them. But his mind,
+released from its normal preoccupations, had become a dangerous
+instrument of analysis and disintegration, and conditions which, a few
+months before, he might have accepted with the wholesome tolerance of
+the busy man, now pressed on him unendurably. He saw that he and his
+wife were really face to face for the first time since their marriage.
+Hitherto something had always intervened between them--first the spell
+of her grace and beauty, and the brief joy of her participation in his
+work; then the sorrow of their child's death, and after that the
+temporary exhilaration of carrying out his ideas at Westmore--but now
+that the last of these veils had been torn away they faced each other as
+strangers.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The habit of keeping factory hours always drove Amherst forth long
+before his wife's day began, and in the course of one of his early
+tramps he met Miss Brent and Cicely setting out for a distant swamp
+where rumour had it that a rare native orchid might be found. Justine's
+sylvan tastes had developed in the little girl a passion for such
+pillaging expeditions, and Cicely, who had discovered that her
+step-father knew almost as much about birds and squirrels as Miss Brent
+did about flowers, was not to be appeased till Amherst had scrambled
+into the pony-cart, wedging his long legs between a fern-box and a
+lunch-basket, and balancing a Scotch terrier's telescopic body across
+his knees.
+
+The season was so mild that only one or two light windless frosts had
+singed the foliage of oaks and beeches, and gilded the roadsides with a
+smooth carpeting of maple leaves. The morning haze rose like smoke from
+burnt-out pyres of sumach and sugar-maple; a silver bloom lay on the
+furrows of the ploughed fields; and now and then, as they drove on, the
+wooded road showed at its end a tarnished disk of light, where sea and
+sky were merged.
+
+At length they left the road for a winding track through scrub-oaks and
+glossy thickets of mountain-laurel; the track died out at the foot of a
+wooded knoll, and clambering along its base they came upon the swamp.
+There it lay in charmed solitude, shut in by a tawny growth of larch and
+swamp-maple, its edges burnt out to smouldering shades of russet,
+ember-red and ashen-grey, while the quaking centre still preserved a
+jewel-like green, where hidden lanes of moisture wound between islets
+tufted with swamp-cranberry and with the charred browns of fern and wild
+rose and bay. Sodden earth and decaying branches gave forth a strange
+sweet odour, as of the aromatic essences embalming a dead summer; and
+the air charged with this scent was so still that the snapping of
+witch-hazel pods, the drop of a nut, the leap of a startled frog,
+pricked the silence with separate points of sound.
+
+The pony made fast, the terrier released, and fern-box and lunch-basket
+slung over Amherst's shoulder, the three explorers set forth on their
+journey. Amherst, as became his sex, went first; but after a few
+absent-minded plunges into the sedgy depths between the islets, he was
+ordered to relinquish his command and fall to the rear, where he might
+perform the humbler service of occasionally lifting Cicely over
+unspannable gulfs of moisture.
+
+Justine, leading the way, guided them across the treacherous surface as
+fearlessly as a king-fisher, lighting instinctively on every
+grass-tussock and submerged tree-stump of the uncertain path. Now and
+then she paused, her feet drawn close on their narrow perch, and her
+slender body swaying over as she reached down for some rare growth
+detected among the withered reeds and grasses; then she would right
+herself again by a backward movement as natural as the upward spring of
+a branch--so free and flexible in all her motions that she seemed akin
+to the swaying reeds and curving brambles which caught at her as she
+passed.
+
+At length the explorers reached the mossy corner where the orchids grew,
+and Cicely, securely balanced on a fallen tree-trunk, was allowed to dig
+the coveted roots. When they had been packed away, it was felt that this
+culminating moment must be celebrated with immediate libations of jam
+and milk; and having climbed to a dry slope among the pepper-bushes, the
+party fell on the contents of the lunch-basket. It was just the hour
+when Bessy's maid was carrying her breakfast-tray, with its delicate
+service of old silver and porcelain, into the darkened bed-room at
+Lynbrook; but early rising and hard scrambling had whetted the appetites
+of the naturalists, and the nursery fare which Cicely spread before
+them seemed a sumptuous reward for their toil.
+
+"I do like this kind of picnic much better than the ones where mother
+takes all the footmen, and the mayonnaise has to be scraped off things
+before I can eat them," Cicely declared, lifting her foaming mouth from
+a beaker of milk.
+
+Amherst, lighting his pipe, stretched himself contentedly among the
+pepper-bushes, steeped in that unreflecting peace which is shed into
+some hearts by communion with trees and sky. He too was glad to get away
+from the footmen and the mayonnaise, and he imagined that his
+stepdaughter's exclamation summed up all the reasons for his happiness.
+The boyish wood-craft which he had cultivated in order to encourage the
+same taste in his factory lads came to life in this sudden return to
+nature, and he redeemed his clumsiness in crossing the swamp by spying a
+marsh-wren's nest that had escaped Justine, and detecting in a
+swiftly-flitting olive-brown bird a belated tanager in autumn incognito.
+
+Cicely sat rapt while he pictured the bird's winter pilgrimage, with
+glimpses of the seas and islands that fled beneath him till his long
+southern flight ended in the dim glades of the equatorial forests.
+
+"Oh, what a good life--how I should like to be a wander-bird, and look
+down people's chimneys twice a year!" Justine laughed, tilting her head
+back to catch a last glimpse of the tanager.
+
+The sun beamed full on their ledge from a sky of misty blue, and she had
+thrown aside her hat, uncovering her thick waves of hair, blue-black in
+the hollows, with warm rusty edges where they took the light. Cicely
+dragged down a plumy spray of traveller's joy and wound it above her
+friend's forehead; and thus wreathed, with her bright pallour relieved
+against the dusky autumn tints, Justine looked like a wood-spirit who
+had absorbed into herself the last golden juices of the year.
+
+She leaned back laughing against a tree-trunk, pelting Cicely with
+witch-hazel pods, making the terrier waltz for scraps of ginger-bread,
+and breaking off now and then to imitate, with her clear full notes, the
+call of some hidden marsh-bird, or the scolding chatter of a squirrel in
+the scrub-oaks.
+
+"Is that what you'd like most about the journey--looking down the
+chimneys?" Amherst asked with a smile.
+
+"Oh, I don't know--I should love it all! Think of the joy of skimming
+over half the earth--seeing it born again out of darkness every morning!
+Sometimes, when I've been up all night with a patient, and have seen the
+world _come back to me_ like that, I've been almost mad with its beauty;
+and then the thought that I've never seen more than a little corner of
+it makes me feel as if I were chained. But I think if I had wings I
+should choose to be a house-swallow; and then, after I'd had my fill of
+wonders, I should come back to my familiar corner, and my house full of
+busy humdrum people, and fly low to warn them of rain, and wheel up high
+to show them it was good haying weather, and know what was going on in
+every room in the house, and every house in the village; and all the
+while I should be hugging my wonderful big secret--the secret of
+snow-plains and burning deserts, and coral islands and buried
+cities--and should put it all into my chatter under the eaves, that the
+people in the house were always too busy to stop and listen to--and when
+winter came I'm sure I should hate to leave them, even to go back to my
+great Brazilian forests full of orchids and monkeys!"
+
+"But, Justine, in winter you could take care of the monkeys," the
+practical Cicely suggested.
+
+"Yes--and that would remind me of home!" Justine cried, swinging about
+to pinch the little girl's chin.
+
+She was in one of the buoyant moods when the spirit of life caught her
+in its grip, and shook and tossed her on its mighty waves as a sea-bird
+is tossed through the spray of flying rollers. At such moments all the
+light and music of the world seemed distilled into her veins, and forced
+up in bubbles of laughter to her lips and eyes. Amherst had never seen
+her thus, and he watched her with the sense of relaxation which the
+contact of limpid gaiety brings to a mind obscured by failure and
+self-distrust. The world was not so dark a place after all, if such
+springs of merriment could well up in a heart as sensitive as hers to
+the burden and toil of existence.
+
+"Isn't it strange," she went on with a sudden drop to gravity, "that the
+bird whose wings carry him farthest and show him the most wonderful
+things, is the one who always comes back to the eaves, and is happiest
+in the thick of everyday life?"
+
+Her eyes met Amherst's. "It seems to me," he said, "that you're like
+that yourself--loving long flights, yet happiest in the thick of life."
+
+She raised her dark brows laughingly. "So I imagine--but then you see
+I've never had the long flight!"
+
+Amherst smiled. "Ah, there it is--one never knows--one never says, _This
+is the moment_! because, however good it is, it always seems the door to
+a better one beyond. Faust never said it till the end, when he'd nothing
+left of all he began by thinking worth while; and then, with what a
+difference it was said!"
+
+She pondered. "Yes--but it _was_ the best, after all--the moment in
+which he had nothing left...."
+
+"Oh," Cicely broke in suddenly, "do look at the squirrel up there! See,
+father--he's off! Let's follow him!"
+
+As she crouched there, with head thrown back, and sparkling lips and
+eyes, her fair hair--of her mother's very hue--making a shining haze
+about her face, Amherst recalled the winter evening at Hopewood, when he
+and Bessy had tracked the grey squirrel under the snowy beeches.
+Scarcely three years ago--and how bitter memory had turned! A chilly
+cloud spread over his spirit, reducing everything once more to the
+leaden hue of reality....
+
+"It's too late for any more adventures--we must be going," he said.
+
+
+
+
+XX
+
+
+AMHERST'S morning excursions with his step-daughter and Miss Brent
+renewed themselves more than once. He welcomed any pretext for escaping
+from the unprofitable round of his thoughts, and these woodland
+explorations, with their gay rivalry of search for some rare plant or
+elusive bird, and the contact with the child's happy wonder, and with
+the morning brightness of Justine's mood, gave him his only moments of
+self-forgetfulness.
+
+But the first time that Cicely's chatter carried home an echo of their
+adventures, Amherst saw a cloud on his wife's face. Her resentment of
+Justine's influence over the child had long since subsided, and in the
+temporary absence of the governess she was glad to have Cicely amused;
+but she was never quite satisfied that those about her should have
+pursuits and diversions in which she did not share. Her jealousy did not
+concentrate itself on her husband and Miss Brent: Amherst had never
+shown any inclination for the society of other women, and if the
+possibility had been suggested to her, she would probably have said that
+Justine was not "in his style"--so unconscious is a pretty woman apt to
+be of the versatility of masculine tastes. But Amherst saw that she felt
+herself excluded from amusements in which she had no desire to join, and
+of which she consequently failed to see the purpose; and he gave up
+accompanying his stepdaughter.
+
+Bessy, as if in acknowledgment of his renunciation, rose earlier in
+order to prolong their rides together. Dr. Wyant had counselled her
+against the fatigue of following the hounds, and she instinctively
+turned their horses away from the course the hunt was likely to take;
+but now and then the cry of the pack, or the flash of red on a distant
+slope, sent the blood to her face and made her press her mare to a
+gallop. When they escaped such encounters she showed no great zest in
+the exercise, and their rides resolved themselves into a spiritless
+middle-aged jog along the autumn lanes. In the early days of their
+marriage the joy of a canter side by side had merged them in a community
+of sensation beyond need of speech; but now that the physical spell had
+passed they felt the burden of a silence that neither knew how to break.
+
+Once only, a moment's friction galvanized these lifeless rides. It was
+one morning when Bessy's wild mare Impulse, under-exercised and
+over-fed, suddenly broke from her control, and would have unseated her
+but for Amherst's grasp on the bridle.
+
+"The horse is not fit for you to ride," he exclaimed, as the hot
+creature, with shudders of defiance rippling her flanks, lapsed into
+sullen subjection.
+
+"It's only because I don't ride her enough," Bessy panted. "That new
+groom is ruining her mouth."
+
+"You must not ride her alone, then."
+
+"I shall not let that man ride her."
+
+"I say you must not ride her alone."
+
+"It's ridiculous to have a groom at one's heels!"
+
+"Nevertheless you must, if you ride Impulse."
+
+Their eyes met, and she quivered and yielded like the horse. "Oh, if you
+say so--" She always hugged his brief flashes of authority.
+
+"I do say so. You promise me?"
+
+"If you like----"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Amherst had made an attempt to occupy himself with the condition of
+Lynbrook, one of those slovenly villages, without individual character
+or the tradition of self-respect, which spring up in America on the
+skirts of the rich summer colonies. But Bessy had never given Lynbrook a
+thought, and he realized the futility of hoping to interest her in its
+mongrel population of day-labourers and publicans so soon after his
+glaring failure at Westmore. The sight of the village irritated him
+whenever he passed through the Lynbrook gates, but having perforce
+accepted the situation of prince consort, without voice in the
+government, he tried to put himself out of relation with all the
+questions which had hitherto engrossed him, and to see life simply as a
+spectator. He could even conceive that, under certain conditions, there
+might be compensations in the passive attitude; but unfortunately these
+conditions were not such as the life at Lynbrook presented.
+
+The temporary cessation of Bessy's week-end parties had naturally not
+closed her doors to occasional visitors, and glimpses of the autumnal
+animation of Long Island passed now and then across the Amhersts'
+horizon. Blanche Carbury had installed herself at Mapleside, a
+fashionable colony half-way between Lynbrook and Clifton, and even
+Amherst, unused as he was to noting the seemingly inconsecutive
+movements of idle people, could not but remark that her visits to his
+wife almost invariably coincided with Ned Bowfort's cantering over
+unannounced from the Hunt Club, where he had taken up his autumn
+quarters.
+
+There was something very likeable about Bowfort, to whom Amherst was
+attracted by the fact that he was one of the few men of Bessy's circle
+who knew what was going on in the outer world. Throughout an existence
+which one divined to have been both dependent and desultory, he had
+preserved a sense of wider relations and acquired a smattering of
+information to which he applied his only independent faculty, that of
+clear thought. He could talk intelligently and not too inaccurately of
+the larger questions which Lynbrook ignored, and a gay indifference to
+the importance of money seemed the crowning grace of his nature, till
+Amherst suddenly learned that this attitude of detachment was generally
+ascribed to the liberality of Mrs. Fenton Carbury. "Everybody knows she
+married Fenton to provide for Ned," some one let fall in the course of
+one of the smoking-room dissertations on which the host of Lynbrook had
+such difficulty in fixing his attention; and the speaker's
+matter-of-course tone, and the careless acquiescence of his hearers,
+were more offensive to Amherst than the fact itself. In the first flush
+of his disgust he classed the story as one of the lies bred in the
+malarious air of after-dinner gossip; but gradually he saw that, whether
+true or not, it had sufficient circulation to cast a shade of ambiguity
+on the persons concerned. Bessy alone seemed deaf to the rumours about
+her friend. There was something captivating to her in Mrs. Carbury's
+slang and noise, in her defiance of decorum and contempt of criticism.
+"I like Blanche because she doesn't pretend," was Bessy's vague
+justification of the lady; but in reality she was under the mysterious
+spell which such natures cast over the less venturesome imaginations of
+their own sex.
+
+Amherst at first tried to deaden himself to the situation, as part of
+the larger coil of miseries in which he found himself; but all his
+traditions were against such tolerance, and they were roused to revolt
+by the receipt of a newspaper clipping, sent by an anonymous hand,
+enlarging on the fact that the clandestine meetings of a fashionable
+couple were being facilitated by the connivance of a Long Island
+_chatelaine_. Amherst, hot from the perusal of this paragraph, sprang
+into the first train, and laid the clipping before his father-in-law,
+who chanced to be passing through town on his way from the Hudson to the
+Hot Springs.
+
+Mr. Langhope, ensconced in the cushioned privacy of the reading-room at
+the Amsterdam Club, where he had invited his son-in-law to meet him,
+perused the article with the cool eye of the collector to whom a new
+curiosity is offered.
+
+"I suppose," he mused, "that in the time of the Pharaohs the Morning
+Papyrus used to serve up this kind of thing"--and then, as the nervous
+tension of his hearer expressed itself in an abrupt movement, he added,
+handing back the clipping with a smile: "What do you propose to do? Kill
+the editor, and forbid Blanche and Bowfort the house?"
+
+"I mean to do something," Amherst began, suddenly chilled by the
+realization that his wrath had not yet shaped itself into a definite
+plan of action.
+
+"Well, it must be that or nothing," said Mr. Langhope, drawing his stick
+meditatively across his knee. "And, of course, if it's _that_, you'll
+land Bessy in a devil of a mess."
+
+Without giving his son-in-law time to protest, he touched rapidly but
+vividly on the inutility and embarrassment of libel suits, and on the
+devices whereby the legal means of vindication from such attacks may be
+turned against those who have recourse to them; and Amherst listened
+with a sickened sense of the incompatibility between abstract standards
+of honour and their practical application.
+
+"What should you do, then?" he murmured, as Mr. Langhope ended with his
+light shrug and a "See Tredegar, if you don't believe me"--; and his
+father-in-law replied with an evasive gesture: "Why, leave the
+responsibility where it belongs!"
+
+"Where it belongs?"
+
+"To Fenton Carbury, of course. Luckily it's nobody's business but his,
+and if he doesn't mind what is said about his wife I don't see how you
+can take up the cudgels for her without casting another shade on her
+somewhat chequered reputation."
+
+Amherst stared. "His wife? What do I care what's said of her? I'm
+thinking of mine!"
+
+"Well, if Carbury has no objection to his wife's meeting Bowfort, I
+don't see how you can object to her meeting him at your house. In such
+matters, as you know, it has mercifully been decided that the husband's
+attitude shall determine other people's; otherwise we should be deprived
+of the legitimate pleasure of slandering our neighbours." Mr. Langhope
+was always careful to temper his explanations with an "as you know": he
+would have thought it ill-bred to omit this parenthesis in elucidating
+the social code to his son-in-law.
+
+"Then you mean that I can do nothing?" Amherst exclaimed.
+
+Mr. Langhope smiled. "What applies to Carbury applies to you--by doing
+nothing you establish the fact that there's nothing to do; just as you
+create the difficulty by recognizing it." And he added, as Amherst sat
+silent: "Take Bessy away, and they'll have to see each other elsewhere."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Amherst returned to Lynbrook with the echoes of this casuistry in his
+brain. It seemed to him but a part of the ingenious system of evasion
+whereby a society bent on the undisturbed pursuit of amusement had
+contrived to protect itself from the intrusion of the disagreeable: a
+policy summed up in Mr. Langhope's concluding advice that Amherst should
+take his wife away. Yes--that was wealth's contemptuous answer to every
+challenge of responsibility: duty, sorrow and disgrace were equally to
+be evaded by a change of residence, and nothing in life need be faced
+and fought out while one could pay for a passage to Europe!
+
+In a calmer mood Amherst's sense of humour would have preserved him from
+such a view of his father-in-law's advice; but just then it fell like a
+spark on his smouldering prejudices. He was clear-sighted enough to
+recognize the obstacles to legal retaliation; but this only made him the
+more resolved to assert his will in his own house. He no longer paused
+to consider the possible effect of such a course on his already strained
+relations with his wife: the man's will rose in him and spoke.
+
+The scene between Bessy and himself was short and sharp; and it ended in
+a way that left him more than ever perplexed at the ways of her sex.
+Impatient of preamble, he had opened the attack with his ultimatum: the
+suspected couple were to be denied the house. Bessy flamed into
+immediate defence of her friend; but to Amherst's surprise she no
+longer sounded the note of her own rights. Husband and wife were
+animated by emotions deeper-seated and more instinctive than had ever
+before confronted them; yet while Amherst's resistance was gathering
+strength from the conflict, Bessy unexpectedly collapsed in tears and
+submission. She would do as he wished, of course--give up seeing
+Blanche, dismiss Bowfort, wash her hands, in short, of the imprudent
+pair--in such matters a woman needed a man's guidance, a wife must of
+necessity see with her husband's eyes; and she looked up into his
+through a mist of penitence and admiration....
+
+
+
+
+XXI
+
+
+IN the first reaction from her brief delusion about Stephen Wyant,
+Justine accepted with a good grace the necessity of staying on at
+Lynbrook. Though she was now well enough to return to her regular work,
+her talk with Amherst had made her feel that, for the present, she could
+be of more use by remaining with Bessy; and she was not sorry to have a
+farther period of delay and reflection before taking the next step in
+her life. These at least were the reasons she gave herself for deciding
+not to leave; and if any less ostensible lurked beneath, they were not
+as yet visible even to her searching self-scrutiny.
+
+At first she was embarrassed by the obligation of meeting Dr. Wyant, on
+whom her definite refusal had produced an effect for which she could not
+hold herself blameless. She had not kept her promise of seeing him on
+the day after their encounter at the post-office, but had written,
+instead, in terms which obviously made such a meeting unnecessary. But
+all her efforts to soften the abruptness of her answer could not
+conceal, from either herself or her suitor, that it was not the one she
+had led him to expect; and she foresaw that if she remained at Lynbrook
+she could not escape a scene of recrimination.
+
+When the scene took place, Wyant's part in it went far toward justifying
+her decision; yet his vehement reproaches contained a sufficient core of
+truth to humble her pride. It was lucky for her somewhat exaggerated
+sense of fairness that he overshot the mark by charging her with a
+coquetry of which she knew herself innocent, and laying on her the
+responsibility for any follies to which her rejection might drive him.
+Such threats, as a rule, no longer move the feminine imagination; yet
+Justine's pity for all forms of weakness made her recognize, in the very
+heat of her contempt for Wyant, that his reproaches were not the mere
+cry of wounded vanity but the appeal of a nature conscious of its lack
+of recuperative power. It seemed to her as though she had done him
+irreparable harm, and the feeling might have betrayed her into too
+great a show of compassion had she not been restrained by a salutary
+fear of the result.
+
+The state of Bessy's nerves necessitated frequent visits from her
+physician, but Justine, on these occasions, could usually shelter
+herself behind the professional reserve which kept even Wyant from any
+open expression of feeling. One day, however, they chanced to find
+themselves alone before Bessy's return from her ride. The servant had
+ushered Wyant into the library where Justine was writing, and when she
+had replied to his enquiries about his patient they found themselves
+face to face with an awkward period of waiting. Justine was too proud to
+cut it short by leaving the room; but Wyant answered her commonplaces at
+random, stirring uneasily to and fro between window and fireside, and at
+length halting behind the table at which she sat.
+
+"May I ask how much longer you mean to stay here?" he said in a low
+voice, his eyes darkening under the sullen jut of the brows.
+
+As she glanced up in surprise she noticed for the first time an odd
+contraction of his pupils, and the discovery, familiar enough in her
+professional experience, made her disregard the abruptness of his
+question and softened the tone in which she answered. "I hardly know--I
+suppose as long as I am needed."
+
+Wyant laughed. "Needed by whom? By John Amherst?"
+
+A moment passed before Justine took in the full significance of the
+retort; then the blood rushed to her face. "Yes--I believe both Mr. and
+Mrs. Amherst need me," she answered, keeping her eyes on his; and Wyant
+laughed again.
+
+"You didn't think so till Amherst came back from Hanaford. His return
+seems to have changed your plans in several respects."
+
+She looked away from him, for even now his eyes moved her to pity and
+self-reproach. "Dr. Wyant, you are not well; why do you wait to see Mrs.
+Amherst?" she said.
+
+He stared at her and then his glance fell. "I'm much obliged--I'm as
+well as usual," he muttered, pushing the hair from his forehead with a
+shaking hand; and at that moment the sound of Bessy's voice gave Justine
+a pretext for escape.
+
+In her own room she sank for a moment under a rush of self-disgust; but
+it soon receded before the saner forces of her nature, leaving only a
+residue of pity for the poor creature whose secret she had surprised.
+She had never before suspected Wyant of taking a drug, nor did she now
+suppose that he did so habitually; but to see him even momentarily under
+such an influence explained her instinctive sense of his weakness. She
+felt now that what would have been an insult on other lips was only a
+cry of distress from his; and once more she blamed herself and forgave
+him.
+
+But if she had been inclined to any morbidness of self-reproach she
+would have been saved from it by other cares. For the moment she was
+more concerned with Bessy's fate than with her own--her poor friend
+seemed to have so much more at stake, and so much less strength to bring
+to the defence of her happiness. Justine was always saved from any
+excess of self-compassion by the sense, within herself, of abounding
+forces of growth and self-renewal, as though from every lopped
+aspiration a fresh shoot of energy must spring; but she felt that Bessy
+had no such sources of renovation, and that every disappointment left an
+arid spot in her soul.
+
+Even without her friend's confidences, Justine would have had no
+difficulty in following the successive stages of the Amhersts' inner
+history. She knew that Amherst had virtually resigned his rule at
+Westmore, and that his wife, in return for the sacrifice, was trying to
+conform to the way of life she thought he preferred; and the futility of
+both attempts was more visible to Justine than to either of the two
+concerned. She saw that the failure of the Amhersts' marriage lay not in
+any accident of outward circumstances but in the lack of all natural
+points of contact. As she put it to herself, they met neither underfoot
+nor overhead: practical necessities united them no more than imaginative
+joys.
+
+There were moments when Justine thought Amherst hard to Bessy, as she
+suspected that he had once been hard to his mother--as the leader of men
+must perhaps always be hard to the hampering sex. Yet she did justice to
+his efforts to accept the irretrievable, and to waken in his wife some
+capacity for sharing in his minor interests, since she had none of her
+own with which to fill their days.
+
+Amherst had always been a reader; not, like Justine herself, a
+flame-like devourer of the page, but a slow absorber of its essence; and
+in the early days of his marriage he had fancied it would be easy to
+make Bessy share this taste. Though his mother was not a bookish woman,
+he had breathed at her side an air rich in allusion and filled with the
+bright presences of romance; and he had always regarded this commerce of
+the imagination as one of the normal conditions of life. The discovery
+that there were no books at Lynbrook save a few morocco "sets"
+imprisoned behind the brass trellisings of the library had been one of
+the many surprises of his new state. But in his first months with Bessy
+there was no room for books, and if he thought of the matter it was only
+in a glancing vision of future evenings, when he and she, in the calm
+afterglow of happiness, should lean together over some cherished page.
+Her lack of response to any reference outside the small circle of daily
+facts had long since dispelled that vision; but now that his own mind
+felt the need of inner sustenance he began to ask himself whether he
+might not have done more to rouse her imagination. During the long
+evenings over the library fire he tried to lead the talk to books, with
+a parenthesis, now and again, from the page beneath his eye; and Bessy
+met the experiment with conciliatory eagerness. She showed, in especial,
+a hopeful but misleading preference for poetry, leaning back with
+dreaming lids and lovely parted lips while he rolled out the immortal
+measures; but her outward signs of attention never ripened into any
+expression of opinion, or any after-allusion to what she heard, and
+before long he discovered that Justine Brent was his only listener. It
+was to her that the words he read began to be unconsciously addressed;
+her comments directed him in his choice of subjects, and the ensuing
+discussions restored him to some semblance of mental activity.
+
+Bessy, true to her new role of acquiescence, shone silently on this
+interchange of ideas; Amherst even detected in her a vague admiration
+for his power of conversing on subjects which she regarded as abstruse;
+and this childlike approval, combined with her submission to his will,
+deluded him with a sense of recovered power over her. He could not but
+note that the new phase in their relations had coincided with his first
+assertion of mastery; and he rashly concluded that, with the removal of
+the influences tending to separate them, his wife might gradually be won
+back to her earlier sympathy with his views.
+
+To accept this theory was to apply it; for nothing could long divert
+Amherst from his main purpose, and all the thwarted strength of his will
+was only gathering to itself fresh stores of energy. He had never been a
+skilful lover, for no woman had as yet stirred in him those feelings
+which call the finer perceptions into play; and there was no instinct to
+tell him that Bessy's sudden conformity to his wishes was as unreasoning
+as her surrender to his first kiss. He fancied that he and she were at
+length reaching some semblance of that moral harmony which should grow
+out of the physical accord, and that, poor and incomplete as the
+understanding was, it must lift and strengthen their relation.
+
+He waited till early winter had brought solitude to Lynbrook, dispersing
+the hunting colony to various points of the compass, and sending Mr.
+Langhope to Egypt and the Riviera, while Mrs. Ansell, as usual, took up
+her annual tour of a social circuit whose extreme points were marked by
+Boston and Baltimore--and then he made his final appeal to his wife.
+
+His pretext for speaking was a letter from Duplain, definitely
+announcing his resolve not to remain at Westmore. A year earlier
+Amherst, deeply moved by the letter, would have given it to his wife in
+the hope of its producing the same effect on her. He knew better now--he
+had learned her instinct for detecting "business" under every serious
+call on her attention. His only hope, as always, was to reach her
+through the personal appeal; and he put before her the fact of Duplain's
+withdrawal as the open victory of his antagonists. But he saw at once
+that even this could not infuse new life into the question.
+
+"If I go back he'll stay--I can hold him, can gain time till things take
+a turn," he urged.
+
+"Another? I thought they were definitely settled," she objected
+languidly.
+
+"No--they're not; they can't be, on such a basis," Amherst broke out
+with sudden emphasis. He walked across the room, and came back to her
+side with a determined face. "It's a delusion, a deception," he
+exclaimed, "to think I can stand by any longer and see things going to
+ruin at Westmore! If I've made you think so, I've unconsciously deceived
+us both. As long as you're my wife we've only one honour between us, and
+that honour is mine to take care of."
+
+"Honour? What an odd expression!" she said with a forced laugh, and a
+little tinge of pink in her cheek. "You speak as if I had--had made
+myself talked about --when you know I've never even looked at another
+man!"
+
+"Another man?" Amherst looked at her in wonder. "Good God! Can't you
+conceive of any vow to be kept between husband and wife but the
+primitive one of bodily fidelity? Heaven knows I've never looked at
+another woman--but, by my reading of our compact, I shouldn't be keeping
+faith with you if I didn't help you to keep faith with better things.
+And you owe me the same help--the same chance to rise through you, and
+not sink by you--else we've betrayed each other more deeply than any
+adultery could make us!"
+
+She had drawn back, turning pale again, and shrinking a little at the
+sound of words which, except when heard in church, she vaguely
+associated with oaths, slammed doors, and other evidences of
+ill-breeding; but Amherst had been swept too far on the flood of his
+indignation to be checked by such small signs of disapproval.
+
+"You'll say that what I'm asking you is to give me back the free use of
+your money. Well! Why not? Is it so much for a wife to give? I know you
+all think that a man who marries a rich woman forfeits his self-respect
+if he spends a penny without her approval. But that's because money is
+so sacred to you all! It seems to me the least important thing that a
+woman entrusts to her husband. What of her dreams and her hopes, her
+belief in justice and goodness and decency? If he takes those and
+destroys them, he'd better have had a mill-stone about his neck. But
+nobody has a word to say till he touches her dividends--then he's a
+calculating brute who has married her for her fortune!"
+
+He had come close again, facing her with outstretched hands,
+half-commanding, half in appeal. "Don't you see that I can't go on in
+this way--that I've _no right_ to let you keep me from Westmore?"
+
+Bessy was looking at him coldly, under the half-dropped lids of
+indifference. "I hardly know what you mean--you use such peculiar words;
+but I don't see why you should expect me to give up all the ideas I was
+brought up in. Our standards _are_ different--but why should yours
+always be right?"
+
+"You believed they were right when you married me--have they changed
+since then?"
+
+"No; but----" Her face seemed to harden and contract into a small
+expressionless mask, in which he could no longer read anything but blank
+opposition to his will.
+
+"You trusted my judgment not long ago," he went on, "when I asked you to
+give up seeing Mrs. Carbury----"
+
+She flushed, but with anger, not compunction. "It seems to me that
+should be a reason for your not asking me to make other sacrifices! When
+I gave up Blanche I thought you would see that I wanted to please
+you--and that you would do something for me in return...."
+
+Amherst interrupted her with a laugh. "Thank you for telling me your
+real reasons. I was fool enough to think you acted from conviction--not
+that you were simply striking a bargain----"
+
+He broke off, and they looked at each other with a kind of fear, each
+hearing between them the echo of irreparable words. Amherst's only clear
+feeling was that he must not speak again till he had beaten down the
+horrible sensation in his breast--the rage of hate which had him in its
+grip, and which made him almost afraid, while it lasted, to let his eyes
+rest on the fair weak creature before him. Bessy, too, was in the clutch
+of a mute anger which slowly poured its benumbing current around her
+heart. Strong waves of passion did not quicken her vitality: she grew
+inert and cold under their shock. Only one little pulse of self-pity
+continued to beat in her, trembling out at last on the cry: "Ah, I know
+it's not because you care so much for Westmore--it's only because you
+want to get away from me!"
+
+Amherst stared as if her words had flashed a light into the darkest
+windings of his misery. "Yes--I want to get away..." he said; and he
+turned and walked out of the room.
+
+He went down to the smoking-room, and ringing for a servant, ordered
+his horse to be saddled. The foot-man who answered his summons brought
+the afternoon's mail, and Amherst, throwing himself down on the sofa,
+began to tear open his letters while he waited.
+
+He ran through the first few without knowing what he read; but presently
+his attention was arrested by the hand-writing of a man he had known well
+in college, and who had lately come into possession of a large cotton-mill
+in the South. He wrote now to ask if Amherst could recommend a good
+manager--"not one of your old routine men, but a young fellow with the new
+ideas. Things have been in pretty bad shape down here," the writer added,
+"and now that I'm in possession I want to see what can be done to civilize
+the place"; and he went on to urge that Amherst should come down himself
+to inspect the mills, and propose such improvements as his experience
+suggested. "We've all heard of the great things you're doing at Westmore,"
+the letter ended; and Amherst cast it from him with a groan....
+
+It was Duplain's chance, of course...that was his first thought. He took
+up the letter and read it over. He knew the man who wrote--no
+sentimentalist seeking emotional variety from vague philanthropic
+experiments, but a serious student of social conditions, now
+unexpectedly provided with the opportunity to apply his ideas. Yes, it
+was Duplain's chance--if indeed it might not be his own!... Amherst sat
+upright, dazzled by the thought. Why Duplain--why not himself? Bessy had
+spoken the illuminating word--what he wanted was to get away--to get
+away at any cost! Escape had become his one thought: escape from the
+bondage of Lynbrook, from the bitter memory of his failure at Westmore;
+and here was the chance to escape back into life--into independence,
+activity and usefulness! Every atrophied faculty in him suddenly started
+from its torpor, and his brain throbbed with the pain of the
+awakening.... The servant came to tell him that his horse waited, and he
+sprang up, took his riding-whip from the rack, stared a moment,
+absently, after the man's retreating back, and then dropped down again
+on the sofa....
+
+What was there to keep him from accepting? His wife's affection was
+dead--if her sentimental fancy for him had ever deserved the name! And
+his passing mastery over her was gone too--he smiled to remember that,
+hardly two hours earlier, he had been fatuous enough to think he could
+still regain it! Now he said to himself that she would sooner desert a
+friend to please him than sacrifice a fraction of her income; and the
+discovery cast a stain of sordidness on their whole relation. He could
+still imagine struggling to win her back from another man, or even to
+save her from some folly into which mistaken judgment or perverted
+enthusiasm might have hurried her; but to go on battling against the
+dull unimaginative subservience to personal luxury--the slavery to
+houses and servants and clothes--ah, no, while he had any fight left in
+him it was worth spending in a better cause than that!
+
+Through the open window he could hear, in the mild December stillness,
+his horse's feet coming and going on the gravel. _Her_ horse, led up and
+down by _her_ servant, at the door of _her_ house!... The sound
+symbolized his whole future...the situation his marriage had made for
+him, and to which he must henceforth bend, unless he broke with it then
+and there.... He tried to look ahead, to follow up, one by one, the
+consequences of such a break. That it would be final he had no doubt.
+There are natures which seem to be drawn closer by dissension, to
+depend, for the renewal of understanding, on the spark of generosity and
+compunction that anger strikes out of both; but Amherst knew that
+between himself and his wife no such clearing of the moral atmosphere
+was possible. The indignation which left him with tingling nerves and a
+burning need of some immediate escape into action, crystallized in Bessy
+into a hard kernel of obstinacy, into which, after each fresh collision,
+he felt that a little more of herself had been absorbed.... No, the
+break between them would be final--if he went now he would not come
+back. And it flashed across him that this solution might have been
+foreseen by his wife--might even have been deliberately planned and led
+up to by those about her. His father-in-law had never liked him--the
+disturbing waves of his activity had rippled even the sheltered surface
+of Mr. Langhope's existence. He must have been horribly in their way!
+Well--it was not too late to take himself out of it. In Bessy's circle
+the severing of such ties was regarded as an expensive but unhazardous
+piece of surgery--nobody bled to death of the wound.... The footman came
+back to remind him that his horse was waiting, and Amherst rose to his
+feet.
+
+"Send him back to the stable," he said with a glance at his watch, "and
+order a trap to take me to the next train."
+
+
+
+
+XXII
+
+
+WHEN Amherst woke, the next morning, in the hotel to which he had gone
+up from Lynbrook, he was oppressed by the sense that the hardest step he
+had to take still lay before him. It had been almost easy to decide that
+the moment of separation had come, for circumstances seemed to have
+closed every other issue from his unhappy situation; but how tell his
+wife of his decision? Amherst, to whom action was the first necessity of
+being, became a weak procrastinator when he was confronted by the need
+of writing instead of speaking.
+
+To account for his abrupt departure from Lynbrook he had left word that
+he was called to town on business; but, since he did not mean to return,
+some farther explanation was now necessary, and he was paralyzed by the
+difficulty of writing. He had already telegraphed to his friend that he
+would be at the mills the next day; but the southern express did not
+leave till the afternoon, and he still had several hours in which to
+consider what he should say to his wife. To postpone the dreaded task,
+he invented the pretext of some business to be despatched, and taking
+the Subway to Wall Street consumed the morning in futile activities. But
+since the renunciation of his work at Westmore he had no active concern
+with the financial world, and by twelve o'clock he had exhausted his
+imaginary affairs and was journeying up town again. He left the train at
+Union Square, and walked along Fourth Avenue, now definitely resolved to
+go back to the hotel and write his letter before lunching.
+
+At Twenty-sixth Street he had struck into Madison Avenue, and was
+striding onward with the fixed eye and aimless haste of the man who has
+empty hours to fill, when a hansom drew up ahead of him and Justine
+Brent sprang out. She was trimly dressed, as if for travel, with a small
+bag in her hand; but at sight of him she paused with a cry of pleasure.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Amherst, I'm so glad! I was afraid I might not see you for
+goodbye."
+
+"For goodbye?" Amherst paused, embarrassed. How had she guessed that he
+did not mean to return to Lynbrook?
+
+"You know," she reminded him, "I'm going to some friends near
+Philadelphia for ten days"--and he remembered confusedly that a long
+time ago--probably yesterday morning--he had heard her speak of her
+projected visit.
+
+"I had no idea," she continued, "that you were coming up to town
+yesterday, or I should have tried to see you before you left. I wanted
+to ask you to send me a line if Bessy needs me--I'll come back at once
+if she does." Amherst continued to listen blankly, as if making a
+painful effort to regain some consciousness of what was being said to
+him, and she went on: "She seemed so nervous and poorly yesterday
+evening that I was sorry I had decided to go----"
+
+Her intent gaze reminded him that the emotions of the last twenty-four
+hours must still be visible in his face; and the thought of what she
+might detect helped to restore his self-possession. "You must not think
+of giving up your visit," he began hurriedly--he had meant to add "on
+account of Bessy," but he found himself unable to utter his wife's name.
+
+Justine was still looking at him. "Oh, I'm sure everything will be all
+right," she rejoined. "You go back this afternoon, I suppose? I've left
+you a little note, with my address, and I want you to promise----"
+
+She paused, for Amherst had made a motion as though to interrupt her.
+The old confused sense that there must always be truth between them was
+struggling in him with the strong restraints of habit and character; and
+suddenly, before he was conscious of having decided to speak, he heard
+himself say: "I ought to tell you that I am not going back."
+
+"Not going back?" A flash of apprehension crossed Justine's face. "Not
+till tomorrow, you mean?" she added, recovering herself.
+
+Amherst hesitated, glancing vaguely up and down the street. At that
+noonday hour it was nearly deserted, and Justine's driver dozed on his
+perch above the hansom. They could speak almost as openly as if they had
+been in one of the wood-paths at Lynbrook.
+
+"Nor tomorrow," Amherst said in a low voice. There was another pause
+before he added: "It may be some time before--" He broke off, and then
+continued with an effort: "The fact is, I am thinking of going back to
+my old work."
+
+She caught him up with an exclamation of surprise and sympathy. "Your
+old work? You mean at----"
+
+She was checked by the quick contraction of pain in his face. "Not that!
+I mean that I'm thinking of taking a new job--as manager of a Georgia
+mill.... It's the only thing I know how to do, and I've got to do
+something--" He forced a laugh. "The habit of work is incurable!"
+
+Justine's face had grown as grave as his. She hesitated a moment,
+looking down the street toward the angle of Madison Square, which was
+visible from the corner where they stood.
+
+"Will you walk back to the square with me? Then we can sit down a
+moment."
+
+She began to move as she spoke, and he walked beside her in silence till
+they had gained the seat she pointed out. Her hansom trailed after them,
+drawing up at the corner.
+
+As Amherst sat down beside her, Justine turned to him with an air of
+quiet resolution. "Mr. Amherst--will you let me ask you something? Is
+this a sudden decision?"
+
+"Yes. I decided yesterday."
+
+"And Bessy----?"
+
+His glance dropped for the first time, but Justine pressed her point.
+"Bessy approves?"
+
+"She--she will, I think--when she knows----"
+
+"When she knows?" Her emotion sprang into her face. "When she knows?
+Then she does not--yet?"
+
+"No. The offer came suddenly. I must go at once."
+
+"Without seeing her?" She cut him short with a quick commanding gesture.
+"Mr. Amherst, you can't do this--you won't do it! You will not go away
+without seeing Bessy!" she said.
+
+Her eyes sought his and drew them upward, constraining them to meet the
+full beam of her rebuking gaze.
+
+"I must do what seems best under the circumstances," he answered
+hesitatingly. "She will hear from me, of course; I shall write
+today--and later----"
+
+"Not later! _Now_--you will go back now to Lynbrook! Such things can't
+be told in writing--if they must be said at all, they must be spoken.
+Don't tell me that I don't understand--or that I'm meddling in what
+doesn't concern me. I don't care a fig for that! I've always meddled in
+what didn't concern me--I always shall, I suppose, till I die! And I
+understand enough to know that Bessy is very unhappy--and that you're
+the wiser and stronger of the two. I know what it's been to you to give
+up your work--to feel yourself useless," she interrupted herself, with
+softening eyes, "and I know how you've tried...I've watched you...but
+Bessy has tried too; and even if you've both failed--if you've come to
+the end of your resources--it's for you to face the fact, and help her
+face it--not to run away from it like this!"
+
+Amherst sat silent under the assault of her eloquence. He was conscious
+of no instinctive resentment, no sense that she was, as she confessed,
+meddling in matters which did not concern her. His ebbing spirit was
+revived by the shock of an ardour like his own. She had not shrunk from
+calling him a coward--and it did him good to hear her call him so! Her
+words put life back into its true perspective, restored their meaning to
+obsolete terms: to truth and manliness and courage. He had lived so long
+among equivocations that he had forgotten how to look a fact in the
+face; but here was a woman who judged life by his own standards--and by
+those standards she had found him wanting!
+
+Still, he could not forget the last bitter hours, or change his opinion
+as to the futility of attempting to remain at Lynbrook. He felt as
+strongly as ever the need of moral and mental liberation--the right to
+begin life again on his own terms. But Justine Brent had made him see
+that his first step toward self-assertion had been the inconsistent one
+of trying to evade its results.
+
+"You are right--I will go back," he said.
+
+She thanked him with her eyes, as she had thanked him on the terrace at
+Lynbrook, on the autumn evening which had witnessed their first broken
+exchange of confidences; and he was struck once more with the change
+that feeling produced in her. Emotions flashed across her face like the
+sweep of sun-rent clouds over a quiet landscape, bringing out the gleam
+of hidden waters, the fervour of smouldering colours, all the subtle
+delicacies of modelling that are lost under the light of an open sky.
+And it was extraordinary how she could infuse into a principle the
+warmth and colour of a passion! If conduct, to most people, seemed a
+cold matter of social prudence or inherited habit, to her it was always
+the newly-discovered question of her own relation to life--as most women
+see the great issues only through their own wants and prejudices, so she
+seemed always to see her personal desires in the light of the larger
+claims.
+
+"But I don't think," Amherst went on, "that anything can be said to
+convince me that I ought to alter my decision. These months of idleness
+have shown me that I'm one of the members of society who are a danger to
+the community if their noses are not kept to the grindstone----"
+
+Justine lowered her eyes musingly, and he saw she was undergoing the
+reaction of constraint which always followed on her bursts of
+unpremeditated frankness.
+
+"That is not for me to judge," she answered after a moment. "But if you
+decide to go away for a time--surely it ought to be in such a way that
+your going does not seem to cast any reflection on Bessy, or subject her
+to any unkind criticism."
+
+Amherst, reddening slightly, glanced at her in surprise. "I don't think
+you need fear that--I shall be the only one criticized," he said drily.
+
+"Are you sure--if you take such a position as you spoke of? So few
+people understand the love of hard work for its own sake. They will say
+that your quarrel with your wife has driven you to support yourself--and
+that will be cruel to Bessy."
+
+Amherst shrugged his shoulders. "They'll be more likely to say I tried
+to play the gentleman and failed, and wasn't happy till I got back to my
+own place in life--which is true enough," he added with a touch of
+irony.
+
+"They may say that too; but they will make Bessy suffer first--and it
+will be your fault if she is humiliated in that way. If you decide to
+take up your factory work for a time, can't you do so without--without
+accepting a salary? Oh, you see I stick at nothing," she broke in upon
+herself with a laugh, "and Bessy has said things which make me see that
+she would suffer horribly if--if you put such a slight on her." He
+remained silent, and she went on urgently: "From Bessy's standpoint it
+would mean a decisive break--the repudiating of your whole past. And it
+is a question on which you can afford to be generous, because I know...I
+think...it's less important in your eyes than hers...."
+
+Amherst glanced at her quickly. "That particular form of indebtedness,
+you mean?"
+
+She smiled. "The easiest to cancel, and therefore the least galling;
+isn't that the way you regard it?"
+
+"I used to--yes; but--" He was about to add: "No one at Lynbrook does,"
+but the flash of intelligence in her eyes restrained him, while at the
+same time it seemed to answer: "There's my point! To see their
+limitation is to allow for it, since every enlightenment brings a
+corresponding obligation."
+
+She made no attempt to put into words the argument her look conveyed,
+but rose from her seat with a rapid glance at her watch.
+
+"And now I must go, or I shall miss my train." She held out her hand,
+and as Amherst's met it, he said in a low tone, as if in reply to her
+unspoken appeal: "I shall remember all you have said."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was a new experience for Amherst to be acting under the pressure of
+another will; but during his return journey to Lynbrook that afternoon
+it was pure relief to surrender himself to this pressure, and the
+surrender brought not a sense of weakness but of recovered energy. It
+was not in his nature to analyze his motives, or spend his strength in
+weighing closely balanced alternatives of conduct; and though, during
+the last purposeless months, he had grown to brood over every spring of
+action in himself and others, this tendency disappeared at once in
+contact with the deed to be done. It was as though a tributary stream,
+gathering its crystal speed among the hills, had been suddenly poured
+into the stagnant waters of his will; and he saw now how thick and
+turbid those waters had become--how full of the slime-bred life that
+chokes the springs of courage.
+
+His whole desire now was to be generous to his wife: to bear the full
+brunt of whatever pain their parting brought. Justine had said that
+Bessy seemed nervous and unhappy: it was clear, therefore, that she also
+had suffered from the wounds they had dealt each other, though she kept
+her unmoved front to the last. Poor child! Perhaps that insensible
+exterior was the only way she knew of expressing courage! It seemed to
+Amherst that all means of manifesting the finer impulses must slowly
+wither in the Lynbrook air. As he approached his destination, his
+thoughts of her were all pitiful: nothing remained of the personal
+resentment which had debased their parting. He had telephoned from town
+to announce the hour of his return, and when he emerged from the station
+he half-expected to find her seated in the brougham whose lamps
+signalled him through the early dusk. It would be like her to undergo
+such a reaction of feeling, and to express it, not in words, but by
+taking up their relation as if there had been no break in it. He had
+once condemned this facility of renewal as a sign of lightness, a
+result of that continual evasion of serious issues which made the life
+of Bessy's world a thin crust of custom above a void of thought. But he
+now saw that, if she was the product of her environment, that
+constituted but another claim on his charity, and made the more precious
+any impulses of natural feeling that had survived the unifying pressure
+of her life. As he approached the brougham, he murmured mentally: "What
+if I were to try once more?"
+
+Bessy had not come to meet him; but he said to himself that he should
+find her alone at the house, and that he would make his confession at
+once. As the carriage passed between the lights on the tall stone
+gate-posts, and rolled through the bare shrubberies of the avenue, he
+felt a momentary tightening of the heart--a sense of stepping back into
+the trap from which he had just wrenched himself free--a premonition of
+the way in which the smooth systematized routine of his wife's existence
+might draw him back into its revolutions as he had once seen a careless
+factory hand seized and dragged into a flying belt....
+
+But it was only for a moment; then his thoughts reverted to Bessy. It
+was she who was to be considered--this time he must be strong enough for
+both.
+
+The butler met him on the threshold, flanked by the usual array of
+footmen; and as he saw his portmanteau ceremoniously passed from hand
+to hand, Amherst once more felt the steel of the springe on his neck.
+
+"Is Mrs. Amherst in the drawing-room, Knowles?" he asked.
+
+"No, sir," said Knowles, who had too high a sense of fitness to
+volunteer any information beyond the immediate fact required of him.
+
+"She has gone up to her sitting-room, then?" Amherst continued, turning
+toward the broad sweep of the stairway.
+
+"No, sir," said the butler slowly; "Mrs. Amherst has gone away."
+
+"Gone away?" Amherst stopped short, staring blankly at the man's smooth
+official mask.
+
+"This afternoon, sir; to Mapleside."
+
+"To Mapleside?"
+
+"Yes, sir, by motor--to stay with Mrs. Carbury."
+
+There was a moment's silence. It had all happened so quickly that
+Amherst, with the dual vision which comes at such moments, noticed that
+the third footman--or was it the fourth?--was just passing his
+portmanteau on to a shirt-sleeved arm behind the door which led to the
+servant's wing....
+
+He roused himself to look at the tall clock. It was just six. He had
+telephoned from town at two.
+
+"At what time did Mrs. Amherst leave?"
+
+The butler meditated. "Sharp at four, sir. The maid took the three-forty
+with the luggage."
+
+With the luggage! So it was not a mere one-night visit. The blood rose
+slowly to Amherst's face. The footmen had disappeared, but presently the
+door at the back of the hall reopened, and one of them came out,
+carrying an elaborately-appointed tea-tray toward the smoking-room. The
+routine of the house was going on as if nothing had happened.... The
+butler looked at Amherst with respectful--too respectful--interrogation,
+and he was suddenly conscious that he was standing motionless in the
+middle of the hall, with one last intolerable question on his lips.
+
+Well--it had to be spoken! "Did Mrs. Amherst receive my telephone
+message?"
+
+"Yes, sir. I gave it to her myself."
+
+It occurred confusedly to Amherst that a well-bred man--as Lynbrook
+understood the phrase--would, at this point, have made some tardy feint
+of being in his wife's confidence, of having, on second thoughts, no
+reason to be surprised at her departure. It was humiliating, he
+supposed, to be thus laying bare his discomfiture to his dependents--he
+could see that even Knowles was affected by the manifest impropriety of
+the situation--but no pretext presented itself to his mind, and after
+another interval of silence he turned slowly toward the door of the
+smoking-room.
+
+"My letters are here, I suppose?" he paused on the threshold to enquire;
+and on the butler's answering in the affirmative, he said to himself,
+with a last effort to suspend his judgment: "She has left a line--there
+will be some explanation----"
+
+But there was nothing--neither word nor message; nothing but the
+reverberating retort of her departure in the face of his return--her
+flight to Blanche Carbury as the final answer to his final appeal.
+
+
+
+
+XXIII
+
+
+JUSTINE was coming back to Lynbrook. She had been, after all, unable to
+stay out the ten days of her visit: the undefinable sense of being
+needed, so often the determining motive of her actions, drew her back to
+Long Island at the end of the week. She had received no word from
+Amherst or Bessy; only Cicely had told her, in a big round hand, that
+mother had been away three days, and that it had been very lonely, and
+that the housekeeper's cat had kittens, and she was to have one; and
+were kittens christened, or how did they get their names?--because she
+wanted to call hers Justine; and she had found in her book a bird like
+the one father had shown them in the swamp; and they were not alone now,
+because the Telfers were there, and they had all been out sleighing;
+but it would be much nicer when Justine came back....
+
+It was as difficult to extract any sequence of facts from Cicely's
+letter as from an early chronicle. She made no reference to Amherst's
+return, which was odd, since she was fond of her step-father, yet not
+significant, since the fact of his arrival might have been crowded out
+by the birth of the kittens, or some incident equally prominent in her
+perspectiveless grouping of events; nor did she name the date of her
+mother's departure, so that Justine could not guess whether it had been
+contingent on Amherst's return, or wholly unconnected with it. What
+puzzled her most was Bessy's own silence--yet that too, in a sense, was
+reassuring, for Bessy thought of others chiefly when it was painful to
+think of herself, and her not writing implied that she had felt no
+present need of her friend's sympathy.
+
+Justine did not expect to find Amherst at Lynbrook. She had felt
+convinced, when they parted, that he would persist in his plan of going
+south; and the fact that the Telfer girls were again in possession made
+it seem probable that he had already left. Under the circumstances,
+Justine thought the separation advisable; but she was eager to be
+assured that it had been effected amicably, and without open affront to
+Bessy's pride.
+
+She arrived on a Saturday afternoon, and when she entered the house the
+sound of voices from the drawing-room, and the prevailing sense of
+bustle and movement amid which her own coming was evidently an
+unconsidered detail, showed that the normal life of Lynbrook had resumed
+its course. The Telfers, as usual, had brought a lively throng in their
+train; and amid the bursts of merriment about the drawing-room tea-table
+she caught Westy Gaines's impressive accents, and the screaming laughter
+of Blanche Carbury....
+
+So Blanche Carbury was back at Lynbrook! The discovery gave Justine
+fresh cause for conjecture. Whatever reciprocal concessions might have
+resulted from Amherst's return to his wife, it seemed hardly probable
+that they included a renewal of relations with Mrs. Carbury. Had his
+mission failed then--had he and Bessy parted in anger, and was Mrs.
+Carbury's presence at Lynbrook Bessy's retort to his assertion of
+independence?
+
+In the school-room, where Justine was received with the eager outpouring
+of Cicely's minutest experiences, she dared not put the question that
+would have solved these doubts; and she left to dress for dinner without
+knowing whether Amherst had returned to Lynbrook. Yet in her heart she
+never questioned that he had done so; all her fears revolved about what
+had since taken place.
+
+She saw Bessy first in the drawing-room, surrounded by her guests; and
+their brief embrace told her nothing, except that she had never beheld
+her friend more brilliant, more triumphantly in possession of recovered
+spirits and health.
+
+That Amherst was absent was now made evident by Bessy's requesting Westy
+Gaines to lead the way to the dining-room with Mrs. Ansell, who was one
+of the reassembled visitors; and the only one, as Justine presently
+observed, not in key with the prevailing gaiety. Mrs. Ansell, usually so
+tinged with the colours of her environment, preserved on this occasion a
+grey neutrality of tone which was the only break in the general
+brightness. It was not in her graceful person to express anything as
+gross as disapproval, yet that sentiment was manifest, to the nice
+observer, in a delicate aloofness which made the waves of laughter fall
+back from her, and spread a circle of cloudy calm about her end of the
+table. Justine had never been greatly drawn to Mrs. Ansell. Her own
+adaptability was not in the least akin to the older woman's studied
+self-effacement; and the independence of judgment which Justine
+preserved in spite of her perception of divergent standpoints made her a
+little contemptuous of an excess of charity that seemed to have been
+acquired at the cost of all individual convictions. To-night for the
+first time she felt in Mrs. Ansell a secret sympathy with her own
+fears; and a sense of this tacit understanding made her examine with
+sudden interest the face of her unexpected ally.... After all, what did
+she know of Mrs. Ansell's history--of the hidden processes which had
+gradually subdued her own passions and desires, making of her, as it
+were, a mere decorative background, a connecting link between other
+personalities? Perhaps, for a woman alone in the world, without the
+power and opportunity that money gives, there was no alternative between
+letting one's individuality harden into a small dry nucleus of egoism,
+or diffuse itself thus in the interstices of other lives--and there fell
+upon Justine the chill thought that just such a future might await her
+if she missed the liberating gift of personal happiness....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Neither that night nor the next day had she a private word with
+Bessy--and it became evident, as the hours passed, that Mrs. Amherst was
+deliberately postponing the moment when they should find themselves
+alone. But the Lynbrook party was to disperse on the Monday; and Bessy,
+who hated early rising, and all the details of housekeeping, tapped at
+Justine's door late on Sunday night to ask her to speed the departing
+visitors.
+
+She pleaded this necessity as an excuse for her intrusion, and the
+playful haste of her manner showed a nervous shrinking from any renewal
+of confidence; but as she leaned in the doorway, fingering the diamond
+chain about her neck, while one satin-tipped foot emerged restlessly
+from the edge of her lace gown, her face lost the bloom of animation
+which talk and laughter always produced in it, and she looked so pale
+and weary that Justine needed no better pretext for drawing her into the
+room.
+
+It was not in Bessy to resist a soothing touch in her moments of nervous
+reaction. She sank into the chair by the fire and let her head rest
+wearily against the cushion which Justine slipped behind it.
+
+Justine dropped into the low seat beside her, and laid a hand on hers.
+"You don't look as well as when I went away, Bessy. Are you sure you've
+done wisely in beginning your house-parties so soon?"
+
+It always alarmed Bessy to be told that she was not looking her best,
+and she sat upright, a wave of pink rising under her sensitive skin.
+
+"I am quite well, on the contrary; but I was dying of inanition in this
+big empty house, and I suppose I haven't got the boredom out of my
+system yet!"
+
+Justine recognized the echo of Mrs. Carbury's manner.
+
+"Even if you _were_ bored," she rejoined, "the inanition was probably
+good for you. What does Dr. Wyant say to your breaking away from his
+regime?" She named Wyant purposely, knowing that Bessy had that respect
+for the medical verdict which is the last trace of reverence for
+authority in the mind of the modern woman. But Mrs. Amherst laughed with
+gentle malice.
+
+"Oh, I haven't seen Dr. Wyant lately. His interest in me died out the
+day you left."
+
+Justine forced a laugh to hide her annoyance. She had not yet recovered
+from the shrinking disgust of her last scene with Wyant.
+
+"Don't be a goose, Bessy. If he hasn't come, it must be because you've
+told him not to--because you're afraid of letting him see that you're
+disobeying him."
+
+Bessy laughed again. "My dear, I'm afraid of nothing--nothing! Not even
+of your big eyes when they glare at me like coals. I suppose you must
+have looked at poor Wyant like that to frighten him away! And yet the
+last time we talked of him you seemed to like him--you even hinted that
+it was because of him that Westy had no chance."
+
+Justine uttered an impatient exclamation. "If neither of them existed it
+wouldn't affect the other's chances in the least. Their only merit is
+that they both enhance the charms of celibacy!"
+
+Bessy's smile dropped, and she turned a grave glance on her friend. "Ah,
+most men do that--you're so clever to have found it out!"
+
+It was Justine's turn to smile. "Oh, but I haven't--as a
+generalization. I mean to marry as soon as I get the chance!"
+
+"The chance----?"
+
+"To meet the right man. I'm gambler enough to believe in my luck yet!"
+
+Mrs. Amherst sighed compassionately. "There _is_ no right man! As
+Blanche says, matrimony's as uncomfortable as a ready-made shoe. How can
+one and the same institution fit every individual case? And why should
+we all have to go lame because marriage was once invented to suit an
+imaginary case?"
+
+Justine gave a slight shrug. "You talk of walking lame--how else do we
+all walk? It seems to me that life's the tight boot, and marriage the
+crutch that may help one to hobble along!" She drew Bessy's hand into
+hers with a caressing pressure. "When you philosophize I always know
+you're tired. No one who feels well stops to generalize about symptoms.
+If you won't let your doctor prescribe for you, your nurse is going to
+carry out his orders. What you want is quiet. Be reasonable and send
+away everybody before Mr. Amherst comes back!"
+
+She dropped the last phrase carelessly, glancing away as she spoke; but
+the stiffening of the fingers in her clasp sent a little tremor through
+her hand.
+
+"Thanks for your advice. It would be excellent but for one thing--my
+husband is not coming back!"
+
+The mockery in Bessy's voice seemed to pass into her features, hardening
+and contracting them as frost shrivels a flower. Justine's face, on the
+contrary, was suddenly illuminated by compassion, as though a light had
+struck up into it from the cold glitter of her friend's unhappiness.
+
+"Bessy! What do you mean by not coming back?"
+
+"I mean he's had the tact to see that we shall be more comfortable
+apart--without putting me to the unpleasant necessity of telling him
+so."
+
+Again the piteous echo of Blanche Carbury's phrases! The laboured
+mimicry of her ideas!
+
+Justine looked anxiously at her friend. It seemed horribly false not to
+mention her own talk with Amherst, yet she felt it wiser to feign
+ignorance, since Bessy could never be trusted to interpret rightly any
+departure from the conventional.
+
+"Please tell me what has happened," she said at length.
+
+Bessy, with a smile, released her hand. "John has gone back to the life
+he prefers--which I take to be a hint to me to do the same."
+
+Justine hesitated again; then the pressure of truth overcame every
+barrier of expediency. "Bessy--I ought to tell you that I saw Mr.
+Amherst in town the day I went to Philadelphia. He spoke of going away
+for a time...he seemed unhappy...but he told me he was coming back to
+see you first--" She broke off, her clear eyes on her friend's; and she
+saw at once that Bessy was too self-engrossed to feel any surprise at
+her avowal. "Surely he came back?" she went on.
+
+"Oh, yes--he came back!" Bessy sank into the cushions, watching the
+firelight play on her diamond chain as she repeated the restless gesture
+of lifting it up and letting it slip through her fingers.
+
+"Well--and then?"
+
+"Then--nothing! I was not here when he came."
+
+"You were not here? What had happened?"
+
+"I had gone over to Blanche Carbury's for a day or two. I was just
+leaving when I heard he was coming back, and I couldn't throw her over
+at the last moment."
+
+Justine tried to catch the glance that fluttered evasively under Bessy's
+lashes. "You knew he was coming--and you chose that time to go to Mrs.
+Carbury's?"
+
+"I didn't choose, my dear--it just happened! And it really happened for
+the best. I suppose he was annoyed at my going--you know he has a
+ridiculous prejudice against Blanche--and so the next morning he rushed
+off to his cotton mill."
+
+There was a pause, while the diamonds continued to flow in threads of
+fire through Mrs. Amherst's fingers.
+
+At length Justine said: "Did Mr. Amherst know that you knew he was
+coming back before you left for Mrs. Carbury's?"
+
+Bessy feigned to meditate the question. "Did he know that I knew that he
+knew?" she mocked. "Yes--I suppose so--he must have known." She stifled
+a slight yawn as she drew herself languidly to her feet.
+
+"Then he took that as your answer?"
+
+"My answer----?"
+
+"To his coming back----"
+
+"So it appears. I told you he had shown unusual tact." Bessy stretched
+her softly tapering arms above her head and then dropped them along her
+sides with another yawn. "But it's almost morning--it's wicked of me to
+have kept you so late, when you must be up to look after all those
+people!"
+
+She flung her arms with a light gesture about Justine's shoulders, and
+laid a dry kiss on her cheek.
+
+"Don't look at me with those big eyes--they've eaten up the whole of
+your face! And you needn't think I'm sorry for what I've done," she
+declared. "I'm _not_--the--least--little--atom--of a bit!"
+
+
+
+
+XXIV
+
+
+JUSTINE was pacing the long library at Lynbrook, between the caged sets
+of standard authors.
+
+She felt as much caged as they: as much a part of a conventional
+stage-setting totally unrelated to the action going on before it. Two
+weeks had passed since her return from Philadelphia; and during that
+time she had learned that her usefulness at Lynbrook was over. Though
+not unwelcome, she might almost call herself unwanted; life swept by,
+leaving her tethered to the stake of inaction; a bitter lot for one who
+chose to measure existence by deeds instead of days. She had found Bessy
+ostensibly busy with a succession of guests; no one in the house needed
+her but Cicely, and even Cicely, at times, was caught up into the whirl
+of her mother's life, swept off on sleighing parties and motor-trips, or
+carried to town for a dancing-class or an opera matinee.
+
+Mrs. Fenton Carbury was not among the visitors who left Lynbrook on the
+Monday after Justine's return.
+
+Mr. Carbury, with the other bread-winners of the party, had hastened
+back to his treadmill in Wall Street after a Sunday spent in silently
+studying the files of the Financial Record; but his wife stayed on,
+somewhat aggressively in possession, criticizing and rearranging the
+furniture, ringing for the servants, making sudden demands on the
+stable, telegraphing, telephoning, ordering fires lighted or windows
+opened, and leaving everywhere in her wake a trail of cigarette ashes
+and cocktail glasses.
+
+Ned Bowfort had not been included in the house-party; but on the day of
+its dispersal he rode over unannounced for luncheon, put up his horse in
+the stable, threaded his way familiarly among the dozing dogs in the
+hall, greeted Mrs. Ansell and Justine with just the right shade of quiet
+deference, produced from his pocket a new puzzle-game for Cicely, and
+sat down beside her mother with the quiet urbanity of the family friend
+who knows his privileges but is too discreet to abuse them.
+
+After that he came every day, sometimes riding home late to the Hunt
+Club, sometimes accompanying Bessy and Mrs. Carbury to town for dinner
+and the theatre; but always with his deprecating air of having dropped
+in by accident, and modestly hoping that his intrusion was not
+unwelcome.
+
+The following Sunday brought another influx of visitors, and Bessy
+seemed to fling herself with renewed enthusiasm into the cares of
+hospitality. She had avoided Justine since their midnight talk,
+contriving to see her in Cicely's presence, or pleading haste when they
+found themselves alone. The winter was unusually open, and she spent
+long hours in the saddle when her time was not taken up with her
+visitors. For a while she took Cicely on her daily rides; but she soon
+wearied of adapting her hunter's stride to the pace of the little girl's
+pony, and Cicely was once more given over to the coachman's care.
+
+Then came snow and a long frost, and Bessy grew restless at her
+imprisonment, and grumbled that there was no way of keeping well in a
+winter climate which made regular exercise impossible.
+
+"Why not build a squash-court?" Blanche Carbury proposed; and the two
+fell instantly to making plans under the guidance of Ned Bowfort and
+Westy Gaines. As the scheme developed, various advisers suggested that
+it was a pity not to add a bowling-alley, a swimming-tank and a
+gymnasium; a fashionable architect was summoned from town, measurements
+were taken, sites discussed, sketches compared, and engineers consulted
+as to the cost of artesian wells and the best system for heating the
+tank.
+
+Bessy seemed filled with a feverish desire to carry out the plan as
+quickly as possible, and on as large a scale as even the architect's
+invention soared to; but it was finally decided that, before signing the
+contracts, she should run over to New Jersey to see a building of the
+same kind on which a sporting friend of Mrs. Carbury's had recently
+lavished a fortune.
+
+It was on this errand that the two ladies, in company with Westy Gaines
+and Bowfort, had departed on the day which found Justine restlessly
+measuring the length of the library. She and Mrs. Ansell had the house
+to themselves; and it was hardly a surprise to her when, in the course
+of the afternoon, Mrs. Ansell, after a discreet pause on the threshold,
+advanced toward her down the long room.
+
+Since the night of her return Justine had felt sure that Mrs. Ansell
+would speak; but the elder lady was given to hawk-like circlings about
+her subject, to hanging over it and contemplating it before her wings
+dropped for the descent.
+
+Now, however, it was plain that she had resolved to strike; and Justine
+had a sense of relief at the thought. She had been too long isolated in
+her anxiety, her powerlessness to help; and she had a vague hope that
+Mrs. Ansell's worldly wisdom might accomplish what her inexperience had
+failed to achieve.
+
+"Shall we sit by the fire? I am glad to find you alone," Mrs. Ansell
+began, with the pleasant abruptness that was one of the subtlest
+instruments of her indirection; and as Justine acquiesced, she added,
+yielding her slight lines to the luxurious depths of an arm-chair: "I
+have been rather suddenly asked by an invalid cousin to go to Europe
+with her next week, and I can't go contentedly without being at peace
+about our friends."
+
+She paused, but Justine made no answer. In spite of her growing sympathy
+for Mrs. Ansell she could not overcome an inherent distrust, not of her
+methods, but of her ultimate object. What, for instance, was her
+conception of being at peace about the Amhersts? Justine's own
+conviction was that, as far as their final welfare was concerned, any
+terms were better between them than the external harmony which had
+prevailed during Amherst's stay at Lynbrook.
+
+The subtle emanation of her distrust may have been felt by Mrs. Ansell;
+for the latter presently continued, with a certain nobleness: "I am the
+more concerned because I believe I must hold myself, in a small degree,
+responsible for Bessy's marriage--" and, as Justine looked at her in
+surprise, she added: "I thought she could never be happy unless her
+affections were satisfied--and even now I believe so."
+
+"I believe so too," Justine said, surprised into assent by the
+simplicity of Mrs. Ansell's declaration.
+
+"Well, then--since we are agreed in our diagnosis," the older woman went
+on, smiling, "what remedy do you suggest? Or rather, how can we
+administer it?"
+
+"What remedy?" Justine hesitated.
+
+"Oh, I believe we are agreed on that too. Mr. Amherst must be brought
+back--but how to bring him?" She paused, and then added, with a singular
+effect of appealing frankness: "I ask you, because I believe you to be
+the only one of Bessy's friends who is in the least in her husband's
+confidence."
+
+Justine's embarrassment increased. Would it not be disloyal both to
+Bessy and Amherst to acknowledge to a third person a fact of which Bessy
+herself was unaware? Yet to betray embarrassment under Mrs. Ansell's
+eyes was to risk giving it a dangerous significance.
+
+"Bessy has spoken to me once or twice--but I know very little of Mr.
+Amherst's point of view; except," Justine added, after another moment's
+weighing of alternatives, "that I believe he suffers most from being cut
+off from his work at Westmore."
+
+"Yes--so I think; but that is a difficulty that time and expediency must
+adjust. All _we_ can do--their friends, I mean--is to get them together
+again before the breach is too wide."
+
+Justine pondered. She was perhaps more ignorant of the situation than
+Mrs. Ansell imagined, for since her talk with Bessy the latter had not
+again alluded to Amherst's absence, and Justine could merely conjecture
+that he had carried out his plan of taking the management of the mill he
+had spoken of. What she most wished to know was whether he had listened
+to her entreaty, and taken the position temporarily, without binding
+himself by the acceptance of a salary; or whether, wounded by the
+outrage of Bessy's flight, he had freed himself from financial
+dependence by engaging himself definitely as manager.
+
+"I really know very little of the present situation," Justine said,
+looking at Mrs. Ansell. "Bessy merely told me that Mr. Amherst had taken
+up his old work in a cotton mill in the south."
+
+As her eyes met Mrs. Ansell's it flashed across her that the latter did
+not believe what she said, and the perception made her instantly shrink
+back into herself. But there was nothing in Mrs. Ansell's tone to
+confirm the doubt which her look betrayed.
+
+"Ah--I hoped you knew more," she said simply; "for, like you, I have
+only heard from Bessy that her husband went away suddenly to help a
+friend who is reorganizing some mills in Georgia. Of course, under the
+circumstances, such a temporary break is natural enough--perhaps
+inevitable--only he must not stay away too long."
+
+Justine was silent. Mrs. Ansell's momentary self-betrayal had checked
+all farther possibility of frank communion, and the discerning lady had
+seen her error too late to remedy it.
+
+But her hearer's heart gave a leap of joy. It was clear from what Mrs.
+Ansell said that Amherst had not bound himself definitely, since he
+would not have done so without informing his wife. And with a secret
+thrill of happiness Justine recalled his last word to her: "I will
+remember all you have said."
+
+He had kept that word and acted on it; in spite of Bessy's last assault
+on his pride he had borne with her, and deferred the day of final
+rupture; and the sense that she had had a part in his decision filled
+Justine with a glow of hope. The consciousness of Mrs. Ansell's
+suspicions faded to insignificance--Mrs. Ansell and her kind might think
+what they chose, since all that mattered now was that she herself
+should act bravely and circumspectly in her last attempt to save her
+friends.
+
+"I am not sure," Mrs. Ansell continued, gently scrutinizing her
+companion, "that I think it unwise of him to have gone; but if he stays
+too long Bessy may listen to bad advice--advice disastrous to her
+happiness." She paused, and turned her eyes meditatively toward the
+fire. "As far as I know," she said, with the same air of serious
+candour, "you are the only person who can tell him this."
+
+"I?" exclaimed Justine, with a leap of colour to her pale cheeks.
+
+Mrs. Ansell's eyes continued to avoid her. "My dear Miss Brent, Bessy
+has told me something of the wise counsels you have given her. Mr.
+Amherst is also your friend. As I said just now, you are the only person
+who might act as a link between them--surely you will not renounce the
+role."
+
+Justine controlled herself. "My only role, as you call it, has been to
+urge Bessy to--to try to allow for her husband's views----"
+
+"And have you not given the same advice to Mr. Amherst?"
+
+The eyes of the two women met. "Yes," said Justine, after a moment.
+
+"Then why refuse your help now? The moment is crucial."
+
+Justine's thoughts had flown beyond the stage of resenting Mrs. Ansell's
+gentle pertinacity. All her faculties were absorbed in the question as
+to how she could most effectually use whatever influence she possessed.
+
+"I put it to you as one old friend to another--will you write to Mr.
+Amherst to come back?" Mrs. Ansell urged her.
+
+Justine was past considering even the strangeness of this request, and
+its oblique reflection on the kind of power ascribed to her. Through the
+confused beatings of her heart she merely struggled for a clearer sense
+of guidance.
+
+"No," she said slowly. "I cannot."
+
+"You cannot? With a friend's happiness in extremity?" Mrs. Ansell paused
+a moment before she added. "Unless you believe that Bessy would be
+happier divorced?"
+
+"Divorced--? Oh, no," Justine shuddered.
+
+"That is what it will come to."
+
+"No, no! In time----"
+
+"Time is what I am most afraid of, when Blanche Carbury disposes of it."
+
+Justine breathed a deep sigh.
+
+"You'll write?" Mrs. Ansell murmured, laying a soft touch on her hand.
+
+"I have not the influence you think----"
+
+"Can you do any harm by trying?"
+
+"I might--" Justine faltered, losing her exact sense of the words she
+used.
+
+"Ah," the other flashed back, "then you _have_ influence! Why will you
+not use it?"
+
+Justine waited a moment; then her resolve gathered itself into words.
+"If I have any influence, I am not sure it would be well to use it as
+you suggest."
+
+"Not to urge Mr. Amherst's return?"
+
+"No--not now."
+
+She caught the same veiled gleam of incredulity under Mrs. Ansell's
+lids--caught and disregarded it.
+
+"It must be now or never," Mrs. Ansell insisted.
+
+"I can't think so," Justine held out.
+
+"Nevertheless--will you try?"
+
+"No--no! It might be fatal."
+
+"To whom?"
+
+"To both." She considered. "If he came back now I know he would not
+stay."
+
+Mrs. Ansell was upon her abruptly. "You _know_? Then you speak with
+authority?"
+
+"No--what authority? I speak as I feel," Justine faltered.
+
+The older woman drew herself to her feet. "Ah--then you shoulder a great
+responsibility!" She moved nearer to Justine, and once more laid a
+fugitive touch upon her. "You won't write to him?"
+
+"No--no," the girl flung back; and the voices of the returning party in
+the hall made Mrs. Ansell, with an almost imperceptible gesture of
+warning, turn musingly away toward the fire.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Bessy came back brimming with the wonders she had seen. A glazed
+"sun-room," mosaic pavements, a marble fountain to feed the marble
+tank--and outside a water-garden, descending in successive terraces, to
+take up and utilize--one could see how practically!--the overflow from
+the tank. If one did the thing at all, why not do it decently? She had
+given up her new motor, had let her town house, had pinched and stinted
+herself in a hundred ways--if ever woman was entitled to a little
+compensating pleasure, surely she was that woman!
+
+The days were crowded with consultations. Architect, contractors,
+engineers, a landscape gardener, and a dozen minor craftsmen, came and
+went, unrolled plans, moistened pencils, sketched, figured, argued,
+persuaded, and filled Bessy with the dread of appearing, under Blanche
+Carbury's eyes, subject to any restraining influences of economy. What!
+She was a young woman, with an independent fortune, and she was always
+wavering, considering, secretly referring back to the mute criticism of
+an invisible judge--of the husband who had been first to shake himself
+free of any mutual subjection? The accomplished Blanche did not have to
+say this--she conveyed it by the raising of painted brows, by a smile of
+mocking interrogation, a judiciously placed silence or a resigned glance
+at the architect. So the estimates poured in, were studied,
+resisted--then yielded to and signed; then the hour of advance payments
+struck, and an imperious appeal was despatched to Mr. Tredegar, to whom
+the management of Bessy's affairs had been transferred.
+
+Mr. Tredegar, to his client's surprise, answered the appeal in person.
+He had not been lately to Lynbrook, dreading the cold and damp of the
+country in winter; and his sudden arrival had therefore an ominous
+significance.
+
+He came for an evening in mid-week, when even Blanche Carbury was
+absent, and Bessy and Justine had the house to themselves. Mrs. Ansell
+had sailed the week before with her invalid cousin. No farther words had
+passed between herself and Justine--but the latter was conscious that
+their talk had increased instead of lessened the distance between them.
+Justine herself meant to leave soon. Her hope of regaining Bessy's
+confidence had been deceived, and seeing herself definitely superseded,
+she chafed anew at her purposeless inactivity. She had already written
+to one or two doctors in New York, and to the matron of Saint
+Elizabeth's. She had made herself a name in surgical cases, and it could
+not be long before a summons came....
+
+Meanwhile Mr. Tredegar arrived, and the three dined together, the two
+women bending meekly to his discourse, which was never more oracular and
+authoritative than when delivered to the gentler sex alone. Amherst's
+absence, in particular, seemed to loose the thin current of Mr.
+Tredegar's eloquence. He was never quite at ease in the presence of an
+independent mind, and Justine often reflected that, even had the two men
+known nothing of each other's views, there would have been between them
+an instinctive and irreducible hostility--they would have disliked each
+other if they had merely jostled elbows in the street.
+
+Yet even freed from Amherst's presence Mr. Tredegar showed a darkling
+brow, and as Justine slipped away after dinner she felt that she left
+Bessy to something more serious than the usual business conference.
+
+How serious, she was to learn that very night, when, in the small hours,
+her friend burst in on her tearfully. Bessy was ruined--ruined--that was
+what Mr. Tredegar had come to tell her! She might have known he would
+not have travelled to Lynbrook for a trifle.... She had expected to find
+herself cramped, restricted--to be warned that she must "manage,"
+hateful word!... But this! This was incredible! Unendurable! There was
+no money to build the gymnasium--none at all! And all because it had
+been swallowed up at Westmore--because the ridiculous changes there,
+the changes that nobody wanted, nobody approved of--that Truscomb and
+all the other experts had opposed and derided from the first--these
+changes, even modified and arrested, had already involved so much of her
+income, that it might be years--yes, he said _years_!--before she would
+feel herself free again--free of her own fortune, of Cicely's
+fortune...of the money poor Dick Westmore had meant his wife and child
+to enjoy!
+
+Justine listened anxiously to this confused outpouring of resentments.
+Bessy's born incapacity for figures made it indeed possible that the
+facts came on her as a surprise--that she had quite forgotten the
+temporary reduction of her income, and had begun to imagine that what
+she had saved in one direction was hers to spend in another. All this
+was conceivable. But why had Mr. Tredegar drawn so dark a picture of the
+future? Or was it only that, thwarted of her immediate desire, Bessy's
+disappointment blackened the farthest verge of her horizon? Justine,
+though aware of her friend's lack of perspective, suspected that a
+conniving hand had helped to throw the prospect out of drawing....
+
+Could it be possible, then, that Mr. Tredegar was among those who
+desired a divorce? That the influences at which Mrs. Ansell had hinted
+proceeded not only from Blanche Carbury and her group? Helpless amid
+this rush of forebodings, Justine could do no more than soothe and
+restrain--to reason would have been idle. She had never till now
+realized how completely she had lost ground with Bessy.
+
+"The humiliation--before my friends! Oh, I was warned...my father, every
+one...for Cicely's sake I was warned...but I wouldn't listen--and _now_!
+From the first it was all he cared for--in Europe, even, he was always
+dragging me to factories. _Me?_--I was only the owner of Westmore! He
+wanted power--power, that's all--when he lost it he left me...oh, I'm
+glad now my baby is dead! Glad there's nothing between us--nothing,
+nothing in the world to tie us together any longer!"
+
+The disproportion between this violent grief and its trivial cause would
+have struck Justine as simply grotesque, had she not understood that the
+incident of the gymnasium, which followed with cumulative pressure on a
+series of similar episodes, seemed to Bessy like the reaching out of a
+retaliatory hand--a mocking reminder that she was still imprisoned in
+the consequences of her unhappy marriage.
+
+Such folly seemed past weeping for--it froze Justine's compassion into
+disdain, till she remembered that the sources of our sorrow are
+sometimes nobler than their means of expression, and that a baffled
+unappeased love was perhaps the real cause of Bessy's anger against her
+husband.
+
+At any rate, the moment was a critical one, and Justine remembered with
+a pang that Mrs. Ansell had foreseen such a contingency, and implored
+her to take measures against it. She had refused, from a sincere dread
+of precipitating a definite estrangement--but had she been right in
+judging the situation so logically? With a creature of Bessy's emotional
+uncertainties the result of contending influences was really
+incalculable--it might still be that, at this juncture, Amherst's return
+would bring about a reaction of better feelings....
+
+Justine sat and mused on these things after leaving her friend exhausted
+upon a tearful pillow. She felt that she had perhaps taken too large a
+survey of the situation--that the question whether there could ever be
+happiness between this tormented pair was not one to concern those who
+struggled for their welfare. Most marriages are a patch-work of jarring
+tastes and ill-assorted ambitions--if here and there, for a moment, two
+colours blend, two textures are the same, so much the better for the
+pattern! Justine, certainly, could foresee in reunion no positive
+happiness for either of her friends; but she saw positive disaster for
+Bessy in separation from her husband....
+
+Suddenly she rose from her chair by the falling fire, and crossed over
+to the writing-table. She would write to Amherst herself--she would tell
+him to come. The decision once reached, hope flowed back to her
+heart--the joy of action so often deceived her into immediate faith in
+its results!
+
+"Dear Mr. Amherst," she wrote, "the last time I saw you, you told me you
+would remember what I said. I ask you to do so now--to remember that I
+urged you not to be away too long. I believe you ought to come back now,
+though I know Bessy will not ask you to. I am writing without her
+knowledge, but with the conviction that she needs you, though perhaps
+without knowing it herself...."
+
+She paused, and laid down her pen. Why did it make her so happy to write
+to him? Was it merely the sense of recovered helpfulness, or something
+warmer, more personal, that made it a joy to trace his name, and to
+remind him of their last intimate exchange of words? Well--perhaps it
+was that too. There were moments when she was so mortally lonely that
+any sympathetic contact with another life sent a glow into her
+veins--that she was thankful to warm herself at any fire.
+
+
+
+
+XXV
+
+
+BESSY, languidly glancing through her midday mail some five days later,
+uttered a slight exclamation as she withdrew her finger-tip from the
+flap of the envelope she had begun to open.
+
+It was a black sleety day, with an east wind bowing the trees beyond the
+drenched window-panes, and the two friends, after luncheon, had
+withdrawn to the library, where Justine sat writing notes for Bessy,
+while the latter lay back in her arm-chair, in the state of dreamy
+listlessness into which she always sank when not under the stimulus of
+amusement or exercise.
+
+She sat suddenly upright as her eyes fell on the letter.
+
+"I beg your pardon! I thought it was for me," she said, holding it out
+to Justine.
+
+The latter reddened as she glanced at the superscription. It had not
+occurred to her that Amherst would reply to her appeal: she had pictured
+him springing on the first north-bound train, perhaps not even pausing
+to announce his return to his wife.... And to receive his letter under
+Bessy's eye was undeniably embarrassing, since Justine felt the
+necessity of keeping her intervention secret.
+
+But under Bessy's eye she certainly was--it continued to rest on her
+curiously, speculatively, with an under-gleam of malicious significance.
+
+"So stupid of me--I can't imagine why I should have expected my husband
+to write to me!" Bessy went on, leaning back in lazy contemplation of
+her other letters, but still obliquely including Justine in her angle of
+vision.
+
+The latter, after a moment's pause, broke the seal and read.
+
+
+     "Millfield, Georgia.
+     "My dear Miss Brent,
+
+     "Your letter reached me yesterday and I have thought it over
+     carefully. I appreciate the feeling that prompted it--but I don't
+     know that any friend, however kind and discerning, can give the
+     final advice in such matters. You tell me you are sure my wife will
+     not ask me to return--well, under present conditions that seems to
+     me a sufficient reason for staying away.
+
+     "Meanwhile, I assure you that I have remembered all you said to me
+     that day. I have made no binding arrangement here--nothing to
+     involve my future action--and I have done this solely because you
+     asked it. This will tell you better than words how much I value
+     your advice, and what strong reasons I must have for not following
+     it now.
+
+     "I suppose there are no more exploring parties in this weather. I
+     wish I could show Cicely some of the birds down here.
+
+     "Yours faithfully,
+     "John Amherst.
+
+     "Please don't let my wife ride Impulse."
+
+
+Latent under Justine's acute consciousness of what this letter meant,
+was the sense of Bessy's inferences and conjectures. She could feel them
+actually piercing the page in her hand like some hypersensitive visual
+organ to which matter offers no obstruction. Or rather, baffled in their
+endeavour, they were evoking out of the unseen, heaven knew what
+fantastic structure of intrigue--scrawling over the innocent page with
+burning evidences of perfidy and collusion....
+
+One thing became instantly clear to her: she must show the letter to
+Bessy. She ran her eyes over it again, trying to disentangle the
+consequences. There was the allusion to their talk in town--well, she
+had told Bessy of that! But the careless reference to their woodland
+excursions--what might not Bessy, in her present mood, make of it?
+Justine's uppermost thought was of distress at the failure of her plan.
+Perhaps she might still have induced Amherst to come back, had it not
+been for this accident; but now that hope was destroyed.
+
+She raised her eyes and met Bessy's. "Will you read it?" she said,
+holding out the letter.
+
+Bessy received it with lifted brows, and a protesting murmur--but as she
+read, Justine saw the blood mount under her clear skin, invade the
+temples, the nape, even the little flower-like ears; then it receded as
+suddenly, ebbing at last from the very lips, so that the smile with
+which she looked up from her reading was as white as if she had been
+under the stress of physical pain.
+
+"So you have written my husband to come back?"
+
+"As you see."
+
+Bessy looked her straight in the eyes. "I am very much obliged to
+you--extremely obliged!"
+
+Justine met the look quietly. "Which means that you resent my
+interference----"
+
+"Oh, I leave you to call it that!" Bessy mocked, tossing the letter down
+on the table at her side.
+
+"Bessy! Don't take it in that way. If I made a mistake I did so with the
+hope of helping you. How can I stand by, after all these months
+together, and see you deliberately destroying your life without trying
+to stop you?"
+
+The smile withered on Bessy's lips. "It is very dear and good of you--I
+know you're never happy unless you're helping people--but in this case I
+can only repeat what my husband says. He and I don't often look at
+things in the same light--but I quite agree with him that the management
+of such matters is best left to--to the persons concerned."
+
+Justine hesitated. "I might answer that, if you take that view, it was
+inconsistent of you to talk with me so openly. You've certainly made me
+feel that you wanted help--you've turned to me for it. But perhaps that
+does not justify my writing to Mr. Amherst without your knowing it."
+
+Bessy laughed. "Ah, my dear, you knew that if you asked me the letter
+would never be sent!"
+
+"Perhaps I did," said Justine simply. "I was trying to help you against
+your will."
+
+"Well, you see the result." Bessy laid a derisive touch on the letter.
+"Do you understand now whose fault it is if I am alone?"
+
+Justine faced her steadily. "There is nothing in Mr. Amherst's letter to
+make me change my opinion. I still think it lies with you to bring him
+back."
+
+Bessy raised a glittering face to her--all hardness and laughter. "Such
+modesty, my dear! As if I had a chance of succeeding where you failed!"
+
+She sprang up, brushing the curls from her temples with a petulant
+gesture. "Don't mind me if I'm cross--but I've had a dose of preaching
+from Maria Ansell, and I don't know why my friends should treat me like
+a puppet without any preferences of my own, and press me upon a man who
+has done his best to show that he doesn't want me. As a matter of fact,
+he and I are luckily agreed on that point too--and I'm afraid all the
+good advice in the world won't persuade us to change our opinion!"
+
+Justine held her ground. "If I believed that of either of you, I
+shouldn't have written--I should not be pleading with you now--And Mr.
+Amherst doesn't believe it either," she added, after a pause, conscious
+of the risk she was taking, but thinking the words might act like a blow
+in the face of a person sinking under a deadly narcotic.
+
+Bessy's smile deepened to a sneer. "I see you've talked me over
+thoroughly--and on _his_ views I ought perhaps not to have risked an
+opinion----"
+
+"We have not talked you over," Justine exclaimed. "Mr. Amherst could
+never talk of you...in the way you think...." And under the light
+staccato of Bessy's laugh she found resolution to add: "It is not in
+that way that I know what he feels."
+
+"Ah? I should be curious to hear, then----"
+
+Justine turned to the letter, which still lay between them. "Will you
+read the last sentence again? The postscript, I mean."
+
+Bessy, after a surprised glance at her, took the letter up with the
+deprecating murmur of one who acts under compulsion rather than dispute
+about a trifle.
+
+"The postscript? Let me see...'Don't let my wife ride Impulse.'--_Et
+puis?_" she murmured, dropping the page again.
+
+"Well, does it tell you nothing? It's a cold letter--at first I thought
+so--the letter of a man who believes himself deeply hurt--so deeply that
+he will make no advance, no sign of relenting. That's what I thought
+when I first read it...but the postscript undoes it all."
+
+Justine, as she spoke, had drawn near Bessy, laying a hand on her arm,
+and shedding on her the radiance of a face all charity and sweet
+compassion. It was her rare gift, at such moments, to forget her own
+relation to the person for whose fate she was concerned, to cast aside
+all consciousness of criticism and distrust in the heart she strove to
+reach, as pitiful people forget their physical timidity in the attempt
+to help a wounded animal.
+
+For a moment Bessy seemed to waver. The colour flickered faintly up her
+cheek, her long lashes drooped--she had the tenderest lids!--and all her
+face seemed melting under the beams of Justine's ardour. But the letter
+was still in her hand--her eyes, in sinking, fell upon it, and she
+sounded beneath her breath the fatal phrase: "'I have done this solely
+because you asked it.'
+
+"After such a tribute to your influence I don't wonder you feel
+competent to set everybody's affairs in order! But take my advice, my
+dear--_don't_ ask me not to ride Impulse!"
+
+The pity froze on Justine's lip: she shrank back cut to the quick. For a
+moment the silence between the two women rang with the flight of arrowy,
+wounding thoughts; then Bessy's anger flagged, she gave one of her
+embarrassed half-laughs, and turning back, laid a deprecating touch on
+her friend's arm.
+
+"I didn't mean that, Justine...but let us not talk now--I can't!"
+
+Justine did not move: the reaction could not come as quickly in her
+case. But she turned on Bessy two eyes full of pardon, full of
+speechless pity...and Bessy received the look silently before she moved
+to the door and went out.
+
+"Oh, poor thing--poor thing!" Justine gasped as the door closed.
+
+She had already forgotten her own hurt--she was alone again with Bessy's
+sterile pain. She stood staring before her for a moment--then her eyes
+fell on Amherst's letter, which had fluttered to the floor between them.
+The fatal letter! If it had not come at that unlucky moment perhaps she
+might still have gained her end.... She picked it up and re-read it.
+Yes--there were phrases in it that a wounded suspicious heart might
+misconstrue.... Yet Bessy's last words had absolved her.... Why had she
+not answered them? Why had she stood there dumb? The blow to her pride
+had been too deep, had been dealt too unexpectedly--for one miserable
+moment she had thought first of herself! Ah, that importunate,
+irrepressible self--the _moi haissable_ of the Christian--if only one
+could tear it from one's breast! She had missed an opportunity--her last
+opportunity perhaps! By this time, even, a hundred hostile influences,
+cold whispers of vanity, of selfishness, of worldly pride, might have
+drawn their freezing ring about Bessy's heart....
+
+Justine started up to follow her...then paused, recalling her last
+words. "Let us not talk now--I can't!" She had no right to intrude on
+that bleeding privacy--if the chance had been hers she had lost it. She
+dropped back into her seat at the desk, hiding her face in her hands.
+
+Presently she heard the clock strike, and true to her tireless instinct
+of activity, she lifted her head, took up her pen, and went on with the
+correspondence she had dropped.... It was hard at first to collect her
+thoughts, or even to summon to her pen the conventional phrases that
+sufficed for most of the notes. Groping for a word, she pushed aside her
+writing and stared out at the sallow frozen landscape framed by the
+window at which she sat. The sleet had ceased, and hollows of sunless
+blue showed through the driving wind-clouds. A hard sky and a hard
+ground--frost-bound ringing earth under rigid ice-mailed trees.
+
+As Justine looked out, shivering a little, she saw a woman's figure
+riding down the avenue toward the gate. The figure disappeared behind a
+clump of evergreens--showed again farther down, through the boughs of a
+skeleton beech--and revealed itself in the next open space as
+Bessy--Bessy in the saddle on a day of glaring frost, when no horse
+could keep his footing out of a walk!
+
+Justine went to the window and strained her eyes for a confirming
+glimpse. Yes--it was Bessy! There was no mistaking that light flexible
+figure, every line swaying true to the beat of the horse's stride. But
+Justine remembered that Bessy had not meant to ride--had countermanded
+her horse because of the bad going.... Well, she was a perfect
+horsewoman and had no doubt chosen her surest-footed mount...probably
+the brown cob, Tony Lumpkin.
+
+But when did Tony's sides shine so bright through the leafless branches?
+And when did he sweep his rider on with such long free play of the
+hind-quarters? Horse and rider shot into sight again, rounding the curve
+of the avenue near the gates, and in a break of sunlight Justine saw the
+glitter of chestnut flanks--and remembered that Impulse was the only
+chestnut in the stables....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+She went back to her seat and continued writing. Bessy had left a
+formidable heap of bills and letters; and when this was demolished,
+Justine had her own correspondence to despatch. She had heard that
+morning from the matron of Saint Elizabeth's: an interesting "case" was
+offered her, but she must come within two days. For the first few hours
+she had wavered, loath to leave Lynbrook without some definite light on
+her friend's future; but now Amherst's letter had shed that light--or
+rather, had deepened the obscurity--and she had no pretext for lingering
+on where her uselessness had been so amply demonstrated.
+
+She wrote to the matron accepting the engagement; and the acceptance
+involved the writing of other letters, the general reorganizing of that
+minute polity, the life of Justine Brent. She smiled a little to think
+how easily she could be displaced and transplanted--how slender were her
+material impedimenta, how few her invisible bonds! She was as light and
+detachable as a dead leaf on the autumn breeze--yet she was in the
+season of sap and flower, when there is life and song in the trees!
+
+But she did not think long of herself, for an undefinable anxiety ran
+through her thoughts like a black thread. It found expression, now and
+then, in the long glances she threw through the window--in her rising to
+consult the clock and compare her watch with it--in a nervous snatch of
+humming as she paced the room once or twice before going back to her
+desk....
+
+Why was Bessy so late? Dusk was falling already--the early end of the
+cold slate-hued day. But Bessy always rode late--there was always a
+rational answer to Justine's irrational conjectures.... It was the sight
+of those chestnut flanks that tormented her--she knew of Bessy's
+previous struggles with the mare. But the indulging of idle
+apprehensions was not in her nature, and when the tea-tray came, and
+with it Cicely, sparkling from a gusty walk, and coral-pink in her cloud
+of crinkled hair, Justine sprang up and cast off her cares.
+
+It cost her a pang, again, to see the lamps lit and the curtains
+drawn--shutting in the warmth and brightness of the house from that
+wind-swept frozen twilight through which Bessy rode alone. But the icy
+touch of the thought slipped from Justine's mind as she bent above the
+tea-tray, gravely measuring Cicely's milk into a "grown-up" teacup,
+hearing the confidential details of the child's day, and capping them
+with banter and fantastic narrative.
+
+She was not sorry to go--ah, no! The house had become a prison to her,
+with ghosts walking its dreary floors. But to lose Cicely would be
+bitter--she had not felt how bitter till the child pressed against her
+in the firelight, insisting raptly, with little sharp elbows stabbing
+her knee: "And _then_ what happened, Justine?"
+
+The door opened, and some one came in to look at the fire. Justine,
+through the mazes of her fairy-tale, was dimly conscious that it was
+Knowles, and not one of the footmen...the proud Knowles, who never
+mended the fires himself.... As he passed out again, hovering slowly
+down the long room, she rose, leaving Cicely on the hearth-rug, and
+followed him to the door.
+
+"Has Mrs. Amherst not come in?" she asked, not knowing why she wished to
+ask it out of the child's hearing.
+
+"No, miss. I looked in myself to see--thinking she might have come by
+the side-door."
+
+"She may have gone to her sitting-room."
+
+"She's not upstairs."
+
+They both paused. Then Justine said: "What horse was she riding?"
+
+"Impulse, Miss." The butler looked at his large responsible watch. "It's
+not late--" he said, more to himself than to her.
+
+"No. Has she been riding Impulse lately?"
+
+"No, Miss. Not since that day the mare nearly had her off. I understood
+Mr. Amherst did not wish it."
+
+Justine went back to Cicely and the fairy-tale.--As she took up the
+thread of the Princess's adventures, she asked herself why she had ever
+had any hope of helping Bessy. The seeds of disaster were in the poor
+creature's soul.... Even when she appeared to be moved, lifted out of
+herself, her escaping impulses were always dragged back to the magnetic
+centre of hard distrust and resistance that sometimes forms the core of
+soft-fibred natures. As she had answered her husband's previous appeal
+by her flight to the woman he disliked, so she answered this one by
+riding the horse he feared.... Justine's last illusions crumbled. The
+distance between two such natures was unspannable. Amherst had done well
+to remain away...and with a tidal rush her sympathies swept back to his
+side....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The governess came to claim Cicely. One of the footmen came to put
+another log on the fire. Then the rite of removing the tea-table was
+majestically performed--the ceremonial that had so often jarred on
+Amherst's nerves. As she watched it, Justine had a vague sense of the
+immutability of the household routine--a queer awed feeling that,
+whatever happened, a machine so perfectly adjusted would work on
+inexorably, like a natural law....
+
+She rose to look out of the window, staring vainly into blackness
+between the parted curtains. As she turned back, passing the
+writing-table, she noticed that Cicely's irruption had made her forget
+to post her letters--an unusual oversight. A glance at the clock told
+her that she was not too late for the mail--reminding her, at the same
+time, that it was scarcely three hours since Bessy had started on her
+ride.... She saw the foolishness of her fears. Even in winter, Bessy
+often rode for more than three hours; and now that the days were growing
+longer----
+
+Suddenly reassured, Justine went out into the hall, intending to carry
+her batch of letters to the red pillar-box by the door. As she did so, a
+cold blast struck her. Could it be that for once the faultless routine
+of the house had been relaxed, that one of the servants had left the
+outer door ajar? She walked over to the vestibule--yes, both doors were
+wide. The night rushed in on a vicious wind. As she pushed the vestibule
+door shut, she heard the dogs sniffing and whining on the threshold. She
+crossed the vestibule, and heard voices and the tramping of feet in the
+darkness--then saw a lantern gleam. Suddenly Knowles shot out of the
+night--the lantern struck on his bleached face.
+
+Justine, stepping back, pressed the electric button in the wall, and the
+wide door-step was abruptly illuminated, with its huddled, pushing,
+heavily-breathing group...black figures writhing out of darkness,
+strange faces distorted in the glare.
+
+"Bessy!" she cried, and sprang forward; but suddenly Wyant was before
+her, his hand on her arm; and as the dreadful group struggled by into
+the hall, he froze her to him with a whisper: "The spine----"
+
+
+
+
+XXVI
+
+
+WITHIN Justine there was a moment's darkness; then, like terror-struck
+workers rallying to their tasks, every faculty was again at its post,
+receiving and transmitting signals, taking observations, anticipating
+orders, making her brain ring with the hum of a controlled activity.
+
+She had known the sensation before--the transmuting of terror and pity
+into this miraculous lucidity of thought and action; but never had it
+snatched her from such depths. Oh, thank heaven for her knowledge
+now--for the trained mind that could take command of her senses and bend
+them firmly to its service!
+
+Wyant seconded her well, after a moment's ague-fit of fear. She pitied
+and pardoned the moment, aware of its cause, and respecting him for the
+way in which he rose above it into the clear air of professional
+self-command. Through the first hours they worked shoulder to shoulder,
+conscious of each other only as of kindred will-powers, stretched to the
+utmost tension of discernment and activity, and hardly needing speech or
+look to further their swift co-operation. It was thus that she had known
+him in the hospital, in the heat of his youthful zeal: the doctor she
+liked best to work with, because no other so tempered ardour with
+judgment.
+
+The great surgeon, arriving from town at midnight, confirmed his
+diagnosis: there was undoubted injury to the spine. Other consultants
+were summoned in haste, and in the winter dawn the verdict was
+pronounced--a fractured vertebra, and possibly lesion of the cord....
+
+Justine got a moment alone when the surgeons returned to the sick-room.
+Other nurses were there now, capped, aproned, quickly and silently
+unpacking their appliances.... She must call a halt, clear her brain
+again, decide rapidly what was to be done next.... Oh, if only the
+crawling hours could bring Amherst! It was strange that there was no
+telegram yet--no, not strange, after all, since it was barely six in the
+morning, and her message had not been despatched till seven the night
+before. It was not unlikely that, in that little southern settlement,
+the telegraph office closed at six.
+
+She stood in Bessy's sitting-room, her forehead pressed to the
+window-pane, her eyes straining out into the thin February darkness,
+through which the morning star swam white. As soon as she had yielded
+her place to the other nurses her nervous tension relaxed, and she hung
+again above the deeps of anguish, terrified and weak. In a moment the
+necessity for action would snatch her back to a firm footing--her
+thoughts would clear, her will affirm itself, all the wheels of the
+complex machine resume their functions. But now she felt only the
+horror....
+
+She knew so well what was going on in the next room. Dr. Garford, the
+great surgeon, who had known her at Saint Elizabeth's, had evidently
+expected her to take command of the nurses he had brought from town;
+but there were enough without her, and there were other cares which, for
+the moment, she only could assume--the despatching of messages to the
+scattered family, the incessant telephoning and telegraphing to town,
+the general guidance of the household swinging rudderless in the tide of
+disaster. Cicely, above all, must be watched over and guarded from
+alarm. The little governess, reduced to a twittering heap of fears, had
+been quarantined in a distant room till reason returned to her; and the
+child, meanwhile, slept quietly in the old nurse's care.
+
+Cicely would wake presently, and Justine must go up to her with a bright
+face; other duties would press thick on the heels of this; their feet
+were already on the threshold. But meanwhile she could only follow in
+imagination what was going on in the other room....
+
+She had often thought with dread of such a contingency. She always
+sympathized too much with her patients--she knew it was the joint in her
+armour. Her quick-gushing pity lay too near that professional exterior
+which she had managed to endue with such a bright glaze of insensibility
+that some sentimental patients--without much the matter--had been known
+to call her "a little hard." How, then, should she steel herself if it
+fell to her lot to witness a cruel accident to some one she loved, and
+to have to perform a nurse's duties, steadily, expertly, unflinchingly,
+while every fibre was torn with inward anguish?
+
+She knew the horror of it now--and she knew also that her self-enforced
+exile from the sick-room was a hundred times worse. To stand there,
+knowing, with each tick of the clock, what was being said and done
+within--how the great luxurious room, with its pale draperies and
+scented cushions, and the hundred pretty trifles strewing the lace
+toilet-table and the delicate old furniture, was being swept bare,
+cleared for action like a ship's deck, drearily garnished with rows of
+instruments, rolls of medicated cotton, oiled silk, bottles, bandages,
+water-pillows--all the grim paraphernalia of the awful rites of pain: to
+know this, and to be able to call up with torturing vividness that poor
+pale face on the pillows, vague-eyed, expressionless, perhaps, as she
+had last seen it, or--worse yet--stirred already with the first creeping
+pangs of consciousness: to have these images slowly, deliberately burn
+themselves into her brain, and to be aware, at the same time, of that
+underlying moral disaster, of which the accident seemed the monstrous
+outward symbol--ah, this was worse than anything she had ever dreamed!
+
+She knew that the final verdict could not be pronounced till the
+operation which was about to take place should reveal the extent of
+injury to the spine. Bessy, in falling, must have struck on the back of
+her head and shoulders, and it was but too probable that the fractured
+vertebra had caused a bruise if not a lesion of the spinal cord. In that
+case paralysis was certain--and a slow crawling death the almost
+inevitable outcome. There had been cases, of course--Justine's
+professional memory evoked them--cases of so-called "recovery," where
+actual death was kept at bay, a semblance of life preserved for years in
+the poor petrified body.... But the mind shrank from such a fate for
+Bessy. And it might still be that the injury to the spine was not
+grave--though, here again, the fracturing of the fourth vertebra was
+ominous.
+
+The door opened and some one came from the inner room--Wyant, in search
+of an instrument-case. Justine turned and they looked at each other.
+
+"It will be now?"
+
+"Yes. Dr. Garford asked if there was no one you could send for."
+
+"No one but Mr. Tredegar and the Halford Gaineses. They'll be here this
+evening, I suppose."
+
+They exchanged a discouraged glance, knowing how little difference the
+presence of the Halford Gaineses would make.
+
+"He wanted to know if there was no telegram from Amherst."
+
+"No."
+
+"Then they mean to begin."
+
+A nursemaid appeared in the doorway. "Miss Cicely--" she said; and
+Justine bounded upstairs.
+
+The day's work had begun. From Cicely to the governess--from the
+governess to the housekeeper--from the telephone to the
+writing-table--Justine vibrated back and forth, quick, noiseless,
+self-possessed--sobering, guiding, controlling her confused and
+panic-stricken world. It seemed to her that half the day had elapsed
+before the telegraph office at Lynbrook opened--she was at the telephone
+at the stroke of the hour. No telegram? Only one--a message from Halford
+Gaines--"Arrive at eight tonight." Amherst was still silent! Was there a
+difference of time to be allowed for? She tried to remember, to
+calculate, but her brain was too crowded with other thoughts.... She
+turned away from the instrument discouraged.
+
+Whenever she had time to think, she was overwhelmed by the weight of her
+solitude. Mr. Langhope was in Egypt, accessible only through a London
+banker--Mrs. Ansell presumably wandering on the continent. Her cables
+might not reach them for days. And among the throng of Lynbrook
+habitues, she knew not to whom to turn. To loose the Telfer tribe and
+Mrs. Carbury upon that stricken house--her thought revolted from it, and
+she was thankful to know that February had dispersed their migratory
+flock to southern shores. But if only Amherst would come!
+
+Cicely and the tranquillized governess had been despatched on a walk
+with the dogs, and Justine was returning upstairs when she met one of
+the servants with a telegram. She tore it open with a great throb of
+relief. It was her own message to Amherst--_address unknown_....
+
+Had she misdirected it, then? In that first blinding moment her mind
+might so easily have failed her. But no--there was the name of the town
+before her...Millfield, Georgia...the same name as in his letter.... She
+had made no mistake, but he was gone! Gone--and without leaving an
+address.... For a moment her tired mind refused to work; then she roused
+herself, ran down the stairs again, and rang up the telegraph-office.
+The thing to do, of course, was to telegraph to the owner of the
+mills--of whose very name she was ignorant!--enquiring where Amherst
+was, and asking him to forward the message. Precious hours must be lost
+meanwhile--but, after all, they were waiting for no one upstairs.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The verdict had been pronounced: dislocation and fracture of the fourth
+vertebra, with consequent injury to the spinal cord. Dr. Garford and
+Wyant came out alone to tell her. The surgeon ran over the technical
+details, her brain instantly at attention as he developed his diagnosis
+and issued his orders. She asked no questions as to the future--she
+knew it was impossible to tell. But there were no immediate signs of a
+fatal ending: the patient had rallied well, and the general conditions
+were not unfavourable.
+
+"You have heard from Mr. Amherst?" Dr. Garford concluded.
+
+"Not yet...he may be travelling," Justine faltered, unwilling to say
+that her telegram had been returned. As she spoke there was a tap on the
+door, and a folded paper was handed in--a telegram telephoned from the
+village.
+
+"Amherst gone South America to study possibilities cotton growing have
+cabled our correspondent Buenos Ayres."
+
+Concealment was no longer possible. Justine handed the message to the
+surgeon.
+
+"Ah--and there would be no chance of finding his address among Mrs.
+Amherst's papers?"
+
+"I think not--no."
+
+"Well--we must keep her alive, Wyant."
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At dusk, Justine sat in the library, waiting for Cicely to be brought to
+her. A lull had descended on the house--a new order developed out of the
+morning's chaos. With soundless steps, with lowered voices, the
+machinery of life was carried on. And Justine, caught in one of the
+pauses of inaction which she had fought off since morning, was reliving,
+for the hundredth time, her few moments at Bessy's bedside....
+
+She had been summoned in the course of the afternoon, and stealing into
+the darkened room, had bent over the bed while the nurses noiselessly
+withdrew. There lay the white face which had been burnt into her inward
+vision--the motionless body, and the head stirring ceaselessly, as
+though to release the agitation of the imprisoned limbs. Bessy's eyes
+turned to her, drawing her down.
+
+"Am I going to die, Justine?"
+
+"No."
+
+"The pain is...so awful...."
+
+"It will pass...you will sleep...."
+
+"Cicely----"
+
+"She has gone for a walk. You'll see her presently."
+
+The eyes faded, releasing Justine. She stole away, and the nurses came
+back.
+
+Bessy had spoken of Cicely--but not a word of her husband! Perhaps her
+poor dazed mind groped for him, or perhaps it shrank from his name....
+Justine was thankful for her silence. For the moment her heart was
+bitter against Amherst. Why, so soon after her appeal and his answer,
+had he been false to the spirit of their agreement? This unannounced,
+unexplained departure was nothing less than a breach of his tacit
+pledge--the pledge not to break definitely with Lynbrook. And why had he
+gone to South America? She drew her aching brows together, trying to
+retrace a vague memory of some allusion to the cotton-growing
+capabilities of the region.... Yes, he had spoken of it once in talking
+of the world's area of cotton production. But what impulse had sent him
+off on such an exploration? Mere unrest, perhaps--the intolerable burden
+of his useless life? The questions spun round and round in her head,
+weary, profitless, yet persistent....
+
+It was a relief when Cicely came--a relief to measure out the cambric
+tea, to make the terrier beg for ginger-bread, even to take up the
+thread of the interrupted fairy-tale--though through it all she was
+wrung by the thought that, just twenty-four hours earlier, she and the
+child had sat in the same place, listening for the trot of Bessy's
+horse....
+
+The day passed: the hands of the clocks moved, food was cooked and
+served, blinds were drawn up or down, lamps lit and fires renewed...all
+these tokens of the passage of time took place before her, while her
+real consciousness seemed to hang in some dim central void, where
+nothing happened, nothing would ever happen....
+
+And now Cicely was in bed, the last "long-distance" call was answered,
+the last orders to kitchen and stable had been despatched, Wyant had
+stolen down to her with his hourly report--"no change"--and she was
+waiting in the library for the Gaineses.
+
+Carriage-wheels on the gravel: they were there at last. Justine started up
+and went into the hall. As she passed out of the library the outer door
+opened, and the gusty night swooped in--as, at the same hour the day
+before, it had swooped in ahead of the dreadful procession--preceding now
+the carriageful of Hanaford relations: Mr. Gaines, red-glazed, brief and
+interrogatory; Westy, small, nervous, ill at ease with his grief; and Mrs.
+Gaines, supreme in the possession of a consolatory yet funereal manner,
+and sinking on Justine's breast with the solemn whisper: "Have you sent
+for the clergyman?"
+
+
+
+
+XXVII
+
+
+THE house was empty again.
+
+A week had passed since Bessy's accident, and friends and relations had
+dispersed. The household had fallen into its routine, the routine of
+sickness and silence, and once more the perfectly-adjusted machine was
+working on steadily, inexorably, like a natural law....
+
+So at least it seemed to Justine's nerves, intolerably stretched, at
+times, on the rack of solitude, of suspense, of forebodings. She had
+been thankful when the Gaineses left--doubly thankful when a telegram
+from Bermuda declared Mrs. Carbury to be "in despair" at her inability
+to fly to Bessy's side--thankful even that Mr. Tredegar's professional
+engagements made it impossible for him to do more than come down, every
+second or third day, for a few hours; yet, though in some ways it was a
+relief to be again in sole command, there were moments when the weight
+of responsibility, and the inability to cry out her fears and her
+uncertainties, seemed almost unendurable.
+
+Wyant was her chief reliance. He had risen so gallantly above his
+weakness, become again so completely the indefatigable worker of former
+days, that she accused herself of injustice in ascribing to physical
+causes the vague eye and tremulous hand which might merely have
+betokened a passing access of nervous sensibility. Now, at any rate, he
+had his nerves so well under control, and had shown such a grasp of the
+case, and such marked executive capacity, that on the third day after
+the accident Dr. Garford, withdrawing his own assistant, had left him in
+control at Lynbrook.
+
+At the same time Justine had taken up her attendance in the sick-room,
+replacing one of the subordinate nurses who had been suddenly called
+away. She had done this the more willingly because Bessy, who was now
+conscious for the greater part of the time, had asked for her once or
+twice, and had seemed easier when she was in the room. But she still
+gave only occasional aid, relieving the other nurses when they dined or
+rested, but keeping herself partly free in order to have an eye on the
+household, and give a few hours daily to Cicely.
+
+All this had become part of a system that already seemed as old as
+memory. She could hardly recall what life had been before the
+accident--the seven dreadful days seemed as long as the days of
+creation. Every morning she rose to the same report--"no change"--and
+every day passed without a word from Amherst. Minor news, of course, had
+come: poor Mr. Langhope, at length overtaken at Wady Halfa, was
+hastening back as fast as ship and rail could carry him; Mrs. Ansell,
+anchored at Algiers with her invalid, cabled anxious enquiries; but
+still no word from Amherst. The correspondent at Buenos Ayres had simply
+cabled "Not here. Will enquire"--and since then, silence.
+
+Justine had taken to sitting in a small room beyond Amherst's bedroom,
+near enough to Bessy to be within call, yet accessible to the rest of
+the household. The walls were hung with old prints, and with two or
+three photographs of early Italian pictures; and in a low bookcase
+Amherst had put the books he had brought from Hanaford--the English
+poets, the Greek dramatists, some text-books of biology and kindred
+subjects, and a few stray well-worn volumes: Lecky's European Morals,
+Carlyle's translation of Wilhelm Meister, Seneca, Epictetus, a German
+grammar, a pocket Bacon.
+
+It was unlike any other room at Lynbrook--even through her benumbing
+misery, Justine felt the relief of escaping there from the rest of the
+great soulless house. Sometimes she took up one of the books and read a
+page or two, letting the beat of the verse lull her throbbing brain, or
+the strong words of stoic wisdom sink into her heart. And even when
+there was no time for these brief flights from reality, it soothed her
+to feel herself in the presence of great thoughts--to know that in this
+room, among these books, another restless baffled mind had sought escape
+from the "dusty answer" of life. Her hours there made her think less
+bitterly of Amherst--but also, alas, made her see more clearly the
+irreconcilable difference between the two natures she had striven to
+reunite. That which was the essence of life to one was a meaningless
+shadow to the other; and the gulf between them was too wide for the
+imagination of either to bridge.
+
+As she sat there on the seventh afternoon there was a knock on the door
+and Wyant entered. She had only time to notice that he was very
+pale--she had been struck once or twice with his look of sudden
+exhaustion, which passed as quickly as it came--then she saw that he
+carried a telegram, and her mind flew back to its central anxiety. She
+grew pale herself as she read the message.
+
+"He has been found--at Corrientes. It will take him at least a month to
+get here."
+
+"A month--good God!"
+
+"And it may take Mr. Langhope longer." Their eyes met. "It's too
+long----?" she asked.
+
+"I don't know--I don't know." He shivered slightly, turning away into
+the window.
+
+Justine sat down to dash off messages to Mr. Tredegar and the Gaineses:
+Amherst's return must be made known at once. When she glanced up, Wyant
+was standing near her. His air of intense weariness had passed, and he
+looked calm and ready for action.
+
+"Shall I take these down?"
+
+"No. Ring, please. I want to ask you a few questions."
+
+The servant who answered the bell brought in a tea-tray, and Justine,
+having despatched the telegrams, seated herself and began to pour out
+her tea. Food had been repugnant to her during the first anguished
+unsettled days, but with the resumption of the nurse's systematic habits
+the nurse's punctual appetite returned. Every drop of energy must be
+husbanded now, and only sleep and nourishment could fill the empty
+cisterns.
+
+She held out a cup to Wyant, but he drew back with a gesture of
+aversion.
+
+"Thanks; I'm not hungry."
+
+"You ought to eat more."
+
+"No, no. I'm very well."
+
+She lifted her head, revived by the warm draught. The mechanical act of
+nourishment performed, her mind leapt back to the prospect of Amherst's
+return. A whole month before he reached Lynbrook! He had instructed her
+where news might find him on the way ... but a whole month to wait!
+
+She looked at Wyant, and they read each other's thoughts.
+
+"It's a long time," he said.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"But Garford can do wonders--and she's very strong."
+
+Justine shuddered. Just so a skilled agent of the Inquisition might have
+spoken, calculating how much longer the power of suffering might be
+artificially preserved in a body broken on the wheel....
+
+"How does she seem to you today?"
+
+"The general conditions are about the same. The heart keeps up
+wonderfully, but there is a little more oppression of the diaphragm."
+
+"Yes--her breathing is harder. Last night she suffered horribly at
+times."
+
+"Oh--she'll suffer," Wyant murmured. "Of course the hypodermics can be
+increased."
+
+"Just what did Dr. Garford say this morning?"
+
+"He is astonished at her strength."
+
+"But there's no hope?--I don't know why I ask!"
+
+"Hope?" Wyant looked at her. "You mean of what's called recovery--of
+deferring death indefinitely?"
+
+She nodded.
+
+"How can Garford tell--or any one? We all know there have been cases
+where such injury to the cord has not caused death. This may be one of
+those cases; but the biggest man couldn't say now."
+
+Justine hid her eyes. "What a fate!"
+
+"Recovery? Yes. Keeping people alive in such cases is one of the
+refinements of cruelty that it was left for Christianity to invent."
+
+"And yet--?"
+
+"And yet--it's got to be! Science herself says so--not for the patient,
+of course; but for herself--for unborn generations, rather. Queer, isn't
+it? The two creeds are at one."
+
+Justine murmured through her clasped hands: "I wish she were not so
+strong----"
+
+"Yes; it's wonderful what those frail petted bodies can stand. The fight
+is going to be a hard one."
+
+She rose with a shiver. "I must go to Cicely----" The rector of Saint
+Anne's had called again. Justine, in obedience to Mrs. Gaines's
+suggestion, had summoned him from Clifton the day after the accident;
+but, supported by the surgeons and Wyant, she had resisted his admission
+to the sick-room. Bessy's religious practices had been purely
+mechanical: her faith had never been associated with the graver moments
+of her life, and the apparition of a clerical figure at her bedside
+would portend not consolation but calamity. Since it was all-important
+that her nervous strength should be sustained, and the gravity of the
+situation kept from her, Mrs. Gaines yielded to the medical commands,
+consoled by the ready acquiescence of the rector. But before she left
+she extracted a promise that he would call frequently at Lynbrook, and
+wait his opportunity to say an uplifting word to Mrs. Amherst.
+
+The Reverend Ernest Lynde, who was a young man, with more zeal than
+experience, deemed it his duty to obey this injunction to the letter;
+but hitherto he had had to content himself with a talk with the
+housekeeper, or a brief word on the doorstep from Wyant. Today, however,
+he had asked somewhat insistently for Miss Brent; and Justine, who was
+free at the moment, felt that she could not refuse to go down. She had
+seen him only in the pulpit, when once or twice, in Bessy's absence, she
+had taken Cicely to church: he struck her as a grave young man, with a
+fine voice but halting speech. His sermons were earnest but ineffective.
+
+As he rose to meet her, she felt that she should like him better out of
+church. His glance was clear and honest, and there was sweetness in his
+hesitating smile.
+
+"I am sorry to seem persistent--but I heard you had news of Mr.
+Langhope, and I was anxious to know the particulars," he explained.
+
+Justine replied that her message had overtaken Mr. Langhope at Wady
+Haifa, and that he hoped to reach Alexandria in time to catch a steamer
+to Brindisi at the end of the week.
+
+"Not till then? So it will be almost three weeks--?"
+
+"As nearly as I can calculate, a month."
+
+The rector hesitated. "And Mr. Amherst?"
+
+"He is coming back too."
+
+"Ah, you have heard? I'm glad of that. He will be here soon?"
+
+"No. He is in South America--at Buenos Ayres. There will be no steamer
+for some days, and he may not get here till after Mr. Langhope."
+
+Mr. Lynde looked at her kindly, with grave eyes that proffered help.
+"This is terrible for you, Miss Brent."
+
+"Yes," Justine answered simply.
+
+"And Mrs. Amherst's condition----?"
+
+"It is about the same."
+
+"The doctors are hopeful?"
+
+"They have not lost hope."
+
+"She seems to keep her strength wonderfully."
+
+"Yes, wonderfully."
+
+Mr. Lynde paused, looking downward, and awkwardly turning his soft
+clerical hat in his large kind-looking hands. "One might almost see in
+it a dispensation--_we_ should see one, Miss Brent."
+
+"_We?_" She glanced up apologetically, not quite sure that her tired
+mind had followed his meaning.
+
+"We, I mean, who believe...that not one sparrow falls to the ground...."
+He flushed, and went on in a more mundane tone: "I am glad you have the
+hope of Mr. Langhope's arrival to keep you up. Modern science--thank
+heaven!--can do such wonders in sustaining and prolonging life that,
+even if there is little chance of recovery, the faint spark may be
+nursed until...."
+
+He paused again, conscious that the dusky-browed young woman, slenderly
+erect in her dark blue linen and nurse's cap, was examining him with an
+intentness which contrasted curiously with the absent-minded glance she
+had dropped on him in entering.
+
+"In such cases," she said in a low tone, "there is practically no chance
+of recovery."
+
+"So I understand."
+
+"Even if there were, it would probably be death-in-life: complete
+paralysis of the lower body."
+
+He shuddered. "A dreadful fate! She was so gay and active----"
+
+"Yes--and the struggle with death, for the next few weeks, must involve
+incessant suffering...frightful suffering...perhaps vainly...."
+
+"I feared so," he murmured, his kind face paling.
+
+"Then why do you thank heaven that modern science has found such
+wonderful ways of prolonging life?"
+
+He raised his head with a start and their eyes met. He saw that the
+nurse's face was pale and calm--almost judicial in its composure--and
+his self-possession returned to him.
+
+"As a Christian," he answered, with his slow smile, "I can hardly do
+otherwise."
+
+Justine continued to consider him thoughtfully. "The men of the older
+generation--clergymen, I mean," she went on in a low controlled voice,
+"would of course take that view--must take it. But the conditions are so
+changed--so many undreamed-of means of prolonging life--prolonging
+suffering--have been discovered and applied in the last few years, that
+I wondered...in my profession one often wonders...."
+
+"I understand," he rejoined sympathetically, forgetting his youth and
+his inexperience in the simple desire to bring solace to a troubled
+mind. "I understand your feeling--but you need have no doubt. Human
+life is sacred, and the fact that, even in this materialistic age,
+science is continually struggling to preserve and prolong it,
+shows--very beautifully, I think--how all things work together to
+fulfill the divine will."
+
+"Then you believe that the divine will delights in mere pain--mere
+meaningless animal suffering--for its own sake?"
+
+"Surely not; but for the sake of the spiritual life that may be
+mysteriously wrung out of it."
+
+Justine bent her puzzled brows on him. "I could understand that view of
+moral suffering--or even of physical pain moderate enough to leave the
+mind clear, and to call forth qualities of endurance and renunciation.
+But where the body has been crushed to a pulp, and the mind is no more
+than a machine for the registering of sense-impressions of physical
+anguish, of what use can such suffering be to its owner--or to the
+divine will?"
+
+The young rector looked at her sadly, almost severely. "There, Miss
+Brent, we touch on inscrutable things, and human reason must leave the
+answer to faith."
+
+Justine pondered. "So that--one may say--Christianity recognizes no
+exceptions--?"
+
+"None--none," its authorized exponent pronounced emphatically.
+
+"Then Christianity and science are agreed." She rose, and the young
+rector, with visible reluctance, stood up also.
+
+"That, again, is one of the most striking evidences--" he began; and
+then, as the necessity of taking leave was forced upon him, he added
+appealingly: "I understand your uncertainties, your questionings, and I
+wish I could have made my point clearer----"
+
+"Thank you; it is quite clear. The reasons, of course, are different;
+but the result is exactly the same."
+
+She held out her hand, smiling sadly on him, and with a sudden return of
+youth and self-consciousness, he murmured shyly: "I feel for you"--the
+man in him yearning over her loneliness, though the pastor dared not
+press his help....
+
+
+
+
+XXVIII
+
+
+THAT evening, when Justine took her place at the bedside, and the other
+two nurses had gone down to supper, Bessy turned her head slightly,
+resting her eyes on her friend.
+
+The rose-shaded lamp cast a tint of life on her face, and the dark
+circles of pain made her eyes look deeper and brighter. Justine was
+almost deceived by the delusive semblance of vitality, and a hope that
+was half anguish stirred in her. She sat down by the bed, clasping the
+hand on the sheet.
+
+"You feel better tonight?"
+
+"I breathe...better...." The words came brokenly, between long pauses,
+but without the hard agonized gasps of the previous night.
+
+"That's a good sign." Justine paused, and then, letting her fingers
+glide once or twice over the back of Bessy's hand--"You know, dear, Mr.
+Amherst is coming," she leaned down to say.
+
+Bessy's eyes moved again, slowly, inscrutably. She had never asked for
+her husband.
+
+"Soon?" she whispered.
+
+"He had started on a long journey--to out-of-the-way places--to study
+something about cotton growing--my message has just overtaken him,"
+Justine explained.
+
+Bessy lay still, her breast straining for breath. She remained so long
+without speaking that Justine began to think she was falling back into
+the somnolent state that intervened between her moments of complete
+consciousness. But at length she lifted her lids again, and her lips
+stirred.
+
+"He will be...long...coming?"
+
+"Some days."
+
+"How...many?"
+
+"We can't tell yet."
+
+Silence again. Bessy's features seemed to shrink into a kind of waxen
+quietude--as though her face were seen under clear water, a long way
+down. And then, as she lay thus, without sound or movement, two tears
+forced themselves through her lashes and rolled down her cheeks.
+
+Justine, bending close, wiped them away. "Bessy--"
+
+The wet lashes were raised--an anguished look met her gaze.
+
+"I--I can't bear it...."
+
+"What, dear?"
+
+"The pain.... Shan't I die...before?"
+
+"You may get well, Bessy."
+
+Justine felt her hand quiver. "Walk again...?"
+
+"Perhaps...not that."
+
+"_This?_ I can't bear it...." Her head drooped sideways, turning away
+toward the wall.
+
+Justine, that night, kept her vigil with an aching heart. The news of
+Amherst's return had produced no sign of happiness in his wife--- the
+tears had been forced from her merely by the dread of being kept alive
+during the long days of pain before he came. The medical explanation
+might have been that repeated crises of intense physical anguish, and
+the deep lassitude succeeding them, had so overlaid all other feelings,
+or at least so benumbed their expression, that it was impossible to
+conjecture how Bessy's little half-smothered spark of soul had really
+been affected by the news. But Justine did not believe in this argument.
+Her experience among the sick had convinced her, on the contrary, that
+the shafts of grief or joy will find a crack in the heaviest armour of
+physical pain, that the tiniest gleam of hope will light up depths of
+mental inanition, and somehow send a ray to the surface.... It was true
+that Bessy had never known how to bear pain, and that her own sensations
+had always formed the centre of her universe--yet, for that very reason,
+if the thought of seeing Amherst had made her happier it would have
+lifted, at least momentarily, the weight of death from her body.
+
+Justine, at first, had almost feared the contrary effect--feared that
+the moral depression might show itself in a lowering of physical
+resistance. But the body kept up its obstinate struggle against death,
+drawing strength from sources of vitality unsuspected in that frail
+envelope. The surgeon's report the next day was more favourable, and
+every day won from death pointed now to a faint chance of recovery.
+
+Such at least was Wyant's view. Dr. Garford and the consulting surgeons
+had not yet declared themselves; but the young doctor, strung to the
+highest point of watchfulness, and constantly in attendance on the
+patient, was tending toward a hopeful prognosis. The growing conviction
+spurred him to fresh efforts; at Dr. Garford's request, he had
+temporarily handed over his Clifton practice to a young New York doctor
+in need of change, and having installed himself at Lynbrook he gave up
+his days and nights to Mrs. Amherst's case.
+
+"If any one can save her, Wyant will," Dr. Garford had declared to
+Justine, when, on the tenth day after the accident, the surgeons held
+their third consultation. Dr. Garford reserved his own judgment. He had
+seen cases--they had all seen cases...but just at present the signs
+might point either way.... Meanwhile Wyant's confidence was an
+invaluable asset toward the patient's chances of recovery. Hopefulness
+in the physician was almost as necessary as in the patient--contact with
+such faith had been known to work miracles.
+
+Justine listened in silence, wishing that she too could hope. But
+whichever way the prognosis pointed, she felt only a dull despair. She
+believed no more than Dr. Garford in the chance of recovery--that
+conviction seemed to her a mirage of Wyant's imagination, of his boyish
+ambition to achieve the impossible--and every hopeful symptom pointed,
+in her mind, only to a longer period of useless suffering.
+
+Her hours at Bessy's side deepened her revolt against the energy spent
+in the fight with death. Since Bessy had learned that her husband was
+returning she had never, by sign or word, reverted to the fact. Except
+for a gleam of tenderness, now and then, when Cicely was brought to
+her, she seemed to have sunk back into herself, as though her poor
+little flicker of consciousness were wholly centred in the contemplation
+of its pain. It was not that her mind was clouded--only that it was
+immersed, absorbed, in that dread mystery of disproportionate anguish
+which a capricious fate had laid on it.... And what if she recovered, as
+they called it? If the flood-tide of pain should ebb, leaving her
+stranded, a helpless wreck on the desert shores of inactivity? What
+would life be to Bessy without movement? Thought would never set her
+blood flowing--motion, in her, could only take the form of the physical
+processes. Her love for Amherst was dead--even if it flickered into life
+again, it could but put the spark to smouldering discords and
+resentments; and would her one uncontaminated sentiment--her affection
+for Cicely--suffice to reconcile her to the desolate half-life which was
+the utmost that science could hold out?
+
+Here again, Justine's experience answered no. She did not believe in
+Bessy's powers of moral recuperation--her body seemed less near death
+than her spirit. Life had been poured out to her in generous measure,
+and she had spilled the precious draught--the few drops remaining in the
+cup could no longer renew her strength.
+
+Pity, not condemnation--profound illimitable pity--flowed from this
+conclusion of Justine's. To a compassionate heart there could be no
+sadder instance of the wastefulness of life than this struggle of the
+small half-formed soul with a destiny too heavy for its strength. If
+Bessy had had any moral hope to fight for, every pang of suffering would
+have been worth enduring; but it was intolerable to witness the
+spectacle of her useless pain.
+
+Incessant commerce with such thoughts made Justine, as the days passed,
+crave any escape from solitude, any contact with other ideas. Even the
+reappearance of Westy Gaines, bringing a breath of common-place
+conventional grief into the haunted silence of the house, was a respite
+from her questionings. If it was hard to talk to him, to answer his
+enquiries, to assent to his platitudes, it was harder, a thousand times,
+to go on talking to herself....
+
+Mr. Tredegar's coming was a distinct relief. His dryness was like
+cautery to her wound. Mr. Tredegar undoubtedly grieved for Bessy; but
+his grief struck inward, exuding only now and then, through the fissures
+of his hard manner, in a touch of extra solemnity, the more laboured
+rounding of a period. Yet, on the whole, it was to his feeling that
+Justine felt her own to be most akin. If his stoic acceptance of the
+inevitable proceeded from the resolve to spare himself pain, that at
+least was a form of strength, an indication of character. She had never
+cared for the fluencies of invertebrate sentiment.
+
+Now, on the evening of the day after her talk with Bessy, it was more
+than ever a solace to escape from the torment of her thoughts into the
+rarefied air of Mr. Tredegar's presence. The day had been a bad one for
+the patient, and Justine's distress had been increased by the receipt of
+a cable from Mr. Langhope, announcing that, owing to delay in reaching
+Brindisi, he had missed the fast steamer from Cherbourg, and would not
+arrive till four or five days later than he had expected. Mr. Tredegar,
+in response to her report, had announced his intention of coming down by
+a late train, and now he and Justine and Dr. Wyant, after dining
+together, were seated before the fire in the smoking-room.
+
+"I take it, then," Mr. Tredegar said, turning to Wyant, "that the
+chances of her living to see her father are very slight."
+
+The young doctor raised his head eagerly. "Not in my opinion, sir.
+Unless unforeseen complications arise, I can almost promise to keep her
+alive for another month--I'm not afraid to call it six weeks!"
+
+"H'm--Garford doesn't say so."
+
+"No; Dr. Garford argues from precedent."
+
+"And you?" Mr. Tredegar's thin lips were visited by the ghost of a
+smile.
+
+"Oh, I don't argue--I just feel my way," said Wyant imperturbably.
+
+"And yet you don't hesitate to predict----"
+
+"No, I don't, sir; because the case, as I see it, presents certain
+definite indications." He began to enumerate them, cleverly avoiding the
+use of technicalities and trying to make his point clear by the use of
+simple illustration and analogy. It sickened Justine to listen to his
+passionate exposition--she had heard it so often, she believed in it so
+little.
+
+Mr. Tredegar turned a probing glance on him as he ended. "Then, today
+even, you believe not only in the possibility of prolonging life, but of
+ultimate recovery?"
+
+Wyant hesitated. "I won't call it recovery--today. Say--life
+indefinitely prolonged."
+
+"And the paralysis?"
+
+"It might disappear--after a few months--or a few years."
+
+"Such an outcome would be unusual?"
+
+"Exceptional. But then there _are_ exceptions. And I'm straining every
+nerve to make this one!"
+
+"And the suffering--such as today's, for instance--is unavoidable?"
+
+"Unhappily."
+
+"And bound to increase?"
+
+"Well--as the anaesthetics lose their effect...."
+
+There was a tap on the door, and one of the nurses entered to report to
+Wyant. He went out with her, and Justine was left with Mr. Tredegar.
+
+He turned to her thoughtfully. "That young fellow seems sure of himself.
+You believe in him?"
+
+Justine hesitated. "Not in his expectation of recovery--no one does."
+
+"But you think they can keep the poor child alive till Langhope and her
+husband get back?"
+
+There was a moment's pause; then Justine murmured: "It can be done...I
+think...."
+
+"Yes--it's horrible," said Mr. Tredegar suddenly, as if in answer to her
+thought.
+
+She looked up in surprise, and saw his eye resting on her with what
+seemed like a mist of sympathy on its vitreous surface. Her lips
+trembled, parting as if for speech--but she looked away without
+answering.
+
+"These new devices for keeping people alive," Mr. Tredegar continued;
+"they increase the suffering besides prolonging it?"
+
+"Yes--in some cases."
+
+"In this case?"
+
+"I am afraid so."
+
+The lawyer drew out his fine cambric handkerchief, and furtively wiped a
+slight dampness from his forehead. "I wish to God she had been killed!"
+he said.
+
+Justine lifted her head again, with an answering exclamation. "Oh, yes!"
+
+"It's infernal--the time they can make it last."
+
+"It's useless!" Justine broke out.
+
+"Useless?" He turned his critical glance on her. "Well, that's beside
+the point--since it's inevitable."
+
+She wavered a moment--but his words had loosened the bonds about her
+heart, and she could not check herself so suddenly. "Why inevitable?"
+
+Mr. Tredegar looked at her in surprise, as though wondering at so
+unprofessional an utterance from one who, under ordinary circumstances,
+showed the absolute self-control and submission of the well-disciplined
+nurse.
+
+"Human life is sacred," he said sententiously.
+
+"Ah, that must have been decreed by some one who had never suffered!"
+Justine exclaimed.
+
+Mr. Tredegar smiled compassionately: he evidently knew how to make
+allowances for the fact that she was overwrought by the sight of her
+friend's suffering: "Society decreed it--not one person," he corrected.
+
+"Society--science--religion!" she murmured, as if to herself.
+
+"Precisely. It's the universal consensus--the result of the world's
+accumulated experience. Cruel in individual instances--necessary for the
+general welfare. Of course your training has taught you all this; but I
+can understand that at such a time...."
+
+"Yes," she said, rising wearily as Wyant came in.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Her worst misery, now, was to have to discuss Bessy's condition with
+Wyant. To the young physician Bessy was no longer a suffering,
+agonizing creature: she was a case--a beautiful case. As the problem
+developed new intricacies, becoming more and more of a challenge to his
+faculties of observation and inference, Justine saw the abstract
+scientific passion supersede his personal feeling of pity. Though his
+professional skill made him exquisitely tender to the patient under his
+hands, he seemed hardly conscious that she was a woman who had
+befriended him, and whom he had so lately seen in the brightness of
+health and enjoyment. This view was normal enough--it was, as Justine
+knew, the ideal state of mind for the successful physician, in whom
+sympathy for the patient as an individual must often impede swift choice
+and unfaltering action. But what she shrank from was his resolve to save
+Bessy's life--a resolve fortified to the point of exasperation by the
+scepticism of the consulting surgeons, who saw in it only the
+youngster's natural desire to distinguish himself by performing a feat
+which his elders deemed impossible.
+
+As the days dragged on, and Bessy's sufferings increased, Justine longed
+for a protesting word from Dr. Garford or one of his colleagues. In her
+hospital experience she had encountered cases where the useless agonies
+of death were mercifully shortened by the physician; why was not this a
+case for such treatment? The answer was simple enough--in the first
+place, it was the duty of the surgeons to keep their patient alive till
+her husband and her father could reach her; and secondly, there was that
+faint illusive hope of so-called recovery, in which none of them
+believed, yet which they could not ignore in their treatment. The
+evening after Mr. Tredegar's departure Wyant was setting this forth at
+great length to Justine. Bessy had had a bad morning: the bronchial
+symptoms which had developed a day or two before had greatly increased
+her distress, and there had been, at dawn, a moment of weakness when it
+seemed that some pitiful power was about to defeat the relentless
+efforts of science. But Wyant had fought off the peril. By the prompt
+and audacious use of stimulants--by a rapid marshalling of resources, a
+display of self-reliance and authority, which Justine could not but
+admire as she mechanically seconded his efforts--the spark of life had
+been revived, and Bessy won back for fresh suffering.
+
+"Yes--I say it can be done: tonight I say it more than ever," Wyant
+exclaimed, pushing the disordered hair from his forehead, and leaning
+toward Justine across the table on which their brief evening meal had
+been served. "I say the way the heart has rallied proves that we've got
+more strength to draw on than any of them have been willing to admit.
+The breathing's better too. If we can fight off the degenerative
+processes--and, by George, I believe we can!" He looked up suddenly at
+Justine. "With you to work with, I believe I could do anything. How you
+do back a man up! You think with your hands--with every individual
+finger!"
+
+Justine turned her eyes away: she felt a shudder of repulsion steal over
+her tired body. It was not that she detected any note of personal
+admiration in his praise--he had commended her as the surgeon might
+commend a fine instrument fashioned for his use. But that she should be
+the instrument to serve such a purpose--that her skill, her promptness,
+her gift of divining and interpreting the will she worked with, should
+be at the service of this implacable scientific passion! Ah, no--she
+could be silent no longer....
+
+She looked up at Wyant, and their eyes met.
+
+"Why do you do it?" she asked.
+
+He stared, as if thinking that she referred to some special point in his
+treatment. "Do what?"
+
+"It's so useless...you all know she must die."
+
+"I know nothing of the kind...and even the others are not so sure
+today." He began to go over it all again--repeating his arguments,
+developing new theories, trying to force into her reluctant mind his own
+faith in the possibility of success.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Justine sat resting her chin on her clasped hands, her eyes gazing
+straight before her under dark tormented brows. When he paused she
+remained silent.
+
+"Well--don't you believe me?" he broke out with sudden asperity.
+
+"I don't know...I can't tell...."
+
+"But as long as there's a doubt, even--a doubt my way--and I'll show you
+there is, if you'll give me time----"
+
+"How much time?" she murmured, without shifting her gaze.
+
+"Ah--that depends on ourselves: on you and me chiefly. That's what
+Garford admits. _They_ can't do much now--they've got to leave the game
+to us. It's a question of incessant vigilance...of utilizing every hour,
+every moment.... Time's all I ask, and _you_ can give it to me, if any
+one can!"
+
+Under the challenge of his tone Justine rose to her feet with a low
+murmur of fear. "Ah, don't ask me!"
+
+"Don't ask you----?"
+
+"I can't--I can't."
+
+Wyant stood up also, turning on her an astonished glance.
+
+"You can't what--?"
+
+Their eyes met, and she thought she read in his a sudden divination of
+her inmost thoughts. The discovery electrified her flagging strength,
+restoring her to immediate clearness of brain. She saw the gulf of
+self-betrayal over which she had hung, and the nearness of the peril
+nerved her to a last effort of dissimulation.
+
+"I can't...talk of it...any longer," she faltered, letting her tears
+flow, and turning on him a face of pure womanly weakness.
+
+Wyant looked at her without answering. Did he distrust even these plain
+physical evidences of exhaustion, or was he merely disappointed in her,
+as in one whom he had believed to be above the emotional failings of her
+sex?
+
+"You're over-tired," he said coldly. "Take tonight to rest. Miss Mace
+can replace you for the next few hours--and I may need you more
+tomorrow."
+
+
+
+
+XXIX
+
+
+FOUR more days had passed. Bessy seldom spoke when Justine was with her.
+She was wrapped in a thickening cloud of opiates--morphia by day,
+bromides, sulphonal, chloral hydrate at night. When the cloud broke and
+consciousness emerged, it was centred in the one acute point of bodily
+anguish. Darting throes of neuralgia, agonized oppression of the breath,
+the diffused misery of the whole helpless body--these were reducing
+their victim to a mere instrument on which pain played its incessant
+deadly variations. Once or twice she turned her dull eyes on Justine,
+breathing out: "I want to die," as some inevitable lifting or
+readjusting thrilled her body with fresh pangs; but there were no signs
+of contact with the outer world--she had ceased even to ask for
+Cicely....
+
+And yet, according to the doctors, the patient held her own. Certain
+alarming symptoms had diminished, and while others persisted, the
+strength to fight them persisted too. With such strength to call on,
+what fresh agonies were reserved for the poor body when the narcotics
+had lost their power?
+
+That was the question always before Justine. She never again betrayed
+her fears to Wyant--she carried out his orders with morbid precision,
+trembling lest any failure in efficiency should revive his suspicions.
+She hardly knew what she feared his suspecting--she only had a confused
+sense that they were enemies, and that she was the weaker of the two.
+
+And then the anaesthetics began to fail. It was the sixteenth day since
+the accident, and the resources of alleviation were almost exhausted. It
+was not sure, even now, that Bessy was going to die--and she was
+certainly going to suffer a long time. Wyant seemed hardly conscious of
+the increase of pain--his whole mind was fixed on the prognosis. What
+matter if the patient suffered, as long as he proved his case? That, of
+course, was not his way of putting it. In reality, he did all he could
+to allay the pain, surpassed himself in new devices and experiments. But
+death confronted him implacably, claiming his due: so many hours robbed
+from him, so much tribute to pay; and Wyant, setting his teeth, fought
+on--and Bessy paid.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Justine had begun to notice that it was hard for her to get a word alone
+with Dr. Garford. The other nurses were not in the way--it was Wyant who
+always contrived to be there. Perhaps she was unreasonable in seeing a
+special intention in his presence: it was natural enough that the two
+persons in charge of the case should confer together with their chief.
+But his persistence annoyed her, and she was glad when, one afternoon,
+the surgeon asked him to telephone an important message to town.
+
+As soon as the door had closed, Justine said to Dr. Garford: "She is
+beginning to suffer terribly."
+
+He answered with the large impersonal gesture of the man to whom
+physical suffering has become a painful general fact of life, no longer
+divisible into individual cases. "We are doing all we can."
+
+"Yes." She paused, and then raised her eyes to his dry kind face. "Is
+there any hope?"
+
+Another gesture--the fatalistic sweep of the lifted palms. "The next ten
+days will tell--the fight is on, as Wyant says. And if any one can do
+it, that young fellow can. There's stuff in him--and infernal
+ambition."
+
+"Yes: but do _you_ believe she can live--?"
+
+Dr. Garford smiled indulgently on such unprofessional insistence; but
+she was past wondering what they must all think of her.
+
+"My dear Miss Brent," he said, "I have reached the age when one always
+leaves a door open to the unexpected."
+
+As he spoke, a slight sound at her back made her turn. Wyant was behind
+her--he must have entered as she put her question. And he certainly
+could not have had time to descend the stairs, walk the length of the
+house, ring up New York, and deliver Dr Garford's message.... The same
+thought seemed to strike the surgeon. "Hello, Wyant?" he said.
+
+"Line busy," said Wyant curtly.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+About this time, Justine gave up her night vigils. She could no longer
+face the struggle of the dawn hour, when life ebbs lowest; and since her
+duties extended beyond the sick-room she could fairly plead that she was
+more needed about the house by day. But Wyant protested: he wanted her
+most at the difficult hour.
+
+"You know you're taking a chance from her," he said, almost sternly.
+
+"Oh, no----"
+
+He looked at her searchingly. "You don't feel up to it?"
+
+"No."
+
+He turned away with a slight shrug; but she knew he resented her
+defection.
+
+The day watches were miserable enough. It was the nineteenth day now;
+and Justine lay on the sofa in Amherst's sitting-room, trying to nerve
+herself for the nurse's summons. A page torn out of the calendar lay
+before her--she had been calculating again how many days must elapse
+before Mr. Langhope could arrive. Ten days--ten days and ten nights! And
+the length of the nights was double.... As for Amherst, it was
+impossible to set a date for his coming, for his steamer from Buenos
+Ayres called at various ports on the way northward, and the length of
+her stay at each was dependent on the delivery of freight, and on the
+dilatoriness of the South American official.
+
+She threw down the calendar and leaned back, pressing her hands to her
+temples. Oh, for a word with Amherst--he alone would have understood
+what she was undergoing! Mr. Langhope's coming would make no
+difference--or rather, it would only increase the difficulty of the
+situation. Instinctively Justine felt that, though his heart would be
+wrung by the sight of Bessy's pain, his cry would be the familiar one,
+the traditional one: _Keep her alive!_ Under his surface originality,
+his verbal audacities and ironies, Mr. Langhope was the creature of
+accepted forms, inherited opinions: he had never really thought for
+himself on any of the pressing problems of life.
+
+But Amherst was different. Close contact with many forms of wretchedness
+had freed him from the bondage of accepted opinion. He looked at life
+through no eyes but his own; and what he saw, he confessed to seeing. He
+never tried to evade the consequences of his discoveries.
+
+Justine's remembrance flew back to their first meeting at Hanaford, when
+his confidence in his own powers was still unshaken, his trust in others
+unimpaired. And, gradually, she began to relive each detail of their
+talk at Dillon's bedside--her first impression of him, as he walked down
+the ward; the first sound of his voice; her surprised sense of his
+authority; her almost involuntary submission to his will.... Then her
+thoughts passed on to their walk home from the hospital--she recalled
+his sober yet unsparing summary of the situation at Westmore, and the
+note of insight with which he touched on the hardships of the
+workers.... Then, word by word, their talk about Dillon came
+back...Amherst's indignation and pity...his shudder of revolt at the
+man's doom.
+
+"_In your work, don't you ever feel tempted to set a poor devil free?_"
+And then, after her conventional murmur of protest: "_To save what,
+when all the good of life is gone?_"
+
+To distract her thoughts she stretched her hand toward the book-case,
+taking out the first volume in reach--the little copy of Bacon. She
+leaned back, fluttering its pages aimlessly--so wrapped in her own
+misery that the meaning of the words could not reach her. It was useless
+to try to read: every perception of the outer world was lost in the hum
+of inner activity that made her mind like a forge throbbing with heat
+and noise. But suddenly her glance fell on some pencilled sentences on
+the fly-leaf. They were in Amherst's hand, and the sight arrested her as
+though she had heard him speak.
+
+_La vraie morale se moque de la morale...._
+
+_We perish because we follow other men's examples...._
+
+_Socrates used to call the opinions of the many by the name of
+Lamiae--bugbears to frighten children...._
+
+A rush of air seemed to have been let into her stifled mind. Were they
+his own thoughts? No--her memory recalled some confused association with
+great names. But at least they must represent his beliefs--must embody
+deeply-felt convictions--or he would scarcely have taken the trouble to
+record them.
+
+She murmured over the last sentence once or twice: _The opinions of the
+many--bugbears to frighten children...._ Yes, she had often heard him
+speak of current judgments in that way...she had never known a mind so
+free from the spell of the Lamiae.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Some one knocked, and she put aside the book and rose to her feet. It
+was a maid bringing a note from Wyant.
+
+"There has been a motor accident beyond Clifton, and I have been sent
+for. I think I can safely be away for two or three hours, but ring me up
+at Clifton if you want me. Miss Mace has instructions, and Garford's
+assistant will be down at seven."
+
+She looked at the clock: it was just three, the hour at which she was to
+relieve Miss Mace. She smoothed the hair from her forehead, straightened
+her cap, tied on the apron she had laid aside....
+
+As she entered Bessy's sitting-room the nurse came out, memoranda in
+hand. The two moved to the window for a moment's conference, and as the
+wintry light fell on Miss Mace's face, Justine saw that it was white
+with fatigue.
+
+"You're ill!" she exclaimed.
+
+The nurse shook her head. "No--but it's awful...this afternoon...." Her
+glance turned to the sick-room.
+
+"Go and rest--I'll stay till bedtime," Justine said.
+
+"Miss Safford's down with another headache."
+
+"I know: it doesn't matter. I'm quite fresh."
+
+"You _do_ look rested!" the other exclaimed, her eyes lingering
+enviously on Justine's face.
+
+She stole away, and Justine entered the room. It was true that she felt
+fresh--a new spring of hope had welled up in her. She had her nerves in
+hand again, she had regained her steady vision of life....
+
+But in the room, as the nurse had said, it was awful. The time had come
+when the effect of the anaesthetics must be carefully husbanded, when
+long intervals of pain must purchase the diminishing moments of relief.
+Yet from Wyant's standpoint it was a good day--things were looking well,
+as he would have phrased it. And each day now was a fresh victory.
+
+Justine went through her task mechanically. The glow of strength and
+courage remained, steeling her to bear what had broken down Miss Mace's
+professional fortitude. But when she sat down by the bed Bessy's moaning
+began to wear on her. It was no longer the utterance of human pain, but
+the monotonous whimper of an animal--the kind of sound that a
+compassionate hand would instinctively crush into silence. But her hand
+had other duties; she must keep watch on pulse and heart, must reinforce
+their action with the tremendous stimulants which Wyant was now using,
+and, having revived fresh sensibility to pain, must presently try to
+allay it by the cautious use of narcotics.
+
+It was all simple enough--but suppose she should not do it? Suppose she
+left the stimulants untouched? Wyant was absent, one nurse exhausted
+with fatigue, the other laid low by headache. Justine had the field to
+herself. For three hours at least no one was likely to cross the
+threshold of the sick-room.... Ah, if no more time were needed! But
+there was too much life in Bessy--her youth was fighting too hard for
+her! She would not sink out of life in three hours...and Justine could
+not count on more than that.
+
+She looked at the little travelling-clock on the dressing-table, and saw
+that its hands marked four. An hour had passed already.... She rose and
+administered the prescribed restorative; then she took the pulse, and
+listened to the beat of the heart. Strong still--too strong!
+
+As she lifted her head, the vague animal wailing ceased, and she heard
+her name: "Justine----"
+
+She bent down eagerly. "Yes?"
+
+No answer: the wailing had begun again. But the one word showed her that
+the mind still lived in its torture-house, that the poor powerless body
+before her was not yet a mere bundle of senseless reflexes, but her
+friend Bessy Amherst, dying, and feeling herself die....
+
+Justine reseated herself, and the vigil began again. The second hour
+ebbed slowly--ah, no, it was flying now! Her eyes were on the hands of
+the clock and they seemed leagued against her to devour the precious
+minutes. And now she could see by certain spasmodic symptoms that
+another crisis of pain was approaching--one of the struggles that Wyant,
+at times, had almost seemed to court and exult in.
+
+Bessy's eyes turned on her again. "_Justine_----"
+
+She knew what that meant: it was an appeal for the hypodermic needle.
+The little instrument lay at hand, beside a newly-filled bottle of
+morphia. But she must wait--must let the pain grow more severe. Yet she
+could not turn her gaze from Bessy, and Bessy's eyes entreated her
+again--_Justine_! There was really no word now--the whimperings were
+uninterrupted. But Justine heard an inner voice, and its pleading shook
+her heart. She rose and filled the syringe--and returning with it, bent
+above the bed....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+She lifted her head and looked at the clock. The second hour had passed.
+As she looked, she heard a step in the sitting-room. Who could it be?
+Not Dr. Garford's assistant--he was not due till seven. She listened
+again.... One of the nurses? No, not a woman's step----
+
+The door opened, and Wyant came in. Justine stood by the bed without
+moving toward him. He paused also, as if surprised to see her there
+motionless. In the intense silence she fancied for a moment that she
+heard Bessy's violent agonized breathing. She tried to speak, to drown
+the sound of the breathing; but her lips trembled too much, and she
+remained silent.
+
+Wyant seemed to hear nothing. He stood so still that she felt she must
+move forward. As she did so, she picked up from the table by the bed the
+memoranda that it was her duty to submit to him.
+
+"Well?" he said, in the familiar sick-room whisper.
+
+"She is dead."
+
+He fell back a step, glaring at her, white and incredulous.
+
+"_Dead?_--When----?"
+
+"A few minutes ago...."
+
+"_Dead--?_ It's not possible!"
+
+He swept past her, shouldering her aside, pushing in an electric button
+as he sprang to the bed. She perceived then that the room had been
+almost in darkness. She recovered command of herself, and followed him.
+He was going through the usual rapid examination--pulse, heart,
+breath--hanging over the bed like some angry animal balked of its prey.
+Then he lifted the lids and bent close above the eyes.
+
+"Take the shade off that lamp!" he commanded.
+
+Justine obeyed him.
+
+He stooped down again to examine the eyes...he remained stooping a long
+time. Suddenly he stood up and faced her.
+
+"Had she been in great pain?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Worse than usual?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"What had you done?"
+
+"Nothing--there was no time."
+
+"No time?" He broke off to sweep the room again with his excited
+incredulous glance. "Where are the others? Why were you here alone?" he
+demanded.
+
+"It came suddenly. I was going to call----"
+
+Their eyes met for a moment. Her face was perfectly calm--she could feel
+that her lips no longer trembled. She was not in the least afraid of
+Wyant's scrutiny.
+
+As he continued to look at her, his expression slowly passed from
+incredulous wrath to something softer--more human--she could not tell
+what....
+
+"This has been too much for you--go and send one of the others.... It's
+all over," he said.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK IV
+
+
+
+
+XXX
+
+
+ON a September day, somewhat more than a year and a half after Bessy
+Amherst's death, her husband and his mother sat at luncheon in the
+dining-room of the Westmore house at Hanaford.
+
+The house was John Amherst's now, and shortly after the loss of his wife
+he had established himself there with his mother. By a will made some
+six months before her death, Bessy had divided her estate between her
+husband and daughter, placing Cicely's share in trust, and appointing
+Mr. Langhope and Amherst as her guardians. As the latter was also her
+trustee, the whole management of the estate devolved on him, while his
+control of the Westmore mills was ensured by his receiving a slightly
+larger proportion of the stock than his step-daughter.
+
+The will had come as a surprise, not only to Amherst himself, but to his
+wife's family, and more especially to her legal adviser. Mr. Tredegar
+had in fact had nothing to do with the drawing of the instrument; but as
+it had been drawn in due form, and by a firm of excellent standing, he
+was obliged, in spite of his private views, and Mr. Langhope's open
+adjurations that he should "do something," to declare that there was no
+pretext for questioning the validity of the document.
+
+To Amherst the will was something more than a proof of his wife's
+confidence: it came as a reconciling word from her grave. For the date
+showed that it had been made at a moment when he supposed himself to
+have lost all influence over her--on the morrow of the day when she had
+stipulated that he should give up the management of the Westmore mills,
+and yield the care of her property to Mr. Tredegar.
+
+While she smote him with one hand, she sued for pardon with the other;
+and the contradiction was so characteristic, it explained and excused in
+so touching a way the inconsistencies of her impulsive heart and
+hesitating mind, that he was filled with that tender compunction, that
+searching sense of his own shortcomings, which generous natures feel
+when they find they have underrated the generosity of others. But
+Amherst's was not an introspective mind, and his sound moral sense told
+him, when the first pang of self-reproach had subsided, that he had done
+his best by his wife, and was in no way to blame if her recognition of
+the fact had come too late. The self-reproach subsided; and, instead of
+the bitterness of the past, it left a softened memory which made him
+take up his task with the sense that he was now working with Bessy and
+not against her.
+
+Yet perhaps, after all, it was chiefly the work itself which had healed
+old wounds, and quelled the tendency to vain regrets. Amherst was only
+thirty-four; and in the prime of his energies the task he was made for
+had been given back to him. To a sound nature, which finds its outlet in
+fruitful action, nothing so simplifies the complexities of life, so
+tends to a large acceptance of its vicissitudes and mysteries, as the
+sense of doing something each day toward clearing one's own bit of the
+wilderness. And this was the joy at last conceded to Amherst. The mills
+were virtually his; and the fact that he ruled them not only in his own
+right but as Cicely's representative, made him doubly eager to justify
+his wife's trust in him.
+
+Mrs. Amherst, looking up from a telegram which the parlour-maid had
+handed her, smiled across the table at her son.
+
+"From Maria Ansell--they are all coming tomorrow."
+
+"Ah--that's good," Amherst rejoined. "I should have been sorry if Cicely
+had not been here."
+
+"Mr. Langhope is coming too," his mother continued. "I'm glad of that,
+John."
+
+"Yes," Amherst again assented.
+
+The morrow was to be a great day at Westmore. The Emergency Hospital,
+planned in the first months of his marriage, and abandoned in the
+general reduction of expenditure at the mills, had now been completed on
+a larger and more elaborate scale, as a memorial to Bessy. The strict
+retrenchment of all personal expenses, and the leasing of Lynbrook and
+the town house, had enabled Amherst, in eighteen months, to lay by
+enough income to carry out this plan, which he was impatient to see
+executed as a visible commemoration of his wife's generosity to
+Westmore. For Amherst persisted in regarding the gift of her fortune as
+a gift not to himself but to the mills: he looked on himself merely as
+the agent of her beneficent intentions. He was anxious that Westmore and
+Hanaford should take the same view; and the opening of the Westmore
+Memorial Hospital was therefore to be performed with an unwonted degree
+of ceremony.
+
+"I am glad Mr. Langhope is coming," Mrs. Amherst repeated, as they rose
+from the table. "It shows, dear--doesn't it?--that he's really
+gratified--that he appreciates your motive...."
+
+She raised a proud glance to her tall son, whose head seemed to tower
+higher than ever above her small proportions. Renewed self-confidence,
+and the habit of command, had in fact restored the erectness to
+Amherst's shoulders and the clearness to his eyes. The cleft between the
+brows was gone, and his veiled inward gaze had given place to a glance
+almost as outward-looking and unspeculative as his mother's.
+
+"It shows--well, yes--what you say!" he rejoined with a slight laugh,
+and a tap on her shoulder as she passed.
+
+He was under no illusions as to his father-in-law's attitude: he knew
+that Mr. Langhope would willingly have broken the will which deprived
+his grand-daughter of half her inheritance, and that his subsequent show
+of friendliness was merely a concession to expediency. But in his
+present mood Amherst almost believed that time and closer relations
+might turn such sentiments into honest liking. He was very fond of his
+little step-daughter, and deeply sensible of his obligations toward her;
+and he hoped that, as Mr. Langhope came to recognize this, it might
+bring about a better understanding between them.
+
+His mother detained him. "You're going back to the mills at once? I
+wanted to consult you about the rooms. Miss Brent had better be next to
+Cicely?"
+
+"I suppose so--yes. I'll see you before I go." He nodded affectionately
+and passed on, his hands full of papers, into the Oriental smoking-room,
+now dedicated to the unexpected uses of an office and study.
+
+Mrs. Amherst, as she turned away, found the parlour-maid in the act of
+opening the front door to the highly-tinted and well-dressed figure of
+Mrs. Harry Dressel.
+
+"I'm so delighted to hear that you're expecting Justine," began Mrs.
+Dressel as the two ladies passed into the drawing-room.
+
+"Ah, you've heard too?" Mrs. Amherst rejoined, enthroning her visitor in
+one of the monumental plush armchairs beneath the threatening weight of
+the Bay of Naples.
+
+"I hadn't till this moment; in fact I flew in to ask for news, and on
+the door-step there was such a striking-looking young man enquiring for
+her, and I heard the parlour-maid say she was arriving tomorrow."
+
+"A young man? Some one you didn't know?" Striking apparitions of the
+male sex were of infrequent occurrence at Hanaford, and Mrs. Amherst's
+unabated interest in the movement of life caused her to dwell on this
+statement.
+
+"Oh, no--I'm sure he was a stranger. Extremely slight and pale, with
+remarkable eyes. He was so disappointed--he seemed sure of finding her."
+
+"Well, no doubt he'll come back tomorrow.--You know we're expecting the
+whole party," added Mrs. Amherst, to whom the imparting of good news was
+always an irresistible temptation.
+
+Mrs. Dressel's interest deepened at once. "Really? Mr. Langhope too?"
+
+"Yes. It's a great pleasure to my son."
+
+"It must be! I'm so glad. I suppose in a way it will be rather sad for
+Mr. Langhope--seeing everything here so unchanged----"
+
+Mrs. Amherst straightened herself a little. "I think he will prefer to
+find it so," she said, with a barely perceptible change of tone.
+
+"Oh, I don't know. They were never very fond of this house."
+
+There was an added note of authority in Mrs. Dressel's accent. In the
+last few months she had been to Europe and had had nervous prostration,
+and these incontestable evidences of growing prosperity could not always
+be kept out of her voice and bearing. At any rate, they justified her in
+thinking that her opinion on almost any subject within the range of
+human experience was a valuable addition to the sum-total of wisdom; and
+unabashed by the silence with which her comment was received, she
+continued her critical survey of the drawing-room.
+
+"Dear Mrs. Amherst--you know I can't help saying what I think--and I've
+so often wondered why you don't do this room over. With these high
+ceilings you could do something lovely in Louis Seize."
+
+A faint pink rose to Mrs. Amherst's cheeks. "I don't think my son would
+ever care to make any changes here," she said.
+
+"Oh, I understand his feeling; but when he begins to entertain--and you
+know poor Bessy always _hated_ this furniture."
+
+Mrs. Amherst smiled slightly. "Perhaps if he marries again--" she said,
+seizing at random on a pretext for changing the subject.
+
+Mrs. Dressel dropped the hands with which she was absent-mindedly
+assuring herself of the continuance of unbroken relations between her
+hat and her hair.
+
+"_Marries again?_ Why--you don't mean--? He doesn't think of it?"
+
+"Not in the least--I spoke figuratively," her hostess rejoined with a
+laugh.
+
+"Oh, of course--I see. He really _couldn't_ marry, could he? I mean, it
+would be so wrong to Cicely--under the circumstances."
+
+Mrs. Amherst's black eye-brows gathered in a slight frown. She had
+already noticed, on the part of the Hanaford clan, a disposition to
+regard Amherst as imprisoned in the conditions of his trust, and
+committed to the obligation of handing on unimpaired to Cicely the
+fortune his wife's caprice had bestowed on him; and this open expression
+of the family view was singularly displeasing to her.
+
+"I had not thought of it in that light--but it's really of no
+consequence how one looks at a thing that is not going to happen," she
+said carelessly.
+
+"No--naturally; I see you were only joking. He's so devoted to Cicely,
+isn't he?" Mrs. Dressel rejoined, with her bright obtuseness.
+
+A step on the threshold announced Amherst's approach.
+
+"I'm afraid I must be off, mother--" he began, halting in the doorway
+with the instinctive masculine recoil from the afternoon caller.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Amherst, how d'you do? I suppose you're very busy about
+tomorrow? I just flew in to find out if Justine was really coming," Mrs.
+Dressel explained, a little fluttered by the effort of recalling what
+she had been saying when he entered.
+
+"I believe my mother expects the whole party," Amherst replied, shaking
+hands with the false _bonhomie_ of the man entrapped.
+
+"How delightful! And it's so nice to think that Mr. Langhope's
+arrangement with Justine still works so well," Mrs. Dressel hastened on,
+nervously hoping that her volubility would smother any recollection of
+what he had chanced to overhear.
+
+"Mr. Langhope is lucky in having persuaded Miss Brent to take charge of
+Cicely," Mrs. Amherst quietly interposed.
+
+"Yes--and it was so lucky for Justine too! When she came back from
+Europe with us last autumn, I could see she simply hated the idea of
+taking up her nursing again."
+
+Amherst's face darkened at the allusion, and his mother said hurriedly:
+"Ah, she was tired, poor child; but I'm only afraid that, after the
+summer's rest, she may want some more active occupation than looking
+after a little girl."
+
+"Oh, I think not--she's so fond of Cicely. And of course it's everything
+to her to have a comfortable home."
+
+Mrs. Amherst smiled. "At her age, it's not always everything."
+
+Mrs. Dressel stared slightly. "Oh, Justine's twenty-seven, you know;
+she's not likely to marry now," she said, with the mild finality of the
+early-wedded.
+
+She rose as she spoke, extending cordial hands of farewell. "You must be
+so busy preparing for the great day...if only it doesn't rain!... No,
+_please_, Mr. Amherst!... It's a mere step--I'm walking...."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+That afternoon, as Amherst walked out toward Westmore for a survey of
+the final preparations, he found that, among the pleasant thoughts
+accompanying him, one of the pleasantest was the anticipation of seeing
+Justine Brent.
+
+Among the little group who were to surround him on the morrow, she was
+the only one discerning enough to understand what the day meant to him,
+or with sufficient knowledge to judge of the use he had made of his
+great opportunity. Even now that the opportunity had come, and all
+obstacles were levelled, sympathy with his work was as much lacking as
+ever; and only Duplain, at length reinstated as manager, really
+understood and shared in his aims. But Justine Brent's sympathy was of a
+different kind from the manager's. If less logical, it was warmer, more
+penetrating--like some fine imponderable fluid, so subtle that it could
+always find a way through the clumsy processes of human intercourse.
+Amherst had thought very often of this quality in her during the weeks
+which followed his abrupt departure for Georgia; and in trying to define
+it he had said to himself that she felt with her brain.
+
+And now, aside from the instinctive understanding between them, she was
+set apart in his thoughts by her association with his wife's last days.
+On his arrival from the south he had gathered on all sides evidences of
+her tender devotion to Bessy: even Mr. Tredegar's chary praise swelled
+the general commendation. From the surgeons he heard how her unwearied
+skill had helped them in their fruitless efforts; poor Cicely, awed by
+her loss, clung to her mother's friend with childish tenacity; and the
+young rector of Saint Anne's, shyly acquitting himself of his visit of
+condolence, dwelt chiefly on the consolatory thought of Miss Brent's
+presence at the death-bed.
+
+The knowledge that Justine had been with his wife till the end had, in
+fact, done more than anything else to soften Amherst's regrets; and he
+had tried to express something of this in the course of his first talk
+with her. Justine had given him a clear and self-possessed report of the
+dreadful weeks at Lynbrook; but at his first allusion to her own part in
+them, she shrank into a state of distress which seemed to plead with him
+to refrain from even the tenderest touch on her feelings. It was a
+peculiarity of their friendship that silence and absence had always
+mysteriously fostered its growth; and he now felt that her reticence
+deepened the understanding between them as the freest confidences might
+not have done.
+
+Soon afterward, an opportune attack of nervous prostration had sent Mrs.
+Harry Dressel abroad; and Justine was selected as her companion. They
+remained in Europe for six months; and on their return Amherst learned
+with pleasure that Mr. Langhope had asked Miss Brent to take charge of
+Cicely.
+
+Mr. Langhope's sorrow for his daughter had been aggravated by futile
+wrath at her unaccountable will; and the mixed sentiment thus engendered
+had found expression in a jealous outpouring of affection toward Cicely.
+He took immediate possession of the child, and in the first stages of
+his affliction her companionship had been really consoling. But as time
+passed, and the pleasant habits of years reasserted themselves, her
+presence became, in small unacknowledged ways, a source of domestic
+irritation. Nursery hours disturbed the easy routine of his household;
+the elderly parlour-maid who had long ruled it resented the intervention
+of Cicely's nurse; the little governess, involved in the dispute, broke
+down and had to be shipped home to Germany; a successor was hard to
+find, and in the interval Mr. Langhope's privacy was invaded by a stream
+of visiting teachers, who were always wanting to consult him about
+Cicely's lessons, and lay before him their tiresome complaints and
+perplexities. Poor Mr. Langhope found himself in the position of the
+mourner who, in the first fervour of bereavement, has undertaken the
+construction of an imposing monument without having counted the cost. He
+had meant that his devotion to Cicely should be a monument to his
+paternal grief; but the foundations were scarcely laid when he found
+that the funds of time and patience were almost exhausted.
+
+Pride forbade his consigning Cicely to her step-father, though Mrs.
+Amherst would gladly have undertaken her care; Mrs. Ansell's migratory
+habits made it impossible for her to do more than intermittently hover
+and advise; and a new hope rose before Mr. Langhope when it occurred to
+him to appeal to Miss Brent.
+
+The experiment had proved a success, and when Amherst met Justine again
+she had been for some months in charge of the little girl, and change
+and congenial occupation had restored her to a normal view of life.
+There was no trace in her now of the dumb misery which had haunted him
+at their parting; she was again the vivid creature who seemed more
+charged with life than any one he had ever known. The crisis through
+which she had passed showed itself only in a smoothing of the brow and
+deepening of the eyes, as though a bloom of experience had veiled
+without deadening the first brilliancy of youth.
+
+As he lingered on the image thus evoked, he recalled Mrs. Dressel's
+words: "Justine is twenty-seven--she's not likely to marry now."
+
+Oddly enough, he had never thought of her marrying--but now that he
+heard the possibility questioned, he felt a disagreeable conviction of
+its inevitableness. Mrs. Dressel's view was of course absurd. In spite
+of Justine's feminine graces, he had formerly felt in her a kind of
+elfin immaturity, as of a flitting Ariel with untouched heart and
+senses: it was only of late that she had developed the subtle quality
+which calls up thoughts of love. Not marry? Why, the vagrant fire had
+just lighted on her--and the fact that she was poor and unattached, with
+her own way to make, and no setting of pleasure and elegance to
+embellish her--these disadvantages seemed as nothing to Amherst against
+the warmth of personality in which she moved. And besides, she would
+never be drawn to the kind of man who needed fine clothes and luxury to
+point him to the charm of sex. She was always finished and graceful in
+appearance, with the pretty woman's art of wearing her few plain dresses
+as if they were many and varied; yet no one could think of her as
+attaching much importance to the upholstery of life.... No, the man who
+won her would be of a different type, have other inducements to
+offer...and Amherst found himself wondering just what those inducements
+would be.
+
+Suddenly he remembered something his mother had said as he left the
+house--something about a distinguished-looking young man who had called
+to ask for Miss Brent. Mrs. Amherst, innocently inquisitive in small
+matters, had followed her son into the hall to ask the parlour-maid if
+the gentleman had left his name; and the parlour-maid had answered in
+the negative. The young man was evidently not indigenous: all the social
+units of Hanaford were intimately known to each other. He was a
+stranger, therefore, presumably drawn there by the hope of seeing Miss
+Brent. But if he knew that she was coming he must be intimately
+acquainted with her movements.... The thought came to Amherst as an
+unpleasant surprise. It showed him for the first time how little he knew
+of Justine's personal life, of the ties she might have formed outside
+the Lynbrook circle. After all, he had seen her chiefly not among her
+own friends but among his wife's. Was it reasonable to suppose that a
+creature of her keen individuality would be content to subsist on the
+fringe of other existences? Somewhere, of course, she must have a centre
+of her own, must be subject to influences of which he was wholly
+ignorant. And since her departure from Lynbrook he had known even less
+of her life. She had spent the previous winter with Mr. Langhope in New
+York, where Amherst had seen her only on his rare visits to Cicely; and
+Mr. Langhope, on going abroad for the summer, had established his
+grand-daughter in a Bar Harbour cottage, where, save for two flying
+visits from Mrs. Ansell, Miss Brent had reigned alone till his return in
+September.
+
+Very likely, Amherst reflected, the mysterious visitor was a Bar Harbour
+acquaintance--no, more than an acquaintance: a friend. And as Mr.
+Langhope's party had left Mount Desert but three days previously, the
+arrival of the unknown at Hanaford showed a singular impatience to
+rejoin Miss Brent.
+
+As he reached this point in his meditations, Amherst found himself at
+the street-corner where it was his habit to pick up the Westmore
+trolley. Just as it bore down on him, and he sprang to the platform,
+another car, coming in from the mills, stopped to discharge its
+passengers. Among them Amherst noticed a slender undersized man in
+shabby clothes, about whose retreating back, as he crossed the street to
+signal a Station Avenue car, there was something dimly familiar, and
+suggestive of troubled memories. Amherst leaned out and looked again:
+yes, the back was certainly like Dr. Wyant's--but what could Wyant be
+doing at Hanaford, and in a Westmore car?
+
+Amherst's first impulse was to spring out and overtake him. He knew how
+admirably the young physician had borne himself at Lynbrook; he even
+recalled Dr. Garford's saying, with his kindly sceptical smile: "Poor
+Wyant believed to the end that we could save her"--and felt again his
+own inward movement of thankfulness that the cruel miracle had not been
+worked.
+
+He owed a great deal to Wyant, and had tried to express his sense of the
+fact by warm words and a liberal fee; but since Bessy's death he had
+never returned to Lynbrook, and had consequently lost sight of the young
+doctor.
+
+Now he felt that he ought to try to rejoin him, to find out why he was
+at Hanaford, and make some proffer of hospitality; but if the stranger
+were really Wyant, his choice of the Station Avenue car made it appear
+that he was on his way to catch the New York express; and in any case
+Amherst's engagements at Westmore made immediate pursuit impossible.
+
+He consoled himself with the thought that if the physician was not
+leaving Hanaford he would be certain to call at the house; and then his
+mind flew back to Justine Brent. But the pleasure of looking forward to
+her arrival was disturbed by new feelings. A sense of reserve and
+embarrassment had sprung up in his mind, checking that free mental
+communion which, as he now perceived, had been one of the unconscious
+promoters of their friendship. It was as though his thoughts faced a
+stranger instead of the familiar presence which had so long dwelt in
+them; and he began to see that the feeling of intelligence existing
+between Justine and himself was not the result of actual intimacy, but
+merely of the charm she knew how to throw over casual intercourse.
+
+When he had left his house, his mind was like a summer sky, all open
+blue and sunlit rolling clouds; but gradually the clouds had darkened
+and massed themselves, till they drew an impenetrable veil over the
+upper light and stretched threateningly across his whole horizon.
+
+
+
+
+XXXI
+
+
+THE celebrations at Westmore were over. Hanaford society, mustering for
+the event, had streamed through the hospital, inspected the clinic,
+complimented Amherst, recalled itself to Mr. Langhope and Mrs. Ansell,
+and streamed out again to regain its carriages and motors.
+
+The chief actors in the ceremony were also taking leave. Mr. Langhope,
+somewhat pale and nervous after the ordeal, had been helped into the
+Gaines landau with Mrs. Ansell and Cicely; Mrs. Amherst had accepted a
+seat in the Dressel victoria; and Westy Gaines, with an _empressement_
+slightly tinged by condescension, was in the act of placing his electric
+phaeton at Miss Brent's disposal.
+
+She stood in the pretty white porch of the hospital, looking out across
+its squares of flower-edged turf at the long street of Westmore. In the
+warm gold-powdered light of September the factory town still seemed a
+blot on the face of nature; yet here and there, on all sides, Justine's
+eye saw signs of humanizing change. The rough banks along the street had
+been levelled and sodded; young maples, set in rows, already made a long
+festoon of gold against the dingy house-fronts; and the houses
+themselves--once so irreclaimably outlawed and degraded--showed, in
+their white-curtained windows, their flowery white-railed yards, a
+growing approach to civilized human dwellings.
+
+Glancing the other way, one still met the grim pile of factories cutting
+the sky with their harsh roof-lines and blackened chimneys; but here
+also were signs of improvement. One of the mills had already been
+enlarged, another was scaffolded for the same purpose, and young trees
+and neatly-fenced turf replaced the surrounding desert of trampled
+earth.
+
+As Amherst came out of the hospital, he heard Miss Brent declining a
+seat in Westy's phaeton.
+
+"Thank you so much; but there's some one here I want to see first--one
+of the operatives--and I can easily take a Hanaford car." She held out
+her hand with the smile that ran like colour over her whole face; and
+Westy, nettled by this unaccountable disregard of her privileges,
+mounted his chariot alone.
+
+As he glided mournfully away, Amherst turned to Justine. "You wanted to
+see the Dillons?" he asked.
+
+Their eyes met, and she smiled again. He had never seen her so
+sunned-over, so luminous, since the distant November day when they had
+picnicked with Cicely beside the swamp. He wondered vaguely if she were
+more elaborately dressed than usual, or if the festal impression she
+produced were simply a reflection of her mood.
+
+"I do want to see the Dillons--how did you guess?" she rejoined; and
+Amherst felt a sudden impulse to reply: "For the same reason that made
+you think of them."
+
+The fact of her remembering the Dillons made him absurdly happy; it
+re-established between them the mental communion that had been checked
+by his thoughts of the previous day.
+
+"I suppose I'm rather self-conscious about the Dillons, because they're
+one of my object lessons--they illustrate the text," he said laughing,
+as they went down the steps.
+
+Westmore had been given a half-holiday for the opening of the hospital,
+and as Amherst and Justine turned into the street, parties of workers
+were dispersing toward their houses. They were still a dull-eyed stunted
+throng, to whom air and movement seemed to have been too long denied;
+but there was more animation in the groups, more light in individual
+faces; many of the younger men returned Amherst's good-day with a look
+of friendliness, and the women to whom he spoke met him with a
+volubility that showed the habit of frequent intercourse.
+
+"How much you have done!" Justine exclaimed, as he rejoined her after
+one of these asides; but the next moment he saw a shade of embarrassment
+cross her face, as though she feared to have suggested comparisons she
+had meant to avoid.
+
+He answered quite naturally: "Yes--I'm beginning to see my way now; and
+it's wonderful how they respond--" and they walked on without a shadow
+of constraint between them, while he described to her what was already
+done, and what direction his projected experiments were taking.
+
+The Dillons had been placed in charge of one of the old factory
+tenements, now transformed into a lodging-house for unmarried
+operatives. Even its harsh brick exterior, hung with creepers and
+brightened by flower-borders, had taken on a friendly air; and indoors
+it had a clean sunny kitchen, a big dining-room with cheerful-coloured
+walls, and a room where the men could lounge and smoke about a table
+covered with papers.
+
+The creation of these model lodging-houses had always been a favourite
+scheme of Amherst's, and the Dillons, incapacitated for factory work,
+had shown themselves admirably adapted to their new duties. In Mrs.
+Dillon's small hot sitting-room, among the starched sofa-tidies and pink
+shells that testified to the family prosperity, Justine shone with
+enjoyment and sympathy. She had always taken an interest in the lives
+and thoughts of working-people: not so much the constructive interest of
+the sociological mind as the vivid imaginative concern of a heart open
+to every human appeal. She liked to hear about their hard struggles and
+small pathetic successes: the children's sicknesses, the father's lucky
+job, the little sum they had been able to put by, the plans they had
+formed for Tommy's advancement, and how Sue's good marks at school were
+still ahead of Mrs. Hagan's Mary's.
+
+"What I really like is to gossip with them, and give them advice about
+the baby's cough, and the cheapest way to do their marketing," she said
+laughing, as she and Amherst emerged once more into the street. "It's
+the same kind of interest I used to feel in my dolls and guinea pigs--a
+managing, interfering old maid's interest. I don't believe I should care
+a straw for them if I couldn't dose them and order them about."
+
+Amherst laughed too: he recalled the time when he had dreamed that just
+such warm personal sympathy was her sex's destined contribution to the
+broad work of human beneficence. Well, it had not been a dream: here was
+a woman whose deeds spoke for her. And suddenly the thought came to him:
+what might they not do at Westmore together! The brightness of it was
+blinding--like the dazzle of sunlight which faced them as they walked
+toward the mills. But it left him speechless, confused--glad to have a
+pretext for routing Duplain out of the office, introducing him to Miss
+Brent, and asking him for the keys of the buildings....
+
+It was wonderful, again, how she grasped what he was doing in the mills,
+and saw how his whole scheme hung together, harmonizing the work and
+leisure of the operatives, instead of treating them as half machine,
+half man, and neglecting the man for the machine. Nor was she content
+with Utopian generalities: she wanted to know the how and why of each
+case, to hear what conclusions he drew from his results, to what
+solutions his experiments pointed.
+
+In explaining the mill work he forgot his constraint and returned to the
+free comradery of mind that had always marked their relation. He turned
+the key reluctantly in the last door, and paused a moment on the
+threshold.
+
+"Anything more?" he said, with a laugh meant to hide his desire to
+prolong their tour.
+
+She glanced up at the sun, which still swung free of the tall factory
+roofs.
+
+"As much as you've time for. Cicely doesn't need me this afternoon, and
+I can't tell when I shall see Westmore again."
+
+Her words fell on him with a chill. His smile faded, and he looked away
+for a moment.
+
+"But I hope Cicely will be here often," he said.
+
+"Oh, I hope so too," she rejoined, with seeming unconsciousness of any
+connection between the wish and her previous words.
+
+Amherst hesitated. He had meant to propose a visit to the old Eldorado
+building, which now at last housed the long-desired night-schools and
+nursery; but since she had spoken he felt a sudden indifference to
+showing her anything more. What was the use, if she meant to leave
+Cicely, and drift out of his reach? He could get on well enough without
+sympathy and comprehension, but his momentary indulgence in them made
+the ordinary taste of life a little flat.
+
+"There must be more to see?" she continued, as they turned back toward
+the village; and he answered absently: "Oh, yes--if you like."
+
+He heard the change in his own voice, and knew by her quick side-glance
+that she had heard it too.
+
+"Please let me see everything that is compatible with my getting a car
+to Hanaford by six."
+
+"Well, then--the night-school next," he said with an effort at
+lightness; and to shake off the importunity of his own thoughts he added
+carelessly, as they walked on: "By the way--it seems improbable--but I
+think I saw Dr. Wyant yesterday in a Westmore car."
+
+She echoed the name in surprise. "Dr. Wyant? Really! Are you sure?"
+
+"Not quite; but if it wasn't he it was his ghost. You haven't heard of
+his being at Hanaford?"
+
+"No. I've heard nothing of him for ages."
+
+Something in her tone made him return her side-glance; but her voice, on
+closer analysis, denoted only indifference, and her profile seemed to
+express the same negative sentiment. He remembered a vague Lynbrook
+rumour to the effect that the young doctor had been attracted to Miss
+Brent. Such floating seeds of gossip seldom rooted themselves in his
+mind, but now the fact acquired a new significance, and he wondered how
+he could have thought so little of it at the time. Probably her somewhat
+exaggerated air of indifference simply meant that she had been bored by
+Wyant's attentions, and that the reminder of them still roused a slight
+self-consciousness.
+
+Amherst was relieved by this conclusion, and murmuring: "Oh, I suppose
+it can't have been he," led her rapidly on to the Eldorado. But the old
+sense of free communion was again obstructed, and her interest in the
+details of the schools and nursery now seemed to him only a part of her
+wonderful art of absorbing herself in other people's affairs. He was a
+fool to have been duped by it--to have fancied it was anything more
+personal than a grace of manner.
+
+As she turned away from inspecting the blackboards in one of the empty
+school-rooms he paused before her and said suddenly: "You spoke of not
+seeing Westmore again. Are you thinking of leaving Cicely?"
+
+The words were almost the opposite of those he had intended to speak; it
+was as if some irrepressible inner conviction flung defiance at his
+surface distrust of her.
+
+She stood still also, and he saw a thought move across her face. "Not
+immediately--but perhaps when Mr. Langhope can make some other
+arrangement----"
+
+Owing to the half-holiday they had the school-building to themselves,
+and the fact of being alone with her, without fear of interruption, woke
+in Amherst an uncontrollable longing to taste for once the joy of
+unguarded utterance.
+
+"Why do you go?" he asked, moving close to the platform on which she
+stood.
+
+She hesitated, resting her hand on the teacher's desk. Her eyes were
+kind, but he thought her tone was cold.
+
+"This easy life is rather out of my line," she said at length, with a
+smile that draped her words in vagueness.
+
+Amherst looked at her again--she seemed to be growing remote and
+inaccessible. "You mean that you don't want to stay?"
+
+His tone was so abrupt that it called forth one of her rare blushes.
+"No--not that. I have been very happy with Cicely--but soon I shall have
+to be doing something else."
+
+Why was she blushing? And what did her last phrase mean? "Something
+else--?" The blood hummed in his ears--he began to hope she would not
+answer too quickly.
+
+She had sunk into the seat behind the desk, propping her elbows on its
+lid, and letting her interlaced hands support her chin. A little bunch
+of violets which had been thrust into the folds of her dress detached
+itself and fell to the floor.
+
+"What I mean is," she said in a low voice, raising her eyes to
+Amherst's, "that I've had a great desire lately to get back to real
+work--my special work.... I've been too idle for the last year--I want
+to do some hard nursing; I want to help people who are miserable."
+
+She spoke earnestly, almost passionately, and as he listened his
+undefined fear was lifted. He had never before seen her in this mood,
+with brooding brows, and the darkness of the world's pain in her eyes.
+All her glow had faded--she was a dun thrush-like creature, clothed in
+semi-tints; yet she seemed much nearer than when her smile shot light on
+him.
+
+He stood motionless, his eyes absently fixed on the bunch of violets at
+her feet. Suddenly he raised his head, and broke out with a boyish
+blush: "Could it have been Wyant who was trying to see you?"
+
+"Dr. Wyant--trying to see me?" She lowered her hands to the desk, and
+sat looking at him with open wonder.
+
+He saw the irrelevance of his question, and burst, in spite of himself,
+into youthful laughter.
+
+"I mean--It's only that an unknown visitor called at the house
+yesterday, and insisted that you must have arrived. He seemed so annoyed
+at not finding you, that I thought...I imagined...it must be some one
+who knew you very well...and who had followed you here...for some
+special reason...."
+
+Her colour rose again, as if caught from his; but her eyes still
+declared her ignorance. "Some special reason----?"
+
+"And just now," he blurted out, "when you said you might not stay much
+longer with Cicely--I thought of the visit--and wondered if there was
+some one you meant to marry...."
+
+A silence fell between them. Justine rose slowly, her eyes screened
+under the veil she had lowered. "No--I don't mean to marry," she said,
+half-smiling, as she came down from the platform.
+
+Restored to his level, her small shadowy head just in a line with his
+eyes, she seemed closer, more approachable and feminine--yet Amherst did
+not dare to speak.
+
+She took a few steps toward the window, looking out into the deserted
+street. "It's growing dark--I must go home," she said.
+
+"Yes," he assented absently as he followed her. He had no idea what she
+was saying. The inner voices in which they habitually spoke were growing
+louder than outward words. Or was it only the voice of his own desires
+that he heard--the cry of new hopes and unguessed capacities of living?
+All within him was flood-tide: this was the top of life, surely--to feel
+her alike in his brain and his pulses, to steep sight and hearing in the
+joy of her nearness, while all the while thought spoke clear: "This is
+the mate of my mind."
+
+He began again abruptly. "Wouldn't you marry, if it gave you the chance
+to do what you say--if it offered you hard work, and the opportunity to
+make things better...for a great many people...as no one but yourself
+could do it?"
+
+It was a strange way of putting his case: he was aware of it before he
+ended. But it had not occurred to him to tell her that she was lovely
+and desirable--in his humility he thought that what he had to give would
+plead for him better than what he was.
+
+The effect produced on her by his question, though undecipherable, was
+extraordinary. She stiffened a little, remaining quite motionless, her
+eyes on the street.
+
+"_You!_" she just breathed; and he saw that she was beginning to
+tremble.
+
+His wooing had been harsh and clumsy--he was afraid it had offended her,
+and his hand trembled too as it sought hers.
+
+"I only thought--it would be a dull business to most women--and I'm tied
+to it for life...but I thought...I've seen so often how you pity
+suffering...how you long to relieve it...."
+
+She turned away from him with a shuddering sigh. "Oh, I _hate_
+suffering!" she broke out, raising her hands to her face.
+
+Amherst was frightened. How senseless of him to go on reiterating the
+old plea! He ought to have pleaded for himself--to have let the man in
+him seek her and take his defeat, instead of beating about the flimsy
+bush of philanthropy.
+
+"I only meant--I was trying to make my work recommend me..." he said
+with a half-laugh, as she remained silent, her eyes still turned away.
+
+The silence continued for a long time--it stretched between them like a
+narrowing interminable road, down which, with a leaden heart, he seemed
+to watch her gradually disappearing. And then, unexpectedly, as she
+shrank to a tiny speck at the dip of the road, the perspective was
+mysteriously reversed, and he felt her growing nearer again, felt her
+close to him--felt her hand in his.
+
+"I'm really just like other women, you know--I shall like it because
+it's your work," she said.
+
+
+
+
+XXXII
+
+
+EVERY one agreed that, on the whole, Mr. Langhope had behaved extremely
+well.
+
+He was just beginning to regain his equanimity in the matter of the
+will--to perceive that, in the eyes of the public, something important
+and distinguished was being done at Westmore, and that the venture,
+while reducing Cicely's income during her minority, might, in some
+incredible way, actually make for its ultimate increase. So much Mr.
+Langhope, always eager to take the easiest view of the inevitable, had
+begun to let fall in his confidential comments on Amherst; when his
+newly-regained balance was rudely shaken by the news of his son-in-law's
+marriage.
+
+The free expression of his anger was baffled by the fact that, even by
+the farthest stretch of self-extenuating logic, he could find no one to
+blame for the event but himself.
+
+"Why on earth don't you say so--don't you call me a triple-dyed fool for
+bringing them together?" he challenged Mrs. Ansell, as they had the
+matter out together in the small intimate drawing-room of her New York
+apartment.
+
+Mrs. Ansell, stirring her tea with a pensive hand, met the challenge
+composedly.
+
+"At present you're doing it for me," she reminded him; "and after all,
+I'm not so disposed to agree with you."
+
+"Not agree with me? But you told me not to engage Miss Brent! Didn't you
+tell me not to engage her?"
+
+She made a hesitating motion of assent.
+
+"But, good Lord, how was I to help myself? No man was ever in such a
+quandary!" he broke off, leaping back to the other side of the argument.
+
+"No," she said, looking up at him suddenly. "I believe that, for the
+only time in your life, you were sorry then that you hadn't married me."
+
+She held his eyes for a moment with a look of gentle malice; then he
+laughed, and drew forth his cigarette-case.
+
+"Oh, come--you've inverted the formula," he said, reaching out for the
+enamelled match-box at his elbow. She let the pleasantry pass with a
+slight smile, and he went on reverting to his grievance: "Why _didn't_
+you want me to engage Miss Brent?"
+
+"Oh, I don't know...some instinct."
+
+"You won't tell me?"
+
+"I couldn't if I tried; and now, after all----"
+
+"After all--what?"
+
+She reflected. "You'll have Cicely off your mind, I mean."
+
+"Cicely off my mind?" Mr. Langhope was beginning to find his charming
+friend less consolatory than usual. After all, the most magnanimous
+woman has her circuitous way of saying _I told you so_. "As if any good
+governess couldn't have done that for me!" he grumbled.
+
+"Ah--the present care for her. But I was looking ahead," she rejoined.
+
+"To what--if I may ask?"
+
+"The next few years--when Mrs. Amherst may have children of her own."
+
+"Children of her own?" He bounded up, furious at the suggestion.
+
+"Had it never occurred to you?"
+
+"Hardly as a source of consolation!"
+
+"I think a philosophic mind might find it so."
+
+"I should really be interested to know how!"
+
+Mrs. Ansell put down her cup, and again turned her gentle tolerant eyes
+upon him.
+
+"Mr. Amherst, as a father, will take a more conservative view of his
+duties. Every one agrees that, in spite of his theories, he has a good
+head for business; and whatever he does at Westmore for the advantage of
+his children will naturally be for Cicely's advantage too."
+
+Mr. Langhope returned her gaze thoughtfully. "There's something in what
+you say," he admitted after a pause. "But it doesn't alter the fact
+that, with Amherst unmarried, the whole of the Westmore fortune would
+have gone back to Cicely--where it belongs."
+
+"Possibly. But it was so unlikely that he would remain unmarried."
+
+"I don't see why! A man of honour would have felt bound to keep the
+money for Cicely."
+
+"But you must remember that, from Mr. Amherst's standpoint, the money
+belongs rather to Westmore than to Cicely."
+
+"He's no better than a socialist, then!"
+
+"Well--supposing he isn't: the birth of a son and heir will cure that."
+
+Mr. Langhope winced, but she persisted gently: "It's really safer for
+Cicely as it is--" and before the end of the conference he found himself
+confessing, half against his will: "Well, since he hadn't the decency
+to remain single, I'm thankful he hasn't inflicted a stranger on us; and
+I shall never forget what Miss Brent did for my poor Bessy...."
+
+It was the view she had wished to bring him to, and the view which, in
+due course, with all his accustomed grace and adaptability, he presented
+to the searching gaze of a society profoundly moved by the incident of
+Amherst's marriage. "Of course, if Mr. Langhope approves--" society
+reluctantly murmured; and that Mr. Langhope did approve was presently
+made manifest by every outward show of consideration toward the
+newly-wedded couple.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Amherst and Justine had been married in September; and after a holiday
+in Canada and the Adirondacks they returned to Hanaford for the winter.
+Amherst had proposed a short flight to Europe; but his wife preferred to
+settle down at once to her new duties.
+
+The announcement of her marriage had been met by Mrs. Dressel with a
+comment which often afterward returned to her memory. "It's splendid for
+you, of course, dear, _in one way_," her friend had murmured, between
+disparagement and envy--"that is, if you can stand talking about the
+Westmore mill-hands all the rest of your life."
+
+"Oh, but I couldn't--I should hate it!" Justine had energetically
+rejoined; meeting Mrs. Dressel's admonitory "Well, then?" with the
+laughing assurance that _she_ meant to lead the conversation.
+
+She knew well enough what the admonition meant. To Amherst, so long
+thwarted in his chosen work, the subject of Westmore was becoming an
+_idee fixe_; and it was natural that Hanaford should class him as a man
+of one topic. But Justine had guessed at his other side; a side as long
+thwarted, and far less articulate, which she intended to wake into life.
+She had felt it in him from the first, though their talks had so
+uniformly turned on the subject which palled on Hanaford; and it had
+been revealed to her during the silent hours among his books, when she
+had grown into such close intimacy with his mind.
+
+She did not, assuredly, mean to spend the rest of her days talking about
+the Westmore mill-hands; but in the arrogance of her joy she wished to
+begin her married life in the setting of its habitual duties, and to
+achieve the victory of evoking the secret unsuspected Amherst out of the
+preoccupied business man chained to his task. Dull lovers might have to
+call on romantic scenes to wake romantic feelings; but Justine's
+glancing imagination leapt to the challenge of extracting poetry from
+the prose of routine.
+
+And this was precisely the triumph that the first months brought her. To
+mortal eye, Amherst and Justine seemed to be living at Hanaford: in
+reality they were voyaging on unmapped seas of adventure. The seas were
+limitless, and studded with happy islands: every fresh discovery they
+made about each other, every new agreement of ideas and feelings,
+offered itself to these intrepid explorers as a friendly coast where
+they might beach their keel and take their bearings. Thus, in the
+thronging hum of metaphor, Justine sometimes pictured their relation;
+seeing it, again, as a journey through crowded populous cities, where
+every face she met was Amherst's; or, contrarily, as a multiplication of
+points of perception, so that one became, for the world's contact, a
+surface so multitudinously alive that the old myth of hearing the grass
+grow and walking the rainbow explained itself as the heightening of
+personality to the utmost pitch of sympathy.
+
+In reality, the work at Westmore became an almost necessary sedative
+after these flights into the blue. She felt sometimes that they would
+have been bankrupted of sensations if daily hours of drudgery had not
+provided a reservoir in which fresh powers of enjoyment could slowly
+gather. And their duties had the rarer quality of constituting,
+precisely, the deepest, finest bond between them, the clarifying element
+which saved their happiness from stagnation, and kept it in the strong
+mid-current of human feeling.
+
+It was this element in their affection which, in the last days of
+November, was unexpectedly put on trial. Mr. Langhope, since his return
+from his annual visit to Europe, showed signs of diminishing strength
+and elasticity. He had had to give up his nightly dinner parties, to
+desert his stall at the Opera: to take, in short, as he plaintively put
+it, his social pleasures homoeopathically. Certain of his friends
+explained the change by saying that he had never been "quite the same"
+since his daughter's death; while others found its determining cause in
+the shock of Amherst's second marriage. But this insinuation Mr.
+Langhope in due time discredited by writing to ask the Amhersts if they
+would not pity his loneliness and spend the winter in town with him. The
+proposal came in a letter to Justine, which she handed to her husband
+one afternoon on his return from the mills.
+
+She sat behind the tea-table in the Westmore drawing-room, now at last
+transformed, not into Mrs. Dressel's vision of "something lovely in
+Louis Seize," but into a warm yet sober setting for books, for scattered
+flowers, for deep chairs and shaded lamps in pleasant nearness to each
+other.
+
+Amherst raised his eyes from the letter, thinking as he did so how well
+her bright head, with its flame-like play of meanings, fitted into the
+background she had made for it. Still unobservant of external details,
+he was beginning to feel a vague well-being of the eye wherever her
+touch had passed.
+
+"Well, we must do it," he said simply.
+
+"Oh, must we?" she murmured, holding out his cup.
+
+He smiled at her note of dejection. "Unnatural woman! New York _versus_
+Hanaford--do you really dislike it so much?"
+
+She tried to bring a tone of consent into her voice. "I shall be very
+glad to be with Cicely again--and that, of course," she reflected, "is
+the reason why Mr. Langhope wants us."
+
+"Well--if it is, it's a good reason."
+
+"Yes. But how much shall you be with us?"
+
+"If you say so, I'll arrange to get away for a month or two."
+
+"Oh, no: I don't want that!" she said, with a smile that triumphed a
+little. "But why should not Cicely come here?"
+
+"If Mr. Langhope is cut off from his usual amusements, I'm afraid that
+would only make him more lonely."
+
+"Yes, I suppose so." She put aside her untasted cup, resting her elbows
+on her knees, and her chin on her clasped hands, in the attitude
+habitual to her in moments of inward debate.
+
+Amherst rose and seated himself on the sofa beside her. "Dear! What is
+it?" he said, drawing her hands down, so that she had to turn her face
+to his.
+
+"Nothing...I don't know...a superstition. I've been so happy here!"
+
+"Is our happiness too perishable to be transplanted?"
+
+She smiled and answered by another question. "You don't mind doing it,
+then?"
+
+Amherst hesitated. "Shall I tell you? I feel that it's a sort of ring of
+Polycrates. It may buy off the jealous gods."
+
+A faint shrinking from some importunate suggestion seemed to press her
+closer to him. "Then you feel they _are_ jealous?" she breathed, in a
+half-laugh.
+
+"I pity them if they're not!"
+
+"Yes," she agreed, rallying to his tone. "I only had a fancy that they
+might overlook such a dull place as Hanaford."
+
+Amherst drew her to him. "Isn't it, on the contrary, in the ash-heaps
+that the rag-pickers prowl?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There was no disguising it: she was growing afraid of her happiness. Her
+husband's analogy of the ring expressed her fear. She seemed to herself
+to carry a blazing jewel on her breast--something that singled her out
+for human envy and divine pursuit. She had a preposterous longing to
+dress plainly and shabbily, to subdue her voice and gestures, to try to
+slip through life unnoticed; yet all the while she knew that her jewel
+would shoot its rays through every disguise. And from the depths of
+ancient atavistic instincts came the hope that Amherst was right--that
+by sacrificing their precious solitude to Mr. Langhope's convenience
+they might still deceive the gods.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Once pledged to her new task, Justine, as usual, espoused it with
+ardour. It was pleasant, even among greater joys, to see her husband
+again frankly welcomed by Mr. Langhope; to see Cicely bloom into
+happiness at their coming; and to overhear Mr. Langhope exclaim, in a
+confidential aside to his son-in-law: "It's wonderful, the _bien-etre_
+that wife of yours diffuses about her!"
+
+The element of _bien-etre_ was the only one in which Mr. Langhope could
+draw breath; and to those who kept him immersed in it he was prodigal of
+delicate attentions. The experiment, in short, was a complete success;
+and even Amherst's necessary weeks at Hanaford had the merit of giving a
+finer flavour to his brief appearances.
+
+Of all this Justine was thinking as she drove down Fifth Avenue one
+January afternoon to meet her husband at the Grand Central station. She
+had tamed her happiness at last: the quality of fear had left it, and it
+nestled in her heart like some wild creature subdued to human ways.
+And, as her inward bliss became more and more a quiet habit of the mind,
+the longing to help and minister returned, absorbing her more deeply in
+her husband's work.
+
+She dismissed the carriage at the station, and when his train had
+arrived they emerged together into the cold winter twilight and turned
+up Madison Avenue. These walks home from the station gave them a little
+more time to themselves than if they had driven; and there was always so
+much to tell on both sides. This time the news was all good: the work at
+Westmore was prospering, and on Justine's side there was a more cheerful
+report of Mr. Langhope's health, and--best of all--his promise to give
+them Cicely for the summer. Amherst and Justine were both anxious that
+the child should spend more time at Hanaford, that her young
+associations should begin to gather about Westmore; and Justine exulted
+in the fact that the suggestion had come from Mr. Langhope himself,
+while she and Amherst were still planning how to lead him up to it.
+
+They reached the house while this triumph was still engaging them; and
+in the doorway Amherst turned to her with a smile.
+
+"And of course--dear man!--he believes the idea is all his. There's
+nothing you can't make people believe, you little Jesuit!"
+
+"I don't think there is!" she boasted, falling gaily into his tone; and
+then, as the door opened, and she entered the hall, her eyes fell on a
+blotted envelope which lay among the letters on the table.
+
+The parlour-maid proffered it with a word of explanation. "A gentleman
+left it for you, madam; he asked to see you, and said he'd call for the
+answer in a day or two."
+
+"Another begging letter, I suppose," said Amherst, turning into the
+drawing-room, where Mr. Langhope and Cicely awaited them; and Justine,
+carelessly pushing the envelope into her muff, murmured "I suppose so"
+as she followed him.
+
+
+
+
+XXXIII
+
+
+OVER the tea-table Justine forgot the note in her muff; but when she
+went upstairs to dress it fell to the floor, and she picked it up and
+laid it on her dressing-table.
+
+She had already recognized the hand as Wyant's, for it was not the first
+letter she had received from him.
+
+Three times since her marriage he had appealed to her for help, excusing
+himself on the plea of difficulties and ill-health. The first time he
+wrote, he alluded vaguely to having married, and to being compelled,
+through illness, to give up his practice at Clifton. On receiving this
+letter she made enquiries, and learned that, a month or two after her
+departure from Lynbrook, Wyant had married a Clifton girl--a pretty
+piece of flaunting innocence, whom she remembered about the lanes,
+generally with a young man in a buggy. There had evidently been
+something obscure and precipitate about the marriage, which was a
+strange one for the ambitious young doctor. Justine conjectured that it
+might have been the cause of his leaving Clifton--or or perhaps he had
+already succumbed to the fatal habit she had suspected in him. At any
+rate he seemed, in some mysterious way, to have dropped in two years
+from promise to failure; yet she could not believe that, with his
+talents, and the name he had begun to make, such a lapse could be more
+than temporary. She had often heard Dr. Garford prophesy great things
+for him; but Dr. Garford had died suddenly during the previous summer,
+and the loss of this powerful friend was mentioned by Wyant among his
+misfortunes.
+
+Justine was anxious to help him, but her marriage to a rich man had not
+given her the command of much money. She and Amherst, choosing to regard
+themselves as pensioners on the Westmore fortune, were scrupulous in
+restricting their personal expenditure; and her work among the
+mill-hands brought many demands on the modest allowance which her
+husband had insisted on her accepting. In reply to Wyant's first appeal,
+which reached her soon after her marriage, she had sent him a hundred
+dollars; but when the second came, some two months later--with a fresh
+tale of ill-luck and ill-health--she had not been able to muster more
+than half the amount. Finally a third letter had arrived, a short time
+before their leaving for New York. It told the same story of persistent
+misfortune, but on this occasion Wyant, instead of making a direct
+appeal for money, suggested that, through her hospital connections, she
+should help him to establish a New York practice. His tone was
+half-whining, half-peremptory, his once precise writing smeared and
+illegible; and these indications, combined with her former suspicions,
+convinced her that, for the moment, he was unfit for medical work. At
+any rate, she could not assume the responsibility of recommending him;
+and in answering she advised him to apply to some of the physicians he
+had worked with at Lynbrook, softening her refusal by the enclosure of a
+small sum of money. To this letter she received no answer. Wyant
+doubtless found the money insufficient, and resented her unwillingness
+to help him by the use of her influence; and she felt sure that the note
+before her contained a renewal of his former request.
+
+An obscure reluctance made her begin to undress before opening it. She
+felt slightly tired and indolently happy, and she did not wish any
+jarring impression to break in on the sense of completeness which her
+husband's coming always put into her life. Her happiness was making her
+timid and luxurious: she was beginning to shrink from even trivial
+annoyances.
+
+But when at length, in her dressing-gown, her loosened hair about her
+shoulders, she seated herself before the toilet-mirror, Wyant's note
+once more confronted her. It was absurd to put off reading it--if he
+asked for money again, she would simply confide the whole business to
+Amherst.
+
+She had never spoken to her husband of her correspondence with Wyant.
+The mere fact that the latter had appealed to her, instead of addressing
+himself to Amherst, made her suspect that he had a weakness to hide, and
+counted on her professional discretion. But his continued importunities
+would certainly release her from any such supposed obligation; and she
+thought with relief of casting the weight of her difficulty on her
+husband's shoulders.
+
+She opened the note and read.
+
+"I did not acknowledge your last letter because I was ashamed to tell
+you that the money was not enough to be of any use. But I am past shame
+now. My wife was confined three weeks ago, and has been desperately ill
+ever since. She is in no state to move, but we shall be put out of these
+rooms unless I can get money or work at once. A word from you would have
+given me a start in New York--and I'd be willing to begin again as an
+interne or a doctor's assistant.
+
+"I have never reminded you of what you owe me, and I should not do so
+now if I hadn't been to hell and back since I saw you. But I suppose you
+would rather have me remind you than apply to Mr. Amherst. You can tell
+me when to call for my answer."
+
+Justine laid down the letter and looked up. Her eyes rested on her own
+reflection in the glass, and it frightened her. She sat motionless, with
+a thickly-beating heart, one hand clenched on the letter.
+
+_"I suppose you would rather have me remind you than apply to Mr.
+Amherst."_
+
+That was what his importunity meant, then! She had been paying blackmail
+all this time.... Somewhere, from the first, in an obscure fold of
+consciousness, she had felt the stir of an unnamed, unacknowledged fear;
+and now the fear raised its head and looked at her. Well! She would look
+back at it, then: look it straight in the malignant eye. What was it,
+after all, but a "bugbear to scare children"--the ghost of the opinion
+of the many? She had suspected from the first that Wyant knew of her
+having shortened the term of Bessy Amherst's sufferings--returning to
+the room when he did, it was almost impossible that he should not have
+guessed what had happened; and his silence had made her believe that he
+understood her motive and approved it. But, supposing she had been
+mistaken, she still had nothing to fear, since she had done nothing that
+her own conscience condemned. If the act were to do again she would do
+it--she had never known a moment's regret!
+
+Suddenly she heard Amherst's step in the passage--heard him laughing and
+talking as he chased Cicely up the stairs to the nursery.
+
+_If she was not afraid, why had she never told Amherst?_
+
+Why, the answer to that was simple enough! She had not told him _because
+she was not afraid_. From the first she had retained sufficient
+detachment to view her act impartially, to find it completely justified
+by circumstances, and to decide that, since those circumstances could be
+but partly and indirectly known to her husband, she not only had the
+right to keep her own counsel, but was actually under a kind of
+obligation not to force on him the knowledge of a fact that he could not
+alter and could not completely judge.... Was there any flaw in this line
+of reasoning? Did it not show a deliberate weighing of conditions, a
+perfect rectitude of intention? And, after all, she had had Amherst's
+virtual consent to her act! She knew his feelings on such matters--his
+independence of traditional judgments, his horror of inflicting needless
+pain--she was as sure of his intellectual assent as of her own. She was
+even sure that, when she told him, he would appreciate her reasons for
+not telling him before....
+
+For now of course he must know everything--this horrible letter made it
+inevitable. She regretted that she had decided, though for the best of
+reasons, not to speak to him of her own accord; for it was intolerable
+that he should think of any external pressure as having brought her to
+avowal. But no! he would not think that. The understanding between them
+was so complete that no deceptive array of circumstances could ever make
+her motives obscure to him. She let herself rest a moment in the
+thought....
+
+Presently she heard him moving in the next room--he had come back to
+dress for dinner. She would go to him now, at once--she could not bear
+this weight on her mind the whole evening. She pushed back her chair,
+crumpling the letter in her hand; but as she did so, her eyes again fell
+on her reflection. She could not go to her husband with such a face! If
+she was not afraid, why did she look like that?
+
+Well--she was afraid! It would be easier and simpler to admit it. She
+was afraid--afraid for the first time--afraid for her own happiness! She
+had had just eight months of happiness--it was horrible to think of
+losing it so soon.... Losing it? But why should she lose it? The letter
+must have affected her brain...all her thoughts were in a blur of
+fear.... Fear of what? Of the man who understood her as no one else
+understood her? The man to whose wisdom and mercy she trusted as the
+believer trusts in God? This was a kind of abominable nightmare--even
+Amherst's image had been distorted in her mind! The only way to clear
+her brain, to recover the normal sense of things, was to go to him now,
+at once, to feel his arms about her, to let his kiss dispel her
+fears.... She rose with a long breath of relief.
+
+She had to cross the length of the room to reach his door, and when she
+had gone half-way she heard him knock.
+
+"May I come in?"
+
+She was close to the fire-place, and a bright fire burned on the hearth.
+
+"Come in!" she answered; and as she did so, she turned and dropped
+Wyant's letter into the fire. Her hand had crushed it into a little
+ball, and she saw the flames spring up and swallow it before her husband
+entered.
+
+It was not that she had changed her mind--she still meant to tell him
+everything. But to hold the letter was like holding a venomous
+snake--she wanted to exterminate it, to forget that she had ever seen
+the blotted repulsive characters. And she could not bear to have
+Amherst's eyes rest on it, to have him know that any man had dared to
+write to her in that tone. What vile meanings might not be read between
+Wyant's phrases? She had a right to tell the story in her own way--the
+true way....
+
+As Amherst approached, in his evening clothes, the heavy locks smoothed
+from his forehead, a flower of Cicely's giving in his button-hole, she
+thought she had never seen him look so kind and handsome.
+
+"Not dressed? Do you know that it's ten minutes to eight?" he said,
+coming up to her with a smile.
+
+She roused herself, putting her hands to her hair. "Yes, I know--I
+forgot," she murmured, longing to feel his arms about her, but standing
+rooted to the ground, unable to move an inch nearer.
+
+It was he who came close, drawing her lifted hands into his. "You look
+worried--I hope it was nothing troublesome that made you forget?"
+
+The divine kindness in his voice, his eyes! Yes--it would be easy, quite
+easy, to tell him....
+
+"No--yes--I was a little troubled...." she said, feeling the warmth of
+his touch flow through her hands reassuringly.
+
+"Dear! What about?"
+
+She drew a deep breath. "The letter----"
+
+He looked puzzled. "What letter?"
+
+"Downstairs...when we came in...it was not an ordinary begging-letter."
+
+"No? What then?" he asked, his face clouding.
+
+She noticed the change, and it frightened her. Was he angry? Was he
+going to be angry? But how absurd! He was only distressed at her
+distress.
+
+"What then?" he repeated, more gently.
+
+She looked up into his eyes for an instant. "It was a horrible
+letter----" she whispered, as she pressed her clasped hands against him.
+
+His grasp tightened on her wrists, and again the stern look crossed his
+face. "Horrible? What do you mean?"
+
+She had never seen him angry--but she felt suddenly that, to the guilty
+creature, his anger would be terrible. He would crush Wyant--she must be
+careful how she spoke.
+
+"I didn't mean that--only painful...."
+
+"Where is the letter? Let me see it."
+
+"Oh, no" she exclaimed, shrinking away.
+
+"Justine, what has happened? What ails you?"
+
+On a blind impulse she had backed toward the hearth, propping her arms
+against the mantel-piece while she stole a secret glance at the embers.
+Nothing remained of it--no, nothing.
+
+But suppose it was against herself that his anger turned? The idea was
+preposterous, yet she trembled at it. It was clear that she must say
+_something_ at once--must somehow account for her agitation. But the
+sense that she was unnerved--no longer in control of her face, her
+voice--made her feel that she would tell her story badly if she told it
+now.... Had she not the right to gain a respite, to choose her own hour?
+Weakness--weakness again! Every delay would only increase the phantom
+terror. Now, _now_--with her head on his breast!
+
+She turned toward him and began to speak impulsively.
+
+"I can't show you the letter, because it's not--not my secret----"
+
+"Ah?" he murmured, perceptibly relieved.
+
+"It's from some one--unlucky--whom I've known about...."
+
+"And whose troubles have been troubling you? But can't we help?"
+
+She shone on him through gleaming lashes. "Some one poor and ill--who
+needs money, I mean----" She tried to laugh away her tears. "And I
+haven't any! That's _my_ trouble!"
+
+"Foolish child! And to beg you are ashamed? And so you're letting your
+tears cool Mr. Langhope's soup?" He had her in his arms now, his kisses
+drying her cheek; and she turned her head so that their lips met in a
+long pressure.
+
+"Will a hundred dollars do?" he asked with a smile as he released her.
+
+_A hundred dollars!_ No--she was almost sure they would not. But she
+tried to shape a murmur of gratitude. "Thank you--thank you! I hated to
+ask...."
+
+"I'll write the cheque at once."
+
+"No--no," she protested, "there's no hurry."
+
+But he went back to his room, and she turned again to the toilet-table.
+Her face was painful to look at still--but a light was breaking through
+its fear. She felt the touch of a narcotic in her veins. How calm and
+peaceful the room was--and how delicious to think that her life would go
+on in it, safely and peacefully, in the old familiar way!
+
+As she swept up her hair, passing the comb through it, and flinging it
+dexterously over her lifted wrist, she heard Amherst cross the floor
+behind her, and pause to lay something on her writing-table.
+
+"Thank you," she murmured again, lowering her head as he passed.
+
+When the door had closed on him she thrust the last pin into her hair,
+dashed some drops of Cologne on her face, and went over to the
+writing-table. As she picked up the cheque she saw it was for three
+hundred dollars.
+
+
+
+
+XXXIV
+
+
+ONCE or twice, in the days that followed, Justine found herself thinking
+that she had never known happiness before. The old state of secure
+well-being seemed now like a dreamless sleep; but this new bliss, on its
+sharp pinnacle ringed with fire--this thrilling conscious joy, daily
+and hourly snatched from fear--this was living, not sleeping!
+
+Wyant acknowledged her gift with profuse, almost servile thanks. She had
+sent it without a word--saying to herself that pity for his situation
+made it possible to ignore his baseness. And the days went on as before.
+She was not conscious of any change, save in the heightened, almost
+artificial quality of her happiness, till one day in March, when Mr.
+Langhope announced that he was going for two or three weeks to a
+friend's shooting-box in the south. The anniversary of Bessy's death was
+approaching, and Justine knew that at that time he always absented
+himself.
+
+"Supposing you and Amherst were to carry off Cicely till I come back?
+Perhaps you could persuade him to break away from work for once--or, if
+that's impossible, you could take her with you to Hanaford. She looks a
+little pale, and the change would be good for her."
+
+This was a great concession on Mr. Langhope's part, and Justine saw the
+pleasure in her husband's face. It was the first time that his
+father-in-law had suggested Cicely's going to Hanaford.
+
+"I'm afraid I can't break away just now, sir," Amherst said, "but it
+will be delightful for Justine if you'll give us Cicely while you're
+away."
+
+"Take her by all means, my dear fellow: I always sleep on both ears when
+she's with your wife."
+
+It was nearly three months since Justine had left Hanaford--and now she
+was to return there alone with her husband! There would be hours, of
+course, when the child's presence was between them--or when, again, his
+work would keep him at the mills. But in the evenings, when Cicely was
+in bed--when he and she sat alone, together in the Westmore
+drawing-room--in Bessy's drawing-room!... No--she must find some excuse
+for remaining away till she had again grown used to the idea of being
+alone with Amherst. Every day she was growing a little more used to it;
+but it would take time--time, and the full assurance that Wyant was
+silenced. Till then she could not go back to Hanaford.
+
+She found a pretext in her own health. She pleaded that she was a little
+tired, below par...and to return to Hanaford meant returning to hard
+work; with the best will in the world she could not be idle there. Might
+she not, she suggested, take Cicely to Tuxedo or Lakewood, and thus get
+quite away from household cares and good works? The pretext rang
+hollow--it was so unlike her! She saw Amherst's eyes rest anxiously on
+her as Mr. Langhope uttered his prompt assent. Certainly she did look
+tired--Mr. Langhope himself had noticed it. Had he perhaps over-taxed
+her energies, left the household too entirely on her shoulders? Oh,
+no--it was only the New York air...like Cicely, she pined for a breath
+of the woods.... And so, the day Mr. Langhope left, she and Cicely were
+packed off to Lakewood.
+
+They stayed there a week: then a fit of restlessness drove Justine back
+to town. She found an excuse in the constant rain--it was really
+useless, as she wrote Mr. Langhope, to keep the child imprisoned in an
+over-heated hotel while they could get no benefit from the outdoor life.
+In reality, she found the long lonely hours unendurable. She pined for a
+sight of her husband, and thought of committing Cicely to Mrs. Ansell's
+care, and making a sudden dash for Hanaford. But the vision of the long
+evenings in the Westmore drawing-room again restrained her. No--she
+would simply go back to New York, dine out occasionally, go to a concert
+or two, trust to the usual demands of town life to crowd her hours with
+small activities.... And in another week Mr. Langhope would be back and
+the days would resume their normal course.
+
+On arriving, she looked feverishly through the letters in the hall. None
+from Wyant--that fear was allayed! Every day added to her reassurance. By
+this time, no doubt, he was on his feet again, and ashamed--unutterably
+ashamed--of the threat that despair had wrung from him. She felt almost
+sure that his shame would keep him from ever attempting to see her, or
+even from writing again.
+
+"A gentleman called to see you yesterday, madam--he would give no name,"
+the parlour-maid said. And there was the sick fear back on her again!
+She could hardly control the trembling of her lips as she asked: "Did he
+leave no message?"
+
+"No, madam: he only wanted to know when you'd be back."
+
+She longed to return: "And did you tell him?" but restrained herself,
+and passed into the drawing-room. After all, the parlour-maid had not
+described the caller--why jump to the conclusion that it was Wyant?
+
+Three days passed, and no letter came--no sign. She struggled with the
+temptation to describe Wyant to the servants, and to forbid his
+admission. But it would not do. They were nearly all old servants, in
+whose eyes she was still the intruder, the upstart sick-nurse--she could
+not wholly trust them. And each day she felt a little easier, a little
+more convinced that the unknown visitor had not been Wyant.
+
+On the fourth day she received a letter from Amherst. He hoped to be
+back on the morrow, but as his plans were still uncertain he would
+telegraph in the morning--and meanwhile she must keep well, and rest,
+and amuse herself....
+
+Amuse herself! That evening, as it happened, she was going to the
+theatre with Mrs. Ansell. She and Mrs. Ansell, though outwardly on
+perfect terms, had not greatly advanced in intimacy. The agitated,
+decentralized life of the older woman seemed futile and trivial to
+Justine; but on Mr. Langhope's account she wished to keep up an
+appearance of friendship with his friend, and the same motive doubtless
+inspired Mrs. Ansell. Just now, at any rate, Justine was grateful for
+her attentions, and glad to go about with her. Anything--anything to get
+away from her own thoughts! That was the pass she had come to.
+
+At the theatre, in a proscenium box, the publicity, the light and
+movement, the action of the play, all helped to distract and quiet her.
+At such moments she grew ashamed of her fears. Why was she tormenting
+herself? If anything happened she had only to ask her husband for more
+money. She never spoke to him of her good works, and there would be
+nothing to excite suspicion in her asking help again for the friend
+whose secret she was pledged to keep.... But nothing was going to
+happen. As the play progressed, and the stimulus of talk and laughter
+flowed through her veins, she felt a complete return of confidence. And
+then suddenly she glanced across the house, and saw Wyant looking at
+her.
+
+He sat rather far back, in one of the side rows just beneath the
+balcony, so that his face was partly shaded. But even in the shadow it
+frightened her. She had been prepared for a change, but not for this
+ghastly deterioration. And he continued to look at her.
+
+She began to be afraid that he would do something conspicuous--point at
+her, or stand up in his seat. She thought he looked half-mad--or was it
+her own hallucination that made him appear so? She and Mrs. Ansell were
+alone in the box for the moment, and she started up, pushing back her
+chair....
+
+Mrs. Ansell leaned forward. "What is it?"
+
+"Nothing--the heat--I'll sit back for a moment." But as she withdrew
+into the back of the box, she was seized by a new fear. If he was still
+watching, might he not come to the door and try to speak to her? Her
+only safety lay in remaining in full view of the audience; and she
+returned to Mrs. Ansell's side.
+
+The other members of the party came back--the bell rang, the foot-lights
+blazed, the curtain rose. She lost herself in the mazes of the play. She
+sat so motionless, her face so intently turned toward the stage, that
+the muscles at the back of her neck began to stiffen. And then, quite
+suddenly, toward the middle of the act, she felt an undefinable sense of
+relief. She could not tell what caused it--but slowly, cautiously, while
+the eyes of the others were intent upon the stage, she turned her head
+and looked toward Wyant's seat. It was empty.
+
+Her first thought was that he had gone to wait for her outside. But
+no--there were two more acts: why should he stand at the door for half
+the evening?
+
+At last the act ended; the entr'acte elapsed; the play went on
+again--and still the seat was empty. Gradually she persuaded herself
+that she had been mistaken in thinking that the man who had occupied it
+was Wyant. Her self-command returned, she began to think and talk
+naturally, to follow the dialogue on the stage--and when the evening was
+over, and Mrs. Ansell set her down at her door, she had almost forgotten
+her fears.
+
+The next morning she felt calmer than for many days. She was sure now
+that if Wyant had wished to speak to her he would have waited at the
+door of the theatre; and the recollection of his miserable face made
+apprehension yield to pity. She began to feel that she had treated him
+coldly, uncharitably. They had been friends once, as well as
+fellow-workers; but she had been false even to the comradeship of the
+hospital. She should have sought him out and given him sympathy as well
+as money; had she shown some sign of human kindness his last letter
+might never have been written.
+
+In the course of the morning Amherst telegraphed that he hoped to settle
+his business in time to catch the two o'clock express, but that his
+plans were still uncertain. Justine and Cicely lunched alone, and after
+luncheon the little girl was despatched to her dancing-class. Justine
+herself meant to go out when the brougham returned. She went up to her
+room to dress, planning to drive in the park, and to drop in on Mrs.
+Ansell before she called for Cicely; but on the way downstairs she saw
+the servant opening the door to a visitor. It was too late to draw back;
+and descending the last steps she found herself face to face with Wyant.
+
+They looked at each other a moment in silence; then Justine murmured a
+word of greeting and led the way to the drawing-room.
+
+It was a snowy afternoon, and in the raw ash-coloured light she thought
+he looked more changed than at the theatre. She remarked, too, that his
+clothes were worn and untidy, his gloveless hands soiled and tremulous.
+None of the degrading signs of his infirmity were lacking; and she saw
+at once that, while in the early days of the habit he had probably mixed
+his drugs, so that the conflicting symptoms neutralized each other, he
+had now sunk into open morphia-taking. She felt profoundly sorry for
+him; yet as he followed her into the room physical repulsion again
+mastered the sense of pity.
+
+But where action was possible she was always self-controlled, and she
+turned to him quietly as they seated themselves.
+
+"I have been wishing to see you," she said, looking at him. "I have felt
+that I ought to have done so sooner--to have told you how sorry I am for
+your bad luck."
+
+He returned her glance with surprise: they were evidently the last words
+he had expected.
+
+"You're very kind," he said in a low embarrassed voice. He had kept on
+his shabby over-coat, and he twirled his hat in his hands as he spoke.
+
+"I have felt," Justine continued, "that perhaps a talk with you might be
+of more use----"
+
+He raised his head, fixing her with bright narrowed eyes. "I have felt
+so too: that's my reason for coming. You sent me a generous present some
+weeks ago--but I don't want to go on living on charity."
+
+"I understand that," she answered. "But why have you had to do so? Won't
+you tell me just what has happened?"
+
+She felt the words to be almost a mockery; yet she could not say "I read
+your history at a glance"; and she hoped that her question might draw
+out his wretched secret, and thus give her the chance to speak frankly.
+
+He gave a nervous laugh. "Just what has happened? It's a long story--and
+some of the details are not particularly pretty." He broke off, moving
+his hat more rapidly through his trembling hands.
+
+"Never mind: tell me."
+
+"Well--after you all left Lynbrook I had rather a bad break-down--the
+strain of Mrs. Amherst's case, I suppose. You remember Bramble, the
+Clifton grocer? Miss Bramble nursed me--I daresay you remember her too.
+When I recovered I married her--and after that things didn't go well."
+
+He paused, breathing quickly, and looking about the room with odd,
+furtive glances. "I was only half-well, anyhow--I couldn't attend to my
+patients properly--and after a few months we decided to leave Clifton,
+and I bought a practice in New Jersey. But my wife was ill there, and
+things went wrong again--damnably. I suppose you've guessed that my
+marriage was a mistake. She had an idea that we should do better in New
+York--so we came here a few months ago, and we've done decidedly worse."
+
+Justine listened with a sense of discouragement. She saw now that he did
+not mean to acknowledge his failing, and knowing the secretiveness of
+the drug-taker she decided that he was deluded enough to think he could
+still deceive her.
+
+"Well," he began again, with an attempt at jauntiness, "I've found out
+that in my profession it's a hard struggle to get on your feet again,
+after illness or--or any bad set-back. That's the reason I asked you to
+say a word for me. It's not only the money, though I need that badly--I
+want to get back my self-respect. With my record I oughtn't to be where
+I am--and you can speak for me better than any one."
+
+"Why better than the doctors you've worked with?" Justine put the
+question abruptly, looking him straight in the eyes.
+
+His glance dropped, and an unpleasant flush rose to his thin cheeks.
+
+"Well--as it happens, you're better situated than any one to help me to
+the particular thing I want."
+
+"The particular thing----?"
+
+"Yes. I understand that Mr. Langhope and Mrs. Ansell are both interested
+in the new wing for paying patients at Saint Christopher's. I want the
+position of house-physician there, and I know you can get it for me."
+
+His tone changed as he spoke, till with the last words it became rough
+and almost menacing.
+
+Justine felt her colour rise, and her heart began to beat confusedly.
+Here was the truth, then: she could no longer be the dupe of her own
+compassion. The man knew his power and meant to use it. But at the
+thought her courage was in arms.
+
+"I'm sorry--but it's impossible," she said.
+
+"Impossible--why?"
+
+She continued to look at him steadily. "You said just now that you
+wished to regain your self-respect. Well, you must regain it before you
+can ask me--or any one else--to recommend you to a position of trust."
+
+Wyant half-rose, with an angry murmur. "My self-respect? What do you
+mean? _I_ meant that I'd lost courage--through ill-luck----"
+
+"Yes; and your ill-luck has come through your own fault. Till you cure
+yourself you're not fit to cure others."
+
+He sank back into his seat, glowering at her under sullen brows; then
+his expression gradually changed to half-sneering admiration. "You're a
+plucky one!" he said.
+
+Justine repressed a movement of disgust. "I am very sorry for you," she
+said gravely. "I saw this trouble coming on you long ago--and if there
+is any other way in which I can help you----"
+
+"Thanks," he returned, still sneering. "Your sympathy is very
+precious--there was a time when I would have given my soul for it. But
+that's over, and I'm here to talk business. You say you saw my trouble
+coming on--did it ever occur to you that you were the cause of it?"
+
+Justine glanced at him with frank contempt. "No--for I was not," she
+replied.
+
+"That's an easy way out of it. But you took everything from me--first my
+hope of marrying you; then my chance of a big success in my career; and
+I was desperate--weak, if you like--and tried to deaden my feelings in
+order to keep up my pluck."
+
+Justine rose to her feet with a movement of impatience. "Every word you
+say proves how unfit you are to assume any responsibility--to do
+anything but try to recover your health. If I can help you to that, I am
+still willing to do so."
+
+Wyant rose also, moving a step nearer. "Well, get me that place,
+then--I'll see to the rest: I'll keep straight."
+
+"No--it's impossible."
+
+"You won't?"
+
+"I can't," she repeated firmly.
+
+"And you expect to put me off with that answer?"
+
+She hesitated. "Yes--if there's no other help you'll accept."
+
+He laughed again--his feeble sneering laugh was disgusting. "Oh, I don't
+say that. I'd like to earn my living honestly--funny preference--but if
+you cut me off from that, I suppose it's only fair to let you make up
+for it. My wife and child have got to live."
+
+"You choose a strange way of helping them; but I will do what I can if
+you will go for a while to some institution----"
+
+He broke in furiously. "Institution be damned! You can't shuffle me out
+of the way like that. I'm all right--good food is what I need. You
+think I've got morphia in me--why, it's hunger!"
+
+Justine heard him with a renewal of pity. "Oh, I'm sorry for you--very
+sorry! Why do you try to deceive me?"
+
+"Why do you deceive _me_? You know what I want and you know you've got
+to let me have it. If you won't give me a line to one of your friends at
+Saint Christopher's you'll have to give me another cheque--that's the
+size of it."
+
+As they faced each other in silence Justine's pity gave way to a sudden
+hatred for the poor creature who stood shivering and sneering before
+her.
+
+"You choose the wrong tone--and I think our talk has lasted long
+enough," she said, stretching her hand to the bell.
+
+Wyant did not move. "Don't ring--unless you want me to write to your
+husband," he rejoined.
+
+A sick feeling of helplessness overcame her; but she turned on him
+firmly. "I pardoned you once for that threat!"
+
+"Yes--and you sent me some money the next day."
+
+"I was mistaken enough to think that, in your distress, you had not
+realized what you wrote. But if you're a systematic blackmailer----"
+
+"Gently--gently. Bad names don't frighten me--it's hunger and debt I'm
+afraid of."
+
+Justine felt a last tremor of compassion. He was abominable--but he was
+pitiable too.
+
+"I will really help you--I will see your wife and do what I can--but I
+can give you no money today."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Because I have none. I am not as rich as you think."
+
+He smiled incredulously. "Give me a line to Mr. Langhope, then."
+
+"No."
+
+He sat down once more, leaning back with a weak assumption of ease.
+"Perhaps Mr. Amherst will think differently."
+
+She whitened, but said steadily: "Mr. Amherst is away."
+
+"Very well--I can write."
+
+For the last five minutes Justine had foreseen this threat, and had
+tried to force her mind to face dispassionately the chances it involved.
+After all, why not let him write to Amherst? The very vileness of the
+deed must rouse an indignation which would be all in her favour, would
+inevitably dispose her husband to readier sympathy with the motive of
+her act, as contrasted with the base insinuations of her slanderer. It
+seemed impossible that Amherst should condemn her when his condemnation
+involved the fulfilling of Wyant's calculations: a reaction of scorn
+would throw him into unhesitating championship of her conduct. All this
+was so clear that, had she been advising any one else, her confidence in
+the course to be taken might have strengthened the feeblest will; but
+with the question lying between herself and Amherst--with the vision of
+those soiled hands literally laid on the spotless fabric of her
+happiness, judgment wavered, foresight was obscured--she felt
+tremulously unable to face the steps between exposure and vindication.
+Her final conclusion was that she must, at any rate, gain time: buy off
+Wyant till she had been able to tell her story in her own way, and at
+her own hour, and then defy him when he returned to the assault. The
+idea that whatever concession she made would be only provisional, helped
+to excuse the weakness of making it, and enabled her at last, without
+too painful a sense of falling below her own standards, to reply in a
+low voice: "If you'll go now, I will send you something next week."
+
+But Wyant did not respond as readily as she had expected. He merely
+asked, without altering his insolently easy attitude: "How much? Unless
+it's a good deal, I prefer the letter."
+
+Oh, why could she not cry out: "Leave the house at once--your vulgar
+threats are nothing to me"--Why could she not even say in her own heart:
+_I will tell my husband tonight?_
+
+"You're afraid," said Wyant, as if answering her thought. "What's the
+use of being afraid when you can make yourself comfortable so easily?
+You called me a systematic blackmailer--well, I'm not that yet. Give me
+a thousand and you'll see the last of me--on what used to be my honour."
+
+Justine's heart sank. She had reached the point of being ready to appeal
+again to Amherst--but on what pretext could she ask for such a sum?
+
+In a lifeless voice she said: "I could not possibly get more than one or
+two hundred."
+
+Wyant scrutinized her a moment: her despair must have rung true to him.
+"Well, you must have something of your own--I saw your jewelry last
+night at the theatre," he said.
+
+So it had been he--and he had sat there appraising her value like a
+murderer!
+
+"Jewelry--?" she faltered.
+
+"You had a thumping big sapphire--wasn't it?--with diamonds round it."
+
+It was her only jewel--Amherst's marriage gift. She would have preferred
+a less valuable present, but his mother had persuaded her to accept it,
+saying that it was the bride's duty to adorn herself for the bridegroom.
+
+"I will give you nothing--" she was about to exclaim; when suddenly her
+eyes fell on the clock. If Amherst had caught the two o'clock express he
+would be at the house within the hour; and the only thing that seemed
+of consequence now, was that he should not meet Wyant. Supposing she
+still found courage to refuse--there was no knowing how long the
+humiliating scene might be prolonged: and she must be rid of the
+creature at any cost. After all, she seldom wore the sapphire--months
+might pass without its absence being noted by Amherst's careless eye;
+and if Wyant should pawn it, she might somehow save money to buy it back
+before it was missed. She went through these calculations with feverish
+rapidity; then she turned again to Wyant.
+
+"You won't come back--ever?"
+
+"I swear I won't," he said.
+
+He moved away toward the window, as if to spare her; and she turned and
+slowly left the room.
+
+She never forgot the moments that followed. Once outside the door she
+was in such haste that she stumbled on the stairs, and had to pause on
+the landing to regain her breath. In her room she found one of the
+housemaids busy, and at first could think of no pretext for dismissing
+her. Then she bade the woman go down and send the brougham away, telling
+the coachman to call for Miss Cicely at six.
+
+Left alone, she bolted the door, and as if with a thief's hand, opened
+her wardrobe, unlocked her jewel-box, and drew out the sapphire in its
+flat morocco case. She restored the box to its place, the key to its
+ring--then she opened the case and looked at the sapphire. As she did
+so, a little tremor ran over her neck and throat, and closing her eyes
+she felt her husband's kiss, and the touch of his hands as he fastened
+on the jewel.
+
+She unbolted the door, listened intently on the landing, and then went
+slowly down the stairs. None of the servants were in sight, yet as she
+reached the lower hall she was conscious that the air had grown suddenly
+colder, as though the outer door had just been opened. She paused, and
+listened again. There was a sound of talking in the drawing-room. Could
+it be that in her absence a visitor had been admitted? The possibility
+frightened her at first--then she welcomed it as an unexpected means of
+ridding herself of her tormentor.
+
+She opened the drawing-room door, and saw her husband talking with
+Wyant.
+
+
+
+
+XXXV
+
+
+AMHERST, his back to the threshold, sat at a table writing: Wyant stood
+a few feet away, staring down at the fire.
+
+Neither had heard the door open; and before they were aware of her
+entrance Justine had calculated that she must have been away for at
+least five minutes, and that in that space of time almost anything
+might have passed between them.
+
+For a moment the power of connected thought left her; then her heart
+gave a bound of relief. She said to herself that Wyant had doubtless
+made some allusion to his situation, and that her husband, conscious
+only of a great debt of gratitude, had at once sat down to draw a cheque
+for him. The idea was so reassuring that it restored all her clearness
+of thought.
+
+Wyant was the first to see her. He made an abrupt movement, and Amherst,
+rising, turned and put an envelope in his hand.
+
+"There, my dear fellow----"
+
+As he turned he caught sight of his wife.
+
+"I caught the twelve o'clock train after all--you got my second wire?"
+he asked.
+
+"No," she faltered, pressing her left hand, with the little case in it,
+close to the folds of her dress.
+
+"I was afraid not. There was a bad storm at Hanaford, and they said
+there might be a delay."
+
+At the same moment she found Wyant advancing with extended hand, and
+understood that he had concealed the fact of having already seen her.
+She accepted the cue, and shook his hand, murmuring: "How do you do?"
+
+Amherst looked at her, perhaps struck by her manner.
+
+"You have not seen Dr. Wyant since Lynbrook?"
+
+"No," she answered, thankful to have this pretext for her emotion.
+
+"I have been telling him that he should not have left us so long without
+news--especially as he has been ill, and things have gone rather badly
+with him. But I hope we can help now. He has heard that Saint
+Christopher's is looking for a house-physician for the paying patients'
+wing, and as Mr. Langhope is away I have given him a line to Mrs.
+Ansell."
+
+"Extremely kind of you," Wyant murmured, passing his hand over his
+forehead.
+
+Justine stood silent. She wondered that her husband had not noticed that
+tremulous degraded hand. But he was always so blind to externals--and he
+had no medical experience to sharpen his perceptions.
+
+Suddenly she felt impelled to speak "I am sorry Dr. Wyant has
+been--unfortunate. Of course you will want to do everything to help him;
+but would it not be better to wait till Mr. Langhope comes back?"
+
+"Wyant thinks the delay might make him lose the place. It seems the
+board meets tomorrow. And Mrs. Ansell really knows much more about it.
+Isn't she the secretary of the ladies' committee?"
+
+"I'm not sure--I believe so. But surely Mr. Langhope should be
+consulted."
+
+She felt Wyant's face change: his eyes settled on her in a threatening
+stare.
+
+Amherst looked at her also, and there was surprise in his glance. "I
+think I can answer for my father-in-law. He feels as strongly as I do
+how much we all owe to Dr. Wyant."
+
+He seldom spoke of Mr. Langhope as his father-in-law, and the chance
+designation seemed to mark a closer tie between them, to exclude Justine
+from what was after all a family affair. For a moment she felt tempted
+to accept the suggestion, and let the responsibility fall where it
+would. But it would fall on Amherst--and that was intolerable.
+
+"I think you ought to wait," she insisted.
+
+An embarrassed silence settled on the three.
+
+Wyant broke it by advancing toward Amherst. "I shall never forget your
+kindness," he said; "and I hope to prove to Mrs. Amherst that it's not
+misplaced."
+
+The words were well chosen, and well spoken; Justine saw that they
+produced a good effect. Amherst grasped the physician's hand with a
+smile. "My dear fellow, I wish I could do more. Be sure to call on me
+again if you want help."
+
+"Oh, you've put me on my feet," said Wyant gratefully.
+
+He bowed slightly to Justine and turned to go; but as he reached the
+threshold she moved after him.
+
+"Dr. Wyant--you must give back that letter."
+
+He stopped short with a whitening face.
+
+She felt Amherst's eyes on her again; and she said desperately,
+addressing him: "Dr. Wyant understands my reasons."
+
+Her husband's glance turned abruptly to Wyant. "Do you?" he asked after
+a pause.
+
+Wyant looked from one to the other. The moisture came out on his
+forehead, and he passed his hand over it again. "Yes," he said in a dry
+voice. "Mrs. Amherst wants me farther off--out of New York."
+
+"Out of New York? What do you mean?"
+
+Justine interposed hastily, before the answer could come. "It is because
+Dr. Wyant is not in condition--for such a place--just at present."
+
+"But he assures me he is quite well."
+
+There was another silence; and again Wyant broke in, this time with a
+slight laugh. "I can explain what Mrs. Amherst means; she intends to
+accuse me of the morphine habit. And I can explain her reason for doing
+so--she wants me out of the way."
+
+Amherst turned on the speaker; and, as she had foreseen, his look was
+terrible. "You haven't explained that yet," he said.
+
+"Well--I can." Wyant waited another moment. "I know too much about her,"
+he declared.
+
+There was a low exclamation from Justine, and Amherst strode toward
+Wyant. "You infernal blackguard!" he cried.
+
+"Oh, gently----" Wyant muttered, flinching back from his outstretched
+arm.
+
+"My wife's wish is sufficient. Give me back that letter."
+
+Wyant straightened himself. "No, by God, I won't!" he retorted
+furiously. "I didn't ask you for it till you offered to help me; but I
+won't let it be taken back without a word, like a thief that you'd
+caught with your umbrella. If your wife won't explain I will. She's,
+afraid I'll talk about what happened at Lynbrook."
+
+Amherst's arm fell to his side. "At Lynbrook?"
+
+Behind him there was a sound of inarticulate appeal--but he took no
+notice.
+
+"Yes. It's she who used morphia--but not on herself. She gives it to
+other people. She gave an overdose to Mrs. Amherst."
+
+Amherst looked at him confusedly. "An overdose?"
+
+"Yes--purposely, I mean. And I came into the room at the wrong time. I
+can prove that Mrs. Amherst died of morphia-poisoning."
+
+"John!" Justine gasped out, pressing between them.
+
+Amherst gently put aside the hand with which she had caught his arm.
+"Wait a moment: this can't rest here. You can't want it to," he said to
+her in an undertone.
+
+"Why do you care...for what he says...when I don't?" she breathed back
+with trembling lips.
+
+"You can see I am not wanted here," Wyant threw in with a sneer.
+
+Amherst remained silent for a brief space; then he turned his eyes once
+more to his wife.
+
+Justine lifted her face: it looked small and spent, like an extinguished
+taper.
+
+"It's true," she said.
+
+"True?"
+
+"I _did_ give...an overdose...intentionally, when I knew there was no
+hope, and when the surgeons said she might go on suffering. She was very
+strong...and I couldn't bear it...you couldn't have borne it...."
+
+There was another silence; then she went on in a stronger voice, looking
+straight at her husband: "And now will you send this man away?"
+
+Amherst glanced at Wyant without moving. "Go," he said curtly.
+
+Wyant, instead, moved a step nearer. "Just a minute, please. It's only
+fair to hear my side. Your wife says there was no hope; yet the day
+before she...gave the dose, Dr. Garford told her in my presence that
+Mrs. Amherst might live."
+
+Again Amherst's eyes addressed themselves slowly to Justine; and she
+forced her lips to articulate an answer.
+
+"Dr. Garford said...one could never tell...but I know he didn't believe
+in the chance of recovery...no one did."
+
+"Dr. Garford is dead," said Wyant grimly.
+
+Amherst strode up to him again. "You scoundrel--leave the house!" he
+commanded.
+
+But still Wyant sneeringly stood his ground. "Not till I've finished. I
+can't afford to let myself be kicked out like a dog because I happen to
+be in the way. Every doctor knows that in cases of spinal lesion
+recovery is becoming more and more frequent--if the patient survives the
+third week there's every reason to hope. Those are the facts as they
+would appear to any surgeon. If they're not true, why is Mrs. Amherst
+afraid of having them stated? Why has she been paying me for nearly a
+year to keep them quiet?"
+
+"Oh----" Justine moaned.
+
+"I never thought of talking till luck went against me. Then I asked her
+for help--and reminded her of certain things. After that she kept me
+supplied pretty regularly." He thrust his shaking hand into an inner
+pocket. "Here are her envelopes...Quebec...Montreal...Saranac...I know
+just where you went on your honeymoon. She had to write often, because
+the sums were small. Why did she do it, if she wasn't afraid? And why
+did she go upstairs just now to fetch me something? If you don't believe
+me, ask her what she's got in her hand."
+
+Amherst did not heed this injunction. He stood motionless, gripping the
+back of a chair, as if his next gesture might be to lift and hurl it at
+the speaker.
+
+"Ask her----" Wyant repeated.
+
+Amherst turned his head slowly, and his dull gaze rested on his wife.
+His face looked years older--lips and eyes moved as heavily as an old
+man's.
+
+As he looked at her, Justine came forward without speaking, and laid the
+little morocco case in his hand. He held it there a moment, as if hardly
+understanding her action--then he tossed it on the table at his elbow,
+and walked up to Wyant.
+
+"You hound," he said--"now go!"
+
+
+
+
+XXXVI
+
+
+WHEN Wyant had left the room, and the house-door had closed on him,
+Amherst spoke to his wife.
+
+"Come upstairs," he said.
+
+Justine followed him, scarcely conscious where she went, but moving
+already with a lighter tread. Part of her weight of misery had been
+lifted with Wyant's going. She had suffered less from the fear of what
+her husband might think than from the shame of making her avowal in her
+defamer's presence. And her faith in Amherst's comprehension had begun
+to revive. He had dismissed Wyant with scorn and horror--did not that
+show that he was on her side already? And how many more arguments she
+had at her call! Her brain hummed with them as she followed him up the
+stairs.
+
+In her bedroom he closed the door and stood motionless, the same heavy
+half-paralyzed look on his face. It frightened her and she went up to
+him.
+
+"John!" she said timidly.
+
+He put his hand to his head. "Wait a moment----" he returned; and she
+waited, her heart slowly sinking again.
+
+The moment over, he seemed to recover his power of movement. He crossed
+the room and threw himself into the armchair near the hearth.
+
+"Now tell me everything."
+
+He sat thrown back, his eyes fixed on the fire, and the vertical lines
+between his brows forming a deep scar in his white face.
+
+Justine moved nearer, and touched his arm beseechingly. "Won't you look
+at me?"
+
+He turned his head slowly, as if with an effort, and his eyes rested
+reluctantly on hers.
+
+"Oh, not like that!" she exclaimed.
+
+He seemed to make a stronger effort at self-control. "Please don't heed
+me--but say what there is to say," he said in a level voice, his gaze on
+the fire.
+
+She stood before him, her arms hanging down, her clasped fingers
+twisting restlessly.
+
+"I don't know that there is much to say--beyond what I've told you."
+
+There was a slight sound in Amherst's throat, like the ghost of a
+derisive laugh. After another interval he said: "I wish to hear exactly
+what happened."
+
+She seated herself on the edge of a chair near by, bending forward, with
+hands interlocked and arms extended on her knees--every line reaching
+out to him, as though her whole slight body were an arrow winged with
+pleadings. It was a relief to speak at last, even face to face with the
+stony image that sat in her husband's place; and she told her story,
+detail by detail, omitting nothing, exaggerating nothing, speaking
+slowly, clearly, with precision, aware that the bare facts were her
+strongest argument.
+
+Amherst, as he listened, shifted his position once, raising his hand so
+that it screened his face; and in that attitude he remained when she had
+ended.
+
+As she waited for him to speak, Justine realized that her heart had been
+alive with tremulous hopes. All through her narrative she had counted on
+a murmur of perception, an exclamation of pity: she had felt sure of
+melting the stony image. But Amherst said no word.
+
+At length he spoke, still without turning his head. "You have not told
+me why you kept this from me."
+
+A sob formed in her throat, and she had to wait to steady her voice.
+
+"No--that was my wrong--my weakness. When I did it I never thought of
+being afraid to tell you--I had talked it over with you in my own
+mind...so often...before...."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Then--- when you came back it was harder...though I was still sure you
+would approve me."
+
+"Why harder?"
+
+"Because at first--at Lynbrook--I _could not_ tell it all over, in
+detail, as I have now...it was beyond human power...and without doing
+so, I couldn't make it all clear to you...and so should only have added
+to your pain. If you had been there you would have done as I did.... I
+felt sure of that from the first. But coming afterward, you couldn't
+judge...no one who was not there could judge...and I wanted to spare
+you...."
+
+"And afterward?"
+
+She had shrunk in advance from this question, and she could not answer
+it at once. To gain time she echoed it. "Afterward?"
+
+"Did it never occur to you, when we met later--when you first went to
+Mr. Langhope----"?
+
+"To tell you then? No--because by that time I had come to see that I
+could never be quite sure of making you understand. No one who was not
+there at the time could know what it was to see her suffer."
+
+"You thought it all over, then--decided definitely against telling me?"
+
+"I did not have to think long. I felt I had done right--I still feel
+so--and I was sure you would feel so, if you were in the same
+circumstances."
+
+There was another pause. Then Amherst said: "And last September--at
+Hanaford?"
+
+It was the word for which she had waited--the word of her inmost fears.
+She felt the blood mount to her face.
+
+"Did you see no difference--no special reason for telling me then?"
+
+"Yes----" she faltered.
+
+"Yet you said nothing."
+
+"No."
+
+Silence again. Her eyes strayed to the clock, and some dim association
+of ideas told her that Cicely would soon be coming in.
+
+"Why did you say nothing?"
+
+He lowered his hand and turned toward her as he spoke; and she looked up
+and faced him.
+
+"Because I regarded the question as settled. I had decided it in my own
+mind months before, and had never regretted my decision. I should have
+thought it morbid...unnatural...to go over the whole subject again...to
+let it affect a situation that had come about...so much later...so
+unexpectedly."
+
+"Did you never feel that, later, if I came to know--if others came to
+know--it might be difficult----?"
+
+"No; for I didn't care for the others--and I believed that, whatever
+your own feelings were, you would know I had done what I thought right."
+
+She spoke the words proudly, strongly, and for the first time the hard
+lines of his face relaxed, and a slight tremor crossed it.
+
+"If you believed this, why have you been letting that cur blackmail
+you?"
+
+"Because when he began I saw for the first time that what I had done
+might be turned against me by--by those who disliked our marriage. And I
+was afraid for my happiness. That was my weakness...it is what I am
+suffering for now."
+
+"_Suffering_!" he echoed ironically, as though she had presumed to apply
+to herself a word of which he had the grim monopoly. He rose and took a
+few aimless steps; then he halted before her.
+
+"That day--last month--when you asked me for money...was it...?"
+
+"Yes----" she said, her head sinking.
+
+He laughed. "You couldn't tell me--but you could use my money to bribe
+that fellow to conspire with you!"
+
+"I had none of my own."
+
+"No--nor I either! You used _her_ money.--God!" he groaned, turning away
+with clenched hands.
+
+Justine had risen also, and she stood motionless, her hands clasped
+against her breast, in the drawn shrinking attitude of a fugitive
+overtaken by a blinding storm. He moved back to her with an appealing
+gesture.
+
+"And you didn't see--it didn't occur to you--that your doing...as you
+did...was an obstacle--an insurmountable obstacle--to our ever ...?"
+
+She cut him short with an indignant cry. "No! No! for it was _not_. How
+could it have anything to do with what...came after...with you or me? I
+did it only for Bessy--it concerned only Bessy!"
+
+"Ah, don't name her!" broke from him harshly, and she drew back, cut to
+the heart.
+
+There was another pause, during which he seemed to fall into a kind of
+dazed irresolution, his head on his breast, as though unconscious of her
+presence. Then he roused himself and went to the door.
+
+As he passed her she sprang after him. "John--John! Is that all you have
+to say?"
+
+"What more is there?"
+
+"What more? Everything!--What right have you to turn from me as if I
+were a murderess? I did nothing but what your own reason, your own
+arguments, have justified a hundred times! I made a mistake in not
+telling you at once--but a mistake is not a crime. It can't be your real
+feeling that turns you from me--it must be the dread of what other
+people would think! But when have you cared for what other people
+thought? When have your own actions been governed by it?"
+
+He moved another step without speaking, and she caught him by the arm.
+"No! you sha'n't go--not like that!--Wait!"
+
+She turned and crossed the room. On the lower shelf of the little table
+by her bed a few books were ranged: she stooped and drew one hurriedly
+forth, opening it at the fly-leaf as she went back to Amherst.
+
+"There--read that. The book was at Lynbrook--in your room--and I came
+across it by chance the very day...."
+
+It was the little volume of Bacon which she was thrusting at him. He
+took it with a bewildered look, as if scarcely following what she said.
+
+"Read it--read it!" she commanded; and mechanically he read out the
+words he had written.
+
+"_La vraie morale se moque de la morale.... We perish because we follow
+other men's examples.... Socrates called the opinions of the many
+Lamiae._--Good God!" he exclaimed, flinging the book from him with a
+gesture of abhorrence.
+
+Justine watched him with panting lips, her knees trembling under her.
+"But you wrote it--you wrote it! I thought you meant it!" she cried, as
+the book spun across a table and dropped to the floor.
+
+He looked at her coldly, almost apprehensively, as if she had grown
+suddenly dangerous and remote; then he turned and walked out of the
+room.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The striking of the clock roused her. She rose to her feet, rang the
+bell, and told the maid, through the door, that she had a headache, and
+was unable to see Miss Cicely. Then she turned back into the room, and
+darkness closed on her. She was not the kind to take grief passively--it
+drove her in anguished pacings up and down the floor. She walked and
+walked till her legs flagged under her; then she dropped stupidly into
+the chair where Amherst had sat....
+
+All her world had crumbled about her. It was as if some law of mental
+gravity had been mysteriously suspended, and every firmly-anchored
+conviction, every accepted process of reasoning, spun disconnectedly
+through space. Amherst had not understood her--worse still, he had
+judged her as the world might judge her! The core of her misery was
+there. With terrible clearness she saw the suspicion that had crossed
+his mind--the suspicion that she had kept silence in the beginning
+because she loved him, and feared to lose him if she spoke.
+
+And what if it were true? What if her unconscious guilt went back even
+farther than his thought dared to track it? She could not now recall a
+time when she had not loved him. Every chance meeting with him, from
+their first brief talk at Hanaford, stood out embossed and glowing
+against the blur of lesser memories. Was it possible that she had loved
+him during Bessy's life--that she had even, sub-consciously, blindly,
+been urged by her feeling for him to perform the act?
+
+But she shook herself free from this morbid horror--the rebound of
+health was always prompt in her, and her mind instinctively rejected
+every form of moral poison. No! Her motive had been normal, sane and
+justifiable--completely justifiable. Her fault lay in having dared to
+rise above conventional restrictions, her mistake in believing that her
+husband could rise with her. These reflections steadied her but they did
+not bring much comfort. For her whole life was centred in Amherst, and
+she saw that he would never be able to free himself from the traditional
+view of her act. In looking back, and correcting her survey of his
+character in the revealing light of the last hours, she perceived that,
+like many men of emancipated thought, he had remained subject to the old
+conventions of feeling. And he had probably never given much thought to
+women till he met her--had always been content to deal with them in the
+accepted currency of sentiment. After all, it was the currency they
+liked best, and for which they offered their prettiest wares!
+
+But what of the intellectual accord between himself and her? She had not
+been deceived in that! He and she had really been wedded in mind as well
+as in heart. But until now there had not arisen in their lives one of
+those searching questions which call into play emotions rooted far below
+reason and judgment, in the dark primal depths of inherited feeling. It
+is easy to judge impersonal problems intellectually, turning on them the
+full light of acquired knowledge; but too often one must still grope
+one's way through the personal difficulty by the dim taper carried in
+long-dead hands....
+
+But was there then no hope of lifting one's individual life to a clearer
+height of conduct? Must one be content to think for the race, and to
+feel only--feel blindly and incoherently--for one's self? And was it not
+from such natures as Amherst's--natures in which independence of
+judgment was blent with strong human sympathy--that the liberating
+impulse should come?
+
+Her mind grew weary of revolving in this vain circle of questions. The
+fact was that, in their particular case, Amherst had not risen above
+prejudice and emotion; that, though her act was one to which his
+intellectual sanction was given, he had turned from her with instinctive
+repugnance, had dishonoured her by the most wounding suspicions. The
+tie between them was forever stained and debased.
+
+Justine's long hospital-discipline made it impossible for her to lose
+consciousness of the lapse of time, or to let her misery thicken into
+mental stupor. She could not help thinking and moving; and she presently
+lifted herself to her feet, turned on the light, and began to prepare
+for dinner. It would be terrible to face her husband across Mr.
+Langhope's pretty dinner-table, and afterward in the charming
+drawing-room, with its delicate old ornaments and intimate luxurious
+furniture; but she could not continue to sit motionless in the dark: it
+was her innermost instinct to pick herself up and go on.
+
+While she dressed she listened anxiously for Amherst's step in the next
+room; but there was no sound, and when she dragged herself downstairs
+the drawing-room was empty, and the parlour-maid, after a decent delay,
+came to ask if dinner should be postponed.
+
+She said no, murmuring some vague pretext for her husband's absence, and
+sitting alone through the succession of courses which composed the brief
+but carefully-studied _menu_. When this ordeal was over she returned to
+the drawing-room and took up a book. It chanced to be a new volume on
+labour problems, which Amherst must have brought back with him from
+Westmore; and it carried her thoughts instantly to the mills. Would
+this disaster poison their work there as well as their personal
+relation? Would he think of her as carrying contamination even into the
+task their love had illumined?
+
+The hours went on without his returning, and at length it occurred to
+her that he might have taken the night train to Hanaford. Her heart
+contracted at the thought: she remembered--though every nerve shrank
+from the analogy--his sudden flight at another crisis in his life, and
+she felt obscurely that if he escaped from her now she would never
+recover her hold on him. But could he be so cruel--could he wish any one
+to suffer as she was suffering?
+
+At ten o'clock she could endure the drawing-room no longer, and went up
+to her room again. She undressed slowly, trying to prolong the process
+as much as possible, to put off the period of silence and inaction which
+would close in on her when she lay down on her bed. But at length the
+dreaded moment came--there was nothing more between her and the night.
+She crept into bed and put out the light; but as she slipped between the
+cold sheets a trembling seized her, and after a moment she drew on her
+dressing-gown again and groped her way to the lounge by the fire.
+
+She pushed the lounge closer to the hearth and lay down, still
+shivering, though she had drawn the quilted coverlet up to her chin. She
+lay there a long time, with closed eyes, in a mental darkness torn by
+sudden flashes of memory. In one of these flashes a phrase of Amherst's
+stood out--a word spoken at Westmore, on the day of the opening of the
+Emergency Hospital, about a good-looking young man who had called to see
+her. She remembered Amherst's boyish burst of jealousy, his sudden
+relief at the thought that the visitor might have been Wyant. And no
+doubt it _was_ Wyant--Wyant who had come to Hanaford to threaten her,
+and who, baffled by her non-arrival, or for some other unexplained
+reason, had left again without carrying out his purpose.
+
+It was dreadful to think by how slight a chance her first draught of
+happiness had escaped that drop of poison; yet, when she understood, her
+inward cry was: "If it had happened, my dearest need not have
+suffered!"... Already she was feeling Amherst's pain more than her own,
+understanding that it was harder to bear than hers because it was at war
+with all the reflective part of his nature.
+
+As she lay there, her face pressed into the cushions, she heard a sound
+through the silent house--the opening and closing of the outer door. She
+turned cold, and lay listening with strained ears.... Yes; now there was
+a step on the stairs--her husband's step! She heard him turn into his
+own room. The throbs of her heart almost deafened her--she only
+distinguished confusedly that he was moving about within, so close that
+it was as if she felt his touch. Then her door opened and he entered.
+
+He stumbled slightly in the darkness before he found the switch of the
+lamp; and as he bent over it she saw that his face was flushed, and that
+his eyes had an excited light which, in any one less abstemious, might
+almost have seemed like the effect of wine.
+
+"Are you awake?" he asked.
+
+She started up against the cushions, her black hair streaming about her
+small ghostly face.
+
+"Yes."
+
+He walked over to the lounge and dropped into the low chair beside it.
+
+"I've given that cur a lesson he won't forget," he exclaimed, breathing
+hard, the redness deepening in his face.
+
+She turned on him in joy and trembling. "John!--Oh, John! You didn't
+follow him? Oh, what happened? What have you done?"
+
+"No. I didn't follow him. But there are some things that even the powers
+above can't stand. And so they managed to let me run across him--by the
+merest accident--and I gave him something to remember."
+
+He spoke in a strong clear voice that had a brightness like the
+brightness in his eyes. She felt its heat in her veins--the primitive
+woman in her glowed at contact with the primitive man. But reflection
+chilled her the next moment.
+
+"But why--why? Oh, how could you? Where did it happen--oh, not in the
+street?"
+
+As she questioned him, there rose before her the terrified vision of a
+crowd gathering--the police, newspapers, a hideous publicity. He must
+have been mad to do it--and yet he must have done it because he loved
+her!
+
+"No--no. Don't be afraid. The powers looked after that too. There was no
+one about--and I don't think he'll talk much about it."
+
+She trembled, fearing yet adoring him. Nothing could have been more
+unlike the Amherst she fancied she knew than this act of irrational
+anger which had magically lifted the darkness from his spirit; yet,
+magically also, it gave him back to her, made them one flesh once more.
+And suddenly the pressure of opposed emotions became too strong, and she
+burst into tears.
+
+She wept painfully, violently, with the resistance of strong natures
+unused to emotional expression; till at length, through the tumult of
+her tears, she felt her husband's reassuring touch.
+
+"Justine," he said, speaking once more in his natural voice.
+
+She raised her face from her hands, and they looked at each other.
+
+"Justine--this afternoon--I said things I didn't mean to say."
+
+Her lips parted, but her throat was still full of sobs, and she could
+only look at him while the tears ran down.
+
+"I believe I understand now," he continued, in the same quiet tone.
+
+Her hand shrank from his clasp, and she began to tremble again. "Oh, if
+you only _believe_...if you're not sure...don't pretend to be!"
+
+He sat down beside her and drew her into his arms. "I am sure," he
+whispered, holding her close, and pressing his lips against her face and
+hair.
+
+"Oh, my husband--my husband! You've come back to me?"
+
+He answered her with more kisses, murmuring through them: "Poor
+child--poor child--poor Justine...." while he held her fast.
+
+With her face against him she yielded to the childish luxury of
+murmuring out unjustified fears. "I was afraid you had gone back to
+Hanaford----"
+
+"Tonight? To Hanaford?"
+
+"To tell your mother."
+
+She felt a contraction of the arm embracing her, as though a throb of
+pain had stiffened it.
+
+"I shall never tell any one," he said abruptly; but as he felt in her a
+responsive shrinking he gathered her close again, whispering through the
+hair that fell about her cheek: "Don't talk, dear...let us never talk
+of it again...." And in the clasp of his arms her terror and anguish
+subsided, giving way, not to the deep peace of tranquillized thought,
+but to a confused well-being that lulled all thought to sleep.
+
+
+
+
+XXXVII
+
+
+BUT thought could never be long silent between them; and Justine's
+triumph lasted but a day.
+
+With its end she saw what it had been made of: the ascendency of youth
+and sex over his subjugated judgment. Her first impulse was to try and
+maintain it--why not use the protective arts with which love inspired
+her? She who lived so keenly in the brain could live as intensely in her
+feelings; her quick imagination tutored her looks and words, taught her
+the spells to weave about shorn giants. And for a few days she and
+Amherst lost themselves in this self-evoked cloud of passion, both
+clinging fast to the visible, the palpable in their relation, as if
+conscious already that its finer essence had fled.
+
+Amherst made no allusion to what had passed, asked for no details,
+offered no reassurances--behaved as if the whole episode had been
+effaced from his mind. And from Wyant there came no sound: he seemed to
+have disappeared from life as he had from their talk.
+
+Toward the end of the week Amherst announced that he must return to
+Hanaford; and Justine at once declared her intention of going with him.
+
+He seemed surprised, disconcerted almost; and for the first time the
+shadow of what had happened fell visibly between them.
+
+"But ought you to leave Cicely before Mr. Langhope comes back?" he
+suggested.
+
+"He will be here in two days."
+
+"But he will expect to find you."
+
+"It is almost the first of April. We are to have Cicely with us for the
+summer. There is no reason why I should not go back to my work at
+Westmore."
+
+There was in fact no reason that he could produce; and the next day they
+returned to Hanaford together.
+
+With her perceptions strung to the last pitch of sensitiveness, she felt
+a change in Amherst as soon as they re-entered Bessy's house. He was
+still scrupulously considerate, almost too scrupulously tender; but with
+a tinge of lassitude, like a man who tries to keep up under the
+stupefying approach of illness. And she began to hate the power by which
+she held him. It was not thus they had once walked together, free in
+mind though so linked in habit and feeling; when their love was not a
+deadening drug but a vivifying element that cleared thought instead of
+stifling it. There were moments when she felt that open alienation would
+be easier, because it would be nearer the truth. And at such moments
+she longed to speak, to beg him to utter his mind, to go with her once
+for all into the depths of the subject they continued to avoid. But at
+the last her heart always failed her: she could not face the thought of
+losing him, of hearing him speak estranging words to her.
+
+They had been at Hanaford for about ten days when, one morning at
+breakfast, Amherst uttered a sudden exclamation over a letter he was
+reading.
+
+"What is it?" she asked in a tremor.
+
+He had grown very pale, and was pushing the hair from his forehead with
+the gesture habitual to him in moments of painful indecision.
+
+"What is it?" Justine repeated, her fear growing.
+
+"Nothing----" he began, thrusting the letter under the pile of envelopes
+by his plate; but she continued to look at him anxiously, till she drew
+his eyes to hers.
+
+"Mr. Langhope writes that they've appointed Wyant to Saint
+Christopher's," he said abruptly.
+
+"Oh, the letter--we forgot the letter!" she cried.
+
+"Yes--we forgot the letter."
+
+"But how dare he----?"
+
+Amherst said nothing, but the long silence between them seemed full of
+ironic answers, till she brought out, hardly above her breath: "What
+shall you do?"
+
+"Write at once--tell Mr. Langhope he's not fit for the place."
+
+"Of course----" she murmured.
+
+He went on tearing open his other letters, and glancing at their
+contents. She leaned back in her chair, her cup of coffee untasted,
+listening to the recurrent crackle of torn paper as he tossed aside one
+letter after another.
+
+Presently he rose from his seat, and as she followed him from the
+dining-room she noticed that his breakfast had also remained untasted.
+He gathered up his letters and walked toward the smoking-room; and after
+a moment's hesitation she joined him.
+
+"John," she said from the threshold.
+
+He was just seating himself at his desk, but he turned to her with an
+obvious effort at kindness which made the set look of his face the more
+marked.
+
+She closed the door and went up to him.
+
+"If you write that to Mr. Langhope--Dr. Wyant will--will tell him," she
+said.
+
+"Yes--we must be prepared for that."
+
+She was silent, and Amherst flung himself down on the leather ottoman
+against the wall. She stood before him, clasping and unclasping her
+hands in speechless distress.
+
+"What would you have me do?" he asked at length, almost irritably.
+
+"I only thought...he told me he would keep straight...if he only had a
+chance," she faltered out.
+
+Amherst lifted his head slowly, and looked at her. "You mean--I am to do
+nothing? Is that it?"
+
+She moved nearer to him with beseeching eyes. "I can't bear it.... I
+can't bear that others should come between us," she broke out
+passionately.
+
+He made no answer, but she could see a look of suffering cross his face,
+and coming still closer, she sank down on the ottoman, laying her hand
+on his. "John...oh, John, spare me," she whispered.
+
+For a moment his hand lay quiet under hers; then he drew it out, and
+enclosed her trembling fingers.
+
+"Very well--I'll give him a chance--I'll do nothing," he said, suddenly
+putting his other arm about her.
+
+The reaction caught her by the throat, forcing out a dry sob or two; and
+as she pressed her face against him he raised it up and gently kissed
+her.
+
+But even as their lips met she felt that they were sealing a treaty with
+dishonour. That his kiss should come to mean that to her! It was
+unbearable--worse than any personal pain--the thought of dragging him
+down to falsehood through her weakness.
+
+She drew back and rose to her feet, putting aside his detaining hand.
+
+"No--no! What am I saying? It can't be--you must tell the truth." Her
+voice gathered strength as she spoke. "Oh, forget what I said--I didn't
+mean it!"
+
+But again he seemed sunk in inaction, like a man over whom some baneful
+lethargy is stealing.
+
+"John--John--forget!" she repeated urgently.
+
+He looked up at her. "You realize what it will mean?"
+
+"Yes--I realize.... But it must be.... And it will make no difference
+between us...will it?"
+
+"No--no. Why should it?" he answered apathetically.
+
+"Then write--tell Mr. Langhope not to give him the place. I want it
+over."
+
+He rose slowly to his feet, without looking at her again, and walked
+over to the desk. She sank down on the ottoman and watched him with
+burning eyes while he drew forth a sheet of note-paper and began to
+write.
+
+But after he had written a few words he laid down his pen, and swung his
+chair about so that he faced her.
+
+"I can't do it in this way," he exclaimed.
+
+"How then? What do you mean?" she said, starting up.
+
+He looked at her. "Do you want the story to come from Wyant?"
+
+"Oh----" She looked back at him with sudden insight. "You mean to tell
+Mr. Langhope yourself?"
+
+"Yes. I mean to take the next train to town and tell him."
+
+Her trembling increased so much that she had to rest her hands against
+the edge of the ottoman to steady herself. "But if...if after
+all...Wyant should not speak?"
+
+"Well--if he shouldn't? Could you bear to owe our safety to _him_?"
+
+"Safety!"
+
+"It comes to that, doesn't it, if _we're_ afraid to speak?"
+
+She sat silent, letting the bitter truth of this sink into her till it
+poured courage into her veins.
+
+"Yes--it comes to that," she confessed.
+
+"Then you feel as I do?"
+
+"That you must go----?"
+
+"That this is intolerable!"
+
+The words struck down her last illusion, and she rose and went over to
+the writing-table. "Yes--go," she said.
+
+He stood up also, and took both her hands, not in a caress, but gravely,
+almost severely.
+
+"Listen, Justine. You must understand exactly what this means--may mean.
+I am willing to go on as we are now...as long as we can...because I
+love you...because I would do anything to spare you pain. But if I speak
+I must say everything--I must follow this thing up to its uttermost
+consequences. That's what I want to make clear to you."
+
+Her heart sank with a foreboding of new peril. "What consequences?"
+
+"Can't you see for yourself--when you look about this house?"
+
+"This house----?"
+
+He dropped her hands and took an abrupt turn across the room.
+
+"I owe everything to her," he broke out, "all I am, all I have, all I
+have been able to give you--and I must go and tell her father that
+you...."
+
+"Stop--stop!" she cried, lifting her hands as if to keep off a blow.
+
+"No--don't make me stop. We must face it," he said doggedly.
+
+"But this--this isn't the truth! You put it as if--almost as if----"
+
+"Yes--don't finish.--Has it occurred to you that _he_ may think that?"
+Amherst asked with a terrible laugh. But at that she recovered her
+courage, as she always did when an extreme call was made on it.
+
+"No--I don't believe it! If he _does_, it will be because you think it
+yourself...." Her voice sank, and she lifted her hands and pressed them
+to her temples. "And if you think it, nothing matters...one way or the
+other...." She paused, and her voice regained its strength. "That is
+what I must face before you go: what _you_ think, what _you_ believe of
+me. You've never told me that."
+
+Amherst, at the challenge, remained silent, while a slow red crept to
+his cheek-bones.
+
+"Haven't I told you by--by what I've done?" he said slowly.
+
+"No--what you've done has covered up what you thought; and I've helped
+you cover it--I'm to blame too! But it was not for this that we...that
+we had that half-year together...not to sink into connivance and
+evasion! I don't want another hour of sham happiness. I want the truth
+from you, whatever it is."
+
+He stood motionless, staring moodily at the floor. "Don't you see that's
+my misery--that I don't know myself?"
+
+"You don't know...what you think of me?"
+
+"Good God, Justine, why do you try to strip life naked? I don't know
+what's been going on in me these last weeks----"
+
+"You must know what you think of my motive...for doing what I did."
+
+She saw in his face how he shrank from the least allusion to the act
+about which their torment revolved. But he forced himself to raise his
+head and look at her. "I have never--for one moment--questioned your
+motive--or failed to see that it was justified...under the
+circumstances...."
+
+"Oh, John--John!" she broke out in the wild joy of hearing herself
+absolved; but the next instant her subtle perceptions felt the
+unconscious reserve behind his admission.
+
+"Your mind justifies me--not your heart; isn't _that_ your misery?" she
+said.
+
+He looked at her almost piteously, as if, in the last resort, it was
+from her that light must come to him. "On my soul, I don't know...I
+can't tell...it's all dark in me. I know you did what you thought
+best...if I had been there, I believe I should have asked you to do
+it...but I wish to God----"
+
+She interrupted him sobbingly. "Oh, I ought never to have let you love
+me! I ought to have seen that I was cut off from you forever. I have
+brought you wretchedness when I would have given my life for you! I
+don't deserve that you should forgive me for that."
+
+Her sudden outbreak seemed to restore his self-possession. He went up to
+her and took her hand with a quieting touch.
+
+"There is no question of forgiveness, Justine. Don't let us torture each
+other with vain repinings. Our business is to face the thing, and we
+shall be better for having talked it out. I shall be better, for my
+part, for having told Mr. Langhope. But before I go I want to be sure
+that you understand the view he may take...and the effect it will
+probably have on our future."
+
+"Our future?" She started. "No, I don't understand."
+
+Amherst paused a moment, as if trying to choose the words least likely
+to pain her. "Mr. Langhope knows that my marriage was...unhappy; through
+my fault, he no doubt thinks. And if he chooses to infer that...that you
+and I may have cared for each other...before...and that it was _because_
+there was a chance of recovery that you----"
+
+"Oh----"
+
+"We must face it," he repeated inflexibly. "And you must understand
+that, if there is the faintest hint of this kind, I shall give up
+everything here, as soon as it can be settled legally--God, how Tredegar
+will like the job!--and you and I will have to go and begin life over
+again...somewhere else."
+
+For an instant a mad hope swelled in her--the vision of escaping with
+him into new scenes, a new life, away from the coil of memories that
+bound them down as in a net. But the reaction of reason came at
+once--she saw him cut off from his chosen work, his career destroyed,
+his honour clouded, above all--ah, this was what wrung them both!--his
+task undone, his people flung back into the depths from which he had
+lifted them. And all through her doing--all because she had clutched at
+happiness with too rash a hand! The thought stung her to passionate
+activity of mind--made her resolve to risk anything, dare anything,
+before she involved him farther in her own ruin. She felt her brain
+clear gradually, and the thickness dissolve in her throat.
+
+"I understand," she said in a low voice, raising her eyes to his.
+
+"And you're ready to accept the consequences? Think again before it's
+too late."
+
+She paused. "That is what I should like...what I wanted to ask you...the
+time to think."
+
+She saw a slight shade cross his face, as if he had not expected this
+failure of courage in her; but he said quietly: "You don't want me to go
+today?"
+
+"Not today--give me one more day."
+
+"Very well."
+
+She laid a timid hand on his arm. "Please go out to Westmore as
+usual--as if nothing had happened. And tonight...when you come back...I
+shall have decided."
+
+"Very well," he repeated.
+
+"You'll be gone all day?"
+
+He glanced at his watch. "Yes--I had meant to be; unless----"
+
+"No; I would rather be alone. Good-bye," she said, letting her hand slip
+softly along his coat-sleeve as he turned to the door.
+
+
+
+
+XXXVIII
+
+
+AT half-past six that afternoon, just as Amherst, on his return from the
+mills, put the key into his door at Hanaford, Mrs. Ansell, in New York,
+was being shown into Mr. Langhope's library.
+
+As she entered, her friend rose from his chair by the fire, and turned
+on her a face so disordered by emotion that she stopped short with an
+exclamation of alarm.
+
+"Henry--what has happened? Why did you send for me?"
+
+"Because I couldn't go to you. I couldn't trust myself in the
+streets--in the light of day."
+
+"But why? What is it?--Not Cicely----?"
+
+He struck both hands upward with a comprehensive gesture.
+"Cicely--everyone--the whole world!" His clenched fist came down on the
+table against which he was leaning. "Maria, my girl might have been
+saved!"
+
+Mrs. Ansell looked at him with growing perturbation. "Saved--Bessy's
+life? But how? By whom?"
+
+"She might have been allowed to live, I mean--to recover. She was
+killed, Maria; that woman killed her!"
+
+Mrs. Ansell, with another cry of bewilderment, let herself drop
+helplessly into the nearest chair. "In heaven's name, Henry--what
+woman?"
+
+He seated himself opposite to her, clutching at his stick, and leaning
+his weight heavily on it--a white dishevelled old man. "I wonder why you
+ask--just to spare me?"
+
+Their eyes met in a piercing exchange of question and answer, and Mrs.
+Ansell tried to bring out reasonably: "I ask in order to understand what
+you are saying."
+
+"Well, then, if you insist on keeping up appearances--my daughter-in-law
+killed my daughter. There you have it." He laughed silently, with a tear
+on his reddened eye-lids.
+
+Mrs. Ansell groaned. "Henry, you are raving--I understand less and
+less."
+
+"I don't see how I can speak more plainly. She told me so herself, in
+this room, not an hour ago."
+
+"She told you? Who told you?"
+
+"John Amherst's wife. Told me she'd killed my child. It's as easy as
+breathing--if you know how to use a morphia-needle."
+
+Light seemed at last to break on his hearer. "Oh, my poor Henry--you
+mean--she gave too much? There was some dreadful accident?"
+
+"There was no accident. She killed my child--killed her deliberately.
+Don't look at me as if I were a madman. She sat in that chair you're in
+when she told me."
+
+"Justine? Has she been here today?" Mrs. Ansell paused in a painful
+effort to readjust her thoughts. "But _why_ did she tell you?"
+
+"That's simple enough. To prevent Wyant's doing it."
+
+"Oh----" broke from his hearer, in a long sigh of fear and intelligence.
+Mr. Langhope looked at her with a smile of miserable exultation.
+
+"You knew--you suspected all along?--But now you must speak out!" he
+exclaimed with a sudden note of command.
+
+She sat motionless, as if trying to collect herself. "I know nothing--I
+only meant--why was this never known before?"
+
+He was upon her at once. "You think--because they understood each other?
+And now there's been a break between them? He wanted too big a share of
+the spoils? Oh, it's all so abysmally vile!"
+
+He covered his face with a shaking hand, and Mrs. Ansell remained
+silent, plunged in a speechless misery of conjecture. At length she
+regained some measure of her habitual composure, and leaning forward,
+with her eyes on his face, said in a quiet tone: "If I am to help you,
+you must try to tell me just what has happened."
+
+He made an impatient gesture. "Haven't I told you? She found that her
+accomplice meant to speak, and rushed to town to forestall him."
+
+Mrs. Ansell reflected. "But why--with his place at Saint Christopher's
+secured--did Dr. Wyant choose this time to threaten her--if, as you
+imagine, he's an accomplice?"
+
+"Because he's a drug-taker, and she didn't wish him to have the place."
+
+"She didn't wish it? But that does not look as if she were afraid. She
+had only to hold her tongue!"
+
+Mr. Langhope laughed sardonically. "It's not quite so simple. Amherst
+was coming to town to tell me."
+
+"Ah--_he_ knows?"
+
+"Yes--and she preferred that I should have her version first."
+
+"And what is her version?"
+
+The furrows of misery deepened in Mr. Langhope's face. "Maria--don't ask
+too much of me! I can't go over it again. She says she wanted to spare
+my child--she says the doctors were keeping her alive, torturing her
+uselessly, as a...a sort of scientific experiment.... She forced on me
+the hideous details...."
+
+Mrs. Ansell waited a moment.
+
+"Well! May it not be true?"
+
+"Wyant's version is different. _He_ says Bessy would have recovered--he
+says Garford thought so too."
+
+"And what does she answer? She denies it?"
+
+"No. She admits that Garford was in doubt. But she says the chance was
+too remote--the pain too bad...that's her cue, naturally!"
+
+Mrs. Ansell, leaning back in her chair, with hands meditatively
+stretched along its arms, gave herself up to silent consideration of the
+fragmentary statements cast before her. The long habit of ministering to
+her friends in moments of perplexity and distress had given her an
+almost judicial keenness in disentangling and coordinating facts
+incoherently presented, and in seizing on the thread of motive that
+connected them; but she had never before been confronted with a
+situation so poignant in itself, and bearing so intimately on her
+personal feelings; and she needed time to free her thoughts from the
+impending rush of emotion.
+
+At last she raised her head and said: "Why did Mr. Amherst let her come
+to you, instead of coming himself?"
+
+"He knows nothing of her being here. She persuaded him to wait a day,
+and as soon as he had gone to the mills this morning she took the first
+train to town."
+
+"Ah----" Mrs. Ansell murmured thoughtfully; and Mr. Langhope rejoined,
+with a conclusive gesture: "Do you want more proofs of panic-stricken
+guilt?"
+
+"Oh, guilt--" His friend revolved her large soft muff about a drooping
+hand. "There's so much still to understand."
+
+"Your mind does not, as a rule, work so slowly!" he said with some
+asperity; but she paid no heed to his tone.
+
+"Amherst, for instance--how long has he known of this?" she continued.
+
+"A week or two only--she made that clear."
+
+"And what is his attitude?"
+
+"Ah--that, I conjecture, is just what she means to keep us from
+knowing!"
+
+"You mean she's afraid----?"
+
+Mr. Langhope gathered his haggard brows in a frown. "She's afraid, of
+course--mortally--I never saw a woman more afraid. I only wonder she had
+the courage to face me."
+
+"Ah--that's it! Why _did_ she face you? To extenuate her act--to give
+you her version, because she feared his might be worse? Do you gather
+that that was her motive?"
+
+It was Mr. Langhope's turn to hesitate. He furrowed the thick Turkey rug
+with the point of his ebony stick, pausing once or twice to revolve it
+gimlet-like in a gap of the pile.
+
+"Not her avowed motive, naturally."
+
+"Well--at least, then, let me have that."
+
+"Her avowed motive? Oh, she'd prepared one, of course--trust her to
+have a dozen ready! The one she produced was--simply the desire to
+protect her husband."
+
+"Her husband? Does _he_ too need protection?"
+
+"My God, if he takes her side----! At any rate, her fear seemed to be
+that what she had done might ruin him; might cause him to feel--as well
+he may!--that the mere fact of being her husband makes his situation as
+Cicely's step-father, as my son-in-law, intolerable. And she came to
+clear him, as it were--to find out, in short, on what terms I should be
+willing to continue my present relations with him as though this hideous
+thing had not been known to me."
+
+Mrs. Ansell raised her head quickly. "Well--and what were your terms?"
+
+He hesitated. "She spared me the pain of proposing any--I had only to
+accept hers."
+
+"Hers?"
+
+"That she should disappear altogether from my sight--and from the
+child's, naturally. Good heaven, I should like to include Amherst in
+that! But I'm tied hand and foot, as you see, by Cicely's interests; and
+I'm bound to say she exonerated him completely--completely!"
+
+Mrs. Ansell was again silent, but a swift flight of thoughts traversed
+her drooping face. "But if you are to remain on the old terms with her
+husband, how is she to disappear out of your life without also
+disappearing out of his?"
+
+Mr. Langhope gave a slight laugh. "I leave her to work out that
+problem."
+
+"And you think Amherst will consent to such conditions?"
+
+"He's not to know of them."
+
+The unexpectedness of the reply reduced Mrs. Ansell to a sound of
+inarticulate interrogation; and Mr. Langhope continued: "Not at first,
+that is. She had thought it all out--foreseen everything; and she wrung
+from me--I don't yet know how!--a promise that when I saw him I would
+make it appear that I cleared him completely, not only of any possible
+complicity, or whatever you choose to call it, but of any sort of
+connection with the matter in my thoughts of him. I am, in short, to let
+him feel that he and I are to continue on the old footing--and I agreed,
+on the condition of her effacing herself somehow--of course on some
+other pretext."
+
+"Some other pretext? But what conceivable pretext? My poor friend, he
+adores her!"
+
+Mr. Langhope raised his eyebrows slightly. "We haven't seen him since
+this became known to him. _She_ has; and she let slip that he was
+horror-struck."
+
+Mrs. Ansell looked up with a quick exclamation. "Let slip? Isn't it
+much more likely that she forced it on you--emphasized it to the last
+limit of credulity?" She sank her hands to the arms of the chair, and
+exclaimed, looking him straight in the eyes: "You say she was
+frightened? It strikes me she was dauntless!"
+
+Mr. Langhope stared a moment; then he said, with an ironic shrug: "No
+doubt, then, she counted on its striking me too."
+
+Mrs. Ansell breathed a shuddering sigh. "Oh, I understand your feeling
+as you do--I'm deep in the horror of it myself. But I can't help seeing
+that this woman might have saved herself--and that she's chosen to save
+her husband instead. What I don't see, from what I know of him," she
+musingly proceeded, "is how, on any imaginable pretext, she will induce
+him to accept the sacrifice."
+
+Mr. Langhope made a resentful movement. "If that's the only point your
+mind dwells on----!"
+
+Mrs. Ansell looked up. "It doesn't dwell anywhere as yet--except, my
+poor Henry," she murmured, rising to move toward him, and softly laying
+her hand on his bent shoulder--"except on your distress and misery--on
+the very part I can't yet talk of, can't question you about...."
+
+He let her hand rest there a moment; then he turned, and drawing it into
+his own tremulous fingers, pressed it silently, with a clinging
+helpless grasp that drew the tears to her eyes.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Justine Brent, in her earliest girlhood, had gone through one of those
+emotional experiences that are the infantile diseases of the heart. She
+had fancied herself beloved of a youth of her own age; had secretly
+returned his devotion, and had seen it reft from her by another. Such an
+incident, as inevitable as the measles, sometimes, like that mild
+malady, leaves traces out of all proportion to its actual virulence. The
+blow fell on Justine with tragic suddenness, and she reeled under it,
+thinking darkly of death, and renouncing all hopes of future happiness.
+Her ready pen often beguiled her into recording her impressions, and she
+now found an escape from despair in writing the history of a damsel
+similarly wronged. In her tale, the heroine killed herself; but the
+author, saved by this vicarious sacrifice, lived, and in time even
+smiled over her manuscript.
+
+It was many years since Justine Amherst had recalled this youthful
+incident; but the memory of it recurred to her as she turned from Mr.
+Langhope's door. For a moment death seemed the easiest escape from what
+confronted her; but though she could no longer medicine her despair by
+turning it into fiction, she knew at once that she must somehow
+transpose it into terms of action, that she must always escape from
+life into more life, and not into its negation.
+
+She had been carried into Mr. Langhope's presence by that expiatory
+passion which still burns so high, and draws its sustenance from so deep
+down, in the unsleeping hearts of women. Though she had never wavered in
+her conviction that her act had been justified her ideas staggered under
+the sudden comprehension of its consequences. Not till that morning had
+she seen those consequences in their terrible, unsuspected extent, had
+she understood how one stone rashly loosened from the laboriously
+erected structure of human society may produce remote fissures in that
+clumsy fabric. She saw that, having hazarded the loosening of the stone,
+she should have held herself apart from ordinary human ties, like some
+priestess set apart for the service of the temple. And instead, she had
+seized happiness with both hands, taken it as the gift of the very fate
+she had herself precipitated! She remembered some old Greek saying to
+the effect that the gods never forgive the mortal who presumes to love
+and suffer like a god. She had dared to do both, and the gods were
+bringing ruin on that deeper self which had its life in those about her.
+
+So much had become clear to her when she heard Amherst declare his
+intention of laying the facts before Mr. Langhope. His few broken words
+lit up the farthest verge of their lives. She saw that his
+retrospective reverence for his wife's memory, which was far as possible
+removed from the strong passion of the mind and senses that bound him to
+herself, was indelibly stained and desecrated by the discovery that all
+he had received from the one woman had been won for him by the
+deliberate act of the other. This was what no reasoning, no appeal to
+the calmer judgment, could ever, in his inmost thoughts, undo or
+extenuate. It could find appeasement only in the renunciation of all
+that had come to him from Bessy; and this renunciation, so different
+from the mere sacrifice of material well-being, was bound up with
+consequences so far-reaching, so destructive to the cause which had
+inspired his whole life, that Justine felt the helpless terror of the
+mortal who has launched one of the heavenly bolts.
+
+She could think of no way of diverting it but the way she had chosen.
+She must see Mr. Langhope first, must clear Amherst of the least faint
+association with her act or her intention. And to do this she must
+exaggerate, not her own compunction--for she could not depart from the
+exact truth in reporting her feelings and convictions--but her husband's
+first instinctive movement of horror, the revulsion of feeling her
+confession had really produced in him. This was the most painful part of
+her task, and for this reason her excited imagination clothed it with a
+special expiatory value. If she could purchase Amherst's peace of mind,
+and the security of his future, by confessing, and even
+over-emphasizing, the momentary estrangement between them there would be
+a bitter joy in such payment!
+
+Her hour with Mr. Langhope proved the correctness of her intuition. She
+could save Amherst only by effacing herself from his life: those about
+him would be only too ready to let her bear the full burden of obloquy.
+She could see that, for a dozen reasons, Mr. Langhope, even in the first
+shock of his dismay, unconsciously craved a way of exonerating Amherst,
+of preserving intact the relation on which so much of his comfort had
+come to depend. And she had the courage to make the most of his desire,
+to fortify it by isolating Amherst's point of view from hers; so that,
+when the hour was over, she had the solace of feeling that she had
+completely freed him from any conceivable consequence of her act.
+
+So far, the impetus of self-sacrifice had carried her straight to her
+goal; but, as frequently happens with such atoning impulses, it left her
+stranded just short of any subsequent plan of conduct. Her next step,
+indeed, was clear enough: she must return to Hanaford, explain to her
+husband that she had felt impelled to tell her own story to Mr.
+Langhope, and then take up her ordinary life till chance offered her a
+pretext for fulfilling her promise. But what pretext was likely to
+present itself? No symbolic horn would sound the hour of fulfillment;
+she must be her own judge, and hear the call in the depths of her own
+conscience.
+
+
+
+
+XXXIX
+
+
+WHEN Amherst, returning late that afternoon from Westmore, learned of
+his wife's departure, and read the note she had left, he found it, for a
+time, impossible to bring order out of the confusion of feeling produced
+in him.
+
+His mind had been disturbed enough before. All day, through the routine
+of work at the mills, he had laboured inwardly with the difficulties
+confronting him; and his unrest had been increased by the fact that his
+situation bore an ironic likeness to that in which, from a far different
+cause, he had found himself at the other crisis of his life. Once more
+he was threatened with the possibility of having to give up Westmore, at
+a moment when concentration of purpose and persistency of will were at
+last beginning to declare themselves in tangible results. Before, he had
+only given up dreams; now it was their fruition that he was asked to
+surrender. And he was fixed in his resolve to withdraw absolutely from
+Westmore if the statement he had to make to Mr. Langhope was received
+with the least hint of an offensive mental reservation. All forms of
+moral compromise had always been difficult to Amherst, and like many men
+absorbed in large and complicated questions he craved above all
+clearness and peace in his household relation. The first months of his
+second marriage had brought him, as a part of richer and deeper joys,
+this enveloping sense of a clear moral medium, in which no subterfuge or
+equivocation could draw breath. He had felt that henceforth he could
+pour into his work all the combative energy, the powers of endurance,
+resistance, renovation, which had once been unprofitably dissipated in
+the vain attempt to bring some sort of harmony into life with Bessy.
+Between himself and Justine, apart from their love for each other, there
+was the wider passion for their kind, which gave back to them an
+enlarged and deepened reflection of their personal feeling. In such an
+air it had seemed that no petty egotism could hamper their growth, no
+misintelligence obscure their love; yet all the while this pure
+happiness had been unfolding against a sordid background of falsehood
+and intrigue from which his soul turned with loathing.
+
+Justine was right in assuming that Amherst had never thought much about
+women. He had vaguely regarded them as meant to people that hazy domain
+of feeling designed to offer the busy man an escape from thought. His
+second marriage, leading him to the blissful discovery that woman can
+think as well as feel, that there are beings of the ornamental sex in
+whom brain and heart have so enlarged each other that their emotions are
+as clear as thought, their thoughts as warm as emotions--this discovery
+had had the effect of making him discard his former summary conception
+of woman as a bundle of inconsequent impulses, and admit her at a stroke
+to full mental equality with her lord. The result of this act of
+manumission was, that in judging Justine he could no longer allow for
+what was purely feminine in her conduct. It was incomprehensible to him
+that she, to whom truth had seemed the essential element of life, should
+have been able to draw breath, and find happiness, in an atmosphere of
+falsehood and dissimulation. His mind could assent--at least in the
+abstract--to the reasonableness of her act; but he was still unable to
+understand her having concealed it from him. He could enter far enough
+into her feelings to allow for her having kept silence on his first
+return to Lynbrook, when she was still under the strain of a prolonged
+and terrible trial; but that she should have continued to do so when he
+and she had discovered and confessed their love for each other, threw an
+intolerable doubt on her whole course.
+
+He stayed late at the mills, finding one pretext after another for
+delaying his return to Hanaford, and trying, while he gave one part of
+his mind to the methodical performance of his task, to adjust the other
+to some definite view of the future. But all was darkened and confused
+by the sense that, between himself and Justine, complete communion of
+thought was no longer possible. It had, in fact, never existed; there
+had always been a locked chamber in her mind, and he knew not yet what
+other secrets might inhabit it.
+
+The shock of finding her gone when he reached home gave a new turn to
+his feelings. She had made no mystery of her destination, leaving word
+with the servants that she had gone to town to see Mr. Langhope; and
+Amherst found a note from her on his study table.
+
+"I feel," she wrote, "that I ought to see Mr. Langhope myself, and be
+the first to tell him what must be told. It was like you, dearest, to
+wish to spare me this, but it would have made me more unhappy; and Mr.
+Langhope might wish to hear the facts in my own words. I shall come back
+tomorrow, and after that it will be for you to decide what must be
+done."
+
+The brevity and simplicity of the note were characteristic; in moments
+of high tension Justine was always calm and direct. And it was like her,
+too, not to make any covert appeal to his sympathy, not to seek to
+entrap his judgment by caressing words and plaintive allusions. The
+quiet tone in which she stated her purpose matched the firmness and
+courage of the act, and for a moment Amherst was shaken by a revulsion
+of feeling. Her heart was level with his, after all--if she had done
+wrong she would bear the brunt of it alone. It was so exactly what he
+himself would have felt and done in such a situation that faith in her
+flowed back through all the dried channels of his heart. But an instant
+later the current set the other way. The wretched years of his first
+marriage had left in him a residue of distrust, a tendency to dissociate
+every act from its ostensible motive. He had been too profoundly the
+dupe of his own enthusiasm not to retain this streak of scepticism, and
+it now moved him to ask if Justine's sudden departure had not been
+prompted by some other cause than the one she avowed. Had that alone
+actuated her, why not have told it to him, and asked his consent to her
+plan? Why let him leave the house without a hint of her purpose, and
+slip off by the first train as soon as he was safe at Westmore? Might it
+not be that she had special reasons for wishing Mr. Langhope to _hear
+her own version first_--that there were questions she wished to parry
+herself, explanations she could trust no one to make for her? The
+thought plunged Amherst into deeper misery. He knew not how to defend
+himself against these disintegrating suspicions--he felt only that, once
+the accord between two minds is broken, it is less easy to restore than
+the passion between two hearts. He dragged heavily through his solitary
+evening, and awaited with dread and yet impatience a message announcing
+his wife's return.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It would have been easier--far easier--when she left Mr. Langhope's
+door, to go straight out into the darkness and let it close in on her
+for good.
+
+Justine felt herself yielding to the spell of that suggestion as she
+walked along the lamplit pavement, hardly conscious of the turn her
+steps were taking. The door of the house which a few weeks before had
+been virtually hers had closed on her without a question. She had been
+suffered to go out into the darkness without being asked whither she was
+going, or under what roof her night would be spent. The contrast between
+her past and present sounded through the tumult of her thoughts like the
+evil laughter of temptation. The house at Hanaford, to which she was
+returning, would look at her with the same alien face--nowhere on earth,
+at that moment, was a door which would open to her like the door of
+home.
+
+In her painful self-absorption she followed the side street toward
+Madison Avenue, and struck southward down that tranquil thoroughfare.
+There was a physical relief in rapid motion, and she walked on, still
+hardly aware of her direction, toward the clustered lights of Madison
+Square. Should she return to Hanaford, she had still several hours to
+dispose of before the departure of the midnight train; and if she did
+not return, hours and dates no longer existed for her.
+
+It would be easier--infinitely easier--not to go back. To take up her
+life with Amherst would, under any circumstances, be painful enough; to
+take it up under the tacit restriction of her pledge to Mr. Langhope
+seemed more than human courage could face. As she approached the square
+she had almost reached the conclusion that such a temporary renewal was
+beyond her strength--beyond what any standard of duty exacted. The
+question of an alternative hardly troubled her. She would simply go on
+living, and find an escape in work and material hardship. It would not
+be hard for so inconspicuous a person to slip back into the obscure mass
+of humanity.
+
+She paused a moment on the edge of the square, vaguely seeking a
+direction for her feet that might permit the working of her thoughts to
+go on uninterrupted; and as she stood there, her eyes fell on the bench
+near the corner of Twenty-sixth Street, where she had sat with Amherst
+on the day of his flight from Lynbrook. He too had dreamed of escaping
+from insoluble problems into the clear air of hard work and simple
+duties; and she remembered the words with which she had turned him back.
+The cases, of course, were not identical, since he had been flying in
+anger and wounded pride from a situation for which he was in no wise to
+blame; yet, if even at such a moment she had insisted on charity and
+forbearance, how could she now show less self-denial than she had
+exacted of him?
+
+"If you go away for a time, surely it ought to be in such a way that
+your going does not seem to cast any reflection on Bessy...." That was
+how she had put it to him, and how, with the mere change of a name, she
+must now, for reasons as cogent, put it to herself. It was just as much
+a part of the course she had planned to return to her husband now, and
+take up their daily life together, as it would, later on, be her duty to
+drop out of that life, when her doing so could no longer involve him in
+the penalty to be paid.
+
+She stood a little while looking at the bench on which they had sat, and
+giving thanks in her heart for the past strength which was now helping
+to build up her failing courage: such a patchwork business are our best
+endeavours, yet so faithfully does each weak upward impulse reach back a
+hand to the next.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Justine's explanation of her visit to Mr. Langhope was not wholly
+satisfying to her husband. She did not conceal from him that the scene
+had been painful, but she gave him to understand, as briefly as
+possible, that Mr. Langhope, after his first movement of uncontrollable
+distress, had seemed able to make allowances for the pressure under
+which she had acted, and that he had, at any rate, given no sign of
+intending to let her confession make any change in the relation between
+the households. If she did not--as Amherst afterward recalled--put all
+this specifically into words, she contrived to convey it in her manner,
+in her allusions, above all in her recovered composure. She had the
+demeanour of one who has gone through a severe test of strength, but
+come out of it in complete control of the situation. There was something
+slightly unnatural in this prompt solution of so complicated a
+difficulty, and it had the effect of making Amherst ask himself what, to
+produce such a result, must have been the gist of her communication to
+Mr. Langhope. If the latter had shown any disposition to be cruel, or
+even unjust, Amherst's sympathies would have rushed instantly to his
+wife's defence; but the fact that there was apparently to be no call on
+them left his reason free to compare and discriminate, with the final
+result that the more he pondered on his father-in-law's attitude the
+less intelligible it became.
+
+A few days after Justine's return he was called to New York on business;
+and before leaving he told her that he should of course take the
+opportunity of having a talk with Mr. Langhope.
+
+She received the statement with the gentle composure from which she had
+not departed since her return from town; and he added tentatively, as if
+to provoke her to a clearer expression of feeling: "I shall not be
+satisfied, of course, till I see for myself just how he feels--just how
+much, at bottom, this has affected him--since my own future relation to
+him will, as I have already told you, depend entirely on his treatment
+of you."
+
+She met this without any sign of disturbance. "His treatment of me was
+very kind," she said. "But would it not, on your part," she continued
+hesitatingly, "be kinder not to touch on the subject so soon again?"
+
+The line deepened between his brows. "Touch on it? I sha'n't rest till
+I've gone to the bottom of it! Till then, you must understand," he
+summed up with decision, "I feel myself only on sufferance here at
+Westmore."
+
+"Yes--I understand," she assented; and as he bent over to kiss her for
+goodbye a tenuous impenetrable barrier seemed to lie between their lips.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was Justine's turn to await with a passionate anxiety her husband's
+home-coming; and when, on the third day, he reappeared, her dearly
+acquired self-control gave way to a tremulous eagerness. This was, after
+all, the turning-point in their lives: everything depended on how Mr.
+Langhope had "played up" to his cue; had kept to his side of their bond.
+
+Amherst's face showed signs of emotional havoc: when feeling once broke
+out in him it had full play, and she could see that his hour with Mr.
+Langhope had struck to the roots of life. But the resultant expression
+was one of invigoration, not defeat; and she gathered at a glance that
+her partner had not betrayed her. She drew a tragic solace from the
+success of her achievement; yet it flung her into her husband's arms
+with a passion of longing to which, as she instantly felt, he did not as
+completely respond.
+
+There was still, then, something "between" them: somewhere the mechanism
+of her scheme had failed, or its action had not produced the result she
+had counted on.
+
+As soon as they were alone in the study she said, as quietly as she
+could: "You saw your father-in-law? You talked with him?"
+
+"Yes--I spent the afternoon with him. Cicely sent you her love."
+
+She coloured at the mention of the child's name and murmured: "And Mr.
+Langhope?"
+
+"He is perfectly calm now--perfectly impartial.--This business has made
+me feel," Amherst added abruptly, "that I have never been quite fair to
+him. I never thought him a magnanimous man."
+
+"He has proved himself so," Justine murmured, her head bent low over a
+bit of needlework; and Amherst affirmed energetically: "He has been more
+than that--generous!"
+
+She looked up at him with a smile. "I am so glad, dear; so glad there is
+not to be the least shadow between you...."
+
+"No," Amherst said, his voice flagging slightly. There was a pause, and
+then he went on with renewed emphasis: "Of course I made my point clear
+to him."
+
+"Your point?"
+
+"That I stand or fall by his judgment of you."
+
+Oh, if he had but said it more tenderly! But he delivered it with the
+quiet resolution of a man who contends for an abstract principle of
+justice, and not for a passion grown into the fibres of his heart!
+
+"You are generous too," she faltered, her voice trembling a little.
+
+Amherst frowned; and she perceived that any hint, on her part, of
+recognizing the slightest change in their relations was still like
+pressure on a painful bruise.
+
+"There is no need for such words between us," he said impatiently; "and
+Mr. Langhope's attitude," he added, with an effort at a lighter tone,
+"has made it unnecessary, thank heaven, that we should ever revert to
+the subject again."
+
+He turned to his desk as he spoke, and plunged into perusal of the
+letters that had accumulated in his absence.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There was a temporary excess of work at Westmore, and during the days
+that followed he threw himself into it with a zeal that showed Justine
+how eagerly he sought any pretext for avoiding confidential moments. The
+perception was painful enough, yet not as painful as another discovery
+that awaited her. She too had her tasks at Westmore: the supervision of
+the hospital, the day nursery, the mothers' club, and the various other
+organizations whereby she and Amherst were trying to put some sort of
+social unity into the lives of the mill-hands; and when, on the day
+after his return from New York, she presented herself, as usual, at the
+Westmore office, where she was in the habit of holding a brief
+consultation with him before starting on her rounds, she was at once
+aware of a new tinge of constraint in his manner. It hurt him, then, to
+see her at Westmore--hurt him more than to live with her, at Hanaford,
+under Bessy's roof! For it was there, at the mills, that his real life
+was led, the life with which Justine had been most identified, the life
+that had been made possible for both by the magnanimity of that other
+woman whose presence was now forever between them.
+
+Justine made no sign. She resumed her work as though unconscious of any
+change; but whereas in the past they had always found pretexts for
+seeking each other out, to discuss the order of the day's work, or
+merely to warm their hearts by a rapid word or two, now each went a
+separate way, sometimes not meeting till they regained the house at
+night-fall.
+
+And as the weeks passed she began to understand that, by a strange
+inversion of probability, the relation between Amherst and herself was
+to be the means of holding her to her compact with Mr. Langhope--if
+indeed it were not nearer the truth to say that it had made such a
+compact unnecessary. Amherst had done his best to take up their life
+together as though there had been no break in it; but slowly the fact
+was being forced on her that by remaining with him she was subjecting
+him to intolerable suffering--was coming to be the personification of
+the very thoughts and associations from which he struggled to escape.
+Happily her promptness of action had preserved Westmore to him, and in
+Westmore she believed that he would in time find a refuge from even the
+memory of what he was now enduring. But meanwhile her presence kept the
+thought alive; and, had every other incentive lost its power, this would
+have been enough to sustain her. Fate had, ironically enough, furnished
+her with an unanswerable reason for leaving Amherst; the impossibility
+of their keeping up such a relation as now existed between them would
+soon become too patent to be denied.
+
+Meanwhile, as summer approached, she knew that external conditions would
+also call upon her to act. The visible signal for her withdrawal would
+be Cicely's next visit to Westmore. The child's birthday fell in early
+June; and Amherst, some months previously, had asked that she should be
+permitted to spend it at Hanaford, and that it should be chosen as the
+date for the opening of the first model cottages at Hopewood.
+
+It was Justine who had originated the idea of associating Cicely's
+anniversaries with some significant moment in the annals of the mill
+colony; and struck by the happy suggestion, he had at once applied
+himself to hastening on the work at Hopewood. The eagerness of both
+Amherst and Justine that Cicely should be identified with the developing
+life of Westmore had been one of the chief influences in reconciling Mr.
+Langhope to his son-in-law's second marriage. Husband and wife had
+always made it clear that they regarded themselves as the mere trustees
+of the Westmore revenues, and that Cicely's name should, as early as
+possible, be associated with every measure taken for the welfare of the
+people. But now, as Justine knew, the situation was changed; and Cicely
+would not be allowed to come to Hanaford until she herself had left it.
+The manifold threads of divination that she was perpetually throwing out
+in Amherst's presence told her, without word or sign on his part, that
+he also awaited Cicely's birthday as a determining date in their lives.
+He spoke confidently, and as a matter of course, of Mr. Langhope's
+bringing his grand-daughter at the promised time; but Justine could hear
+a note of challenge in his voice, as though he felt that Mr. Langhope's
+sincerity had not yet been put to the test.
+
+As the time drew nearer it became more difficult for her to decide just
+how she should take the step she had determined on. She had no material
+anxiety for the future, for although she did not mean to accept a penny
+from her husband after she had left him, she knew it would be easy for
+her to take up her nursing again; and she knew also that her hospital
+connections would enable her to find work in a part of the country far
+enough distant to remove her entirely from his life. But she had not yet
+been able to invent a reason for leaving that should be convincing
+enough to satisfy him, without directing his suspicions to the truth. As
+she revolved the question she suddenly recalled an exclamation of
+Amherst's--a word spoken as they entered Mr. Langhope's door, on the
+fatal afternoon when she had found Wyant's letter awaiting her.
+
+"There's nothing you can't make people believe, you little Jesuit!"
+
+She had laughed in pure joy at his praise of her; for every bantering
+phrase had then been a caress. But now the words returned with a
+sinister meaning. She knew they were true as far as Amherst was
+concerned: in the arts of casuistry and equivocation a child could have
+outmatched him, and she had only to exert her will to dupe him as deeply
+as she pleased. Well! the task was odious, but it was needful: it was
+the bitterest part of her expiation that she must deceive him once more
+to save him from the results of her former deception. This decision once
+reached, every nerve in her became alert for an opportunity to do the
+thing and have it over; so that, whenever they were alone together, she
+was in an attitude of perpetual tension, her whole mind drawn up for its
+final spring.
+
+The decisive word came, one evening toward the end of May, in the form
+of an allusion on Amherst's part to Cicely's approaching visit. Husband
+and wife were seated in the drawing-room after dinner, he with a book in
+hand, she bending, as usual, over the needlework which served at once as
+a pretext for lowered eyes, and as a means of disguising her fixed
+preoccupation.
+
+"Have you worked out a plan?" he asked, laying down his book. "It
+occurred to me that it would be rather a good idea if we began with a
+sort of festivity for the kids at the day nursery. You could take Cicely
+there early, and I could bring out Mr. Langhope after luncheon. The
+whole performance would probably tire him too much."
+
+Justine listened with suspended thread. "Yes--that seems a good plan."
+
+"Will you see about the details, then? You know it's only a week off."
+
+"Yes, I know." She hesitated, and then took the spring. "I ought to
+tell you John--that I--I think I may not be here...."
+
+He raised his head abruptly, and she saw the blood mount under his fair
+skin. "Not be here?" he exclaimed.
+
+She met his look as steadily as she could. "I think of going away for
+awhile."
+
+"Going away? Where? What is the matter--are you not well?"
+
+There was her pretext--he had found it for her! Why should she not
+simply plead ill-health? Afterward she would find a way of elaborating
+the details and making them plausible. But suddenly, as she was about to
+speak, there came to her the feeling which, up to one fatal moment in
+their lives, had always ruled their intercourse--the feeling that there
+must be truth, and absolute truth, between them. Absolute, indeed, it
+could never be again, since he must never know of the condition exacted
+by Mr. Langhope; but that, at the moment, seemed almost a secondary
+motive compared to the deeper influences that were inexorably forcing
+them apart. At any rate, she would trump up no trivial excuse for the
+step she had resolved on; there should be truth, if not the whole truth,
+in this last decisive hour between them.
+
+"Yes; I am quite well--at least my body is," she said quietly. "But I am
+tired, perhaps; my mind has been going round too long in the same
+circle." She paused for a brief space, and then, raising her head, and
+looking him straight in the eyes: "Has it not been so with you?" she
+asked.
+
+The question seemed to startle Amherst. He rose from his chair and took
+a few steps toward the hearth, where a small fire was crumbling into
+embers. He turned his back to it, resting an arm on the mantel-shelf;
+then he said, in a somewhat unsteady tone: "I thought we had agreed not
+to speak of all that again."
+
+Justine shook her head with a fugitive half-smile. "I made no such
+agreement. And besides, what is the use, when we can always hear each
+other's thoughts speak, and they speak of nothing else?"
+
+Amherst's brows darkened. "It is not so with mine," he began; but she
+raised her hand with a silencing gesture.
+
+"I know you have tried your best that it should not be so; and perhaps
+you have succeeded better than I. But I am tired, horribly tired--I want
+to get away from everything!"
+
+She saw a look of pain in his eyes. He continued to lean against the
+mantel-shelf, his head slightly lowered, his unseeing gaze fixed on a
+remote scroll in the pattern of the carpet; then he said in a low tone:
+"I can only repeat again what I have said before--that I understand why
+you did what you did."
+
+"Thank you," she answered, in the same tone.
+
+There was another pause, for she could not trust herself to go on
+speaking; and presently he asked, with a tinge of bitterness in his
+voice: "That does not satisfy you?"
+
+She hesitated. "It satisfies me as much as it does you--and no more,"
+she replied at length.
+
+He looked up hastily. "What do you mean?"
+
+"Just what I say. We can neither of us go on living on that
+understanding just at present." She rose as she spoke, and crossed over
+to the hearth. "I want to go back to my nursing--to go out to Michigan,
+to a town where I spent a few months the year before I first came to
+Hanaford. I have friends there, and can get work easily. And you can
+tell people that I was ill and needed a change."
+
+It had been easier to say than she had imagined, and her voice held its
+clear note till the end; but when she had ceased, the whole room began
+to reverberate with her words, and through the clashing they made in her
+brain she felt a sudden uncontrollable longing that they should provoke
+in him a cry of protest, of resistance. Oh, if he refused to let her
+go--if he caught her to him, and defied the world to part them--what
+then of her pledge to Mr. Langhope, what then of her resolve to pay the
+penalty alone?
+
+But in the space of a heart-beat she knew that peril--that longed-for
+peril!--was past. Her husband had remained silent--he neither moved
+toward her nor looked at her; and she felt in every slackening nerve
+that in the end he would let her go.
+
+
+
+
+XL
+
+
+MR. LANGHOPE, tossing down a note on Mrs. Ansell's drawing-room table,
+commanded imperiously: "Read that!"
+
+She set aside her tea-cup, and looked up, not at the note, but into his
+face, which was crossed by one of the waves of heat and tremulousness
+that she was beginning to fear for him. Mr. Langhope had changed greatly
+in the last three months; and as he stood there in the clear light of
+the June afternoon it came to her that he had at last suffered the
+sudden collapse which is the penalty of youth preserved beyond its time.
+
+"What is it?" she asked, still watching him as she put out her hand for
+the letter.
+
+"Amherst writes to remind me of my promise to take Cicely to Hanaford
+next week, for her birthday."
+
+"Well--it was a promise, wasn't it?" she rejoined, running her eyes over
+the page.
+
+"A promise--yes; but made before.... Read the note--you'll see there's
+no reference to his wife. For all I know, she'll be there to receive
+us."
+
+"But that was a promise too."
+
+"That neither Cicely nor I should ever set eyes on her? Yes. But why
+should she keep it? I was a fool that day--she fooled me as she's fooled
+us all! But you saw through it from the beginning--you said at once that
+she'd never leave him."
+
+Mrs. Ansell reflected. "I said that before I knew all the circumstances.
+Now I think differently."
+
+"You think she still means to go?"
+
+She handed the letter back to him. "I think this is to tell you so."
+
+"This?" He groped for his glasses, dubiously scanning the letter again.
+
+"Yes. And what's more, if you refuse to go she'll have every right to
+break her side of the agreement."
+
+Mr. Langhope sank into a chair, steadying himself painfully with his
+stick. "Upon my soul, I sometimes think you're on her side!" he
+ejaculated.
+
+"No--but I like fair play," she returned, measuring his tea carefully
+into his favourite little porcelain tea-pot.
+
+"Fair play?"
+
+"She's offering to do her part. It's for you to do yours now--to take
+Cicely to Hanaford."
+
+"If I find her there, I never cross Amherst's threshold again!"
+
+Mrs. Ansell, without answering, rose and put his tea-cup on the
+slender-legged table at his elbow; then, before returning to her seat,
+she found the enamelled match-box and laid it by the cup. It was
+becoming difficult for Mr. Langhope to guide his movements about her
+small encumbered room; and he had always liked being waited on.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mrs. Ansell's prognostication proved correct. When Mr. Langhope and
+Cicely arrived at Hanaford they found Amherst alone to receive them. He
+explained briefly that his wife had been unwell, and had gone to seek
+rest and change at the house of an old friend in the west. Mr. Langhope
+expressed a decent amount of regret, and the subject was dropped as if
+by common consent. Cicely, however, was not so easily silenced. Poor
+Bessy's uncertain fits of tenderness had produced more bewilderment than
+pleasure in her sober-minded child; but the little girl's feelings and
+perceptions had developed rapidly in the equable atmosphere of her
+step-mother's affection. Cicely had reached the age when children put
+their questions with as much ingenuity as persistence, and both Mr.
+Langhope and Amherst longed for Mrs. Ansell's aid in parrying her
+incessant interrogations as to the cause and length of Justine's
+absence, what she had said before going, and what promise she had made
+about coming back. But Mrs. Ansell had not come to Hanaford. Though it
+had become a matter of habit to include her in the family pilgrimages to
+the mills she had firmly maintained the plea of more urgent engagements;
+and the two men, with only Cicely between them, had spent the long days
+and longer evenings in unaccustomed and unmitigated propinquity.
+
+Mr. Langhope, before leaving, thought it proper to touch tentatively on
+his promise of giving Cicely to Amherst for the summer; but to his
+surprise the latter, after a moment of hesitation, replied that he
+should probably go to Europe for two or three months.
+
+"To Europe? Alone?" escaped from Mr. Langhope before he had time to
+weigh his words.
+
+Amherst frowned slightly. "I have been made a delegate to the Berne
+conference on the housing of factory operatives," he said at length,
+without making a direct reply to the question; "and if there is nothing
+to keep me at Westmore, I shall probably go out in July." He waited a
+moment, and then added: "My wife has decided to spend the summer in
+Michigan."
+
+Mr. Langhope's answer was a vague murmur of assent, and Amherst turned
+the talk to other matters.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mr. Langhope returned to town with distinct views on the situation at
+Hanaford.
+
+"Poor devil--I'm sorry for him: he can hardly speak of her," he broke
+out at once to Mrs. Ansell, in the course of their first confidential
+hour together.
+
+"Because he cares too much--he's too unhappy?"
+
+"Because he loathes her!" Mr. Langhope brought out with emphasis.
+
+Mrs. Ansell drew a deep sigh which made him add accusingly: "I believe
+you're actually sorry!"
+
+"Sorry?" She raised her eye-brows with a slight smile. "Should one not
+always be sorry to know there's a little less love and a little more
+hate in the world?"
+
+"You'll be asking _me_ not to hate her next!"
+
+She still continued to smile on him. "It's the haters, not the hated,
+I'm sorry for," she said at length; and he flung back impatiently: "Oh,
+don't let's talk of her. I sometimes feel she takes up more place in our
+lives than when she was with us!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Amherst went to the Berne conference in July, and spent six weeks
+afterward in rapid visits to various industrial centres and model
+factory villages. During his previous European pilgrimages his interest
+had by no means been restricted to sociological questions: the appeal of
+an old civilization, reaching him through its innumerable forms of
+tradition and beauty, had roused that side of his imagination which his
+work at home left untouched. But upon his present state of deep moral
+commotion the spells of art and history were powerless to work. The
+foundations of his life had been shaken, and the fair exterior of the
+world was as vacant as a maniac's face. He could only take refuge in his
+special task, barricading himself against every expression of beauty and
+poetry as so many poignant reminders of a phase of life that he was
+vainly trying to cast off and forget.
+
+Even his work had been embittered to him, thrust out of its place in the
+ordered scheme of things. It had cost him a hard struggle to hold fast
+to his main purpose, to convince himself that his real duty lay, not in
+renouncing the Westmore money and its obligations, but in carrying out
+his projected task as if nothing had occurred to affect his personal
+relation to it. The mere fact that such a renunciation would have been a
+deliberate moral suicide, a severing once for all of every artery of
+action, made it take on, at first, the semblance of an obligation, a
+sort of higher duty to the abstract conception of what he owed himself.
+But Justine had not erred in her forecast. Once she had passed out of
+his life, it was easier for him to return to a dispassionate view of his
+situation, to see, and boldly confess to himself that he saw, the still
+higher duty of sticking to his task, instead of sacrificing it to any
+ideal of personal disinterestedness. It was this gradual process of
+adjustment that saved him from the desolating scepticism which falls on
+the active man when the sources of his activity are tainted. Having
+accepted his fate, having consented to see in himself merely the
+necessary agent of a good to be done, he could escape from
+self-questioning only by shutting himself up in the practical exigencies
+of his work, closing his eyes and his thoughts to everything which had
+formerly related it to a wider world, had given meaning and beauty to
+life as a whole.
+
+The return from Europe, and the taking up of the daily routine at
+Hanaford, were the most difficult phases in this process of moral
+adaptation.
+
+Justine's departure had at first brought relief. He had been too sincere
+with himself to oppose her wish to leave Hanaford for a time, since he
+believed that, for her as well as for himself, a temporary separation
+would be less painful than a continuance of their actual relation. But
+as the weeks passed into months he found he was no nearer to a clear
+view of his own case: the future was still dark and enigmatic. Justine's
+desire to leave him had revived his unformulated distrust of her. What
+could it mean but that there were thoughts within her which could not be
+at rest in his presence? He had given her every proof of his wish to
+forget the past, and Mr. Langhope had behaved with unequalled
+magnanimity. Yet Justine's unhappiness was evident: she could not
+conceal her longing to escape from the conditions her act had created.
+Was it because, in reality, she was conscious of other motives than the
+one she acknowledged? She had insisted, almost unfeelingly as it might
+have seemed, on the abstract rightness of what she had done, on the fact
+that, ideally speaking, her act could not be made less right, less
+justifiable, by the special accidental consequences that had flowed from
+it. Because these consequences had caught her in a web of tragic
+fatality she would not be guilty of the weakness of tracing back the
+disaster to any intrinsic error in her original motive. Why, then, if
+this was her real, her proud attitude toward the past--and since those
+about her believed in her sincerity, and accepted her justification as
+valid from her point of view if not from theirs--why had she not been
+able to maintain her posture, to carry on life on the terms she had
+exacted from others?
+
+A special circumstance contributed to this feeling of distrust; the
+fact, namely, that Justine, a week after her departure from Hanaford,
+had written to say that she could not, from that moment till her return,
+consent to accept any money from Amherst. As her manner was, she put her
+reasons clearly and soberly, without evasion or ambiguity.
+
+"Since you and I," she wrote, "have always agreed in regarding the
+Westmore money as a kind of wage for our services at the mills, I
+cannot be satisfied to go on drawing that wage while I am unable to do
+any work in return. I am sure you must feel as I do about this; and you
+need have no anxiety as to the practical side of the question, since I
+have enough to live on in some savings from my hospital days, which were
+invested for me two years ago by Harry Dressel, and are beginning to
+bring in a small return. This being the case, I feel I can afford to
+interpret in any way I choose the terms of the bargain between myself
+and Westmore."
+
+On reading this, Amherst's mind had gone through the strange dual
+process which now marked all his judgments of his wife. At first he had
+fancied he understood her, and had felt that he should have done as she
+did; then the usual reaction of distrust set in, and he asked himself
+why she, who had so little of the conventional attitude toward money,
+should now develop this unexpected susceptibility. And so the old
+question presented itself in another shape: if she had nothing to
+reproach herself for, why was it intolerable to her to live on Bessy's
+money? The fact that she was doing no actual service at Westmore did not
+account for her scruples--she would have been the last person to think
+that a sick servant should be docked of his pay. Her reluctance could
+come only from that hidden cause of compunction which had prompted her
+departure, and which now forced her to sever even the merely material
+links between herself and her past.
+
+Amherst, on his return to Hanaford, had tried to find in these
+considerations a reason for his deep unrest. It was his wife's course
+which still cast a torturing doubt on what he had braced his will to
+accept and put behind him. And he now told himself that the perpetual
+galling sense of her absence was due to this uneasy consciousness of
+what it meant, of the dark secrets it enveloped and held back from him.
+In actual truth, every particle of his being missed her, he lacked her
+at every turn. She had been at once the partner of his task, and the
+_pays bleu_ into which he escaped from it; the vivifying thought which
+gave meaning to the life he had chosen, yet never let him forget that
+there was a larger richer life outside, to which he was rooted by deeper
+and more intrinsic things than any abstract ideal of altruism. His love
+had preserved his identity, saved him from shrinking into the mere
+nameless unit which the social enthusiast is in danger of becoming
+unless the humanitarian passion is balanced, and a little overweighed,
+by a merely human one. And now this equilibrium was lost forever, and
+his deepest pain lay in realizing that he could not regain it, even by
+casting off Westmore and choosing the narrower but richer individual
+existence that her love might once have offered. His life was in truth
+one indivisible organism, not two halves artificially united. Self and
+other-self were ingrown from the roots--whichever portion fate
+restricted him to would be but a mutilated half-live fragment of the
+whole.
+
+Happily for him, chance made this crisis of his life coincide with a
+strike at Westmore. Soon after his return to Hanaford he found himself
+compelled to grapple with the hardest problem of his industrial career,
+and he was carried through the ensuing three months on that tide of
+swift obligatory action that sweeps the ship-wrecked spirit over so many
+sunken reefs of fear and despair. The knowledge that he was better able
+to deal with the question than any one who might conceivably have taken
+his place--this conviction, which was presently confirmed by the
+peaceable adjustment of the strike, helped to make the sense of his
+immediate usefulness outbalance that other, disintegrating doubt as to
+the final value of such efforts. And so he tried to settle down into a
+kind of mechanical altruism, in which the reflexes of habit should take
+the place of that daily renewal of faith and enthusiasm which had been
+fed from the springs of his own joy.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The autumn came and passed into winter; and after Mr. Langhope's
+re-establishment in town Amherst began to resume his usual visits to his
+step-daughter.
+
+His natural affection for the little girl had been deepened by the
+unforeseen manner in which her fate had been entrusted to him. The
+thought of Bessy, softened to compunction by the discovery that her love
+had persisted under their apparently hopeless estrangement--this
+feeling, intensified to the verge of morbidness by the circumstances
+attending her death, now sought expression in a passionate devotion to
+her child. Accident had, in short, created between Bessy and himself a
+retrospective sympathy which the resumption of life together would have
+dispelled in a week--one of the exhalations from the past that depress
+the vitality of those who linger too near the grave of dead experiences.
+
+Since Justine's departure Amherst had felt himself still more drawn to
+Cicely; but his relation to the child was complicated by the fact that
+she would not be satisfied as to the cause of her step-mother's absence.
+Whenever Amherst came to town, her first question was for Justine; and
+her memory had the precocious persistence sometimes developed in
+children too early deprived of their natural atmosphere of affection.
+Cicely had always been petted and adored, at odd times and by divers
+people; but some instinct seemed to tell her that, of all the tenderness
+bestowed on her, Justine's most resembled the all-pervading motherly
+element in which the child's heart expands without ever being conscious
+of its needs.
+
+If it had been embarrassing to evade Cicely's questions in June it
+became doubly so as the months passed, and the pretext of Justine's
+ill-health grew more and more difficult to sustain. And in the following
+March Amherst was suddenly called from Hanaford by the news that the
+little girl herself was ill. Serious complications had developed from a
+protracted case of scarlet fever, and for two weeks the child's fate was
+uncertain. Then she began to recover, and in the joy of seeing life come
+back to her, Mr. Langhope and Amherst felt as though they must not only
+gratify every wish she expressed, but try to guess at those they saw
+floating below the surface of her clear vague eyes.
+
+It was noticeable to Mrs. Ansell, if not to the others, that one of
+these unexpressed wishes was the desire to see her stepmother. Cicely no
+longer asked for Justine; but something in her silence, or in the
+gesture with which she gently put from her other offers of diversion and
+companionship, suddenly struck Mrs. Ansell as more poignant than speech.
+
+"What is it the child wants?" she asked the governess, in the course of
+one of their whispered consultations; and the governess, after a
+moment's hesitation, replied: "She said something about a letter she
+wrote to Mrs. Amherst just before she was taken ill--about having had no
+answer, I think."
+
+"Ah--she writes to Mrs. Amherst, does she?"
+
+The governess, evidently aware that she trod on delicate ground, tried
+at once to defend herself and her pupil.
+
+"It was my fault, perhaps. I suggested once that her little compositions
+should take the form of letters--it usually interests a child more--and
+she asked if they might be written to Mrs. Amherst."
+
+"Your fault? Why should not the child write to her step-mother?" Mrs.
+Ansell rejoined with studied surprise; and on the other's murmuring: "Of
+course--of course----" she added haughtily: "I trust the letters were
+sent?"
+
+The governess floundered. "I couldn't say--but perhaps the nurse...."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+That evening Cicely was less well. There was a slight return of fever,
+and the doctor, hastily summoned, hinted at the possibility of too much
+excitement in the sick-room.
+
+"Excitement? There has been no excitement," Mr. Langhope protested,
+quivering with the sudden renewal of fear.
+
+"No? The child seemed nervous, uneasy. It's hard to say why, because she
+is unusually reserved for her age."
+
+The medical man took his departure, and Mr. Langhope and Mrs. Ansell
+faced each other in the disarray produced by a call to arms when all
+has seemed at peace.
+
+"I shall lose her--I shall lose her!" the grandfather broke out, sinking
+into his chair with a groan.
+
+Mrs. Ansell, gathering up her furs for departure, turned on him abruptly
+from the threshold.
+
+"It's stupid, what you're doing--stupid!" she exclaimed with unwonted
+vehemence.
+
+He raised his head with a startled look. "What do you mean--what I'm
+doing?"
+
+"The child misses Justine. You ought to send for her."
+
+Mr. Langhope's hands dropped to the arms of his chair, and he
+straightened himself up with a pale flash of indignation. "You've had
+moments lately----!"
+
+"I've had moments, yes; and so have you--when the child came back to us,
+and we stood there and wondered how we could keep her, tie her
+fast...and in those moments I saw...saw what she wanted...and so did
+you!"
+
+Mr. Langhope turned away his head. "You're a sentimentalist!" he flung
+scornfully back.
+
+"Oh, call me any bad names you please!"
+
+"I won't send for that woman!"
+
+"No." She fastened her furs slowly, with the gentle deliberate movements
+that no emotion ever hastened or disturbed.
+
+"Why do you say no?" he challenged her.
+
+"To make you contradict me, perhaps," she ventured, after looking at him
+again.
+
+"Ah----" He shifted his position, one elbow supporting his bowed head,
+his eyes fixed on the ground. Presently he brought out: "Could one ask
+her to come--and see the child--and go away again--for good?"
+
+"To break the compact at your pleasure, and enter into it again for the
+same reason?"
+
+"No--no--I see." He paused, and then looked up at her suddenly. "But
+what if Amherst won't have her back himself?"
+
+"Shall I ask him?"
+
+"I tell you he can't bear to hear her name!"
+
+"But he doesn't know why she has left him."
+
+Mr. Langhope gathered his brows in a frown. "Why--what on earth--what
+possible difference would that make?"
+
+Mrs. Ansell, from the doorway, shed a pitying glance on him. "Ah--if you
+don't see!" she murmured.
+
+He sank back into his seat with a groan. "Good heavens, Maria, how you
+torture me! I see enough as it is--I see too much of the cursed
+business!"
+
+She paused again, and then slowly moved a step or two nearer, laying her
+hand on his shoulder.
+
+"There's one thing you've never seen yet, Henry: what Bessy herself
+would do now--for the child--if she could."
+
+He sat motionless under her light touch, his eyes on hers, till their
+inmost thoughts felt for and found each other, as they still sometimes
+could, through the fog of years and selfishness and worldly habit; then
+he dropped his face into his hands, hiding it from her with the
+instinctive shrinking of an aged grief.
+
+
+
+
+XLI
+
+
+AMHERST, Cicely's convalescence once assured, had been obliged to go
+back to Hanaford; but some ten days later, on hearing from Mrs. Ansell
+that the little girl's progress was less rapid than had been hoped, he
+returned to his father-in-law's for a Sunday.
+
+He came two days after the talk recorded in the last chapter--a talk of
+which Mrs. Ansell's letter to him had been the direct result. She had
+promised Mr. Langhope that, in writing to Amherst, she would not go
+beyond the briefest statement of fact; and she had kept her word,
+trusting to circumstances to speak for her.
+
+Mrs. Ansell, during Cicely's illness, had formed the habit of dropping
+in on Mr. Langhope at the tea hour instead of awaiting him in her own
+drawing-room; and on the Sunday in question she found him alone.
+Beneath his pleasure in seeing her, which had grown more marked as his
+dependence on her increased, she at once discerned traces of recent
+disturbance; and her first question was for Cicely.
+
+He met it with a discouraged gesture. "No great change--Amherst finds
+her less well than when he was here before."
+
+"He's upstairs with her?"
+
+"Yes--she seems to want him."
+
+Mrs. Ansell seated herself in silence behind the tea-tray, of which she
+was now recognized as the officiating priestess. As she drew off her
+long gloves, and mechanically straightened the row of delicate old cups,
+Mr. Langhope added with an effort: "I've spoken to him--told him what
+you said."
+
+She looked up quickly.
+
+"About the child's wish," he continued. "About her having written to his
+wife. It seems her last letters have not been answered."
+
+He paused, and Mrs. Ansell, with her usual calm precision, proceeded to
+measure the tea into the fluted Georgian tea-pot. She could be as
+reticent in approval as in reprehension, and not for the world would she
+have seemed to claim any share in the turn that events appeared to be
+taking. She even preferred the risk of leaving her old friend to add
+half-reproachfully: "I told Amherst what you and the nurse thought."
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"That Cicely pines for his wife. I put it to him in black and white."
+The words came out on a deep strained breath, and Mrs. Ansell faltered:
+"Well?"
+
+"Well--he doesn't know where she is himself."
+
+"Doesn't _know_?"
+
+"They're separated--utterly separated. It's as I told you: he could
+hardly name her."
+
+Mrs. Ansell had unconsciously ceased her ministrations, letting her
+hands fall on her knee while she brooded in blank wonder on her
+companion's face.
+
+"I wonder what reason she could have given him?" she murmured at length.
+
+"For going? He loathes her, I tell you!"
+
+"Yes--but _how did she make him_?"
+
+He struck his hand violently on the arm of his chair. "Upon my soul, you
+seem to forget!"
+
+"No." She shook her head with a half smile. "I simply remember more than
+you do."
+
+"What more?" he began with a flush of anger; but she raised a quieting
+hand.
+
+"What does all that matter--if, now that we need her, we can't get her?"
+
+He made no answer, and she returned to the dispensing of his tea; but as
+she rose to put the cup in his hand he asked, half querulously: "You
+think it's going to be very bad for the child, then?"
+
+Mrs. Ansell smiled with the thin edge of her lips. "One can hardly set
+the police after her----!"
+
+"No; we're powerless," he groaned in assent.
+
+As the cup passed between them she dropped her eyes to his with a quick
+flash of interrogation; but he sat staring moodily before him, and she
+moved back to the sofa without a word.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+On the way downstairs she met Amherst descending from Cicely's room.
+
+Since the early days of his first marriage there had always been, on
+Amherst's side, a sense of obscure antagonism toward Mrs. Ansell. She
+was almost the embodied spirit of the world he dreaded and disliked: her
+serenity, her tolerance, her adaptability, seemed to smile away and
+disintegrate all the high enthusiasms, the stubborn convictions, that he
+had tried to plant in the shifting sands of his married life. And now
+that Bessy's death had given her back the attributes with which his
+fancy had originally invested her, he had come to regard Mrs. Ansell as
+embodying the evil influences that had come between himself and his
+wife.
+
+Mrs. Ansell was probably not unaware of the successive transitions of
+feeling which had led up to this unflattering view; but her life had
+been passed among petty rivalries and animosities, and she had the
+patience and adroitness of the spy in a hostile camp.
+
+She and Amherst exchanged a few words about Cicely; then she exclaimed,
+with a glance through the panes of the hall door: "But I must be
+off--I'm on foot, and the crossings appal me after dark."
+
+He could do no less, at that, than offer to guide her across the perils
+of Fifth Avenue; and still talking of Cicely, she led him down the
+thronged thoroughfare till her own corner was reached, and then her own
+door; turning there to ask, as if by an afterthought: "Won't you come
+up? There's one thing more I want to say."
+
+A shade of reluctance crossed his face, which, as the vestibule light
+fell on it, looked hard and tired, like a face set obstinately against a
+winter gale; but he murmured a word of assent, and followed her into the
+shining steel cage of the lift.
+
+In her little drawing-room, among the shaded lamps and bowls of spring
+flowers, she pushed a chair forward, settled herself in her usual corner
+of the sofa, and said with a directness that seemed an echo of his own
+tone: "I asked you to come up because I want to talk to you about Mr.
+Langhope."
+
+Amherst looked at her in surprise. Though his father-in-law's health had
+been more or less unsatisfactory for the last year, all their concern,
+of late, had been for Cicely.
+
+"You think him less well?" he enquired.
+
+She waited to draw off and smooth her gloves, with one of the
+deliberate gestures that served to shade and supplement her speech.
+
+"I think him extremely unhappy."
+
+Amherst moved uneasily in his seat. He did not know where she meant the
+talk to lead them, but he guessed that it would be over painful places,
+and he saw no reason why he should be forced to follow her.
+
+"You mean that he's still anxious about Cicely?"
+
+"Partly that--yes." She paused. "The child will get well, no doubt; but
+she is very lonely. She needs youth, heat, light. Mr. Langhope can't
+give her those, or even a semblance of them; and it's an art I've lost
+the secret of," she added with her shadowy smile.
+
+Amherst's brows darkened. "I realize all she has lost----"
+
+Mrs. Ansell glanced up at him quickly. "She is twice motherless," she
+said.
+
+The blood rose to his neck and temples, and he tightened his hand on the
+arm of his chair. But it was a part of Mrs. Ansell's expertness to know
+when such danger signals must be heeded and when they might be ignored,
+and she went on quietly: "It's the question of the future that is
+troubling Mr. Langhope. After such an illness, the next months of
+Cicely's life should be all happiness. And money won't buy the kind she
+needs: one can't pick out the right companion for such a child as one
+can match a ribbon. What she wants is spontaneous affection, not the
+most superlative manufactured article. She wants the sort of love that
+Justine gave her."
+
+It was the first time in months that Amherst had heard his wife's name
+spoken outside of his own house. No one but his mother mentioned Justine
+to him now; and of late even his mother had dropped her enquiries and
+allusions, prudently acquiescing in the habit of silence which his own
+silence had created about him. To hear the name again--the two little
+syllables which had been the key of life to him, and now shook him as
+the turning of a rusted lock shakes a long-closed door--to hear her name
+spoken familiarly, affectionately, as one speaks of some one who may
+come into the room the next moment--gave him a shock that was half pain,
+and half furtive unacknowledged joy. Men whose conscious thoughts are
+mostly projected outward, on the world of external activities, may be
+more moved by such a touch on the feelings than those who are
+perpetually testing and tuning their emotional chords. Amherst had
+foreseen from the first that Mrs. Ansell might mean to speak of his
+wife; but though he had intended, if she did so, to cut their talk
+short, he now felt himself irresistibly constrained to hear her out.
+
+Mrs. Ansell, having sped her shaft, followed its flight through lowered
+lashes, and saw that it had struck a vulnerable point; but she was far
+from assuming that the day was won.
+
+"I believe," she continued, "that Mr. Langhope has said something of
+this to you already, and my only excuse for speaking is that I
+understood he had not been successful in his appeal."
+
+No one but Mrs. Ansell--and perhaps she knew it--could have pushed so
+far beyond the conventional limits of discretion without seeming to
+overstep them by a hair; and she had often said, when pressed for the
+secret of her art, that it consisted simply in knowing the pass-word.
+That word once spoken, she might have added, the next secret was to give
+the enemy no time for resistance; and though she saw the frown reappear
+between Amherst's eyes, she went on, without heeding it: "I entreat you,
+Mr. Amherst, to let Cicely see your wife."
+
+He reddened again, and pushed back his chair, as if to rise.
+
+"No--don't break off like that! Let me say a word more. I know your
+answer to Mr. Langhope--that you and Justine are no longer together. But
+I thought of you as a man to sink your personal relations at such a
+moment as this."
+
+"To sink them?" he repeated vaguely: and she went on: "After all, what
+difference does it make?"
+
+"What difference?" He stared in unmitigated wonder, and then answered,
+with a touch of irony: "It might at least make the difference of my
+being unwilling to ask a favour of her."
+
+Mrs. Ansell, at this, raised her eyes and let them rest full on his.
+"Because she has done you so great a one already?"
+
+He stared again, sinking back automatically into his chair. "I don't
+understand you."
+
+"No." She smiled a little, as if to give herself time. "But I mean that
+you shall. If I were a man I suppose I couldn't, because a man's code of
+honour is such a clumsy cast-iron thing. But a woman's, luckily, can be
+cut over--if she's clever--to fit any new occasion; and in this case I
+should be willing to reduce mine to tatters if necessary."
+
+Amherst's look of bewilderment deepened. "What is it that I don't
+understand?" he asked at length, in a low voice.
+
+"Well--first of all, why Mr. Langhope had the right to ask you to send
+for your wife."
+
+"The right?"
+
+"You don't recognize such a right on his part?"
+
+"No--why should I?"
+
+"Supposing she had left you by his wish?"
+
+"His wish? _His----?_"
+
+He was on his feet now, gazing at her blindly, while the solid world
+seemed to grow thin about him. Her next words reduced it to a mist.
+
+"My poor Amherst--why else, on earth, should she have left you?"
+
+She brought it out clearly, in her small chiming tones; and as the sound
+travelled toward him it seemed to gather momentum, till her words rang
+through his brain as if every incomprehensible incident in the past had
+suddenly boomed forth the question. Why else, indeed, should she have
+left him? He stood motionless for a while; then he approached Mrs.
+Ansell and said: "Tell me."
+
+She drew farther back into her corner of the sofa, waving him to a seat
+beside her, as though to bring his inquisitory eyes on a level where her
+own could command them; but he stood where he was, unconscious of her
+gesture, and merely repeating: "Tell me."
+
+She may have said to herself that a woman would have needed no farther
+telling; but to him she only replied, slanting her head up to his: "To
+spare you and himself pain--to keep everything, between himself and you,
+as it had been before you married her."
+
+He dropped down beside her at that, grasping the back of the sofa as if
+he wanted something to clutch and throttle. The veins swelled in his
+temples, and as he pushed back his tossed hair Mrs. Ansell noticed for
+the first time how gray it had grown on the under side.
+
+"And he asked this of my wife--he accepted it?'"
+
+"Haven't _you_ accepted it?"
+
+"I? How could I guess her reasons--how could I imagine----?"
+
+Mrs. Ansell raised her brows a hair's breadth at that. "I don't know.
+But as a fact, he didn't ask--it was she who offered, who forced it on
+him, even!"
+
+"Forced her going on him?"
+
+"In a sense, yes; by making it appear that _you_ felt as he did
+about--about poor Bessy's death: that the thought of what had happened
+at that time was as abhorrent to you as to him--that _she_ was as
+abhorrent to you. No doubt she foresaw that, had she permitted the least
+doubt on that point, there would have been no need of her leaving you,
+since the relation between yourself and Mr. Langhope would have been
+altered--destroyed...."
+
+"Yes. I expected that--I warned her of it. But how did she make him
+think----?"
+
+"How can I tell? To begin with, I don't know your real feeling. For all
+I know she was telling the truth--and Mr. Langhope of course thought she
+was."
+
+"That I abhorred her? Oh----" he broke out, on his feet in an instant.
+
+"Then why----?"
+
+"Why did I let her leave me?" He strode across the room, as his habit
+was in moments of agitation, turning back to her again before he
+answered. "Because I _didn't_ know--didn't know anything! And because
+her insisting on going away like that, without any explanation, made me
+feel...imagine there was...something she didn't _want_ me to
+know...something she was afraid of not being able to hide from me if we
+stayed together any longer."
+
+"Well--there was: the extent to which she loved you."
+
+Mrs. Ansell; her hands clasped on her knee, her gaze holding his with a
+kind of visionary fixity, seemed to reconstruct the history of his past,
+bit by bit, with the words she was dragging out of him.
+
+"I see it--I see it all now," she went on, with a repressed fervour that
+he had never divined in her. "It was the only solution for her, as well
+as for the rest of you. The more she showed her love, the more it would
+have cast a doubt on her motive...the greater distance she would have
+put between herself and you. And so she showed it in the only way that
+was safe for both of you, by taking herself away and hiding it in her
+heart; and before going, she secured your peace of mind, your future. If
+she ruined anything, she rebuilt the ruin. Oh, she paid--she paid in
+full!"
+
+Justine had paid, yes--paid to the utmost limit of whatever debt toward
+society she had contracted by overstepping its laws. And her resolve to
+discharge the debt had been taken in a flash, as soon as she had seen
+that man can commit no act alone, whether for good or evil. The extent
+to which Amherst's fate was involved in hers had become clear to her
+with his first word of reassurance, of faith in her motive. And
+instantly a plan for releasing him had leapt full-formed into her mind,
+and had been carried out with swift unflinching resolution. As he forced
+himself, now, to look down the suddenly illuminated past to the weeks
+which had elapsed between her visit to Mr. Langhope and her departure
+from Hanaford, he wondered not so much at her swiftness of resolve as at
+her firmness in carrying out her plan--and he saw, with a blinding flash
+of insight, that it was in her love for him that she had found her
+strength.
+
+In all moments of strong mental tension he became totally unconscious of
+time and place, and he now remained silent so long, his hands clasped
+behind him, his eyes fixed on an indeterminate point in space, that Mrs.
+Ansell at length rose and laid a questioning touch on his arm.
+
+"It's not true that you don't know where she is?" His face contracted.
+"At this moment I don't. Lately she has preferred...not to write...."
+
+"But surely you must know how to find her?"
+
+He tossed back his hair with an energetic movement. "I should find her
+if I didn't know how!"
+
+They stood confronted in a gaze of silent intensity, each penetrating
+farther into the mind of the other than would once have seemed possible
+to either one; then Amherst held out his hand abruptly. "Good-bye--and
+thank you," he said.
+
+She detained him a moment. "We shall see you soon again--see you both?"
+
+His face grew stern. "It's not to oblige Mr. Langhope that I am going to
+find my wife."
+
+"Ah, now you are unjust to him!" she exclaimed.
+
+"Don't let us speak of him!" he broke in.
+
+"Why not? When it is from him the request comes--the entreaty--that
+everything in the past should be forgotten?"
+
+"Yes--when it suits his convenience!"
+
+"Do you imagine that--even judging him in that way--it has not cost him
+a struggle?"
+
+"I can only think of what it has cost her!"
+
+Mrs. Ansell drew a deep sighing breath. "Ah--but don't you see that she
+has gained her point, and that nothing else matters to her?"
+
+"Gained her point? Not if, by that, you mean that things here can ever
+go back to the old state--that she and I can remain at Westmore after
+this!"
+
+Mrs. Ansell dropped her eyes for a moment; then she lifted to his her
+sweet impenetrable face.
+
+"Do you know what you have to do--both you and he? Exactly what she
+decides," she affirmed.
+
+
+
+
+XLII
+
+
+JUSTINE'S answer to her husband's letter bore a New York address; and
+the surprise of finding her in the same town with himself, and not half
+an hour's walk from the room in which he sat, was so great that it
+seemed to demand some sudden and violent outlet of physical movement.
+
+He thrust the letter in his pocket, took up his hat, and leaving the
+house, strode up Fifth Avenue toward the Park in the early spring
+sunlight.
+
+The news had taken five days to reach him, for in order to reestablish
+communication with his wife he had been obliged to write to Michigan,
+with the request that his letter should be forwarded. He had never
+supposed that Justine would be hard to find, or that she had purposely
+enveloped her movements in mystery. When she ceased to write he had
+simply concluded that, like himself, she felt the mockery of trying to
+keep up a sort of distant, semi-fraternal relation, marked by the
+occasional interchange of inexpressive letters. The inextricable
+mingling of thought and sensation which made the peculiar closeness of
+their union could never, to such direct and passionate natures, be
+replaced by the pretense of a temperate friendship. Feeling thus
+himself, and instinctively assuming the same feeling in his wife,
+Amherst had respected her silence, her wish to break definitely with
+their former life. She had written him, in the autumn, that she intended
+to leave Michigan for a few months, but that, in any emergency, a letter
+addressed to her friend's house would reach her; and he had taken this
+as meaning that, unless the emergency arose, she preferred that their
+correspondence should cease. Acquiescence was all the easier because it
+accorded with his own desire. It seemed to him, as he looked back, that
+the love he and Justine had felt for each other was like some rare
+organism which could maintain life only in its special element; and that
+element was neither passion nor sentiment, but truth. It was only on the
+heights that they could breathe.
+
+Some men, in his place, even while accepting the inevitableness of the
+moral rupture, would have felt concerned for the material side of the
+case. But it was characteristic of Amherst that this did not trouble
+him. He took it for granted that his wife would return to her nursing.
+From the first he had felt certain that it would be intolerable to her
+to accept aid from him, and that she would choose rather to support
+herself by the exercise of her regular profession; and, aside from such
+motives, he, who had always turned to hard work as the rarest refuge
+from personal misery, thought it natural that she should seek the same
+means of escape.
+
+He had therefore not been surprised, on opening her letter that
+morning, to learn that she had taken up her hospital work; but in the
+amazement of finding her so near he hardly grasped her explanation of
+the coincidence. There was something about a Buffalo patient suddenly
+ordered to New York for special treatment, and refusing to go in with a
+new nurse--but these details made no impression on his mind, which had
+only room for the fact that chance had brought his wife back at the very
+moment when his whole being yearned for her.
+
+She wrote that, owing to her duties, she would be unable to see him till
+three that afternoon; and he had still six hours to consume before their
+meeting. But in spirit they had met already--they were one in an
+intensity of communion which, as he strode northward along the bright
+crowded thoroughfare, seemed to gather up the whole world into one
+throbbing point of life.
+
+He had a boyish wish to keep the secret of his happiness to himself, not
+to let Mr. Langhope or Mrs. Ansell know of his meeting with Justine till
+it was over; and after twice measuring the length of the Park he turned
+in at one of the little wooden restaurants which were beginning to
+unshutter themselves in anticipation of spring custom. If only he could
+have seen Justine that morning! If he could have brought her there, and
+they could have sat opposite each other, in the bare empty room, with
+sparrows bustling and twittering in the lilacs against the open window!
+The room was ugly enough--but how she would have delighted in the
+delicate green of the near slopes, and the purplish haze of the woods
+beyond! She took a childish pleasure in such small adventures, and had
+the knack of giving a touch of magic to their most commonplace details.
+Amherst, as he finished his cold beef and indifferent eggs, found
+himself boyishly planning to bring her back there the next day....
+
+Then, over the coffee, he re-read her letter.
+
+The address she gave was that of a small private hospital, and she
+explained that she would have to receive him in the public parlour,
+which at that hour was open to other visitors. As the time approached,
+the thought that they might not be alone when they met became
+insufferable; and he determined, if he found any one else, in possession
+of the parlour, to wait in the hall, and meet her as she came down the
+stairs.
+
+He continued to elaborate this plan as he walked back slowly through the
+Park, He had timed himself to reach the hospital a little before three;
+but though it lacked five minutes to the hour when he entered the
+parlour, two women were already seated in one of its windows. They
+looked around as he came in, evidently as much annoyed by his appearance
+as he had been to find them there. The older of the two showed a sallow
+middle-aged face beneath her limp crape veil; the other was a slight
+tawdry creature, with nodding feathers, and innumerable chains and
+bracelets which she fingered ceaselessly as she talked.
+
+They eyed Amherst with resentment, and then turned away, continuing
+their talk in low murmurs, while he seated himself at the marble-topped
+table littered with torn magazines. Now and then the younger woman's
+voice rose in a shrill staccato, and a phrase or two floated over to
+him. "She'd simply worked herself to death--the nurse told me so.... She
+expects to go home in another week, though how she's going to stand the
+_fatigue_----" and then, after an inaudible answer: "It's all _his_
+fault, and if I was her I wouldn't go back to him for anything!"
+
+"Oh, Cora, he's real sorry now," the older woman protestingly murmured;
+but the other, unappeased, rejoined with ominously nodding plumes:
+"_You_ see--if they do make it up, it'll never be the same between
+them!"
+
+Amherst started up nervously, and as he did so the clock struck three,
+and he opened the door and passed out into the hall. It was paved with
+black and white marble; the walls were washed in a dull yellowish tint,
+and the prevalent odour of antiseptics was mingled with a stale smell of
+cooking. At the back rose a straight staircase carpeted with brass-bound
+India-rubber, like a ship's companion-way; and down that staircase she
+would come in a moment--he fancied he heard her step now....
+
+But the step was that of an elderly black-gowned woman in a cap--the
+matron probably.
+
+She glanced at Amherst in surprise, and asked: "Are you waiting for some
+one?"
+
+He made a motion of assent, and she opened the parlour door, saying:
+"Please walk in."
+
+"May I not wait out here?" he urged.
+
+She looked at him more attentively. "Why, no, I'm afraid not. You'll
+find the papers and magazines in here."
+
+Mildly but firmly she drove him in before her, and closing the door,
+advanced to the two women in the window. Amherst's hopes leapt up:
+perhaps she had come to fetch the visitors upstairs! He strained his
+ears to catch what was being said, and while he was thus absorbed the
+door opened, and turning at the sound he found himself face to face with
+his wife.
+
+He had not reflected that Justine would be in her nurse's dress; and the
+sight of the dark blue uniform and small white cap, in which he had
+never seen her since their first meeting in the Hope Hospital,
+obliterated all bitter and unhappy memories, and gave him the illusion
+of passing back at once into the clear air of their early friendship.
+Then he looked at her and remembered.
+
+He noticed that she had grown thinner than ever, or rather that her
+thinness, which had formerly had a healthy reed-like strength, now
+suggested fatigue and languor. And her face was spent, extinguished--the
+very eyes were lifeless. All her vitality seemed to have withdrawn
+itself into the arch of dense black hair which still clasped her
+forehead like the noble metal of some antique bust.
+
+The sight stirred him with a deeper pity, a more vehement compunction;
+but the impulse to snatch her to him, and seek his pardon on her lips,
+was paralyzed by the sense that the three women in the window had
+stopped talking and turned their heads toward the door.
+
+He held his hand out, and Justine's touched it for a moment; then he
+said in a low voice: "Is there no other place where I can see you?"
+
+She made a negative gesture. "I am afraid not to-day."
+
+Ah, her deep sweet voice--how completely his ear had lost the sound of
+it!
+
+She looked doubtfully about the room, and pointed to a sofa at the end
+farthest from the windows.
+
+"Shall we sit there?" she said.
+
+He followed her in silence, and they sat down side by side. The matron
+had drawn up a chair and resumed her whispered conference with the women
+in the window. Between the two groups stretched the bare length of the
+room, broken only by a few arm-chairs of stained wood, and the
+marble-topped table covered with magazines.
+
+The impossibility of giving free rein to his feelings developed in
+Amherst an unwonted intensity of perception, as though a sixth sense had
+suddenly emerged to take the place of those he could not use. And with
+this new-made faculty he seemed to gather up, and absorb into himself,
+as he had never done in their hours of closest communion, every detail
+of his wife's person, of her face and hands and gestures. He noticed how
+her full upper lids, of the tint of yellowish ivory, had a slight bluish
+discolouration, and how little thread-like blue veins ran across her
+temples to the roots of her hair. The emaciation of her face, and the
+hollow shades beneath her cheek-bones, made her mouth seem redder and
+fuller, though a little line on each side, where it joined the cheek,
+gave it a tragic droop. And her hands! When her fingers met his he
+recalled having once picked up, in the winter woods, the little
+feather-light skeleton of a frozen bird--and that was what her touch was
+like.
+
+And it was he who had brought her to this by his cruelty, his
+obtuseness, his base readiness to believe the worst of her! He did not
+want to pour himself out in self-accusation--that seemed too easy a way
+of escape. He wanted simply to take her in his arms, to ask her to give
+him one more chance--and then to show her! And all the while he was
+paralyzed by the group in the window.
+
+"Can't we go out? I must speak to you," he began again nervously.
+
+"Not this afternoon--the doctor is coming. Tomorrow----"
+
+"I can't wait for tomorrow!"
+
+She made a faint, imperceptible gesture, which read to his eyes: "You've
+waited a whole year."
+
+"Yes, I know," he returned, still constrained by the necessity of
+muffling his voice, of perpetually measuring the distance between
+themselves and the window. "I know what you might say--don't you suppose
+I've said it to myself a million times? But I didn't know--I couldn't
+imagine----"
+
+She interrupted him with a rapid movement. "What do you know now?"
+
+"What you promised Langhope----"
+
+She turned her startled eyes on him, and he saw the blood run flame-like
+under her skin. "But _he_ promised not to speak!" she cried.
+
+"He hasn't--to me. But such things make themselves known. Should you
+have been content to go on in that way forever?"
+
+She raised her head and her eyes rested in his. "If you were," she
+answered simply.
+
+"Justine!"
+
+Again she checked him with a silencing motion. "Please tell me just what
+has happened."
+
+"Not now--there's too much else to say. And nothing matters except that
+I'm with you."
+
+"But Mr. Langhope----"
+
+"He asks you to come. You're to see Cicely to-morrow."
+
+Her lower lip trembled a little, and a tear flowed over and hung on her
+lashes.
+
+"But what does all that matter now? We're together after this horrible
+year," he insisted.
+
+She looked at him again. "But what is really changed?"
+
+"Everything--everything! Not changed, I mean--just gone back."
+
+"To where...we were...before?" she whispered; and he whispered back: "To
+where we were before."
+
+There was a scraping of chairs on the floor, and with a sense of release
+Amherst saw that the colloquy in the window was over.
+
+The two visitors, gathering their wraps about them, moved slowly across
+the room, still talking to the matron in excited undertones, through
+which, as they neared the threshold, the younger woman's staccato again
+broke out.
+
+"I tell you, if she does go back to him, it'll never be the same between
+them!"
+
+"Oh, Cora, I wouldn't say that," the other ineffectually wailed; then
+they moved toward the door, and a moment later it had closed on them.
+
+Amherst turned to his wife with outstretched arms. "Say you forgive me,
+Justine!"
+
+She held back a little from his entreating hands, not reproachfully, but
+as if with a last scruple for himself.
+
+"There's nothing left...of the horror?" she asked below her breath.
+
+"To be without you--that's the only horror!"
+
+"You're _sure_----?"
+
+"Sure!"
+
+"It's just the same to you...just as it was...before?"
+
+"Just the same, Justine!"
+
+"It's not for myself, but you."
+
+"Then, for me--never speak of it!" he implored.
+
+"Because it's _not_ the same, then?" leapt from her.
+
+"Because it's wiped out--because it's never been!"
+
+"Never?"
+
+"Never!"
+
+He felt her yield to him at that, and under his eyes, close under his
+lips, was her face at last. But as they kissed they heard the handle of
+the door turn, and drew apart quickly, her hand lingering in his under
+the fold of her dress.
+
+A nurse looked in, dressed in the white uniform and pointed cap of the
+hospital. Amherst fancied that she smiled a little as she saw them.
+
+"Miss Brent--the doctor wants you to come right up and give the
+morphine."
+
+The door shut again as Justine rose to her feet. Amherst remained
+seated--he had made no motion to retain her hand as it slipped from him.
+
+"I'm coming," she called out to the retreating nurse; then she turned
+slowly and saw her husband's face.
+
+"I must go," she said in a low tone.
+
+Her eyes met his for a moment; but he looked away again as he stood up
+and reached for his hat.
+
+"Tomorrow, then----" he said, without attempting to detain her.
+
+"Tomorrow?"
+
+"You must come away from here--you must come home," he repeated
+mechanically.
+
+She made no answer, and he held his hand out and took hers. "Tomorrow,"
+he said, drawing her toward him; and their lips met again, but not in
+the same kiss.
+
+
+
+
+XLIII
+
+
+JUNE again at Hanaford--and Cicely's birthday. The anniversary was to
+coincide, this year, with the opening of the old house at Hopewood, as a
+kind of pleasure-palace--gymnasium, concert-hall and museum--for the
+recreation of the mill-hands.
+
+The idea had first come to Amherst on the winter afternoon when Bessy
+Westmore had confessed her love for him under the snow-laden trees of
+Hopewood. Even then the sense that his personal happiness was enlarged
+and secured by its promise of happiness to others had made him wish that
+the scene associated with the opening of his new life should be made to
+commemorate a corresponding change in the fortunes of Westmore. But when
+the control of the mills passed into his hands other and more necessary
+improvements pressed upon him; and it was not till now that the
+financial condition of the company had permitted the execution of his
+plan.
+
+Justine, on her return to Hanaford, had found the work already in
+progress, and had been told by her husband that he was carrying out a
+projected scheme of Bessy's. She had felt a certain surprise, but had
+concluded that the plan in question dated back to the early days of his
+first marriage, when, in his wife's eyes, his connection with the mills
+still invested them with interest.
+
+Since Justine had come back to her husband, both had tacitly avoided all
+allusions to the past, and the recreation-house at Hopewood being, as
+she divined, in some sort an expiatory offering to Bessy's plaintive
+shade, she had purposely refrained from questioning Amherst about its
+progress, and had simply approved the plans he submitted to her.
+
+Fourteen months had passed since her return, and now, as she sat beside
+her husband in the carriage which was conveying them to Hopewood, she
+said to herself that her life had at last fallen into what promised to
+be its final shape--that as things now were they would probably be to
+the end. And outwardly at least they were what she and Amherst had
+always dreamed of their being. Westmore prospered under the new rule.
+The seeds of life they had sown there were springing up in a promising
+growth of bodily health and mental activity, and above all in a dawning
+social consciousness. The mill-hands were beginning to understand the
+meaning of their work, in its relation to their own lives and to the
+larger economy. And outwardly, also, the new growth was showing itself
+in the humanized aspect of the place. Amherst's young maples were tall
+enough now to cast a shade on the grass-bordered streets; and the
+well-kept turf, the bright cottage gardens, the new central group of
+library, hospital and club-house, gave to the mill-village the hopeful
+air of a "rising" residential suburb.
+
+In the bright June light, behind their fresh green mantle of trees and
+creepers, even the factory buildings looked less stern and prison-like
+than formerly; and the turfing and planting of the adjoining
+river-banks had transformed a waste of foul mud and refuse into a little
+park where the operatives might refresh themselves at midday.
+
+Yes--Westmore was alive at last: the dead city of which Justine had once
+spoken had risen from its grave, and its blank face had taken on a
+meaning. As Justine glanced at her husband she saw that the same thought
+was in his mind. However achieved, at whatever cost of personal misery
+and error, the work of awakening and freeing Westmore was done, and that
+work had justified itself.
+
+She looked from Amherst to Cicely, who sat opposite, eager and rosy in
+her mourning frock--for Mr. Langhope had died some two months
+previously--and as intent as her step-parents on the scene before her.
+Cicely was old enough now to regard her connection with Westmore as
+something more than a nursery game. She was beginning to learn a great
+deal about the mills, and to understand, in simple, friendly ways,
+something of her own relation to them. The work and play of the
+children, the interests and relaxations provided for their elders, had
+been gradually explained to her by Justine, and she knew that this
+shining tenth birthday of hers was to throw its light as far as the
+clouds of factory-smoke extended.
+
+As they mounted the slope to Hopewood, the spacious white building,
+with its enfolding colonnades, its broad terraces and tennis-courts,
+shone through the trees like some bright country-house adorned for its
+master's home-coming; and Amherst and his wife might have been driving
+up to the house which had been built to shelter their wedded happiness.
+The thought flashed across Justine as their carriage climbed the hill.
+She was as much absorbed as Amherst in the welfare of Westmore, it had
+become more and more, to both, the refuge in which their lives still met
+and mingled; but for a moment, as they paused before the flower-decked
+porch, and he turned to help her from the carriage, it occurred to her
+to wonder what her sensations would have been if he had been bringing
+her home--to a real home of their own--instead of accompanying her to
+another philanthropic celebration. But what need had they of a real
+home, when they no longer had any real life of their own? Nothing was
+left of that secret inner union which had so enriched and beautified
+their outward lives. Since Justine's return to Hanaford they had
+entered, tacitly, almost unconsciously, into a new relation to each
+other: a relation in which their personalities were more and more merged
+in their common work, so that, as it were, they met only by avoiding
+each other.
+
+From the first, Justine had accepted this as inevitable; just as she had
+understood, when Amherst had sought her out in New York, that his
+remaining at Westmore, which had once been contingent on her leaving
+him, now depended on her willingness to return and take up their former
+life.
+
+She accepted the last condition as she had accepted the other, pledged
+to the perpetual expiation of an act for which, in the abstract, she
+still refused to hold herself to blame. But life is not a matter of
+abstract principles, but a succession of pitiful compromises with fate,
+of concessions to old tradition, old beliefs, old charities and
+frailties. That was what her act had taught her--that was the word of
+the gods to the mortal who had laid a hand on their bolts. And she had
+humbled herself to accept the lesson, seeing human relations at last as
+a tangled and deep-rooted growth, a dark forest through which the
+idealist cannot cut his straight path without hearing at each stroke the
+cry of the severed branch: "_Why woundest thou me?_"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The lawns leading up to the house were already sprinkled with
+holiday-makers, while along the avenue came the rolling of wheels, the
+throb of motor-cars; and Justine, with Cicely beside her, stood in the
+wide hall to receive the incoming throng, in which Hanaford society was
+indiscriminately mingled with the operatives in their Sunday best.
+
+While his wife welcomed the new arrivals, Amherst, supported by some
+young Westmore cousins, was guiding them into the concert-hall, where he
+was to say a word on the uses of the building before declaring it open
+for inspection. And presently Justine and Cicely, summoned by Westy
+Gaines, made their way through the rows of seats to a corner near the
+platform. Her husband was there already, with Halford Gaines and a group
+of Hanaford dignitaries, and just below them sat Mrs. Gaines and her
+daughters, the Harry Dressels, and Amherst's radiant mother.
+
+As Justine passed between them, she wondered how much they knew of the
+events which had wrought so profound and permanent change in her life.
+She had never known how Hanaford explained her absence or what comments
+it had made on her return. But she saw to-day more clearly than ever
+that Amherst had become a power among his townsmen, and that if they
+were still blind to the inner meaning of his work, its practical results
+were beginning to impress them profoundly. Hanaford's sociological creed
+was largely based on commercial considerations, and Amherst had won
+Hanaford's esteem by the novel feat of defying its economic principles
+and snatching success out of his defiance.
+
+And now he had advanced a step or two in front of the "representative"
+semi-circle on the platform, and was beginning to speak.
+
+Justine did not hear his first words. She was looking up at him, trying
+to see him with the eyes of the crowd, and wondering what manner of man
+he would have seemed to her if she had known as little as they did of
+his inner history.
+
+He held himself straight, the heavy locks thrown back from his forehead,
+one hand resting on the table beside him, the other grasping a folded
+blue-print which the architect of the building had just advanced to give
+him. As he stood there, Justine recalled her first sight of him in the
+Hope Hospital, five years earlier--was it only five years? They had
+dealt deep strokes to his face, hollowing the eye-sockets, accentuating
+the strong modelling of nose and chin, fixing the lines between the
+brows; but every touch had a meaning--it was not the languid hand of
+time which had remade his features, but the sharp chisel of thought and
+action.
+
+She roused herself suddenly to the consciousness of what he was saying.
+
+"For the idea of this building--of a building dedicated to the
+recreation of Westmore--is not new in my mind; but while it remained
+there as a mere idea, it had already, without my knowledge, taken
+definite shape in the thoughts of the owner of Westmore."
+
+There was a slight drop in his voice as he designated Bessy, and he
+waited a moment before continuing: "It was not till after the death of
+my first wife that I learned of her intention--that I found by
+accident, among her papers, this carefully-studied plan for a
+pleasure-house at Hopewood."
+
+He paused again, and unrolling the blue-print, held it up before his
+audience.
+
+"You cannot, at this distance," he went on, "see all the admirable
+details of her plan; see how beautifully they were imagined, how
+carefully and intelligently elaborated. She who conceived them longed to
+see beauty everywhere--it was her dearest wish to bestow it on her
+people here. And her ardent imagination outran the bounds of practical
+possibility. We cannot give you, in its completeness, the beautiful
+thing she had imagined--the great terraces, the marble porches, the
+fountains, lily-tanks, and cloisters. But you will see that, wherever it
+was possible--though in humbler materials, and on a smaller scale--we
+have faithfully followed her design; and when presently you go through
+this building, and when, hereafter, you find health and refreshment and
+diversion here, I ask you to remember the beauty she dreamed of giving
+you, and to let the thought of it make her memory beautiful among you
+and among your children...."
+
+Justine had listened with deepening amazement. She was seated so close
+to her husband that she had recognized the blue-print the moment he
+unrolled it. There was no mistaking its origin--it was simply the plan
+of the gymnasium which Bessy had intended to build at Lynbrook, and
+which she had been constrained to abandon owing to her husband's
+increased expenditure at the mills. But how was it possible that Amherst
+knew nothing of the original purpose of the plans, and by what mocking
+turn of events had a project devised in deliberate defiance of his
+wishes, and intended to declare his wife's open contempt for them, been
+transformed into a Utopian vision for the betterment of the Westmore
+operatives?
+
+A wave of anger swept over Justine at this last derisive stroke of fate.
+It was grotesque and pitiable that a man like Amherst should create out
+of his regrets a being who had never existed, and then ascribe to her
+feelings and actions of which the real woman had again and again proved
+herself incapable!
+
+Ah, no, Justine had suffered enough--but to have this imaginary Bessy
+called from the grave, dressed in a semblance of self-devotion and
+idealism, to see her petty impulses of vindictiveness disguised as the
+motions of a lofty spirit--it was as though her small malicious ghost
+had devised this way of punishing the wife who had taken her place!
+
+Justine had suffered enough--suffered deliberately and unstintingly,
+paying the full price of her error, not seeking to evade its least
+consequence. But no sane judgment could ask her to sit quiet under this
+last hallucination. What! This unreal woman, this phantom that
+Amherst's uneasy imagination had evoked, was to come between himself and
+her, to supplant her first as his wife, and then as his fellow-worker?
+Why should she not cry out the truth to him, defend herself against the
+dead who came back to rob her of such wedded peace as was hers? She had
+only to tell the true story of the plans to lay poor Bessy's ghost
+forever!
+
+The confused throbbing impulses within her were stifled under a long
+burst of applause--then she saw Westy Gaines at her side again, and
+understood that he had come to lead Cicely to the platform. For a moment
+she clung jealously to the child's hand, hardly aware of what she did,
+feeling only that she was being thrust farther and farther into the
+background of the life she had helped to call out of chaos. Then a
+contrary impulse moved her. She gently freed Cicely's hand, and a moment
+later, as she sat with bent head and throbbing breast, she heard the
+child's treble piping out above her:
+
+"In my mother's name, I give this house to Westmore."
+
+Applause again--and then Justine found herself enveloped in a general
+murmur of compliment and congratulation. Mr. Amherst had spoken
+admirably--a "beautiful tribute--" ah, he had done poor Bessy justice!
+And to think that till now Hanaford had never fully known how she had
+the welfare of the mills at heart--how it was really only _her_ work
+that he was carrying on there! Well, he had made that perfectly
+clear--and no doubt Cicely was being taught to follow in her mother's
+footsteps: everyone had noticed how her step-father was associating her
+with the work at the mills. And his little speech would, as it were,
+consecrate the child's relation to that work, make it appear to her as
+the continuance of a beautiful, a sacred tradition....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+And now it was over. The building had been inspected, the operatives had
+dispersed, the Hanaford company had rolled off down the avenue, Cicely,
+among them, driving away tired and happy in Mrs. Dressel's victoria, and
+Amherst and his wife were alone.
+
+Amherst, after bidding good-bye to his last guests, had gone back to the
+empty concert-room to fetch the blue-print lying on the platform. He
+came back with it, between the uneven rows of empty chairs, and joined
+Justine, who stood waiting in the hall. His face was slightly flushed,
+and his eyes had the light which in happy moments burned through their
+veil of thought.
+
+He laid his hand on his wife's arm, and drawing her toward a table
+spread out the blueprint before her.
+
+"You haven't seen this, have you?" he said.
+
+She looked down at the plan without answering, reading in the left-hand
+corner the architect's conventional inscription: "Swimming-tank and
+gymnasium designed for Mrs. John Amherst."
+
+Amherst looked up, perhaps struck by her silence.
+
+"But perhaps you _have_ seen it--at Lynbrook? It must have been done
+while you were there."
+
+The quickened throb of her blood rushed to her brain like a signal.
+"Speak--speak now!" the signal commanded.
+
+Justine continued to look fixedly at the plan. "Yes, I have seen it,"
+she said at length.
+
+"At Lynbrook?"
+
+"At Lynbrook."
+
+"_She_ showed it to you, I suppose--while I was away?"
+
+Justine hesitated again. "Yes, while you were away."
+
+"And did she tell you anything about it, go into details about her
+wishes, her intentions?"
+
+Now was the moment--now! As her lips parted she looked up at her
+husband. The illumination still lingered on his face--and it was the
+face she loved. He was waiting eagerly for her next word.
+
+"No, I heard no details. I merely saw the plan lying there."
+
+She saw his look of disappointment. "She never told you about it?"
+
+"No--she never told me."
+
+It was best so, after all. She understood that now. It was now at last
+that she was paying her full price.
+
+Amherst rolled up the plan with a sigh and pushed it into the drawer of
+the table. It struck her that he too had the look of one who has laid a
+ghost. He turned to her and drew her hand through his arm.
+
+"You're tired, dear. You ought to have driven back with the others," he
+said.
+
+"No, I would rather stay with you."
+
+"You want to drain this good day to the dregs, as I do?"
+
+"Yes," she murmured, drawing her hand away.
+
+"It _is_ a good day, isn't it?" he continued, looking about him at the
+white-panelled walls, the vista of large bright rooms seen through the
+folding doors. "I feel as if we had reached a height, somehow--a height
+where one might pause and draw breath for the next climb. Don't you feel
+that too, Justine?"
+
+"Yes--I feel it."
+
+"Do you remember once, long ago--one day when you and I and Cicely went
+on a picnic to hunt orchids--how we got talking of the one best moment
+in life--the moment when one wanted most to stop the clock?"
+
+The colour rose in her face while he spoke. It was a long time since he
+had referred to the early days of their friendship--the days
+_before_....
+
+"Yes, I remember," she said.
+
+"And do you remember how we said that it was with most of us as it was
+with Faust? That the moment one wanted to hold fast to was not, in most
+lives, the moment of keenest personal happiness, but the other kind--the
+kind that would have seemed grey and colourless at first: the moment
+when the meaning of life began to come out from the mists--when one
+could look out at last over the marsh one had drained?"
+
+A tremor ran through Justine. "It was you who said that," she said,
+half-smiling.
+
+"But didn't you feel it with me? Don't you now?"
+
+"Yes--I do now," she murmured.
+
+He came close to her, and taking her hands in his, kissed them one after
+the other.
+
+"Dear," he said, "let us go out and look at the marsh we have drained."
+
+He turned and led her through the open doorway to the terrace above the
+river. The sun was setting behind the wooded slopes of Hopewood, and the
+trees about the house stretched long blue shadows across the lawn.
+Beyond them rose the smoke of Westmore.
+
+
+
++--------------------------------------------------------------+
+|                                                              |
+|                    BOOKS BY EDITH WHARTON                    |
+|                                                              |
+|             PUBLISHED BY CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS             |
+|                                                              |
+|              *       *       *       *       *               |
+|                                                              |
+|                        [12 mo. $1.50]                        |
+|                                                              |
+|                      The House of Mirth                      |
+|                                                              |
+|               _Illustrations by_ A. B. WENZELL               |
+|                                                              |
+|   "In my judgment 'The House of Mirth' is a story of such    |
+|  vitality, of such artistic and moral insight, that it will  |
+| stand by itself in American fiction as a study of a certain  |
+|  kind of society. The title is a stroke of genius in irony,  |
+|    and gives the key to a novel of absorbing interest, as    |
+|  relentless as life itself in its judgment, but deeply and   |
+|    beautifully humanized at the end."--HAMILTON W. MABIE.    |
+|                                                              |
+| "Mrs. Wharton has done many good things. She has never done  |
+|         anything better than this."--_The Academy._          |
+|                                                              |
+|  "She is the first to make a really powerful and brilliant   |
+| book out of the material offered by American fashion to the  |
+| novelist.... A sterling piece of craftsmanship, a tale which |
+|  interests the reader at the start and never lets him rest   |
+|        till the end is reached."--New York _Tribune_.        |
+|                                                              |
+|    "So accurate an account of the thoughts and deeds of a    |
+| single human being has, we are certain, never hitherto been  |
+|               written."--Boston _Transcript_.                |
+|                                                              |
+|    "It is a great American novel, intensely interesting,     |
+|     marvelous in its literary finish and powerful in its     |
+|      delineation of Lily Bart."--Philadelphia _Press_.       |
+|                                                              |
+|              *       *       *       *       *               |
+|                                                              |
+|                        [12 mo. $1.00]                        |
+|                                                              |
+|                      Madame de Treymes                       |
+|                                                              |
+|           _Illustrated in color by_ A. B. WENZELL            |
+|                                                              |
+| "We know of no book in which the virtues of the short story  |
+| are united with the virtues of the novel in a higher degree  |
+|           than in this instance."--New York _Sun_.           |
+|                                                              |
++--------------------------------------------------------------+
+
+
++--------------------------------------------------------------+
+|                                                              |
+|                    BOOKS BY EDITH WHARTON                    |
+|                                                              |
+|              *       *       *       *       *               |
+|                                                              |
+|                        SIXTH EDITION                         |
+|                                                              |
+|                       [_12mo_, $1.50]                        |
+|                                                              |
+|                   The Greater Inclination                    |
+|                                                              |
+|                           CONTENTS                           |
+|                                                              |
+|                     _The Muse's Tragedy_                     |
+|                         _A Journey_                          |
+|                        _The Pelican_                         |
+|                       _Souls Belated_                        |
+|                          _A Coward_                          |
+|                  _The Twilight of the Gods_                  |
+|                    _A Cup of Cold Water_                     |
+|                        _The Portrait_                        |
+|                                                              |
+|       "Between these stories and those of the ordinary       |
+| entertaining sort there is a great gulf fixed."--_The Dial._ |
+|                                                              |
+|              *       *       *       *       *               |
+|                                                              |
+|                       [_12mo_, $1.50]                        |
+|                                                              |
+|                      Crucial Instances                       |
+|                                                              |
+|                           CONTENTS                           |
+|                                                              |
+|                   _The Duchess at Prayer_                    |
+|                   _The Angel at the Grave_                   |
+|                        _The Recovery_                        |
+|                     _"Copy": A Dialogue_                     |
+|                       _The Rembrandt_                        |
+|                     _The Moving Finger_                      |
+|                      _The Confessional_                      |
+|                                                              |
+| "Tragedy and comedy, pathos and humor, are mingled in these  |
+|           pages of brilliant writing and splendid            |
+|             imagination."--Philadelphia _Press_.             |
+|                                                              |
+|              *       *       *       *       *               |
+|                                                              |
+|                       [_12mo_, $1.50]                        |
+|                                                              |
+|                    The Valley of Decision                    |
+|                                                              |
+|                        25TH THOUSAND                         |
+|                                                              |
+|  "Coming in the midst of an epoch overcrowded with works of  |
+|   fiction, 'The Valley of Decision' stands out giant-like    |
+| above its surroundings. It stands, indeed, almost without a  |
+| rival in the modern literary world, and there can be little  |
+| doubt that it places Mrs. Wharton at once side by side with  |
+|     the greatest novelists of the day."--Boston _Evening     |
+|                         Transcript_.                         |
+|                                                              |
++--------------------------------------------------------------+
+
+
++--------------------------------------------------------------+
+|                                                              |
+|                    BOOKS BY EDITH WHARTON                    |
+|                                                              |
+|              *       *       *       *       *               |
+|                                                              |
+|                       [_12mo, $1.25_]                        |
+|                                                              |
+|                          Sanctuary                           |
+|                                                              |
+|              ILLUSTRATIONS BY W. APPLETON CLARK              |
+|                                                              |
+| "This is a striking little book--striking in its simplicity  |
+|     and penetration, its passion and restraint."--London     |
+|                           _Times_.                           |
+|                                                              |
+|              *       *       *       *       *               |
+|                                                              |
+|                       [_12mo, $1.25_]                        |
+|                                                              |
+|                        The Touchstone                        |
+|                                                              |
+|     "Its characters are real, their motives and actions      |
+|   thoroughly human. And the author's art is sufficient to    |
+| bring out the strength of every situation."--_The Argonaut._ |
+|                                                              |
+|              *       *       *       *       *               |
+|                                                              |
+|                       [_12mo_, $1.50]                        |
+|                                                              |
+|                      The Descent of Man                      |
+|                                                              |
+|                           CONTENTS                           |
+|                                                              |
+|                     _The Descent of Man_                     |
+|                    _The Mission of Jane_                     |
+|                       _The Other Two_                        |
+|                       _The Quicksand_                        |
+|                       _The Dilettante_                       |
+|                       _The Reckoning_                        |
+|                         _Expiation_                          |
+|                   _The Lady's Maid's Bell_                   |
+|              _A Venetian Night's Entertainment_              |
+|                                                              |
+|  "It is, of course, the extraordinary directness with which  |
+| Mrs. Wharton's probe goes to the spot under inspection, the  |
+| deftness with which she is able to bring to the light of day |
+| what we had hidden even from ourselves, that account for the |
+| admiration with which we regard her short stories."--London  |
+|                          _Academy_.                          |
+|                                                              |
++--------------------------------------------------------------+
+
+
++--------------------------------------------------------------+
+|                                                              |
+|                    BOOKS BY EDITH WHARTON                    |
+|                                                              |
+|              *       *       *       *       *               |
+|                                                              |
+|             [_8vo, $2.50 net._ Postage 17 cents]             |
+|                                                              |
+|                     Italian Backgrounds                      |
+|                                                              |
+|                   ILLUSTRATED BY PEIXOTTO                    |
+|                                                              |
+|                           CONTENTS                           |
+|                                                              |
+|                   _An Alpine Posting Inn_                    |
+|                  _A Midsummer Week's Dream_                  |
+|               _The Sanctuaries of the Pennine_               |
+|                            _Alps_                            |
+|                    _What the Hermits Saw_                    |
+|                      _A Tuscan Shrine_                       |
+|                     _Sub Umbra Liliorum_                     |
+|                       _March in Italy_                       |
+|                     _Picturesque Milan_                      |
+|                    _Italian Backgrounds_                     |
+|                                                              |
+|  "Belongs in that small class of books of observation which  |
+|   are also books of artistic and spiritual interpretation;   |
+| which not only describe places and monuments, but convey an  |
+| impression of peoples, a sense of society, with the elusive  |
+|   atmosphere in which everything of historical or artistic   |
+|  value is seen by those who have the gift of sight."--_The   |
+|                          Outlook._                           |
+|                                                              |
+|              *       *       *       *       *               |
+|                                                              |
+|                     [_12mo, $1.25 net_]                      |
+|                                                              |
+|                      The Joy of Living                       |
+|                                                              |
+|                    (_Es lebe das Leben_)                     |
+|                                                              |
+|  A play in five acts, by HERMANN SUDERMANN. Translated from  |
+|                 the German by EDITH WHARTON.                 |
+|                                                              |
+|              *       *       *       *       *               |
+|                                                              |
+|                   [_Large 8vo, $2.50 net_]                   |
+|                                                              |
+|                   The Decoration of Houses                   |
+|                                                              |
+| With 56 full-page illustrations, by EDITH WHARTON and OGDEN  |
+|                         CODMAN, JR.                          |
+|                                                              |
++--------------------------------------------------------------+
+
+
+Transcriber's Note:
+
+Most inconsistencies in hyphenation and spelling have been left as in the
+original. Missing or wrong punctuation has been added or corrected,
+where it is obvious (missing punctuation is often a result of the
+scanning/OCR process). In one case, a missing letter has also been
+added, and the following misspellings have been corrected: involuntairly to
+involuntarily, sensastions to sensations, Wetsmore to Westmore, Cilfton
+to Clifton, It to If
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Fruit of the Tree, by Edith Wharton
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FRUIT OF THE TREE ***
+
+***** This file should be named 19191.txt or 19191.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        http://www.gutenberg.org/1/9/1/9/19191/
+
+Produced by Barbara Tozier, Bill Tozier, Melissa Er-Raqabi
+and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+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
+http://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 http://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+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.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+http://pglaf.org/fundraising.  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 http://pglaf.org
+
+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 http://pglaf.org
+
+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 checks, online payments and credit card donations.
+To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart is 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:
+
+     http://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.