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diff --git a/old/62820-0.txt b/old/62820-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 9d2cde6..0000000 --- a/old/62820-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,7004 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Fire Within, by Patricia Wentworth - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world 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. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: The Fire Within - -Author: Patricia Wentworth - -Release Date: August 2, 2020 [EBook #62820] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FIRE WITHIN *** - - - - -Produced by D A Alexander, Stephen Hutcheson, and the -Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net -(This file was produced from images generously made -available by The Internet Archive) - - - - - - - - - - The Fire Within - - - By - Patricia Wentworth - (Mrs. G. F. Dillon) - Author of “A Marriage under the Terror,” etc. - - - “_Quench thou the fires of your old gods, - Quench not the fire within._” - Matthew Arnold. - - - G. P. Putnam’s Sons - New York and London - _The Knickerbocker Press_ - 1913 - - Copyright, 1913 - by - G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS - - _The Knickerbocker Press, New York_ - - - - - CONTENTS - - - CHAPTER PAGE - I. Mr. Mottisfont’s Opinion of his Nephew 1 - II. David Blake 18 - III. Dead Men’s Shoes 30 - IV. A Man’s Honour 40 - V. Town Talk 56 - VI. The Letter 66 - VII. Elizabeth Chantrey 77 - VIII. Edward Sings 91 - IX. Mary Is Shocked 107 - X. Edward Is Put Out 120 - XI. Forgotten Ways 134 - XII. The Grey Wolf 143 - XIII. March Goes Out 156 - XIV. The Golden Wind 163 - XV. Love Must to School 171 - XVI. Friendship 179 - XVII. The Dream 188 - XVIII. The Face of Love 199 - XIX. The Full Moon 207 - XX. The Woman of the Dream 214 - XXI. Elizabeth Blake 225 - XXII. After the Dream 236 - XXIII. Elizabeth Waits 243 - XXIV. The Lost Name 258 - - - - - The Fire Within - - - - - CHAPTER I - MR. MOTTISFONT’S OPINION OF HIS NEPHEW - - - As I was going adown the dale - Sing derry down dale, and derry down dale, - As I was going adown the dale, - Adown the dale of a Monday, - With never a thought of the Devil his tricks, - Why who should I meet with his bundle of sticks, - But the very old man of the Nursery tale. - Sing derry down dale, and derry down dale, - The wicked old man of the Nursery tale - Who gathered his sticks of a Sunday. - Sing derry down, derry down dale. - -Old Mr. Edward Mottisfont looked over the edge of the sheet at David -Blake. - -“My nephew Edward is most undoubtedly and indisputably a prig—a damned -prig,” he added thoughtfully after a moment’s pause for reflection. As -he reflected his black eyes danced from David’s face to a crayon drawing -which hung on the panelled wall above the mantelpiece. - -“His mother’s fault,” he observed, “it’s not so bad in a woman, and she -was pretty, which Edward ain’t. Pretty and a prig my sister Sarah——” - -There was a faint emphasis on the word sister, and David remembered -having heard his mother say that both Edward and William Mottisfont had -been in love with the girl whom William married. “And a plain prig my -nephew Edward,” continued the old gentleman. “Damn it all, David, why -can’t I leave my money to you instead?” - -David laughed. - -“Because I shouldn’t take it, sir,” he said. - -He was sitting, most unprofessionally, on the edge of his patient’s -large four-post bed. Old Mr. Edward Mottisfont looked at him -quizzically. - -“How much would you take—eh, David? Come now—say—how much?” - -David laughed again. His grey eyes twinkled. “Nary penny, sir,” he said, -swinging his arm over the great carved post beside him. There were -cherubs’ heads upon it, a fact that had always amused its owner -considerably. - -“Nonsense,” said old Mr. Mottisfont, and for the first time his thin -voice was tinged with earnestness. “Nonsense, David. Why! I’ve left you -five thousand pounds.” - -David started. His eyes changed. They were very deep-set eyes. It was -only when he laughed that they appeared grey. When he was serious they -were so dark as to look black. Apparently he was moved and concerned. -His voice took a boyish tone. “Oh, I say, sir—but you mustn’t—I can’t -take it, you know.” - -“And why not, pray?” This was Mr. Mottisfont at his most sarcastic. - -David got the better of his momentary embarrassment. - -“I shan’t forget that you’ve thought of it, sir,” he said. “But I can’t -benefit under a patient’s will. I haven’t got many principles, but -that’s one of them. My father drummed it into me from the time I was -about seven.” - -Old Mr. Edward Mottisfont lifted the thin eyebrows that had contrived to -remain coal-black, although his hair was white. They gave him a -Mephistophelean appearance of which he was rather proud. - -“Very fine and highfalutin,” he observed. “You’re an exceedingly upright -young man, David.” - -David roared. - -After a moment the old gentleman’s lips gave way at the corners, and he -laughed too. - -“Oh, Lord, David, who’d ha’ thought it of you!” he said. “You won’t take -a thousand?” - -David shook his head. - -“Not five hundred?” - -David grinned. - -“Not five pence,” he said. - -Old Mr. Mottisfont glared at him for a moment. “Prig,” he observed with -great conciseness. Then he pursed up his lips, felt under his pillow, -and pulled out a long folded paper. - -“All the more for Edward,” he said maliciously. “All the more for -Edward, and all the more reason for Edward to wish me dead. I wonder he -don’t poison me. Perhaps he will. Oh, Lord, I’d give something to see -Edward tried for murder! Think of it, David—only think of it—Twelve -British Citizens in one box—Edward in another—all the British Citizens -looking at Edward, and Edward looking as if he was in church, and -wondering if the moth was getting into his collections, and if any one -would care for ’em when he was dead and gone. Eh, David? Eh, David? And -Mary—like Niobe, all tears——” - -David had been chuckling to himself, but at the mention of Edward’s wife -his face changed a little. He continued to laugh, but his eyes hardened, -and he interrupted his patient: “Come, sir, you mustn’t tire yourself.” - -“Like Niobe, all tears,” repeated Mr. Mottisfont, obstinately. “Sweetly -pretty she’d look too—eh, David? Edward’s a lucky dog, ain’t he?” - -David’s eyes flashed once and then hardened still more. His chin was -very square. - -“Come, sir,” he repeated, and looked steadily at the old man. - -“Beast—ain’t I?” said old Mr. Mottisfont with the utmost cheerfulness. -He occupied himself with arranging the bedclothes in an accurate line -across his chest. As he did so, his hand touched the long folded paper, -and he gave it an impatient push. - -“You’re a damn nuisance, David,” he said. “I’ve made my will once, and -now I’ve to make it all over again just to please you. All the whole -blessed thing over again, from ‘I, Edward Morell Mottisfont,’ down to ‘I -deliver this my act and deed.’ Oh, Lord, what a bore.” - -“Mr. Fenwick,” suggested David, and old Mr. Edward Mottisfont flared -into sudden wrath. - -“Don’t talk to me of lawyers,” he said violently. “I know enough law to -make a will they can’t upset. Don’t talk of ’em. Sharks and robbers. -Worse than the doctors. Besides young Fenwick talks—tells his wife -things—and she tells her sister. And what Mary Bowden knows, the town -knows. Did I ever tell you how I found out? I suspected, but I wanted to -be sure. So I sent for young Fenwick, and told him I wanted to make my -will. So far, so good. I made it—or he did. And I left a couple of -thousand pounds to Bessie Fenwick and a couple more to her sister Mary -in memory of my old friendship with their father. And as soon as Master -Fenwick had gone I put his morning’s work in the fire. Now how do I know -he talked? This way. A week later I met Mary Bowden in the High Street, -and I had the fright of my life. I declare I thought she’d ha’ kissed -me. It was ‘I hope you are prudent to be out in this east wind, dear Mr. -Mottisfont,’ and I must come and see them soon—and oh, Lord, what fools -women are! Mary Bowden never could abide me till she thought I’d left -her two thousand pounds.” - -“Fenwicks aren’t the only lawyers in the world,” suggested David. - -“Much obliged, I’m sure. I did go to one once to make a will—they say -it’s sweet to play the fool sometimes—eh, David? Fool I was sure enough. -I found a little mottled man, that sat blinking at me, and repeating my -words, till I could have murdered him with his own office pen-knife. He -called me Moral too, in stead of Morell. ‘Edward Moral Mottisfont,’ and -I took occasion to inform him that I wasn’t moral, never had been moral, -and never intended to be moral. I said he must be thinking of my nephew -Edward, who was damn moral. Oh, Lord, here _is_ Edward. I could ha’ done -without him.” - -The door opened as he was speaking, and young Edward Mottisfont came in. -He was a slight, fair man with a well-shaped head, a straight nose, and -as much chin as a great many other people. He wore _pince-nez_ because -he was short-sighted, and high collars because he had a long neck. Both -the _pince-nez_ and the collar had an intensely irritating effect upon -old Mr. Edward Mottisfont. - -“If he hadn’t been for ever blinking at some bug that was just out of -his sight, his eyes would have been as good as mine, and he might just -as well keep his head in a butterfly net or a collecting box as where he -does keep it. Not that I should have said that Edward _did_ keep his -head.” - -“I think you flurry him, sir,” said David, “and——” - -“I know I do,” grinned Mr. Mottisfont. - -Young Edward Mottisfont came into the room and shut the door. - -Old Mr. Mottisfont watched him with black, malicious eyes. - -For as many years as Edward could remember anything, he could remember -just that look upon his uncle’s face. It made him uneasy now, as it had -made him uneasy when he was only five years old. - -Once when he was fifteen he said to David Blake: “You cheek him, David, -and he likes you for it. How on earth do you manage it? Doesn’t he make -you feel beastly?” - -And David stared and said: “Beastly? Rats! Why should I feel beastly? -He’s jolly amusing. He makes me laugh.” - -At thirty, Edward no longer employed quite the same ingenuous slang, but -there was no doubt that he still experienced the same sensations, which -fifteen years earlier he had characterised as beastly. - -Old Mr. Edward Mottisfont lay in bed with his hands folded on his chest. -He watched his nephew with considerable amusement, and waited for him to -speak. - -Edward took a chair beside the bed. Then he said that it was a fine day, -and old Mr. Mottisfont nodded twice with much solemnity. - -“Yes, Edward,” he said. - -There was a pause. - -“I hope you are feeling pretty well,” was the unfortunate Edward’s next -attempt at conversation. - -Old Mr. Edward Mottisfont looked across at David Blake. “Am I feeling -pretty well—eh, David?” - -David laughed. He had moved when Edward came into the room, and was -standing by the window looking out. A little square pane was open. -Through it came the drowsy murmur of a drowsy, old-fashioned town. Mr. -Mottisfont’s house stood a few yards back from the road, just at the -head of the High Street. Market Harford was a very old town, and the -house was a very old house. There was a staircase which was admired by -American visitors, and a front door for which they occasionally made -bids. From where Mr. Mottisfont lay in bed he could see a narrow lane -hedged in by high old houses with red tiles. Beyond, the ground fell -sharply away, and there was a prospect of many red roofs. Farther still, -beyond the river, he could see the great black chimneys of his foundry, -and the smoke that came from them. It was the sight that he loved best -in the world. David looked down into the High Street and watched one -lamp after another spring into brightness. He could see a long ribbon of -light go down to the river and then rise again. He turned back into the -room when he was appealed to, and said: - -“Why, you know best how you feel, sir.” - -“Oh, no,” said old Mr. Mottisfont in a smooth, resigned voice. “Oh, no, -David. In a private and unofficial sort of way, yes; but in a public and -official sense, oh, dear, no. Edward wants to know when to order his -mourning, and how to arrange his holiday so as not to clash with my -funeral, so it is for my medical adviser to reply, ain’t it, Edward?” - -The colour ran to the roots of Edward Mottisfont’s fair hair. He cast an -appealing glance in David’s direction, and did not speak. - -“I don’t think any of us will order our mourning till you’re dead, sir,” -said David with a chuckle. He commiserated Edward, but, after all, -Edward was a lucky dog—and to see one’s successful rival at a -disadvantage is not an altogether unpleasant experience. “You’ll outlive -some of us young ones yet,” he added, but old Mr. Mottisfont was -frowning. - -“Seen any more of young Stevenson, Edward?” he said, with an abrupt -change of manner. - -Edward shook his head rather ruefully. - -“No, sir, I haven’t.” - -“No, and you ain’t likely to,” said old Mr. Mottisfont. “There, you’d -best be gone. I’ve talked enough.” - -“Then good-night, sir,” said Edward Mottisfont, getting up with some -show of cheerfulness. - -The tone of Mr. Mottisfont’s good-night was not nearly such a pleasant -one, and as soon as the door had closed upon Edward he flung round -towards David Blake with an angry “What’s the good of him? What’s the -good of the fellow? He’s not a business man. He’s not a man at all; he’s -an entomologiac—a lepidoptofool—a damn lepidoptofool.” - -These remarkable epithets followed one another with an extraordinary -rapidity. - -When the old gentleman paused for breath David inquired, “What’s the -trouble, sir?” - -“Oh, he’s muddled the new contract with Stevenson. Thinking of -butterflies, I expect. Pretty things, butterflies—but there—I don’t see -that I need distress myself. It ain’t me it’s going to touch. It’s -Edward’s own look-out. My income ain’t going to concern me for very much -longer.” - -He was silent for a moment. Then he made a restless movement with his -hand. - -“It won’t, will it—eh, David? You didn’t mean what you said just now? It -was just a flam? I ain’t going to live, am I?” - -David hesitated and the old man broke in with an extraordinary energy. - -“Oh, for the Lord’s sake, David, I’m not a girl—out with it! How long d’ -ye give me?” - -David sat down on the bed again. His movements had a surprising -gentleness for so large a man. His odd, humorous face was quite serious. - -“Really, sir, I don’t know,” he said, “I really don’t. There’s no more -to be done if you won’t let me operate. No, we won’t go over all that -again. I know you’ve made up your mind. And no one can possibly say how -long it may be. You might have died this week, or you may die in a -month, or it may go on for a year—or two—or three. You’ve the sort of -constitution they don’t make nowadays.” - -“Three years,” said old Mr. Edward Mottisfont—“three years, David—and -this damn pain all along—all the time—gettin’ worse——” - -“Oh, I think we can relieve the pain, sir,” said David cheerfully. - -“Much obliged, David. Some beastly drug that’ll turn me into an idiot. -No, thank ye, I’ll keep my wits if it’s all the same to you. Well, well, -it’s all in the day’s work, and I’m not complaining, but Edward’ll get -mortal tired of waiting for my shoes if I last three years. I doubt his -patience holding out. He’ll be bound to hasten matters on. Think of the -bad example I shall be for the baby—when it comes. Lord, David, what d’ -ye want to look like that for? I suppose they’ll have babies like other -folk, and I’ll be a bad example for ’em. Edward’ll think of that. When -he’s thought of it enough, and I’ve got on his nerves a bit more than -usual, he’ll put strychnine or arsenic into my soup. Oh, Edward’ll -poison me yet. You’ll see.” - -“Poor old Edward, it’s not much in his line,” said David with half a -laugh. - -“Eh? What about Pellico’s dog then?” - -“Pellico’s dog, sir?” - -“What an innocent young man you are, David—never heard of Pellico’s dog -before, did you? Pellico’s dog that got on Edward’s nerves same as I get -on his nerves, and you never knew that Edward dosed the poor brute with -some of his bug-curing stuff, eh? To be sure you didn’t think I knew, -nor did Edward. I don’t tell everything I know, and how I know it is my -affair and none of yours, Master David Blake, but you see Edward’s not -so unhandy with a little job in the poisoning line.” - -David’s face darkened. The incident of Pellico’s dog had occurred when -he and Edward were schoolboys of fifteen. He remembered it very well, -but he did not very much care being reminded of it. Every day of his -life he passed the narrow turning, down which, in defiance of parental -prohibitions, he and Edward used to race each other to school. Old -Pellico’s dirty, evil-smelling shop still jutted out of the farther end, -and the grimy door-step upon which his dog used to lie in wait for their -ankles was still as grimy as ever. Sometimes it was a trouser-leg that -suffered. Sometimes an ankle was nipped, and if Pellico’s dog -occasionally got a kick in return, it was not more than his due. David -remembered his own surprise when it first dawned upon him that Edward -minded—yes, actually minded these encounters. He recalled the occasion -when Edward, his face of a suspicious pallor, had denied angrily that he -was afraid of any beastly dog, and then his sudden wincing confession -that he did mind—that he minded horribly—not because he was afraid of -being bitten—Edward explained this point very carefully—but because the -dog made such a beastly row, and because Edward dreamed of him at night, -only in his dreams, Pellico’s dog was rather larger than Pellico -himself, and the lane was a cul-de-sac with a wall at the end of it, -against which he crouched in his dream whilst the dog came nearer and -nearer. - -“What rot,” was David’s comment, “but if I felt like that, I jolly well -know I’d knock the brute on the head.” - -“Would you?” said Edward, and that was all that had passed. Only, when a -week later Pellico’s dog was poisoned, David was filled with righteous -indignation. He stormed at Edward. - -“You did it—you know you did it. You did it with some of that beastly -bug-killing stuff that you keep knocking about.” - -Edward was pale, but there was an odd gleam of triumph in the eyes that -met David’s. - -“Well, you said you’d do for him—you said it yourself. So then I just -did it.” - -David stared at him with all a schoolboy’s crude condemnation of -something that was “not the game.” - -“I’d have knocked him on the head under old Pellico’s nose—but -poison—poison’s _beastly_.” - -He did not reason about it. It was just instinct. You knocked on the -head a brute that annoyed you, but you didn’t use poison. And Edward had -used poison. That was the beginning of David’s great intimacy with -Elizabeth Chantrey. He did not quarrel with Edward, but they drifted out -of an inseparable friendship into a relationship of the cool, -go-as-you-please order. The thing rankled a little after all these -years. David sat there frowning and remembering. Old Mr. Mottisfont -laughed. - -“Aha, you see I know most things,” he said, “Edward’ll poison me yet. -You see, he’s in a fix. He hankers after this house same as I always -hankered after it. It’s about the only taste we have in common. He’s got -his own house on a seven years’ lease, and here’s Nick Anderson going to -be married, and willing to take it off his hands. And what’s Edward to -do? It’s a terrible anxiety for him not knowing if I’m going to die or -not. If he doesn’t accept Nick’s offer and I die, he’ll have two houses -on his hands. If he accepts it and I don’t die, he’ll not have a house -at all. It’s a sad dilemma for Edward. That’s why he would enjoy seeing -about my funeral so much. He’d do it all very handsomely. Edward likes -things handsome. And Mary, who doesn’t care a jot for me, will wear a -black dress that don’t suit her, and feel like a Christian martyr. And -Elizabeth won’t wear black at all, though she cares a good many jots, -and though she’d look a deal better in it than Mary—eh, David?” - -But David Blake was exclaiming at the lateness of the hour, and saying -good-night, all in a breath. - - - - - CHAPTER II - DAVID BLAKE - - - Grey, grey mist - Over the old grey town, - A mist of years, a mist of tears, - Where ghosts go up and down; - And the ghosts they whisper thus, and thus, - Of the days when the world went with us. - -A minute or two later Elizabeth Chantrey came into the room. She was a -very tall woman, with a beautiful figure. All her movements were strong, -sure, and graceful. She carried a lighted lamp in her left hand. Mr. -Mottisfont abominated electric light and refused obstinately to have it -in the house. When Elizabeth had closed the door and set down the lamp, -she crossed over to the window and fastened a heavy oak shutter across -it. Then she sat down by the bed. - -“Well,” she said in her pleasant voice. - -“H’m,” said old Mr. Mottisfont, “well or ill’s all a matter of opinion, -same as religion, or the cut of a dress.” He shut his mouth with a snap, -and lay staring at the ceiling. Presently his eyes wandered back to -Elizabeth. She was sitting quite still, with her hands folded. Very few -busy women ever sit still at all, but Elizabeth Chantrey, who was a very -busy woman, was also a woman of a most reposeful presence. She could be -unoccupied without appearing idle, just as she could be silent without -appearing either stupid or constrained. Old Edward Mottisfont looked at -her for about five minutes. Then he said suddenly: - -“What’ll you do when I’m dead, Elizabeth?” - -Elizabeth made no protest, as her sister Mary would have done. She had -not been Edward Mottisfont’s ward since she was fourteen for nothing. -She understood him very well, and she was perhaps the one creature whom -he really loved. She leaned her chin in her hand and said: - -“I don’t know, Mr. Mottisfont.” - -Mr. Mottisfont never took his eyes off her face. - -“Edward’ll want to move in here as soon as possible. What’ll you do?” - -“I don’t know,” repeated Elizabeth, frowning a little. - -“Well, if you don’t know, perhaps you’ll listen to reason, and do as I -ask you.” - -“If I can,” said Elizabeth Chantrey. - -He nodded. - -“Stay here a year,” he said, “a year isn’t much to ask—eh?” - -“Here?” - -“Yes—in this house. I’ve spoken about it to Edward. Odd creature, -Edward, but, I believe, truthful. Said he was quite agreeable. Even went -so far as to say he was fond of you, and that Mary would be pleased. -Said you’d too much tact to obtrude yourself, and that of course you’d -keep your own rooms. No, I don’t suppose you’ll find it particularly -pleasant, but I believe you’ll find it worth while. Give it a year.” - -Elizabeth started ever so slightly. One may endure for years, and make -no sign, to wince at last in one unguarded moment. So he knew—had always -known. Again Elizabeth made no protest. - -“A year,” she said in a low voice, “a year—I’ve given fifteen years. -Isn’t fifteen years enough?” - -Something fierce came into old Edward Mottisfont’s eyes. His whole face -hardened. “He’s a damn fool,” he said. - -Elizabeth laughed. - -“Of course he must be,” and she laughed again. - -The old man nodded. - -“Grit,” he said to himself, “grit. That’s the way—laugh, Elizabeth, -laugh—and let him go hang for a damn fool. He ain’t worth it—no man -living’s worth it. But give him a year all the same.” - -If old Mr. Mottisfont had not been irritated with David Blake for being -as he put it, a damn fool, he would not have made the references he had -done to his nephew Edward’s wife. They touched David upon the raw, and -old Mr. Mottisfont was very well aware of it. As David went out of the -room and closed the door, a strange mood came upon him. All the many -memories of this house, familiar to him from early boyhood, all the many -memories of this town of his birth and upbringing, rose about him. It -was a strange mood, but yet not a sad one, though just beyond it lay the -black shadow which is the curse of the Celt. David Blake came of an old -Irish stock, although he had never seen Ireland. He had the vein of -poetry—the vein of sadness, which are born at a birth with Irish humour -and Irish wit. - -As he went down the staircase, the famous staircase with its carved -newels, the light of a moving lamp came up from below, and at the turn -of the stair he stood aside to let Elizabeth Chantrey pass. She wore a -grey dress, and the lamp-light shone upon her hair and made it look like -very pale gold. It was thick hair—very fine and thick, and she wore it -in a great plait like a crown. In the daytime it was not golden at all, -but just the colour of the pale thick honey with which wax is mingled. -Long ago a Chantrey had married a wife from Norway with Elizabeth’s hair -and Elizabeth’s dark grey eyes. - -“Good-night, David,” said Elizabeth Chantrey. She would have passed on, -but to her surprise David made no movement. He was looking at her. - -“This is where I first saw you, Elizabeth,” he said in a remembering -voice. “You had on a grey dress, like that one, but Mary was in blue, -because Mr. Mottisfont wouldn’t let her wear mourning. Do you remember -how shocked poor Miss Agatha was?—‘and their mother only dead a month!’ -I can hear her now.” Mary—yes, he remembered little Mary Chantrey in her -blue dress. He could see her now—nine years old—in a blue dress—with -dark curling hair and round brown eyes, holding tightly to Elizabeth’s -skirts, and much too shy to speak to the big strange boy who was -Edward’s friend. - -Elizabeth watched him. She knew very well that he was not thinking of -her, although he had remembered the grey dress. And yet—for five -years—it was she and not Mary to whom David came with every mood. During -those five years, the years between fourteen and nineteen, it was always -Elizabeth and David, David and Elizabeth. Then when David was twenty, -and in his first year at hospital, Dr. Blake died suddenly, and for four -years David came no more to Market Harford. Mrs. Blake went to live with -a sister in the north, and David’s vacations were spent with his mother. -For a time he wrote often—then less often—finally only at Christmas. And -the years passed. Elizabeth’s girlhood passed. Mary grew up. And when -David Blake had been nearly three years qualified, and young Dr. -Ellerton was drowned out boating, David bought from Mrs. Ellerton a -share in the practice that had been his father’s, and brought his mother -back to Market Harford. Mrs. Blake lived only for a year, but before she -died she had seen David fall headlong in love, not with her dear -Elizabeth, but with Mary—pretty little Mary—who was turning the heads of -all the young men, sending Jimmy Larkin with a temporarily broken heart -to India, Jack Webster with a much more seriously injured one to the -West Coast of Africa, and enjoying herself mightily the while. Elizabeth -had memories as well as David. They came at least as near sadness as -his. She thought she had remembered quite enough for one evening, and -she set her foot on the stair above the landing. - -“Poor Miss Agatha!” she said. “What a worry we were to her, and how she -disliked our coming here. I can remember her grumbling to Mr. -Mottisfont, and saying, ‘Children make such a work in the house,’ and -Mr. Mottisfont——” - -Elizabeth laughed. - -“Mr. Mottisfont said, ‘Don’t be such a damn old maid, Agatha. For the -Lord’s sake, what’s the good of a woman that can’t mind children?’” - -David laughed too. He remembered Miss Agatha’s fussy indignation. - -“Good-night, David,” said Elizabeth, and she passed on up the wide, -shallow stair. - -The light went with her. From below there came only a glimmer, for the -lamp in the hall was still turned low. David went slowly on. As he was -about to open the front door, Edward Mottisfont came out of the -dining-room on the left. - -“One minute, David,” he said, and took him by the arm. “Look here—I -think I ought to know. Is my uncle likely to live on indefinitely? Did -you mean what you said upstairs?” - -It was the second time that David Blake had been asked if he meant those -words. He answered a trifle irritably. - -“Why should I say what I don’t mean? He may live three years or he may -die to-morrow. Why on earth should I say it if I didn’t think it?” - -“Oh, I don’t know,” said Edward. “You might have been saying it just to -cheer the old man up.” - -There was a certain serious simplicity about Edward Mottisfont. It was -this quality in him which his uncle stigmatised as priggishness. Your -true prig is always self-conscious, but Edward was not at all -self-conscious. From his own point of view he saw things quite clearly. -It was other people’s points of view which had a confusing effect upon -him. David laughed. - -“It didn’t exactly cheer him up,” he said. “He isn’t as set on living as -all that comes to.” - -Edward appeared to be rather struck by this statement. - -“Isn’t he?” he said. - -He opened the door as he spoke, but suddenly closed it again. His tone -altered. It became eager and boyish. - -“David, I _say_—you know Jimmy Larkin was transferred to Assam some -months ago? Well, I wrote and asked him to remember me if he came across -anything like specimens. Of course his forest work gives him simply -priceless opportunities. He wrote back and said he would see what he -could do, and last mail he sent me——” - -“What—a package of live scorpions?” - -“No—not specimens—oh, if he could only have sent the specimen—but it was -the next best thing—a drawing—you remember how awfully well Jimmy drew—a -coloured drawing of a perfectly new slug.” - -Edward’s tone became absolutely ecstatic. He began to rumple up his fair -hair, as he always did when he was excited. “I can’t find it in any of -the books,” he said, “and they’d never even heard of it at the Natural -History Museum. Five yellow bands on a black ground—what do you think of -that?” - -“I should say it was Jimmy, larking,” murmured David, getting the door -open and departing hastily, but Edward was a great deal too busy -wondering whether the slug ought in justice to be called after Jimmy, or -whether he might name it after himself, to notice this ribaldry. - -David Blake came out into a clear September night. The sky was cloudless -and the air was still. Presently there would be a moon. David walked -down the brightly-lighted High Street, with its familiar shops. Here and -there were a few new names, but for the most part he had known them all -from childhood. Half-way down the hill he passed the tall grey house -which had once had his father’s plate upon the door—the house where -David was born. Old Mr. Bull lived there now, his father’s partner once, -retired these eighteen months in favour of his nephew, Tom Skeffington. -All Market Harford wondered what Dr. Bull could possibly want with a -house so much too large for him. He used only half the rooms, and the -house had a sadly neglected air, but there were days, and this was one -of them, when David, passing, could have sworn that the house had not -changed hands at all and that the blind of his mother’s room was lifted -a little as he went by. She used to wave to him from that window as he -came from school. She wore the diamond ring which David kept locked up -in his despatch-box. Sometimes it caught the light and flashed. David -could have sworn that he saw it flash to-night. But the house was all -dark and silent. The old days were gone. David walked on. - -At the bottom of the High Street, just before you come to the bridge, he -turned up to the right, where a paved path with four stone posts across -the entrance came into the High Street at right angles. The path ran -along above the river, with a low stone wall to the left, and a row of -grey stone houses to the right. Between the wall and the river there -were trees, which made a pleasant shade in the summer. Now they were -losing their leaves. David opened the door of the seventh house with his -latch-key, and went in. That night he dreamed his dream. It was a long -time now since he had dreamed it, but it was an old dream—one that -recurred from time to time—one that had come to him at intervals for as -long as he could remember. And it was always the same—through all the -years it never varied—it was always just the same. - -He dreamed that he was standing upon the seashore. It was a wide, low -shore, with a long, long stretch of sand that shone like silver under a -silver moon. It shone because it was wet, still quite wet from the touch -of the tide. The tide was very low. David stood on the shore, and saw -the moon go down into the sea. As it went down it changed slowly. It -became golden, and the sand turned golden too. A wind began to blow in -from the sea. A wind from the west—a wind that was strong, and yet very -gentle. At the edge of the sea there stood a woman, with long floating -hair and a long floating dress. She stood between David and the golden -moon, and the wind blew out her dress and her long floating hair. But -David never saw her face. Always he longed to see her face, but he never -saw it. He stood upon the shore and could not move to go to her. When he -was a boy he used to walk in his sleep in the nights when he had this -dream. Once he was awakened by the touch of cold stones under his bare -feet. And there he stood, just as he had come from bed, on the wet -door-step, with the front door open behind him. After that he locked his -door. Now he walked in his sleep no longer, and it was more than a year -since he had dreamed the dream at all, but to-night it came to him -again. - - - - - CHAPTER III - DEAD MEN’S SHOES - - - There’s many a weary game to be played - With never a penny to choose, - But the weariest game in all the world - Is waiting for dead men’s shoes. - -It was about a week later that Edward Mottisfont rang David Blake up on -the telephone and begged him in agitated accents, to come to Mr. -Mottisfont without delay. - -“It’s another attack—a very bad one,” said Edward in the hall. His voice -shook a little, and he seemed very nervous. David thought it was -certainly a bad attack. He also thought it a strange one. The old man -was in great pain, and very ill. Elizabeth Chantrey was in the room, but -after a glance at his patient, David sent her away. As she went she made -a movement to take up an empty cup which stood on the small table beside -the bed, and old Mr. Edward Mottisfont fairly snapped at her. - -“Leave it, will you—I’ve stopped Edward taking it twice. Leave it, I -say!” - -Elizabeth went out without a word, and Mr. Mottisfont caught David’s -wrist in a shaky grip. - -“D’ you know why I wouldn’t let her take that cup? D’ you know why?” - -“No, sir——” - -Old Mr. Mottisfont’s voice dropped to a thread. He was panting a little. - -“I was all right till I drank that damned tea, David,” he said, “and -Edward brought it to me—Edward——” - -“Come, sir—come—” said David gently. He was really fond of this queer -old man, and he was distressed for him. - -“David, you won’t let him give me things—you’ll look to it. Look in the -cup. I wouldn’t let ’em take the cup—there’s dregs. Look at ’em, David.” - -David took up the cup and walked to the window. About a tablespoonful of -cold tea remained. David tilted the cup, then became suddenly attentive. -That small remainder of cold tea with the little skim of cream upon it -had suddenly become of absorbing interest. David tilted the cup still -more. The tea made a little pool on one side of it, and all across the -bottom of the cup a thick white sediment drained slowly down into the -pool. It was such a sediment as is left by very chalky water. But all -the water of Market Harford is as soft as rain-water. It is not only -chalk that makes a sediment like that. Arsenic makes one, too. David put -down the cup quickly. He opened the door and went out into the passage. -From the far end Elizabeth Chantrey came to meet him, and he gave her a -hastily scribbled note for the chemist, and asked her for one or two -things that were in the house. When he came back into Mr. Mottisfont’s -room he went straight to the wash-stand, took up a small glass bottle -labelled ipecacuanha wine and spent two or three minutes in washing it -thoroughly. Then he poured into it very carefully the contents of the -cup. He did all this in total silence, and in a very quiet and -business-like manner. - -Old Mr. Edward Mottisfont lay on his right side and watched him. His -face was twisted with pain, and there was a dampness upon his brow, but -his eyes followed every motion that David made and noted every look upon -his face. They were intent—alive—observant. Whilst David stood by the -wash-stand, with his back towards the bed, old Mr. Edward Mottisfont’s -lips twisted themselves into an odd smile. A gleam of sardonic humour -danced for a moment in the watching eyes. When David put down the bottle -and came over to the bed, the gleam was gone, and there was only -pain—great pain—in the old, restless face. There was a knock at the -door, and Elizabeth Chantrey came in. - -Three hours later David Blake came out of the room that faced old Mr. -Mottisfont’s at the farther end of the corridor. It was a long, low -room, fitted up as a laboratory—very well and fully fitted up—for the -old man had for years found his greatest pleasure and relaxation in -experimenting with chemicals. Some of his experiments he confided to -David, but the majority he kept carefully to himself. They were of a -somewhat curious nature. David Blake came out of the laboratory with a -very stern look upon his face. As he went down the stair he met with -Edward Mottisfont coming up. The sternness intensified. Edward looked an -unspoken question, and then without a word turned and went down before -David into the hall. Then he waited. - -“Gone?” he said in a sort of whisper, and David bent his head. - -He was remembering that it was only a week since he had told Edward in -this very spot that his uncle might live for three years. Well, he was -dead now. The old man was dead now—out of the way—some one had seen to -that. Who? David could still hear Edward Mottisfont’s voice asking, “How -long is he likely to live?” and his own answer, “Perhaps three years.” - -“Come in here,” said Edward Mottisfont. He opened the dining-room door -as he spoke, and David followed him into a dark, old-fashioned room, -separated from the one behind it by folding-doors. One of the doors -stood open about an inch, but there was only one lamp in the room, and -neither of the two men paid any attention to such a trifling -circumstance. - -Edward sat down by the table, which was laid for dinner. Even above the -white tablecloth his face was noticeably white. All his life this old -man had been his bugbear. He had hated him, not with the hot hatred -which springs from one great sudden wrong, but with the cold slow -abhorrence bred of a thousand trifling oppressions. He had looked -forward to his death. For years he had thought to himself, “Well, he -can’t live for ever.” But now that the old man was dead, and the yoke -lifted from his neck, he felt no relief—no sense of freedom. He felt -oddly shocked. - -David Blake did not sit down. He stood at the opposite side of the table -and looked at Edward. From where he stood he could see first the white -tablecloth, then Edward’s face, and on the wall behind Edward, a -full-length portrait of old Edward Mottisfont at the age of thirty. It -was the work of a young man whom Market Harford had looked upon as a -very disreputable young man. He had since become so famous that they had -affixed a tablet to the front of the house in which he had once lived. -The portrait was one of the best he had ever painted, and the eyes, -Edward Mottisfont’s black, malicious eyes, looked down from the wall at -his nephew, and at David Blake. Neither of the men had spoken since they -entered the room, but they were both so busy with their thoughts that -neither noticed how silent the other was. - -At last David spoke. He said in a hard level voice: - -“Edward, I can’t sign the certificate. There will have to be an -inquest.” - -Edward Mottisfont looked up with a great start. - -“An inquest?” he said, “an inquest?” - -One of David’s hands rested on the table. “I can’t sign the -certificate,” he repeated. - -Edward stared at him. - -“Why not?” he said. “I don’t understand——” - -“Don’t you?” said David Blake. - -Edward rumpled up his hair in a distracted fashion. - -“I don’t understand,” he repeated. “An inquest? Why, you’ve been -attending him all these months, and you said he might die at any time. -You said it only the other day. I don’t understand——” - -“Nor do I,” said David curtly. - -Edward stared again. - -“What do you mean?” - -“Mr. Mottisfont might have lived for some time,” said David Blake, -speaking slowly. “I was attending him for a chronic illness, which would -have killed him sooner or later. But it didn’t kill him. It didn’t have -a chance. He died of poisoning—arsenic poisoning.” - -One of Edward’s hands was lying on the table. His whole arm twitched, -and the hand fell over, palm upwards. The fingers opened and closed -slowly. David found himself staring at that slowly moving hand. - -“Impossible,” said Edward, and his breath caught in his throat as he -said it. - -“I’m afraid not.” - -Edward leaned forward a little. - -“But, David,” he said, “it’s not possible. Who—who do you think—who -would do such a thing? Or—suicide—do you think he committed suicide?” - -David drew himself suddenly away from the table. All at once the feeling -had come to him that he could no longer touch what Edward touched. - -“No, I don’t think it was suicide,” he said. “But of course it’s not my -business to think at all. I shall give my evidence, and there, as far as -I am concerned, the matter ends.” - -Edward looked helplessly at David. - -“Evidence?” he repeated. - -“At the inquest,” said David Blake. - -“I don’t understand,” said Edward again. He put his head in his hands, -and seemed to be thinking. - -“Are you sure?” he said at last. “I don’t see how—it was an attack—just -like his other attacks—and then he died—you always said he might die in -one of those attacks.” - -There was a sort of trembling eagerness in Edward’s tone. A feeling of -nausea swept over David. The scene had become intolerable. - -“Mr. Mottisfont died because he drank a cup of tea which contained -enough arsenic to kill a man in robust health,” he said sharply. - -He looked once at Edward, saw him start, and added, “and I think that -you brought him that tea.” - -“Yes,” said Edward. “He asked me for it, how could there be arsenic in -it?” - -“There was,” said David Blake. - -“Arsenic? But I brought him the tea——” - -“Yes, you brought him the tea.” - -Edward lifted his head. His eyes behind his glasses had a misty and -bewildered look. His voice shook a little. - -“But—if there’s an inquest—they might say—they might think——” - -He pushed his chair back a little way, and half rose from it, resting -his hands on the table, and peering across it. - -“David, why do you look at me like that?” - -David Blake turned away. - -“It’s none of my business,” he said, “I’ve got to give my evidence, and -for God’s sake, Edward, pull yourself together before the inquest, and -get decent legal advice, for you’ll need it.” - -Edward was shockingly pale. - -“You mean—what do you mean? That people will think—it’s impossible.” - -David went towards the door. His face was like a flint. - -“I mean this,” he said. “Mr. Mottisfont died of arsenic poisoning. The -arsenic was in a cup of tea which he drank. You brought him the tea. You -are undoubtedly in a very serious position. There will have to be an -inquest.” - -Edward had risen completely. He made a step towards David. - -“But if you were to sign the certificate—there wouldn’t need to be an -inquest—David——” - -“But I’m damned if I’ll sign the certificate,” said David Blake. - -He went out and shut the door sharply behind him. - - - - - CHAPTER IV - A MAN’S HONOUR - - - “Will you give me your heart?” she said. - “Oh, I gave it you long ago,” said he. - “Why, then, I threw it away,” said she. - “And what will you give me instead? - Will you give me your honour?” she said. - -“Elizabeth!” - -There was a pause. - -“Elizabeth—open your door!” - -Elizabeth Chantrey came back from a long way off. Mary was calling her. -Mary was knocking at her door. She got up rather wearily, turned the -key, and with a little gasp, Mary was in the room, shutting the door, -and standing with her back against it. The lamp burned low, but -Elizabeth’s eyes were accustomed to the gloom. Mary Mottisfont’s bright, -clear colour was one of her great attractions. It was all gone and her -dark eyes looked darker and larger than they should have done. - -“Why, Molly, I thought you had gone home. Edward told me he was sending -you home an hour ago.” - -“He told me to go,” said Mary in a sort of stumbling whisper. “He told -me to go—but I wanted to wait and go with him. I knew he’d be upset—I -knew he’d feel it—when it was all over. I wanted to be with him—oh, -Liz——” - -“Mary, what is it?” - -Mary put up a shaking hand. - -“I’ll tell you—don’t stop me—there’s no time—I’ll tell you—oh, I’m -telling you as fast as I can.” - -She spoke in a series of gasps. - -“I went into your little room behind the dining-room. I knew no one -would come. I knew I should hear any one coming or going. I opened the -door into the dining-room—just a little——” - -“Mary, what _is_ it?” said Elizabeth. She put her arm round her sister, -but Mary pushed her away. - -“Don’t—there’s no time. Let me go on. David came down. He came into the -dining-room. He talked to Edward. He said, ‘I can’t sign the -certificate,’ and Edward said, ‘Why not?’ and David said, -‘Because’—Liz—I can’t—oh, Liz, I can’t—I can’t.” - -Mary caught suddenly at Elizabeth’s arm and began to sob. She had no -tears—only hard sobs. Her pretty oval face was all white and drawn. -There were dark marks like bruises under her hazel eyes. The little dark -rings of hair about her forehead were damp. - -“Dearest—darling—my Molly dear,” said Elizabeth. She held Mary to her, -with strong supporting arms, but the shuddering sobs went on. - -“Liz—it was poison. He says it was poison. He says there was poison in -the tea—arsenic poison—and Edward took him the tea. Liz—Liz, why do such -awful things happen? Why does God let them happen?” - -Elizabeth was much taller than her sister—taller and stronger. She -released herself from the clutching fingers, and let both her hands fall -suddenly and heavily upon Mary’s shoulders. - -“Molly, what are you talking about?” she cried. - -Mary was startled into a momentary self-control. - -“Mr. Mottisfont,” she said. “David said it was poison—poison, Liz.” - -Her voice fell to a low horrified whisper at the word, and then rose on -the old gasp of, “Edward took him the tea.” A numbness came upon -Elizabeth. Feeling was paralysed. She was conscious neither of horror, -anxiety, nor sorrow. Only her brain remained clear. All her -consciousness seemed to have gone to it, and it worked with an -inconceivable clearness and rapidity. - -“Hush, Mary,” she said. “What are you saying? Edward——” - -Mary pushed her away. - -“Of course not,” she said. “Liz, if you dared—but you don’t—no one could -really—Edward of all people. But there’s all the talk, the scandal—we -can’t have it. It must be stopped. And we’re losing time, we’re losing -time dreadfully. I must go to David, and stop him before he writes to -any one, or sees any one. He must sign the certificate.” - -Elizabeth stood quite still for a moment. Then she went to the -wash-stand, poured out a glass of water, and came back to Mary. - -“Drink this, Molly,” she said. “Yes, drink it all, and pull yourself -together. Now listen to me. You can’t possibly go to David.” - -“I must go, I must,” said Mary. Her tone hardened. “Will you come with -me, Liz, or must I go alone?” - -Elizabeth took the empty glass and set it down. - -“Molly, my dear, you must listen. No—I’m thinking of what’s best for -every one. You don’t want any talk. If you go to David’s house at this -hour—well, you can see for yourself. No—listen, my dear. If I ring David -up, and ask him to come here at once—at _once_—to see me, don’t you see -how much better that will be?” - -Mary’s colour came and went. She stood irresolute. - -“Very well,” she said at last. “If he’ll come. If he won’t, then I’ll go -to him, and I don’t care what you say, Elizabeth—and you must be -quick—quick.” - -They went downstairs in silence. Mr. Mottisfont’s study was in darkness, -and Elizabeth brought in the lamp from the hall, holding it very -steadily. Then she sat down at the great littered desk and rang up the -exchange. She gave the number and they waited. After what seemed like a -very long time, Elizabeth heard David’s voice. - -“Hullo!” - -“It is I—Elizabeth,” said Elizabeth Chantrey. - -“What is it?” - -“Can you come here at once? I want to see you at once. Yes, it is very -important—important and urgent.” - -Mary was in an agony of impatience. “What does he say? Will he come? -Will he come at once?” - -But Elizabeth answered David and not her sister. - -“No, presently won’t do. It must be at once. It’s really urgent, David, -or I wouldn’t ask it. Yes, thank you so much. In my room.” - -She put down the receiver, rang off, and turned to Mary. - -“He is coming. Had you not better send Edward a message, or he will be -coming back here? Ring up, and say that you are staying with me for an -hour, and that Markham will walk home with you.” - -In Elizabeth’s little brown room the silence weighed and the time -lagged. Mary walked up and down, moving -perpetually—restlessly—uselessly. There was a small Dutch mirror above -the writing-table. Its cut glass border caught the light, and reflected -it in diamond points and rainbow flashes. It was the brightest thing in -the room. Mary stood for a moment and looked at her own face. She began -to arrange her hair with nervous, trembling fingers. She rubbed her -cheeks, and straightened the lace at her throat. Then she fell to pacing -up and down again. - -“The room’s so hot,” she said suddenly. And she went quickly to the -window and flung it open. The air came in, cold and mournfully damp. -Mary drew half a dozen long breaths. Then she shivered, her teeth -chattered. She shut the window with a jerk, and as she did so David -Blake came into the room. It was Elizabeth he saw, and it was to -Elizabeth that he spoke. - -“Is anything the matter? Anything fresh?” Elizabeth moved aside, and all -at once he saw Mary Mottisfont. - -“Mary wants to speak to you,” said Elizabeth. She made a step towards -the door, but Mary called her sharply. “No, Liz—stay!” - -And Elizabeth drew back into the shadowed corner by the window, whilst -Mary came forward into the light. For a moment there was silence. Mary’s -hands were clasped before her, her chin was a little lifted, her eyes -were desperately intent. - -“David,” she said in a low fluttering voice, “oh, David—I was in here—I -heard—I could not help hearing.” - -“What did you hear?” asked David Blake. The words came from him with a -sort of startled hardness. - -“I heard everything you said to Edward—about Mr. Mottisfont. You said it -was poison. I heard you say it.” - -“Yes,” said David Blake. - -“And Edward took him the tea,” said Mary quickly. “Don’t you see, -David—don’t you see how dreadful it is for Edward? People who didn’t -know him might say—they might think such dreadful things—and if there -were an inquest—” the words came in a sort of strangled whisper. “There -can’t be an inquest—there _can’t_. Oh, David, you’ll sign the -certificate, won’t you?” - -David’s face had been changing while she spoke. The first hard startled -look went from it. It was succeeded by a flash of something like horror, -and then by pain—pain and a great pity. - -“No, Mary, dear, I can’t,” he said very gently. He looked at her, and -further words died upon his lips. Mary came nearer. There was a big -chair in front of the fireplace, and she rested one hand on the back of -it. It seemed as if she needed something firm to touch, her world was -shifting so. David had remained standing by the door, but Mary was not a -yard away from him now. - -“You see, David,” she said, still in that low tremulous voice, “you see, -David, you haven’t thought—you can’t have thought—what it will mean if -you don’t. Edward might be suspected of a most dreadful thing. I’m sure -you haven’t thought of that. He might even”—Mary’s eyes widened—“he -might even be _arrested_—and tried—and I couldn’t bear it.” The hand -that rested on the chair began to tremble very much. “I couldn’t _bear_ -it,” said Mary piteously. - -“Mary, my dear,” said David, “this is a business matter, and you mustn’t -interfere—I can’t possibly sign the certificate. Poor old Mr. Mottisfont -did not die a natural death, and the matter will have to be inquired -into. No innocent person need have anything to be afraid of.” - -“Oh!” said Mary. Her breath came hard. “You haven’t told any one—not -yet? You haven’t written? Oh, am I too late? Have you told people -already?” - -“No,” said David, “not yet, but I must.” - -The tears came with a rush to Mary’s eyes, and began to roll down her -cheeks. - -“No, no, David, no,” she said. Her left hand went out towards him -gropingly. “Oh, no, David, you mustn’t. You haven’t thought—indeed you -haven’t. Innocent people can’t always prove that they are innocent. They -_can’t_. There’s a book—a dreadful book. I’ve just been reading it. -There was a man who was quite, quite innocent—as innocent as Edward—and -he couldn’t prove it. And they were going to hang him—David!” - -Mary’s voice broke off with a sort of jerk. Her face became suddenly -ghastly. There was an extremity of terror in every sharpened feature. -Elizabeth stood quite straight and still by the window. She was all in -shadow, her brown dress lost against the soft brown gloom of the -half-drawn velvet curtain. She felt like a shadow herself as she looked -and listened. The numbness was upon her still. She was conscious as it -were of a black cloud that overshadowed them all—herself, Mary, Edward. -But not David. David stood just beyond, and Mary was trying to hold him -and to draw him into the blackness. Something in Elizabeth’s deadened -consciousness kept saying over and over again: “Not David, not David.” -Elizabeth saw the black cloud with a strange internal vision. With her -bodily eyes she watched David’s face. She saw it harden when Mary looked -at him, and quiver with pain when she looked away. She saw his hand go -out and touch Mary’s hand, and she heard him say: - -“Mary, I can’t. Don’t ask me.” - -Mary put her other hand suddenly on David’s wrist. A bright colour -flamed into her cheeks. - -“David, you used to be fond of me—once—not long ago. You said you would -do anything for me. Anything in the world. You said you loved me. And -you said that nowadays a man did not get the opportunity of showing a -woman what he would do for her. You wanted to do something for me then, -and I had nothing to ask you. Aren’t you fond of me any more, David? -Won’t you do anything for me now?—now that I ask you?” - -David pulled his hand roughly from her grasp. He pushed past her, and -crossed the room. - -“Mary, you don’t know what you are asking me,” he said in a tone of -sharp exasperation. “You don’t know what you are talking about. You -don’t seem to realise that you are asking me to become an accessory -after the fact in a case of murder.” - -Mary shuddered. The word was like a blow. She spoke in a hurried -whispering way. - -“But Edward—it’s for Edward. What will happen to Edward? And to me? -Don’t you care? We’ve only been married six months. It’s such a little -time. Don’t you care at all? I never knew such dreadful things could -happen—not to one’s self. You read things in papers, and you never -think—you never, never think that a thing like that could happen to -yourself. I suppose those people don’t all die, but I should die. Oh, -David, aren’t you going to help us?” - -She spoke the last words as a child might have spoken them. Her eyes -were fixed appealingly upon David’s face. Mary Mottisfont had very -beautiful eyes. They were hazel in colour, and in shape and expression -they resembled those of another Mary, who was also Queen of Hearts. - -Elizabeth Chantrey became suddenly aware that she was shaking all over, -and that the room was full of a thick white mist. She groped in the mist -and found a chair. She made a step forward, and sat down. Then the mist -grew thinner by degrees, and through it she saw that Mary had come quite -close to David again. She was looking up at him. Her hands were against -his breast, and she was saying: - -“David—David—David, you said the world was not enough to give me once.” - -David’s face was rigid. - -“You wouldn’t take what I had to give,” he said very low. He had -forgotten Elizabeth Chantrey. He saw nothing but Mary’s eyes. - -“You didn’t want my love, Mary, and now you want my honour. And you say -it is only a little thing.” - -Mary lifted her head and met his eyes. - -“Give it me,” she said. “If it is a great thing, well, I shall value it -all the more. Oh, David, because I ask it. Because I shall love you all -my life, and bless you all my life. And if I’m asking you a great -thing—oh, David, you said that nothing would be too great to give me. -Oh, David, won’t you give me this now? Won’t you give me this one thing, -because I ask it?” - -As Mary spoke the mist cleared from before Elizabeth’s eyes and the -numbness that had been upon her changed slowly into feeling. She put -both hands to her heart, and held them there. Her heart beat against her -hands, and every beat hurt her. She felt again, and what she felt was -the sharpest pain that she had ever known, and she had known much pain. - -She had suffered when David left Market Harford. She had suffered when -he ceased to write. She had suffered when he returned only to fall -headlong in love with Mary. And what she had suffered then had been a -personal pang, a thing to be struggled with, dominated, and overcome. -Now she must look on whilst David suffered too. Must watch whilst his -nerves tautened, his strength failed, his self-control gave way. And she -could not shut her eyes or look away. She could not raise her thought -above this level of pain. The black cloud overshadowed them and hid the -light of heaven. - -“Because I ask you, David—David, because I ask you.” - -Mary’s voice trembled and fell to a quivering whisper. - -Suddenly David pushed her away. He turned and made a stumbling step -towards the fireplace. His hands gripped the narrow mantelshelf. His -eyes stared at the wall. And from the wall Mary’s eyes looked back at -him from the miniature of Mary’s mother. There was a long minute’s -silence. Then David swung round. His face was flushed, his eyes looked -black. - -“If I do it can you hold your tongues?” he said in a rough, harsh voice. - -Mary drew a deep soft breath of relief. She had won. Her hands dropped -to her side, her whole figure relaxed, her face became soft and young -again. - -“O David, God bless you!” she cried. - -David frowned. His brows made a dark line across his face. Every feature -was heavy and forbidding. - -“Can you hold your tongues?” he repeated. “Do you understand—do you -fully understand that if a word of this is ever to get out it’s just -sheer ruin to the lot of us? Do you grasp that?” - -Elizabeth Chantrey got up. She crossed the room, and stood at David’s -side, nearly as tall as he. - -“Don’t do it, David,” she said, with a sudden passion in her voice. - -Mary turned on her in a flash. - -“Liz,” she cried; but David stood between. - -“It’s none of your business, Elizabeth. You keep out of it.” The tone -was kinder than the words. - -Elizabeth was silent. She drew away, and did not speak again. - -“I’ll do it on one condition,” said David Blake. “You’d better go and -tell Edward at once. I don’t want to see him. I don’t suppose he’s been -talking to any one—it’s not exactly likely—but if he has the matter’s -out of my hands. I’ll not touch it. If he hasn’t, and you’ll all hold -your tongues, I’ll do it.” - -He turned to the door and Mary cried: “Won’t you write it now? Won’t you -sign it before you go?” - -David laughed grimly. - -“Do you think I go about with my pockets full of death certificates?” he -said. Then he was gone, and the door shut to behind him. - -Elizabeth moved, and spoke. - -“I will tell Markham that you are ready to go home,” she said. - - - - - CHAPTER V - TOWN TALK - - - As long as idle dogs will bark, and idle asses bray, - As long as hens will cackle over every egg they lay, - So long will folks be chattering, - And idle tongues be clattering, - For the less there is to talk about, the more there is to say. - -The obituary notices of old Mr. Mottisfont which appeared in due course -in the two local papers were of a glowingly appreciative nature, and at -least as accurate as such notices usually are. David could not help -thinking how much the old gentleman would have relished the fine phrases -and the flowing periods. Sixty years of hard work were compressed into -two and a half columns of palpitating journalese. David preferred the -old man’s own version, which had fewer adjectives and a great deal more -backbone. - -“My father left me nothing but debts—and William. The ironworks were in -a bad way, and we were on the edge of a bankruptcy. I was twenty-one, -and William was fifteen, and every one shook their heads. I can see ’em -now. Well, I gave some folk the rough side of my tongue, and some the -smooth. I had to have money, and no one would lend. I got a little -credit, but I couldn’t get the cash. Then I hunted up my father’s -cousin, Edward Moberly. Rolling he was, and as close as wax. Bored to -death too, for all his money. I talked to him, and he took to me. I -talked to him for three days, and he lent me what I wanted, on my note -of hand, and I paid it all back in five years, and the interest -up-to-date right along. It took some doing but I got it done. Then the -thing got a go on it, and we climbed right up. And folks stopped shaking -their heads. I began to make my mark. I began to be a ‘respected -fellow-citizen.’ Oh, Lord, David, if you’d known William you’d respect -me too! Talk about the debts—as a handicap, they weren’t worth -mentioning in the same breath with William. I could talk people into -believing I was solvent, but I couldn’t talk ’em into believing that -William had any business capacity. And I couldn’t pay off William, same -as I paid off the debts.” - -David’s recollections plunged him suddenly into a gulf of black -depression. Such a plucky old man, and now he was dead—out of the -way—and he, David, had lent a hand to cover the matter over, and shield -the murderer. David took the black fit to bed with him at night, and -rose in the morning with the gloom upon him still. It became a shadow -which went with him in all his ways, and clung about his every thought. -And with the gloom there came upon him a horrible, haunting recurrence -of his old passion for Mary. The wound made by her rejection of him had -been slowly skinning over, but in the scene which they had shared, and -the stress of the emotions raised by it, this wound had broken out -afresh, and now it was no more a deep clean cut, but a festering thing -that bid fair to poison all the springs of life. At Mary’s bidding he -had violated a trust, and his own sense of honour. There were times when -he hated Mary. There were times when he craved for her. And always his -contempt for himself deepened, and with it the gloom—the black gloom. - -“The doctor gets through a sight of whisky these days,” remarked Mrs. -Havergill, David’s housekeeper. “And a more abstemious gentleman, I’m -sure I never did live with. Weeks a bottle of whisky ’ud last, unless -he’d friends in. And now—gone like a flash, as you might say. Only, just -you mind there’s not a word of this goes out of the ’ouse, Sarah, my -girl. D’ ye hear?” - -Sarah, a whey-faced girl whose arms and legs were set on at uncertain -angles, only nodded. She adored David with the unreasoning affection of -a dog, and had he taken to washing in whisky instead of merely drinking -it, she would have regarded his doing so as quite a right and proper -thing. - -When the local papers had finished Mr. Mottisfont’s obituary notices and -had lavished all their remaining stock of adjectives upon the funeral -arrangements, they proceeded to interest themselves in the terms of his -will. For once, old Mr. Mottisfont had done very much what was expected -of him. Local charities benefited and old servants were remembered. -Elizabeth Chantrey was left twenty-five thousand pounds, and everything -else went to Edward. “To David Blake I leave my sincere respect, he -having declined to receive a legacy.” - -David could almost see the old man grin as he wrote the words, could -almost hear him chuckle, “Very well, my highfalutin young man—into the -pillory with you.” - -The situation held a touch of sardonic humour beyond old Mr. -Mottisfont’s contriving, and the iron of it rusted into David’s soul. -Market Harford discussed the terms of the will with great interest. They -began to speculate as to what Elizabeth Chantrey would do. When it -transpired that she was going to remain on in the old house and be -joined there by Edward and Mary, there was quite a little buzz of talk. - -“I assure you he made it a condition—a _secret_ condition,” said old -Mrs. Codrington in her deep booming voice. “I have it from Mary herself. -He made it a condition.” - -It was quite impossible to disbelieve a statement made with so much -authority. Mrs. Codrington’s voice always stood her in good stead. It -had a solidity which served to prop up any shaky fact. Miss Dobell, to -whom she was speaking, sniffed, and felt a little out of it. She had -been Agatha Mottisfont’s great friend, and as such she felt that she -herself should have been the fountainhead of information. As soon as -Mrs. Codrington had departed Miss Hester Dobell put on her outdoor -things and went to call upon Mary Mottisfont. - -As it was a damp afternoon, she pinned up her skirts all round, and she -was still unpinning them upon Mary’s doorstep, when the door opened. - -“Miss Chantrey is with her sister? Oh, indeed! That is very nice, very -nice indeed. And Mrs. Mottisfont is seeing visitors, you say? Yes? Then -I will just walk in—just walk in.” - -Miss Dobell came into the drawing-room with a little fluttered run. Her -faded blue eyes were moist, but not so moist as to prevent her -perceiving that Mary wore a black dress which did not become her, and -that Elizabeth had on an old grey coat and skirt, with dark furs, and a -close felt hat which almost hid her hair. She greeted Mary very -affectionately and Elizabeth a shade less affectionately. - -“I hope you are well, Mary, my dear? Yes? That is good. These sad times -are very trying. And you, Elizabeth? I am pleased to find that you are -able to be out. I feared you were indisposed. Every one was saying, -‘Miss Chantrey must be indisposed, as she was not at the funeral.’ And I -feared it was the case.” - -“No, thank you, I am quite well,” said Elizabeth. - -Miss Dobell seated herself, smoothing down her skirt. It was of a very -bright blue, and she wore with it a little fawn-coloured jacket adorned -with a black and white braid, which was arranged upon it in loops and -spirals. She had on also a blue tie, fastened in a bow at her throat, -and an extremely oddly-shaped hat, from one side of which depended a -somewhat battered bunch of purple grapes. Beneath this rather -bacchanalian headgear her old, mild, straw-coloured face had all the -effect of an anachronism. - -“I am so glad to find you both. I am so glad to have the opportunity of -explaining how it was that I did not attend the funeral. It was a great -disappointment. Everything so impressive, by all accounts. Yes. But I -could not have attended without proper mourning. No. Oh, no, it would -have been impossible. Even though I was aware that poor dear Mr. -Mottisfont entertained very singular ideas upon the subject of mourning, -I know how much they grieved poor dear Agatha. They were very singular. -I suppose, my dear Elizabeth, that it is in deference to poor Mr. -Mottisfont’s wishes that you do not wear black. I said to every one at -once—oh, at _once_—‘depend upon it poor Mr. Mottisfont must have -expressed a _wish_. Otherwise Miss Chantrey would certainly wear -mourning—oh, certainly. After living so long in the house, and being -like a daughter to him, it would be only proper, only right and proper.’ -That is what I said, and I am sure I was right. It was his wish, was it -not?” - -“He did not like to see people in black,” said Elizabeth. - -“No,” said Miss Dobell in a flustered little voice. “Very strange, is it -not? But then so many of poor Mr. Mottisfont’s ideas were very strange. -I cannot help remembering how they used to grieve poor dear Agatha. And -his views—so sad—so very sad. But there, we must not speak of them now -that he is dead. No. Doubtless he knows better now. Oh, yes, we must -hope so. I do not know what made me speak of it. I should not have done -so. No, not now that he is dead! It was not right, or charitable. But I -really only intended to explain how it came about that I was not at the -funeral. It was a great deprivation—a very great deprivation, but I was -there in spirit—oh, yes, in spirit.” - -The purple grapes nodded a little in sympathy with Miss Dobell’s nervous -agitation. She put up a little hand, clothed in a brown woollen glove, -and steadied them. - -“I often think,” she said, “that I should do well to purchase one black -garment for such occasions as these. Now I should hardly have liked to -come here to-day, dressed in colours, had I not been aware of poor dear -Mr. Mottisfont’s views. It is awkward. Yes, oh, yes. But you see, my -dear Mary, in my youth, being one of a very large family, we were so -continually in mourning that I really hardly ever possessed any garment -of a coloured nature. When I was only six years old I can remember that -we were in mourning for my grandfather. In those days, my dears, little -girls, wore, well, they wore—little—hem—white trousers, quite long, you -know, reaching in fact to the ankle. Under a black frock it had quite a -garish appearance. And my dear mother, who was very particular about all -family observances, used to stitch black crape bands upon the -trouser-legs. It was quite a work. Oh, yes, I assure you. Then after my -grandfather, there was my great-uncle George, and on the other side of -the family my great-aunt Eliza. And then there were my uncles, and two -aunts, and quite a number of cousins. And, later on, my own dear -brothers and sisters. So that, as you may say, we were never out of -black at all, for our means were such that it was necessary to wear out -one garment before another could be purchased. And I became a little -weary of wearing black, my dears. So when my last dear sister died, I -went into colours. Not at once, oh, no!”—Miss Dobell became very much -shocked and agitated at the sound of her own words. “Oh, dear, no. Not, -of course, until after a full and proper period of mourning, but when -that was over I went into colours, and have never since possessed -anything black. You see, as I have no more relations, it is unnecessary -that I should be provided with mourning.” - -Elizabeth Chantrey left her sister’s house in rather a saddened mood. -She wondered if she too would ever be left derelict. Unmarried women -were often very lonely. Life went past them down other channels. They -missed their link with the generations to come, and as the new life -sprang up it knew them not, and they had neither part nor lot in it. -When she reached home she sat for a long while very still, forcing her -consciousness into a realisation of Life as a thing unbroken, one, -eternal. The peace of it came upon her, and the sadness passed. - - - - - CHAPTER VI - THE LETTER - - - Oh, you shall walk in the mummers’ train, - And dance for a beggar’s boon, - And wear as mad a motley - As any under the moon, - And you shall pay the piper— - But I will call the tune. - -Old Mr. Mottisfont had been dead for about a fortnight when the letter -arrived. David Blake found it upon his breakfast table when he came -downstairs. It was a Friday morning, and there was an east wind blowing. -David came into the dining-room wishing that there were no such thing as -breakfast, and there, propped up in front of his plate, was the letter. -He stared at it, and stared again. A series of sleepless or hag-ridden -nights are not the best preparation for a letter written in a dead man’s -hand and sealed with a dead man’s seal. If David’s hand was steady when -he picked up the letter it was because his will kept it steady, and for -no other reason. As he held it in his hand, Mrs. Havergill came bustling -in with toast and coffee. David passed her, went into his consulting -room and shut the door. - -“First he went red and then he went white,” she told Sarah, “and he -pushed past me as if I were a stock, or a post, or something of that -sort. I ’ope he ’asn’t caught one of them nasty fevers, down in some -slum. ’Tisn’t natural for a man to turn colour that way. There was only -one young man ever I knew as did it, William Jones his name was, and he -was the sexton’s son down at Dunnington. And he’d do it. Red one minute -and white the next, and then red again. And he went off in a galloping -decline, and broke his poor mother’s heart. And there’s their two graves -side by side in Dunnington Churchyard. Mr. Jones, he dug the graves -hisself, and never rightly held his head up after.” - -David Blake sat down at his table and spread out old Mr. Mottisfont’s -letter upon the desk in front of him. It was a long letter, written in a -clear, pointed handwriting, which was characteristic and unmistakable. - - “My dear David,”—wrote old Mr. Mottisfont,—“My dear David, I have just - written a letter to Edward—a blameless and beautiful letter—in which I - have announced my immediate, or, as one might say, approximate - intention of committing suicide by the simple expedient of first - putting arsenic into a cup of tea and then drinking the tea. I shall - send Edward for the tea, and I shall put the arsenic into it, under - his very nose. And Edward will be thinking of beetles, and will not - see me do it. I am prepared to bet my bottom dollar that he does not - see me do it. Edward’s letter, of which I enclose a copy, is the sort - of letter which one shows to coroners, and jurymen, and legal - advisers. Of course things may not have gone as far as that, but, on - the other hand, they may. There are evil-minded persons who may have - suspected Edward of having hastened my departure to a better world. - You may even have suspected him yourself, in which case, of course, my - dear David, this letter will be affording you a good deal of - pleasurable relief.” David clenched his hand and read on. “Edward’s - letter is for the coroner. It should arrive about a fortnight after my - death, if my valued correspondent, William Giles, of New York, does as - I have asked him. This letter is for you. Between ourselves, then, it - was that possible three years of yours that decided me. I couldn’t - stand it. I don’t believe in another world, and I’m damned if I’ll put - in three years’ hell in this one. Do you remember old Madden? I do, - and I’m not going to hang on like that, not to please any one, nor I’m - not going to be cut up in sections either. So now you know all about - it. I’ve just sent Edward for the tea. Poor Edward, it will hurt his - feelings very much to be suspected of polishing me off. By the way, - David, as a sort of last word—you’re no end of a damn fool—why don’t - you marry the right woman instead of wasting your time hankering after - the wrong one? That’s all. Here’s luck. - - “Yours. - “E. M. M.” - -David read the letter straight through without any change of expression. -When he came to the end he folded the sheets neatly, put them back in -the envelope, and locked the envelope away in a drawer. Then his face -changed suddenly. First, a great rush of colour came into it, and then -every feature altered under an access of blind and ungovernable anger. -He pushed back his chair and sprang up, but the impetus which had -carried him to his feet appeared to receive some extraordinary check. -His movement had been a very violent one, but all at once it passed into -rigidity. He stood with every muscle tense, and made neither sound nor -movement. Slowly the colour died out of his face. Then he took a step -backwards and dropped again into the chair. His eyes were fixed upon the -strip of carpet which lay between him and the writing-table. A small, -twisted scrap of paper was lying there. David Blake looked hard at the -paper, but he did not see it. What he saw was another torn and twisted -thing. - -A man’s professional honour is a very delicate thing. David had never -held his lightly. If he had violated it, he had done so because there -were great things in the balance. Mary’s happiness, Mary’s future, -Mary’s life. He had betrayed a trust because Mary asked it of him and -because there was so much in the balance. And it had all been illusion. -There had been no risk—no danger. Nothing but an old man’s last and -cruelest jest. And he, David, had been the old man’s dupe. A furious -anger surged in him. For nothing, it was all for nothing. He had -wrenched himself for nothing, forfeited his self-respect for nothing, -sold his honour for nothing. Mary had bidden him, and he had done her -bidding, and it was all for nothing. A little bleak sunlight came in at -the window and showed the worn patches upon the carpet. David could -remember that old brown carpet for as long as he could remember -anything. It had been in his father’s consulting room. The writing-table -had been there too. The room was full of memories of William Blake. Old -familiar words and looks came back to David as he sat there. He -remembered many little things, and, as he remembered, he despised -himself very bitterly. As the moments passed, so his self-contempt grew, -until it became unbearable. He rose, pushing his chair so that it fell -over with a crash, and went into the dining-room. - -Half an hour later Sarah put her head round the corner of the door and -announced, “Mr. Edward Mottisfont in the consulting room, sir.” David -Blake was sitting at the round table with a decanter in front of him. He -got up with a short laugh and went to Edward. - -Edward presented a ruffled but resigned appearance. He was agitated, but -beneath the agitation there was plainly evident a trace of melancholy -triumph. - -“I’ve had a letter,” he began. David stood facing him. - -“So have I,” he said. - -Edward’s wave of the hand dismissed as irrelevant all letters except his -own. “But mine—mine was from my uncle,” he exclaimed. - -“Exactly. He was obliging enough to send me a copy.” - -“You—you know,” said Edward. Then he searched his pockets, and -ultimately produced a folded letter. - -“You’ve had a letter like this? He’s told you? You know?” - -“That he’s played us the dirtiest trick on record? Yes, thanks, Edward, -I’ve been enjoying the knowledge for the best part of an hour.” - -Edward shook his head. - -“Of course he was mad,” he said. “I have often wondered if he was quite -responsible. He used to say such extraordinary things. If you remember, -I asked you about it once, and you laughed at me. But now, of course, -there is no doubt about it. His brain had become affected.” - -David’s lip twitched a little. - -“Mad? Oh, no, you needn’t flatter yourself, he wasn’t mad. I only hope -my wits may last as well. He wasn’t mad, but he’s made the biggest fools -of the lot of us—the biggest fools. Oh, Lord!—how he’d have laughed. He -set the stage, and called the cast, and who so ready as we? First -Murderer—Edward Mottisfont; Chief Mourner—Mary, his wife; and Tom Fool, -beyond all other Tom Fools, David Blake, M.D. My Lord, he never said a -truer word than when he wrote me down a damn fool!” - -David ended on a note of concentrated bitterness, and Edward stared at -him. - -“I would much rather believe he was out of his mind,” he said -uncomfortably. “And he is dead—after all, he’s dead.” - -“Yes,” said David grimly, “he’s dead.” - -“And thanks to you,” continued Edward, “there has been no scandal—or -publicity. It would really have been dreadful if it had all come out. -Most—most unpleasant. I know you didn’t wish me to say anything.” - -Edward began to rumple his hair wildly. “Mary told me, and of course I -know it’s beastly to be thanked, and all that, but I can’t help saying -that—in fact—I _am_ awfully grateful. And I’m awfully thankful that the -matter has been cleared up so satisfactorily. If we hadn’t got this -letter, well—I don’t like to say such a thing—but any one of us might -have come to suspect the other. It doesn’t sound quite right to say it,” -pursued Edward apologetically, “but it might have happened. You might -have suspected me—oh, I don’t mean really—I am only supposing, you -know—or I might have suspected you. And now it’s all cleared up, and no -harm done, and as to my poor old uncle, he was mad. People who commit -suicide are always mad. Every one knows that.” - -“Oh, have it your own way,” said David Blake. “He was mad, and now -everything is comfortably arranged, and we can all settle down with -nothing on our minds, and live happily ever after.” - -There was a savage sarcasm in his voice, which he did not trouble to -conceal. - -“And now, look here,” he went on with a sudden change of manner. He -straightened himself and looked squarely at Edward Mottisfont. “Those -letters have got to be kept.” - -“Now I should have thought—” began Edward, but David broke in almost -violently. - -“For Heaven’s sake, don’t start thinking, Edward.” He said: “Just you -listen to me. These letters have got to be kept. They’ve got to sit in a -safe at a lawyer’s. We’ll seal ’em up in the presence of witnesses, and -send ’em off. We’re not out of the wood yet. If this business were ever -to leak out—and, after all, there are four of us in it, and two of them -are women—if it were ever to leak out, we should want these letters to -save our necks. Yes—our necks. Good Lord, Edward, did you never realise -your position? Did you never realise that any jury in the world would -have hanged you on the evidence? It was damning—absolutely damning. And -I come in as accessory after the fact. No, thank you, I think we’ll keep -the letters, until we’re past hanging. And there’s another thing—how -many people have you told? Mary, of course?” - -“Yes, Mary, but no one else,” said Edward. - -David made an impatient movement. - -“If you’ve told her, you’ve told her,” he said. “Now what you’ve got to -do is this: you’ve got to rub it into Mary that it’s just as important -for her to hold her tongue now as it was before the letter came. She was -safe as long as she thought your neck was in danger, but do, for -Heaven’s sake, get it into her head that I’m dead damned broke, if it -ever gets out that I helped to hush up a case that looked like murder -and turned out to be suicide. The law wouldn’t hang me, but I should -probably hang myself. I’d be _broke_. Rub that in.” - -“She may have told Elizabeth,” said Edward hesitatingly. “I’m afraid she -may have told Elizabeth by now.” - -“Elizabeth doesn’t talk,” said David shortly. - -“Nor does Mary.” Edward’s tone was rather aggrieved. - -“Oh, no woman ever talks,” said David. - -He laughed harshly, and Edward went away with his feelings of gratitude -a little chilled, and a faint suspicion in his mind that David had been -drinking. - - - - - CHAPTER VII - ELIZABETH CHANTREY - - - Whatever ways we walk in and whatever dreams come true, - You still shall say, “God speed” to me, and I, “God go with you.” - -Some days later Elizabeth Chantrey went away for about a month, to pay a -few long-promised visits. She went first to an old school-friend, then -to some relations, and lastly to the Mainwarings. Agneta Mainwaring had -moved to town after her mother’s death, and was sharing a small flat -with her brother Louis, in a very fashionable quarter. She had been -engaged for about six months to Douglas Strange, and was expecting to -marry him as soon as he returned from his latest, and most hazardous -journey across Equatorial Africa. - -“I thought you were never coming,” said Agneta, as they sat in the -firelight, Louis on the farther side of the room, close to the lamp, -with his head buried in a book. - -“Never, never, _never_!” repeated Agneta, stroking the tail of -Elizabeth’s white gown affectionately and nodding at every word. She was -sitting on the curly black hearth-rug, a small vivid creature in a -crimson dress. Agneta Mainwaring was little and dark, passionate, -earnest, and frivolous. A creature of variable moods and intense -affections, steadfast only where she loved. Elizabeth was watching the -firelight upon the big square sapphire ring which she always wore. She -looked up from it now and smiled at Agneta, just a smile of the eyes. - -“Well, I am here,” she said, and Agneta went on stroking, and exclaimed: - -“Oh, it’s so good to have you.” - -“The world not been going nicely?” said Elizabeth. - -Agneta frowned. - -“Oh, so, so. Really, Lizabeth, being engaged to an explorer is the -_devil_. Sometimes I get a letter two days running, and sometimes I -don’t get one for two months, and I’ve just been doing the two months’ -stretch.” - -“Then,” said Elizabeth, “you’ll soon be getting two letters together, -Neta.” - -“Oh, well, I did get one this morning, or I shouldn’t be talking about -it,” Agneta flushed and laughed, then frowned again. Three little -wrinkles appeared upon her nose. “What worries me is that I am such a -hopeless materialist about letters. Letters are rank materialism. Rank. -Two people as much in touch with one another as Douglas and I oughtn’t -to need letters. I’ve no business to be dependent on them. We ought to -be able to reach one another without them. Of course we do—_really_—but -we ought to know that we are doing it. We ought to be conscious of it. -I’ve no business to be dependent on wretched bits of paper, and -miserable penfuls of ink. I ought to be able to do without them. And I’m -a blatant materialist. I can’t.” - -Elizabeth laughed a little. - -“I shouldn’t worry, if I were you. It’ll all come. You’ll get past -letters when you’re ready to get past them. I don’t think your -materialism is of a very heavy order. It will go away if you don’t fuss -over it. We’ll all get past letters in time.” - -Agneta tossed her head. - -“Oh, I don’t suppose there’ll be any letters in heaven,” she said. “I’m -sure I trust not. My idea is that we shall sit on nice comfy clouds, and -play at telephones with thought-waves.” - -Louis shut his book with a bang. - -“Really, Agneta, if that isn’t materialism.” He came over and sat down -on the hearth-rug beside his sister. They were not at all alike. Where -Agneta was small, Louis was large. Her hair and eyes were black, and his -of a dark reddish-brown. - -“I didn’t know you were listening,” she said. - -“Well, I wasn’t. I just heard, and I give you fair warning, Agneta, that -if there are going to be telephones in your heaven, I’m going somewhere -else. I shall have had enough of them here. Hear the bells, the silver -bells, the tintinabulation that so musically swells. From the bells, -bells, bells, bells—bells, bells, bells.” - -Agneta first pulled Louis’s hair, and then put her fingers in her ears. - -“Stop! stop this minute! Oh, Louis, please. Oh, Lizabeth, make him stop. -That thing always drives me perfectly crazy, and he knows it.” - -“All right. It’s done. I’ve finished. I’m much more merciful than Poe. I -only wanted to point out that if that was your idea of heaven, it wasn’t -mine.” - -“Oh, good gracious!” cried Agneta suddenly. She sprang up and darted to -the door. - -“What’s the matter?” - -“I’ve absolutely and entirely forgotten to order any food for to-morrow. -Any food whatever. All right, Louis, you won’t laugh when you have to -lunch on bread and water, and Lizabeth takes the afternoon train back to -her horrible Harford place, because we have starved her.” - -Louis gave a resigned sigh and leaned comfortably back against an empty -chair. For some moments he gazed dreamily at Elizabeth. Then he said: -“How nicely your hair shines. I like you all white and gold like that. -If Browning had known you he needn’t have written. ‘What’s become of all -the gold, used to hang and brush their bosoms.’ You’ve got your share.” - -“But my hair isn’t golden at all, Louis,” said Elizabeth. - -Louis frowned. - -“Yes, it is,” he said, “it’s gold without the dross—gold spiritualised. -And you ought to know better than to pretend. You know as well as I do -that your hair is a thing of beauty. The real joy for ever sort. It’s no -credit to you. You didn’t make it. And you ought to be properly grateful -for being allowed to walk about with a real live halo. Why should you -pretend? If it wasn’t pretence, you wouldn’t take so much trouble about -doing it. You’d just twist it up on a single hairpin.” - -“It wouldn’t stay up,” said Elizabeth. - -“I wish it wouldn’t. Oh, Lizabeth, won’t you let it down just for once?” - -“No, I won’t,” said Elizabeth, with pleasant firmness. - -Louis fell into a gloom. His brown eyes darkened. - -“I don’t see why,” he said; and Elizabeth laughed at him. - -“Oh, Louis, will you ever grow up?” - -Louis assumed an air of dignity. “My last book,” he said, “was not only -very well reviewed by competent and appreciative persons, but I would -have you to know that it also brought me in quite a large and solid -cheque. And my poems have had what is known as a _succès d’estime_, -which means that you and your publisher lose money, but the critics say -nice things. These facts, my dear madam, all point to my having emerged -from the nursery.” - -“Go on emerging, Louis,” said Elizabeth, with a little nod of -encouragement. Louis appeared to be plunged in thought. He frowned, made -calculations upon his fingers, and finally inquired: - -“How many times have I proposed to you, Lizabeth?” - -Elizabeth looked at him with amusement. - -“I really never counted. Do you want me to?” - -“No. I think I’ve got it right. I think it must be eight times, because -I know I began when I was twenty, and I don’t think I’ve missed a year -since. This,” said Louis, getting on to his knees and coming nearer, -“this will be number nine.” - -“Oh, Louis, don’t,” said Elizabeth. - -“And why not?” - -“Because it really isn’t kind. Do you want me to go away to-morrow? If -you propose to me, and I refuse you, every possible rule of propriety -demands that I should immediately return to Market Harford. And I don’t -want to.” Louis hesitated. - -“How long are you staying?” - -“Nice, hospitable young man. Agneta has asked me to stay for a -fortnight.” - -“All right.” Louis sat back upon his heels. “Let’s talk about books. -Have you read Pender’s last? It’s a wonder—just a wonder.” - - * * * * * * * * - -Elizabeth enjoyed her fortnight’s stay very much. She was glad to be -away from Market Harford, and she was glad to be with Agneta and Louis. -She saw one or two good plays, had a great deal of talk of the kind she -had been starving for, and met a good many people who were doing -interesting things. On the last day of her visit Agneta said: - -“So you go back to Market Harford for a year. Is it because Mr. -Mottisfont asked you to?” - -“Partly.” - -There was a little pause. - -“What are you going to do with your life, Lizabeth?” - -Elizabeth looked steadily at the blue of her ring. Her eyes were very -deep. - -“I don’t know, Neta. I’m waiting to be told.” - -Agneta nodded, and looked understanding. “And if you aren’t told?” - -“I think I shall be.” - -“But if not?” - -“Well, that would be a telling in itself. If nothing happens before the -year is up, I shall come up to London, and find some work. There’s -plenty.” - -“Yes,” said Agneta. She put her little pointed chin in her hands and -gazed at Elizabeth. There was something almost fierce in her eyes. She -knew very little about David Blake, but she guessed a good deal more. -And there were moments when it would have given her a great deal of -pleasure to have spoken her mind on the subject. - -They sat for a little while in silence, and then Louis came in, and -wandered about the room until Agneta exclaimed at him: - -“Do, for goodness’ sake, sit down, Louis! You give me the fidgets.” - -Louis drifted over to the hearth. “Have you ordered any meals,” he said, -with apparent irrelevance. - -“Tea, dinner, breakfast, lunch, tea, and dinner again.” Agneta’s tone -was vicious. “Is that enough for you?” - -“Very well, then, run away and write a letter to Douglas. I believe you -are neglecting him, and there’s a nice fire in the dining-room.” - -Agneta rose with outraged dignity. “I don’t write my love-letters to -order, thank you,” she said “and you needn’t worry about Douglas. If you -want me to go away, I don’t mind taking a book into the dining-room. -Though, if you’ll take my advice—but you won’t—so I’ll just leave you to -find out for yourself.” - -Louis shut the door after her, and came back to Elizabeth. - -“Number nine,” he observed. - -“No, Louis, don’t.” - -“I’m going to. You are in for it, Lizabeth. Your visit is over, so you -can’t accuse me of spoiling it. Number nine, and a fortnight overdue. -Here goes. For the ninth time of asking, will you marry me?” - -Elizabeth shook her head at him. - -“No, Louis, I won’t,” she said. - -Louis looked at her steadily. - -“This is the ninth time I have asked you. How many times have you taken -me seriously, Lizabeth? Not once.” - -“I should have been so very sorry to take you seriously, you see, Louis -dear,” said Elizabeth, speaking very sweetly and gently. - -Louis Mainwaring walked to the window and stood there in silence for a -minute or two. Elizabeth began to look troubled. When he turned round -and came back his face was rather white. - -“No,” he said, “you’ve never taken me seriously—never once. But it’s -been serious enough, for me. You never thought it went deep—but it did. -Some people hide their deep things under silence—every one can -understand that. Others hide theirs under words—a great many light -words. Jests. That’s been my way. It’s a better mask than the other, but -I don’t want any mask between us now. I want you to understand. We’ve -always talked about my being in love with you. We’ve always laughed -about it, but now I want you to understand. It’s me, the whole of me—all -there is—all there ever will be——” - -He was stammering now and almost incoherent. His hand shook. Elizabeth -got up quickly. - -“Oh, Louis dear, Louis dear,” she said. She put her arm half round him, -and for a moment he leaned his head against her shoulder. When he raised -it he was trying to smile. - -“Oh, Lady of Consolation,” he said, and then, “how you would spoil a man -whom you loved! There, Lizabeth, you needn’t worry about it. You see, -I’ve always known that you would never love me.” - -“Oh, Louis, but I love you very much, only not just like that.” - -“Yes, I know. I’ve always known it and I’ve always known that there was -some one else whom you did love—just like that. What I’ve been waiting -for is to see it making you happy. And it doesn’t make you happy. It -never has. And, lately, there’s been something fresh—something that has -hurt. You’ve been very unhappy. As soon as you came here I knew. What is -it? Can’t you tell me?” - -Elizabeth sat down again, but she did not turn her eyes away. - -“No, Louis, I don’t think I can,” she said. - -Louis’s chin lifted. - -“Does Agneta know?” he asked with a quick flash of jealousy. - -“No, she doesn’t,” said Elizabeth, reprovingly. “And she has never -asked.” - -Louis laughed. - -“That’s for my conscience, I suppose,” he said, “but I don’t mind. I can -bear it a lot better if you haven’t told Agneta. And look here, -Lizabeth, even if you never tell me a single word, I shall always know -things about you—things that matter. I’ve always known when things went -wrong with you, and I always shall.” - -It was obviously quite as an afterthought that he added: - -“Do you mind?” - -“No,” said Elizabeth, slowly, “I don’t think I mind. But don’t look too -close, Louis dear—not just now. It’s kinder not to.” - -“All right,” said Louis. - -Then he came over and stood beside her. “Lizabeth, if there’s anything I -can do—any sort or kind of thing—you’re to let me know. You will, won’t -you? You’re the best thing in my world, and anything that I can do for -you would be the best day’s work I ever did. If you’ll just clamp on to -that we shall be all right.” - -Elizabeth looked up, but before she could speak, he bent down, kissed -her hastily on the cheek, and went out of the room. - -Elizabeth put her face in her hands and cried. - -“I suppose Louis has been proposing to you again,” was Agneta’s rather -cross comment. “Lizabeth, what on earth are you crying for?” - -“Oh, Neta, do you hate me?” said Elizabeth in a very tired voice. - -Agneta knelt down beside her, and began to pinch her arm. - -“I would if I could, but I can’t,” she observed viciously. “I’ve tried, -of course, but I can’t do it by myself, and it’s not the sort of thing -you can expect religion to be any help in. As if you didn’t know that -Louis and I simply love your littlest finger-nail, and that we’d do -anything for you, and that we think it an _honour_ to be your friends, -and—oh, Lizabeth, if you don’t stop crying this very instant, I shall -pour all the water out of that big flower-vase down the back of your -neck!” - - - - - CHAPTER VIII - EDWARD SINGS - - - “What ails you, Andrew, my man’s son, - That you should look so white, - That you should neither eat by day, - Nor take your rest by night?” - - “I have no rest when I would sleep, - No peace when I would rise, - Because of Janet’s yellow hair, - Because of Janet’s eyes.” - -When Elizabeth Chantrey returned to Market Harford, she did so with -quite a clear understanding of the difficulties that lay before her. -Edward had spoken to her of his uncle’s wishes, and begged her to fulfil -them by remaining on in the old house as his and Mary’s guest. -Apparently it never occurred to him that the situation presented any -difficulty, or that few women would find it agreeable to be guest where -they had been mistress. Elizabeth was under no illusions. She knew that -she was putting herself in an almost impossible position, but she had -made up her mind to occupy that position for a year. She had given David -Blake so much already, that a little more did not seem to matter. -Another year, a little more pain, were all in the day’s work. She had -given many years and had suffered much pain. Through the years, through -the pain, there had been at the back of her mind the thought, “If he -needed me, and I were not here.” Elizabeth had always known that some -day he would need her—not love her—but need her. And for that she -waited. - -Elizabeth returned to Market Harford on a fine November afternoon. The -sun was shining, after two days’ rain, and Elizabeth walked up from the -station, leaving her luggage to the carrier. It was quite a short walk, -but she met so many acquaintances that she was some time reaching home. -First, it was old Dr. Bull with his square face and fringe of stiff grey -beard who waved his knobbly stick at her, and waddled across the road. -He was a great friend of Elizabeth’s, and he greeted her warmly. - -“Now, now, Miss Elizabeth, so you’ve not quite deserted us, hey? Glad to -be back, hey?” - -“Yes, very glad,” said Elizabeth, smiling. - -“And every one will be glad to see you, all your friends. Hey? I’m glad, -Edward and Mary’ll be glad, and David—hey? David’s a friend of yours, -isn’t he? Used to be, I know, in the old days. Prodigious allies you -were. Always in each other’s pockets. Same books—same walks—same -measles—” he laughed heartily, and then broke off. “David wants his -friends,” he said, “for the matter of that, every one wants friends, -hey? But you get David to come and see you, my dear. He won’t want much -persuading, hey? Well, well, I won’t keep you. I mustn’t waste your -time. Now that I’m idle, I forget that other people have business, hey? -And I see Miss Dobell coming over to speak to you. Now, I wouldn’t waste -her time for the world. Not for the world, my dear Miss Elizabeth. -Good-day, good-day, good-day.” - -His eyes twinkled as he raised his hat, and he went off at an -astonishing rate, as Miss Dobell picked her way across the road. - -“Such a fine man, Dr. Bull, I always think,” she remarked in her precise -little way. Every word she uttered had the effect of being enclosed in a -separate little water-tight compartment. “I really miss him, if I may -say so. Oh, yes; and I am not the only one of his old patients who feels -it a deprivation to have lost his services. Oh, no. Young men are so -unreliable. They begin well, but they are unreliable. Oh, yes, sadly -unreliable,” repeated Miss Dobell with emphasis. - -She and Elizabeth were crossing the bridge as she spoke. Away to the -left, above the water, Elizabeth could see the sunlight reflected from -the long line of windows which faced the river. The trees before them -were almost leafless, and it was easy to distinguish one house from -another. David Blake lived in the seventh house, and Miss Dobell was -gazing very pointedly in that direction, and nodding her head. - -“I dislike gossip,” she said. “I set my face against gossip, my dear -Elizabeth, I do not approve of it. I do not talk scandal nor permit it -to be talked in my presence. But I am not blind, or deaf. Oh, no. We -should be thankful when we have all our faculties, and mine are -unimpaired, oh, yes, quite unimpaired, although I am not quite as young -as you are.” - -“Yes?” said Elizabeth. - -Miss Dobell became rather flustered. “I have a little errand,” she said -hurriedly. “A little errand, my dear Elizabeth. I will not keep you, oh, -no, I must not keep you now. I shall see you later, I shall come and see -you, but I will not detain you now. Oh, no, Mary will be waiting for -you.” - -“So you have really come,” said Mary a little later. - -After kissing her sister warmly, she had allowed a slight air of offence -to appear. “I had begun to think you had missed your train. I am afraid -the tea will be rather strong, I had it made punctually, you see. I was -beginning to think that you hadn’t been able to tear yourself away from -Agneta after all.” - -“Now, Molly—” said Elizabeth, protestingly. - -But Mary was not to be turned aside. “Of course you would much rather -have stayed, I know that. Will you have bread and butter or tea-cake? -When Mr. Mottisfont died, I said to myself, ‘Now she’ll go and live with -Agneta, and she might just as well be _dead_.’ That’s why I was quite -pleased when Edward came and told me that Mr. Mottisfont had said you -were to stay on here for a year. Of course, as I said to Edward, he had -no right to make any such condition, and if it had been any one but you, -I shouldn’t have liked it at all. That’s what I said to Edward—‘It -really isn’t fair, but Elizabeth isn’t like other people. She won’t try -and run the house over my head, and she won’t want to be always with -us.’ You see, married people do like to have their evenings, but as I -said to Edward, ‘Elizabeth would much rather be in her own little room, -with a book, than sitting with us.’ And you would, wouldn’t you?” - -“Oh, yes,” said Elizabeth laughing. - -The spectacle of Mary being tactful always made her laugh. - -“Of course when any one comes in in the evening—that’s different. Of -course you’ll join us then. But you’d rather be here as a rule, wouldn’t -you?” - -“Oh, you know I love my little room. It was nice of you to have tea -here, Molly,” said Elizabeth. - -“Yes, I thought you’d like it. And then I wanted the rest of the house -to be a surprise to you. When we’ve had tea I want to show you -everything. Of course your rooms haven’t been touched, you said you’d -rather they weren’t; but everything else has been done up, and I really -think it’s very nice. I’ve been quite excited over it.” - -“Give me a little more tea, Molly,” said Elizabeth. - -As she leaned forward with her cup in her hand, she asked casually: -“Have you seen much of David lately?” - -“Oh, yes,” said Mary, “he’s here very often.” She pursed her lips a -little. “I think David is a _very_ curious person, Liz. I don’t -understand him at all. I think he is very difficult to understand.” - -“Is he, Molly?” - -Elizabeth looked at her sister with something between anxiety and -amusement. - -“Yes, very. He’s quite changed, it seems to me. I could understand his -being upset just after Mr. Mottisfont’s death. We were all upset then. I -am sure I never felt so dreadful in my life. It made me quite ill. But -afterwards,” Mary’s voice dropped to a lower tone, “afterwards when the -letter had come, and everything was cleared up—well, you’d have thought -he would have been all right again, wouldn’t you? And instead, he has -just gone on getting more and more unlike himself. You know, he was so -odd when Edward went to see him that, really,”—Mary hesitated—“Edward -thought—well, he wondered whether David had been drinking.” - -“Nonsense, Molly!” - -“Oh, it’s not only Edward—everybody has noticed how changed he is. Have -you got anything to eat, Liz? Have some of the iced cake; it’s from a -recipe of Miss Dobell’s and it’s quite nice. What was I saying? Oh, -about David—well, it’s true, Liz—Mrs. Havergill told Markham; now, Liz, -what’s the sense of your looking at me like that? Of _course_ I -shouldn’t _dream_ of talking to an ordinary servant, but considering -Markham has known us since we were about two—Markham takes an interest, -a real interest, and when Mrs. Havergill told her that she was afraid -David was taking a great deal more than was good for him, and she wished -his friends could stop it, why, Markham naturally told me. She felt it -her duty. I expect she thought I might have an _influence_—as I hope I -have. That’s why I encourage David to come here. I think it’s so good -for him. I think it makes such a difference to young men if they have a -nice home to come to, and it’s very good for them to see married people -fond of each other, and happy together, like Edward and I are. Don’t you -think so?” - -“I don’t know, Molly,” said Elizabeth. “Are people talking about David?” - -“Yes, they are. Of course I haven’t said a word, but people are noticing -how different he is. I don’t see how they can help it, and yesterday -when I was having tea with Mrs. Codrington, Miss Dobell began to hint -all sorts of things, and there was quite a scene. You know how devoted -Mrs. Codrington is! She really quite frightened poor little Miss Hester. -I can tell you, I was glad that I hadn’t said anything. Mrs. Codrington -always frightens me. She looks so large, and she speaks so loud. I was -quite glad to get away.” - -“I like Mrs. Codrington,” said Elizabeth. - -“Oh, well, so do I. But I like her better when she’s not angry. Oh, by -the way, Liz, talking of David, do you know that I met Katie Ellerton -yesterday, and—how long is it since Dr. Ellerton died?” - -“More than two years.” - -“Well, she has gone quite out of mourning. You know how she went on at -first—she was going to wear weeds always, and never change anything, and -as to ever going into colours again, she couldn’t imagine how any one -could do it! And I met her out yesterday in quite a bright blue coat and -skirt. What do you think of that?” - -“Oh, Molly, you’ve been going out to too many tea-parties! Why shouldn’t -poor Katie go out of mourning? I think it’s very sensible of her. I have -always been so sorry for her.” - -Mary assumed an air of lofty virtue. “I _used_ to be. But now, I don’t -approve of her at all. She’s just doing her very best to catch David -Blake. Every one can see it. If that wretched little Ronnie has so much -as a thorn in his finger, she sends for David. She’s making herself the -laughing-stock of the place. I think it’s simply horrid. I don’t approve -of second marriages at all. I never do see how any really nice-minded -woman can marry again. And it’s not only the marrying, but to run after -a man, like that—it’s quite dreadful! I am sure David would be most -unhappy if he married her. It would be a dreadfully bad thing for him.” - -Elizabeth leaned back in her chair. - - “How sweet the hour that sets us free - To sip our scandal, and our tea,” - -she observed. - -Mary coloured. - -“I never talk scandal,” she said in an offended voice, and Elizabeth -refrained from telling her that Miss Dobell had made the same remark. - -All the time that Mary was showing her over the house, Elizabeth was -wondering whether it would be such a dreadfully bad thing for David to -marry Katie Ellerton. Ronnie was a dear little boy, and David loved -children, and Katie—Katie was one of those gentle, clinging creatures -whom men adore and spoil. If she cared for him, and he grew to care for -her—Elizabeth turned the possibilities over and over in her mind, -wondering—— - -She wondered still more that evening, when David Blake came in after -dinner. He had changed. Elizabeth looked at him and saw things in his -face which she only half understood. He looked ill and tired, but both -illness and weariness appeared to her to be incidental. Behind them -there was something else, something much stronger and yet more subtle, -some deflection of the man’s whole nature. - -Edward and Mary did not disturb themselves at David’s coming. They were -at the piano, and Edward nodded casually, whilst Mary merely waved her -hand and smiled. - -David said “How do you do?” to Elizabeth, and sat down by the fire. He -was in evening dress, but somehow he looked out of place in Mary’s new -white drawing-room. Edward had put in electric light all over the house, -and here it shone through rosy shades. The room was all rose and -white—roses on the chintz, a frieze of roses upon the walls, and a -rose-coloured carpet on the floor. Only the two lamps over the piano -were lighted. They shone on Mary. She was playing softly impassioned -chords in support of Edward, who exercised a pleasant tenor voice upon -the lays of Lord Henry Somerset. Mary played accompaniments with much -sentiment. Occasionally, when the music was easy, she shot an adoring -glance at Edward, a glance to which he duly responded, when not -preoccupied with a note beyond his compass. - -Elizabeth was tolerant of lovers, and Mary’s little sentimentalities, -like Mary’s airs of virtuous matronhood, were often quite amusing to -watch; but to-night, with David Blake as a fourth person in the room, -Elizabeth found amusement merging into irritation and irritation into -pain. Except for that lighted circle about the piano, the room lay all -in shadow. There was a soft dusk upon it, broken every now and then by -gleams of firelight. David Blake sat back in his chair, and the dimness -of the room hid his face, except when the fire blazed up and showed -Elizabeth how changed it was. She had been away only a month, and he -looked like a stranger. His attitude was that of a very weary man. His -head rested on his hand, and he looked all the time at Mary in the rosy -glow which bathed her. When she looked up at Edward, he saw the look, -saw the light shine down into her dark eyes and sparkle there. Not a -look, not a smile was lost, and whilst he watched Mary, Elizabeth -watched him. Elizabeth was very glad of the dimness that shielded her. -It was a relief to drop the mask of a friendly indifference, to be able -to watch David with no thought except for him. Her heart yearned to him -as never before. She divined in him a great hunger—a great pain. And -this hunger, this pain, was hers. The longing to give, to assuage, to -comfort, welled up in her with a suddenness and strength that were -almost startling. Elizabeth took her thought in a strong hand, forcing -it along accustomed channels from the plane where love may be thwarted, -to that other plane, where love walks unashamed and undeterred, and -gives her gifts, no man forbidding her. Elizabeth sat still, with folded -hands. Her love went out to David, like one ripple in a boundless, -golden sea, from which they drew their being, and in which they lived -and moved. A sense of light and peace came down upon her. - -Edward’s voice was filling the room. It was quite a pleasant voice, and -if it never varied into expression, at least it never went out of tune, -and every word was distinct. - - “Ah, well, I know the sadness - That tears and rends your heart, - How that from all life’s gladness - You stand far, far apart—” - -sang Edward, in tones of the most complete unconcern. - -It was Mary who supplied all the sentiment that could be wished for. She -dwelt on the chords with an almost superfluous degree of feeling, and -her eyes were quite moist. - -At any other time this combination of Edward and Lord Henry Somerset -would have entertained Elizabeth not a little, but just now there was no -room in her thoughts for any one but David. The light that was upon her -gave her vision. She looked upon David with eyes that had grown very -clear, and as she looked she understood. That he had changed, -deteriorated, she had seen at the first glance. Now she discerned in him -the cause of such an alteration—something wrenched and twisted. The -scene in her little brown room rose vividly before her. When David had -allowed Mary to sway him, he had parted with something, which he could -not now recall. He had broken violently through his own code, and the -broken thing was failing him at every turn. Mary’s eyes, Mary’s voice, -Mary’s touch—these things had waked in him something beyond the old -passion. The emotional strain of that scene had carried him beyond his -self-control. A feverish craving was upon him, and his whole nature -burned in the flame of it. - -Edward had passed to another song. - -“One more kiss from my darling one,” he sang in a slightly perfunctory -manner. His voice was getting tired, and he seemed a little -absent-minded for a lover who was about to plunge into Eternity. The -manner in which he requested death to come speedily was a trifle -unconvincing. As he began the next verse David made a sudden movement. A -log of wood upon the fire had fallen sharply, and there was a quick -upward rush of flame. David looked round, facing the glow, and as he did -so his eyes met Elizabeth’s. Just for one infinitesimal moment something -seemed to pass from her to him. It was one of those strange moments -which are not moments of time at all, and are therefore not subject to -time’s laws. Elizabeth Chantrey’s eyes were full of peace. Full, too, of -a passionate gentleness. It was a gentleness which for an instant -touched the sore places in David’s soul with healing, and for that one -instant David had a glimpse of something very strong, very tender, that -was his, and yet incomprehensibly withheld from his understanding. It -was one of those instantaneous flashes of thought—one of those gleams of -recognition which break upon the dulness of material sense. Before and -after—darkness, the void, the unstarred night, a chaos of things -forgotten. But for one dazzled instant, the lightning stab of Truth, -unrealised. - -Elizabeth did not look away, or change colour. The peace was upon her -still. She smiled a little, and as the moment passed, and the dark -closed in again upon David’s mind, she saw a spark of rather savage -humour come into his eyes. - -“Then come Eternity——” - -“No, that’s enough, Mary, I’m absolutely hoarse,” remarked Edward, all -in the same breath, and with very much the same expression. - -Mary got up, and began to shut the piano. The light shone on her white, -uncovered neck. - - - - - CHAPTER IX - MARY IS SHOCKED - - - Through fire and frost and snow - I see you go, - I see your feet that bleed, - My heart bleeds too. - I, who would give my very soul for you, - What can I do? - I cannot help your need. - -That first evening was one of many others, all on very much the same -pattern. David Blake would come in, after tea, or after dinner, sit for -an hour in almost total silence, and then go away again. Every time that -he came, Elizabeth’s heart sank a little lower. This change, this -obscuring of the man she loved, was an unreality, but how some -unrealities have power to hurt us. - -December brought extra work to the Market Harford doctors. There was an -epidemic of measles amongst the children, combined with one of influenza -amongst their elders. David Blake stood the extra strain but ill. He was -slipping steadily down the hill. His day’s work followed only too often -upon a broken or sleepless night, and to get through what had to be -done, or to secure some measure of sleep, he had recourse more and more -frequently to stimulant. If no patient of his ever saw him the worse for -drink, he was none the less constantly under its influence. If it did -not intoxicate him, he came to rely upon its stimulus, and to distrust -his unaided strength. He could no longer count upon his nerve, and the -fear of all that nerve failure may involve haunted him continually and -drove him down. - -“Look here, Blake, you want a change. Why don’t you go away?” said Tom -Skeffington. It was a late January evening, and he had dropped in for a -smoke and a chat. “The press of work is over now, and I could very well -manage the lot for a fortnight or three weeks. Will you go?” - -“No, I won’t,” said David shortly. - -Young Skeffington paused. It was not much after six in the evening, and -David’s face was flushed, his hand unsteady. - -“Look here, Blake,” he said, and then stopped, because David was staring -at him out of eyes that had suddenly grown suspicious. - -“Well?” said David, still staring. - -“Well, I should go away if I were you—go to Switzerland, do some winter -sports. Get a thorough change. Come back yourself again.” - -There was ever so slight an emphasis on the last few words, and David -flashed into sudden anger. - -“Mind your own business, and be damned to you, Skeffington,” he cried. - -Tom Skeffington shrugged his shoulders. - -“Oh, certainly,” he said, and made haste to be gone. - -Blake in this mood was quite impracticable. He had no mind for a scene. - -David sat on, with a tumbler at his elbow. So they wanted him out of the -way. That was the third person who had told him he needed a change—the -third in one week. Edward was one, and old Dr. Bull, and now -Skeffington. Yes, of course, Skeffington would like him out of the way, -so as to get all the practice into his own hands. Edward too. Was it -this morning, or yesterday morning, that Edward had asked him when he -was going to take a holiday? Now he came to think of it, it was -yesterday morning. And he supposed that Edward wanted him out of the way -too. Perhaps he went too often to Edward’s house. David began to get -angry. Edward was an ungrateful hound. “Damned ungrateful,” said David’s -muddled brain. The idea of going to see Mary began to present itself to -him. If Edward did not like it, Edward could lump it. He had been told -to come whenever he liked. Very well, he liked now. Why shouldn’t he? - -He got up and went out into the cold. Then, when he was half-way up the -High Street he remembered that Edward had gone away for a couple of -days. It occurred to him as a very agreeable circumstance. Mary would be -alone, and they would have a pleasant, friendly time together. Mary -would sit in the rosy light and play to him, not to Edward, and sing in -that small sweet voice of hers—not to Edward, but to him. - -It was a cold, crisp night, and the frosty air heightened the effect of -the stimulant which he had taken. He had left his own house flushed, -irritable, and warm, but he arrived at the Mottisfonts’ as unmistakably -drunk as a man may be who is still upon his legs. - -He brushed past Markham in the hall before she had time to do more than -notice that his manner was rather odd, and she called after him that -Mrs. Mottisfont was in the drawing-room. - -David went up the stairs walking quite steadily, but his brain, under -the influence of one idea, appeared to work in a manner entirely -divorced from any volition of his. - -Mary was sitting before the fire, in the rosy glow of his imagining. She -wore a dim purple gown, with a border of soft dark fur. A book lay upon -her lap, but she was not reading. Her head, with its dark curls, rested -against the rose-patterned chintz of the chair. Her skin was as white as -a white rose leaf. Her lips as softly red as real red roses. A little -amethyst heart hung low upon her bosom and caught the light. There was a -bunch of violets at her waist. The room was sweet with them. - -Mary looked up half startled as David Blake came in. He shut the door -behind him, with a push, and she was startled outright when she saw his -face. He looked at her with glazed eyes, and smiled a meaningless and -foolish smile. - -“Edward is out,” said Mary, “he is away.” And then she wished that she -had said anything else. She looked at the bell, and wondered where -Elizabeth was. Elizabeth had said something about going out—one of her -sick people. - -“Yes—out,” said David, still smiling. “That’s why I’ve come. He’s -out—Edward’s out—gone away. You’ll play to me—not to Edward—to-night. -You’ll sit in this nice pink light and—play to me, won’t you—Mary dear?” -The words slipped into one another, tripped, jostled, and came with a -run. - -David advanced across the room, moving with caution, and putting each -foot down slowly and carefully. His irritability had vanished. He felt -instead a pleasant sense of warmth and satisfaction. He let himself sink -into a chair and gazed at Mary. - -“Le’s sit down—and have nice long talk,” he said in an odd, thick voice; -“we haven’t had—nice long talk—for months. Le’s talk now.” - -Mary began to tremble. Except in the streets, she had never seen a man -drunk before, and even in the streets, passing by on the other side of -the road, under safe protection, and with head averted, she had felt -sick and terrified. What she felt now she hardly knew. She looked at the -bell. She would have to pass quite close to David before she could reach -it. Elizabeth—she might ring and ask if Elizabeth had come in. Yes, she -might do that. She made a step forward, but as she reached to touch the -bell, David leaned sideways, with a sudden heavy jerk, and caught her by -the wrist. - -“What’s that for?” he asked. - -Suspicion roused in him again, and he frowned as he spoke. His face was -very red, and his eyes looked black. Mary had cried out, when he caught -her wrist. Now, as he continued to hold it, she stared at him in -helpless silence. Then quite suddenly she burst into hysterical tears. - -“Let me go—oh, let me go! Go away, you’re not fit to be here! You’re -drunk. Let me go at once! How dare you?” - -David continued to hold her wrist, not of any set purpose, but stupidly. -He seemed to have forgotten to let it go. The heat and pressure of his -hand, his slow vacant stare, terrified Mary out of all self-control. She -tried to pull her hand away, and as David’s clasp tightened, and she -felt her own helplessness, she screamed aloud, and almost as she did so -the door opened sharply and Elizabeth Chantrey came into the room. She -wore a long green coat, and dark furs, and her colour was bright and -clear with exercise. For one startled second she stood just inside the -room, with her hand upon the door. Then, as she made a step forward, -David relaxed his grasp, and Mary, wrenching her hand away, ran sobbing -to meet her sister. - -“Oh, Liz! Oh, Liz!” she cried. - -Elizabeth was cold to the very heart. David’s face—the heavy, animal -look upon it—and Mary’s frightened pallor, the terror in her eyes. What -had happened? - -She caught Mary by the arm. - -“What is it?” - -“He held me—he wouldn’t let me go. He caught my wrist when I was going -to ring the bell, and held it. Make him go away, Liz.” - -Elizabeth drew a long breath of relief. She scarcely knew what she had -feared, but she felt suddenly as if an intolerable weight had been -lifted from her mind. The removal of this weight set her free to think -and act. - -“Molly, hush! Do you hear me, hush! Pull yourself together! Do you know -I heard you scream half-way up the stairs? Do you want the servants to -hear too?” - -She spoke in low, rapid tones, and Mary caught her breath like a child. - -“But he’s tipsy, Liz. Oh, Liz, make him go away,” she whispered. - -David had got upon his feet. He was looking at the two women with a -puzzled frown. - -“What’s the matter?” he said slowly, and Mary turned on him with a -sudden spurt of temper. - -“I wonder you’re not ashamed,” she said in rather a trembling voice. “I -do wonder you’re not—and will you please go away at once, or do you want -the servants to come in, and every one to know how disgracefully you -have behaved?” - -“Molly, hush!” said Elizabeth again. - -Her own colour died away, leaving her very pale. Her eyes were fixed on -David with a look between pity and appeal. She left Mary and went to -him. - -“David,” she said, putting her hand on his arm, “won’t you go home now? -It’s getting late. It’s nearly dinner time, and I’m afraid we can’t ask -you to stay to-night.” - -Something in her manner sobered David a little. Mary had screamed—why? -What had he said to her—or done? She was angry. Why? Why did Elizabeth -look at him like that? His mind was very much confused. Amid the -confusion an idea presented itself to him. They thought that he was -drunk. Well, he would show them, he would show them that he was not -drunk. He stood for a moment endeavouring to bring the confusion of his -brain into something like order. Then without a word he walked past -Mary, and out of the room, walking quite steadily because a sober man -walks steadily and he had to show them that he was sober. - -Mary stood by the door listening. “Liz,” she whispered, “he hasn’t gone -down-stairs.” Her terror returned. “Oh, what is he doing? He has gone -down the passage to Edward’s room. Oh, do you think he’s safe? Liz, ring -the bell—do ring the bell.” - -Elizabeth shook her head. She came forward and put her hand on Mary’s -shoulder. - -“No, Molly, it’s all right,” she said. She, too, listened, but Mary -broke in on the silence with half a sob. - -“You don’t know how he frightened me. You don’t know how dreadful he -was—like a great stupid animal. Oh, I don’t know how he dared to come to -me like that. And my wrist aches still, it does, indeed. Oh! Liz, he’s -coming back.” - -They heard his steps coming along the passage, heavy, deliberate steps. -Mary moved quickly away from the door, but Elizabeth stood still, and -David Blake touched her dress as he came back into the room and shut the -door behind him. His hair was wet from a liberal application of cold -water. His face was less flushed and his eyes had lost the vacant look. -He was obviously making a very great effort, and as obviously Mary had -no intention of responding to it. She stood and looked at him, and -ceased to be afraid. This was not the stranger who had frightened her. -This was David Blake again, the man whom she could play upon, and -control. The fright in her eyes gave place to a dancing spark of anger. - -“I thought I asked you to go away,” she said, and David winced at the -coldness of her voice. - -“Will you please go?” - -“Mary——” - -“If you want to apologise you can do so later—when you are _fit_,” said -Mary, her brows arched over very scornful eyes. - -David was still making a great effort at self-control. He had turned -quite white, and his eyes had rather a dazed look. - -“Mary, don’t,” he said, and there was so much pain in his voice that -Elizabeth made a half step towards him, and then stopped, because it was -not any comfort of hers that he desired. - -Mary’s temper was up, and she was not to be checked. She meant to have -her say, and if it hurt David, why, so much the better. He had given her -a most dreadful fright, and he deserved to be hurt. It would be very -good for him. Anger reinforced by a high moral motive is indeed a potent -weapon. Mary wielded it unmercifully. - -“Don’t—don’t,” she said. “Oh, of course not. You behave -disgracefully—you take advantage of Edward’s being away—you come here -drunk—and I’m not to say a word——” - -Her eyes sparkled, and her head was high. She gave a little angry laugh, -and turned towards the bell. - -“Will you go, please, or must I ring for Markham?” - -At her movement, and the sound of her laughter, David’s self-control -gave way, suddenly and completely. The blood rushed violently to his -head. He took a long step towards her, and she stopped where she was in -sheer terror. - -“You laugh,” he said, in a low tone of concentrated passion—“you -laugh——” - -Then his voice leaped into fury. “I’ve sold my soul for you, and you -laugh. I’m in hell for you, and you laugh. I’m drunk, and you laugh. My -God, for that at least you shall never laugh at me again. By God, you -shan’t——” - -He stood over her for a moment, looking down on her with terrible eyes. -Then he turned and went stumbling to the door, and so out, and, in the -dead silence that followed, they heard the heavy front door swing to -behind him. - -Mary was clinging to a chair. - -“Oh, Liz,” she whispered faintly, but Elizabeth turned and went out of -the room without a single word. - - - - - CHAPTER X - EDWARD IS PUT OUT - - - That which the frost can freeze, - That which is burned of the fire, - Cast it down, it is nothing worth - In the ways of the Heart’s Desire. - - Foot or hand that offends, - Eye that shrinks from the goal, - Cast them forth, they are nothing worth, - And fare with the naked soul. - -Mary did not tell Edward about the scene with David Blake. - -“You know, Liz, he behaved shamefully, but I don’t want there to be a -quarrel with Edward, and it would be sure to make a quarrel. And then -people would talk, and there’s no knowing what they would say. I think -it would be perfectly dreadful to be talked about. I’m sure I can’t -think how Katie Ellerton can stand it. Really, every one is talking -about her.” - -In her heart of hearts Mary was a little flattered at David’s last -outburst. She would not for the world have admitted that this was the -case, but it certainly contributed to her resolution not to tell Edward. - -“I suppose some people would never forgive him,” she said to Elizabeth, -“but I don’t think that’s right, do you? I don’t think it’s at all -Christian. I don’t think one ought to be hard. He might do something -desperate. I saw him go into Katie Ellerton’s only this morning. I think -I’ll write him a little note, not referring to anything of course, and -ask him if he won’t come in to supper on Sundays. Then he’ll see that I -mean to forgive him, and there won’t be any more fuss.” - -Sunday appeared to be quite a suitable day upon which to resume the rôle -of guardian angel. Mary felt a pleasant glow of virtue as she wrote her -little note and sent it off to David. - -David Blake did not accept either the invitation or the olive branch. -His anger against Mary was still stronger than his craving for her -presence. He wrote a polite excuse and sat all that evening with his -eyes fixed upon a book, which he made no pretence of reading. He had -more devils than one to contend with just now. David had a strong will, -and he was putting the whole strength of it into fighting the other -craving, the craving for drink. In his sudden heat of passion he had -taken an oath that he meant to keep. He had been drunk, and Mary had -laughed at him. Neither Mary nor any one else should have that cause for -mocking laughter again, and he sat nightly with a decanter at his elbow. - -“And,” as Mrs. Havergill remarked, “never touching a mortal drop,” -because if he was to down the devil at all he meant to down him in a set -battle, and not to spend his days in ignominious flight. - -Mrs. Havergill prognosticated woe to Sarah, with a mournful zest. - -“Them sudden changes isn’t ’olesome, and I don’t hold with them, Sarah, -my girl. One young man I knew, Maudsley ’is name was, he got the -’orrors, and died a-raving. And all through being cut off his drink too -sudden. He broke ’is leg, and ’is mother, she said, ‘Now I’ll break ’im -of the drink.’ A very strict Methody woman, were Jane Ann Maudsley. ‘Now -I’ll break ’im,’ says she; and there she sits and watches ’im, and the -pore feller ’ollering for whisky, just fair ’ollering. ‘Gemme a drop, -Mother,’ says he. ‘Not I,’ says she. ‘It’s ’ell fire, William,’ says -she. ‘I’m all on fire now, Mother,’ says he. ‘Better burn now than in -’ell, William,’ says Jane Ann; and then the ’orrors took him, and he -died. A fine, proper young man as ever stepped, and very sweet on me -before I took up with Havergill,” concluded Mrs. Havergill meditatively, -whilst Sarah shivered, and wished, as she afterwards confessed to a -friend, “that Mrs. Havergill would be more cheerful like—just once in a -way, for a change, as it were.” - -“For she do fair give a girl the ’ump sometimes,” concluded Sarah, after -what was for her quite a long speech. - -Mrs. Havergill was a very buxom and comely person of unimpeachable -respectability, but her fund of doleful reminiscence had depressed more -than Sarah. David had been known to complain of it between jest and -earnest. On one such occasion, at a tea-party to which Mary Chantrey had -inveigled him, Miss Dobell ventured a mild protest. - -“But she is such a treasure. Oh, yes. Your dear mother always found her -so.” - -David winced a little. His mother had not been dead very long then. He -regarded Miss Dobell with gravity. - -“I have always wondered,” he said, “whether it was an early -apprenticeship to a ghoul which has imparted such a mortuary turn to -Mrs. Havergill’s conversation, or whether it is due to the fact of her -having a few drops of Harvey’s Sauce in her veins.” - -“Harvey’s Sauce?” inquired the bewildered Miss Dobell. - -David explained in his best professional manner. - -“I said Harvey’s Sauce because it is an old and cherished belief of mind -that the same talented gentleman invented the sauce and composed the -well-known ‘Meditations among the Tombs.’ The only point upon which I -feel some uncertainty is this: Did he compose the Meditations because -the sauce had disagreed with him, or did he invent the sauce as a sort -of cheerful antidote to the Meditations? Now which do you suppose, Miss -Dobell?” - -Miss Dobell became very much fluttered. - -“Oh, I’m afraid—” she began. “I really had no idea that Harvey’s Sauce -was an unwholesome condiment. Yes, indeed, I fear that I cannot be of -any great assistance, or in fact of any assistance at all. No, oh, no. I -fear, Dr. Blake, that you must ask some one else who is better informed -than myself. Oh, yes.” - -Afterwards she confided to Mary Chantrey that she had never heard of the -work in question. “Have you, my dear?” - -“No, never,” said Mary, who was not greatly attracted by the title. -Girls of two-and-twenty with a disposition to meditate among the tombs -are mercifully rare. - -“But,” pursued little Miss Dobell with a virtuous lift of the chin, “the -title has a religious sound—yes, quite a religious sound. I hope, oh, -yes, indeed, I hope that Dr. Blake has no dreadful sceptical opinions. -They are so very shocking,” and Mary said, “Yes, they are, and I hope -not, too.” Even in those days she was a little inclined to play at being -David’s guardian angel. - -Those days were two years old now. Sometimes it seemed to David that -they belonged to another life. - -Meanwhile he had his devil to fight. In the days that followed he fought -the devil, and beat him, but without either pride or pleasure in the -victory, for, deprived of stimulant, he fell again into the black pit of -depression. Insomnia stood by his pillow and made the nights longer and -more dreadful than the longest, gloomiest day. - -Mary met him in the High Street one day, and was really shocked at his -looks. She reproached herself for neglecting him, smiled upon him -sweetly, and said: - -“Oh, David, do come and see us. Edward will be so pleased. He got a -parcel of butterflies from Java last week, and he would so much like you -to see them. He was saying so only this morning.” - -David made a suitable response. His anger was gone. Mary was Mary. If -she were unkind, she was still Mary. If she were trivial, foolish, -cruel, what did it matter? Her voice made his blood leap, her eyes were -like wine, her hand played on his pulses, and he asked nothing more than -to feel that soft touch, and answer to it, with every high-strung nerve. -He despised her a little, and himself a good deal, and when a man’s -passion for a woman is mingled with contempt, it goes but ill with his -soul. - -That evening saw him again in his old place. He came and went as of old, -and, as of old, his fever burned, and burning, fretted away both health -and self-respect. He slept less and less, and if sleep came at all, it -was so thin, so haunted by ill dreams, that waking was a positive -relief. At least when he waked he was still sane, but in those dreams -there lurked an impending horror that might at any moment burst the -gloom, and stare him mad. It was madness that he feared in the days -which linked that endless procession of long, unendurable nights. It was -about this time that he began to be haunted by a strange vision, which, -like the impending terror, lay just beyond the bounds of consciousness. -As on the one side madness lurked, so on the other there were hints, -stray gleams, as it were, from some place of peace. And the strange -thing about it was, that at these moments a conviction would seize him -that this place was his by right. His the deep waters of comfort, and -his the wide, unbroken fields of peace, his—but lost. - -Yet during all this time David went about his work, and if his patients -thought him looking ill, they had no reason to complain either of -inefficiency or neglect. His work was in itself a stimulant to him, a -stimulant which braced his nerves and cleared his brain during the time -that he was under its influence, and then resulted, like all stimulants, -in a reaction of fatigue and nervous strain. - -In the first days of March, Elizabeth Chantrey had a visit from old Dr. -Bull. He sat and had tea with her in her little brown room, and talked -about the mild spring weather and the show of buds upon the apple tree -in his small square of garden. He also told her that Mrs. Codrington had -three broods of chickens out, a fact of which Elizabeth had already been -informed by Mrs. Codrington herself. When Dr. Bull had finished dealing -with the early chickens, he asked for another cup of tea, took a good -pull at it, wiped his square beard with a very brilliant -pocket-handkerchief in which the prevailing colours were sky-blue and -orange, and remarked abruptly: - -“Why don’t you get David Blake to go away, hey?—hey?” - -Elizabeth frowned a little. This was getting to close quarters. - -“I?” she said, with a note of gentle surprise in her voice. - -Dr. Bull was quite ready for her. “You is the second person plural—or -used to be when I went to school. You, and Mary, and Edward, you’re his -friends, aren’t you?—and two of you are women, so he’ll have to be -polite, hey? Can’t bite your heads off the way he bit off mine, when I -suggested that a holiday ’ud do him good. And he wants a holiday, hey?” - -Elizabeth nodded. - -“He ought to go away,” she said. - -“He’ll break down if he doesn’t,” said Dr. Bull. He finished his cup of -tea, and held it out. “Yes, another, please. You make him go, and he’ll -come back a new man. What’s the good of being a woman if you can’t -manage a man for his good?” - -Elizabeth thought the matter over for an hour, and then she spoke to -Edward. - -“He won’t go,” said Edward, with a good deal of irritation. “I asked him -some little time ago whether he wasn’t going to take a holiday. Now what -is there in that to put any one’s back up? And yet, I do assure you, he -looked at me as if I had insulted him. Really, Elizabeth, I can’t make -out what has happened to David. He never used to be like this. And he -comes here too often, a great deal too often. I shall have to tell him -so, and then there’ll be a row, and I simply hate rows. But really, a -man in his state, always under one’s feet—it gets on one’s nerves.” - -“Edward is getting dreadfully put out,” said Mary the same evening. She -had come down to Elizabeth’s room to borrow a book, and lingered for a -moment or two, standing by the fire and holding one foot to the blaze. -It was a night of sudden frost after the mild spring day. - -“How cold it has turned,” said Mary. “Yes, I really don’t know what to -do. If Edward goes on being tiresome and jealous”—she bridled a little -as she spoke—“if he goes on—well, David will just have to stay away, and -I’m afraid he will feel it. I am afraid it may be bad for him. You know -I have always hoped that I was being of some use to David—I have always -wanted to have an influence—a good influence does make such a -difference, doesn’t it? I’ve never flirted with David—I really -haven’t—you know that, Liz?” - -“No,” said Elizabeth slowly. “You haven’t flirted with him, Molly, my -dear, but I think you are in rather a difficult position for being a -good influence. You see, David is in love with you, and I think it would -be better for him if he didn’t see you quite so often.” - -Mary’s colour rose. - -“I can’t help his being—fond of me,” she said, with a slight air of -offended virtue. “I am sure I don’t know what you mean by my not being -good for him. If it weren’t for me he might be drinking himself to death -at this very moment. You know how he was going on, and I am sure you -can’t have forgotten how dreadful he was that night he came here. I let -him see how shocked I was. I know you were angry with me, and I thought -it very unreasonable of you, because I did it on purpose, and it stopped -him. You may say what you like, Liz, but it stopped him. Mrs. Havergill -told Markham—yes, I know you don’t think I ought to talk to Markham -about David, but she began about it herself, and she is really -interested, and thought I would like to know—well, she says David has -never touched a drop since. Mrs. Havergill told her so. So you see, Liz, -I haven’t always been as bad for David as you seem to think. I don’t -know if you want him to go and marry Katie Ellerton, just out of pique. -She’s running after him worse than ever—I really do wonder she isn’t -ashamed, and if David’s friends cast him off, well, she’ll just snap him -up, and then I should think you’d be sorry.” - -Elizabeth leaned her chin in her hand, and was silent for a moment. Then -she said: “Molly, dear, why should we try and prevent David from going -to see Katie Ellerton? He is in love with you, and it is very bad for -him. If he saw less of you for a time it would give him a chance of -getting over it. David is very unhappy just now. No one can fail to see -that. He wants what you can’t give him—rest, companionship, a home. If -Katie cares for him, and can give him these things, let her give them. -We have no business to stand in the way. Don’t you see that?” - -Elizabeth spoke sweetly and persuasively. She kept her eyes on her -sister’s face, and saw there, first, offence, and then interest—the -birth of a new idea. - -“Oh, well—if you don’t mind,” said Mary. “You are nearly as tiresome as -Edward and Edward has been most dreadfully tiresome. I told him so. I -said, ‘Edward, I really never knew you could be so tiresome,’ and it -seemed to make him _worse_. I think, you know, that he is afraid that -people will talk if David goes on coming here. Of course, that’s absurd, -I told him it was absurd. I said, ‘Why, how on earth is any one to know -that it isn’t Elizabeth he comes to see?’ And then, Edward became really -violent. I didn’t know he could be, but he was. He simply plunged up and -down the room, and said: ‘If he wants to see Elizabeth, then in Heaven’s -name let him see Elizabeth. Let him _marry_ Elizabeth.’ Oh, you mustn’t -mind, Liz,” as Elizabeth’s head went up, “it was only because he was so -cross, and you and David are such old friends. There’s nothing for you -to _mind_.” - -She paused, stole a quick glance at Elizabeth, then looked away, and -said in a tentative voice, “Liz, why don’t you marry David?” - -“Because he doesn’t want me to, Molly,” said Elizabeth. Her voice was -very proud, and her head very high. - -Mary half put out her hand, and drew it back again. She knew this mood -of Elizabeth’s, and it was one that silenced even her ready tongue. She -was the little sister again for a moment, and Elizabeth the mother, -sister, and ideal—all in one. - -“Liz, I’m sorry,” she said in quite a small, humble voice. - -When she had gone, Elizabeth sat on by the fire. She did not move for a -long time. When she did move, it was to put up a hand to her face, which -was wet with many hot, slow tears. Pride dies hard, and hurts to the -very last. - - - - - CHAPTER XI - FORGOTTEN WAYS - - - I have forgotten all the ways of sleep, - The endless, windless silence of my dream, - The milk-white poppy meadows and the stream, - The dreaming water soft and still and deep— - I have forgotten how that water flows, - I have forgotten how the poppy grows, - I have forgotten all the ways of sleep. - -It was on an afternoon, a few days later, that David came into the hall -of the Mottisfonts’ house. - -“Lord save us, he do look bad,” was the thought in Markham’s mind as she -let him in. Aloud she said that she thought Mrs. Mottisfont was just -going out. As she spoke, Mary came down the stairs, bringing with her a -sweet scent of violets. - -Mary was very obviously going out. She wore a white cloth dress, with -dark furs, and there was a large bunch of mauve and white violets at her -breast. She looked a little vexed when she saw David. - -“Oh,” she said, “I am just going out. I am so sorry, but I am afraid I -must. Bazaars are tiresome things, but one must go to them, and I -promised Mrs. Codrington that I would be there early. Elizabeth is in. -She’ll give you some tea. Markham, will you please tell Miss Elizabeth?” - -David came forward as she was speaking. There was a window above the -front door, and as he came out of the shadow, and the light fell on his -face, he saw Mary start a little. Her expression changed, and she said -in a hesitating manner: - -“Of course, Elizabeth may be busy, or she may be going out—I really -don’t know. Perhaps you had better come another day, David.” - -He read her clearly enough. She thought that he had been drinking, and -hesitated to leave him with her sister. He had been about to say that he -could not stop, but her suspicion raised a devil of obstinacy in him, -and as Elizabeth came out of her room by way of the dining-room, he -advanced to meet her, saying: - -“Will you give me some tea, Elizabeth, or are you too busy?” - -“Liz, come here,” said Mary quickly. Her colour had risen at David’s -tone. She drew Elizabeth a little aside. “Liz, you’d better not,” she -whispered, “he looks so queer.” - -“Nonsense, Molly.” - -“I wish you wouldn’t——” - -“My dear Molly, are you going to begin to chaperone me?” - -Mary tossed her head. - -“Oh, if you don’t _mind_,” she said angrily, and went out, leaving -Elizabeth with an odd sense of anticipation. - -Elizabeth found David standing before the writing-table, and looking at -himself in the little Dutch mirror which hung above it. He turned as she -came in. - -“Well,” he said bitterly, “has Mary renounced the Bazaar in order to -stay and protect you? I’m not really as dangerous as she seems to think, -though I am willing to admit that I am not exactly ornamental. Give me -some tea, and I’ll not inflict myself on you for long.” - -Elizabeth smiled. - -“You know very well that I like having you here,” she said in her -friendly voice. “Look at my flowers. Aren’t they well forward? I really -think that everything is a fortnight before its time this year. No, not -that chair, David. This one is much more comfortable.” - -Markham was coming in with the tea as Elizabeth spoke. David sat silent. -He watched the tiny flame of the spirit-lamp, the mingled flicker of -firelight and daylight upon the silver, and the thin old china with its -branching pattern of purple and yellow flowers. He drank as many cups of -tea as Elizabeth gave him, and she talked a little in a desultory -manner, until he had finished, and then sat in a silence that was not -awkward, but companionable. - -David made no effort to move, or speak. This was a pleasant room of -Elizabeth’s. The brown panels were warm in the firelight. They made a -soft darkness that had nothing gloomy about it, and the room was full of -flowers. The great brown crock full of daffodils stood on the -window-ledge, and on the table which filled the angle between the window -and the fireplace was another, in which stood a number of the tall -yellow tulips which smell like Maréchal-Niel roses. Elizabeth’s dress -was brown, too. It was made of some soft stuff that made no sound when -she moved. The room was very still, and very sweet, and the sweetness -and the stillness were very grateful to David Blake. The thought came to -him suddenly, that it was many years since he had sat like this in -Elizabeth’s room, and the silence had companioned them. Years ago he had -been there often enough, and they had talked, read, argued, or been -still, just as the spirit of the moment dictated. They had been good -comrades, then, in the old days—the happy days of youth. - -He looked across at Elizabeth and said suddenly: - -“You are a very restful woman, Elizabeth.” - -She smiled at him without moving, and answered: - -“I am glad if I rest you, David—I think you need rest.” - -“You sit so still. No one else sits so still.” - -Elizabeth laughed softly. - -“That sounds as if I were a very inert sort of person,” she said. - -David frowned a little. - -“No, it’s not that. It is strength—force—stability. Only strong things -keep still like that.” - -This was so like the old David, that it took Elizabeth back ten years at -a leap. She was silent for a moment, gathering her courage. Then she -said: - -“David, you do need rest, and a change. Why don’t you go away?” - -She had thought he would be angry, but he was not angry. Instead, he -answered her as the David of ten years ago might have done, with a -misquotation. - -“What is the good of a change? It’s a case of—I myself am my own Heaven -and Hell”; and his voice was the voice of a very weary man. - -Elizabeth’s eyes dwelt on him with a deep considering look. - -“Yes, that’s true,” she said. “One has to find oneself. But it is easier -to find oneself in clear country than in a fog. This place is not good -for you, David. When I said you wanted a change, I didn’t mean just for -a time—I meant altogether. Why don’t you go right away—leave it all -behind you, and start again?” - -He looked at her as if he might be angry, if he were not too tired. - -“Because I won’t run away,” he said, with his voice back on the harsh -note which had become habitual. - -There was a pause. Elizabeth heard her own heart beat. The room was -getting darker. A log fell in the fire. - -Then David laughed bitterly. - -“That sounded very fine, but it’s just a flam. The truth is, not that I -won’t run away, but that I can’t. I’ve not got the energy. I’m three -parts broke, and it’s all I can do to keep going at all. I couldn’t -start fresh, because I’ve got nothing to start with. If I could sleep -for a week it would give me a chance, but I can’t sleep. Skeffington has -taken me in hand now, and out of three drugs he has given me, two made -me feel as if I were going mad, and the third had no effect at all. I’m -full of bromide now. It makes me sleepy, but it doesn’t make me sleep. -You don’t know what it’s like. My brain is drunk with sleep—marshy with -it, water-logged—but there’s always one point of consciousness left high -and dry—tortured.” - -“Can’t you sleep at all?” - -“I suppose I do, or I should be mad in real earnest. Do I look mad, -Elizabeth?” - -She looked at him. His face was very white, except for a flushed patch -high up on either cheek. His eyes were bloodshot and strained, but there -was no madness in them. - -“Is that what you are afraid of?” - -“Yes, my God, yes,” said David Blake, speaking only just above his -breath. - -“I don’t think you need be afraid. I don’t, really, David. You look very -tired. You look as if you wanted sleep more than anything else in the -world.” - -She spoke very gently. “Will you let me send you to sleep? I think I -can.” - -“Does one ask a man who is dying of thirst if one may give him a drink?” - -“Then I may?” - -“If you can—but—” He broke off as Markham came in to clear away the tea. -Elizabeth began to talk of trivialities. For a minute or two Markham -came and went, but when she had taken away the tray, and the door was -shut, there was silence again. - -Elizabeth had turned her chair a little. She sat looking into the fire. -She was not making pictures among the embers, as she sometimes did. Her -eyes had a brooding look. Her honey-coloured hair looked like pale gold -against the brown panelling behind her. She sat very still. David found -it pleasant to watch her, pleasant to be here. - -His whole head was stiff and numb with lack of sleep. Every muscle -seemed stretched and every nerve taut. There was a dull, continuous pain -at the back of his head. Thought seemed muffled, his faculties clogged. -Two thirds of his brain was submerged, but in the remaining third -consciousness flared like a flickering will-o’-the-wisp above a marsh. - -David lay back in his chair. This was a peaceful place, a peaceful room. -He had not meant to stay so long, but he had no desire to move. Slowly, -slowly the tide of sleep mounted in him. Not, as often lately, with a -sudden flooding wave which retreated again as suddenly, and left his -brain reeling, but steadily, quietly, like the still rising of some -peaceful, moon-drawn sea. He seemed to see that lifting tide. It was as -deep and still as those still waters of which another David wrote. It -rose and rose—the will-o’-the-wisp of consciousness ceased its tormented -flickering, and he slept. - -Elizabeth never turned her head. She heard his breathing deepen, until -it was very slow and steady. There was no other sound except when an -ember dropped. The light failed. Soon there was no light but the glow of -the fire. - - - - - CHAPTER XII - THE GREY WOLF - - - I thought I saw the Grey Wolf’s eyes - Look through the bars of night; - They drank the silver of the moon, - And the stars’ pale chrysolite. - From star by star they took their toll, - And through the drained and darkened night - They sought my darkened soul. - -David slept for a couple of hours, and that night he slept more than he -had done for weeks. Next night, however, there returned the old strain, -the old yearning for oblivion, the old inability to compass it. In the -week that followed David passed through a number of strange, mental -phases. After that first sound sleep had relieved the tension of his -brain, he told himself that he owed it to the delayed action of the -bromide Skeffington had given him. But as the strain returned, though -reason held him to this opinion still, out of the deep undercurrents of -consciousness there rose before him a vision of Elizabeth, with the gift -of sleep in her hand. He passed into a state of conflict, and out of -this conflict there grew up a pride that would owe nothing to a woman, a -resistance that called itself reason and independence. And then, as the -desire for sleep dominated everything, conflict merged into a desire -that Elizabeth should heal him, should make him sleep. And all through -the week he did not think of Mary at all. The craving for her had been -swallowed up by that other craving. Mary had raised this fever, but it -had now reached a point at which he had become unconscious of her. It -was Elizabeth who filled his thoughts. Not Elizabeth the woman, but -Elizabeth the bearer of that gift of sleep. But this, too, was a phase, -and had its reaction. - -Towards the end of the week he finished his afternoon round by going to -see an old Irishwoman, who had been in the hospital for an operation, -and had since been dismissed as incurable. She was a plucky old soul, -and a cheerful, but to-day David found her in a downcast mood. - -“Sure, it’s not the pain I’d be minding if I could get my sleep,” she -said. “Couldn’t ye be after putting the least taste of something in my -medicine, then, Doctor, dear?” - -David had his finger on her pulse. He patted her hand kindly as he laid -it down. - -“Come, now, Mrs. Halloran,” he said, “when I gave you that last bottle -of medicine you said it made you sleep beautifully.” - -“Just for a bit it did,” said Judy Halloran. “Sure, it was only for a -bit, and now it’s the devil’s own nights I’m having. Couldn’t you be -making it the least taste stronger, then?” - -She looked at David rather piteously. - -“Well, we must see,” he said. “You finish that bottle, and then I’ll see -what I can do for you.” - -Mrs. Halloran closed her eyes for a minute. Then she opened them rather -suddenly, shot a quick look at David, and said with an eager note in her -voice: - -“They do be saying that Miss Chantrey can make anny one sleep. There was -a friend of mine was after telling me about it. It was her daughter that -had the sleep gone from her, and after Miss Chantrey came to see her, it -was the fine nights she was having, and it’s the strong woman she is -now, entirely.” - -David got up rather abruptly. - -“Come, now, Mrs. Halloran,” he said, “you know as well as I do that -that’s all nonsense. But I daresay a visit from Miss Chantrey would -cheer you up quite a lot. Would you like to see her? Shall I ask her to -come in one day?” - -“She’d be kindly welcome,” said Judy Halloran. - -David went home with the old conflict raging again. Skeffington had been -urging him to see a specialist. He had always refused. But now, quite -suddenly, he wired for an appointment. - -He came down from town on a dark, rainy afternoon, feeling that he had -built up a barrier between himself and superstition. - -An hour later he was at the Mottisfonts’ door, asking Markham if Mary -was at home. Mary had gone out to tea, said Markham, and then -volunteered, “Miss Elizabeth is in, sir.” - -David told himself that he had not intended to ask for Elizabeth. Why -should he ask for Elizabeth? He could, however, hardly explain to -Markham that it was not Elizabeth he wished to see, so he came in, and -was somehow very glad to come. - -Elizabeth had been reading aloud to herself. As he stood at the door he -could hear the rise and fall of her voice. It was an old trick of hers. -Ten years ago he had often stood on the threshold and listened, until -rebuked by Elizabeth for eavesdropping. - -He came in, and she said just in the old voice: - -“You were listening, David.” - -But it was the David of to-day who responded wearily, “I beg your -pardon, Elizabeth. Did you mind?” - -“No, of course not. Sit down, David. What have you been doing with -yourself?” - -Instead of sitting down he walked to the window and looked out. The sky -was one even grey, and, though the rain had ceased, heavy drops were -falling from the roof and denting the earth in Elizabeth’s window boxes, -which were full of daffodils in bud. After a moment he turned and said -impatiently, “How dark this room is!” - -Elizabeth divined in him a reaction, a fear of what she had done, and -might do. She knew very well why he had stayed away. Without replying -she put out her hand and touched a switch on the wall. A tall lamp with -a yellow shade sprang into view, and the whole room became filled with a -soft, warm light. - -David left the window, but still he did not sit. For a while he walked -up and down restlessly, but at length came to a standstill between -Elizabeth and the fire. He was so close to her that she had only to put -out her hand and it would have touched his. He stood looking, now at the -miniatures on the wall, now at the fire which burned with a steady red -glow. He was half turned from Elizabeth, but she could see his face. It -was strained and thin. The flesh had fallen away, leaving the great -bones prominent. - -It was Elizabeth who broke the silence, and she said what she had not -meant to say. - -“David, are you better? Are you sleeping?” - -“No,” he said shortly. - -“And you won’t let me help?” - -“I didn’t say so.” - -“Did you think I didn’t know?” Elizabeth’s voice was very sad. - -They had fallen suddenly upon an intimate note. It was a note that he -had never touched with Mary. That they should be talking like this -filled him with a dazed surprise. He as well as she was taking it for -granted that she had given him sleep, and could give him sleep again. - -He gave himself a sudden shake. - -“I’m going away,” he said in a harder voice. - -There was a pause. - -“I’m glad,” said Elizabeth, and then there was silence again. - -This time it was David who spoke, and he spoke in the hot, insistent -tones of a man who argues a losing case. - -“One can’t go on not sleeping. That is what I said to old Wyatt Byng -to-day.” - -“Sir Wyatt Byng?” said Elizabeth quickly. - -“Yes—I saw him. Skeffington would have me see him, but what’s the use? -He swears I shall sleep, if I take the stuff he’s given me—the latest -French fad—but I don’t sleep. I seem to have lost the way—and one can’t -go on.” - -He paused, and then said frowning: - -“It’s so odd——” - -“Odd?” - -“Yes—so odd—sleep. Such an odd thing. It was so easy once. Now it’s so -difficult that it can’t be done. Why? No one knows. No one knows what -sleep is——” - -His voice trailed away. He was strung like a wire that is ready to snap, -and on the borders of consciousness, just out of sight, something -waited; he turned his head sharply, as if the thing he dreaded might be -there—behind him—in the shadow. - -Instead, he saw Elizabeth in a golden light like a halo. It swam before -his tired eyes, a glow with a rainbow edge. Out of the heart of it she -looked at him with serious, tender eyes. - -Beyond, in the gloom, there lurked such a horror as made him catch his -breath, and here at his side—in this room, peace, safety, and -sleep—sleep, the one thing in heaven or earth desired and desirable. - -A sort of shudder passed over him, and he repeated his own last words in -a low, altered voice. - -“One _can’t_ go on. Something must give way. Sometimes I feel as if it -might give now—at any moment. Then there’s madness—when one can’t sleep. -Am I going mad, Elizabeth?” - -Elizabeth caught his hand and held it. He was so near that the impulse -carried her away. Her clasp was strong, warm, and vital. - -“No, my dear, no,” she said. - -Then with a catch in her voice: - -“Oh, David—let me help you.” - -He shook his head in a slow, considering manner. - -“No—there would be only one way—and that’s not fair.” - -“What isn’t fair, David?” - -“You—to marry—me,” he said, still in that slow, considering way. “You -know, Elizabeth, I can’t think very well. My head is all to pieces. But -it’s not fair, and I can’t take your help—” He broke off frowning. - -“David, it has nothing to do with that sort of thing,” said Elizabeth -very seriously. “It’s only what I would do for any one.” - -She was shaken to the depths, but she kept her voice low and steady. - -“Yes—it has—one can’t take like that——” - -“Because I’m a woman? Just because I’m a woman?” - -Elizabeth looked up quickly and spoke quickly, because she knew that if -she stopped to think she would not speak at all. - -“And if we were married?” - -“Then it would be different,” said David Blake. - -His voice was not like his usual voice. It sounded like the voice of a -man who was puzzled, who was trying to recall something of which he has -seen glimpses. Was it something from the past, or something from the -future? - -Elizabeth got up and stood as he was standing—one hand on the oak shelf -above the fireplace the other clenched at her side. - -“David, are you asking me to marry you?” she said. - -He raised his head, half startled. The silence that followed her -question seemed to fill the room and shake it. His will shook too, drawn -this way and that by forces that were above and beyond them both. - -Elizabeth did not look at him. She did not know what he would answer, -and all their lives hung on that answer of his. She held her breath, and -it seemed to her that she was holding her will too. She was suddenly, -overpoweringly conscious of her own strength, her own vital force and -power. If she let this force go out to David now—in his weakness! It was -the greatest temptation that she had ever known, and, after one -shuddering moment, she turned from it in horror. She kept her will, her -strength, her vital powers in a strong grip. No influence of hers must -touch or sway him now. Her heart stopped beating. Her very life seemed -to be suspended. Then she heard David say: - -“Would you marry me, Elizabeth?” His tone was a wondering one. It broke -the tension. She turned her head a little and said: - -“Yes—if you needed me.” - -“Need—need—I think I should sleep—and if I don’t sleep I shall go mad. -But, perhaps I shall go mad anyhow. You must not marry me if I am going -mad.” - -“You won’t go mad.” - -“You think not? There is something that shakes all the time. It never -stops. It goes on always. I think that is why I don’t sleep. But when I -am with you it seems to stop. I don’t know why, but it does seem to -stop, just whilst I am with you.” - -“It will stop altogether when you get your sleep back.” - -“Oh, yes.” - -The half-dreamy note went out of his voice, and the note of intimate -self-revealing. Elizabeth noticed the change at once. - -“When do you go away, and where do you go?” she asked. - -“Switzerland, I think. I could get away by the 3rd of April.” - -David was trying to think, but his head was very tired. He must go away. -He must have a change. They all said that. But it was no use for him to -go away if he did not sleep. He must have sleep. But if Elizabeth were -with him he would sleep. Elizabeth must come with him. If they were -married at once she could come with him, and then he would sleep. But it -was so soon. He spoke his thought aloud. - -“You wouldn’t marry me first, I suppose? You wouldn’t come with me?” - -“Why not?” said Elizabeth quietly. The quietness hid the greatest effort -of her life. “If you want me, I will come. I only want to help you, and -if I can help you best that way——” - -David let himself sink into a chair, and began to talk a little of -plans, wearily and with an effort. He had to force his brain to make it -work at all. All these details, these plans, these conventions seemed to -him irrelevant and burdensome. - -He got up to go as the clock struck seven. - -Elizabeth put out her hand to him as she had always done. - -“And you will let me help you?” - -“No, not yet—not till afterwards,” he said. - -“It makes no difference, David, you know. It is just what I would do for -any one who wanted it——” - -He shook his head. There was a reaction upon him, a withdrawal. - -“Not yet—not till afterwards. I’ll give old Byng’s stuff a chance,” he -said obstinately, and then went out with just a bare good-night. - - - - - CHAPTER XIII - MARCH GOES OUT - - - I thought I saw the Grey Wolf’s eyes. - The sun was gone away, - Most unendurably gone down, - With all delights of day. - I cried aloud for light, and all - The light was dead and done away, - And no one answered to my call. - -Edward was, perhaps, the person best pleased at the news of Elizabeth’s -engagement. He had been, as Mary phrased it, “very much put out.” Put -out, in fact, to the point of wondering whether he could possibly nerve -himself to tell David that he came too often to the house. He had an -affection for David, and he was under an obligation to him, but there -were limits—during the last fortnight he had very frequently explained -to Mary that there were limits. Whether he would ever have got as far as -explaining this to David remains amongst the lesser mysteries of life. -Mary did not take the explanation in what Edward considered at all a -proper spirit. She bridled, looked very pretty, talked about good -influences, and was much offended when Edward lost his temper. He lost -it to the extent of consigning good influences to a place with which -they are not usually connected, though the way to it is said to be paved -with good intentions. Mary had a temper, too. It took her out of the -room with a bang of the door, but she subsequently cried herself sick -because Edward had sworn at her. - -There was a reconciliation, but Edward was not as penitent as Mary -thought he should have been. David became a sore point with both of -them, and Edward, at least, was unfeignedly pleased at what he -considered a happy solution of the difficulty. He was fond of Elizabeth, -but it would certainly be more agreeable to have the whole house at his -own disposal. He had always thought that Elizabeth’s little brown room -would be the very place for his collections. He fell to estimating the -probable cost of lining the whole wall-space with cabinets. - -Mary was not quite as pleased as Edward. - -“You know, Liz,” she said, “I am very _glad_ that David should marry. I -think he wants a home. But I don’t think you ought to marry him until -he’s _better_. He looks dreadful. And a fortnight’s engagement—I can’t -_think_ what people will say—one ought to consider that.” - -“Oh, Molly, you are too young for the part of Mrs. Grundy,” said -Elizabeth, laughing. - -Mary coloured and said: - -“It’s all very well, Liz, but people will talk.” - -“Well, Molly, and if they do? What is there for them to say? It is all -very simple, really. No one can help seeing how ill David is, and I -think every one would understand my wanting to be with him. People are -really quite human and understanding if they are taken the right way.” - -“But a fortnight,” said Mary, frowning. “Why Liz, you will not be able -to get your things!” And she was shocked beyond words when Elizabeth -betrayed a complete indifference as to whether she had any new things at -all. - -The wedding was fixed for the 3rd of April, and the days passed. David -made the necessary arrangements with a growing sense of detachment. The -matter was out of his hands. - -For a week the new drug gave him sleep, a sleep full of brilliant -dreams, strange flashes of light, and bursts of unbearable colour. He -woke from it with a blinding headache and a sense of strain beyond that -induced by insomnia. Towards the end of the week he stopped taking the -drug. The headache had become unendurable. This state was worse than the -last. - -On the last day of March he came to Elizabeth and told her that their -marriage must be deferred. - -“Ronnie Ellerton is very ill,” he said; “I can’t go away.” - -“But David, you _must_——” - -He shook his head. The obstinacy of illness was upon him. - -“I can’t—and I won’t,” he declared. Then, as if realising that he owed -her some explanation, he added: - -“He’s so spoilt. Why are women such fools? He’s never been made to do -anything he didn’t like. He won’t take food or medicine, and I’m the -only person who has the least authority over him. And she’s half crazy -with anxiety, poor soul. I have promised not to go until he’s round the -corner. It’s only a matter of a day or two, so we must just put it off.” - -Elizabeth put her hand on his arm. - -“David, we need not put off the marriage,” she said in her most ordinary -tones. “You see, if we are married, we could start off as soon as the -child was better.” - -She had it in her mind that unless David would let her help him soon, he -would be past helping. - -He looked at her indifferently. “You will stay here?” - -“Not unless you wish,” she answered. - -“I? Oh! it is for you to say.” - -There was no interest in his tone. If he thought of anything it was of -Ronnie Ellerton. A complete apathy had descended upon him. Nothing was -real, nothing mattered. Health—sanity—rest—these were only names. They -meant nothing. Only when he turned to his work, his brain still moved -with the precision of a machine, regularly, correctly. - -He did not tell her either then or ever, that Katie Ellerton had broken -down and spoken bitter words about his marriage. - -“I’ve nothing but Ronnie—nothing but Ronnie—and you will go away with -her and he will die. I know he will die if you go. Can’t she spare you -just for two days—or three—to save Ronnie’s life? Promise me you won’t -go till he is safe—promise—promise.” - -And David had promised, taking in what she had said about the child, but -only half grasping the import of her frantic appeal. Neither he nor she -were real people to him just now. Only Ronnie was real—Ronnie, who was -ill, and his patient. - -Elizabeth went through the next two days with a heavy heart. She had to -meet Mary’s questions, her objections, her disapprobations, and it was -all just a little more than she could bear. - -On the night before the wedding, Mary left Edward upstairs and came to -sit beside Elizabeth’s fire. Elizabeth would rather have been alone, and -yet she was pleased that Mary cared to come. If only she would let all -vexed questions be—it seemed as if she would, for her mood was a silent -one. She sat for a long time without speaking, then, with an impulsive -movement, she slid out of her chair and knelt at Elizabeth’s side. - -“Oh, Liz, I’ve been cross. I know I have. I know you’ve thought me -cross. But it’s because I’ve been unhappy—Liz, I’m not _happy_ about -you——” - -Elizabeth put her hand on Mary’s shoulder for a moment. - -“Don’t be unhappy, Molly,” she said, in rather an unsteady voice. - -“But I am, Liz, I am—I can’t help it—I have talked, and worried you, and -have been cross, but all the time I’ve been most dreadfully unhappy. Oh, -Liz, don’t do it—don’t!” - -“Molly, dear——” - -“No, I know it’s no use—you won’t listen—” and Mary drew away and dabbed -her eyes with a fragmentary apology for a pocket-handkerchief. - -“Molly, please——” - -Mary nodded. - -“Yes, Liz, I know. I won’t—I didn’t mean to——” - -There was a little silence. Then with a sudden choking sob, Mary turned -and said: - -“I can’t _bear_ it. Oh, Liz, you ought to be loved so much. You ought to -marry some one who loves you—_really_——. And I don’t think David does. -Liz, does he love you—does he?” - -The sound of her own words frightened her a little, but Elizabeth -answered very gently and sadly: - -“No, Molly, but he needs me.” - -Mary was silenced. Here was something beyond her. She put her arms round -Elizabeth and held her very tightly for a moment. Then she released her -with a sob, and ran crying from the room. - - - - - CHAPTER XIV - THE GOLDEN WIND - - - Then far, oh, very far away, - The Wind began to rise, - The Sun, the Moon, the Stars were gone, - I saw the Grey Wolf’s eyes. - The Wind rose up and rising, shone, - I saw it shine, I saw it rise, - And suddenly the dark was gone. - -David Blake was married to Elizabeth Chantrey at half-past two of an -April day. Edward and Mary Mottisfont were the only witnesses, with the -exception of the verger, who considered himself a most important person -on these occasions, when he invariably appeared to be more priestly than -the rector and more indispensable than the bridegroom. - -It requires no practice to be a bridegroom but years, if not -generations, go to the making of the perfect verger. This verger was the -son and the grandson of vergers. He was the perfect verger. He stood -during the service and disapproved of David’s grey pallor, his shaking -hand, and his unsteady voice. His black gown imparted a funerary air to -the proceedings. - -“Drinking, that’s what he’d been,” he told his wife, and his wife said, -“Oh, William,” as one who makes response to an officiating priest. - -But he wronged David, who was not drunk—only starved for lack of sleep, -and strung to the breaking point. His voice stumbled over the words in -which he took Elizabeth to be his wedded wife and trailed away to a -whisper at the conclusion. - -A gusty wind beat against the long grey windows, and between the gusts -the heavy rain thudded on the roof above. - -Mary shivered in the vestry as she kissed Elizabeth and wished her joy. -Then she turned to David and kissed him too. He was her brother now, and -there would be no more nonsense. Edward frowned, David stiffened, and -Elizabeth, standing near him, was aware that all his muscles had become -rigid. - -Elizabeth and David went out by the vestry door, and stood a moment on -the step. The rain had ceased quite suddenly in the April fashion. The -sky was very black overhead and the air was full of a wet wind, but far -down to the right the water meadows lay bathed in a clear sweet -sunshine, and the west was as blue as a turquoise. Between the blue of -the sky and the bright emerald of the grass, the horizon showed faintly -golden, and a broken patch of rainbow light glowed against the nearest -dark cloud. - -David and Elizabeth walked to their home in silence. Mrs. Havergill -awaited them with an air of mournful importance. She had prepared coffee -and a cake with much almond icing and the word “Welcome” inscribed upon -it in silver comfits. Elizabeth ate a piece of cake from a sense of -duty, and David drank cup after cup of black coffee, and then sat in a -sort of stupor of fatigue until roused by the sound of the telephone -bell. - -After a minute or two he came back into the room. - -“Ronnie is worse,” he said shortly. There was a change in him. He had -pulled himself together. His voice was stronger. - -“He’s worse. I must go at once. Don’t wait dinner, and don’t sit up. I -may have to stay all night.” - -When he had gone, Elizabeth went upstairs to unpack. Mrs. Havergill -followed her. - -“You ’avn’t been in this room since Mrs. Blake was took.” - -“It’s a very nice room,” said Elizabeth. - -“All this furniture,” said Mrs. Havergill, “come out of the ’ouse in the -’Igh Street. That old mahogany press, Mrs. Blake set a lot of store by, -and the bed, too. Ah! pore thing, I suppose she little thought as ’ow -she’d come to die in it.” - -The bed was a fine old four-poster, with a carved foot-rail. Elizabeth -went past it to the windows, of which there were three, set casement -fashion, at the end of the room, with a wide low window-seat running -beneath them. - -She got rid of Mrs. Havergill without hurting her feelings. Then she -knelt on the seat, and looked out. She saw the river beneath her, and a -line of trees in the first green mist of their new leaves. The river was -dark and bright in patches, and the wind sang above it. Elizabeth’s -heart was glad of this place. It was a thing she loved—to see green -trees and bright water, and to hear the wind go by above the stream. - -When she had unpacked and put everything away, she stood for a moment, -and then opened the door that led through into David’s room. It was -getting dark in here, for the room faced the east. Elizabeth went to the -window and looked out. The sky was full of clouds, and the promise of -rain. - -It was very late before David came home. At ten, Elizabeth sent the -servants to bed. There was cold supper laid in the dining-room, and soup -in a covered pan by the side of the fire. Elizabeth sat by the lamp and -sewed. Every now and then she lifted her head and listened. Then she -sewed again. - -At twelve o’clock David put his key into the latch, and the door opened -with a little click and then shut again. - -David was a long time coming in. He came in slowly, and sat down upon -the first chair he touched. - -“He’ll do,” he said in an exhausted voice. - -“I’m so glad,” said Elizabeth. - -She knelt by the fire, and poured some of the soup into a cup. Then she -held it out to him, and he drank, taking long draughts. After that she -put food before him, and he ate in a dazed, mechanical fashion. - -When he had finished, he sat staring at Elizabeth, with his elbows on -the table, and his head between his hands. - -“Ronnie is asleep—he’ll do.” And then with sudden passion: “My God, if I -could sleep!” - -“You will, David,” said Elizabeth. She put her hand on his arm, and he -turned his head a little, still staring at her. - -“No, I don’t sleep,” he said. “Everything else sleeps—_Die Vöglein ruhen -im Walde_. How does it go?” - -“_Warte nur, balde ruhest du auch_,” said Elizabeth in her tranquil -voice. - -“No,” said David, “I can’t get in. It was so easy once—but now I can’t -get in. The silent city of sleep has long, smooth walls—I can’t find the -gate; I grope along the wall all night, hour after hour. A hundred times -I think I have found the door. Sometimes there is a flashing sword that -bars the way, sometimes the wall closes—closes as I pass the threshold. -There’s no way in. The walls are smooth—all smooth—you can’t get in.” - -He spoke, not wildly, but in a low, muttering way. Elizabeth touched his -hand. It was very hot. - -“Come, David,” she said, “it is late.” She drew him to his feet, and he -walked uncertainly, and leaned on her shoulder, as they went up the -stair. Once in his room, he sank again upon a chair. He let her help -him, but when she knelt, and would have unlaced his boots, he roused -himself. - -“No, you are not to,” he said with a sudden anger in his voice, and he -took them off, and then let her help him again. - -When he was in bed, Elizabeth stood by him for a moment. - -“Are you comfortable?” she asked. - -“If I could sleep,” he said, only just above his breath. “If I could.” - -“Oh, but you will,” said Elizabeth. “Don’t be afraid, David. It’s all -right.” - -She set the door into her room ajar and then sat down by the window, and -looked out at the night. The blind was up. The night was dark and clear. -There were stars, many little glittering points. It was very still. -Elizabeth fixed her eyes upon the sky, but after a minute or two she did -not see it at all. Her mind was full of David and his need. This -tortured, sleepless state of his had no reality. How could it compass -and oppress the immortal image of God? Her thought rose into peace. -Elizabeth opened her mind to the Divine light. Her will rested. She was -conscious only of that radiant peace. It enwrapped her, it enwrapped -David. In it they lived and moved and had their being. In it they were -real and vital creatures. To lapse from consciousness of it, was to fall -upon a formless, baseless dream, wherein were the shadows of evil. These -shadows had no reality. Brought to the light, they faded, leaving only -that peace—that radiance. Elizabeth’s eyes were opened. She saw the -Wings of Peace. - -And David slept. - - - - - CHAPTER XV - LOVE MUST TO SCHOOL - - - Love must to school to learn his alphabet, - His wings are shorn, his eyes are dim and wet. - He pores on books that once he knew by heart— - Poor, foolish Love, to wander and forget. - -Elizabeth sat quite motionless for half an hour. Then she stirred, bent -her head for a moment, whilst she listened to David’s regular breathing, -and then rose to her feet. She passed through the open door into her own -room, and undressed in the dark. Then she lay down and slept. - -Three times during the night she woke and listened. But David still -slept. When she woke up for the third time, the room was full of the -greyness of the dawn. She got up and closed the door between the two -rooms. - -Then she lay waking. It had been a strange wedding night. - -The day dawned cloudy, but broke at noon into a cloudless warmth that -was more like June than April. - -“Take me down the river,” said Elizabeth, and they rowed down for half a -mile, and turned the boat into a water-lane where budding willows swept -down on either side, and brushed the stream. - -David was very well content to lie in the sun. The strain was gone from -him, leaving behind it a weariness beyond words. Every limb, every -muscle, every nerve was relaxed. There was a great peace upon him. The -air tasted sweet. The light was a pleasant thing. The sky was blue, and -so was Elizabeth’s dress, and Elizabeth was a very reposeful person. She -did not fidget and she did not chatter. When she spoke it was of -pleasant things. - -David recalled a day, ten years ago, when he had sat with her in this -very place. He could see himself, full of enthusiasm, full of youth. He -could remember how he had talked, and how Elizabeth had listened. She -was just the same now. It was he who had changed. Ten years ago seemed -to him a very pleasant time, a very pleasant memory. Pictures rose -before him—stray words—stray recollections running into a long, soft -blur. - -They came home in the dusk. - -“Are you going to see Ronnie again?” said Elizabeth, as they landed. - -“Yes; he couldn’t be doing better, but I’ll look in, and to-morrow -Skeffington will go with me so as to get him broken in to the change. We -ought to get away all right now.” - -David waked next day to find the sun shining in at his uncurtained -window. From where he lay he could see the young blue of the sky, and -all the room seemed full of the sun’s gold. David lay in a lazy -contentment watching the motes that danced in a long shining beam. There -was a new stir of life in his veins. He stretched out his limbs and was -glad of their strength. The sweetness and the glory and the promise of -the spring slid into his blood and fired it. - -“Mary,” he said, still between sleeping and waking—and with the name, -memory woke. Suddenly his brain was very clear. He looked straight ahead -and saw the door that led into the other room—the room that had been his -mother’s. Elizabeth was in that room. He had married Elizabeth—she was -his wife. He lay quite still and stared at the door. Elizabeth Chantrey -was Elizabeth Blake. She was his wife—and Mary—— - -A sudden spasm of laughter caught David by the throat. Mary was what she -had promised to be—his sister; Mary was his sister. The spasm of -laughter passed, and with it the stir in David’s blood. He was quite -cool now. He lay staring at that closed door, and faced the situation. - -It was a damnable situation, he decided. He felt as a man might feel who -wakes from the delirium of weeks, to find that in his madness he has -done some intolerable, some irrevocable thing. A man who does not sleep -is a man who is not wholly sane. David looked back and followed the -events of the last few months with a critical detachment. - -He saw the strain growing and growing until, in the end, on the brink of -the abyss, he had snatched at the relief which Elizabeth offered, as a -man who dies of thirst will snatch at water. Well—he had taken -Elizabeth’s draught of water, his thirst was quenched, he was his own -man again. No, never his own man any more. Never free any -more—Elizabeth’s debtor—Elizabeth’s husband. - -David set his face like a flint—he would pay his debt. - -He went out as soon as he had breakfasted and walked for a couple of -hours. It was a little after noon when he came into the drawing-room -where Elizabeth was. - -The floor was covered with a great many yards of green stuff which she -was cutting into curtain lengths. As David came in, she looked up and -smiled. - -“Oh, _please_,” she said, “if you wouldn’t mind, I shall cut them so -much better if you hold one end.” - -David knelt down and held the stuff, whilst Elizabeth cut it. She came -quite close to him at the end, smiled again, and took away the two -pieces which he still clutched helplessly. - -“That’s beautiful,” she said, and sat down and began to sew. - -David watched her in silence. If she found his gaze embarrassing, she -showed no sign. - -“We can start to-morrow,” he said at last. He gave a list of trains, -stopping-places, and hotels, paused at the end of it, walked to the -window, and then, turning, said with an effort: - -“This has been a bad beginning for you, my dear—you’ve been very good to -me. You deserve a better bargain, but I’ll do my best.” - -Elizabeth did not speak at once. David thought that she was not going to -speak at all, but after what seemed like a long time she said: - -“David!” and then stopped. - -There was a good deal of colour in her cheeks. David saw that she, too, -was making an effort. - -“Well,” he said, and his voice was more natural. - -“David,” said Elizabeth, “what did you mean by ‘doing your best’?” - -David met her eyes. He had always liked Elizabeth’s eyes. They were so -very clear. - -“I meant that I’d do my best to make you a good husband,” he said quite -simply. - -Elizabeth’s colour rose higher still. She continued to look at David, -because she would have considered it cowardly to look away. - -“A good husband to my good wife,” she said. “But, David, I don’t think -you want a wife just now.” - -David came across the room and sat down by the table at which Elizabeth -was working. - -“Then why did you marry me, Elizabeth?” he asked. - -Elizabeth did not turn her head at once. - -“I think what we both want just now,” she said, “is friendship.” Her -voice was low, but she kept it steady. “The sort of friendship that is -one side of marriage. It is not really possible for a man and a woman to -be friends in that sort of way unless they are married. I think you want -a friend—I know I do. I think you have been very lonely—one is lonely, -and it is worse for a man. He can’t get the home-feeling, and he misses -it. You did not marry me because you needed a wife. I don’t think you -do. When you want a wife, I will be your wife, but just now——” - -She broke off. She did not look at David, but David looked at her. He -saw how tightly her hands were clasped, he saw the colour flushing in -her cheeks. She had great self-control, but that she was deeply moved -was very evident. - -All at once he became conscious of great fatigue. He had walked far and -in considerable distress of mind. He had put a very strong constraint -upon himself. He rested his head on his hand and tried to think. -Elizabeth did not speak again. After a time he raised his head. -Elizabeth was watching him—her eyes were very soft. A sense of relief -came upon David. Just to drift—just to let things go on in the old way, -on the old lines. Not for always—just for a time—until he had put Mary -out of his thoughts. Their marriage was not an ordinary one. It was for -Elizabeth to make what terms she would. And it was a relief—yes, no -doubt it was a relief. - -“If I say, Yes,” he said, “it is only for a time. It is not a very -possible situation, you know, Elizabeth—not possible at all in most -cases. But just now, just for the present, I admit your right to -choose.” - -Elizabeth’s hands relaxed. - -“Thank you, David,” she said. - - - - - CHAPTER XVI - FRIENDSHIP - - - See, God is everywhere, - Where, then, is care? - There is no night in Him, - Then how can we grow dim? - There is no room for pain or fear - Since God is Love, and Love is here. - - The full cup lowered down into the sea, - Is full continually, - How can it lose one drop when all around - The endless floods abound? - So we in Him no part of Life can lose, - For all is ours to use. - -David found himself enjoying his holiday a good deal. Blue skies and -shining air, clear cold of the snows and radiant warmth of the spring -sun, sweet sleep by night and pleasant companionship by day—all these -were his portion. His own content surprised him. He had been so long in -the dark places that he could scarcely believe that the shadow was gone, -and the day clear again. He had been prepared to struggle manfully -against the feeling for Mary which had haunted and tormented him for so -long. To his surprise, he found that this feeling fell into line with -the other symptoms of his illness. He shrank from thinking of it, as he -shrank from thinking of his craving for drink, his sleepless nights, and -his dread of madness. It was all a part of the same bad dream—a shadow -among shadows, in a world of gloom from which he had escaped. - -Elizabeth was a very good companion. It was too early to climb, but they -took long walks, shared picnic meals, and talked or were silent just as -the spirit moved them. It was the old boy and girl companionship come -back, and it was a very restful thing. One day, when they had been -married about a fortnight, David said suddenly: - -“How did you do it, Elizabeth?” - -They were sitting on a grassy slope, looking over a wide valley where -blue mists lay. A little wind was blowing, and the upper air was clear. -The grass on which they sat was short. It was full of innumerable small -white and purple anemones. Elizabeth was sitting on the grass, watching -the flowers, and touching first one and then another with the tips of -her fingers. - -“All these little white ones have a violet stain at the back of each -petal,” was the last thing that she had said, but when David spoke she -looked up, a little startled. - -He was lying full length on a narrow ledge just above her, with his cap -over his eyes to shield them from the sun, which was very bright. - -“How did you do it, Elizabeth?” said David Blake. - -Elizabeth hesitated. She could not see his face. - -“What do you mean?” - -“How did you do it? Was it hypnotism?” - -“Oh, no—” There was real horror in her voice. - -“It must have been.” - -She was silent for a moment. Then she said: - -“Do you remember how interested we used to be in hypnotism, David?” - -“Yes, that’s partly what made me think of it.” - -“We read everything we could lay hands on—all the books on psychic -phenomena—Charcot’s experiments—everything. And do you remember the -conclusion we came to?” - -“What was it?” - -“I don’t think you’ve forgotten. I can remember you stamping up and down -my little room and saying, ‘It’s a _damnable_ thing, Elizabeth, a -perfectly damnable thing. There’s _no_ end, absolutely none to the -extent to which it undermines everything—I believe it is a much more -real devil than any that the theologies produce.’ That’s what you said -nine years ago, David, and I agreed with you. We used quite a lot of -strong language between us, and I don’t feel called upon to retract any -of it. Hypnotism _is_ a damnable thing.” - -David pushed the cap back from his eyes as Elizabeth spoke, and raised -himself on his elbow, so that he could see her face. - -“There are degrees,” he said, “and it’s very hard to define. How would -you define it?” - -“It’s not easy. ‘The unlawful influence of one mind over another’?” - -“That’s begging the question. At what point does it become -unlawful?—that’s the crux.” - -“I suppose at the point when force of will overbears -sense—reason—conscience. You may persuade a man to lend you money, but -you mayn’t pick his pocket or hypnotise him.” - -David laughed. - -“How practical!” - -Then very suddenly: - -“So it wasn’t hypnotism. Are you _sure_?” - -“Yes, quite sure.” - -“But can you be sure? There’s such a thing as the unconscious exercise -of will power.” - -Elizabeth shook her head. - -“There is nothing in the least unconscious in what I do. I know very -well what I am about, and I know enough about hypnotism to know that it -is not that. I don’t use my will at all.” - -“What do you do? How is it done?” His tone was interested. - -“I think,” said Elizabeth slowly, “that it is done by _realising_, by -getting into touch with Reality. Things like sleeplessness, pain, and -strain aren’t right—they aren’t normal. They are like bad dreams. If one -wakes—if one sees the reality—the dream is gone.” - -She spoke as if she were struggling to find words for some idea which -filled her mind, but was hard to put into a communicable shape. - -“It is life on the Fourth Dimension,” she said at last. - -“Yes,” said David, “go on.” There was a slightly quizzical look in his -eyes, but he was interested. “What do you mean by the Fourth Dimension?” - -“We used to talk of that too, and lately I have thought about it a lot.” - -“Yes?” - -“It is so hard to put into words. Fourth Dimensional things won’t get -into Third Dimensional words. One has to try and try, and then a little -scrap of the meaning comes through. That is why there are so many -creeds, so many sects. They are all an attempt to express—and one can’t -really express the thing. I can’t say it, I can only feel it. It is -limitless, and words are limited. There are no bounds or barriers. Take -Thought, for instance—that is Fourth Dimensional—and Love. Religion is a -purely Fourth Dimensional thing, and we all guess and translate as best -we may. In all religions that have life, apprehension rises above the -creed and reaches out to the Real—the untranslatable.” - -“Yes, that’s true; but go on—define the Fourth Dimension.” - -“I can see it, you know. It’s another plane. It is the plane which -permeates and inter-penetrates all other planes—universal, eternal, -unchanging. It’s like the Fire of God—searching all things. It is the -plane of Reality. Nothing is real which is not universal and unchanging -and eternal. If one can realise that plane, one is amongst the -realities, and all that is unreal goes out. ‘There is no life but the -Life of God, no consciousness but the Divine Consciousness.’ I think -that is the best definition of all: ‘the Divine Consciousness.’” - -He did not know that she was quoting, and he did not answer her or speak -at all for some time. But at last he said: - -“So I slept, because you saw me in the Divine Consciousness; is that -it?” - -“Something like that.” - -“You didn’t will that I should sleep?” - -“Oh, no.” - -“Are you doing it still?” - -“Yes.” - -“Every night?” - -“Yes,” said Elizabeth again. - -David sat up. The mists in the valley beneath were golden, for the sun -had dropped. As he looked, the gold turned grey, and the shadow of -darkness to come rose out of the valley’s depths, though the hill-slope -on which they sat was warm and sunny yet. David turned and saw that -Elizabeth was watching him. - -“I want you to stop whatever it is you do,” he said abruptly. - -“Very well.” - -“I’m not as ungrateful as that sounds—” He broke off, and Elizabeth said -quickly: - -“Oh, no.” - -“You don’t think it?” - -“Why should I? You are well again. You don’t need my help any more.” - -A shadow like the shadow of evening came over her as she spoke, but her -smile betrayed nothing. - -They walked back to the hotel in silence. - -David had wondered if he would sleep. He slept all night, the sweet -sound sleep of health and a mind unburdened. - -It was Elizabeth who did not sleep. She had walked with him through the -valley of the shadow and he had come out of it a whole man again. Was -she to cling to the shadow, because in the shadow David had clung to -her? It came to that. She drove the thought home, and did not shirk the -pain of it. They were come out into the light, and in the light he had -no need of her. But this was not full daylight in which they walked—it -was only the first chill grey of the dawn, and there is always a need of -Love. Love needs must give, and giving, blesses and is blessed, for Love -is of the realities—a thing immutable and all-pervading. No man can shut -out Love. - - - - - CHAPTER XVII - THE DREAM - - - My hand has never touched your hand, I have not seen your face, - No sound of any spoken word has passed between us two— - Yet night by night I come to you in some unearthly place, - And all my dreams of day and night are dreams of love and you. - - The moon has never shone on us together in our sleep, - The sun has never seen us kiss beneath the arch of day, - Your eyes have never looked in mine—your soul has looked so deep, - That all the sundering veils of sense are drawn and done away. - - My lids are sealed with more than sleep, but I am lapped in light, - Your soul draws near, and yet more near, till both our souls are - one, - In that strange place of our content is neither day nor night, - No end and no beginning, whilst the timeless æons run. - -David came home after his month’s holiday as hard and healthy as a man -may be. Elizabeth was well content. She and David were friends. He liked -her company, he ate and slept, he was well, and he laughed sometimes as -the old David had laughed. - -“Don’t you think your master looks well, Mrs. Havergill?” she said quite -gaily. - -Mrs. Havergill sighed. - -“He do look well,” she admitted; “but there, ma’am, there’s no saying—it -isn’t looks as we can go by. In my own family now, there was my sister -Sarah. She was a fine, fresh-looking woman. Old Dr. Jones he met her out -walking, as it might be on the Thursday. - -“‘Well, Miss Sarah, you _do_ look well,’ he says—and there, ’tweren’t -but the following Tuesday as she was took. ‘Who’d ha’ thought it,’ he -says. ‘In the midst of life we are in death,’ and that’s a true word. -And my brother ’Enry now, ’e never look so well in all ’is life as when -he was laying in ’is coffin.” - -Elizabeth could afford to laugh. - -“Oh, Mrs. Havergill, do be cheerful,” she implored; “it would be so much -better for you.” - -Mrs. Havergill looked injured. - -“I don’t see as we’re sent into this world to be cheerful,” she said, -with the air of one who reproves unchristian levity. - -“Oh, but we are—we really are,” said Elizabeth. - -Mrs. Havergill shook her head. - -“Let them be cheerful as has no troubles,” she remarked. “I’ve ’ad mine, -and a-plenty,” and she went out of the room, sighing. - -Mary ran in to see her sister quite early on the morning after their -return. - -“Well, Liz—no, let me _look_ at you—I’ll kiss you in a minute. Are you -_happy_—you wrote dreadful guide-book letters, that I tore up and put in -the fire.” - -“Oh, Molly.” - -“Yes, they were—exactly like Baedeker, only worse. All about mountains -and flowers and the nice air, and ‘David is quite well again.’ As if -_anyone_ wanted to hear about mountains and flowers from a person on her -honeymoon. Are you _happy_, Liz?” - -“Don’t I look happy?” said Elizabeth laughing. - -“Yes, you do.” Mary looked at her considering. “You _do_. Is it all -right, Liz, _really_ all right?” - -“Yes, it’s really all right, Molly,” said Elizabeth, and then she began -to talk of other things. - -Mary kissed her very affectionately when she went away, but at the door -she turned, frowning. - -“I expect you wrote _reams_ to Agneta,” she said, and then shut the door -quickly before Elizabeth had time to answer. - -David was out when Mary came, and it so happened that for two or three -days they did not meet. He had come to dread the meeting. His passion -for Mary was dead. He was afraid lest her presence, her voice, should -raise the dead and bring it forth again in its garment of glamour and -pain. Then on Sunday he came in to find Mary sitting there with -Elizabeth in the twilight. She jumped up as he came in, and held out her -hand. - -“Well, David, you are a nice brother—never to have come and seen me. -Busy? Yes, of course you’ve been busy, but you might have squeezed in a -visit to me, amongst all the visits to sick old ladies and naughty -little boys. Oh, _do_ you know, Katie Ellerton has gone away? She took -Ronnie to Brighton for a change, and then wrote and said she wasn’t -coming back. I believe she is going to live with a brother who is a -solicitor down there. And she’s selling her furniture, so if you _want_ -extra things you might get them cheap.” - -“That’s Elizabeth’s department,” said David, laughing. - -“Well, this is for you both. When will you come to dinner? On Tuesday? -Yes, do. Talk about being busy. Edward’s busy, if you like. I never see -him, and he’s quite worried. Liz, you remember Jack Webster? Well, you -know he’s on the West Coast, and he’s sent Edward a whole case of -things—frightfully exciting specimens, two centipedes he’s wanted for -ever so long, and a spider that Jack says is new. And Edward has never -even had time to open the case. That shows you! It’s accounts, I -believe. Edward does hate accounts.” - -When she had gone David sat silent for a long time. It was the old Mary, -and prettier than ever. He had never seen her looking prettier, but his -feeling for her was gone. He could look at her quite dispassionately, -and wonder over the old unreasoning thrill. And what a chatterbox she -was. Thank Heaven, she had had the sense to marry Edward, who was really -not such a bad sort. Poor Edward. He laughed aloud suddenly, and -Elizabeth looked up and asked: - -“What is it?” - -“Edward and the case he can’t open, and the centipedes he can’t play -with,” he said, still laughing. “Poor old Edward! What it is to have a -conscience. I wonder he doesn’t have a midnight orgy with the -centipedes, but I suppose Mary sees to that.” - -It was that night that David dreamed his dream again. All these months -it had never come to him. Amongst the many dreams that had haunted his -sick brain, there had been no hint of this one. He had wondered about it -sometimes. And now it returned. In the first deep sleep that comes to a -healthy man he dreamed it. - -He heard the wind blowing—that was the beginning of it. It came from the -far distances of space, and it passed on again to the far distances -beyond. David heard it blow, but his eyes were darkened. Then suddenly -he saw. His feet were on the shining sand, the sand that shone because a -golden moon looked down upon it from a clear sky, and the tide had left -it wet. - -David stood upon the shining sand, and saw the Woman of the Dream stand -where the moon-track ceased at the sea’s rim. The moon was behind her -head, and the wind blew out her hair. He stood as he had stood a hundred -times, and as he had longed a hundred times to see the Woman’s face, so -he longed now. He moved to go to her, and the wind blew about him in his -dream. - -Elizabeth had sat late in her room. There was a book in her hand, but -after a time she did not read. The night was very warm. She got up and -opened the window wide. The moon was low and nearly full, and a wind -blew out of the west—such a warm wind, full of the scent of green, -growing things. Elizabeth put out the light and stood by the window, -drawing long breaths. It seemed as if the wind were blowing right -through her. It beat upon her uncovered throat, and the touch of it was -like something alive. It sang in her ears, and Elizabeth’s blood sang -too. - -And then, quite suddenly, she heard a sound that stopped her heart. She -heard the handle of the door between her room and David’s turn softly, -and she heard a step upon the threshold. All her life was at her heart, -waiting. She could neither move, nor speak, nor draw her breath. And the -wind blew out her long white dress, and the wind blew out her hair. As -in a trance between one world and the next, she heard a voice in the -room. It was David’s voice, and yet not David’s voice, and it shook the -very foundations of her being. - -“Turn round and let me see your face, Woman of my Dream,” said David -Blake. - -Elizabeth stood quite still. Only her breath came again. The wind -brought it back to her, and as she drew it in, the step came nearer and -David said again: - -“Show me your face—your face; I have never seen your face.” - -She turned then, very slowly—in obedience to an effort, that left her -drained of strength. - -David was standing in the middle of the room. His feet were bare, as he -had risen from his bed, but his eyes were open, and they looked not at, -but through Elizabeth, to the place where she walked in his dream. - -“Ah!” said David on a long, slow, sudden breath. - -He came nearer—nearer. Now he stood beside her, and the wind swept -suddenly between them, and eddying, drove a great swathe of her -unfastened hair across his breast. David put up his hand and touched the -hair. - -“But I can’t see your face,” he said, in a strange, complaining note. -“The moon shines on your hair, but not upon your face. Show me your -face—your face——” - -She moved, and the moon shone on her. Her face was as white as ivory. -Her eyes wide and dark—as dark as the darkening sky. They stood in -silence, and the moon sank low. - -Then David put out his hands and touched her on the breast. - -“Now I have seen your face,” he said. “Now I am content because I have -seen your face. I have gone hungry for the sight of it, and have gone -thirsty for the love of you, and all the years I have never seen your -face.” - -“And now——?” - -Elizabeth’s voice came in a whisper. - -“Now I am content.” - -“Why?” - -“Your face is the face of Love,” said David Blake. - -His hands still held her hair. They lay against her heart, and moved a -little as she breathed. - -A sudden terror raised its head and peered at Elizabeth. Mary—oh, God—if -he took her for Mary. The thought struck her as with a spear of ice. It -burned as ice burns, and froze her as ice freezes. Her lips were stiff -as she forced out the words: - -“Who am I? Say.” - -His hands were warm. He answered her at once. - -“We are in the Dream, you and I. You are the Woman of the Dream. Your -face is the face of Love, and your hair—your floating hair—” He paused. - -“My hair—what colour is my hair?” whispered Elizabeth. - -“Your hair—” He lifted a strand of it. The wind played through it, and -it brushed his cheek, then fell again upon her breast. His hand closed -down upon it. - -“What colour is my hair?” said Elizabeth very quietly. Mary’s hair was -dark. Even in the moonlight, Mary’s hair would be dark. If he said dark -hair, dark like the night which would close upon them when that low moon -was gone—what should she do—oh, God, what should she do? - -“Your hair is gold—moon gold, which is pale as a dream,” said David -Blake. And a great shudder ran through Elizabeth from head to foot as -the ice went from her heart. - -“Like moon gold,” repeated David, and his hands were warm against her -breast. - -And then all at once they were in the dark together, for the moon went -out suddenly like a blown candle. She had dropped into a bank of clouds -that rose from the clouding west. The wind blew a little chill, and as -suddenly as the light had gone, David, too, was gone. One moment, so -near—touching her in the darkness—and the next, gone—gone noiselessly, -leaving her shaking, quivering. - -When she could move, she lit a candle and looked in through the open -door. David lay upon his side, with one hand under his cheek. He was -sleeping like a child. - -Elizabeth shut the door. - - - - - CHAPTER XVIII - THE FACE OF LOVE - - - Where have I seen these tall black trees, - Two and two and three—yes, seven, - Standing all about in a ring, - And pointing up to Heaven? - - Where have I seen this black, black pool, - That never ruffles to any breath, - But stares and stares at the empty sky, - As silently as death? - - How did we come here, you and I, - With the pool beneath, and the trees above? - Oh, even in death or the dusk of a dream, - You are heart of the heart of Love. - -Elizabeth was very pale when she came down the next day. As she dressed, -she could hear David singing and whistling in his room. He went down the -stairs like a schoolboy, and when she followed she found him opening his -letters and whistling still. - -“Hullo!” he said. “Good-morning. You’re late, and I’ve only got half an -hour to breakfast in. I’m starving, I don’t believe you gave me any -dinner last night. I shall be late for lunch. Give me something cold -when I come in, I’ve got a pretty full day——” - -Elizabeth wondered as she listened to him if it were she who had -dreamed. - -That evening he looked up suddenly from his book and said: - -“Was the moon full last night?” - -“Not quite.” - -Elizabeth was startled. Did he, after all, remember anything? - -“When is it full?” - -“To-morrow, I think. Why?” - -Her breathing quickened a little as she asked the question. - -“Because I dreamed my dream again last night, and it generally comes -when the moon is full,” he said. - -Elizabeth turned, as if to get more light upon her book. She could not -sit and let him see her face. - -“Your dream——?” - -Her voice was low. - -“Yes.” - -He paused for so long that the silence seemed to close upon Elizabeth. -Then he said thoughtfully: - -“Dreams are odd things. I’ve had this one off and on since I was a boy. -And it’s always the same. But I have not had it for months. Then last -night—” He broke off. “Do you know I’ve never told any one about it -before—does it bore you?” - -“No,” said Elizabeth, and could not have said more to save her life. - -“It’s a queer dream, and it never varies. There’s always the same long, -wet stretch of sand, and the moon shining over the sea. And a woman——” - -“Yes——” - -“She stands at the edge of the sea with the moon behind her, and the -wind—did I tell you about the wind?—it blows her hair and her dress. And -I have never seen her face.” - -“No?” - -“No, never. I’ve always wanted to, but I can never get near enough, and -the moon is behind her. When I was a boy, I used to walk in my sleep -when I had the dream. I used to wake up in all sorts of odd places. Once -I got as far as the front-door step, and waked with my feet on the wet -stones. I suppose I was looking for the Woman.” - -Elizabeth took a grip of herself. - -“Do you walk in your sleep now?” - -He shook his head. - -“Oh, no. Not since I was a boy,” he said cheerfully. “Mrs. Havergill -would have evolved a ghost story long ago if I had.” - -“And last night your dream was just the same?” - -“Yes, just the same. It always ends just when it might get exciting.” - -“Did you wake?” - -“No. That’s the odd part. One is supposed to dream only when one is -waking, and of course it’s very hard to tell, but my impression is, that -at the point where my dream ends I drop more deeply asleep. Dreams are -queer things. I don’t know why I told you about this one.” - -He took up his book as he spoke, and they talked no more. - - * * * * * * * * - -Elizabeth went to her room early that night, but she did not get into -bed. She moved about the room, hanging up the dress she had worn, -folding her things—even sorting out a drawer full of odds and ends. It -seemed as if she must occupy herself. - -Presently she heard David come up and go into his room. She went on -rolling up stray bits of lace and ribbon with fingers that seemed oddly -numb. When she had finished, she began to brush her hair, standing -before the glass, and brushing with a long, rhythmic movement. After -about ten minutes she turned suddenly and blew out the candle. She went -to the window and opened it wide. - -Then, because she was trembling, she sat down on the window-seat and -waited. The night came into the room and filled it. The trees moved -above the water. The rumble of traffic in the High Street sounded very -far away. It had nothing to do with the world in which Elizabeth waited. -There was no wind to-night. It was very still and warm. The moon shone. - -When the door opened, Elizabeth knew that she had known that he would -come. He crossed the room and took her in his arms. She felt his arms -about her, she felt his kiss, and there was nothing of the unsubstantial -stuff of dreams in his strong clasp. For one moment, as her lips kissed -too, she thought that he was awake—that he had remembered, but as she -stepped back and looked into his face she saw that he was in his dream. -His eyes looked far away. Then he kissed her again, and dreaming or -waking her soul went out of her and was his soul, her very consciousness -was no more hers, but his, and she, too, saw that strange, moon-guarded -shore, and she, too, heard the wind. But the night—the night was still. -Where did it come from, this sudden rush of the wind, that seemed to -blow through her? From far away it came, from very far away, and it -passed through her and on to its own far place again, a rushing eddy of -wind, whirling about some unknown centre. - -Elizabeth was giddy and faint with the singing of that wind in her ears. -The moon was in her eyes. She trembled, and hid them upon David’s -breast. - -“David,” she whispered at last, and he answered her. - -“Love—love——” - -She turned a little from the light and looked at him. There was a smile -upon his face, and his eyes smiled too. - -“Where are we?” she said. And David laid his face against hers and said: - -“We are in the Dream.” - -“David, what is the Dream? Do you know? Tell me.” - -“It is the Dream,” he said, “the old dream, the dream that has no -waking.” - -“And who am I? Am I Elizabeth?” She feared so much to say it, and could -not rest till it was said. - -“Elizabeth.” He repeated the word, and paused. His eyes clouded. - -“You are the Woman of the Dream.” - -“But I have a name——” - -“Yes—you have a name, but I have forgotten—if I could remember it. It is -the name—the old name—the name you had before the moon went down. It was -at night. You kissed me. There were so many trees. I knew your name. -Then the moon went down, and it was dark, and I forgot—not you—only the -name. Are you angry, love, because I have forgotten your name?” - -There was trouble in his tone. - -“No, not angry,” said Elizabeth, with a quiver in her voice. “Will you -call me Elizabeth, David? Will you say Elizabeth to me?” - -He said “Elizabeth,” and as he said it his face changed. For a moment -she thought that he was waking. His arms dropped from about her, and he -drew a long, deep breath that was like a sigh. - -Then he went slowly from her into the darkness of his own room, walking -as if he saw. - -Elizabeth fell on her knees by the window-seat and hid her face. The -wind still sang in her ears. - - - - - CHAPTER XIX - THE FULL MOON - - - The sun was cold, the dark dead Moon - Hung low behind dull leaden bars, - And you came barefoot down the sky - Between the grey unlighted Stars. - - You laid your hand upon my soul, - My soul that cried to you for rest, - And all the light of the lost Sun - Was in the comfort of your breast. - - There was no veil upon your heart, - There was no veil upon your eyes; - I did not know the Stars were dim, - Nor long for that dead Moon to rise. - -They dined with Edward and Mary next day. - -The centipedes were still immured, and Edward made tentative overtures -to David on the subject of broaching the case after dinner. - -“Edward is the soul of hospitality,” David said afterwards. “He keeps -his best to the end. First, a positively good dinner, then some -comparatively enjoyable music, and, last of all, the superlatively -enthralling centipedes.” - -At the time, he complied with a very good grace. He even contrived a -respectable degree of enthusiasm when the subject came up. - -It was Mary who insisted on the comparatively agreeable music. - -“No—I will not have you two going off by yourselves the moment you’ve -swallowed your dinner. It’s not _good_ for people. Edward will certainly -have indigestion—yes, Edward, you know you will. Come and have coffee -with us in a proper and decent fashion, and we’ll have some music, and -then you shall do anything you like, and I’ll talk to Elizabeth.” - -Edward sang only one song, and then said that he was hoarse, which was -not true. But Elizabeth was glad when the door closed upon him and -David, for the song Edward had sung was the one thing on earth which she -felt least able to hear. He sang, _O Moon of my Delight_, transposed by -Mary to suit his voice, and he sang it with his usual tuneful -correctness. - -Elizabeth looked up only once, and that was just at the end. David was -looking at her with a frown of perplexity. But as Edward remarked that -he was hoarse, David passed his hand across his eyes for a moment, as if -to brush something away, and rose with alacrity to leave the room. - -When they were gone Mary drew a chair close to her sister and sat down. -She was rather silent for a time, and Elizabeth was beginning to find it -hard to keep her own thoughts at bay, when Mary said in a new, gentle -voice: - -“Liz, I’m so _happy_.” - -“Are you, Molly?” She spoke rather absently, and Mary became softly -offended. - -“Don’t you want to know why, Liz? I don’t believe you care a bit. I -don’t believe you’d mind if I were ever so miserable, now that you’ve -got David, and are happy yourself!” - -Elizabeth came back to her surroundings. - -“Oh, Molly, what a goose you are, and what a monster you make me out. -What is it, Mollykins, tell me?” - -“I’ve a great mind not to. I don’t believe you really care. I wouldn’t -tell you a word, only I can’t help it. Oh, Liz, I’m going to have a -baby, and I thought I never should. I was making myself _wretched_ about -it.” - -She caught Elizabeth’s hand and squeezed it. - -“Oh, Liz, be glad for me. I’m so glad and happy, and I want some one to -be glad too. You don’t know how I’ve wanted it. No one knows. I’ve -simply hated all the people in the _Morning Post_ who had babies. I’ve -not even read the first column for weeks, and when Sybil Delamere sent -me an invitation to her baby’s christening—she was married the same day -I was, you know—I just tore it up and _burnt_ it. And now it’s really -coming to me, and you’re to be glad for me, Liz.” - -“Molly, darling, I _am_ glad—so glad.” - -“Really?” - -Mary looked up into her sister’s face, searchingly. - -“You’re thinking of me, _really_ of me—not about David, as you were just -now? Oh, yes, I knew.” - -Elizabeth laughed. - -“Really, Molly, mayn’t I think of my own husband?” - -“Not when I’m telling you about a thing like this,” said Mary. “Liz, you -are the first person I have told, the _very_ first.” - -Elizabeth did not allow her thoughts to wander again. As they talked, -the rain beat heavily against the windows, and they heard the rush of it -in the gutters below. - -“What a pity,” Mary cried. “How quickly it has come up, and last night -was so lovely. Did you see the moon? And to-night it is full.” - -“Yes, to-night it is full,” said Elizabeth. - -Edward and Mary came down to see their guests off. Edward shut the door -behind them. - -“What a night!” he exclaimed. But Mary came close and whispered: - -“I’ve told her.” - -“Have you?” - -Edward’s tone was just the least shade perfunctory. He slid home the -bolt of the door and turning, caught Mary in his arms and hugged her. - -“O Mary, _darling_!” - -Mary glowed, responsive. - -“O Mary, darling, it really _is_ a new spider,” he cried. - -David and Elizabeth walked home in a steady downpour. Mary had lent her -overshoes, and she had tucked up her dress under a mackintosh of -Edward’s. There was much merriment over their departure with a large -umbrella between them, but as they walked home, they both grew silent. -Elizabeth said good-night in the hall, and ran up to her room. To-night -he would not come. Oh, to-night she felt quite sure that he would not -come. It was dark. She heard the rain falling into the river, and she -could just see how the trees bent in the rush of it. And yet she sat for -an hour, by her window, in the dark, waiting breathlessly for that which -would not happen. - -The time went slowly by. The rain fell, and it was cold. Elizabeth lay -down in the great square bed, and presently she slept, lulled by the -steady dropping of the rain. She slept, and in her sleep she dreamed -that she was sinking fathoms deep in a stormy, angry sea. Far overhead, -she could hear the clash of the waves, and the long, long sullen roar of -the swelling storm. And she went down and down into a black darkness -that was deeper than any night—down, till she lost the roar of the storm -above, down until all sound was gone, and she was alone in a black -silence that would never lift or break again. Her soul was cold and -blind, and most unendurably alone. Then something touched her, something -that was warm. There came upon her that strange sense of home-coming, -which comes to us in dreams, when love comes back to us across the -sundering years, and all the pains of life, the pains of death, vanish -and are gone, and we are come home—home to the place where we would be. - -In her dream Elizabeth was come home. It was so long, so long, that she -had wandered—so many years, so many lands—such weary feet and such a -weary way. Now she was come home. - -She stirred and opened her eyes. The rain had ceased. The room was dark, -but the moon shone, for a single shaft struck between the curtains and -lay above the bed like a silver feather dropped from some great passing -wing. - -Elizabeth was awake. She saw these things. She was come home. David’s -arms were about her in the darkness. - - - - - CHAPTER XX - THE WOMAN OF THE DREAM - - - Oh, was it in the dead of night, - Or in the dark before the day, - You came to me and kneeling, knew - The thing that I would never say? - - There was no star, nor any moon, - There was no light from pole to pole, - And yet you saw the secret thing, - That I had hid within my soul. - - You saw the secret and the shrine, - You bowed your head and went your way— - Oh, was it in the dead of night, - Or in the dark that brings the day? - -For the next fortnight Elizabeth lived in a dream from which she -scarcely woke by day. The dream life—the dream love—the dream -itself—these became her life. In the moments that came nearest the -waking she trembled, because if the dream was her life, the waking would -be death. But for the rest of the time she walked in a trance. Earth -budded, and the birds built nests. The green of woodland places went -down under a flood of bluebells. The children made cowslip balls. All -day long the sun shone out of a blue sky, and at night David came to -her. Always he came at night, and went away in the dawn. And he -remembered nothing. - -Once she put her face to his in the darkness, and said: - -“Oh, David, won’t you remember—won’t you ever remember? Am I only the -Woman of the Dream? When will you remember?” - -Then David was troubled in his dream, and stirred and went from her an -hour before the time of his going. - -Towards the end of the fortnight her trance wore thin. It was then that -everything she saw or read seemed to press in upon one sore spot. If she -went to the Mottisfonts’, there was Mary with her talk of Edward and the -baby. Edward!—Elizabeth could have laughed; but the laughter went too. -If there were not much of Edward, at least Mary had all that there was. -And the child—did not she, too, desire children? But the child of a -dream. How could she give to David the child of a dream already -forgotten? If she walked, there were lovers in every lane, young lovers, -who loved each other by day and in the eye of the sun. If she took up a -book—once what she read was: - - Come to me in my dreams, and then - By day I shall be well again! - For then the night will more than pay - The hopeless longing of the day. - -and another time, Kingsley’s _Dolcino to Margaret_. Then came a day when -she opened her Bible and read: - -“If a man walk in the night, he stumbleth, because there is no light in -him.” - -That day she came broad awake. The daze passed from her. Her brain was -clear, and her conscience—the inner vision rose before her, showing her -an image troubled and confused. What had she done? And what was she -doing now? Day by day David looked at her with the eyes of a friend, and -night by night he came to her, the lover of a dream. Which was the -reality? Which was the real David? If the David of the dream were real, -conscious in sleep of some mysterious oneness, the sense of which was -lost in the glare of day—then she could wait, and bear, and hope, till -the realisation was so strong that the sun might shine upon it and show -to David awake what the sleeping David knew. - -But if the David of the dream were not the real David, then what was -she? Mistress and no wife—the mistress of a dream mood that never -touched Reality at all. - -Two scalding tears in Elizabeth’s eyes—two and no more. The others -burned her heart. - -And the thought stayed with her. - -That evening after dinner Elizabeth looked up from her embroidery. The -silence had grown to be too full of thoughts. She could not bear it. - -“What are you reading, David?” she asked. - -He laughed and said: - -“Sentimental poetry, ma’am. Would you have suspected me of it? I find it -very soothing.” - -“Do you?” - -She paused, and then said with a flutter in her throat: - -“Do you ever write poetry now, David? You used to.” - -“Yes, I remember boring you with it.” - -He coloured a little as he spoke. - -“But since then?” - -“Oh, yes——” - -“Show me some——” - -“Not for the world.” - -“Why not?” - -“Poetry is such an awful give away. How any one ever dares to publish -any, I don’t know. I suppose they get hardened. But one’s most private -letters aren’t a patch on it. One puts down all one’s grumbles, one’s -moonstruck fancies, the ravings of one’s inanest moments. Mine are not -for circulation, thanks.” - -Elizabeth did not laugh. Instead she said, quite seriously, - -“David, I wish you would show me some of it.” - -He looked rather surprised, but got up, and presently came back with -some papers in his hand, and threw them into her lap. - -“There. There’s one there that’s rather odd. It’s rotten poetry, but it -gave me the oddest feelings when I wrote it. See if it does the same to -you,” and he laughed. - -There were three poems in Elizabeth’s lap. The first was a vigorous bit -of work—a ballad with a good ballad swing to it. Elizabeth read it and -applauded. - -“This is much better than your old things,” she said, and he was -manifestly pleased. - -The next was a set of clever verses on a political topic of passing -interest. Elizabeth laughed over it and laid it aside. Her thoughts were -pleasantly diverted. Anything was welcome that brought her nearer to the -David of the day. - -She took up the third poem. It was called: - - - Egypt - - Egypt sands are burning hot. - Burning hot and dry, - How they scorched us as we worked, - Toiling, you and I, - When we built the Pyramid in Egypt. - - Heaven like hammered brass above, - Earth like brass below, - How the sweat of torment ran, - All those years ago, - When we built the Pyramid in Egypt. - - When the dreadful day was done, - Night was like your eyes, - Sweet and cool and comforting— - We were very wise, - When we built the Pyramid in Egypt. - - We were very wise, my dear, - Children, lovers, gods, - Where’s the wisdom that we knew, - With our world at odds, - When we built the Pyramid in Egypt? - - Now your hand is strange to mine, - Now you heed me not, - Life and death and love and pain, - You have quite forgot, - You have quite forgotten me and Egypt. - - I would bear it all again, - Just to take your hand, - Bend my body to the whip, - Tread the burning sand, - Build another Pyramid in Egypt. - - Toiling, toiling, all the day, - Loving you by night, - I’d go back three thousand years - If I only might,— - Back to toil and pain and you and Egypt. - -When she looked up at the end, David spoke at once. - -“Well,” he said, “what does it say to you?” - -“I don’t quite know.” - -“It set up one of those curious thought-waves. One seems to remember -something out of an extraordinarily distant past. Have you ever felt it? -I believe most people have. There are all sorts of theories to account -for it. The two sides of the brain working unequally, and several -others. But the impression is common enough, and the theories have been -made to fit it. Of course the one that fits most happily is the -hopelessly unscientific one of reincarnation. Well, my thought-wave took -me back to Egypt and——” - -He hesitated. - -“Tell me.” - -Elizabeth’s voice was eager. - -“Oh, nothing.” - -“Yes, tell me.” - -He laughed at her earnestness. - -“Well, then—I saw the woman’s eyes.” - -“Yes.” - -“They were grey. That’s all. And I thought it odd.” - -He broke off, and Elizabeth asked no more. She knew very well why he had -thought it odd that the woman’s eyes should be grey. The poems were -dated, and _Egypt_ bore the date of a year ago. He was in love with Mary -then, and Mary’s eyes were dark—dark hazel eyes. - -That night she woke from a dream of Mary, and heard David whispering a -name in his sleep, but she could not catch the name. The old shamed -dread and horror came upon her, strong and unbroken. She slipped from -bed, and stood by the window, panting for breath. And out of the -darkness David called to her: - -“Love, where are you gone to?” - -If he would say her name—if he would only say her name. She had no words -to answer him, but she heard him rise and come to her. - -“Why did you go away?” he said, touching her. And as she had done once -before, Elizabeth cried out. - -“Who am I, David?—tell me! Am I Mary?” - -He repeated the name slowly, and each repetition was a wound. - -“Mary,” he said, wonderingly, “there is no Mary in the Dream. There are -only you and I—and you are Love——” - -“And if I went out of the Dream?” said Elizabeth, leaning against his -breast. The comfort of his touch stole back into her heart. Her -breathing steadied. - -“Then I would come and find you,” said David Blake. - -It was the next day that Agneta’s letter came. Elizabeth opened it at -breakfast and exclaimed. - -“What is it?” - -She lifted a face of distress. - -“David, should you mind if I were to go away for a little? Agneta wants -me.” - -“Agneta?” - -“Yes, Agneta Mainwaring. You remember, I used to go and stay with the -Mainwarings in Devonshire.” - -“Yes, I remember. What’s the matter with her?” - -“She is engaged to Douglas Strange, the explorer, and there are—rumours -that his whole party has been massacred. He was working across Africa. -She wants me to come to her. I think I must. You don’t mind, do you?” - -“No, of course not. When do you want to go?” - -“I should like to go to-day. I could send her a wire,” said Elizabeth. -“I hope it’s only a rumour, and not true, but I must go.” - -David nodded. - -“Don’t take it too much to heart, that’s all,” he said. - -He said good-bye to her before he went out, told her to take care of -herself, asked her to write, and inquired if she wanted any money. - -When he had gone, Elizabeth told herself that this was the end of the -Dream. She could drift no more with the tide of that moon-watched sea. -She must think things out and come to some decision. Hitherto, if she -thought by day, the night with its glamour threw over her thoughts a -rainbow mist that hid and confused them. Now Agneta needed her, there -would be work for her to do. And she would not see David again until she -could look her conscience in the face. - - - - - CHAPTER XXI - ELIZABETH BLAKE - - - Oh, that I had wings, yea wings like a dove, - Then would I flee away and be at rest; - Lo, the dove hath wings because she is a dove, - God gave her wings and bade her build her nest. - Thy wings are stronger far, strong wings of love, - Thy home is sure in His unchanging rest. - -Elizabeth went up to London by the 12.22, which is a fast train, and -only stops once. - -She found Agneta, worn, tired, and cross. - -“Thank Heaven, you’ve come, Lizabeth,” she said. “All my relations have -been to see me. They are so kind. They are so _dreadfully_ kind, and -they all talk about its being God’s Will, and tell me what a beautiful -thing resignation is. If I believed in a God who arranged for people to -murder each other in order to give some one else a moral lesson, I’d -shoot myself. I really would. And resignation is a perfectly horrible -thing. I do think I must be getting a little better than I used to be, -because I wasn’t even rude to Aunt Henrietta, who told me I ought not to -repine, because all was for the best. She said there were many trials in -the married state, and that those who did not marry were spared the -sorrow of losing a child or having an unfaithful husband. I really -wasn’t rude to her, Lizabeth—I swear I wasn’t. But when I saw my cousin, -Mabel Aston, coming up the street—you always can see her a mile off—I -told Jane to say that I was very sorry, but I really couldn’t see any -one. Mabel won’t ever forgive me, because all the other relations will -tell her that I saw them. I told them every one that I was perfectly -certain that Douglas was all right. And so I am. Yes, really. But, oh, -Lizabeth, how I do hate the newspapers.” - -“I shouldn’t read them,” said Elizabeth. - -“I don’t! Nothing would induce me to. But I can’t stop my relations from -quoting reams of them, verbatim. By the by, do you mind dining at seven -to-night? I want to go to church. I don’t want you or Louis to come. -Heavens, Lizabeth, you’ve no idea what a relief it is not to have to be -polite, and say you want people when you don’t.” - -When Agneta had gone out Elizabeth talked to Louis for a little, and -then read. Presently she stopped reading and leaned back with closed -eyes, thinking first of Agneta, then of herself and David. Louis’s voice -broke in upon her thoughts. - -“Lizabeth, what _is_ it?” - -She was startled. - -“Oh, I was just thinking.” - -He frowned. - -“What is the good?” he said. “I told you I could see. You’re troubled, -horribly troubled about something. And it’s not Agneta. What is it?” - -Elizabeth was rather pale. - -“Oh, Louis,” she said, “please don’t. I’d rather you didn’t. And it’s -not what you think. It’s not really a trouble. I’m puzzled. I don’t know -what to do. There’s something I have to think out. And it’s not clear—I -can’t quite see——” - -Louis regarded her seriously. - -“If any man lack wisdom,” he said. “That’s a pretty good thing in the -pike-staff line. Good Lord, fancy me preaching to you. It’s amusing, -isn’t it?” - -He laughed a little. - -Elizabeth nodded. - -“You can go on,” she said. - -He considered. - -“I don’t know that I’ve got anything more to say except that—things that -puzzle one—there’s always the touchstone of reality. And things one -doesn’t want to do because they’re difficult, or because they hurt, or -because they take us away from something we’ve set our heart on—well—if -they’re right, they’re right, and there’s an end of it. And the right -thing, well, it’s the best thing all round. And when we get where we can -see it properly, it’s—well, it’s trumps all right.” - -Elizabeth nodded again. - -“Thank you, Louis,” she said. “I’ve been shirking. I think I’ve really -known it all along. Only when one shirks, it’s part of it to wrap -oneself up in a sort of mist, and call everything by a wrong name. I’ve -got to change my labels....” - -Her voice died away, and they sat silent until Agneta’s key was heard in -the latch. She came in looking rested. - -“Nice church?” said Elizabeth. - -“Yes,” said Agneta, “very nice. I feel better.” - -During the week that followed, Elizabeth had very little time to spare -for her own concerns, and Agneta clung to her and clung to hope, and day -by day the hope grew fainter. It was the half-hours when they waited for -the telephone bell to ring that brought the grey threads into Agneta’s -hair. Twice daily Louis rang up, and each time, after the same agonising -suspense, came the same message, “No news yet.” Towards the end of the -week, there was a wire to say that a rumour had reached the coast that -Mr. Strange was alive and on his way down the river. - -It was then that Agneta broke down. Whilst all had despaired, she had -held desperately to hope, but when Louis followed his message home, he -found Agneta with her head in Elizabeth’s lap, weeping slow, hopeless -tears. - -Then, forty-eight hours later, Douglas Strange himself cabled in code to -say that he had abandoned part of his journey owing to a native rising, -and was returning at once to England. - -“And now, Lizabeth,” said Agneta, “now your visit begins, please. This -hasn’t been a visit, it has been purgatory. I’m sure we’ve both expiated -all the sins we’ve ever committed or are likely to commit. Louis, take -the receiver off that brute of a telephone. I shall _never, never_ hear -a telephone bell again without wanting to scream. Lizabeth, let’s go to -a music hall.” - -Next day Agneta said suddenly: - -“Lizabeth, what is it?” - -“What is what?” - -Agneta’s little dark face became serious. - -“Lizabeth, I’ve been a beast. I’ve only been thinking about myself. Now -it’s your turn. What’s the matter?” - -Elizabeth was silent. - -“Mayn’t I ask? Do you mind?” - -Elizabeth shook her head. - -“Which is the ‘no’ for?” - -“Both,” said Elizabeth. - -“I mustn’t ask then. You’d rather not talk about it? Really?” - -“Yes, really, Neta, dear.” - -“Right you are.” - -Agneta was silent for a few minutes. They were sitting together in the -firelight, and she watched the play of light and shade upon Elizabeth’s -face. It was beautiful, but troubled. - -“Lizabeth, you used not to be beautiful, but you are beautiful now,” she -said suddenly. - -“Am I?” - -“Yes, I always loved your face, but it wasn’t really beautiful. Now I -think it is.” - -“Anything else?” Elizabeth laughed a little. - -“Yes, the patient look has gone. You used to look so patient that it -_hurt_. As if you were carrying a heavy load and just knew you had got -to carry it without making any fuss.” - -“Issachar, in fact——” - -“No, not then, but I’m not so sure now. I _think_ there _are_ two -burdens now.” - -Elizabeth laid her hand on Agneta’s lips. - -“Agneta, you ought to be ashamed of yourself. Stop thought-reading this -very minute. I never gave you leave.” - -“Sorry.” Agneta kissed the hand against her lips and laid it back in -Elizabeth’s lap. “Oh, Lizabeth, _why_ didn’t you marry Louis?” she said, -and Elizabeth saw that her eyes were full of tears. The firelight danced -on a brilliant, falling drop. - -“Because I love David,” said Elizabeth. “And love is worth while, -Agneta. It is very well worth while. You knew it was when you thought -that Douglas was dead. Would you have gone back to a year ago?” - -“Ah, Lizabeth, don’t,” said Agneta. - -She leaned her head against Elizabeth’s knee and was still. - -All that week, Elizabeth slept little and thought much. And her thought -was prayer. She did not kneel when she prayed, and she had her own idea -of what prayer should be. Not petition. The Kingdom of Heaven is about -us. We have but to open our eyes and take what is our own. Therefore not -petition. What Elizabeth called prayer was far more like taking -something out of the darkness, to look at it in the light. And before -the light, all things evil, all things that were not good and not of -God, vanished and were not. If thine eye be single, thy whole body shall -be full of light. In this manner, David’s sleeplessness had been changed -to rest and healing, and in this same manner, Elizabeth now knew that -she must test the strange dream-state in which David loved her. And in -her heart of hearts she did not think that it would stand the test. She -believed that, subjected to this form of prayer, the dream would vanish -and she be left alone. - -She faced the probability, and facing it, she prayed for light, for -wisdom, for the Reality that annihilates the shadows of man’s thought. -When she used words at all, they were the words of St. Patrick’s prayer: - - I bind to myself to-day, - The Power of God to protect me, - The Might of God to uphold me, - The Wisdom of God to guide me, - The Light of God to shine upon me, - The Love of God to encompass me. - -During these days Agneta looked at her anxiously, but she asked no -questions at all, and Elizabeth loved her for it. - -Elizabeth went home on the 15th of June. After hard struggle, she had -come into a place of clear vision. If the dream stood the test, if in -spite of all her strivings towards Truth, David still came to her, she -would take the dream to be an earnest of some future waking. If the -dream ceased, if David came no more, then she must cast her bread of -love upon the waters of the Infinite, God only knowing, if after many -days, she should be fed. - -David was very much pleased to have her back. He told her so with a -laugh—confessed that he had missed her. - -When Elizabeth went to her room that night, she sat down on the -window-seat and watched. It had rained, but the night was clear again. -She looked from the window, and the midsummer beauty slid into her soul. -The rain had washed the sky to an unearthly translucent purity, but out -of the west streamed a radiance of turquoise light. It filled the night, -and as it mounted towards the zenith, the throbbing colour passed by -imperceptible degrees into a sapphire haze. The horizon was a ghostly -line of far, pure emerald. This transfiguring glow had all the sunset’s -fire, only there was neither red nor gold in it. The ether itself -flamed, and the colour of that flame was blue. It was the light of -vision, the very light of a Midsummer’s Dream. The cloud that had shed -the rain brooded apart with wings of folded gloom. Two or three drifting -feathers of dark grey vapour barred the burning blue. Perishably fine, -they dissolved against the glow, and one amazing star showed translucent -at the vapour’s edge, now veiled, now blazing out as the mist wavered -and withdrew from so much brightness. A night for love, a night for -lovers’ dreams. - -Yearning came upon Elizabeth like a flood. Just once more to see him -look at her with love. Just once more—once more, to feel his arms, his -kiss—to weep upon his breast and say farewell. - -She put her hand out waveringly until it touched the wall. She shut her -eyes against the beauty of the night, and strove with the longing that -rent her. Her lips framed broken words. She said them over and over -again until the tumult died in her, and she was mistress of her -thoughts. Immortal love could never lose by Truth. - -Now she could look again upon the night. The trees were very black. The -wind stirred them. The sky was full of light made mystical. Which of the -temples that man has built, has light for its walls, and cloud and fire -for its pillars? In which of them has the sun his tabernacle, through -which of them does the moon pass, by a path of silver adoration? What -altar is served by the rushing winds and lighted by the stars? In all -the temples that man has made, man bows his head and worships, but in -the Temple of the Universe it is the Heavens themselves that declare the -Glory of God. - -Elizabeth’s thought rose up and up. In the divine peace it rested and -was stilled. - -And David did not come. - - - - - CHAPTER XXII - AFTER THE DREAM - - - In Him we live, He is our Source, our Spring, - And we, His fashioning, - We have no sight except by His foreseeing, - In Him we live and move and have our being, - He spake the Word, and lo! Creation stood, - And God said, It is good. - -David came no more. The dream was done. During the summer days there -rang continually in Elizabeth’s ears the words of a song—one of -Christina’s wonderful songs that sing themselves with no other music at -all. - - The hope I dreamed of was a dream, - Was but a dream, and now I wake - Exceeding comfortless, and worn, and old, - For a dream’s sake. - -“Exceeding comfortless.” Yes, there were hours when that was true. She -had taken her heart and broken it for Truth’s sake, and the broken thing -cried aloud of its hurt. Only by much striving could she still it and -find peace. - -The glamour of the June days was gone too. July was a wet and stormy -month, and Elizabeth was thankful for the rain and the cold, at which -all the world was grumbling. - -Mary came in one July day with a face that matched the weather. - -“Why, Molly,” said Elizabeth, kissing her, “what’s the matter, child?” - -Mary might have asked the same question, but she was a great deal too -much taken up with her own affairs. - -“Edward and I have quarrelled,” she said with a sob in the words, and -sitting down, she burst into uncontrollable tears. - -“But what is it all about?” asked Elizabeth, with her arm around her -sister. “Molly, do hush. It is so bad for you. What has Edward done?” - -“Men are brutes,” declared Mary. - -“Now, I’m sure Edward isn’t,” returned Elizabeth, with real conviction. - -Mary sat up. - -“He is,” she declared. “No, Liz, just listen. It was all over baby’s -name.” - -“What, already?” - -“Well, of course, one plans things. If one doesn’t, well, there was -Dorothy Jackson—don’t you remember? She was very ill, and the baby had -to be christened in a hurry, because they didn’t think it was going to -live. And nobody thought the name mattered, so the clergyman just gave -it the first name that came into his head, and the baby didn’t die after -all, and when Dorothy found she’d got to go through life with a daughter -called Harriet, she very nearly died all over again. So, you see, one -has to think of things. So I had thought of a whole lot of names, and -last night I said to Edward, ‘What shall we call it?’ and he looked -awfully pleased and said, ‘What do you think?’ And I said, ‘What would -you like best?’ And he said, ‘I’d like it to be called after you, Mary, -darling. I got Jack Webster’s answer to-day, and he says I may call it -anything I like.’ Well, of _course_, I didn’t see what it had to do with -Jack Webster, but I thought Edward must have asked him to be godfather. -I was rather put out. I didn’t think it quite _nice_, beforehand, you -know.” - -The bright colour of indignation had come into Mary’s cheeks, and she -spoke with great energy. - -“Of _course_, I just thought that, and then Edward said, ‘So it shall be -called after you—Arachne Mariana.’ I thought what _hideous_ names, but -all I said was, ‘Oh, darling, but I want a boy’; and do you know, Liz, -Edward had been talking about a spider all the time—the spider that Jack -Webster sent him. I don’t believe he cares nearly as much for the baby, -I really don’t, and I wish I was _dead_.” - -Mary sobbed afresh, and it took Elizabeth a good deal of her time to -pacify her. - -Mrs. Havergill brought in tea, it being Sarah’s afternoon out. When she -was taking away the tea-things, after Mary had gone, she observed: - -“Mrs. Mottisfont, she do look pale, ma’am.” - -“Mrs. Mottisfont is going to have a baby,” said Elizabeth, smiling. - -Mrs. Havergill appeared to dismiss Mary’s baby with a slight wave of the -hand. - -“I ’ad a cousin as ’ad twenty-three,” she observed in tones of lofty -detachment. - -“Not all at once?” said Elizabeth faintly. - -Mrs. Havergill took no notice of this remark. - -“Yes, twenty-three, pore soul. And when she wasn’t ’aving of them, she -was burying of them. Ten she buried, and thirteen she reared, and many’s -the time I’ve ’eard ’er say, she didn’t know which was the most -trouble.” - -She went out with the tray, and later, when Sarah had returned, she -repeated Mrs. Blake’s information in tones of sarcasm. - -“‘There’s to be a baby at the Mottisfonts’,’ she says, as if I didn’t -know that. And I says, ‘Yes, ma’am,’ and that’s all as passed.” - -Mrs. Havergill had a way of forgetting her own not inconsiderable -contributions to a conversation. - -“‘Yes, ma’am,’ I says, expecting every moment as she’d up and say, ’and -one ’ere, too, Mrs. Havergill,’ but no, not a blessed word, and me sure -of it for weeks. But there—they’re all the same with the first, every -one’s to be blind and deaf. All the same, Sarah, my girl, if she don’t -want it talked about, she don’t, so just you mind and don’t talk, not if -she don’t say nothing till the christening’s ordered.” - -When Elizabeth knew that she was going to have a child, her first -thought was, “Now, I must tell David,” and her next, “How can I tell -him, how can I possibly tell him?” She lay on her bed in the darkness -and faced the situation. If she told David, and he did not believe -her—that was possible, but not probable. If she told him, and he -believed her as to the facts—but believed also that this strange -development was due in some way to some influence of hers—conscious or -unconscious hypnotism—the thought broke off half-way. If he believed -this—and it was likely that he would believe it—Elizabeth covered her -eyes with her hand. Even the darkness was no shield. How should she meet -David’s eyes in the light, if he were to believe this? What would he -think of her? What must he think of her? She began to weep slow tears of -shame and agony. What was she to do? To wait until some accident branded -her in David’s eyes, or to go to him with a most unbelievable tale? She -tried to find words that she could say, and she could find none. Her -flesh shrank, and she knew that she could not do it. There were no -words. The tears ran slowly, very slowly, between her fingers. Elizabeth -was cold. The room was full of the empty dark. All the world was dark -and empty too. She lay quite still for a very long time. Then there came -upon her a curious gradual sense of companionship. It grew continually. -At the last, she took her hands from before her face and opened her -eyes. And there was a light in the room. It shed no glow on anything—it -was just a light by itself. A steady, golden light. It was not -moonlight, for there was no moon. Elizabeth lay and looked at it. It was -very radiant and very soft. She ceased to weep and she ceased to be -troubled. She knew with a certainty that never faltered again, that she -and David were one. Whether he would become conscious of their oneness -during the space of this short mortal dream, she did not know, but it -had ceased to matter. The thing that had tormented her was her own -doubt. Now that was stilled for ever—Love walked again among the -realities, pure and unashamed. The things of Time—the mistakes, the -illusions, the shadows of Time—moved in a little misty dream, that could -not touch her. Elizabeth turned on her side. She was warm and she was -comforted. - -She slept. - - - - - CHAPTER XXIII - ELIZABETH WAITS - - - And they that have seen and heard, - Have wrested a gift from Fate - That no man taketh away. - For they hold in their hands the key, - To all that is this-side Death, - And they count it as dust by the way, - As small dust, driven before the breath - Of Winds that blow to the day. - -“Do you remember my telling you about my dream?” said David, next day. -He spoke quite suddenly, looking up from a letter that he was writing. - -“Yes, I remember,” said Elizabeth. She even smiled a little. - -“Well, it was so odd—I really don’t know what made me think of it just -now, but it happened to come into my head—do you know that I dreamt it -every night for about a fortnight? That was in May. I have never done -such a thing before. Then it stopped again quite suddenly, and I haven’t -dreamt it since. I wonder whether speaking of it to you—” he broke off. - -“I wonder,” said Elizabeth. - -“You see it came again and again. And the strange part was that I used -to wake in the morning feeling as if there was a lot more of it. A lot -more than there used to be. Things I couldn’t remember—I don’t know why -I tell you this.” - -“It interests me,” said Elizabeth. - -“You know how one forgets a dream, and then, quite suddenly, you just -don’t remember it. It’s the queerest thing—something gets the -impression, but the brain doesn’t record it. It’s most amazingly -provoking. Just now, while I was writing to Fossett, bits of something -came over me like a flash. And now it’s gone again. Do you ever dream?” - -“Sometimes,” said Elizabeth. - -This was her time to tell him. But Elizabeth did not tell him. It seemed -to her that she had been told, quite definitely, to wait, and she was -dimly aware of the reason. The time was not yet. - -David finished his letter. Then he said: - -“Don’t you want to go away this summer?” - -“No,” said Elizabeth, a little surprised. “I don’t think I do. Why?” - -“Most people seem to go away. Mary would like you to go with her, -wouldn’t she?” - -“Yes, but I’ve told her I don’t want to go. She won’t be alone, you -know, now that Edward finds that he can get away.” - -David laughed. - -“Poor old Edward,” he said. “A month ago the business couldn’t get on -without him. He was conscience-ridden, and snatched exiguous half-hours -for Mary and his beetles. And now it appears, that after all, the -business can get on without him. I don’t know quite how Macpherson -brought that fact home to Edward. He must have put it very straight, and -I’m afraid that Edward’s feelings were a good deal hurt. Personally, I -should say that the less Edward interferes with Macpherson the more -radiantly will bank-managers smile upon Edward. Edward is a well-meaning -person. Mr. Mottisfont would have called him damn well-meaning. And you -cannot damn any man deeper than that in business. No, Edward can afford -to take a holiday better than most people. He will probably start a -marine collection and be perfectly happy. Why don’t you join them for a -bit?” - -“I don’t think I want to,” said Elizabeth. “I’m going up to London for -Agneta’s wedding next week. I don’t want to go anywhere else. Do you -want to get rid of me?” - -To her surprise, David coloured. - -“I?” he said. For a moment an odd expression passed across his face. -Then he laughed. - -“I might have wanted to flirt with Miss Dobell.” - - * * * * * * * * - -Agneta Mainwaring was married at the end of July. - -“It’s going to be the most awful show,” she wrote to Elizabeth. “Douglas -and I spend all our time trying to persuade each other that it isn’t -going to be awful, but we know it is. All our relations and all our -friends, and all their children and all their best clothes, and an -amount of fuss, worry, and botheration calculated to drive any one -crazy. If I hadn’t an enormous amount of self-control I should bolt, -either with or without Douglas. Probably without him. Then he’d have a -really thrilling time tracking me down. It’s an awful temptation, and if -you don’t want me to give way to it, you’d better come up at least three -days beforehand, and clamp on to me. Do come, Lizabeth. I really want -you.” - -Elizabeth went up to London the day before the wedding, and Agneta -detached herself sufficiently from her own dream to say: - -“You’re not Issachar any longer. What has happened?” - -“I don’t quite know,” said Elizabeth. “I don’t think the burden’s gone, -but I think that some one else is carrying it for me. I don’t seem to -feel it any more.” - -Agneta smiled a queer little smile of understanding. Then she laughed. - -“Good Heavens, Lizabeth, if any one heard us talking, how perfectly mad -they would think us.” - -Elizabeth found August a very peaceful month. A large number of her -friends and acquaintances were away. There were no calls to be paid and -no notes to be written. She and David were more together than they had -been since the time in Switzerland, and she was happy with a strange -brooding happiness, which was not yet complete, but which awaited -completion. She thought a great deal about the child—the child of the -Dream. She came to think of it as an indication that behind the Dream -was the Real. - -Mary came back on the 15th of September. She was looking very well, and -was once more in a state of extreme contentment with Edward and things -in general. When she had poured forth a complete catalogue of all that -they had done, she paused for breath, and looked suddenly and sharply at -Elizabeth. - -“Liz,” she said. “Why, Liz.” - -To Elizabeth’s annoyance, she felt herself colouring. - -“Liz, and you never told me. Tell me at once. Is it true? Why didn’t you -tell me before?” - -“Oh, Molly, what an Inquisitor you would have made!” - -“Then it _is_ true. And I suppose you told Agneta weeks ago?” - -“I haven’t told any one,” said Elizabeth. - -“Not Agneta? And I suppose if I hadn’t guessed you wouldn’t have told me -for ages and ages and ages. Why didn’t you tell me, Liz?” - -“Why, I thought I’d wait till you came back, Molly.” - -Mary caught her sister’s hand. - -“Liz, aren’t you glad? Aren’t you pleased? Doesn’t it make you happy? -Oh, Liz, if I thought you were one of those _dreadful_ women who don’t -want to have a baby, I—I don’t know what I should do. I wanted to tell -everybody. But then I was _pleased_. I don’t believe you’re a bit -pleased. Are you?” - -“I don’t know that pleased is exactly the word,” said Elizabeth. She -looked at Mary and laughed a little. - -“Oh, Molly, do stop being Mrs. Grundy.” - -Mary lifted her chin. - -“Just because I was interested,” she said. “I suppose you’d rather I -didn’t care.” - -Then she relaxed a little. - -“Liz, I’m frightfully excited. Do be pleased and excited too. Why are -you so stiff and odd? Isn’t David pleased?” - -She had looked away, but she turned quickly at the last words, and fixed -her eyes on Elizabeth’s face. And for a moment Elizabeth had been off -her guard. - -Mary exclaimed. - -“Isn’t he pleased? Doesn’t he know? Liz, you don’t mean to tell me——” - -“I don’t think you give me much time to tell you anything, Molly,” said -Elizabeth. - -“He doesn’t know? Liz, what’s happened to you? Why are you so -extraordinary? It’s the sort of thing you read about in an early -Victorian novel. Do you mean to say that you _really_ haven’t told -David? That he doesn’t know?” - -Elizabeth’s colour rose. - -“Molly, my dear, do you think it is your business?” she said. - -“Yes, I do,” said Mary. “I suppose you won’t pretend you’re not my own -sister. And I think you must be quite mad, Liz. I do, indeed. You ought -to tell David at once—at once. I can’t _imagine_ what Edward would have -said if he had not known at once. You ought to go straight home and tell -him now. Married people ought to be one. They ought never to have -secrets.” - -Mary poured the whole thing out to Edward the same evening. - -“I really don’t know what has happened to Elizabeth,” she said. “She is -quite changed. I can’t understand her at all. I think it is quite wicked -of her. If she doesn’t tell David soon, some one else ought to tell -him.” - -Edward moved uneasily in his chair. - -“People don’t like being interfered with,” he said. - -“Well, I’m sure nobody could call me an interfering person,” said Mary. -“It isn’t interfering to be fond of people. If I weren’t fond of Liz, I -shouldn’t care how strangely she behaved. I do think it’s very strange -of her—and I don’t care what you say, Edward. I think David ought to be -told. How would you have liked it if I’d hidden things from you?” - -Edward rumpled up his hair. - -“People _don’t_ like being interfered with,” he said again. - -At this Mary burst into tears, and continued to weep until Edward had -called himself a brute sufficiently often to justify her contradicting -him. - -Elizabeth continued to wait. She was not quite as untroubled as she had -been. The scene with Mary had brought the whole world of other people’s -thoughts and judgments much nearer. It was a troubling world. One full -of shadows and perplexities. It pressed upon her a little and vexed her -peace. - -The days slid by. They had been pleasant days for David, too. For some -time past he had been aware of a change in himself—a ferment. His old -passion for Mary was dust. He looked back upon it now, and saw it as a -delirium of the senses, a thing of change and fever. It was gone. He -rejoiced in his freedom and began to look forward to the time when he -and Elizabeth would enter upon a married life founded upon friendship, -companionship, and good fellowship. He had no desire to fall in love -with Elizabeth, to go back to the old storms of passion and unrest. He -cared a good deal for Elizabeth. When she was his wife he would care for -her more deeply, but still on the same lines. He hoped that they would -have children. He was very fond of children. And then, after he had -planned it all out in his own mind, he became aware of the change, the -ferment. What he felt did not come into the plan at all. He disliked it -and he distrusted it, but none the less the change went on, the ferment -grew. It was as if he had planned to walk on a clear, wide upland, under -a still, untroubled air. In his own mind he had a vision of such a -place. It was a place where a man might walk and be master of himself, -and then suddenly—the driving of a mighty wind, and he could not tell -from whence it came, or whither it went. The wind bloweth where it -listeth. In those September days the wind blew very strongly, and as it -blew, David came slowly to the knowledge that he loved Elizabeth. It was -a love that seemed to rise in him from some great depth. He could not -have told when it began. As the days passed, he wondered sometimes -whether it had not been there always, deep amongst the deepest springs -of thought and will. There was no fever in it. It was a thing so strong -and sane and wholesome that, after the first wonder, it seemed to him to -be a part of himself, a part which, missing, he had lost balance and -mental poise. - -He spoke to Elizabeth as usual, but he looked at her with new eyes. And -he, too, waited. - -He came home one day to find the household in a commotion. It appeared -that Sarah had scalded her hand, Elizabeth was out, and Mrs. Havergill -was divided between the rival merits of flour, oil, and a patent -preparation which she had found very useful when suffering from -chilblains. She safeguarded her infallibility by remarking, that there -was some as held with one thing and some as held with another. She also -observed, that “scalds were ’orrid things.” - -“Now, there was an ’ousemaid I knew, Milly Clarke her name was, she -scalded her hand very much the same as you ’ave, Sarah, and first thing, -it swelled up as big as my two legs and arter that it turned to -blood-poisoning, and the doctors couldn’t do nothing for her, pore -girl.” - -At this point Sarah broke into noisy weeping and David arrived. When he -had bound up the hand, consoled the trembling Sarah, and suggested that -she should have a cup of tea, he inquired where Elizabeth was. She might -be at Mrs. Mottisfont’s, suggested Mrs. Havergill, as she followed him -into the hall. - -“You’re not thinking of sending Sarah to the ’orspital, are you sir?” - -“No, of course not, she’ll be all right in a day or two. I’ll just walk -up the hill and meet Mrs. Blake.” - -“I’m sure it’s a mercy she were out,” said Mrs. Havergill. - -“Why?” said David, turning at the door. Mrs. Havergill assumed an air of -matronly importance. - -“It might ha’ given her a turn,” she said, “for the pore girl did scream -something dreadful. I’m sure it give me a turn, but that’s neither here -nor there. What I was thinking of was Mrs. Blake’s condition, sir.” - -Mrs. Havergill was obviously a little nettled at David’s expression. - -“Nonsense,” said David quickly. - -Mrs. Havergill went back to Sarah. - -“‘Nonsense,’ he says, and him a doctor. Why, there was me own pore -mother as died with her ninth, and all along of a turn she got through -seeing a child run over. And he says, ‘Nonsense.’” - -David walked up the hill in a state of mind between impatience and -amusement. How women’s minds did run on babies. He supposed it was -natural, but there were times when one could dispense with it. - -He found Mary at home and alone. “Elizabeth? Oh, no, she hasn’t been -near me for days,” said Mary. “As it happened, I particularly _wanted_ -to see her. But she hasn’t been near me.” - -She considered that Elizabeth was neglecting her. Only that morning she -had told Edward so. - -“She doesn’t come to see me _on purpose_,” she had said. “But I know -quite well why. I don’t at all approve of the way she’s going on, and -she knows it. I don’t think it’s _right_. I think some one ought to tell -David. No, Edward, I really do. I don’t understand Elizabeth at all, and -she’s simply afraid to come and see me because she knows that I shall -speak my mind.” - -Now, as she sat and talked to David, the idea that it might be her duty -to enlighten him presented itself to her mind afresh. A sudden and -brilliant idea came into her head, and she immediately proceeded to act -upon it. - -“I had a special reason for wanting to see her,” she said. “I had a -lovely box of things down from town on approval, and I wanted her to see -them.” - -“Things?” said David. - -“Oh, clothes,” said Mary, with a wave of the hand. “You know they’ll -send you anything now. By the way, I bought a present for Liz, though -she doesn’t _deserve_ it. Will you take it down to her? I’ll get it if -you don’t mind waiting a minute.” - -She was away for five minutes, and then returned with a small -brown-paper parcel in her hand. - -“You can open it when you get home,” she said. “Open it and show it to -Liz, and see whether you like it. Tell her I sent it with my _love_.” - -“Now there won’t be any more nonsense,” she told Edward. - -Edward looked rather unhappy, but, warned by previous experience, said -nothing. - -David found Elizabeth in the dining-room. She was putting a large bunch -of scarlet gladioli into a brown jug upon the mantelpiece. - -“I’ve got a present for you,” said David. - -“David, how nice of you. It’s not my birthday.” - -“I’m afraid it’s not from me at all. I looked in to see if you were with -Mary, and she sent you this, with her love. By the way, you’d better go -and see her, I think she’s rather huffed.” - -As he spoke he was undoing the parcel. Elizabeth had her back towards -him. The flowers would not stand up just as she wished them to. - -“I can’t think why Molly should send me a present,” she said, and then -all at once something made her turn round. - -The brown-paper wrapping lay on the table. David had taken something -white out of the parcel. He held it up and they both looked at it. It -was a baby’s robe, very fine, and delicately embroidered. - -Elizabeth made a wavering step forward. The light danced on the white -robe, and not only on the robe. All the room was full of small dancing -lights. Elizabeth put her hand behind her and felt for the edge of the -mantelpiece. She could not find it. Everything was shaking. She swung -half round, and all the dancing lights flashed in her eyes as she fell -forwards. - - - - - CHAPTER XXIV - THE LOST NAME - - - You are as old as Egypt, and as young as yesterday, - Oh, turn again and look again, for when you look I know - The dusk of death is but a dream, that dreaming, dies away - And leaves you with the lips I loved, three thousand years ago. - - The mists of that forgotten dream, they fill your brooding eyes, - With veil on strange revealing veil that wavers, and is gone, - And still between the veiling mists, the dim, dead centuries rise, - And still behind the farthest veil, your burning soul burns on. - - You are as old as Egypt, and as young as very Youth, - Before your still, immortal eyes the ages come and go, - The dusk of death is but a dream that dims the face of Truth— - Oh, turn again, and look again, for when you look, I know. - -When Elizabeth came to herself, the room was full of mist. Through the -mist, she saw David’s face, and quite suddenly in these few minutes it -had grown years older. - -He spoke. He seemed a long way off. - -“Drink this.” - -“What is it?” said Elizabeth faintly. - -“Water.” - -Elizabeth raised herself a little and drank. The faintness passed. She -became aware that the collar of her dress was unfastened, and she sat up -and began to fasten it. - -David got up, too. - -“I am all right.” - -There was no mist before Elizabeth’s eyes now. They saw clearly, quite, -quite clearly. She looked at David, and David’s face was grey—old and -grey. So it had come. Now in this hour of physical weakness. The thing -she dreaded. - -To her own surprise, she felt no dread now. Only a great weariness. What -could she say? What was she to say? All seemed useless—not worth while. -But then there was David’s face, his grey, old face. She must do her -best—not for her own sake, but for David’s. - -She wondered a little that it should hurt him so much. It was not as -though he loved her, or had ever loved her. Only of course this was a -thing to cut a man, down to the very quick of his pride and his -self-respect. It was that—of course it was that. - -Whilst she was thinking, David spoke. He was standing by the table -fingering the piece of string that lay there. - -“Elizabeth, do you know why you fainted?” he said. - -“Yes,” said Elizabeth, and said no more. - -A sort of shudder passed over David Blake. - -“Then it’s true,” he said in a voice that was hardly a voice at all. -There was a sound, and there were words. But it was not like a man -speaking. It was like a long, quick breath of pain. - -“Yes,” said Elizabeth. “It is true, David.” - -There was a very great pity in her eyes. - -“Oh, my God!” said David, and he sat down by the table and put his head -in his hands. “Oh, my God!” he said again. - -Elizabeth got up. She was trembling just a little, but she felt no -faintness now. She put one hand on the mantelpiece, and so stood, -waiting. - -There was a very long silence, one of those profound silences which seem -to break in upon a room and fill it. They overlie and blot out all the -little sounds of every-day life and usage. Outside, people came and -went, the traffic in the High Street came and went, but neither to -David, nor to Elizabeth, did there come the smallest sound. They were -enclosed in a silence that seemed to stretch unbroken, from one Eternity -to another. It became an unbearable torment. To his dying day, when any -one spoke of hell, David glimpsed a place of eternal silence, where -anguish burned for ever with a still unwavering flame. - -He moved at last, slowly, like a man who has been in a trance. His head -lifted. He got up, resting his weight upon his hands. Then he -straightened himself. All his movements were like those of a man who is -lifting an intolerably heavy load. - -“Why did you marry me?” he asked in a tired voice, and then his tone -hardened. “Who is the man? Who is he? Will he marry you if I divorce -you?” - -An unbearable pang of pity went through Elizabeth, and she turned her -head sharply. David stopped looking at her. - -She to be ashamed—oh, God!—Elizabeth ashamed—he could not look at her. -He walked quickly to the window. Then turned back again because -Elizabeth was speaking. - -“David,” she said, in a low voice, “David, what sort of woman am I?” - -A groan burst from David. - -“You are a good woman. That’s just the damnable part of it. There are -some women, when they do a thing like this, one only says they’ve done -after their kind—they’re gone where they belong. When a good woman does -it, it’s Hell—just Hell. And you’re a good woman.” - -Elizabeth was looking down. She could not bear his face. - -“And would you say I was a truthful woman?” she said. “If I were to tell -you the truth, would you believe me, David?” - -“Yes,” said David at once. “Yes, I’d believe you. If you told me -anything at all you’d tell me the truth. Why shouldn’t I believe you?” - -“Because the truth is very unbelievable,” said Elizabeth. - -David lifted his head and looked at her. - -“Oh, you’ll not lie,” he said. - -“Thank you,” said Elizabeth. After a moment’s pause, she went on. - -“Will you sit down, David? I don’t think I can speak if you walk up and -down like that. It’s not very easy to speak.” - -He sat down in a big chair, that stood with its back to the window. - -“David,” she said, “when we were in Switzerland, you asked me how I had -put you to sleep. You asked me if I had hypnotised you. I said, No. I -want to know if you believed me?” - -“I don’t know what I believed,” said David wearily. The question -appeared to him to be entirely irrelevant and unimportant. - -“When you hypnotise a person, you are producing an illusion,” said -Elizabeth. “The effect of what I did was to destroy one. But whatever I -did, when you asked me to stop doing it, I stopped. You do believe -that?” - -“Yes—I believe that.” - -“I stopped at once—definitely. You must please believe that. Presently -you will see why I say this.” - -All the time she had been standing quietly by the mantelpiece. Now she -came across and kneeled down beside David’s chair. She laid her hands -one above the other upon the broad arm, and she looked, not at David at -all, but at her own hands. It was the penitent’s attitude, but David -Blake, looking at her, found nothing of the penitent’s expression. The -light shone full upon her face. There was a look upon it that startled -him. Her face was white and still. The look that riveted David’s -attention was a look of remoteness—passionless remoteness—and over all a -sort of patience. - -Elizabeth looked down at her strong folded hands, and began to speak in -a quiet, gentle voice. The sapphire in her ring caught the light. - -“David, just now you asked me why I married you. You never asked me that -before. I am going to tell you now. I married you because I loved you -very much. I thought I could help, and I loved you. That is why I -married you. You won’t speak, please, till I have done. It isn’t easy.” - -She drew a long, steady breath and went on. - -“I knew you didn’t love me, you loved Mary. It wasn’t good for you. I -knew that you would never love me. I was—content—with friendship. You -gave me friendship. Then we came home. And you stopped loving Mary. I -was very thankful—for you—not for myself.” - -She stopped for a moment. David was looking at her. Her words fell on -his heart, word after word, like scalding tears. So she had loved him—it -only needed that. Why did she tell him now when it was all too -late—hideously too late? - -Elizabeth went on. - -“Do you remember, when we had been home a week, you dreamed your dream? -Your old dream—you told me of it, one evening—but I knew already——” - -“Knew?” - -“No, don’t speak. I can’t go on if you speak. I knew because when you -dreamed your dream you came to me.” - -She bent lower over her hands. Her breathing quickened. She scarcely -heard David’s startled exclamation. She must say it—and it was so hard. -Her heart beat so—it was so hard to steady her voice. - -“You came into my room. It was late. The window was open, and the wind -was blowing in. The moon was going down. I was standing by the window in -my night-dress—and you spoke. You said, ‘Turn round, and let me see your -face.’ Then I turned round and you came to me and touched me. You -touched me and you spoke, and then you went away. And the next night you -came again. You were in your dream, and in your dream you loved me. We -talked. I said, ‘Who am I?’ and you said, ‘You are the Woman of my -Dream,’ and you kissed me, and then you went away. But the third -night—the third night—I woke up—in the dark—and you were there.” - -After that first start, David sat rigid and watched her face. He saw her -lips quiver—the patience of her face break into pain. He knew the effort -with which she spoke. - -“You came every night—for a fortnight. I used to think you would -wake—but you never did. You went away before the dawn—always. You never -waked—you never remembered. In your dream you loved me—you loved me very -much. In the daytime you didn’t love me at all. I got to feel I couldn’t -bear it. I went away to Agneta, and there I thought it all out. I knew -what I had to do. I think I had really known all along. But I was -shirking. That’s why it hurt so much. If you shirk, you always get -hurt.” - -Elizabeth paused for a moment. She was looking at the blue of her ring. -It shone. There was a little star in the heart of it. - -“It’s very difficult to explain,” she said. “I suppose you would say I -prayed. Do you remember asking me, if you had slept because I saw you in -the Divine Consciousness? That’s the nearest I can get to explaining. I -tried to see the whole thing—us—the Dream—in the Divine Consciousness, -and you stopped dreaming. I knew you would. You never came any more. -That’s all.” - -Elizabeth stopped speaking. She moved as if to rise, but David’s hand -fell suddenly upon both of hers, and rested there with a hard, heavy -pressure. - -He said her name, “Elizabeth!” and then again, “Elizabeth!” His voice -had a bewildered sound. - -Elizabeth lifted her eyes and looked at him. His face was working, -twitching, his eyes strained as if to see something beyond the line of -vision. He looked past Elizabeth as he had done in his dream. All at -once he spoke in a whisper. - -“I remembered, it’s gone again—but I remembered.” - -“The dream?” - -“No, not the dream. I don’t know—it’s gone. It was a name—your name—but -it’s gone again.” - -“My name?” - -“Yes—it’s gone.” - -“It doesn’t matter, David.” - -Elizabeth had begun to tremble, and all at once he became aware of it. - -“Why do you tremble?” - -Elizabeth was at the end of her strength. She had done what she had to -do. If he would let her go—— - -“David, let me go,” she said, only just above her breath. - -Instead, he put out his other hand and touched her on the breast. It was -like the Dream. But they were not in the Dream any more. They were -awake. - -David leaned slowly forward, and Elizabeth could not turn away her eyes. -They looked at each other, and the thing that had happened before came -upon them again. A momentary flash—memory—revelation—truth. The moment -passed. This time it left behind it, not darkness, but light. They were -in the light, because love is of the light. - -David put his arms about Elizabeth. - -“Mine!” he said. - - - THE END - - - - - _A Selection from the Catalogue of_ - G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS - - - [Illustration: logo] - - Complete Catalogue sent on application - - - - - _By Patricia Wentworth_ - - - A Marriage under the Terror - - _$1.35 net. ($1.50 by mail)_ - -“This is the remarkable book that won the first prize ($1250) in the -Melrose Novel Competition. Not since Dickens’s _Tale of Two Cities_ came -from the presses has the very atmosphere of the Terror been so -remarkably conveyed to the printed pages. We commend it less because it -won a prize than because it is one.” - _N. Y. World._ - - - More Than Kin - - _$1.35 net. 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