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Title: The Gateless Barrier

Author: Lucas Malet

Release date: December 11, 2010 [eBook #34619]
                Most recently updated: January 7, 2021

Language: English

Credits: Produced by Delphine Lettau, David Clarke, Mary Meehan and
        the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
        https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images
        generously made available by The Internet Archive/American
        Libraries.)


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GATELESS BARRIER ***




Produced by Delphine Lettau, David Clarke, Mary Meehan and
the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images
generously made available by The Internet Archive/American
Libraries.)









                         The Gateless Barrier

                            By LUCAS MALET


    NEW YORK
    DODD, MEAD & COMPANY
    1900

    _Copyright, 1900_, by
    DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY

    UNIVERSITY PRESS
    JOHN WILSON AND SON
    CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A.




_Preface_


"What is the book?"

"According to the Japanese pronunciation of the Chinese characters of
the title, we call it _Mu-Mon-Kwan_, which means 'The Gateless Barrier.'
It is one of the books especially studied by the Zen sect, or the sect
of Dhyâna. A peculiarity of some of the Dhyâna texts--this (story) being
a good example--is that they are not explanatory. They only suggest.
Questions are put, but the student must think out the answers for
himself. He must _think_ them out but not write them. You know that
Dhyâna represents human effort to reach, through meditation, zones of
thought beyond the range of verbal expression; and any thought narrowed
into utterance loses all Dhyâna quality.... Well, this story is supposed
to be true; but it is used only for a Dhyâna question...."

LAFCADIO HEARN.

     "_Exotics and Retrospectives," pages 83, 84._




_The Gateless Barrier_




I


Laurence leaned his arms upon the broad wooden hand-rail of the
bulwarks. The water hissed away from the side. Immediately below it was
laced by shifting patterns of white foam, and stained pale green,
violet, and amber, by the light shining out through the rounds of the
port-poles. Further away it showed blue black, but for a glistening on
the hither side of the vast ridge and furrow. The smoke from the funnels
streamed afar, and was upturned by a following wind. The great ship
swung in the trough, and then lifted--as a horse lifts at a fence--while
the seas slid away from under her keel. As she lifted, her masts raked
the blue-black night sky, and the stars danced in the rigging.

This was the first time since his marriage, nearly two years before,
that Laurence found himself alone and altogether his own master. His
marriage was a notable success--every one said so, and he himself had
never doubted the fact so far. Yet this solitary voyage, this temporary
return to bachelorhood, possessed compensations. He reproached himself,
as in duty bound, for being sensible of those compensations. He excused
himself to himself. He gave reasons. Doubtless his present sense of
freedom and content took its rise not in his enforced absence from
Virginia, from her bright continuous talk, her innumerable and perfectly
constructed dresses, her perpetual and skilful activities; but in his
escape from the highly artificial and materialised society in which she
lived and moved and had her being. Laurence had certainly no ostensible
cause of complaint against that society. Its members had recited his
verses, given a charming performance of his little comedy--in the
interests of a deserving charity--quoted his opinions on literature and
politics, and waxed enthusiastic over his strokes at golf and his style
at rackets and polo. He had, in fact, been the spoilt child of two New
York winters and two Newport summers. No Englishman, he was repeatedly
assured, had ever been so popular among the "smart set" of the great
republic. It had petted and _fêted_ him, and finally given him one of
its fairest daughters to wife. And for all this Laurence Rivers was
sincerely grateful. His vanity was most agreeably flattered. His natural
love both of pleasing and of pleasure was well satisfied. Yet--such is
the perversity of human nature--the very completeness of his success
tended to lessen the worth of it. He even questioned, at moments,
whether that success did not offer the measure of surrounding immaturity
of taste and judgment, rather than of the greatness of his personal
talent and merit. He was haunted by the conviction that he had never yet
given his best, the highest and strongest of his nature, either in
thought, or art, or adventure, or even--perhaps--he feared it--in love.
The demand had been for a thoroughly presentable and immediately
marketable article; and the Best is usually far from marketable, often
but doubtfully presentable either. It followed that Laurence had, almost
of necessity, kept the best of himself to himself--kept it to himself so
effectually that he had come uncommonly near forgetting its existence
altogether, and letting it perish for lack of air and exercise.

Now leaning his arms upon the hand-rail of the bulwarks, while the stars
danced in the rigging, and the great ship ploughed her way eastward
across the mighty ridge and furrow of the Atlantic, gratified vanity
ceased to obtain in him. His thoughts travelled back to periods of his
career at once more obscure and more ambitious--to the few vital
raptures, the few fine failures, the few illuminating aspirations which
he had known. The bottom dropped out of the social side of things, so to
speak. He looked below superficial appearances into the heart of it all.
Life put off its cheap frippery of fancy dress, Death its cunningly
devised concealments and evasions. Backed by the immensities of sea and
sky, both stood before him naked and unashamed, in all their primitive
and eternal vigour, their uncompromising actuality, their inviolable
mystery; while, with a sudden and searching apprehension of the profound
import of the question, Rivers asked himself--

"What shall it profit a man--what in good truth--if he gain the whole
world and lose his own soul?"

He had been summoned to England by the illness of an uncle whose estates
and considerable wealth he would inherit. That illness had been
pronounced incurable; but the approaching death of this near relation
made small demand upon his intimate feelings. A decent seriousness of
thought and speech, concerning the impending event, were all that could
reasonably be required of him; for the elder Mr. Rivers was both morose
and eccentric, and had given his nephew a handsome allowance on the
express understanding that he saw as little of him as possible. A
declared misogynist, he had received the announcement of Laurence's
proposed marriage with an exasperating mixture of contempt and approval.

"I am sincerely sorry for you," he had written on this occasion. "The
more so that you appear to labour under the impression that the step you
have in contemplation is calculated to secure your happiness. This, you
must pardon my remarking, is obviously absurd. I grant that you are
under a moral obligation to perpetuate our family and secure the
succession to our estates in the direct line. I cannot, therefore, but
be glad that you should adopt the recognised means to attain the above
ends. I should, however, respect both your motives and your intelligence
more highly had you done this in a rational and scientific spirit,
without indulgence in sentimental illusions which every sane student of
human history has long since perceived to be as pernicious to the moral,
as they are enervating to the mental health. I could say much worthy of
your attention upon this point; but, in your present condition of
emotional inebriation, it would be a waste of energy on my part,--I
might add, a throwing of pearls before swine. Still, justice, my dear
Laurence, compels me to own that, even so, I must ever consider myself
in a measure your debtor, since the fact of your existence, your
remarkably sound physical condition, your normal and slightly
unintelligent outlook on life, have combined to relieve me of the odious
necessity of sacrificing my time and my personal liberty to the
interests of our family, by entering into those domestic relations,
which you appear to regard with as much thoughtless complacency as I
with reasoned repulsion and distrust."

This being the attitude of the elder Mr. Rivers's mind, it followed that
when, by his request, Mr. Wormald, the family solicitor, summoned his
nephew and heir to attend his deathbed, the young man's wife was not
included in that gloomy invitation. And this Laurence could not by any
means honestly regret. Virginia at a disadvantage was an idea almost
inconceivable. Yet so immediate and concrete a being would not, he felt,
shade quite gracefully into the mortuary landscape. She would not suit
it, neither would it suit her. For she was almost amazingly in harmony
with her modern, mundane environment; and, save in the way of costly
mourning costumes, it seemed incredible that death should have any
dominion over her. It struck him, moreover, that if he gauged the
position aright, Virginia, notwithstanding her many charms and much
cleverness, would have to take a back seat in his eccentric uncle's
establishment. And Virginia in a back seat was again an idea almost
inconceivable. So he said--

"It's an awful nuisance to have to leave you like this, but this is
going to be a pretty dismal bit of business anyhow. I'd much better just
worry through it alone. You'll join me later when it's all over, and we
are free to take possession and knock the place in shape. Stoke Rivers
is really rather delightful, though it is not very large. There used to
be some good pictures and books and things in it I remember. I believe
my uncle is a virtuoso in his way, though he is such a cross-grained old
chap. You'll enjoy the place, at all events for a few months every year,
I think, Virginia. And you can have all your own people over in turn,
you know; and show them how the savage English do it in their savage
little island. You'll make the neighbourhood sit up, I fancy. It'll be
amusing."

But as Laurence leaned his arms upon the broad hand-rail of the
bulwarks, in the chill of the March night, while the water hissed away
from the side, and the engines drummed and pounded, and the bows of the
great ship lifted against the far, blue-black horizon, he began to
wonder whether he had not been somewhat over hasty in proposing chronic
invasion of Stoke Rivers by all Virginia's smart friends in turn. They
were well-bred, hospitable, amusing, very much up-to-date. He owed them
thanks for a most uncommonly good time. But they seemed a trifle thin, a
trifle superficial and ephemeral just now, in face of the immensities of
ocean and sky, and of the ancient mysteries of Life and Death.




II


Not until after dinner, on the evening of his arrival, was Laurence
admitted to his uncle's presence. The aspect of the room was rich though
sombre. Long in proportion to its width, with a low, heavily-moulded
ceiling, the walls of it were panelled in black oak three parts of their
height. The space between the top of the panelling and the cornice was
hung with dark blue silk-damask, narrow diagonal lines of yellow
crossing the background of the raised pattern. The short, full curtains
drawn over the wide window were of the same handsome material. So were
the counterpane and hangings of the half-tester, ebony bed. This last
was elaborately carved. Two couchant sphinxes, the polished surface of
whose cup-like breasts glowed in the firelight, supported the footboard,
as did a couple of caryatides--naked to the loins--the canopy. Near the
fireplace stood an oaken table, on which lay a few well-bound books. The
further end of it was covered by a cloth of gold and crimson
embroidery--evidently fashioned from some priestly vestment--upon which
rested a _memento mori_, about four inches in height, cut out of a solid
block of rock crystal, the olive crown which encircled the brow being of
pale, green jade.

In a deep-seated, high-backed armchair--placed between the table and the
outstanding pillars of the chimney piece--propped up by dark silken
pillows, his spare frame wrapped in a long, fur-lined, violet, cloth
dressing-gown, a violet, velvet skull-cap on his head, sat Mr. Rivers.

Laurence, who had not seen his uncle for the last five or six years, was
conscious of receiving an almost painfully vivid impression at once of
physical feebleness and intellectual energy. The elder man's face and
hands appeared transparent as the crystal _memento mori_ on the table
beside him. His long, straight nose showed thin as a knife. His wide,
lip-less mouth seemed to shut with a spring, like a trap. The bone of
the face and hands was salient, as of one suffering starvation. Yet the
blue-grey eyes, though sunk in their cavernous sockets, were brilliant,
alert, full of an almost malevolent greed of observation. Laurence
noted that a spotless cleanliness and order pervaded the room and the
person of its occupant. The angular and attenuated face was shaven with
scrupulous nicety. The finger-nails were carefully polished and pointed.
An open collar and wristbands of fine lawn showed exquisitely white
against the purple cloth and fur of the dressing-gown. It was evident
that Mr. Rivers, whatever the peculiarities of his temper or of his
opinions, treated illness and approaching dissolution with an admirable
effect of stoicism and personal dignity.

As Laurence--himself conspicuously well-groomed, in evening dress, no
mark of his long journey upon him, save in a complexion tanned by sun
and sea-wind, and by the directness of glance and vigour of movement
that remains, for a while, by every true sea-lover after he comes
ashore--crossed the space between the door and fireplace, the old man
raised himself a little in his chair.

"Believe me, I am very sensible of the consideration you show in so
immediately gratifying my desire to see you, my dear Laurence."

"I was very happy to come, sir," the younger man answered. But he was
not unconscious of a point of irony in the cold, level tones of the
voice, or in the persistent scrutiny of the brilliant eyes. These
appeared to regard him as they might some row of figures--mentally
casting up, subtracting, dividing, intent on arriving, with all possible
despatch, at a conclusive and final result. The effect was not precisely
encouraging, nor were the words which followed.

"That is well," Mr. Rivers said. "But it is desirable you should
understand from the outset that which you have undertaken. You may be
detained here. The disease from which I suffer is, as you have been
informed, incurable; though it is, I am happy to say, neither offensive
or infectious. But though the final result is assured, the moment of its
advent is uncertain. Neither I, nor the physicians who amiably expend
their limited and somewhat empirical skill upon me, can determine the
date at which this disease will prove fatal. I shall regret to cause you
inconvenience, but the event is beyond my control. I may keep you
waiting."

"The longer the better, sir," Laurence said, smiling, and his smile was
sincere and genial, of the sort which inspires confidence.--"That is,"
he added, "if you do not suffer unduly."

"When the mind has realised the greatness of its own powers, and trained
itself to their exercise, the will can almost invariably reduce
suffering to endurable proportions," Mr. Rivers replied contemptuously,
as dealing with a matter obvious, and so beneath discussion. He raised
one transparent hand, pointed towards a chair, and then let his wrist
drop again upon a supporting silken cushion. As he did so the two heavy
rings he wore--one an amethyst set in brilliants and engraved with
Arabic characters, the other a black scarab on a hoop of rough
gold--slipped up the long phalange of his second finger to the knotted
knuckle, and back again, with a dry rattle and chink.

"Oblige me by sitting down, Laurence," he said. "I wish you to labour
under no misapprehension as to my intentions in sending for you. A
certain amount of business may need attention; but all that you can
discuss with my agent, Armstrong,--a very worthy, though prejudiced
person. My affairs are in order. I am not called upon to waste any of
the time remaining to me upon them. Let me explain myself. The
disease--for, to do so, I must refer to it once again--which is in
process of destroying certain organs, and consequently paralysing
certain functions of my body, has in no degree affected my mind. This
retains the completeness of its lucidity. Indeed, I am disposed to
believe that my enforced physical inactivity, and the small number of
objects presented to my sight--I never leave this room--tend to exalt
and stimulate my intellectual powers. You recall the legend of the
ancient philosopher who plucked out his eyes, that, undisturbed by the
vision of irrelevant objects, he might attain to greater concentration
of thought. Disease, in limiting my activities, has gone far to confer
upon me the boon which the philosopher in question strove, rather
violently, to bestow upon himself. I have ever been a student. I propose
to continue so to the last. My interest is unabated. My passion for
knowledge--the sole passion of my life--remains in full force."

Laurence sat listening, nursing his knee. The speaker's attitude was
impressive, in a way admirable. His detachment, his calm, his acumen,
commanded his hearer's respect.

"Yes, yes. I see--that's fine," Laurence said under his breath.

A slightly ironical expression passed across the elder man's attenuated
face.

"I am, of course, glad that my sentiments meet with your approval. But I
fear that approval may prove premature. I have not yet fully explained
myself."

Laurence smiled at him good-temperedly. "All right, sir; I'm listening,"
he said.

"I must frankly admit I did not require your presence with a view to
having you endorse my opinions. These are, I trust, too much the outcome
of close and lengthened thought to stand in need of support from the
agreement of another mind. I have never desired disciples, having the
evidence of the history of all great religious, political, and
scientific movements to prove conclusively that it is the invariable
habit of the disciple to falsify his master's teaching, to attach
himself to the weak rather than the strong places of such teaching, to
betray intellectually with some emotional, some hysterical kiss. The
disciple resembles those parasitic plants of the tropic forests, that
strangle the tree upon which they climb upward toward the air and
light."

He paused a moment, turned his head against the pillows, with a movement
of almost distressing weakness. Then, gathering himself together by a
perceptible exercise of will, he looked searchingly at Laurence again,
and resumed his speech.

"Nor have I required your presence here during these last days or
weeks--as the case may be--with a view to offering to you, or receiving
from you, that which is usually termed affection. I am not aware of any
demand, or supply, in myself of that very much overrated commodity. I
deny the actuality, indeed, of its existence. Subjected to analysis, it
can always be resolved into workings of self-interest, or into the
gratification, more or less gross, of the animal passions. It is the
generator of all the practical folly and intellectual sloth which go to
retard the progress of science, and the rule of high philosophy among
men. As between ourselves, my dear Laurence, any pretence of affection
would be transparently ridiculous. We are barely acquainted. My
departure will very clearly be to your advantage. Moreover, our tastes
and characters are so divergent, that any real community of interests,
any real bond of sympathy, is clearly out of the question."

During the course of this address the young man's pleasant smile had
broadened almost to the point of laughter.

"I understand, I really do understand," he said. "And now that we've
cleared the decks for action in this very comprehensive manner, I
grow--if I may mention it--most uncommonly curious to learn what you did
send for me here for."

"I sent for you because there is one matter regarding which my
information is conspicuously defective, and because your conversation,
your habits, your very appearance, and gestures may serve to enlighten
me. I have lived among books, and objects of art of no mean value. I
have enjoyed communion, both by letter and in speech, with many of the
most distinguished minds of the present century. But I never
associated, I have never cared to associate, with the average man of the
world, of the clubs and the racecourse, the man of intrigues, of, in
short, society. He appeared to me to weigh too lightly in the scale to
be a worthy object of study. I ignored him, and in so doing dropped an
important link out of the chain of being. For these persons breed, they
perpetuate tendencies, they influence and modify the history of the
race. Not to reckon with such persons, is not to reckon with a
persistent and active factor in intellectual and moral evolution."

Laurence had risen to his feet. He stood with his hands behind him and
his back to the fire. He was amused, but he was also slightly nettled.

"Ah!" he said, "exactly. And so you sent for me. You took for granted I
was that sort. You wanted to see how we do it."

"Yes," Mr. Rivers answered, "it did appear to me that you were
calculated to fulfil the conditions. In any case you were the only
example of the type available. Our connection by blood, and the relation
in which you stand to my property, gave me certain claims upon your
time and your consideration. I wish very much to observe you. I wish to
study you from the psychological and other points of view. You need not
attempt to assist me. Be yourself, please. Be passive. I need no
co-operation on the part of my subject. This will really give you very
little trouble, while it will afford me interesting occupation during
the period--whether short or protracted, I know not--which must elapse
before disease has run its course and procured dissolution."

Laurence listened in silence; and while he did so, he ceased to be
nettled, he ceased even to be inclined to treat these singular proposals
humorously. For there appeared to him a certain pathos in the earnest
desire of this recluse and student now, at the eleventh hour, to
acquaint himself with just that which he had so arrogantly despised,
namely the Commonplace. It was slightly wounding to personal vanity to
be thus selected, from among the millions of mankind, as a fine,
thorough-paced example and exponent of the Commonplace. But Laurence was
kind-hearted. He also possessed a fund of practical philosophy.
No--decidedly the position was not a flattering one! Yet it was rather
original, and, moreover, how could one in common charity refuse any
little pleasure to a dying man?

"Very well, sir," he said. "I think I quite grasp the necessities of the
inquiry. I'm quite willing to be operated on, and I promise to play fair
and not let the evidence be faked. But I'm afraid you'll get bored
first. I am likely to be more illuminated than illuminating."

"I am obliged to you," Mr. Rivers said. "To-night I will not further
detain you. Pray give any orders you please to Renshaw. He is a
well-trained and responsible servant. There are horses in the stable.
Good-night. I repeat that I am obliged to you."




III


Finding it unlikely that his uncle would ask for him before evening, and
that consequently he had plenty of time at his disposal, Laurence
embarked after breakfast upon a survey of the house. When a boy at
school he had occasionally passed a couple of nights at Stoke Rivers.
His recollections of these visits were not gay. He had been glad enough
to go away again. It followed that his impressions of the house itself
were vague and confused. He now found that it was constructed in the
shape of a capital L reversed. The base of the letter, facing east and
west, contained kitchens, offices, and servants' quarters. The main
building--at right angles to it--was two stories in height, and
consisted of suites of handsome rooms opening on to a wide corridor. The
windows of the latter looked south, those of the rooms north. The
colouring and furnishings resembled, in the main, those of Mr. Rivers'
bedroom. Dark panelled walls, rich, sombre hangings of dark blue,
crimson, or violet obtained throughout. In the drawing-rooms were some
noble landscapes by Cuyp, Ruysdael, and other Dutch masters of note.
There was also an admirable collection of Italian ivories, small figures
of exquisite workmanship; and several glass cases containing fine
antique and renaissance gems. The walls of the libraries were lined with
books--a curious and varied collection, ranging from ancient
black-letter volumes down to the latest German treatise, on natural
science or metaphysics, of the current year. Laurence promised himself
to make nearer acquaintance with these rather weighty joys at a more
convenient season. Meanwhile, in contrast to the otherwise distinctly
old-fashioned character of the house, he remarked a very complete
installation of electric light, and an ingenious system of hot-air
ventilation, by means of which a temperature of over seventy degrees was
maintained throughout the whole interior. This produced a heavy and
enervating atmosphere of which Laurence--fresh from the strong clean air
of the Atlantic--became increasingly and disagreeably sensible. It made
him at once restless and inert; and as he wandered, rather aimlessly
from room to room, he was annoyed by finding a slight nervousness gained
on him--he, whose nerves were usually of the steadiest, happily
conspicuous by their absence, indeed, rather than by their presence!

"Upon my word, this beats the American abomination of steam heat," he
said to himself.

His visit to the library, where the smell of old leather bindings added
to the deadness of the air, nearly finished him. He went out on to the
corridor, and paced the length of it, past the flying staircase of black
oak leading to the upper corridor, and back again. A broad strip of
deep-pile, crimson carpet was spread along the centre of the polished
floor. On one hand, between the doors of the living-rooms, hung a
collection of valuable copper-plate engravings, representing classic
ruins in Italy and Greece. While on the other, in the spaces between the
windows, were ranged a series of busts--Augustus, Tiberias, Nero, the
two Antonines, Caligula, and Commodus--set on tall columnar pedestals of
dark green or yellow marble. The blind, sculptured faces deepened the
general sense of oppression by their rigidity, their unalterable and
somewhat scornful repose.

Out of doors the March morning was tumultuous with wind and wet,
offering marked contrast to the dry heat, the almost burdensome order
and stillness reigning within. The air of the corridor was perhaps a
degree fresher than that of the library he had just quitted. Laurence
leaned his arms on a stone window-sill, and glanced in a desultory way
at the day's _Times_, which he had picked up off the hall table in
passing. But Chinese railway concessions, plague reports from Bombay,
even the last racing fixtures, or rumours of fighting on the North-West
Indian Frontier, failed to arouse his interest. In his present humour,
these items of news from the outside world seemed curiously unimportant
and remote. He stared at the wide, well-wooded, rain-blurred landscape.
The scene at which he had assisted last night, the intimate drama moving
forward relentlessly even now to its close in that well-appointed room
upstairs--and the extraordinary character of the chief actor in that
drama--his over-stimulated brain and atrophied affections, his greed of
experiment and of acquiring information, even yet, in the very article
of death--depressed Laurence's imagination as the close atmosphere
depressed his body. It was all so painfully narrow, barren, hungry,
joyless, somehow. And meanwhile, he, Laurence, was required to play the
fool--not for the provocation of laughter, which would after all have
had a semblance of cheerful good-fellowship in it. But in cold blood, as
an object lesson in the manner and customs of the average man; a lesson
the result of which would be tabulated and pigeon-holed by that
unwearying intelligence, as might be the habits of some species of
obscure, unpleasant insect. The young man had developed slight
intolerance of the exclusively worldly side of things lately. It seemed
by no means improbable he might develop equal intolerance of the
exclusively intellectual side before long, at this rate.

"I seem qualifying as a past-master in the highly unprofitable act of
quarrelling with my bread and butter," he said to himself. "If I chuck
society, and proceed to chuck brains as well, for a man like myself,
without genius and without a profession, what the devil is there left?"

Meditating thus, he had left his station at the window, and walked to
the extreme end of the corridor farthest away from the servants' wing of
the house. It was closed by a splendid tapestry curtain, whereon a crowd
of round-limbed cupids drove a naked and reluctant woman, with gestures
of naughty haste, towards a satyr, seated beneath a shadowy grove of
trees upon a little monticule, who beckoned with one hand while with the
other he stopped the notes of his reed pipe. The tapestry was of great
beauty and indubitable worth; but the subject of it was slightly
displeasing to Laurence, a trifle gross in suggestion, as had been the
sphinxes and caryatides of the carven ebony bed.

"Oh! of course there's that sort of thing left," he said to himself,
recurring to his recent train of thought. "But, no thank you, I flatter
myself I can hardly find satisfaction in those low latitudes at
present."

Having, however, an appreciation of all fine artistic work, he laid hold
of the border of the curtain, wishing to feel its texture. To his
surprise, it was of very great weight, padded and lined with leather, as
are curtains covering the doors of certain Roman churches.

Laurence pulled the corner of it towards him and passed behind it. The
curtain fell back into position with a muffled thud, leaving him
standing in a narrow, dark, cupboard-like space, closed by a door, of
which it took him some stifling seconds to find the handle. He fumbled
blindly in the dark, an almost childish sense of agitation upon him. He
felt as in dreams, when the place to be traversed grows more and more
contracted, walls closing down and in on every hand, while the means of
exit become more maddeningly impossible of discovery. To his surprise,
he turned faint and broke into a sweat. It was not in the least an
amusing experience.

At last the handle gave, with a click, and the door opened, disclosing a
large and lofty room quite unlike any one which he had yet visited. It
was delicately fresh both in atmosphere and colouring. It wore a
gracious and friendly look, seeming to welcome the intruder with a
demure gladsomeness. A certain gaiety pervaded it even on this
unpropitious morning. The great bay-window, facing east, gave upon a
stately Italian garden, beyond the tall cypresses, white statues, and
fountains of which spread flat, high-lying lawns of brilliantly green
turf. These were crossed by a broad walk of golden gravel leading to an
avenue of enormous lime-trees, the domed heads of which were just
touched with the rose-pink buds of the opening spring.

The furniture of the room was of satin-wood, highly polished and painted
with garlands of roses, true-lovers' knots of blue ribbon, dainty
landscapes, ladies and lovers, after the manner of Boucher. The chairs
and sofas were upholstered in brocade, the predominating colours of
which were white, pale yellow, and pale pink. An old-fashioned, square,
semi-grand piano--the case of it in satin-wood and painted like the
rest--stood out into the room. On a spindle-legged table beside it lay a
quantity of music, the printing very black, the pages brown with age.
Close against these was a violin case covered with faded, red velvet,
on which were stamped initials and a crest.

Laurence's eyes dwelt on these things. And then--surely there should be
a harp in the further left-hand corner, the strings of it covered by a
gilded, stamped leather hood? Yes, it was there right enough.--And a
tall escritoire, with a miniature brass balustrade running along the top
of it, should stand at right angles to the chimney-piece, upon which
last, doubled by the looking-glass behind, should be tall azure and gold
_Sèvres_ jars, an Empire clock--the golden face of it set in a ring of
precious garnets--figures in Chelsea china and branched, gold
candlesticks.

Laurence looked for and found these objects, a prey at once to surprise
and to a sense of happy familiarity. He was perfectly acquainted with
this room--but why or how he knew not. He was filled, too, by a singular
sense of expectation. It was to him as though some exquisite presence
had but lately quitted this apartment and might, at any instant, return
to it. He apprehended something tenderly, delectably feminine. The china
ornaments, and many little fanciful silver toys, spoke of a woman's
taste. So did a tambour frame, and an ivory work-box, the lid of it
open, disclosing dainty property of gold thimble, scissors, cottons, and
what not--and a half-finished frill of cobweb-like India muslin, a
little, gold-eyed needle sticking in the mimic hem. On the small table
beside the work-box lay a white vellum-bound copy of the _Vita Nuova_ of
Dante, and the _Introduction to the Devout Life_ of St. Francis de
Sales.

Perplexed by his own sensations, possessed too by a sudden, gentle
reverence and longing which he could not explain, Laurence touched the
pretty trifles in the work-box; fitted the thimble on the tip of his
little finger; turned the pages of the Dante, and read how the poet came
near swooning at first sight of the maiden of eight years old whom,
though she was never destined to be his mistress or wife, he loved ever
after, and made immortal in immortal verse. He unlocked the worn
red-velvet violin case and drew the bow--not for the first time--he
could have sworn not--across the wailing strings. What did it all mean?
Yes, what, indeed,--in the name of common-sense, of New York and
Newport, of his golf and polo, and cotillions, of crowded opera-house
and shouting racecourse? In the name, too, of those hard, brilliant,
dying eyes, and that cold, hungry intellect upstairs, what did it mean?
He had no recollection of having been into this room on his former
visits to Stoke Rivers in his boyhood. And yet, of course, he must have
been here--otherwise? But then this overmastering sense of expectation,
this apprehension of an exquisite feminine presence, this--

"Upon my word, I'm playing the fool to some purpose," he said, half
aloud.

He crossed the room, threw wide the French window and went onto the head
of the semicircular flight of stone steps without. The wind buffeted him
roughly. The rain spattered in his face. On the left, the lawns were
divided from the downward slope of rough park and woodland by a sunk
fence. Beyond was outspread an extensive tract of rolling, wooded
country--red and white hamlets half buried among trees, here and there
the spire of a village church, flat, green pastures lying along the
valleys, brown patches of hop-garden and ploughland, and uplifted
against the grey, storm-drifted horizon a windmill crowning some
conspicuous height. Suddenly the cry of hounds, running, saluted
Laurence's ear. Then the whole pack, breaking covert, crossed the open
park. The field followed, horses pulling, riders leaning forward,
squaring their shoulders to the wind--a flash of scarlet, chestnut,
black and bay, behind the dappled joy of the racing pack.

For a moment the strange influences of this strange day made even the
merry hunt appear to Laurence as the pageant of an uneasy dream. But
soon the honest outdoor life claimed him again, forcing him back upon
unquestioned realities. He closed the French window behind him, stood on
the wet steps spending some anxious moments in the lighting of a cigar,
and then strolled, hatless, round to the stables to make inquiry as to
what his uncle might own in the matter of horseflesh.




IV


In the afternoon Laurence drove over to Bishop's Pudbury, some eight
miles distant from Stoke Rivers. An English soldier--by name
Bellingham--whom he had known in New York, and who had married a Miss
Van Renan, a cousin of Virginia--had taken a house there for the hunting
season. His wife had impressed upon Laurence the duty of making an early
call on these connections--he being the bearer of certain gifts to a
small daughter of the family, Virginia's godchild. A revulsion in favour
of the ordinary ways of ordinary modern life, in favour, indeed, of that
very Commonplace of which last evening he had supposed himself so
unwilling an exponent, was upon him. He wanted to get in with his
accustomed habits, his accustomed outlook, again. The last twenty-four
hours had been somewhat of a strain, and Laurence was as lazy as are
most healthy Englishmen. He hated energising, specially of the
super-induced, involuntary sort. And Mrs. Bellingham's society would be
helpful. She was an agreeable woman, of this world worldly. He could
have a good, square gossip with her. She was possessed, moreover, of a
cult for Virginia--for her beauty, her clothes, her social ability. And
in the back of his mind, somehow, Laurence was conscious that it would
be an excellent thing for him to hear Virginia's praises sounded loudly.
Mrs. Bellingham would count his blessings to him. That recital would be
at once humbling and bracing--altogether salutary. But, unfortunately,
neither the lady nor her husband were at home; so he could but deposit
Virginia's immaculate parcels, tied with flaring bows of amber ribbon,
and drive homeward through the rolling Sussex country--now engulfed in
its deep, narrow lanes, now climbing its breezy, wooded hills, catching
glimpses of the smooth, open downs ranging away to Beachy Head, and of
the grey turmoil of the dirty Channel sea.

All this was not very exciting, it must be owned, but it afforded him
relief from the singular sensations he had experienced during the
morning. He came into the house in excellent spirits, bringing the clean
chill of the March evening along with him--came in to meet the same
dry, dead atmosphere, the same dark, glossy walls, and rich, sombre
colours, the same at once unemotional yet almost voluptuous suggestion
from objects of art. A lonely dinner followed, admirably served by two
silent, middle-aged men-servants. Their faces were sallow and without
expression, their manner was correct to the point of absolute nullity of
character, they moved as automata. The dinner itself was a little
_chef-d'oeuvre_, and was served on remarkably handsome silver plate.
As centre-piece, three dancing female figures in silver-gilt--copied
apparently from those on some Etruscan vase--supported a cut-glass bowl,
in which floated fantastic orchids, some mottled, dull, brown-green,
toad-like, some in long sprays of mauve, or tiger-colour, striped with
glossy black. These last gave off a thick musky scent.

Towards the end of the meal Renshaw, the butler, delivered a note to
him, which Laurence read not without kindly amusement. It was from the
curate-in-charge--the Rector of Stoke Rivers preferring to dwell amid
the social excitements of Cheltenham, and but rarely, on the plea of
bad health, visiting the parish. Laurence judged the curate-in-charge to
be a very young man. His letter ran thus:--

     "DEAR SIR,--I trust I am not presuming upon my official
     connection with this parish by hastening to express to you the
     great relief which I feel in learning that you have arrived at
     the Courthouse. As representative of the incumbent of this
     parish, I hold myself responsible for the spiritual welfare of
     all persons resident in it, whether of exalted or humble
     station. I have, therefore, suffered much anxiety regarding
     your uncle's, Mr. Rivers, spiritual condition, in his present
     very serious state of health. I know that his views are
     regrettably latitudinarian, and that his attitude is far from
     conciliatory towards the Church. These sad facts, however, far
     from relieving me of responsibility, only increase it. I would
     so gladly read and pray with him, and reason with him of those
     things necessary to salvation. The time permitted him may, I
     understand, be short. It is my duty first to warn, and then to
     console. I cannot reproach myself with negligence in calling at
     the Courthouse. I do so regularly three times a week.
     Unhappily, Mr. Rivers is persistent in his refusal to receive
     me. This is not only very shocking, as precluding the
     possibility of my offering either the warnings or consolations
     of religion to the invalid; but it injuriously affects my
     position with my parishioners, who, seeing me thus slighted by
     the principal landowner in the parish, show a painful
     disposition to treat my ministrations with levity, and my
     person with disrespect. I trust to your sense of justice to
     obtain my admittance to the sickroom, both in the interests of
     your uncle's eternal welfare and in those of the Church, of
     which I am a humble, but, I trust, efficient minister.--I have
     the honour to remain, dear Sir, yours obediently,

     "WALTER SAMUEL BEAL."

Laurence finished his glass of claret and his cigarette with a smile. He
sat a minute or two, gazing at the dancing, golden figures and at the
rather malign loveliness of the orchids.

"Poor little Padre Sahib!" he said to himself. "I'll go and see him
to-morrow and do my best to quiet his worthy conscience. Funny mixture
of soul and of self in that letter! But he's very much too mild a Daniel
to fling into the lion's den upstairs. He little imagines what he's
asking. Well, he won't get it anyhow, so that doesn't much matter.
Pah!--how hot this room is!"

Laurence rose from the table, folded up the letter, and put it in his
pocket.

"Now for processes of vivisection. It's the most original fashion of
paying succession duty I ever heard of. My word, if I ever do come into
possession, won't I just open the windows in this house!"




V


The conversation that evening did not move very smoothly. Laurence
brought all the good temper and practical philosophy at his command into
play. But the elder man was captious. His blank scepticism, his keen,
unsparing statements jarred on his companion. An inclination towards
revolt arose in Laurence.

"I am half afraid, sir," he permitted himself to say at last, while his
eyes rested on the gleaming breasts of the ebony sphinxes,--"that we
have made a radical mistake and put the cart before the horse. To
understand the average man, and his relation to things in general, must
not you begin with the study of the average woman? Is not _cherchez la
femme_, after all, the keynote of our inquiry?"

Mr. Rivers raised his thin hand almost as in warning, and the heavy
finger-rings chinked as he let it fall again on the arm of his chair.

"The subject of sex in connection with human beings is distasteful to
me," he said.

Laurence glanced at the speaker and then back at the carven sphinx
again. His eyes were a little merry--he could not help it.

"Oh! no doubt," he said; "there are times when it is distasteful to many
of us, and most infernally inconvenient into the bargain. Only you see,
unluckily, it is the pivot on which the whole history of the race
turns."

"A most objectionable pivot! An insult to the intellect, a degradation."

"That may be so," Laurence answered. "Still the thing is there--always
has been, always will be, modern science notwithstanding, unless
humanity agrees to voluntary and universal suicide, a consummation which
does not seem immediately probable in any case.--'Male and female
created He them.' An error perhaps of judgment, but one the Creator has
never shown much sign of wishing to correct as yet. The most venerable
religious systems recognise this. I need not remind you that it lies at
the heart of their mysteries. Christianity too--Catholic
Christianity--the only form, that is, of Christianity worth considering
seriously--acknowledges the profound significance of it in the worship
of the divine motherhood and the perpetually renewed miracle of the
Incarnation."

"You interest me," Mr. Rivers said slowly.

"I am glad of that," Laurence answered. He had warmed up unexpectedly to
his subject. "I am glad of that, for I can't help seeing--"

Mr. Rivers interrupted him.

"Pardon me," he said. "I would not have you labour even temporarily
under a misapprehension. It is less your exposition that interests me
than yourself. I note indications of thought and feeling for which I was
not wholly prepared. Taking you as a fair example of the type, I
perceive that the mind of the average member of society is of an even
lower order than I had supposed. I had, in my ignorance, imagined that,
even in the class to which you belong, modern, scientific ideas had
taken sufficient root to oust such effete superstitions as those to
which you have alluded. A more or less stupid Agnosticism, an utter
indifference, would not have surprised me. From such a condition
development is still possible. But here I recognise traces of a return
to fetich worship, to savage standards--this indeed is hopeless, a
degeneration from which revival is impossible. I admit, of course, the
necessity of the existence of woman, since the perpetuation of the race
appears at present desirable. It would be childish to argue the matter.
She must be kept and cared for by qualified persons, as are the other
higher, domestic animals, but--"

"But, but," Laurence said, laughing, "I must protest. Perhaps his type
of mind is too low for yours to be able to stoop to it; but, upon my
word, sir, even with so thorough-paced a specimen as myself before you,
you have not grasped the characteristics of the average man one bit. I
don't say we are conspicuously noble, or virtuous, or godly creatures,
and I don't say that the side of our lives which has to do with our
ambitions, with public affairs, our profession, or our art--the side, in
fact, in which woman counts least--may not give scope to that which is
best in us. I have no end of belief in the life a man lives among men. I
grant a good deal on your side of the question, you see. Only I know it
will be a precious bad day when we keep our women merely for breeding
purposes. We shall have degeneration in uncommonly full swing then.
There is an immense lot in the relation between man and woman beside the
physical one; and--and--I'm not ashamed to thank whatever gods there be
for that."

"Your wife--" began Mr. Rivers. Laurence looked hard at him, while the
good temper, the geniality, died out of his face.

"My wife does not enter into our contract, sir," he said shortly.

The coldly brilliant eyes fastened on him with a certain voracity of
observation. Then the elder man bowed slightly, courteously,
contemptuously.

"You interest me extremely," he said. "I am obliged to you. But I must
not presume upon your complaisance. You have supplied me with sufficient
subjects of meditation for to-night. I will not detain you further. I
thank you, my dear Laurence. Good-night."

"I was a fool to let myself go, and a still bigger one to lose my
temper," the young man said to himself as he closed the door and passed
out on to the corridor.

Save for a ticking of clocks, silence prevailed throughout the house.
The electric light, clear and steady, revealed every object in its
completeness. The temperature was some degrees higher than during the
day, and airless in proportion to its increased warmth. Half-way down
the shining oak staircase, Laurence was saluted by the musky odour of
the orchids. Clinging, enfolding, it seemed to meet him more as a
presence than a scent. The dining-room door stood wide open. The
under-butler came forth and went noiselessly towards the offices. There
followed a muffled sound of baize doors swinging to. Then
simultaneously, sharply, from all quarters, clocks struck the half hour.

"Only half-past ten!" Laurence exclaimed. "How villainously early! I
wish to goodness I had not lost my temper though. It was slightly
imbecile. If the poor, old gentleman enjoys being offensive, why
shouldn't he be so? He has none too many opportunities of amusement."

He paused, looking down the bright, vacant, silent corridor, past the
open doors of all the bright, vacant, silent rooms.

"If it comes to that, nor have I," he added, "when I come to think of
it. There's a notable paucity of excitement in this existence, and this
beastly hot air makes one too muzzy to read." He yawned.--"What a mercy
Virginia didn't come! She would have been most extensively and
articulately bored."

He sauntered aimlessly along the passage, past the fine, copper-plate
engravings, and the impassive, Roman emperors, and drew up before the
great, tapestry curtain. Again he looked curiously at the figures worked
so skilfully upon it. The light took the silken surface, bringing the
warm flesh-tints into high relief, against the dim, grey-green
background of shadowy hill and grove.

"No wonder my uncle blasphemes if that represents his only idea of the
relation of the sexes."

He sighed involuntarily.

"Yes, but, thank God, there is more in it all than merely that," he
said. Then he repeated:--"It is a mercy Virginia did not come. It would
not have suited her from any point of view. She'd have been hideously
bored, and she would have been offended and a good deal shocked. It is
queer the way the Puritanic element survives over there, notwithstanding
their modernity."

Laurence smiled to himself, becoming aware of the slight inconsistency
of his own attitude--his late heated championship of the claims of the
Eternal Feminine, his self-congratulation at the fact that his own
particular investment in the matter of womanhood was, at present, safely
away on the other side of the Atlantic.

Then, taken by a sudden impulse--born in part of a desire of escape from
the suffocating atmosphere around him--he pulled the edge of the heavy
curtain outwards, passed round it, letting it drop into place behind
him. He stood a moment in a contracted, blind space. The place seemed
possessed of singular influences. Again he grew faint as he groped for
the door handle; while a conviction grew upon him that he had stood just
here, and so groped an innumerable number of times already, and that he
should so stand and grope--either in fact or in imagination, just as
long, indeed, as consciousness remained to him--an innumerable number of
times again.

At last the handle was found and yielded. Breathing rather quickly,
Laurence entered the lofty, fair-coloured room. It too was bright with
electric light, but the air of it was sensibly purer than that of the
corridor; while, standing before the painted satin-wood escritoire, at
the further side of the fireplace, was a slender woman. Her back was
towards him. She wore a high-waisted, clinging, rose-pink, silken gown.
Her dark hair was gathered up in soft, yet elaborate, bows and curls
high on her small head, after the fashion prevalent in the early years
of the century. A cape of transparent muslin and lace veiled her bare
shoulders.




VI


The young man's astonishment was immense. Recovering from the first
shock of it, he was taken with reprehensible irreverence towards the
sick man upstairs.

"The old sinner, how he has lied!" he said to himself. "A pretty ass he
has made of me with this card up his iniquitous, old sleeve all the
while!"

He debated momentarily whether good manners demanded his retirement
before his presence was perceived; or whether he was free to go forward
and make acquaintance with this unacknowledged member of his uncle's
household. Strong curiosity, coupled with a spirit of mischief, provoked
him to adopt the latter course. He owed it to himself, surely, not to
neglect so handsome an opportunity of turning the tables upon old Mr.
Rivers. While, astonishment and levity, notwithstanding, Laurence was
aware of a strong attraction drawing him towards the slender, rose-clad
figure. He began to question, indeed, whether it, like the room and its
furnishings, was not in a degree familiar to him? Whether it was not the
embodiment of just all that of which he had been so singularly expectant
when visiting the room this same morning?

Meanwhile the young lady's hands moved over the rounded cover of the
escritoire as though endeavouring to open it. The lace frills, edging
her muslin cape, flew upwards, showing her bare arms. These were thin,
but beautifully shaped; while the movement of her hands was singularly
graceful and rapid. She touched, yet seemed unable firmly to grasp the
gilded handles of the escritoire again and again; clasped her hands, as
it appeared to Laurence--for her back was still towards him--with a
baffled, despairing gesture, and then moved away across the room. She
appeared to flit rather than walk, so light and silent were her steps,
bird-like in their swift and dainty grace. Watching her, Laurence was
reminded of a certain Spanish _danseuse_, who, during the previous
winter, had excited the wild enthusiasm and considerably lightened the
pockets of the _jeunesse dorée_ of New York. But the charm of the
dancer had, for him at least, been spoilt by the somewhat unbridled
pride of success perceptible in her bearing. Whereas the flitting figure
now before him, notwithstanding the beguiling loveliness of its motions,
struck him as penetrated with the sorrow of failure, rather than the
arrogance of success.

She wandered to and fro, regardless or unconscious of his presence,
searching--searching--as it seemed; passing her hands over the
work-table, sweeping them along the surface of the chimney-piece between
the ornaments and china, fingering the music upon the piano. He caught
sight of a delicate profile, a round and youthful cheek. But her
movements were so anxious and rapid that he could get no definite view
of her face. Indeed, her action was so quick that it was not without
effort Laurence followed it.

At first the young man's attitude had been one of slightly irritated
amusement at the concealment practised on him by his host. But as the
rose-clad lady's search continued, the sense of amusement was merged in
one of sympathy. She was so graceful a creature. She appeared so sadly
baffled and perplexed. A subtle anxiety laid hold of him--an
apprehension that something momentous and of far-reaching consequence to
himself was in act of accomplishment--that he was himself deeply
involved, and pledged by a long train of antecedent circumstances to
assist those delicately framed and apparently so helpless hands in their
unceasing search.

"Pardon me, but what have you lost?" he asked her at last, speaking
gently as to a timid and unhappy child. "Tell me, and let me try to help
you find it."

At the sound of his voice the flitting figure paused, stood a moment
listening, as though striving to collect the purport of his address.
Then it turned to him. For the first time Laurence saw his companion's
face clearly, and he shrank back, penetrated at once by a great
admiration and a vague dread of her. For it was a very lovely face, but
shy and wild as no other human face he had ever beheld. The sweet mouth
drooped at the corners, as with some haunting, but half-comprehended
distress. The eyes were serious; blue-purple--as are deep, high-lying,
mountain tarns, set in a soft gloom of pine-trees and of heather. A
gentle distraction pervaded the young lady's aspect. And this was the
more arresting, that each bow and curl of her pretty hair was in place;
every detail of her dress fresh and finished, from the string of pearls
about her white throat, to the toes of her rose-pink, satin slippers,
sparkling with an embroidery of brilliants, which showed beneath the
small flounce edging her rose-pink skirt.

Laurence had lived at least as virtuously as most men of his class; yet
it would be idle to declare Virginia his first and only flame. He had
married her, which constituted the difference between her and all those
other flames--and at times it occurred to him what a prodigiously great
difference that was! Since his marriage he had been guiltless of looking
to the right hand or to the left even in thought. But, before that
event, it must be owned, he had had his due share of affairs of the
heart. He was thoroughly conversant with the premonitory symptoms of
that fascinating disorder, commonly known as "falling in love." And, to
his dismay, as he looked on the sad and lovely person before him, he
was conscious that some of those premonitory symptoms were not entirely
absent. An immense pity and tenderness took him; a deepening conviction,
too, of recollection, as one who after a long lapse of years hears again
some almost forgotten melody, or sees again a once well-known and
well-beloved landscape. The sad face was new to him, not in itself, but
in its sadness only. The corners of the sweet mouth should not droop,
but tip upward in soft, discreet laughter. The serious eyes should
dance, as the surface of these same mountain tarns in sunlight under a
rippling breeze. The face, remembered thus, had indeed never been wholly
forgotten--he knew that. It formed part of inherent prenatal
impressions, of which, all his life, he had been potentially if not
actively aware.

All this flashed through him in the space of a few seconds; while he
repeated, somewhat staggered by the fulness of emotion which the tones
of his own voice implied--

"Only tell me what you have lost--tell me; and let me help you find
it."--Then he added more lightly, smiling at her with his sincere and
kindly smile:--"Really, my services are worth enlisting. I've always
been a rather famous hand at finding things, you know."

She gazed at the young man for a minute or more, a tremulous wonder in
her expression, while she fingered the string of pearls about her
rounded throat. Her lips moved, but no sound came from them. Her
attitude changed. She stood with her head raised, apparently listening.
Then reluctantly, as in obedience to some unwelcome summons, she moved
swiftly across the room to the outstanding, painted satin-wood
escritoire, passed at the back of it, and the young man found himself
alone.




VII


Though usually an excellent sleeper, Laurence passed a restless night.
Like most sane persons, he was disposed to resent that which he could
not account for; and, with the best will in the world to evolve
ingenious hypotheses explanatory of her disappearance, the manner of his
sweet companion's going remained a mystery. He had examined the
escritoire, and found it locked. He had also examined the wall-space in
its vicinity. This was hung, from cornice to wainscot, with pale
yellow-and-white brocade, as was all the room. But neither behind the
brocade, nor in the wainscot, was any door or sliding panel
discoverable. Indeed, when he came to think of it, remembering the
structure of the house as he had seen it on his way along the south
front to the stables, that side of the room consisted of a blank wall,
doorless and windowless. This fact, when he realised it, caused Laurence
something of a shock. It was unpleasant to him. And so he took refuge in
scepticism. He laughed at himself, declaring that the unwholesome
atmosphere of the house, and the lonely, uneventful life he was
compelled to lead, were breeding morbid fancies in him. All that talk
about woman and the relation of the sexes had stamped itself upon his
mind in an exaggerated way, thanks to his surroundings. The musky scent
of the orchids had a word to say in the matter too, no doubt. So had his
revulsion from the gross suggestions of the scene represented on the
tapestry curtain. Heavy sleep, amounting almost to torpor, induced by
the heavy atmosphere, had fallen upon him directly after he had entered
that strangely engaging and familiar room. And, in that sleep,
imagination had created a woman who should embody all that which the
room and its furnishings suggested--an ideal woman, far away alike from
the brilliant young leader of smart society whom he had married--but on
this clause Laurence refused to allow his thoughts to dwell--and from
the mere human brood-mare, whom his uncle pronounced to be the only
admissible exponent of the Eternal Feminine. He had dreamed a poem--one
of those poems he kept at the bottom of his despatch-box, and had never
felt any inclination to read aloud to Virginia--had dreamed instead of
writing it, that was all.

Laurence got out of bed and threw open the window. Where the eastern
angle of the house stood out dark against the sky, he could see the
pallor of the dawn warming into rose, while overhead the stars died out
one by one as the light broadened.

"Yes, the vision of a dream," he said to himself. "Only another of those
thousand exquisite things which belong to the language of symbol, and
possess, alas! no tally in reality--reality, that is, as most of us
hide-bound victims of conventionality are destined to know it."--He
laughed a little grimly.--"Reality, as we know it, being precisely the
biggest illusion of all!"

He watched the fading stars, the deepening rose and gold of day, above
the woods and lawns, the black cypresses and white statues upon the
northern boundary of the Italian garden. Starlings chattered joyously
from the gutters under the eaves; and then swept down, with a rush of
passing wings, on to the grass. A keeper, gun on shoulder, with a busy,
little, black cocking-spaniel, and a long-limbed, red, Irish setter
behind him, crossed the rough downward slope of the park; and the wide,
blue-grey landscape began to grow definite, to assert itself right away
up to the horizon. The earth seemed to awake with a quiet smile from the
kindly sleep of night.

Laurence drank in his fill of the moist, sharp air.

"Poor dear Virginia!" he said suddenly. And it was probably the very
first time in her whole life that this popular, admirably finished, and
much admired young lady had ever excited pity.

After breakfast Laurence set forth to visit his clerical correspondent,
and strive to ease the latter's conscience while refusing his request.
The rectory, distant about three-quarters of a mile, stood on the rising
ground across the valley, backed by a fringe of high-lying woods. The
church, a small but very perfect example of Norman architecture, closely
adjoined the house. There were good details of carving about the narrow,
round-headed windows of the chancel, and the low, heavy arch of the
porch--the floor of which was sunk several steps below the level of the
churchyard. The tower, square and solid, but little higher than the roof
of the nave, was surmounted by a squat, shingled spire. It struck
Laurence as a calm, self-contained, little building, on which the
centuries had set but slight mark of decay. The churchyard,
too--shadowed by a few ancient yew-trees--was singularly peaceful, full
for the most part of unnamed, grass-grown graves. Death, seen thus, had
nothing awful, nothing repulsive, about it--quiet "rest after toil," it
amounted to no more than that.

But then the charm of spring was in the air, and the young man was
pleasantly beguiled by it. He sat down on the broad coping of the
churchyard wall, lighted a cigarette, and idly watched the rooks
streaming out from the rectory elms, and dropping on the fragrant,
fresh-turned earth of a plough-field in the valley. He listened idly to
the nimble wind that blew up from the ten-mile-distant sea, sang in the
woodland above, and whispered through the dark, plume-like branches of
the yews here in this sheltered piece of ground. The sky was a thin,
bright blue, and across it wandered little clouds, like flocks of white
sheep, herded by that same nimble wind up from the Channel.

It seemed to Laurence that here, indeed, would be a pleasant enough
place to lie when life was over. But then that time had by no means
arrived for him yet. He felt again--as he had felt that night on board
ship--that he had never done complete justice to his own capacity.
Whether the fault lay in himself or in circumstance, he could not say;
but he knew that neither body, nor mind, nor heart, had worked up to
their full strength yet. Ambition of some notable and absorbing
undertaking stirred in him. He looked out over the goodly land. Would
this by no means contemptible inheritance, on the threshold of the
possession of which he now stood, afford him his great opportunity? And
then his thought harked back to the lovely and pathetic vision which had
blessed his sleep--for, of course, he was asleep--last night. A man
could find fulness of satisfaction in a great passion for such a
woman--if so be she actually existed, instead of being only the ideal
vision of an ideal dream. Yes, a man could go very far down that road
if--if--And there Laurence, being a decent fellow, laid strong hands on
his imagination. To indulge it was just simply not right, since whatever
woman's existence might belong to the land of fancy, his wife,
Virginia's, belonged, to the land of very positive fact. He got up,
shook himself, and walked away to the rectory house, through the
sunshine and shadow of the peaceful, country graveyard.




VIII


Mr. Beal received his guest with an agitation in which natural timidity
warred with professional pride. He laboured under the conviction that he
was called upon at all times and in all places to maintain the dignity
of the Anglican Church. He believed she was very much in the midst of
foes, Rome and Non-conformity alike perpetually plotting her downfall;
while Atheism cruised about in the offing ever ready to seize any who
escaped the machinations of these more declared enemies. And,
unfortunately, the young man, neither in appearance nor constitution,
was a born fighter, or even a born diplomatist. In appearance he was
mild, with sandy, down-like hair, a high narrow forehead and freckled
skin, pale, anxious eyes behind spectacles, and a moist white hand. He
opened the front door to Laurence himself; and it occurred to the latter
that his clothes were very black, and that he wore a great many of them.

"Mr. Laurence Rivers, I presume?" he said, looking up nervously into
his guest's face.

"Yes; I thought it would be simplest to answer your letter in person,"
the other replied. He felt a certain kindly pity for the young
clergyman, whose existence he divined to be of a somewhat limited and
unproductive sort.--"I should have given myself the pleasure of calling
on you in any case in a day or two. But your letter seemed to require
attention at once. I am sorry you are having any bother about--"

"Will you not come in?" Mr. Beal asked hurriedly. "Our conversation
might be overheard and commented upon. This way, please. You will excuse
the dining-room? I always occupy this room during the winter months. It
is both necessary and right that I should practise economy, and to
occupy this room exclusively saves a fire."

In his nervousness Mr. Beal talked continuously.

"Pray take a seat," he said, pushing forward an armchair, the leather
cover and springs of which were decidedly tired. "I at once begged you
to come in here, because in speaking of personal and parochial matters
one cannot, I feel, be too careful. Mr. Wingate--the rector of Stoke
Rivers, you know--wished, I am sure, to treat me with generosity when I
undertook the duty here. He not only placed the whole of this house at
my disposal, but he left two female servants--not on board wages--an
elderly woman and a younger person as her assistant. The intention was
generous, I feel sure; but I grieve to say they are not such staunch
church-women as I could desire, and this has led to difficulties between
us. I thought it my duty to admonish them, separately, of course,
suiting my remonstrances to their respective ages and dispositions. But
they did not receive my admonitions in a submissive spirit. Since then I
have found it necessary to exercise great caution. There has been much
gossip. Remarks of mine have been repeated, and that not in a manner
calculated to improve my position with the parishioners. My actions are
spied upon. There is a small, but bigoted, dissenting element in the
village, and----"

"Ah! yes, they're a nuisance, I dare say," Laurence put in, smiling.
"Still, it's a charming place, all the same. I have just been poking
round the church. There are some wonderfully quaint bits about it. And I
like the churchyard."

"I could wish to have the graves levelled, and the head and foot stones
placed neatly in line on the confines of the enclosure."

"Oh! no, no; that would destroy the character of the place. We can't
carry anything away with us--granted--when we go. And so there's a
certain subjective comfort in knowing we leave a little mound of earth
and turf behind to mark our resting-place. That's hardly ostentatious,
considering our pretensions during life--do you think so?"

Mr. Beal shifted the position of his spectacles. He braced himself.

"The churchyard has been levelled at Bishop's Pudbury," he said. "I had
the privilege of being assistant priest there for five years. The
archdeacon is considered a man of great taste."

"I should have thought the parishioners would have objected now,"
Laurence remarked.

"So they did," Mr. Beal replied. "I grieve to say some persons
displayed a most illiberal spirit. They called meetings, and behaved in
a really seditious manner. Many even became guilty of the sin of schism.
They ceased to attend the church services, and frequented dissenting
places of worship. The archdeacon was pained; but he felt a principle
was at stake. He has long contended that the churchyard is legally the
rector's freehold. He therefore felt it a duty to the Church to be
firm."

Laurence contemplated the young clergyman with a touch of good-natured
amusement, wondering if, with that anæmic physique, he was capable of
emulating the militant virtues of the archdeacon-rector of Bishop's
Pudbury.

"But about this letter of yours, Mr. Beal," he said. "That's what I came
to talk to you about."

"I am afraid my conversation has been a little irrelevant. But--but--"
the young man sat opposite to Laurence, shifting his spectacles, and
washing his hands in an access of nervousness. "I confess I am not quite
myself this morning, Mr. Rivers. I was made an object of public ridicule
last night."

"I am very sorry to hear it. How was that?"

"I think I am at liberty to tell you, because the incident took its rise
in your uncle, the elder Mr. Rivers', refusal to receive me. You see it
is known how often I have been repulsed. Last night we had the weekly
choir practice at the school. While it was in progress, I was called and
informed by the pupil-teacher--whom I excuse of participation in the
unseemly jest--that Mr. Rivers had sent for me, and that his carriage
was waiting at the gate. This surprised me; but I supposed you might
have received, and immediately responded to, the request contained in my
note. I excused myself to the organist and choir, and hastily put on my
hat and coat. I hurried out, but some ill-disposed youths had placed
strings across the school door. I fell. The ground was exceedingly
muddy. My reappearance was greeted with hardly concealed derision. I
discovered the whole matter was a vulgar hoax."

"Ah! that's very much too bad," Laurence said kindly, though the
picture suggested by the young clergyman's story provoked him to
internal mirth. "We must straighten this out somehow. And yet I tell you
frankly your letter placed me in a difficulty. Even when in good health
my uncle was not an easy person to approach, and now, as you know, he is
fatally ill----"

"I would deal with him very gently," Mr. Beal remarked, bracing himself.

"I am sure of that. But I am afraid he might deal anything but gently
with you."

"I think--I believe--I am prepared to suffer for my faith."

"I am sure of that," Laurence repeated consolingly. "But it appears to
me this would be both a superfluous and inglorious martyrdom. My uncle
is perfectly secure of his own position and opinions. The latter are
peculiar, and he has a very trenchant way of stating them."

"You would convey to me that I should be worsted in argument?" Mr. Beal
inquired.

"Yes, I really am more than half afraid you would. And so, you see, no
end would be gained. You would be pained, and possibly humiliated; while
my uncle's victory would render him more stubborn in the maintenance of
his own views. He would be irritated too, and that might accelerate the
action of the disease from which he suffers. Remember, he's both old and
ill. I own I think he must just go his own way. I hesitate to coerce
him."

During this address Walter Beal had washed his moist hands in a very
agony of agitation. This handsome stranger impressed him greatly. He was
sympathetic, moreover, a patient and kindly listener. The young
clergyman could have found it in his heart to adore him with a humble
and dog-like devotion. But then his own professional dignity must be
asserted. So he whipped down his natural and wholesome inclination to
hero-worship, and whipped up his rather spavined, ecclesiastical valour;
and said, with all the sternness his tremulous voice could command--

"I fear you are not a true Christian, Mr. Rivers, or you would find no
room for hesitation where the salvation of a soul is involved."

Laurence turned his chair sideways to the dinner-table, crossed his
legs, and rested his elbow on the bare, white cloth. Some crumbs
remained on it, left over from Walter Beal's breakfast; but happily they
were at the far corner. The young man deserved a snub, but he was an
innocent creature, a great sincerity in his foolishness. Laurence looked
out of window, across to the sunny peaceful churchyard. After all, why
be harsh? Why snub anybody? So he smiled again genially enough upon the
distracted Beal.

"Oh! we must discuss the heights and depths of my Christianity some
other time," he said. "The point is to stop this impertinence of which
you are the victim. Look here, honestly I don't see my way to making a
meeting between you and my uncle at present. But as you can't get the
uncle, let me beg you to put up with the nephew. Let it be known that
you and I are on excellent terms. Come and see me. Let's see--to-morrow
evening I shall be free till half-past nine or ten. Come and dine with
me."

But Mr. Beal shrunk back and raised his moist, white hands in protest.

"Oh, no!" he exclaimed. "That is, I am sure your intentions are most
kind, most kind--indeed, indeed, really, I am sure of that. But except
professionally, except at the urgent call of duty--and then grace would
be given me--I felt that yesterday when I received the summons during
the choir practice--I prayed--I was praying when those strings
intercepted my passage and caused me to fall--I knew I should be
supported--but, except professionally, I could not make up my mind to
enter that house--Stoke Rivers. And after dark too! I could not. It
would be too dreadful."

Laurence stared at him blankly. "Why, my good man," he said, laughing a
little, "what on earth is the matter with the house?"

"I understand that it contains pictures and statues of an immoral
character. It is very frightful to think of a soul, the soul of a
scoffer, of one who speaks lightly of holy things, going forth to meet
its doom from among such heathenish surroundings.--But it is not that so
much which deters me. I ought to cope with that, strong in faith. But
from a child, I own it, I have suffered from the fear of the
supernatural."

Laurence's eyebrows drew together. "The supernatural," he said.

"Yes--yes--the supernatural."

Laurence paused a moment, gazing down at the worn drugget between his
feet.

"Look here," he said, "either you are talking great nonsense, or there
is something uncommonly serious at the bottom of all this, of which I
ought to be informed. Tell me plainly, what are you afraid of?"

"There, there are lights all night."

"Certainly there are. The electric light is left on. It is a fancy of my
uncle's--and not an unreasonable one in time of illness. If your fears
take their rise in nothing worse than that, why--" Laurence shrugged his
shoulders.

"Oh! but--but--" Mr. Beal's voice sunk to a whisper, and his pale eyes
looked piteously upon his guest from behind his spectacles. "It is
commonly reported there is a female in the house----"

Laurence shook his head.--"Oh, no, pardon me," he said. "That is a
mistake. There are only men-servants in the house. That I know. No lady
has stayed at Stoke Rivers--so my uncle informed me--since my mother
stayed there with me when I was quite a small boy."

"But--but," poor Walter Beal almost wailed, "I don't mean any lady
visitor. The--the Scarlet Woman--you know. I understand the keepers have
frequently seen her at night at the windows downstairs. And I believe I
saw her once this winter myself----"

"Saw her yourself?"

"Yes; I had been to call and inquire for Mr. Rivers. It was dusk, and I
was much alarmed at going; but I would not permit myself to neglect a
duty. I was going back up the avenue, when I saw a person in a red dress
coming out from the bow-window. I--I--I--I--did not wait--"

Laurence had risen. He stood for a moment speechless. Then a sudden
gladness took him. The sun was bright outside there, but the yew-trees
waved their dusky arms quaintly, making little shadows dance and flit
upon the churchyard grass.

"No--I see. You ran away," he said. "Well, Mr. Beal, perhaps that was
the very best thing under the circumstances that you could have
done.--You can't make up your mind to dine with me? All right, I'll come
and see you then. We'll let the parish know you and I are on excellent
terms anyhow. I should be glad to have a talk with you about the schools
and charities. And, of course, if Mr. Rivers should soften and express
any willingness to receive your ministrations I'll not fail to let you
know."

On reaching the house, Laurence went straight down the corridor, pulled
aside the tapestry curtain, and entered the room beyond. As yesterday,
it was fresher in atmosphere than the rest of the interior. The
furniture, the knick-knacks, even the little frill in the open work-box
were stationary, untouched, precisely in the same position as last
night. Again Laurence examined the room carefully. Very certainly there
was no exit from it save the door or the bay-window, and no human being
in it save himself.




IX


That afternoon Captain Bellingham called at Stoke Rivers. He was a
large, fair, fresh-coloured man of about five-and-thirty--extremely
well-groomed, addicted to field-sports, and an arrant gossip. This last
characteristic was much in evidence during his visit. He gossiped of
London, of New York, of Sussex, displaying a vast amount of knowledge of
other people's affairs.

"Well, my dear fellow, it's uncommonly pleasant to forgather with you
again. Those presents your wife sent my small daughter were princely.
Sibyl will write to her. The child has a regular Yankee eye for
value--and, I tell you, she was impressed. My wife was awfully
disappointed at missing you yesterday. She's frightfully gone on Mrs.
Rivers. I think she wants to have a look at you to satisfy herself that
you're living up to your high privileges in that quarter. Come over
to-morrow, can't you, and dine and sleep?"

Laurence explained that his evenings were bespoken.

"Ah, really--by the way, how is the old gentleman? Making headway
towards--don't you know? Rather depressing business for you waiting on
like this. Pity you can't come and dine and sleep, it would make a
little break for you. I've never seen him, you know, but I hear he is
rather a formidable, old person. My wife intends asking you a number of
questions about him. Of course, you must know there are a whole lot of
queer stories current."

"So I hear," Laurence said.

"Oh, it's not for you to hear; it's for you to tell," Jack Bellingham
answered, his eyes twinkling. "Why, my dear fellow, your arrival is the
excitement of the hour. The whole neighbourhood is sitting on the edge
of its respective chairs just bursting for information about Stoke
Rivers. You wait a little. I warn you, you're going to be handed round
like a plate of cake at an old maid's tea-party; and my wife, in right
of her relationship to Mrs. Rivers, means to have the first slice. She
means to walk in, collar you, and then skilfully and economically retail
you to her whole local acquaintance. To tell the truth, I've been
rather worried about Louise lately. She has an idea--I've noticed
nothing to justify it myself--that she has rather missed fire down here.
She's taken that awfully to heart, you know. And I think she looks to
you to give her her opportunity. She thinks if she gets possession of
you and all these queer stories, she'll make the running--all the other
women will be nowhere, you know."

Laurence laughed. He felt slightly embarrassed.

"But what the dickens is it all about?" he said.

"That's for you to tell us," Captain Bellingham repeated. "Perhaps
you'll be rather glad of an audience in a day or two. Anyhow, come over
and see my wife as soon as you can. She's great on spook-hunting,
psychical research, all that sort of thing. So give her the first
chance. Let her have a postcard in the morning. She'll be brokenhearted
if she misses you again."

Laurence partook of another solitary dinner, admirably cooked and
served, in company with the dancing, Etruscan figures, and the
musky-scented orchids. Again, when the meal was finished, he went
upstairs through the steady light and close, dry atmosphere to that
stately and sombre sickroom. The last twenty-four hours had been very
full of disquieting episodes and suggestions.

"I am inclined to reverse the order of proceedings to-night," he said to
himself, "and cross-question my uncle, instead of letting him
cross-question me. After all, that'll fit in to his scheme of
observation well enough. My questions, no doubt, will be indicative of
the depths of my native ignorance and the poverty of my powers. They'll
enable him to draw conclusions. Conclusions!" he added, smiling--"a
sufficiently fatuous occupation, when one thinks of the limited amount
of evidence obtainable and the breadth of the inquiry?"

On the stairhead his uncle's valet, a thin, wiry man, long-armed, grey
of hair and of skin, met him, and preceded him silently along the
corridor. Laurence's relations with servants, and other persons in an
inferior position to his own, were usually of a kindly and cordial sort.
Such persons told him of their affairs; they admired and trusted him.
But the servants in this house, though caring for his comfort with
scrupulous forethought and punctuality, remained, so far, impossible of
approach. They seemed to him like so many machines, incapable of hopes
or fears, affections, even of sins, inhuman in their rigidity and
silence. Now the valet announced him, and stood aside to let him pass,
with a perfection of drill and an absence of individuality so complete,
that it was to Laurence quite actively unpleasant. Immediately after, he
met the hungry glance of those coldly brilliant eyes, looking out of the
face fixed in outline, transparent, as the crystal skull lying on the
table close by. And this house, so full of beings but half alive, of
paralysed activities, defective or one-sided development, seemed to the
young man, for the moment, terrible. The country churchyard, in which
the wind sang, and the sunshine played among the graves with flitting,
beckoning shadows, was gay by comparison. No wonder the place had an
evil reputation, and that people invented weird stories about it.

A sensation of loneliness, such as he had not known since early
childhood, came over Laurence. Almost involuntarily he made an effort
towards closer, more sympathetic, intercourse with his host.

"How are you this evening, sir?" he asked. "Better, I hope. It has been
a wonderfully charming day."

"I am glad to learn you have found it so. Weather has always appeared to
me an accident, unworthy, save in its scientific aspects, of attention.
Yet I understand that it exercises strong influence on certain
temperaments--emotional temperaments, I apprehend, undisciplined by
reason. That the weather to-day has affected you agreeably is matter for
congratulation, since it will have helped to mitigate the tedium of a
small portion of this period of waiting."

"Oh! there's not much tedium," Laurence answered. He looked across at
the elder man smiling very pleasantly.--"I'm beginning to find things
here a little too dramatic, if anything. You were good enough to tell me
that you found me interesting last night, sir. I only wish I could be
half as interesting to you, as you, and your house, and the whole state
of affairs here is to me."

"You find it distinctly interesting?" Mr. Rivers inquired, but whether
in approval or disapproval Laurence could not determine.

"Unquestionably," he answered. "The house is cram full of treasures. And
there are unexpected influences in it, which get hold of one's
imagination. It stands alone in my experience, unlike any place I have
ever known."

The elder man sunk further back against the pillows, and, with one long,
thin hand, drew the violet, fur-lined dressing-gown closer across his
knees as though cold.

"Indeed. Have I divorced myself and my surroundings so completely from
the ordinary habits of my contemporaries?"

"You've been strong enough to follow your own tastes and lead your own
life, and that has produced something unique, something as finished as
it is apart. Of course, this provokes a lot of criticism. Other people,
I observe, recognise that it is unique too."

"Other people?" Mr. Rivers said loftily. "I have never entertained."

"Exactly," Laurence answered. "That's where part of the uniqueness comes
in. We mostly herd together like sheep in a pen, and can't be easy
unless we're rubbing sides."--He paused a moment. "Your refusal to rub
sides causes great searchings of heart, I assure you. The poor, little
parson here, for instance, is tormented by the idea that it is his duty
to the Almighty, and to the Church of England, and to his own abnormally
developed conscience, to raid you and do a little spiritual gardening in
the neglected flower-beds of your soul."

"My soul is my own," Mr. Rivers observed. "That is, if the term soul is,
strictly speaking, admissible. Conscious consciousness is all that I can
predicate of my other than physical existence."

"The little parson's point of view is quite different. He is by no means
backward in predication. He is quite sure you have a soul; but whether
it is your own, or whether it doesn't belong to him as curate-in-charge
of Stoke Rivers, he is not at all sure. He has strong leanings to the
latter belief, I fancy."

"These are puerilities."

"The average man is puerile," Laurence asserted cheerfully. "We carted
away Woman last night, sir, you remember, in deference to your slight
prejudice against her--though I still maintain she is by no means
foreign to our inquiry. But I really can't consent to the carting away
of puerility too, or you will never get hold of the average man at all.
Forbid his affections and his ineptitudes both, and you don't leave the
poor wretch a leg to stand on. Meanwhile, the little parson is not the
only person a good deal worked up by the unique character of your habits
and surroundings. These give rise, indirectly, to surprising legends."

"Indeed!"

"Yes, indeed. I think they would amuse you. And in connection with all
this, sir, there are one or two questions I should most uncommonly like
to ask you."

"You may do so," Mr. Rivers said. His nephew's rapid speech and breezy
manner made him slightly breathless. He was unaccustomed to be treated
in this light and airy fashion. He moved uneasily in his chair, as one
who tries to avoid a draught. Laurence observing this, repented of his
purpose.

"I don't tire you, sir, do I?" he asked kindly.

"Exhaustion is a consequence of the failure of the will. My will is
still obedient to my mind, and my body to my will."

Laurence looked at him with a certain admiration. He was true to his
creed, such as it was, and his pride had, consequently, rather a superb
quality.

"Well, then," he said, "since I may ask you--I have found from
conversation with several of our neighbours that this house, which I
took to be a sort of Temple of Reason, is regarded with a good deal of
vulgar suspicion."

Though the room was warm, the atmosphere of it close as that of a
thundering night in the tropics, Laurence instinctively leaned forward,
spreading out his hands to the glowing wood-fire on the hearth.

"I am not superstitious," he continued; "and you very certainly, I take
it, are not so. We shall agree in that. Still, I confess, the whole
subject of the occult and supernatural is rather fascinating to me. I
can't quite keep my hands off it. I find an idea is prevalent that there
are manifestations here, queer things are seen, you know, which cannot
be put down to natural agency. I want to know if you--"

But Mr. Rivers interrupted him with unaccustomed vehemence of speech and
manner.

"Stop!" he said, "stop if you please. This subject is exceedingly
distasteful to me."

"Then we won't pursue it," Laurence answered quickly. Yet he wondered;
his interest, already considerably aroused, being sensibly increased by
the violence displayed by his companion. It was singular; and he paused
a little, thinking, before embarking in further conversation. During
that pause, Mr. Rivers leaned sideways, slowly and with difficulty
raised the crystal skull from its place on the table beside him. He held
it in front of him in both hands, and gazed, as though performing some
religious rite, into the cavities of the empty eye-sockets. Then
stiffly, letting his hands sink, he rested it upon his knees.

"Pardon me," he said, looking full at Laurence, while a shadow, rather
than a flush, seemed to pass over his attenuated face. "I was tempted to
act unworthily.--I agreed to answer such questions as you might put to
me. But perceiving those questions tended to revive a matter which has
caused me one of the few humiliations and regrets I have suffered during
my life, I shrank. I was tempted weakly to break faith with you and
retract my promise."

"Pray, sir, don't take it so seriously," Laurence entreated. "Of course,
I should never have approached the subject had I known it was
disagreeable to you. It was just the idle curiosity of an idle man. What
on earth does it matter?"

"To you very little, presumably, since you are, as you say, idle--your
days, that is, filled with a round of amusements deadening--as I
fear--to the intellectual and moral conscience. But with me the case is
otherwise. The judgment of no human being is of moment to me. But my
judgment of myself is of infinite moment."

Mr. Rivers laid one transparent hand upon the dome of the crystal
skull, as though for support. His face had grown hard as steel.

"It is therefore incumbent upon me, not in satisfaction of your
curiosity, my dear Laurence, but in satisfaction of my own sense of
rectitude, that I should accept this opportunity of stating the
following facts. I inherited this property--as you will shortly inherit
it--from an uncle, a man very much my senior. I had prosecuted my
studies abroad, in the learned centres of Germany and France, from an
early age. My acquaintance with my uncle was slight. I knew little of
his private life. But I had reason to believe him a person of an
undisciplined mind, imbued with the extravagant socialistic views
current during the French Revolution, unbridled alike in passions of
love and of hate. Questions of character have never interested me; I
therefore made no further inquiry regarding my predecessor's private
life. My own tastes and habits were already fixed. I settled myself here
and continued the studies in experimental physics, philology, and
metaphysics, in which I had already engaged. I also added to the
collection of pictures and objects of art that I found in the house. My
life has been blameless, as most men count blame. I can assert, without
fear of contradiction, that my moral and intellectual integrity have
been complete. Only in one connection have I been guilty, have I
failed--failed, as I now confess, miserably and grossly."

Mr. Rivers paused a moment. His fingers twitched as they rested upon the
crystal skull.

"Miserably and grossly," he repeated. "The vulgar gossip which you have
heard rests upon a basis of truth. I cannot deny the existence of
supernatural manifestations, so called, in one quarter of this house.
They are undeniable. I have witnessed them myself."

Laurence felt a queer shiver of excitement run through him. He sat very
still.--"Then I wasn't asleep after all," he said to himself, "in that
room last night."

"The said manifestations were not only disturbing and distasteful to me;
but I perceived that their existence threatened the validity of some of
my most carefully reasoned hypotheses, of some of my most ardently
cherished beliefs. Of vulgar physical fear, I need hardly tell you, I
was incapable; but I trembled before a dislocation of my thought. It
followed that I became guilty of an act of flagrant mental cowardice. I
refused to submit those manifestations to scientific investigation. I
never mentioned them to my correspondents. I took elaborate precautions
against ever witnessing them again myself. I made a determined effort to
erase the memory of them from my mind. I almost succeeded in forgetting
that I ever had witnessed them. Thus I tricked my own intelligence. I
lied to my own experience. I committed a crime against my own reason--a
crime which I can never hope to expiate."

Moved by the passion of the elder man's self-denunciation, Laurence had
risen, and stood close to him.

"Ah! surely you take it too hard--far too hard, sir," he said.

But Mr. Rivers, looking up at him, answered sternly--

"A sin is heinous, not in itself, but in relation to the level of virtue
habitually maintained by whoso commits it. And so, even were I not
disabled, were I still capable of carrying out these investigations, the
unsparing prosecution of which could alone give proof of the sincerity
of my repentance, that could not really wipe out the iniquity of the
past. In morals I cannot logically admit the possibility of cancelling a
wrong once done. In the realm of physics we know that vibrations, once
generated, ring out everlastingly through space. To send forth a
contrary set of vibrations is not to limit, or cause the first generated
to cease. Their circles may intersect, yet they are practically
independent, and cannot neutralise one another. In the realm of morals
it is the same. The act once committed passes into the region of
persistent and indubitable fact. Of sins, both passive and active, this
is equally true. And consequently I am doomed--so long as I retain
conscious individuality--to remain hopelessly lowered in my
self-esteem."

The sick man spoke with a fierceness of conviction, his voice usually
low and even swelling into full sonorous tones; his attenuated frame
vibrant with energy; his face illuminated, as though a lamp burned
behind that thin investiture of flesh and bone. Laurence saw in him, for
the moment, a great orator, more probably a great preacher, wasted. And
the thought of that waste of force, waste of power, stung him out of
indolence, out of mere easy good nature. He, at least, would
shilly-shally no more with life, but play the game--whatever the game
presenting itself--whole-heartedly. And again that queer shiver of
excitement ran through him; while again he reminded himself he had now
reliable testimony that he had met with something far stranger, more
incalculable and mysterious, than any vision of a dream, in that
clear-coloured room downstairs last night. He stood silent, thinking
intently, feeling keenly, his whole nature alert. But a small rustling
sound, as of a chill wind among dry leaves in a winter hedge, recalled
him to his immediate surroundings. Mr. Rivers had sunk back against the
silken cushions, which rustled under his weight. The light had died out
of his face, his hands clutched tremblingly at the crystal _memento
mori_ resting on his knees. For the first time Laurence realised how
very near--but for the indomitable strength of will which supported
him--he was to death. Laurence bent over him.

"This is heavy, sir," he said, touching the crystal skull. "May I put it
back on the table?"

Mr. Rivers bowed his head in assent.

"We have talked too much. It would be wise, I think, for me to leave
you."

"It would be so."

"May I call your man before I go--I hardly like to leave you alone."

"Thank you; he will come at the accustomed hour. I do not deviate from
habits once formed except under stress of necessity."

Laurence was pushed by the desire to say something gentle, something
expressive of the honour in which he held his host's rectitude and
sincerity. But Mr. Rivers lay back motionless, his eyes closed. It was
difficult to find just the words he wished. He turned away towards the
door, when the elder man's voice recalled him.

"Laurence," he said, "Laurence--one word before we part. If you should
see fit to undertake those investigations of which we have spoken, and
in face of which I showed myself unfaithful and a craven--remember I
press nothing upon you, I leave you free to undertake them or not as you
please--I have one request to make of you."

"Yes, sir," he answered.

"It is this--that you will under no circumstances communicate the result
of those investigations to any person save myself, and only to me should
I definitely ask you to do so. Will you give me your word?"

"I give you my word, sir."

And with the feeling that he had bound himself to an engagement of
unlooked-for solemnity, the young man went out into the steady
brightness of the corridor, while--as last night--the odour of the
orchids met him, enfolding him in their thick, musky sweetness, half-way
down the dark, shining, oaken-stairs.




X


As he pulled the edge of the heavy, leather-lined curtain towards him,
Laurence laughed a little, in part at his own eagerness, in part defiant
of scruples. Waking in the small hours, as a baby-child, he had often
imagined that, could he climb the high rails of his cot and steal back
unperceived to the day-nursery, he would find all his toys alive and
stirring, at play on their own account. And this conception of the
reversal of the natural order of things, while it frightened him, yet
enchanted his fancy. Something of that childish alarm and enchantment
arose in him now. He felt about to bid farewell to common-sense,
possibly--to usual established habits of thought, assuredly. He was
about to commit himself to an untried element; offering himself as sport
to seas unsounded as yet, to unknown forces which might prove malign and
merciless. While the promise, by which he had so lately bound himself,
introduced into the coming experience an element of secrecy that
made--as enforced secrecy so often does make--for a rather dangerous
degree of personal liberty.

So he turned the door-handle not without expectation. And this time
expectation suffered no disappointment. In front of the tall, satin-wood
escritoire, her back towards him, her delicate hands wandering anxiously
over the painted and polished surface, he beheld once more the slender,
rose-clad figure.

Laurence drew in his breath with a sigh of satisfaction. He crossed the
room boldly to-night and stood beside her; and her pale, ethereal
loveliness entranced him as he spoke.

"Listen to me," he said. "We are strangers to one another--so strangely
strangers that I half distrust the evidence of my senses, as, only too
conceivably, you distrust the evidence of yours. I don't pretend to
understand what distance of time, or space, or conditions, separates us.
I only know that I see you, and that you are unhappy, and that you
search for something you are unable to find.--Look here, look
here--listen to me and try to lay hold of this idea--that I am a friend,
not an enemy; that I come to help, not to hinder you. Try to enter into
some sort of relation with me. Try to cross the gulf which seems to lie
between us. Try to believe that you have found some one who will keep
faith with you, and do his best to serve you; and believing that, put
sorrow out of your face--"

He stopped suddenly. When he began speaking he might have been
addressing a sleep-walker or a person in a trance. There was no
speculation in her sweet eyes. They were wild with a wondering distress,
looking on him as though not seeing him. But as he continued to plead
with her--speaking slowly, pausing at the close of each sentence in the
hope that the sense of his words might so reach and arrest her--a
gradual change came over her aspect, as of one awakening from prolonged
and troubled slumber. There was a dawning of intelligence in her
expression, as in that of a little child first struggling to apprehend
and measure, not by means of its senses merely, but in obedience to the
conscious effort of its mind. The drooping corners of the mouth
straightened, turned upward, the lips breaking into a timid, questioning
smile. She stretched herself a little, clenched her fists gently, rubbed
her eyes with them in innocent, baby fashion, stretched again, and then
looked full at Laurence--a woman shy, diffident, but in possession of
her faculties, expectant, and alive.

"Yes--yes--there, that's right. Now you look, as you used to, look as
you should," he exclaimed, his voice low, shaken with very vital
excitement. He felt as when--once or twice--bringing a racing yacht in
to the finish, a fair spread of blue water between her stern and her
competitor's bows, he had felt her pace quicken while the tiller
throbbed and danced under his hand. A buoyancy of heart, a delicious
conviction of successful attainment was upon him. Sportsman and poet
alike rejoiced in Laurence just then, and the spiritual side of his
nature was touched as well. He seemed to have witnessed a glad
resurrection, enforcing belief in the immortality of the soul, as he
gazed on this lovely face in which reason, hope, even gaiety, were so
visibly born anew.

"Never mind about that which you have lost," he said. "Let it be for the
present. We will arrive at it in time sure enough--leave all that to me.
You want these drawers opened, their locks picked?--Well, that shall be
done all in good time. But whatever treasures we find there will be but
a trifle, it strikes me, compared with that which we have already found
to-night. For I have found you--found you once more--and you, thank God,
have found yourself."

Again his companion stretched, and passed her hands across her eyes,
while her lips parted in a soundless sigh. Silence held her yet, but
that appeared to make singularly little difference in their intercourse.
For he perceived that she understood, that she sympathised, that she too
was penetrated with quick, intimate joy, and an exquisite and innocent
good-fellowship, as plainly as though a very torrent of eloquent
explanation and asseveration had issued from her mouth. Indeed, this
wordlessness had for him an extraordinary charm. Far from a power being
lacking, it was to him as though a new power had been granted, and that
the most subtle and convincing to the heart.

Laurence stood tall, upright, in the full pride of his young manhood, of
his virile energy and strength, before this slender fairy-lady, with her
softly gleaming jewels, her dainty frills and laces, her clinging
rose-red, old-world, silken gown, and held out his hands to her.

"Come," he said, "the night is fair and windless and full of stars.
Shall we go out into it and read the great poem of the sky and the
woodland while all men sleep, you and I--good comrades, old friends,
though as most mortals count meeting, we have met each other, it would
seem, but twice?--You have known sad things. Well, forget them. You have
searched vainly for lost things. Well, forget them too. The finest house
at best remains somewhat of a prison, and this room is pervaded by
melancholy memories. Leave it. Let us give the past, give convention,
give reason even, the slip for once--and go."

For a minute or more she hesitated, looking at Laurence profoundly, as
though trying to read his inmost thought. Then she laid her hand in his.
It had neither weight nor substance, but touched his palm as a light
summer wind might have touched his cheek, or a butterfly's wings might
have fluttered, with a just perceptible pulsation, within the hollow of
his hands.

And so Laurence threw open the high French window, and together they
passed out onto the grey, semicircular flight of steps. Immediately
below lay the Italian garden--its formal flower-borders, its faintly
dripping fountains, its black, spire-like cypresses, white balustrades
and statues, vague, mysterious, in the starlight. The great lawns
stretched away beyond, crossed by the broad gravel walk, which showed
pale for some fifty yards, and then was lost in the dusky shadow of the
grove of lime-trees. In the north was a wide, white light
travelling--since the March nights now grew short--along the horizon,
through the quiet hours, from the last death-flush of sunset to the
first birth-flush of the dawn.

Lawrence watched his companion anxiously as her little feet in their
diamond-powdered slippers crossed the window-sill. With that impalpable
hand in his, that scarcely perceptible flutter--as of a captive
butterfly--against his fingers, he could not but entertain fears that
the strong open air might work some change in her; that she might be
drawn up and absorbed by the sharp, glittering starlight; that she
might be resolved into nothingness by the keen breath of the night, or
that some sturdy sea-breeze might arise and blow her quite away. But
such as she was--woman, or sprite, or visitant from beyond the gates of
the grave--she remained by his side. And together they passed down the
garden alleys, and lingered by the dripping fountains watching the
sleepless fish that moved--silent as the dainty lady herself--through
the water of the lichen-encrusted, stone basins. They stood together
beneath the dark cypresses which, even on winter nights, smell dry and
warm of the south, and talk in husky, whispering accents of classic
lands--of marble columns mellow with age, and saffron-plastered walls,
over which great vines hang, and in the hot cracks of which scorpions
breed, and light-footed lizards glance and scamper. And, still together,
they went on--the unspoken sympathy between them growing,
deepening--down the second flight of steps and along the broad,
gravelled way. Here, in the open space, the whole panorama of the
heavens was disclosed; and then, almost in spite of himself, Laurence
broke into utterance. He talked, as never, even in his most brilliant
moments, he had talked before. The scene was so majestic, and moreover
he had so perfect a listener, every movement of whose graceful body,
every glance of whose profound and gentle eyes expressed comprehension,
accord--as when the violin strings answer, in exquisite melody, to the
skilfully handled bow.

And so forgetting himself, ceasing to exercise that
reticence--half-humorous, half-reverent--with which, as with a cloak,
modern, civilised man strives to hide the noblest and purest of his
thought, Laurence laid bare his heart and soul to his sweet companion.
He told her tender, trivial incidents of his youth and childhood--in
themselves of little moment, yet such as leave an indelible mark on the
imagination and character. He told her of the splendid hopes of his
opening manhood, when, with the magnificent self-confidence of
inexperience, the whole world seemed his to conquer if he pleased. He
told her of those plays and poems, so full of promise that, could he
have realised the fulness of his own conceptions, they must have
rendered his name famous through all the coming years. He told her,
too, of those brief, fugitive moments of spiritual illumination, when he
had felt himself draw very near to the ultimate meaning and purpose of
things; when he had apprehended God as the Eternal Lover, the soul of
man as the Eternal Bride, and how, in the light of that blessed
apprehension, all confusion had ceased, all life, all death, becoming at
once very simple and very holy, guiltless alike of suffering and of
shame.

Then--as they wandered yet further into the thin shadow of the still
leafless lime-trees, and, sitting for a while upon the stone bench
beside the broad, dim walk, looked forth under the down-sweeping
branches, to the vast expanse of the distant country--he descended from
discourse of these high matters. He told her of the joys of manly sports
and pastimes, and of the still greater joys of travel and adventure, in
far countries, among alien peoples, by land and sea.

Thus did the hours pass in glad and fearless communion of heart with
heart, and soul with soul, while upon the horizon the white light walked
slowly, surely eastward. And then, at last, it seemed as though some
disturbing thought invaded his fairy-lady's mind, causing her attention
to waver, her gentle gaiety to wane. The purport of that thought
Laurence failed to read, and this troubled him with a sensation of
helplessness, as though a gulf was once again opening between his state
of being and hers, which he was powerless to cross. She rose from her
place beside him and moved restlessly to and fro. And when he pleaded
with and questioned her, she moved yet further from him, and stood with
one hand raised as imploring silence. She appeared to listen for some
call, some summons, quite other than welcome, for he could see the
corners of her dear mouth droop once more, while her eyes grew shy and
wild. Unwillingly as though constrained by some force she did not love
yet must obey, she passed out on to the clear, smooth spaces of the
great lawns. The grass blades were touched with a whiteness of frost;
but Laurence observed that neither her footsteps, nor the little frills
bordering her gown as they swept it, left any track upon the spangled
turf.

Sheep bells sounded plaintively from some far-off fold. Rabbits slipped
out timorously from the edge of the wood to take their morning feed,
and, perceiving no threatening presence, waxed bold, skipping and
gambolling upon the frosty grass. Then with a sullen roar, breaking up
the gracious quiet of nature with the hoarse voice of man's business,
man's necessity of labour, and unappeasable unrest, a train thundered
along the valley, leaving a long trail of pale smoke hanging among the
grey-brown masses of the indistinguishable trees.

The roar died out as it had come, sullen and imperative to the last.
There followed a pause as though for a minute or two all nature, all
living creatures, held their breath. And then from the near stables, and
from distant homestead and farm, cocks challenged one another--some in
tones high and shrill, some faint and low--heralding the sunrise and
telling all the world that day was once more born.

Immediately, to his consternation, Laurence beheld his lovely companion
and friend turn away; and, without farewell, without smallest apparent
recollection of his presence, flit--as some bird, or rather as some
rose-red rose-leaf driven by a storm wind--across the lawns, past the
dripping fountains and sighing cypresses of the Italian garden, back,
back, up the grey steps and in at the open window of the silent house.

He followed her rapidly. The sun-rays shot up into the eastern sky as he
crossed the window-sill. Within, the glory of the sunrise struggled with
the unyielding glare of the electric light. Every object, every corner
and recess, was clearly seen. But the room was vacant. Once again his
fairy-lady had vanished leaving no trace, her sweet presence was removed
and Laurence found himself alone.




XI


Something drummed and drummed; and, in obedience to that sound, it
appeared to Laurence that he returned--whence he knew not--across the
most prodigious spaces ever traversed by the spirit of man. Then the
matter explained itself. He was on board ship once again, awakened to
the familiar pounding of the engines and drum of the screw. Opening his
eyes, they would rest on the white iron and wooden walls of his
state-room, and the alert figure of his bedroom steward,
announcing--"Fair morning, sir; bath ready, sir." And this impression
was so distinct that it took him some seconds to focus his actual
whereabouts--the stately and serious bed-chamber at Stoke Rivers, and
the portly person of Watkins, the under-butler, standing at the bedside,
a silver tea-tray in his large, soft hands.

"I beg your pardon, sir, but I have been up twice already and received
no answer," he said, his manner correct and respectful as ever, but his
face wearing, for once, an expression of quite human solicitude--or was
it curiosity? "I spoke to Mr. Renshaw and Mr. Lowndes, and they
considered it advisable that I should enter, sir. Mr. Renshaw and Mr.
Lowndes felt, with me, not quite comfortable, sir, knowing your habit of
early rising."

Watkins set down the tray carefully, turning out the corners of the fine
napkin which covered it.

"Your tea, your letters, sir," he added, and then paused.

Laurence tried to rouse himself. Shipboard and the pounding engines were
a delusion clearly. But was the night of sweet converse, and the
flitting away of a rose-clad, slender figure at the first flush of dawn,
a delusion likewise?

"Oh yes, thanks, Watkins, I am all right," he said absently. "I've slept
late, have I? What time is it?"

"Between ten minutes and a quarter past eleven when I passed through the
hall," the man answered. "Any orders for the stables, sir?"

Laurence was tearing open his letters. One was addressed in his wife's
large and elaborate hand. Laughing at her, one day before their
marriage, he had declared that did she possess half the amount of
character suggested by these opulent hieroglyphics, there would
positively be no getting to the end of it, so that his work clearly was
cut out for him for the rest of his natural life. Now the sight of that
handwriting--though he had possibly ceased to regard it as a perfectly
trustworthy index to its writer's personality--affected him with a
movement of vague self-reproach. For, as sleep left him, Laurence
entertained less and less doubt of the actuality of the existence of his
rose-clad fairy-lady; or of the fact that he had spent hours with
her--hours, blameless it is true, yet beautiful beyond all remembered
hours of his experience. And though he had done no wrong, yet the very
beauty of those hours--since she had not shared it--constituted a
certain subtle, subjective infidelity towards his wife. This pricked his
conscience the more, that he perceived Virginia must have written to him
by the very next mail, but three days after he had sailed. And that was
rather charming and thoughtful of her, for she had innumerable
engagements claiming her time and attention, and was by no means
addicted to anxiety regarding the absent. "Why should she worry," as she
remarked at parting, "everybody was always crossing now, and you hardly
ever heard of any one not getting to the other side safely enough."
Therefore it seemed to Laurence it would be a duty, perhaps also a
little salve to his conscience, to do something pleasing--however
remotely--to Virginia. He had an order for the stables. He would ride
over to luncheon with her friend and admirer, Mrs. Bellingham, at
Bishop's Pudbury.

Once on his feet, Laurence was somewhat surprised at his own sensations.
He found himself singularly tired, as a man may be by some prolonged
concentration of brain or of will. He felt as though he had made some
tremendous mental effort; and, now that it was over, depression held
both his mind and body. His spirits were not as buoyant as usual, nor
was his thought clear. He felt dazed, and incapable of grappling with
the strange problems raised by the events of the last twenty-four hours.
The swing of possibility they suggested was too great. The average, the
_banal_ attracted him, as a narcotic attracts one in pain. For the
moment he suffered something approaching repulsion towards his recent
exaltation and amazing, half-realised discoveries. He wanted to get back
on to the ordinary lines of things--be amused, be a trifle stupid,
laugh, gossip, forget.

The sun had long since burnt up that sprinkling of frost upon the grass.
The air was fragrant and mild. Catkins fringed the hazel twigs, while in
the shelter of the deep lanes leaves showed tenderly green. The sap had
risen in the trees, so that a broken branch bled. Indications of
fertility and growth were everywhere, Nature sensibly putting forth her
strength after the sleep of winter. The road which Laurence followed,
after crossing the park, turned upward under overhanging trees, and
skirted the low, stone wall of the churchyard. And the contrast between
this last resting-place of human corpses and the perpetual and so
evident fecundity of Nature struck home to him, yet not distressfully.
He was not wholly unwilling, in his present mood, to welcome the thought
of eventual rest.

He checked his horse, and waited, looking at the place again,--at its
dark, feathery yew-trees, its narrow mounds, ranged decently in line--on
the surface of which the spring grass raised innumerable blades of vivid
green--at its simple monuments, that showed not merely a name and date
of departure, but time-honoured words of faith in the justice and mercy
of Almighty God. There was an unoccupied space on the hither side of the
enclosure, lying pleasantly open to the sun. The grey wall of the
chancel, pierced by low, round-headed windows, backed it. A bush of
_Pyrus Japonica_ was trained around and between these windows; and the
flowers, showing up against their black stems, spread garlands of pure,
hot colour over the face of the rough stone. Laurence, to whom the
disposal of his body after death had, heretofore, appeared a matter of
extreme unimportance, was overtaken by a sudden eagerness to secure for
himself rights of burial in this serene and sun-visited spot.

"After all, it must come to me, sooner or later, as to all the rest," he
thought; "and why shouldn't I provide for the event according to my
fancy? I'll talk to the poor little parson about it. Perhaps he'll be
easier regarding the state of my soul and my prospects of salvation if I
make provision for my latter end by staking out a burial-plot. I wonder
what Virginia would say to that? Probably she's a little transatlantic
weakness for embalmers and mausoleums. Mother Earth's lap is best,
though, I think!"

And then riding onward, all in the fair spring weather, though he tried
to put the thought from him, his heart was somewhat troubled by that
flitting, rose-clad figure once again--by the lovely, speechless lips,
to which he had brought gentle gaiety, and the profound and serious
eyes, to which he had brought human sympathy and trust. Silent or not,
woman or disembodied spirit, she was a little too captivating for
safety. Should he inquire no further? But, in renouncing all further
intercourse with her, would he perpetrate an act of high moral courage,
or merely commit one of intellectual cowardice, such as that already
committed by his uncle? Here was a problem not easy of solution.
Laurence straightened himself in the saddle, and pressed his horse a
little. Bishop's Pudbury would be a relief, and should be reached with
as small delay as possible. He would try to be amused, a little stupid,
to laugh, gossip, and forget--for a time at all events.

Mrs. Bellingham, certainly, offered an excellent contrast to the spirit
of his present perturbations. She was a notable example of modern
civilisation, guiltless of all mysterious or primitive suggestion. Her
prettiness was considerable, according to a neat and unaccentuated type.
Her manner was vivacious, her attitudes many but sincere. She wore
these--so to speak--to bring out the value of her conversation, as she
wore her irreproachably constructed clothes to bring out those of her
plump and carefully preserved figure. Her light-brown hair was parted in
the middle, waved, and puffed out over the ears--this in imitation of
the fashion lately patronised by Virginia Rivers. The set of her purple,
boxcloth coat and skirt pleased Laurence's eye, as did that of her white
satin and lace blouse. She was really admirably turned out--according to
current standards of fashion. She greeted her guest, moreover, with that
happy combination of self-consciousness and self-assurance, which has in
it at once a flavour of compliment and promise of worthy entertainment.
Mrs. Jack Bellingham would never do anything very great; but she aspired
and succeeded in doing the small things of life remarkably well.

"Why, Mr. Rivers, this is quite too charming for anything," she said.
"But, unfortunately, I am alone here with my children. I devote a great
deal of time now to my children. My husband has gone up to town for the
day."

"So much the better," Laurence answered cheerfully. "I didn't come to
see Jack, dear Mrs. Bellingham, but wholly and solely to see you.
Virginia charged me with innumerable messages. And then there are a
whole lot of people we both know I want to talk to you about--a few
multiplications, subtractions, and divisions, you know, not without a
humorous side to them here and there. Will you keep me to luncheon? Oh!
that's awfully good of you."

The Pudbury manor-house had lately undergone reconstruction, thereby
gaining in convenience what it lost in distinction. It was now as well
designed to meet modern requirements, as finished, as generally
presentable and as little of an enigma, as its present hostess. Laurence
contemplated the elegant, if slightly unhomelike, room with a movement
of ironical satisfaction. Its contents were as agreeably obvious and
unrecondite as the style and plot of a current magazine story. It made
no demand upon the intelligence or the emotions. And Laurence had been
in contact with quite other literary subject-matter lately--problems of
love, morals, metaphysics, not unworthy to inspire the magnificent
obscurities of Browning, or the fine frenzies of Shelley's lyrics.
Therefore he hailed the emotional limitations of his existing
environment. The indolent side of his nature was paramount. He settled
down to chatter genially about Tom, Dick, and Harry, and the fair ladies
interested in those worthies, or in whom those worthies were interested.
He was amused and amusing, relished his luncheon, his hostess's smart
talk, and enjoyed countless reminiscences of Newport and New York. And,
as the ease of this attitude of mind began to grow on him, the question
very forcibly presented itself:--why strain? Why not always drift thus
pleasantly and comfortably down the smooth stream of worldly prosperity?
Why try to plumb the depths lying below that smiling surface? For does
not this, in the majority of cases, involve an expenditure of energy out
of all proportion to the worth of the result? To be light-in-hand and
light-of-heart--was not that after all the truest philosophy? To what a
hopelessly dreary pass had not the elder Mr. Rivers brought himself by
thinking otherwise; and taking his studies, his opinions, himself, in
short, so seriously!

So, sipping his coffee in the drawing-room after luncheon, while Mrs.
Bellingham maintained the flow of conversation in penetrating and
emphatic tones, Laurence thought--yes, on the whole, he did think--it
would be wiser and better, to retire upon the former lines of his
life,--to eschew high ambitions of sorts, and fall back upon the works
and ways of _l'homme moyen sensuel_, upon the great, good-natured,
uninspired Commonplace, of which his uncle had accredited him with being
so oblivious and complete an exponent. He thought--notwithstanding the
tightening of some cord at his heart, perhaps moral, perhaps merely
physical--yes, honestly he did think he had better do that, and make his
decision here and now. Judging by past experience, he was doomed in all
departments to be second, not to say third-rate. Well, then, best accept
that doom smiling. To do so might hurt vanity a bit, yet undoubtedly
there would be consolations. Laurence set down his coffee-cup with a
little lift of the eyebrows and shoulders, and an expression of
countenance somewhat cynical. He would coquet no longer with fairy,
rose-clad ladies--he would decline the so strangely offered adventure.

"The truth is, I'm not big enough for it," he thought to himself
ruefully.

"You know just how I feel about Virginia," his hostess was saying. "She
is a perfectly lovely woman in every way, and her social sense amounts
to genius. The thought of her being over makes it possible for me to
contemplate spending another winter here in the country. I look forward
to seeing Virginia lay hold of this neighbourhood and just put it
through. Her brightness, and _verve_, and _savoir faire_ will be a
perfect revelation. She will positively electrify every person within a
fifteen mile radius. But--"

And there the speaker paused. For along the carriage-drive, all in the
pleasant sunshine, the children of the house, a trifle inebriated by
recent dinner of chicken and rice pudding, by freedom, and the open air,
went forth with shoutings and laughter for their afternoon walk. First
Sybil and her younger sister, arrayed in straight, scarlet jackets,
beneath which showed a long length of tan boot and tan stocking,
encasing very active legs. Then the portly coachman, leading a donkey,
upon which the three-year-old son and heir of the Bellingham family,
also scarlet-coated, made a first essay in horsemanship. Finally, two
nurses clothed in white. The little girls ran wildly, their gay figures
backed by a bank of shrubbery--rusty red of berberis and glinting green
of laurels--while the pink and azure balloon-balls they carried were
whisked heavenward by the wind to the uttermost length of each tethering
string. Around the procession, barking, circling, jumping high in air
after the floating balls, and even threatening assault of the donkey's
nose, skirmished a couple of rough Irish terriers. The donkey shied,
the coachman admonished, a laughing nurse ran forward and clutched the
small cavalier by the outstanding skirt of his coat and by the seat of
his nether garments. The little girls shrieked and capered, and in such
hilarious fashion the company passed out of sight.

Laurence Rivers's eyes rested rather wistfully upon the scene. It
belonged to the great, good-natured, uninspired Commonplace upon which
he was just agreeing with himself to retire; and it offered a comely and
wholesome enough example of the same. Mrs. Bellingham also had turned
towards the window, and the expression of her neat face had softened.
The self-consciousness, the worldliness therein usually displayed, were
in abeyance, while the beautiful content of motherhood was regnant,
visibly enthroned. Laurence had never supposed she could look so
charming, and he could have found it in his heart to envy his friend
Jack Bellingham. Very early in their connection Virginia had pointed out
to him, with consummate tact but entire lucidity, that the modern
husband, who marries a fascinating woman of society and really
appreciates her, will give proof of such appreciation by relegating the
matter of child-bearing to a dim and distant future. It will come all in
good time no doubt, but it can wait. For is not it really a little too
much, in these days of enlightened equality between man and woman, to
require the latter to forego amusement, to endure serious discomfort,
risk her freshness and her figure, even come within measurable
distance--in not infrequent cases--of the supremely foolish calamity of
death?--Political economy and the health of the race notwithstanding,
let the poor breed; let the obscure breed; let that innumerable company
of women, to whom life offers so much of a trial and so little of a
pastime, that in the sum-total of their infelicity one pain or peril the
more cannot make any appreciable difference--let these breed. But spare
the fair Virginias, those fine flowers of wealth and worldly
circumstance, to whom Fortune shows so radiant a face! It is simple
justice and reason so to do--at least such had been Virginia's argument.

But as Laurence now reflected--wiser by some year and a half's
experience of woman and matrimony--if life on the lines of the
Commonplace is to afford its legitimate compensations, it must not be
trained too fine, or jockeyed too carefully. The man's ear must not be
too ready to hear specious arguments, nor his imagination to entertain
too elaborate sympathies. He must compel those said fine flowers to bow
their heads to the common yoke. All his life he--Laurence--had been
liable to stultify himself by permitting his imagination to turn up in
the wrong place. What good luck to have been born, like his friend
cheery Jack Bellingham, devoid of that embarrassing faculty! Good luck
for Jack himself, and for his wife--who just looked so delightfully
pretty--and for those three nice, shouting, scarlet-coated, small
Bellinghams, otherwise only too probably non-existent.

Laurence had ceased suddenly to be much amused; had ceased to relish
discussion of mutual friends, reminiscence or anecdote. He rose with the
intention of bidding his hostess farewell; but her self-consciousness,
her manner and manners, came back with a snap.

"Why, Mr. Rivers, you do not propose to leave yet," she protested. "I am
not half through with our conversation, I assure you. We have not yet
approached the subject upon which I am most keen for first-hand
information. I am perfectly wild to hear on what terms you believe
Virginia, with her bright, fearless, highly-developed, modern
temperament, will be with your family spectre."




XII


Laurence drew himself up with a sharp sensation of annoyance, geniality
and wistfulness alike departing from his aspect. The matter had never
presented itself to him in this combination before, and it offended his
taste, even, in a degree, his sense of decency. He paused a moment, and
then took refuge in slight insincerity.

"Always assuming, dear Mrs. Bellingham, that there is a family spectre
for Virginia, or anybody else, to be on terms with?"

"Why, you do not really propose to call that thrilling fact in
question?" the lady answered, very brightly. "That would be too
mortifying. It would constitute the climax of the _ennui_ from which I
have suffered during the many months of this English winter. I had
promised myself at least one vital sensation when you and I should meet,
and you should tell me the true, inward history of that romantic, old
house of yours, Stoke Rivers."

She sat in an attitude, arranged the folds of her boxcloth shirt,
patted the lace into place about her neck.

"You make me feel very badly," she said.

Laurence objected to soiling his conscience by lying at least as much as
most men. But surely, he argued, there are cases of justifiable perjury,
as of justifiable homicide.

"I am awfully sorry," he said, "to dash your hopes of a sensation. But,
you see, neither the romantic, old house or its inward history are my
property as yet, so I can't give either away however much I may desire
to do so."

"I know it. I do not ask you to commit any indiscretion. I do not ask
you to tell me anything."

Laurence braced himself.

"How fortunate, since there's nothing to tell!" he said.

His hostess looked hard at him for a moment, and then at the floor.

"There was a time, before I lived among them, when I believed the
English to be a simple and undiplomatic nation," she said. "I know
better now."

Laurence was half-amused, half-irritated.

"Oh, come!" he retorted, "it's too bad to make it an international
question."

"I had promised myself such a fine time in that house," she continued,
still gazing abstractedly at the floor. "Virginia is, I consider--and I
believe you know that--the most perfectly lovely woman of my
acquaintance. She represents the last word of our American culture; and
I would advise every young girl, who was ambitious of social success, to
study her as a model. She catches right on to everything new at once,
and her power of repartee is great. My admiration for Virginia is so
overpowering, that it would really be a wonderful encouragement to my
self-respect to get a step ahead of her for once. Well, I concluded I
could do that in a perfectly legitimate manner. I planned to ask you to
let me go right around that house from cellar to garret, and acquaint
myself with the whole interior. I wanted to see it before Virginia had
brought our younger and more complex Western civilisation to bear upon
it. I promised myself great gratification from doing that."

As she finished speaking, Mrs. Bellingham raised her eyes. That she was
in earnest, keenly inquisitive, there could be no doubt.

"But, unhappily, in asking that you would be asking me to commit the
greatest possible indiscretion," Laurence answered, laughing a little.
"You see, my uncle is alive as yet. And while he lives I must obey
orders."

"Orders?"

"Yes; and they are such preposterously unchivalrous orders that I
tremble to mention them to you."

Mrs. Bellingham looked away. She grew a trifle anxious, having the
greatest fear of hearing anything even remotely, morally or socially,
incorrect. But the young man's manner tended to reassure her. He
appeared particularly engaging at that moment.

"Yes, it will shock you," he said, "shock you outrageously, coming as
you do from a country where no member of your delightful sex is ever
requested to take a back seat. My uncle is a brilliantly clever person,
but on some points he is a little mad. And simply at Stoke Rivers--I
blush to mention it--no woman is admitted, no woman is permitted to
exist."

Mrs. Bellingham's eyes positively flashed, her face went extremely pink.

"But this is the most unparalleled country!" she exclaimed. "Mr. Rivers,
do you seriously intend me to believe that no lady may enter that house?
Why, I ask you, how is it possible to conduct a domestic establishment
under such circumstances?"

"Ah! that's the worst of it," Laurence said. He was beginning to be
amused again. "I tell you, the condition of that house suggests the most
awful reflections."

"I am glad to hear it."

"Yes, awful," he repeated. "For it is the best mounted, the best served,
the best kept house I have ever stayed in. It is as clean as a new pin.
The whole thing moves on wheels--and yet never the trace of a petticoat!
It follows that one is assailed by the unholy suspicion that woman may
be, after all, a quite superfluous luxury; and that the work of the
world, even in its humble, domestic aspects, can get along just as well
without her. My uncle entertains this opinion anyhow, and gives the most
convincing practical exposition of it. He has supplied me with a large
amount of information under this head; and, upon my word, I'm afraid I
am beginning to see the force of his arguments. After that, I'd better
go, hadn't I?"

"Well, I really believe perhaps you had," she answered. For once she
looked perplexed, almost flurried. Her face was still decidedly pink.
But she rallied herself, and fired a parting shot.--"Unless," she added,
"to make amends for having told me so very plainly that my presence
would not be tolerated at Stoke Rivers, you relent and give me the whole
story of that family spectre."

Laurence raised his head sharply, and once more his sense of amusement
evaporated. The return to this theme jarred on him. The lady's
persistence appeared to him in singularly bad taste. The reiteration of
that word angered him moreover. In hearing it he was sensible of a turn
in his blood, as though an insult were being offered to one very dear to
him.

"Spectre?" he said slowly. "Pardon me--I--I don't quite follow you. What
spectre?"

His hostess was roused in her turn.

"Why, Mr. Rivers, what has happened to you?" she inquired. "What have I
said to disturb your equanimity? I had not supposed you to be so
sensitive."

Whereupon the folly of his anger became extremely apparent to Laurence;
the more so that he had so recently concluded to eschew ambitious
adventures and decline upon the large and unexciting levels of the
Commonplace. In those regions hasty resentments, hot blood, the
fine-gentleman-duelling-spirit, in short, is clearly out of the picture.
And then, why quarrel with Mrs. Bellingham of all people? She was a very
charming, little person, specially when--as just now--her glance dwelt
fondly upon her red-coated babies and their escort of nurses, donkey,
and dogs. If she had trodden on his toes, it was unwittingly, and
without any intention of malice. So he proceeded to make _amende
honorable_ with proper despatch.

"Forgive me," he said; "I am an idiot. But the legends to which my poor
old uncle's crankiness have given rise really begin to get upon my
brain. Wherever I go they crop up. You can understand it becomes a
little exasperating.--Good-bye. I have had a delightful time. Love to
Jack."

The lady smiled upon him, yet with an air of criticism and slight
reserve.

"Oh yes," she said, "certainly, Mr. Rivers, love to Jack. But I am going
to write to Virginia and report on our interview. I believe it is
incumbent on me as a true friend to do that.--Yes, you may come again
just as soon as you like. Now, do I not display a perfectly lovely
spirit in inviting you here after you have done just all you know to
explode my romance? Mr. Rivers, this day will leave a scar. I know it. I
do regret that spectre."

Laurence smiled back, looking down at her.

"Yes, it's a pity, isn't it," he said, "ever to explode a romance? There
aren't too many of them about. Perhaps I too could find it in my heart
to regret that spectre."

And there, at least, the young man spoke truth, for regrets pursued him
on his homeward way. All this talk, moreover, was a nuisance, an
intolerable nuisance. And, though he did not stay to analyse the
probabilities of when and how, he apprehended up-croppings,
developments, and ramifications of the said nuisance in the future. Mrs.
Bellingham's question, as to the attitude Virginia might adopt towards
the occult element in her husband's fine inheritance, was more
uncomfortably pertinent than the questioner could by any means have
imagined. It suggested most disturbing complications. Thus Laurence rode
onward heedlessly, harassed by vexatious and perplexing thoughts.

"What a confounded bother it all is!" he exclaimed impatiently. "I wish
to goodness the poor old man would live for ever--outlive me anyhow.
That would be the simplest solution of the situation."

He raised his head and looked about him, then became aware that he must
have taken some wrong turn in the labyrinth of cross-country roads
between Bishop's Pudbury and Stoke Rivers, that he must have struck too
far southward and so lost his way. The mouth of the steep, rutted lane,
shut in by copse on either hand, which he had been following, now
debouched on a high-lying table-land. Small, rough fields bordered the
road, their crumbling, ill-kept banks bare of trees. Some fifty yards
ahead, where four roads crossed, stood a lonely, one-story, turnpike
house; it was six-sided, white-washed, and had a slated roof, rising
extinguisher-like to a single central chimney. Placed in an angle of the
intersecting roads, it was without garden ground. The turnpike-gate had
long ago disappeared; and the house, a thing that had lost its use and
become obsolete, was in a half-ruinous condition. An air of cheap
desolation pervaded it. Bundles of rags bulged from the broken
window-panes. Long-legged, high-shouldered fowls pecked and squatted in
the dust before the half-open door. Yet, seeing it, Laurence was
sensible that this unsightly building had a tally somewhere in his
memory, and claimed recognition. And this impression received unexpected
reinforcement when suddenly its squalid walls changed from dirty-white
to warm primrose, while the surviving glass in its rickety windows gave
off dazzling splendours of light.

Anxious to learn the cause of this transformation, the young man drew
up, and, laying his right hand upon his horse's sleek quarters, turned
half round in the saddle, and stayed thus, looking and listening.

The view was very noble. Southward the fall of the ground was
sufficiently abrupt to exclude all middle distance, with the result that
the rough grasses, withered bents and sorrel-stalks of the near
pasture-field were outlined against the immense sweep of the flat
coastline far below--this last, mauve, and russet, and dim green, was
broken here and there by a pallor of sandhills and the shimmer of
seaward-tending streams. Looking west, the suave contours of the Downs
and Beachy Head rose, in indigo and purple, against a great space of
saffron-coloured sky. Above them, but with a bar of strong light
between, heavy masses of purple-grey cloud gathered, from out which the
freshening wind blew chill. The sea, steel-blue and dashed with
white-capped waves, lifted a hard, serrated edge against the horizon.

All this Laurence saw. It made a rather splendid picture, big with the
drama of approaching storm. Yet he was persuaded something was lacking.
As three days ago upon first entering the yellow drawing-room at Stoke
Rivers, he had, after the first moment of surprise, instinctively looked
for certain ornaments and pieces of furniture, and derived a singular
satisfaction from the conviction that they still occupied their
accustomed place--so now and here, though to his knowledge he had never
before ridden across this piece of exposed and but half-reclaimed
common-land, or seen the great view under its existing aspect,--he
instinctively gazed seaward in search of that which should support his
half-awakened memory, and complete the scene to his satisfaction. For
surely--yes, surely--bowling up Channel, under crowded canvas, before
the freshening breeze, he should behold a fleet of some eight or ten
square-rigged East Indiamen, their carven poops standing high out of the
water,--vessels of about a thousand tons' burden, laden with tea and
spices, bales of delicate muslins and silks, flasks of utter, porcelain,
ivory fans, bright-hued parrots, and unseemly, little apes.

And as convoy of these rich cargoes, to secure them, their merchant
captains and bronzed and sturdy crews, against the rapacity of
privateers sweeping out from St. Malo and other ports of Northern
France, he should behold--yes, surely he should--a couple of smart
English frigates, square-rigged too, whose clean scrubbed decks and the
black mouths of whose port holes displayed grim argument of cannon,
ready for action should occasion so demand. The ships, hugging the land
for greater safety from alert and hungry foes, seemed--while the wind
filled the bellying sails, straining their tall masts, as they heeled
upon that uneasy, blue-grey sea--like some flight of huge,
golden-plumage birds; for all the saffron glory now streaming from
beneath the gathering storm-clouds in the west must lie full on them.

For such gallant sight Laurence watched, singularly moved, and with a
singular eagerness. And so clear was the vision to his mind, so
necessary to the completion of the scene upon which his eyes rested,
that for some moments he failed to distinguish where actuality ended
and hallucination began. He contemplated the creation of his own brain
in absorbed interest; then turned and looked at the rough road and
dilapidated turnpike house, and then again out to sea. Only a
black-hulled, ocean-going tramp, her deckhouses piled up amidships close
against her reeking funnel, laboured slowly down channel in the teeth of
the gusty breeze. This was all; and then the young man understood, not
without amazement, that the gallant show had been a thing of the
imagination only,--at most a thing remembered, but how and whence
remembered he could not tell. For how, upon any reasonable hypothesis,
could the memory of a man like himself of but just over thirty, put back
the clock by close upon a century, and disport itself with incidents
belonging by rights to, at least, two generations ago? It was all most
exceedingly strange. It amounted to being disquieting. Really he did not
half like it. Yet the imagined spectacle had been very inspiring all the
same. It had made his blood tingle, and had effectually (or
disastrously) exorcised that spirit of indolence and _laisser aller_
which he had solicited to take up its abode with him. He sent his horse
forward at a sharp trot, while once again he proceeded to revise the
situation.

For the idea presented itself that perhaps he had been over
self-confident, arrogating to himself a far greater freedom of will than
he, in point of fact, possessed. It was all very fine to foreswear
adventure, but what if adventure refused to be foresworn? He might
easily propose to decline upon modernity, mediocrity, and the
Commonplace; but what if these, as seemed just now highly probable,
asserted in unmistakable language their determination to have none of
him? He reflected that temperament may constitute your genius or your
fate, your opportunity or your ruin, as you have the wit to deal with
it; but that temperament is indestructible, and that escape from
it,--however inconvenient and contrary to your desire that temperament
may be,--is obviously and inherently impossible.

As he meditated thus, the road he followed dipped slightly, leaving the
bare upland and passing along the under side of a thick belt of wood,
which cut off the seaward view. On the left, between the interspaces of
the hedgerow trees, the inland country now lay disclosed for many miles.
Clouds had gathered so rapidly in the last ten minutes that the sun was
obscured, and all the wide expanse was drowned in heavy violet and
indigo shadow. Only a ridge of hill, some three-quarters of a mile
distant, was caught by long shafts of wild, rainbow light, so that it
floated as a narrow, fish-shaped island upon the ocean of stormy colour.
And upon that island, uplifted, transmuted, etherealised, rendered at
once unreal yet insistent, vividly defined by the unnatural and
searching light, Laurence beheld Stoke Rivers--the long, low house, and
its double range of windows, its avenues, and carriage-ways, the block
of stable buildings; every detail of the Italian garden, its cypress
spires as of full-toned amethyst, its white balustrades and statues
iridescent as though made of long-buried Roman glass, its great lawns
green as malachite, the dome of its lime-grove touched by a dim glow as
of uncut rubies. In this strange and unearthly radiance, Stoke Rivers
seemed to call upon Laurence, to challenge his admiration, to assert its
existence and its claim upon his heart, with a singular power. It was
part of him, and he of it. It laid hands on his past and his future
alike. It refused to be taken lightly. As a woman wears her jewels to
startle and enthral a desired lover, so this dwelling-place of his
people arrayed itself in marvellous wise to conquer his wavering
allegiance and command his thought. It would force him not to disregard
its secrets. It wooed him to intimacy, to discovery. It cried to him
out, as it seemed, of some unplumbed depth of experience in himself.

That night Mr. Rivers engaged his nephew until past midnight. His manner
was gracious, his mind, apparently, unusually at peace. His conversation
was remarkably brilliant, both in range of subject and readiness of
expression. First dealing with the earliest known examples of art, and
displaying critical acquaintance with Chaldean cylinders and stelæ, he
passed on to the persistent influence of Eastern ideas upon Western
religious thought. He discoursed of Hindu sacred literature and the
crowded pantheon of Hindu gods, noting how certain practices connected
with their worship and certain symbols pertaining to it have passed into
the common use of the Catholic Church. He discoursed of the Gnostic
sects, and their influence upon African and Syrian Christianity. Then,
invading the Spanish peninsular in the train of the Moors, he delivered
himself of a spirited disquisition upon Averrhoes, the lawyer
philosopher of Cordova, his doctrine of the Universal Reason and denial
of the immortality of the individual soul.

Laurence went forth onto the bright, hot corridor, and paused at the
stairhead. He was honestly tired both in mind and body. He needed, and
would take, an honest night's rest. But one thing was sure. Whether he
had decided or merely yielded, whether he represented the positive or
negative element, he knew not; but this he did know, that the
Commonplace, and all the ease of it, might wait. He was not ready for
that just yet.




XIII


Of the first twelve keys, some slipped round without effect, some stuck
and were withdrawn with difficulty. But the wards of the thirteenth bit
into the lock, and the bolt gave with a click. Laying hold of the
cylindrical front of the escritoire, Laurence pushed it up and back.
Within, a row of arcaded pigeon-holes was disclosed; and on either side
these, a range of little drawers, the pale, bright wood of which
retained its pristine polish, while the colours of the painted
medallions adorning them were very fresh though frail. The cupids, the
little figures of lover and mistress, courtier and prince, were instinct
with vivacity and grace--the heedless vivacity, the artificial grace of
those over-ripe, luxurious periods which carry in their womb the seeds
of revolution and social catastrophe. Laurence was moved, observing it
all. Evidently the bolt had not been shot, the rounded front run back,
and this mimic world of fine-fanciful elegance displayed for many years.
And then this pretty toy of a thing seemed so slight and incongruous a
receptacle for the storage of momentous secrets. Yet that the secrets it
held were momentous, dealing with problems of life and death, subtle
transformations of flesh and spirit, the young man--notwithstanding the
soothing influences of a healthy night's rest, and the pre-eminently
unexciting ones of a grey, wet, March afternoon--felt no doubt. For he
had given in, as he believed, finally, to the adventure; and with that
giving in, his faith in the magnitude of it suffered, by natural
rebound, serious increase.

So reverently, and as one who approaches a long disused shrine
containing promise of strange and precious relics, he opened the shallow
drawers and examined their contents. The first three were filled with
packets of letters, written on thin, discoloured paper, and tied, some
with pink, some with yellow, sarsenet ribbon. Each packet was neatly
dated, the dates ranging, as Laurence gathered in a first hasty survey,
from the year 1802 to the year 1805. The remaining drawers contained a
collection of objects, miscellaneous in character but united in the
thought (as he divined) of whoso placed them there, side by side, by
some exquisitely tender sentiment.--A man's paste shoe-buckles, square
and bowed, the silver settings of them tarnished to blackness, reposed
beside a woman's striped, waist ribbon, cinnamon and white, embroidered
in buds and scattered full-blown roses. Here were seals cut from
envelopes, the cracked and blistered wax of them impressed with the
Rivers's arms and crest; and a store of semi-transparent, delicately
tinted shells, spoils of some far-distant, southern coast. There were
trinkets, too, rings and bracelets of intricate Indian workmanship; and
a cluster of coral charms, of Neapolitan origin, with the tiny golden
hand, first and fourth fingers stiffly extended, which keeps off the
Evil Eye. Next, little posies, such as a lover might pluck and his
mistress might wear for an evening, pinned, to please him, in the bosom
of her dress. These last were pressed and flattened, the several hues of
the once radiant blossoms faded to an ashen uniformity of tint. They
were sadly brittle, too; and though Laurence raised them with careful
fingers, crumbled to nothingness under his touch. Then he lighted on a
man's watch, a great, gold warming-pan of a thing, with a guard of
black lustre ribbon and a bunch of heavy seals attached. The back of the
case bore the Rivers's crest--a bird of doubtful lineage, its wings
extended for flight, its talons holding something, which to Laurence
always appeared to bear humorous relation to a fool's cap. The case was
also engraved with the initials L. R. in flowing and ornate lettering.

And over these initials Laurence paused. They piqued his curiosity. They
also, somewhat to his own amusement, provoked in him a feeling
suspiciously akin to jealousy. They were his own; yet he could not but
imagine that they were also those of a person closely connected with the
sweet and mysterious companion, who had walked the lawns and garden
alleys with him during the small hours, fled and vanished at cock-crow,
two nights back. A very definite purpose of learning more about this
same person--of whom, he divined, this pathetic store of objects to be
gifts or memorials--possessed Laurence. Had he wronged the gentle lady
in life, so causing her after sorrow? Or had some tragic happening
parted him from her, without fault of his? And what manner of man had
he been, while a dweller here, in ordinary fashion, upon earth? It
became of great moment to Laurence to answer these questions. Perhaps
those packets of discoloured letters would tell. Meanwhile, there
remained another shallow, painted drawer to be searched.

It contained, wrapped face to face, in a lace and lawn handkerchief, two
very exquisite miniatures by Cosway. And then, though he courted
surprises, agreeing with himself to expect nothing save the unexpected,
and to accept all possible extravagance of improbability that might
arise with as little dislocation of mind as one accepts the
extravagancies of a dream, Laurence stood for a moment speechless,
absolutely confounded.

For one miniature represented his fairy-lady, her lovely eyes and lips
smiling with discreet gladsomeness, her expression an enchanting union
of sprightliness and of content. An azure ribbon was threaded through
the soft masses of her elaborately-dressed hair, little curls of which
strayed down on to her forehead. The string of pearls was clasped around
her throat. She wore her transparent, white, frilled cape and rose-red,
silken gown. Her graceful head and slender figure--to the waist--were
seen against a background of faint dove-coloured cloud. The painter had
painted fondly as a friend, it would seem, as well as a master of his
craft.--And the other miniature, by the same hand, showing the same
delightful sympathy of artist with his subject, touched by the same
poetic insight and grace, was a portrait of whom? Well, of
himself--himself, Laurence Rivers, not as he was to-day, but as he had
been, ten years ago, at one-and-twenty. With astonishment, bordering
very closely on alarm, he observed that colouring, features, the square
cutting of the nostrils, a certain softness in the lines of the mouth,
the shape of the head, the straight set of the shoulders, all these were
perfectly exact. While the countenance was instinct with that inimitable
charm of unsullied youth, that fearlessness and happy self-confidence,
the attractive power of which he had only fully realised as they had
begun to fade out of his aspect in the course of his passage from early
to maturer manhood, while the boundlessly generous aspirations of
inexperience were in course of being discredited by increasing knowledge
of the standards and habits of this not altogether noble or virtuous
world.

Laurence took the miniature in his hand, and considered it closely, with
a twinge of self-abasement. Endowed with so ingratiating a personality,
so admirable a physical equipment, he ought surely to have made a
definite name and place for himself in contemporary history! And what of
moment had he to show, after all, for his thirty-one years of living?
Practically nothing, he feared. And the young man of the miniature made
better play with his handsome person, and the qualities and talents
which might be expected to accompany it? He had been a sailor
apparently, for he wore the dark-blue, naval uniform of the early years
of the century, his brown hair being tied back into a queue. But for
these details the resemblance to himself was absolute. And then,
suddenly, with a sense of faintness as though his identity were slipping
away from him, and his hold on actuality loosening as he imagined it
might loosen in the moments immediately preceding death, Laurence
remembered that he had worn a precisely similar costume--that of a
naval lieutenant of the time of Nelson--at a fancy dress ball given in
his honour, at the country house of certain of his mother's relations,
on the eve of his twenty-first birthday. He had been mightily chaffed
about his good looks and air of assured conquest upon the occasion in
question; and had laughingly replied that he, too, intended to fight his
battle of Trafalgar and win it, only that he should take jolly good care
not to fall in the hour of success, but to survive and thoroughly enjoy
the fruits of victory.

The miniatures were oval, each set in a plain gold band. Laurence turned
them over in search of a possible inscription. Upon the reverse of the
one were engraved the words--"Agnes, a gift to her dear cousin," and the
date, "August 1803." Upon the other--"Laurence, a gift to his dear
love," and the same date.

Rain had followed on the stormy splendours of the preceding evening; and
as the young man raised his eyes absently and stared out of the great
bay-window, he became sensible that the outlook was comfortless enough.
The gardens and the distant view were blurred and blotted by driving
mist; while, in the room itself, there reigned a singularly blear and
cheerless light. A damp, earthy odour, moreover, pervaded the
atmosphere, as though the moisture prevailing out of doors had gained
access to the house. Carefully, rather sadly, Laurence laid the two
miniatures side by side upon the filmy handkerchief. The radiant,
pictured faces, the two graceful, young heads turned slightly towards
each other as in mutual tenderness and sympathy, offered, he thought,
pathetic contrast to the melancholy of this tearful morning. That this
young man had in no way wronged the fair and gentle woman, he now felt
assured. But that assurance, so perverse is human nature, did not serve
to elate him. Far from it. As he looked first at the charming pair, and
then at the driving mist, a sense of great loneliness, almost of
desolation, came over him; while the word spectre--which, when employed
yesterday by his lively hostess Mrs. Bellingham, had seemed of such
meagre and even vulgar significance--now occurred to him with a new and
immediate meaning. Spectral--that this room was in the present dreary
light. While, if the idea called for further and concrete presentiment,
he could--looking on the fearless and hopeful countenance of that other
Laurence Rivers--offer it in his own person. Involuntarily he shivered,
since, for the moment, his tenure of name, person and individuality,
seemed so questionable, a matter of sufferance merely--amounting to no
more, in fact, than a remote reversionary interest in another man's
goods.

At random he picked up a couple of packets of letters off the top of the
escritoire, where he had laid them, and moved across to the window. It
was not wholesome to look at those happy faces--one his own--any longer.
The letters tied with a pink ribbon were in a woman's hand, sloped and
pointed, but with a peculiar elegance of lettering and evenness of line.
Then for an instant he debated, questioning whether he could without
breach of honour, and of the respect in which all decent-minded persons
hold the dead, open and read these letters. The position was
extraordinary to the point of abrogating accustomed rules of conduct;
yet he felt a certain delicacy in reading a woman's letters and
surprising the secrets of her heart. But as he turned them over,
glancing at the first page of each, he perceived that in every case they
were addressed to himself; for at the top corner of each was
written--"To Laurence Rivers, Esq.," and below either "Dear cousin" or
"Dear love." Then the irony of the thing taking him, he smiled to
himself and said:

"Oh, well, come along, surely I have a right to the smooth as well as
the rough. If I am such a very second-hand affair any way, with not so
much as a name or face of my own to be proud of, I'll at least have the
advantages of my disabilities. I will know how my other, first-hand,
self was made love to and made love."

Yet no sooner had he begun to read, than he became aware that he knew
that already. For as he perused the thin, deeply-creased pages, he felt,
with a certainty independent of and passing all proof, that he had read
these sweet effusions, these innocent chronicles of home life, of
meetings and partings, pretty pleasures and junketings, not once but
many times already. He remembered them. He could almost tell what words
would meet his eye as he straightened and turned the fluttering sheets
of paper.

"--I am much concerned," wrote Agnes Rivers, "that so many months must
elapse before I can again receive news of you. I preach Patience to
myself; but that virtue, though a good servant, is but a sorrowful
master. I am pursued by fears on your account, which often move me to
tears when I am alone, or have retired to my chamber at night. You will
reprove my feminine weakness and bid me take courage. Yet I defy you to
maintain such fears are wholly misplaced, in face of the wild scenes of
tempest and of battle which you may be called upon to witness."

Again--"It grieves me that I cannot write to you of my affection with
the freedom dictated by my heart. But my means of communicating with you
amid the convulsions of the present terrible war are so uncertain, that
I constantly tremble lest my letters should fall into other hands than
yours. My good Mrs. Lambert, who, as you will remember, is ever
solicitous for the maintenance of propriety, impresses this danger upon
me, and urges reticence and circumspection. I therefore entreat you,
dear Laurence, not to measure the depth of my regard by my present
expression of it. Recall, rather, all the happy and unclouded hours we
have enjoyed together, and let them speak for me."

And again--"Your brother Dudley, though, I grieve to say, not less harsh
and imperious towards others, continues to treat me with all brotherly
consideration and courtesy. He is very thoughtful of the improvement of
my mind, and we still follow our studies in the Italian and Spanish
languages. His great knowledge and intelligence are of incalculable
advantage to me, and I trust that I prove a docile, if not a very
brilliant, pupil. I own my thoughts at times wander, though I strive, in
gratitude to my kind preceptor, to keep them fixed upon my tasks. Mrs.
Lambert is, unfortunately, as much alarmed by Dudley's opinions and
conversation as ever. I could myself wish that he would express himself
with less violence on the subject of politics and of religion. But his
early travels in the unfortunate country of France, and his intimate
association with Mr. Robespierre and other leaders of her sanguinary
revolution, have, I much fear, permanently warped his mind and
prejudiced his judgment. Yesterday, at dinner, he entered into a
discussion with our new rector, Mr. Burkinshaw--a scholarly and
estimable person--upon the Rights of Man, and the nature and attributes
of the Deity, asserting subversive and atheistical views with so much
heat and intemperance of language, that Mrs. Lambert fled from table in
tears, while Mr. Burkinshaw was, I could not but see, seriously offended
and hurt."

Once more--"The weather recently has been continuously wet and stormy.
Dudley reports great destruction of timber in the park. I have been
unable to leave the house, and have spent many hours in the east
parlour, which your brother kindly bids me regard as my exclusive
property. I have read much, I trust with profit. Nor have I neglected my
music, though the melancholy character of the season and ever-present
fears for your safety have rendered me but a joyless performer. For the
songs you most admire, I cannot find voice. Indeed, I struggle with my
weakness, and make every effort to present a serene exterior. But Memory
is never, perhaps, a more sorry companion than when she speaks of happy
scenes."

And finally--"My own dear love, your packet from Madalena has at last
reached us. What can I say to you save that my heart dances with
rapture? I cannot sit still, but must needs run from place to place for
very gladness. Mrs. Lambert reproves my lack of occupation. But she is
mistaken. I am fully occupied in reading and re-reading your letter, and
in thanking our Merciful Creator for this unhoped-for assurance of your
safety. I have retired to the stone bench beneath the lime-trees. They
are in blossom now, and their agreeable fragrance fills the air. Here I
write to you, while the sun shines, and summer winds play lightly with
the leaves. Do you remember our sitting here the evening you stole the
new black ribbon from my embroidered bag with which to tie your hair?
Dear love, now I am convinced that you will be permitted to return to
me, and that we shall add yet other happy hours to those already
treasured in our hearts. All will be well. Nay--what am I writing?--all
is well already. But for my past anxiety and all my cruel fears, I
could not have known the rapture of the present. My heart overflows. I
would not have one unhappy creature breathe to-day. I have emptied my
purse to a beggar; and have expended unpermitted dainties upon my
cage-birds, and Dudley's horses and dogs. The servants smile upon me,
rejoicing in my joy. Ah! my love, I am half ashamed to wear so gay a
face. Dudley has withdrawn to the library. He is preoccupied and silent.
Mrs. Lambert, for all her affection, regards me, I fear, with
disapproval. But how can I feign indifference? You are safe. You will
return to me. In six months I shall attain my majority, and then your
brother Dudley can no longer, as my guardian, legally prohibit our
marriage. Of that dear union, the consummation of all our prayers and
hopes, I can scarcely dare trust myself to--"

And here Laurence found himself forced to cease reading. The page was
blotted, the writing obliterated, by rusty stains of the nature of which
he could be in no doubt. The further record of Agnes Rivers's pure
passion was smothered in blood.

He folded the letters together, tied them up, put them back in the
drawer, closed and locked the escritoire. Well, it must have been worth
while to have been loved like that! Did women ever love so still, he
wondered? He opened the tall French window, and once again went out,
hatless, into the driving wet.




XIV


"Mr. Rivers regrets that he is unable to receive you to-night, sir."

Laurence looked round with something approaching a start at Renshaw, the
butler, whose respectful, colourless voice broke in thus upon his
meditations. The dining-room struck him as hotter and more oppressive
than ever--by contrast probably with the buffeting wind and driving mist
in which he had paced the lime-tree walk for a good hour before the
dressing-bell rang. To-night the glass bowl, supported by the wanton,
dancing, Etruscan figures, was filled with tuberoses and carmine-stained
Japanese lilies; and the odour given off by these acted on the young
man's brain as opium or hashish might have acted--at least so it
appeared to him. The longer he meditated, the less could he distinguish
between real and unreal, fact and phantasy. The best accredited articles
of his moral and scientific creed had passed into the region of the open
question. Speculation ran riot, all the accustomed landmarks of his
thought being for the time submerged; while the wildest and most
extravagant ideas presented themselves as within the range of practical
action. That last read letter of Agnes Rivers, and his own resemblance
to her lover, had inflamed his imagination and his heart. Even in their
one night's intercourse, he had seen intelligence, purpose, gaiety,
return to her. Now the daring conception that such a process might be
continued, until his sweet and mysterious companion recovered all the
senses and attributes of living womanhood, formed itself in his mind.
Was it not conceivable that this appearance might be materialised, so
that the fair and gracious spirit should once again inhabit a human
body, and know all those dear joys of love and motherhood which had
been--by some evil fortune, some catastrophe, as he supposed--denied to
her? An immense ambition to be the instrument of this restoration, this
recovery, grew within him. He would work a miracle, he would be as God,
clothing the soul with flesh, raising the dead. And this by no exercise
of charlatanism, by no dabbling in old-world superstitions, or dealings
in folly of White Magic or of Black; but simply by force of will, by the
action of mind on mind, by the incalculable power of a great love. It
was impious, perhaps. Morally it was doubtful--circumstanced as he,
Laurence, was. But it was the most magnificent experiment ever offered
either to man of science, or to poet. Here was the opportunity he had
desired, had waited for. Here was his chance in life!

Then the butler's voice cut in, bringing him down to the everyday level.
No wonder he looked round a little dazed.

"Mr. Rivers regrets that he will be unable to receive you to-night,
sir," it said.

And Laurence asked in answer--

"Is my uncle ill? Is he worse?"

"Mr. Lowndes has brought down word that he is tired, sir. Mr. Armstrong,
the agent, arrived from Scotland this afternoon while you were out. Mr.
Rivers has had a long interview with him--too long an interview in Mr.
Lowndes's opinion."

"I am sorry," Laurence said absently. He fell to caressing his wonderful
idea again, but the butler waited.

"Mr. Armstrong requested me to add, sir, that if convenient to you, as
you will not be engaged with Mr. Rivers, he would be obliged if you
would allow him to speak to you in the course of the evening."

"Oh, by all means," the young man said, rising. Then he added--"Tell Mr.
Armstrong I will see him at once. Later I may be occupied. Where? In the
small library--yes."

Laurence betook himself to the library, prepared to be bored with a good
grace. But he might have spared himself such preparation, for looking on
the new-comer, he liked him. The man, in age about sixty, was of barely
middle height, broad-shouldered and lean about the flanks. He carried
his head forward, stooping slightly, in observant, meditative fashion.
He was slow of movement, calm, one capable of having his joke and
keeping it to himself. His face was shaped like a kite, remarkable in
the breadth of the lower part of the forehead and the high cheek-bones,
narrowing down to a long, flat chin. The upper lip was long too, a
somewhat pragmatical and self-righteous upper lip. While the eyes, set
far apart under the wide brow, showed a clear, kindly blue between the
narrow lids that ended in a fan-like system of wrinkles at the outward
corners. The nose was thin and straight at the bridge, with wide-winged,
open nostrils. The hair, formerly sandy, was now grey, smooth on the low
dome of the head, and thickly waved above and behind the flat-set,
long-lobed ears. In all a shrewd, humorous, sober countenance, ruddy,
moreover, as a well-ripened, autumn apple.

At first the agent's talk was professional, dealing in matters of leases
and rights-of-way; of draining operations and the breeding and rearing
of cattle; of the iniquitous heaviness of road rates, the culture of
hops, and the cutting of copses. But gradually it began to take on a
more personal and racial character, since the Scotchman is yet to be
born who can go very long in conversation without blowing--be it never
so discreetly--the trumpet of his own unrivalled nation. So he fell to
dilating upon the superiority of the Scotch to the English system of
national education; upon the indolence and general incapacity of the
south-country labourer; upon the glaring futilities and imbecilities of
district and parish councils; and upon the congenital incapacity of the
Anglican clergy--every man-Jack of them--to deliver a sermon which would
satisfy the intelligence and theological acumen of the most ordinary
congregation north of Tweed.

Laurence listened, amused by the exhibition of the speaker's both
conscious and unconscious prejudices. The man was alive; he was
self-secure and dependable. Laurence saw he would be a pleasant fellow
to work with. And the thought of that work began to occupy his mind,
opium dreams giving place before practical interests and activities.
Laurence talked in his turn, showing a keenness in business and a
knowledge of it, which Armstrong, with pursed-up lips and slow noddings
of the head, evidently relished.

"Aweel," he remarked at last, after the younger man had given a
particularly lucid description of certain labour-saving farm-implements
employed in the wheat-growing states of Western America,--"I trust it is
no disrespect to an old master, whom it pleases the Almighty to
withdraw to some other sphere of usefulness--or the contrary, for it
would be overbold to prophesy largely on that subject of utility in the
case of your uncle, Mr. Rivers--it is no disrespect, I say, I trust, for
a man who has served such an one for over thirty years to the best of
his ability, to feel himself not indisposed to welcome the new master. I
am constrained to tell you, Mr. Laurence Rivers, that I looked to find
in you some flighty, flimsy, modern run-about of a creature. I
acknowledge my error with thanksgiving. The impression you make on my
mind is far from unfavourable."

"That's right," Laurence said genially. "I am new to all these landed
property concerns as yet; but I expect I shall be able to get round them
pretty smartly when the time comes."

"I think you will, I think you will." The agent's blue eyes twinkled
with a certain quiet humour, upon the young man, from between their
narrow lids. "Your uncle, I must admit, is but a feeble body in the
practical domain. His great understanding has, so to speak, not
infrequently got between his legs and thrown him down. It is pitiful to
see any person so clever that he cannot condescend to take advantage of
the handsome position the Almighty has allowed him. I own there have
been times when I have felt rebellious against the Lord's too great
generosity in the goods of this world--perishable, I know, yet deserving
of consideration--to one constitutionally incapable of drawing full
profit out of them. Therefore I perceive with thankfulness, Mr. Rivers,
you are of a different make."

Laurence leaned back in his chair, and lighted another cigarette. It was
early yet--and he liked the man. He would encourage him to talk on for a
while longer.

"Oh yes," he said, "you needn't be worried under that head, Armstrong.
I've the reputation of by no means quarrelling with my bread and butter,
or despising the goodly fruits of this admittedly naughty world, in
whatever form I find them."

"Temperance is a canny virtue; and I would recommend moderation in all
things, after the teaching of the Apostle Paul. Yet I am glad to find,
Mr. Rivers, you have your feet upon the floor. It will be well for your
estates, at the preservation and improvement of which I and my kin have
laboured--not unfaithfully--for three generations."

"So long as that?" the young man ejaculated. The statement indirectly
suggested a former strain of thought.

"Yes, for three generations--and not without trials. For I would have
you understand that a certain impracticability runs in your family, Mr.
Rivers--a perversity, not sinful altogether, but very wearing to those
that have your temporal interests at heart."

Gently Laurence blew a little cloud out of his nostrils, and watched it
float upward across the dark, warm-hued landscape by Nicholas Poussin
hanging over the chimney-piece. Against the windows the rain beat, while
the heavy folds of the crimson, damask curtains, covering them, swayed
just perceptibly in the draught.

"I can believe it," he said. "My people have been afflicted with ideas;
and ideas play the very mischief with business, don't they, Armstrong?"

"In their degree, and subject to a thrifty discretion in their
application, I would not wholly condemn them," the agent replied. His
shrewd glance dwelt on the younger man with undisguised pleasure. He was
so handsome, well bred, well made, and apparently so able a
fellow.--"But ideas are kittle cattle, Mr. Rivers," he continued,
"needing strenuous supervision if you would not have them break out of
pasture and run mad, sairly to the dislocation of all legitimate
traffic. And it has been the affliction of more than one member of your
family to let his ideas run abroad to a length of pernicious
extravagance. For instance, my grandfather, a person of capacity and
circumspection beyond the average, was factor to your great uncle, Mr.
Dudley Rivers, and--"

Laurence kept his eyes fixed on the last blue of the little smoke-cloud
curling about the intricate foliations of the upper corner of the
picture frame; yet his voice had a certain quickness and vibration in it
as he exclaimed--

"Ah! Dudley Rivers--yes. Well, how about him, Armstrong?"

"Not much good, not much good. Like the foolish body recorded by the
Psalmist, he had 'said in his heart, There is no God.' And having made
that very impious and lying observation, and so disposed of the Deity,
he proceeded to supersede the latter in his own person, and attempt the
reorganisation of society according to his own hare-brained fancies.
Regarding his deliverance from dangerous delusions my grandfather could
do but little, being himself a godly man, and holding firmly by the
doctrine of Election. If the poor misguided creature would go to the
devil, Mr. Rivers, it was--so my grandfather held--because to the devil
he was righteously foredoomed and predestined to go. And so my
grandfather, relieved of all responsibility in that respect, felt free
to apply the whole of his abilities to saving the poor, erring person's
treasure on earth, since it was manifestly not the intention of
Providence that he should inherit any treasure in heaven. He had long
taken entire charge of those estates in the county of Fife, which
belonged to Mr. Dudley's young cousin and ward, Miss Agnes Rivers--"

"Ah!" Laurence ejaculated softly.

"And many a time did my grandfather undertake the tedious journey down
here, from the north, to lend a seasonable hand in restraining Mr.
Dudley from committing some ruinous foolishness in respect of Miss
Agnes, or of his own southern property. For Mr. Dudley was just
completely saturated with pernicious opinions derived from the writings
of Rousseau, and Tom Paine, and other such seditious persons; and Satan
entering into him at intervals, and blinding his small surviving modicum
of reason, he proposed to reduce them to practice--poor, demented body."

"Yes," Laurence said, "he had graduated in a rather impossible school,
no doubt. But--but--Armstrong, what about his private life--his morals?"

"Blameless--blameless--more's the pity, since his virtues could but come
under the head of works of supererogation--so my grandfather
held--profitless alike in this world and in the next. Indeed, though a
strict man himself, I am constrained to believe he would have
experienced relief in seeing Mr. Dudley enjoy the pleasures of sin--they
are real, very real while they last, unfortunately--for a season."

Laurence flung away the stump of his cigarette, and turned sideways in
his chair.

"Now, as we're on the subject," he said, "and as you seem to know all
about these people of mine, what sort of fellow was Dudley's younger
brother, my namesake, Laurence Rivers?"

"Weel, I have reason to believe he was a very promising sprig--a likely
young gentleman, high-spirited, clean-living, and not without a show of
capacity for affairs. My grandparents, both of them, entertained a warm
affection for him."--The man paused in his slow sing-song talk,
smiling.--"I should surmise him to have been much such a person as
yourself, Mr. Rivers, with a natural gift of winning the hearts of those
brought into contact with him. But he fell at Trafalgar, shot through
the lungs, as no doubt you have heard--cut off before he had opportunity
to acquaint the world with the worth of the talents that might reside in
him. It was a grievous misfortune, for his death took place but three
months before the day appointed for his and his cousin's marriage. And
often, as a soft-hearted bit of a laddie, I have cried to hear my
grandmother tell of the coming of the awful news and the grief of the
poor young lady. She was a gracious, winsome thing, as bright as a
sunbeam on a running brook; very pious, too, and charitable, so that no
mortal soul could but wish her well that looked on her. But she was
shivered by the stroke of her sorrow, as you might shiver some fragile
trifle of an ornament with a careless blow. She would not eat or speak
for many days, and her sleep departed from her. And, indeed, during the
few months of life that remained to her she rarely uttered a word. Her
poor bits of wits seemed to drain out of her with her tears, for all
that she was highly educated, and an accomplished musician and sweet
singer."

Laurence had risen to his feet. He stood with his back to the fire, his
hands behind him, and his head bent.

"Poor child!" he said softly. "Well, she knew how to love, anyway."

"No woman better; but I am thinking, Mr. Rivers, she introduced into her
affections a touch of that same extravagance which pertains to so many
members of your family. For my grandmother used to tell me that, though
altogether gentle and docile, she studied nothing but to turn over her
dead love's letters, and play with the various gifts he had bestowed
upon her, as a little lass plays with its puppets and toys. It was the
pitifulest spectacle under the dome of the sky, that of her affliction;
and Mr. Dudley, notwithstanding his reprehensible opinions and infamous
heresies, watched over her like a father. His patience knew no bounds,
poor body. He would have laid himself down as the ground for her to walk
on, could that have accelerated her recovery. He spared no expense of
doctors, both foreign and English, to prescribe for her; and carried her
away to Bath, by their advice, to drink the waters there. But all the
medicinal waters that ever welled up through the length and breadth of
God Almighty's curious earth are powerless to ease the ache of a broken
heart. She wanted but one thing, and that no mortal soul could give her.
And so, poor, white lily of a thing, she just sickened, and faded, and
died."

Laurence stood very still, looking down at the hearthrug between his
feet, while the rain beat against the windows. The agent watched him for
a little space, and then rose, a trifle stiffly and carefully, from his
chair.

"I am keeping you over long with my family histories, Mr. Rivers," he
said. "But it comes to me that we are about to see great changes in this
place very speedily; and our conversation to-night has been a
valediction to the old dynasty and a recognition of the new. There has
been no lady at Stoke Rivers since Miss Agnes died, and you, so I learn,
are a married man."

Laurence left his contemplation of the hearthrug, and drew himself up
rather sharply.

"Yes," he said, "my wife is much interested in the prospect of this
English property."

He turned his back, and stared into the fire.

"Look here, Armstrong," he said, "where was she--Agnes Rivers, I
mean--where was she buried?"

A singularly acute expression came over the agent's countenance. He
looked hard at the young man, but the latter did not move or turn his
head. The wind, increasing in force broke, as in great waves, against
the house front and the curtains swayed sullenly in the draught.
Armstrong cleared his throat.

"I am thinking it's a calamitous night for too many poor folks at sea,"
he remarked; and then added:--"Buried? Weel, presumably at Bath, where
she died, Mr. Rivers. A grand funeral took place there, to my
grandfather's knowledge, for he was called upon to journey the whole
long way from Cupar to attend it, and the snow lay some foot deep in the
North. A grand funeral, truly, in appearance, with black horses, and
plumes, and lumbering black coaches, and all signs of respect and
customary outward manifestations of woe."

Still Laurence did not move; but the gusty wind was so loud that it
obliged him to raise his voice in asking--

"Well, well, if there was all this display about the funeral, why
_presumably_ then?"

"Because I am constrained to admit that a certain mystery surrounded
that transaction. My grandparents would never speak directly of it,
being prudent persons, and knowing, conceivably, more than it was
becoming for them to tell. But there were tongues that said, Mr. Rivers,
that no sweet lassie's corpse lay in that coffin; but only books, and
cast clothes, and bricks, and rubbish, to make up the weight."

Laurence turned round suddenly. His face was keen, his eyes alight.

"But why?" he asked.

"Partly, I surmise, on account of Mr. Dudley's atheistical views, which
caused him to hate and scorn all decent Christian rites and ceremonies.
And partly because of the feelings he entertained towards his
cousin--for it was well known she was the only human creature that had
ever moved him to love--it was apprehended he refused to part with her
body even in death."

For a few moments the two men looked hard at each other.

"And what then?" Laurence demanded. Armstrong raised his hands, almost
as in repudiation of his own thought.

"The Lord only knows," he said. "As the poet says, 'There are more
things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in our philosophy.' But
I, being a practical man, do not concern myself with such, Mr. Rivers. I
would not learn more of hidden matters than is strictly necessary to
salvation. If it is the intention of the Deity that further revelation
of laws, either natural or spiritual, should be granted us, such
revelation will, without doubt, come at the time appointed. And so I,
personally, would not force the hand of Providence or be over forward in
pushing myself into its secret counsels."

He paused, regarding the younger man with much friendliness and some
anxiety. But Laurence did not speak. He merely smiled, holding out his
hand.

"Aweel, good night to you then, Mr. Rivers," the agent said, taking the
outstretched hand and holding it awhile.--"I must repeat, I am glad to
carry away so favourable an impression of our first meeting. But, as a
word at parting having in mind the tendencies of your family
constitution, I would earnestly commend to you those canny virtues,
moderation and temperance, in all your undertakings.--I will be resident
here for the coming week, or longer should a more protracted stay be
incumbent on me, in the interests of your affairs or your uncle's. My
sons are good, steady lads, and will mind our northern business for
me--a business not unprosperous or decreasing. And so you can notify me
at any time should you feel an inclination to acquaint yourself further
with the workings of this estate, or other items of poor Mr. Rivers's by
no means inconsiderable property."




XV


For some minutes Laurence remained in the same position before the
library fireplace, while the rush and wail of the storm without offered
marked contrast to the silence and close warmth reigning within. He knew
all the facts of the case now, as far as they were attainable by
tradition. They proved to be very simple; but, as he reflected, the
simplicity of the symbol by no means invalidates the profound character
of the mystery of which it may be the outward and visible sign. Nay, the
very simplicity, the tender, human pathos, of this story of love and
sorrow, only engaged his heart and provoked his enterprise the more.
Counsels of self-saving moderation he waved aside with a smile. Of
danger, material, moral, or spiritual, he was defiant. With the Veil of
Isis there, visibly confronting him and inviting--in gentlest, most
confiding fashion--his hand to lift it, would it not be unpardonably
poor-spirited, callous, and unfaithful to draw back?

But Virginia? Laurence moved impatiently from his place. He wished to
goodness Armstrong had not referred to Virginia, or rather to that
circumscription of his personal liberty which Virginia presented--to his
marriage, in short! He was very fond of her. Of course, he was very fond
of her--not for a moment did he doubt that. But must it be a matter of
primary duty and honour that he should relinquish the part of hero in
this piece--this noble and enthralling piece, which made vibrant his
whole being, and stirred the finest of him into activity--simply because
Virginia's name did not happen to be in the bill? Marriage came
perilously near a disaster if it clipped your wings as much as all that!
And he would, indeed, be a bigoted moralist who should maintain that no
circumstances can be so extraordinary, no opportunities of knowledge or
spiritual advancement so rare, that they justify a neglect of
conventional rules of conduct, or permit the relegation of ordinary
obligations--for a time at least--to the second place!

Thus did the young man argue--ambition, chivalry, and those hereditary
tendencies towards a rather violent reduction of theory to practice
against which he had so lately been warned, all conspiring to one
result. And so, at last, his head erect, and--though he knew it
not--that air of assured conquest about him which had sat so charmingly
upon his namesake--perhaps his rival--the Laurence Rivers of the Cosway
miniature, he swung down the still, crimson-carpeted corridor, pulled
the stiff tapestry curtain forward, passed behind it, and entered the
room beyond. He laughed a little to himself, he was all of a white heat,
he would be as the Gods, working miracles, righting wrong, conquering
death.

Sharp disappointment awaited him. The yellow drawing-room was
brilliantly lighted. The atmosphere of it was fresh, almost to the point
of chill. The miniatures lay side by side upon the escritoire, where he
had placed them some four or five hours earlier; but his sweet
fairy-lady was not there to receive him. The room was vacant of all
human, all visible, presence save his own.

The hours which followed were among the most poignant that Laurence had
ever experienced. He had made so certain that he needed but to open that
door to regain the unreal world, yet world--as he believed--of
profoundest reality, which enchanted, while it baffled and perplexed
him. He found himself compelled to admit, moreover, not without a sense
of humiliation, that his attitude was not exclusively pathological or
scientific. A good deal of the natural man, and the natural man's
affections and vanities, entered into it. He craved once again to see
that slender, flitting figure, to feel the vibration of that otherwise
impalpable hand, to read the trust and exquisite sympathy of those
lovely eyes; he craved again to be aware of the fervour of his own
eloquence, the rush and spring of his own thought. Moreover, he felt
jealous, absurdly but increasingly jealous, of that other Laurence
Rivers, of whom, for all his vitality and immediate consciousness of
living energy and active will, he seemed to be but a second edition. The
man had forestalled him in face and semblance, forestalled him too in
the heart of the woman it would be--it was, he feared--only too easy for
him to love.

And so he wandered aimlessly, restlessly about the bright, empty room,
almost as his sweet rose-clad lady had wandered on the night he first
met her, searching, searching for some lost good; while, as time
lengthened and his nerves grew strained by impatient waiting and want of
sleep, fears that by his own action he had procured this disappointment
began to assail him. He was always over-confident, blundering from too
great self-belief. For might it not be that in opening her little
treasure-chest, in touching those objects so dear to her dead fingers
and dead eyes, in reading her letters--nay, in striving to approach her
and establish relations with her at all--he had outraged her delicacy,
had, in a sense, assaulted her soul, had been guilty of spiritual
insult, as in grosser, material existence a man might assault or insult
a woman's person? Had he, unwittingly, transgressed some law obtaining
in the world of spirits, in the state of being which lies outside and
beyond the Gates of Death, and of which human beings, bound by the
conditions of their earthly environment, have as yet no
cognisance?--Why should not the mind and heart be sublimated to as
exquisite a fineness of texture, in her case, as the body had been? This
idea of possible outrage, of unwitting grossness towards her, was
horrible to Laurence. It stabbed him with shame, and provoked in him a
passionate desire for absolution. If she would only come--only come,
that he might implore her pardon, gain forgiveness, or--still
better--receive comfortable assurance that he had not sinned!

His restless wanderings brought him at length to the bay-window, and he
looked out into the night. The storm had not abated. Dimly he could
perceive, in the light streaming outward from the window, the
rain-washed steps, the pale balustrades and statues of the garden; the
near cypresses, too, bowed and straining in the gale which shrieked
across the open lawns and bellowed hoarsely in the woodland like some
fierce beast let loose. And Laurence, viewing this tumult and listening
to it, suffered further humiliation. He became but a small thing in his
own estimation, weak, futile, incapable. For to what, after all, did his
force of will and power of compelling events amount? He thought of
Armstrong, the level-headed and circumspect Scotch agent; of his uncle,
dignified, and even in mortal illness faithful to the clear purposes of
his long life. He thought of Virginia, strong in virtue of her very
limitations, glittering as a well-cut jewel, concrete, complete. All
these persons occupied a definite place, served, in their degree, a
definite end. Whereas, for himself, was he not the veriest sport of
nature and of circumstance, endowed with just sufficient wit, sufficient
talent, to court failure in any and every direction? His initiative,
that had lately showed god-like, now shrivelled to microscopic
proportions; while a further unwelcome question presented itself. For
had the gracious spectre--he no longer quarrelled with that
definition--lived, as he had fondly supposed, through his life, regained
reason and glad, human sympathy through the influence of his will, or
had the case, in very truth, been precisely the reverse? Had not she
been the active, he the merely passive principle? Had he not reached a
higher development, and gloried--for a little space--in conscious
possession of genius, had he not lived, in short, through her--and this
not by exercise of direct intention on her part, but merely in obedience
to the might of her love for another man--a man long dead, but whose
name he chanced to bear, and whose appearance he chanced to resemble?

And thereupon a hideous persuasion of his own nullity and emptiness took
hold of Laurence. Individuality fled away, disintegrated, dissolved, and
was not. The component parts of his physical being returned to their
original elements--flesh to earth, gases to air, heat to fire, blood to
water. While all the qualities of his mind, his tastes and affections,
suffered like dispersal, being claimed and absorbed by the members of
those many generations, whose earthly existence had contributed to the
eventual production of his own. And the terror of this was augmented, in
that, although every atom of his being was thus scattered and
appropriated, every smallest fraction of that which had gone to compose
his personality was dispersed, yet annihilation of thought did not
follow. He was reduced to absolute nothingness; but knowledge of
disintegration, knowledge of loss, knowledge--rebellious and
despairing--of that same nothingness remained.

Appalled, with the instinct of flight upon him as from some menacing and
immeasurable danger, Laurence turned and groped his way back--as a blind
man gropes--into the centre of the brightly lighted room. The
persuasion of his own nothingness seemed to extend itself to his
surroundings. All partook of the nature of illusion, from which sense of
sight and touch alike seemed powerless to redeem them. And this begot in
the young man an immense desolation and a corresponding need of comfort
and of quick human sympathy. Involuntarily, in his extremity, his
thought fixed itself, stayed itself, upon Agnes Rivers. Ah! if she would
but show herself--she, his well-beloved fairy-lady--he was convinced
peace and clear-seeing would follow in her train, that this terror of
nothingness would depart, and that sanely, calmly, he should enter into
possession of himself once more!

And then, presently, as he moved to and fro in restless search for her,
it appeared to him that a rose-red gleam of silk, a just perceptible
whiteness of muslin and lace, the faintest vision of a vision of her
sweet and lovely face, moved beside him as he moved. It was as though an
indefinable tenderness yearned towards him from out some impassable
distance, striving to declare itself, to make itself seen and felt, yet
without force to master some opposing influence and accomplish its
object. And this awoke in Laurence not only an answering tenderness, but
an answering struggle. He stood quite still, yet with every nerve, every
faculty strained to attain and overcome. He felt braced by a sudden
exhilaration of battle. Silently, fiercely, he fought with some awful,
unseen enemy,--with dimly apprehended powers of time and place, of
death, of things spiritual and things material, which intervened between
him and the love which sought to reach him. Never had he desired
anything as he desired this love. His individuality was actual enough
now; and his whole body ached with the effort to penetrate that
resistant medium, to be face to face with that love, and look on it, and
so doing to read the riddle both of his future and his past.

But when the warfare was at its height, and the unseen enemy seemed to
yield a little, while the slender form of his rose-clad lady grew more
distinct to Laurence's eyes, unaccustomed noise and confusion arose
within the dead-quiet house. Doors opened and slammed, as with the
hurry of panic. Men's footsteps echoed imperatively down the corridors
and upon the stairs.--Another moment and he would overcome all
resistance, and his dear companion would stand before him, smiling,
gracious, full of consolation and of help; but just then voices were
raised in quick discussion without. Suddenly the door was thrown open.
Upon the threshold was Renshaw the butler, bereft of his usual
correctness of demeanour, his eyes starting, his skin mottled with
purple stains. Behind him stood Watkins holding back the leather-lined
curtain to the utmost of its length, thereby disclosing a triangular
vista of dark-panelled passage and the proud heads and arrogant,
impassive faces of the rulers of Imperial Rome.

Evidently both men dreaded to venture one step further into the room.

"Will you please to come at once, sir," Renshaw called hoarsely. "Excuse
me, sir, you are wanted. Mr. Rivers is very ill. He has asked for you.
Mr. Lowndes fears he is dying."




XVI


The agitation pervading the house was sinister. Laurence felt as though
witnessing the convulsions of some human body, seen only heretofore amid
the restraints and graceful amenities of society; but now abandoned and
indecently torn in its last agony. If indeed Mr. Rivers was dying, his
soul was not merely quitting its fragile, fleshly tabernacle; but was
also, very sensibly, quitting this larger tabernacle of house and
household which it had informed through a long course of years, and
moulded to express its tastes, flatter its idiosyncrasies, and forestall
its every wish. It was fitting, therefore, though fearful, that this
outer envelope of the owner's life should be shaken, and lose its
habitual immutability and impervious calm; while his well-drilled
servants, usually obedient as machines to the direction of his hand, ran
distracted, scared and helpless as a flock of frightened sheep.

The men hurried aimlessly, spoke in whispers. Members of the
establishment with whom Laurence was unacquainted invaded the corridor
from the direction of the offices. At the foot of the staircase were
grouped the stout, French _chef_, in spotless, linen cap and jacket, his
attendant scullions, and a couple of men arrayed in long, green baize
aprons and black, calico blouses, the full sleeves of which buttoned
tight around the wrist. The coachman was there too, a stable helper, and
the groom who had accompanied Laurence on his first visit to Bishop's
Pudbury. All these persons were well on in middle life, some old,
white-haired, and bent. All appeared deeply moved, an inarticulate
confusion in their looks, as though finding themselves suddenly
confronted by dire calamity. Laurence had seen men look thus in the
breathless pause, between recurrent earthquake shocks, among the rocking
buildings of a far-away, Spanish-American city. As he passed them,
coming from that light, clear-coloured room, they stared at him, and
slunk aside as though a fresh terror was added to those which already so
unmanned them. In their present state of feeling the seemly decorum of
respectful service was relaxed; and to Laurence, overwrought by his
recent and strange experiences, it appeared that they shrunk from him
as from one unclean and outcast.

He turned rather sternly upon Renshaw. "What is the meaning of all this
commotion? If I was wanted, why on earth was I not called sooner?"

The butler's large, smooth, egg-shaped face turned from purple to
something approaching grey.

"We had looked for you everywhere, sir, both myself and Mr. Watkins," he
answered. "But until Mr. Lowndes suggested it, in consequence of some
remark passed by Mr. Rivers, it had never occurred to us that you would
be in the yellow drawing-room, sir."--Renshaw cleared his throat,
recovering some of his accustomed dignity of bearing. "The electric
light is switched on from the corridor outside, you will observe, sir.
It has always been understood that no one--neither the upper or the
under servants, sir--are ever required to go into the yellow
drawing-room after dusk."

And with these words, and their implication of commerce on his part with
something unlawful and malign, sounding in his ears, Laurence passed
into his uncle's bed-chamber.

As he did so, a blast of air, hot and dry as from the mouth of a
furnace, met him. The fire upon the hearth was piled up into a mountain
of blazing coal and wood. The light of it filled the room with a fitful,
lurid brilliance such as is produced by a great conflagration. In it,
the breasts of the couchant sphinxes glowed, seeming to rise and fall as
though they breathed. The caryatides supporting the ebony canopy
likewise appeared imbued with life. Their smooth arms and bowed
shoulders strained under the weight resting upon them; while the wreaths
of fruit and blossom, girding their naked loins, heaved from the
painfully sustained effort of nerve and muscle. The snake-locks of the
Medusa's head, carved in high relief upon the circular, central panel of
the back of the bedstead, writhed, twisted, interlaced and again slid
asunder, as in frustrated desire and ceaseless suffering.

And along the middle of the great bed, surrounded by these opulent
forms, and, at first sight, far less alive than they, lay Mr. Rivers.
His face was so blanched, so unsubstantial, that, but for the glittering
eyes still greedy of knowledge, it would have hardly been
distinguishable from the white pillows supporting him. His shoulders and
chest were muffled in a costly, sable cape; from beneath the lower edge
of which his hands, thin as reeds, protruded, lying inert upon the
thickly-wadded, blue-and-gold, damask coverlet. On the oak table--moved
from its place by the armchair to the bedside--were the few handsomely
bound books, the crystal _memento mori_ resting on its strip of crimson
embroidery, and a silver bell, the handle of it shaped as a slender,
winged Mercury, elegantly poised for flight.

Behind the table stood Lowndes, the long-armed, hard-featured valet. He
apparently remained untouched by the spirit of anarchy let loose in the
house. Laurence, drawing near, looked at him, silently asking
instructions. The man fetched a chair and placed it close against the
bedside.

"Be so good as to lean down, sir," he said. "Mr. Rivers wishes to
converse with you; but he has had a seizure, which has slightly affected
both his speech and hearing. He cannot raise his voice."

Laurence did as he was bidden. He leaned towards the old man, resting
his right hand upon the haunches of the ebony sphinx, which felt
singularly warm to his touch.

"The term of your probation and of mine alike draws to its close," Mr.
Rivers said in a small, thin voice; and, for almost the first time in
their intercourse, Laurence saw him smile.

"I hope this is only a passing attack, sir, and that you may rally," he
answered.--He looked up at Lowndes. "Has everything been done that can
be? Have you telegraphed for the doctors?"

"I have administered the prescribed restoratives. But Mr. Rivers ordered
that no further measures should be attempted until after his interview
with you, sir."

The sick man raised his hand feebly, yet with an imperious gesture.

"I do not propose to ask further advice of physicians," he said. "Their
science is but a mockery at this juncture; at least, in the estimation
of a person of my habit of mind. That by the employment of drugs and of
stimulants they might prolong a semblance of animation in this physical
husk of me, I do not deny. But what advantage can accrue from that, when
my mental activity is becoming paralysed, and the action of my brain
grows sluggish and intermittent? When all that differentiates a human
being from the brute beasts has perished, let the animal part perish
also. The sooner, the better; for, in itself, it is far from precious."

His voice had become very faint, and he waited, making a determined
effort, as Laurence perceived, to rally his ebbing powers.

"Tell Lowndes to go," he whispered. "I wish to be alone with you."

Then as the man-servant noiselessly withdrew, the thin, but barely
audible accents again stole out upon the fiercely heated air.

"The body, its necessities, its passions, its perpetually impeding
grossness throughout life, is an insult to the mind. But the final act
of this long course of insult, namely, the decay of this vile associate,
is the culminating insolence, the most unpardonable insult of all. I
have trained myself to ignore these thoughts, to disregard them as a
proud man disregards some mutilation or personal disfigurement. But
they crowd in upon me, refusing to be disregarded, to-night. Here lies
the sting of the insult! For as the strength of this vile, animal part
of me lessens, far from setting the intellect free, it infects this last
with its own increasing degradation. The lower drags the higher down
along with it. They grovel together. Contemptible doubts and fears
assail me. Discredited traditions press themselves upon my remembrance.
And the burden of it all is this, that I have laboured in vain. As the
body dies, so dies the mind. All the garnered knowledge of years will be
lost, will drop infertile, into the void--the insatiable void which
yawns alike for high philosopher and for drivelling pothouse sot."

His voice sank, in uttering the last few words, into a whisper of
concentrated bitterness. His eyes closed, and for some minutes the dying
man lay motionless.

Laurence could not bring himself to speak. The words to which he had
just listened so nearly reproduced and rendered articulate those
sensations he had himself so lately endured. The vision of all-absorbing
Nothingness again arose before him, as background to those opulent
forms, classic and pagan, upon which his eyes immediately rested. An
unholy and voluptuous life seemed to move in those forms still. A smile
curved the heavy lips of the sphinxes. The rounded, glistening arms of
the caryatides appeared outstretched less in support than in
solicitation; while the snake-locks of Medusa writhed, pushing upon each
other amorously. The flesh, triumphant in vigour and in carnal
invitation, seemed, indeed, to flout the intellect; as though the animal
functions of mankind and the symbols of these alone had power to survive
from age to age, were alone arbiters and architects of human fate. And
yet, yet, somewhere--could he but have reached it--Laurence knew there
was a way of escape. That he had come very near reaching it in the final
moments of that silent struggle downstairs, when the sweet figure of his
dear fairy-lady grew increasingly clear to his sight, he could not
doubt. And once again, with a great desiring, he desired her; for his
faith was strong that of all these things she somehow--how he could not
say as yet--held the key.

Just then Mr. Rivers raised his eyelids slightly and turned his head
upon the pillow.

"It is very horrible," he said slowly, speaking to himself rather than
to his companion. "The quantity of matter is stable. It for ever seeks
its own, and finding it re-unites. The destruction of one form is but
the necessary prelude to the development of others, and in this process
of perpetual redistribution not a fraction of the sum total is lost.
There is no waste save in the higher aspects of man's constitution--"

But here Laurence roused himself to protest.

"Matter returns to matter, sir, granted," he said. "Then why not spirit
to spirit? Are you not assuming a waste which you cannot prove? And if
spirit does return to spirit, what better than that, after all, can we
ask?"

"Spirit?" Mr. Rivers retorted, with a fine inflection of irony, and
momentary brightening of those half-closed eyes. "You, my dear Laurence,
employ words glibly enough which I hesitate to pronounce! Matter I know.
It is evident to the senses. Its actual existence--Berkeley, certain
Oriental and other philosophers notwithstanding--is, within certain
limits, susceptible of proof. And intellect I know. Its existence,
though on other lines, is equally susceptible of proof. Its action can
be registered and ratified. But spirit?--I will thank you to inform
me--what is spirit?"

The young man bowed himself together, resting his elbows on his knees.
He smiled with a half-humorous air of apology.

"That I cannot tell you, sir," he said. "I'm better at conviction than
at explanation, I'm afraid. I only know--not with my reason, but with my
heart--that spirit is, and has been, and must be everlastingly."

"And its mode of expression, its mode of self-revelation?" the other
inquired drily.

Laurence straightened himself up, laughing a little.

"One way, the old why--childish, perhaps, yet really rather charming. In
and by love, sir--only so, by love."

Tremulously Mr. Rivers drew the rich, sable cape closer about him,
though the heat of the room was intense.

"I become very abject," he said at last. "I procrastinate and risk
letting slip the opportunity still permitted me. For in my abjection, I
own I clutch at straws, miserably anxious for support. I am ashamed that
any other human being should witness the mental prostration to which
physical illness has reduced me. But time presses, and compels me to
delay no longer in confessing my object in calling you to me to-night.
Tell me, Laurence, have you investigated those abnormal phenomena of
which we spoke, and have your investigations yielded any result?"

The question took the listener somewhat by surprise, and he hesitated
before replying. The whole matter had become of such vital importance to
him, personal, intimate, among the dearest and most reverently-held
secrets of his heart. So he shrank, as before an act of profanation,
from submitting the history of his fairy-lady and of his strange
relation to her to the criticism of this cold-blooded, sceptical
intelligence. Yet he was bound by his promise to report, if called on to
do so--bound, too, in mere humanity towards one lying at the point of
death, and to whom that history might, conceivably, bring solace and
enlightenment.

"Yes, I have investigated the phenomena in part," he answered.

"And the result?"

"Briefly, I think, that which I ventured to state to you just now--that
love is the language of the spirit, the only medium through which spirit
can declare itself and be apprehended, the one element of our poor human
constitution which promises to continue and to preserve to us a measure
of coherence and individuality even after death."

The young man leaned forward again, and laid his hand on the warm
haunches of the ebony sphinx with a movement of slight defiance.

"Listen," he said, "please, sir, and I'll do my best to tell you exactly
what has happened since we spoke of this subject last."

He steadied himself to his task, trying to keep his narrative
circumstantial and restrained, to offer nothing more than a bald
statement of fact. But the charm of it, once he had started, was a
little too much for him. His speech grew lyrical against his will. And
Mr. Rivers listened, his eyes closed, his brow drawn into hard lines by
the effort of attention. Once he held up his hand.

"Did you question this appearance?" he asked.

"It was useless," Laurence answered, with a queer break in his voice.
"She never spoke--that is in words. She was dumb."

"That is unfortunate," Mr. Rivers said coldly. "Well, pray, go on."

And Laurence obeyed; recounting, with but slight reservation, all, even
to the events of the last few hours, when he and his sweet companion had
vainly sought to reach each other in defiance of some mighty, opposing
force, and how, at the crucial moment of the struggle, Mr. Rivers's
summons had come.

"There, sir," said he finally--"now you have it all as far as I can give
it you. I don't attempt to explain, though I may have my own ideas on
the subject. I've tried to put it quite honestly before you, and must
leave you to thrash the meaning out of it for yourself."

For some little space the sick man remained silent; then he raised both
hands and let them sink back upon the coverlet with the gesture of one
who bids farewell to hope.

"Fables!" he said bitterly; "fables! I ask bread of you and you give me
a stone. I offer you an unprecedented opportunity of psychological
study, and you approach it in the spirit of a ballad-monger or a
mountebank! I require from you close observation, scientific acumen, an
unrelenting pursuit of truth; and you put me off with some old wives'
tale of lost letters, the ravings of an hysterical girl, of
re-incarnation, multiple identity, and I know not what farrago of sickly
sentiment and outworn superstition! You trouble me with rubbish, which
it would be an impertinence to offer as material for serious
consideration to a peasant's child, of ordinary mental capacity, in a
modern board-school. Nor can I, my dear Laurence, acquit you of
insincerity, since you trick out this unworthy stuff in the extravagant
language of an erotic poem, while claiming for yourself an attitude
wholly platonic and superior to animal passion."

"You are harsh, sir," Laurence was permitted to remark.

Mr. Rivers turned his head on the pillow. His expression was distinctly
malevolent.

"I begin to gauge the average man," he replied calmly. "I begin to
recognise that he is a willing, probably wilful, self-deceiver--that he
is incapable of mental advance, that he will never expunge the
mythological element from his religious outlook, or learn to
discriminate between emotion, the product of the senses, and accurate
knowledge, the product of laborious enquiry and elevated thought."

"Perhaps he is wiser so," Laurence said. "Perhaps--I speak subject to
correction, sir--but perhaps he gets into touch, that way, with things
not altogether unimportant in the long history of the human race."

"Here, within measurable distance of dissolution, I grow somewhat weary
of _perhaps_. Yet I deserve that you should answer me this, since I have
shown myself very weak. I had not courage to embrace the remarkable
opportunity of investigating the phenomena of which we have spoken when
it was offered me in my prime. Now, in my decadence, surreptitiously and
at second hand, I try to acquire the knowledge I then repudiated. I
clutch at straws, and the straws sink with me. It is just. For the
second time I am untrue to my principles. I accept the rebuke."

During the last half hour there had been a lull in the storm; but now
the wind, shifting to a point north of west, hurled itself against the
house-front with renewed fury, and screamed against the shuddering
casements as though determined to gain entrance. The effect was that of
personal violence intended, and, with difficulty, repulsed. To Laurence
an inrush of the tempest would have been hardly unwelcome, for the heat
of the atmosphere oppressed him to the point of distress. Nor was this
all. Once more he became aware, so it seemed to him, of the tremendous,
unseen presence with which he had struggled earlier this same evening in
the yellow drawing-room below. He was aware that it stood on the far
side of the great, ebony bed, waiting, and the young man's heart stood
still. He saw Mr. Rivers gather the sable cape more closely about him,
as he lay staring out into the austere yet luxurious room; and he
recognised that for all his mortal weakness there was a certain
magnificence in the dying man's aspect.

"And beyond the superb, and always unredeemed, promise of human life, a
blank," Mr. Rivers said at last, his voice hollow, and, though so
small, asserting itself strangely against the tumult of the storm.
"Reason, learning, the senses, carry us thus far, only to project us
against a gateless barrier at the last!"

But Laurence's whole nature arose in fierce revolt. Again he renewed
that awful struggle, but this time in articulate speech.

"No, no, sir," he cried sharply, authoritatively, "the barrier is not
gateless--that is, to any one of us who has ever, even dimly and
passingly, known true-love, and that of which true-love is the
everlasting exponent and blessed symbol, namely, Almighty God."

"And I have known neither," Mr. Rivers answered. "Love I have never
felt. God I have never needed, either as an object of worship, or as
incentive to prayer. Therefore, for me, on your own showing, the barrier
needs must remain gateless."

He bowed his head slightly, smiling upon the young man with a fine,
ironical courtesy.

"I will ask your pardon for any weariness I may have caused you,
Laurence," he added. "And now I think we have nothing further to say to
one another. I have no quarrel with your fulfilment of your part of the
contract. It has been only--possibly--too complete. So I will detain you
no longer. You can leave me. I bid you good-night."

The young man would have answered with some kindly words of farewell;
but as the other ceased speaking, he became aware that, under the
glistening, outstretched arms of the caryatides, that tremendous unseen
presence bent downwards, extending itself sensibly over the bed.
Suddenly, and with a surprising effect of strength, Mr. Rivers started
into a sitting position.

"Lowndes," he called imperatively, and reached out for the handle of the
silver bell.

But before Laurence could render him any help he sunk down sideways--as
though under the weight of a heavy blow--the upper part of his body
hanging over the edge of the bed, and his thin, reed-like hands, with
their ancient and mysterious rings, dragging upon the carpet--dead.




XVII


The afternoon was fair and mild, a pensive charm upon it of misty
sunshine and light fugitive shadows--one of those tender, silvery
afternoons very characteristic of an English spring. It was as though
nature, repentant of the violence of the past night, would disarm
resentment by softness of mood, pretty invitations, and all manner of
insinuating caresses. Thrushes piped among the high branches, and on the
house-roofs starlings whistled and chattered, their crops filled with
succulent comfort of worms and slugs. Upon the wide lawns two pairs of
grey wag-tails scampered, with interludes of love-making and rapid
upward flutterings after young gnats and flies--born out of due time and
paying speedy and final penalty of too precocious an advent. The year
had fairly turned its back on winter at last, and a promise of genial
days, warm, lingering twilights, and tranquil nights was in the air.

Yet the late storm had not departed altogether without witness. For
Laurence, pacing the broad walk from the last steps of the Italian
garden to the confines of the lime-grove, could hear the hushing of
birch-brooms and the ring of an axe. One of the tall cypresses had
fallen right across the central alley, and gardeners were still busy
chopping it up, carting away blocks of red wood and barrow-loads of
scented branches, and obliterating the traces of its downfall.

Laurence paced the walk in a state of dreamy abstraction. The influences
of the hour and the place were soothing to him. Their last interview and
the final scene in his uncle's bed-chamber had affected him deeply.
To-day had been full of detail. He had spent great part of the morning
at the little, grey, Norman church, in company with Armstrong, Mr. Beal,
and the estate mason, superintending the opening of the Rivers's vault,
and such alteration of the position of the coffins it contained as to
render possible the addition of another to their number. Upon the
coffin-plates he read the names of many members of his family--of Dudley
Rivers and others; and that of his own father, Denbigh Rivers, who had
died on foreign service in Malta, when he--Laurence--was a child, and
whose body had been sent home, not without cost and difficulty, to lie
among his kindred in this quiet place. Of Agnes Rivers's coffin--though
he closely examined all such as were still intact--he discovered no
trace.

"There won't be room for me or mine down there, Armstrong," he said to
the agent, as the two stood in the sunny churchyard, flicking the
clinging cobwebs of the vault from off their clothes. "Not that I'm
particularly sorry for that. Look here, you see the vacant space there
by the chancel wall? Just try if you can arrange to have it staked out
and reserved, without encroaching on the rights or hurting the feelings
of any of the parishioners. I rather fancy lying there--unless I'm lucky
enough to die at sea, and be dropped over the ship's side into the
clear, blue water, with a shot at my feet."

"Every man to his humour, no doubt, Mr. Rivers," the other answered, in
his slow sing-song. "Though I could find it in my heart to wish you a
less uneasy resting-place than the swaying deeps of the ocean. Yet I
suppose it was just there, and in the manner you have indicated, that
your namesake and great-uncle, Laurence Rivers, found burial after the
glorious battle of Trafalgar."

Laurence had stopped beating the clinging cobwebs from his sleeve, and
turned to the speaker with a look of quick intelligence.

"Why, of course it was," he said, presently adding--"Upon my word, I
wonder--will history repeat itself in that particular also!"

Subsequently, there had been letters to write, telegrams to despatch,
the disorganised household gently, but firmly, to lay hold on. And now
he paced the broad walk in an interval of leisure, listening till the
grinding of carriage-wheels upon the gravel of the chestnut avenue
should advise him that Mr. Wormald, his uncle's lawyer--whom he had
summoned from town--had arrived at Stoke Rivers Road, and completed the
transit from that station. And as he thus paced, while the silvery
sunshine and shadow gently followed one another across the face of the
fair, woodland landscape, a little of the pride of possession awoke in
the young man. He had hardly had time to think of that before; nor did
it seem quite fitting or seemly to do so when the breath had but so
lately left the body lying in that stately room upstairs. Yet it was
indisputable, this was precisely the event which, consciously or
unconsciously, he had waited for ever since his boyhood. The prospect of
one day succeeding to this property had handicapped him; he felt that.
It had placed him in a position, socially, slightly beyond his means. It
had taken from him the incentive and inclination to carve out an
independent career. So far it had been the reverse of an advantage, from
the more serious standpoint. But now all that was changed. He had a very
definite "name and local habitation." He was absolutely his own
master--no longer heir-apparent, but recognised owner and ruler of a by
no means contemptible territory. This was as the step from boyhood to
manhood--from the last of a public school to the freedom and personal
responsibility of youth no longer subject to tutelage. Laurence smiled
to himself. It occurred to him he had really got to grow up at last.
Well--he had been a precious long time about it! And then, somehow, it
occurred to him that this change in his fortunes altered and modified
his relation to Virginia. He had lived in Virginia's country, and among
her friends, almost exclusively, since his marriage. He had, he was
aware, ranked somewhat as Virginia's husband. Now the state of affairs
was reversed. He was in a position to claim full masculine
prerogatives--those of an old country, of a ripe and finished
civilisation, well understood. In future Virginia--she was very
charming, very, he'd no quarrel with her of course--only, in future,
Virginia would have to rank as his wife.

And, thereupon, involuntarily his eyes sought the bay-window of the
yellow drawing-room. At the foot of the semicircular stone steps, on to
which that window opened, the gardeners still moved to and fro--slow,
brown-clad figures--collecting and wheeling away the _débris_ of the
fallen cypress. Laurence refused to formulate further the thoughts that
arose in his mind. Only one thing was clear to him--clear as the songs
and whistlings of the birds, clear as the tinkle and plash of the
fountains, the spray of which glittered so brightly silver in the
silvery light--Virginia could not come to Stoke Rivers just yet. It was
better--better in every way--that her coming should be postponed for a
while--till the period of mourning for his uncle was over--till he,
Laurence, had mastered all the business, and organised the existent
masculine household upon a new basis--till he had thoroughly acquainted
himself not only with the working of this, but of the Scotch
estate--till he and Virginia were free to keep open house--till--till--

At that moment, perhaps fortunately, the dogcart emerged from the
shelter of the great chestnut-trees, and swung round the carriage sweep
to the front door. Laurence crossed the lawns and the angle of the
Italian garden quickly.--What a pity that cypress had fallen! It broke
the line, destroying the symmetry of the garden; and it was almost the
tallest and finest grown of the lot.

In the hall Mr. Wormald discoursed affably with the men-servants, while
the latter divested him of more than one overcoat. He was a small,
withered man, his back bowed and his hands sadly crippled by rheumatic
gout, by much handling of pens, and leaning over lengthy legal
documents; yet his movements were noticeably alert. His clean-shaven,
busy, little face was enlightened by nimble, red-brown, squirrel-like
eyes.

"Thank ye, Renshaw," he said. "Gently--ah, yes, you remember! These
damp, spring days get into my joints, I promise you. Ah! there you are,
Watkins. Yes, sad affair this, and sudden. Great shock to you all, no
doubt. Quite so--but I observe that so frequently is the case. A
lingering illness, the termination of which grows to seem more and more
remote, and then the end with unlooked-for rapidity. Yes, very sad."

Disengaging himself from the sleeves of his second coat, he perceived
Laurence's arrival, and his squirrel-like eyes scampered, so to speak,
over the young man from head to foot. Like the agent, he appeared to
receive an agreeable impression, for he gave a subdued squeak evidently
indicative of satisfaction.

"Ah! Mr. Rivers," he exclaimed, "you will not remember me. It is many
years since we met. You were a little shaver in an Eton-jacket and round
collar. And your poor uncle passed away quite suddenly at last?--Not a
matter for regret, I venture to think. Few men would have been more
fretted by a consciousness of failing powers. Remarkable intellect"--Mr.
Wormald keckled softly, as he passed with the young man into the
library--"quite beyond me, out of my humble range altogether, you know,
Mr. Rivers. I admired his conversation; yet I cannot venture to pretend
I attached any intelligible meaning to one-half of what your uncle said.
But our business relations were very simple. He disliked business too
much to wish to prolong the discussion of it. You will find all legal
arrangements very direct. The death duties will be heavy; but, otherwise
there are no deductions, I believe, save one or two small legacies to
the servants.--Dinner, yes, Mr. Rivers, the earlier the better for me. I
should be glad to put in a long evening with Armstrong; then we will
have everything ready for you in the morning. I have an appointment with
a client at five to-morrow afternoon, so I will ask you to let me go up
by the two o'clock. I shall not need to encroach on your time to-night."

Therefore it happened, that, comparatively early Laurence found himself
free to go down the red-carpeted corridor, pull back the heavy,
leather-lined curtain, and enter the room of strange and delectable
meetings once again. What fortune, good or bad, awaited him, he could
not even surmise. He had learned one thing at least, that, in this
connection, nothing was certain save the unforeseen. Nevertheless, he
was sensible of slight surprise on finding the room shrouded in vague
gloom. By some oversight the electric light had not been turned on. But
the March evenings were long, and he had come to the trysting-place
before the accustomed hour. The day was not wholly dead yet, and
twilight lingered in the neighbourhood of the bay-window. After his
first movement of surprise, Laurence found a restful charm in the soft
obscurity surrounding him. Once again the room had resumed its effect of
friendliness; and if his fairy-lady was not there as yet, no more were
malign and opposing powers. The place was kindly and peaceful. It, like
the weather, had settled back into a mild and engaging mood.

The young man felt his way across to the window, and sat down in one of
the gilt-framed, brocade-covered armchairs on the right of the bay.
There he waited, looking out now at the garden, growing mysterious and
shadowy in the deepening dusk; now at the tall, satin-wood escritoire,
the highly polished surfaces of which, reflecting the expiring light,
glistened so that the shape of it remained visible after surrounding
objects had faded from sight.

How long he waited Laurence did not know, nor did he greatly care. He
had been very actively employed for the better part of the last
six-and-thirty hours, and both as to mind and body he was in an
unusually quiescent state. His energies were in pleasant suspension. The
dimly seen room swam before his eyes. He made no effort of resistance. A
mist clouded his vision, clouded all his faculties, and he slept.

When he awoke it was high noon. He lay on the stone bench beneath the
lime-trees, the innumerable leaves of which rustled and danced in the
warm, summer wind. He awoke laughing from a wholly delicious dream--a
young man's dream of very lovely love, which after long denial and delay
had found perfect fulfilment. He felt very light and content. Life was
sweet, this smiling, summer world infinitely hopeful and sympathetic.
Then he stretched himself, smoothed the revers of his flowered, silk
waistcoat, and straightened his lawn cravat, which had been somewhat
displaced during the pleasant relaxation of slumber. He rubbed a trifle
of dust, too, from the knee of his plumb-coloured breeches with his
handkerchief. Then he stood up still laughing, yet with a growing hunger
in his heart, since he began to realise that those delights were his, as
yet, only within the gates of sleep and of dreams. He stretched again, a
sigh mingling with his laughter; and then discovered that through the
shifting, dappled sunlight and shadow Agnes Rivers approached him with
her pretty, flitting, bird-like grace. To-day she wore a pale,
lemon-yellow, India-muslin dress, spotted with cinnamon-coloured sprigs,
and a white and cinnamon coloured waist ribbon embroidered in blown
roses and tiny buds. A black, velvet work-bag, with long yellow and
black strings to it, hung upon her arm; while her charming head and neck
showed up in high relief against the open blue-grey sunshade she
carried tilted over her right shoulder. Laurence went forward to meet
her, all aglow from his recent sleep and from the fond imaginations of
that delicious dream. Half playfully, half in sharp desire of mastery,
he took away her sunshade and work-bag, and threw them down upon the
turf. Then grasping both her hands in his, he kissed and kissed them,
holding them high and bending his head so that his eyes were on a level
with hers. And there must have been something in his eyes fearful,
though enchanting, to her perfect maidenliness, for she flushed and
tried to withdraw her hands, moving back a step from him with an air of
questioning and innocent dignity.

"Laurence, Laurence," she said chidingly, "what does this mean? What has
taken you?"

"Only happiness," he answered, "of which, having seen the dear vision, I
very badly need the still dearer reality."

"Ah!" she said, "and yet you will go away--how soon we do not know--to
this most unhappy war, and leave me desolate."

"Yes, and it is best so, sweetheart," he replied; serious, though still
smiling--she was so pure, so trustful, and so very fair. Her gentle
beauty racked him--"Best so," he repeated--"best pass the time
honourably, fighting for king and country, until your twenty-first
birthday is past, and Dudley can no longer forbid our marriage, and I
can claim you, make and keep you mine forever and a day--"

And thereupon he stopped abruptly, for his elder brother had come upon
them unperceived--Dudley, thin and tall, clothed in sad-coloured,
brown-grey coat and vest, the locks of his long, pale hair stirred by
the summer wind, in his hand a bundle of papers--Dudley, whose high,
narrow head, refined features, and deep-set, fanatical eyes reminded
Laurence strangely of his uncle, Montagu Rivers, lying upstairs in the
carven, ebony bed, with the crystal _memento mori_ and the silver bell
of the elegantly poised Mercury handle on the table beside him.--But how
was that? How could it be? He confused two generations. Dudley Rivers's
coffin he had seen, in the vault of the little, Norman church, only this
morning. The dust lay thick on it. For more than half a century it had
reposed there undisturbed; whereas his uncle, Montagu Rivers, died but
last night!

Yet even while he thus reasoned, the scene suffered change. All around
him was the roar of cannon; and beneath him the screaming of two ships,
grinding into one another, side to side, upon the lift and fall of the
Atlantic, where the sea grows short towards Gibraltar and the Straits.
They screamed, those ships, as fighting stallions scream--a fierce and
terrible sound. And all their decks were slippery with blood, through
which half-naked men ran red-footed, or falling, wallowed, while the
yell of battle went up hoarse from many hundred throats. The white
sails, torn and streaming, were dyed wild, lurid colours by the flash of
musketry and up-rolling volumes of smoke from the heavy guns. It was as
hell let loose. Yet discipline prevailed, as did a desperate and
persistent purpose, through all the tumult and slaughter. Laurence
himself felt cool, light-hearted even, as he shouted orders and rallied
his men in no mild language. His courage was high and his life strong
in him. He laughed, notwithstanding the murderous noise, the sickening
and brutal sights. But, to his fury, just in the turn of the engagement,
when victory seemed assured at last, he felt a shattering blow at the
top of his chest, and the blood welled up from his pierced lungs, and
all the world about him grew black. He staggered back against the
splintered bulwarks, putting his left hand upon the thin packet of
letters buttoned inside his uniform against his heart, and called
aloud--"Agnes, Agnes."

And out of the blackness a sweet voice, speaking as from some far
distance, answered, crying--"Laurence, Laurence"--in accents of
tremulous but very exquisite joy. Then within his palm he felt once more
that just perceptible pulsation, as of the fluttering wings of a captive
butterfly; while, in the ghostly twilight still glimmering in through
the great bay-window, he beheld the slender form and rose-red, silken
dress of his sweet fairy-lady, there, close at his side.




XVIII


For some moments the young man dared not move. The anguish of his
shattered ribs, the choking up-rush of blood from his lungs, was so
present to him, that he turned deadly faint. By degrees he realised that
all these sensations were illusory; or rather memory of that which had,
long ago, befallen him. Then he asked himself--was the cry which had
just now answered his cry illusory, a matter of memory, likewise? This
he must ascertain. He began speaking slowly and softly; and the
conviction of his identity with that other Laurence Rivers, his
namesake, was so complete, that in speaking as he did he had no sense of
practising any deceit upon his hearer.

"Agnes," he said, "do you remember the summer morning when, like a lazy
fellow, I fell asleep under the lime-trees, and how you came to me just
as I woke up, and how we spoke to one another, and how my brother Dudley
interrupted our conversation."

A pause followed, during which he listened with almost feverish anxiety,
looking up into the sweet, dimly-seen face. Was it possible that she
had already gained in physical attributes and powers to the point of
audible speech? He almost prayed it might be so; and yet what tremendous
issues such development opened up!

At last the low, far-away voice began to answer him. The words came
lispingly, at first, with a pathetic effort and hesitancy. It was as the
utterance of a baby child but just learning to articulate.

"How could I fail to remember that morning, since the joy of it proved
the prelude to the sorrow of your departure?"

Laurence could barely control his excitement; but he just managed to
remain very still and to continue speaking slowly and softly.

"Was that so?" he said. "I had forgotten."

"Surely it was so," she answered. "For Dudley brought you the orders,
which had just been delivered by a despatch-rider, requiring your
immediate return to your ship."

"Yes, yes--of course. I begin to recollect," he rejoined. "Lord Nelson
had news of the whereabouts of the French fleet, and we put to sea at a
few hours' notice. Recollect, dear me, I should rather think I did! It
was an awful rush to get one's kit together, and get through, and there
was no end of a bother about post-horses."

Laurence rose to his feet. It was impossible to him to sit still any
longer. This strange awakening of memory, and the miracle of his sweet,
phantom companion's recovered speech, moved him too deeply. He went
across to the escritoire.

"Come here, Agnes," he said. "I want to look at you. I must see you
clearly. And I--I want you to look at me. Come."

While speaking he struck a match, and lighted, first the tall wax
candles standing upon the escritoire, and then those in the candelabra
upon the chimney-piece. Beheld in their mellow light, the room assumed a
more than ever familiar and friendly aspect. Laurence felt that he was
at home--at home, consciously, and with a security and content upon him
such as he had never experienced before. It was singularly pleasant to
feel thus. Moving back he stood in front of the slender, rose-clad
figure. His manner was serious, though very gentle, and his voice
somewhat broken by the emotion under which he laboured.

"See, I have opened your little treasure-chest for you," he said. "And I
have read your dear letters--that constituted no breach of faith, or act
of presumption, considering how often I have read them already. I have
put everything carefully back in its place, save our two miniatures,
which lie here side by side. I tell you honestly, I am perplexed. I
can't fit in the bits of the puzzle, or piece out the story as yet; but
that, to my mind, doesn't matter very much. For we are here together,
once again, you and I."

He shifted the position of the candles so that their full light should
fall upon her.

"Now let me look at you," he said.

And as he looked his eyes grew somewhat moist, for he perceived that
which he had blindly desired, blindly sought all his days, that which
had been as an ache at his heart even in his gayest hours, because he
needed it and had it not--though he had had no knowledge of what indeed
it was he needed--now stood visibly before him. Sweet phantom, old-time
love, exquisite companion--having found her, how could he ever again let
her go? Listening to her pretty, halting speech the flattering belief
had once more grown strong in him that he had the power--had he also the
will--to restore her to complete and living womanhood. The ambition of
so doing possessed him with redoubled force; and the love of her, rooted
so deeply in that mysterious former life and former personality of his,
possessed him too. Considerations of right and wrong, of duty, even of
honour, he brushed aside. The peace and content of the present, the
daring effort, the triumph and delight of the future should that effort
succeed, rendered him callous to all things beside. Then a touch of
self-distrust took him. Did he please, as he was pleased? He wondered.

"Agnes," he asked her almost wistfully, "tell me, have I changed very
much?"

Her eyes, which had grown somewhat shy beneath his searching scrutiny,
regained their serenity. She replied more readily, and in more assured
accents, while a gentle playfulness was perceptible in her bearing.

"You appear older," she said; "but I will not reproach you with that,
since I think you have matured in character rather than greatly
increased in years. I could fancy you taller, were not such a
supposition absurd. The fashion of your clothes is much altered--you
affect very sober colours now."

But suddenly her expression changed. A wide-eyed, haunting sadness came
back into her lovely face, and she spread abroad her hands in mingled
apology and appeal.

"Ah! indeed," she cried, "I fear a long, long period has elapsed during
my illness and alienation of mind. You have had time and to spare in
which to grow older, to acquire new habits of thought, perchance--but
that idea I cannot tolerate--to form fresh ties. I bitterly deplore my
weakness, but they assured me of your death. Their purpose was not
cruel, I am sure; but when I refused to believe their statements, your
brother Dudley and Mrs. Lambart sent for our rector, Mr. Burkinshaw, to
talk with me and preach resignation. He preached to deaf ears, poor man!
How could I be resigned to see all the joy of my life cut down as grass
under the sweep of a scythe? I did not believe them, yet their
reiterated assertions so worked on me that they killed hope in me, and,
in so doing, killed reason likewise. Yet in my heart of hearts,
Laurence, I have always known that you would come again."

She clasped her hands high on her bosom and smiled upon him.

"And you have come, oh! my love," she said; "you have come!"

"Yes, in good truth," he answered, while a sense of fear took him--"I
have come."

For he was filled with pity and with wonder concerning the end of this
adventure; while her innocent passion softened his whole nature to a
great tenderness, as the sun softens the frozen earth in spring. Then he
held out his hand to her in invitation, and led her across to the
brocade-covered sofa, set corner-wise between the piano and the
fireplace, and for a while they both remained silent, sitting there side
by side. And as the minutes slid away, the young man's fears departed,
and content returned to him. It was so natural to sit with her thus! Yet
his content had an underlying pathos in it, since their situation--his
and hers--though immediately happy was so very strange.

At last he asked her:--"Did you know me from the first?"

And she replied with an air of gracious diffidence infinitely
engaging:--"I can hardly tell you. For so long confusion has reigned in
my poor mind that all had become to me vague and undetermined. I was so
very tired that even that which I most craved, I, in a measure, shrank
from. I seemed to wander everlastingly in blank and desolate places. I
seemed to move in an interspace between the confines of two worlds, to
neither of which could I gain admittance. I could not go forward,
neither could I go back. Everything baffled me; everything was so
difficult to understand."

"But now you have left those blank and desolate places? Now you
understand?" Laurence asked, keenly interested in, yet a little dreading
her answer.

"I think so. Still joy has been too long a stranger, for me wholly to
trust it even yet. And I fear there are still lapses and deficiencies in
my intelligence. I could fancy--but doubtless these are but silly
fancies, born of illness--that I am not as I used to be, and that I
feel the miss of much I once had and now have not."

She looked up at him, her eyes troubled once more to their very depths.

"In what am I lacking, Laurence?" she inquired piteously. "I feel that I
am lacking, and I tremble lest I should disappoint you. Indeed, I will
strive to remedy my fault, whatever it may be, if you will but be
patient with me and tell me plainly of it, and give me opportunity to
effect a cure."

But he answered her soothingly, stung by the humility and innocence of
her attitude.

"You are wanting in nothing that time will not set right. But we must
make haste slowly, sweetheart. So put all these sick fancies out of your
head. We will worry neither about past or future; but, like true
economists, will enjoy the present. Now let us talk of the time before I
left you to rejoin my ship. Of that other melancholy time, after I left
you and before I came back, and of the changes it has brought along with
it, we will talk some other day--I trust there are many days for us
ahead."

And so they remained speaking of the incidents of that mysterious former
life, of which Laurence's recollection became momentarily more
circumstantial and coherent--speaking of little things, merry and
tender, such as lovers love--until, more than once, gusts of gentle
laughter swept through the yellow drawing-room, which, for such a length
of years, had been empty of all sound of human mirth. And not until the
rose-red fingers of the dawn--in colour matching his fairy-lady's
rose-red gown--first touched the eastern sky above the dome of the lime
grove and the broken outline of the woods, did Laurence and Agnes Rivers
cease to talk. Then she got up from her place in pretty haste.

"Ah!" she said, smiling, "I must go. Good Mrs. Lambart will reprove my
indiscretion in having remained here so late."

But Laurence was bound to ask her one question, which had been in his
mind during the whole course of their interview, yet had not so far
dared put to her.

"Tell me," he said, "I waited for you--why did you not meet me here last
night?"

"Ah!" she replied, "do not let us closely inquire into that. Something
terrible was abroad in the house. I think it was the Shadow of Death. It
stood between us--or I dreamed it did so.--But we fought against it. We
conquered it--at least I dreamed that we did. And it is gone.--But now,
dear love, indeed I too must go. Good-night, or rather good-morrow.
Carry happy thoughts away with you, even as I do, to sweeten rest."

And, without more ado, she flitted across the room, as though her little
feet in their diamond-powdered slippers could not go soberly, but must
dance for very joy, and, passing behind the tall escritoire, Laurence
once again was aware that she had disappeared and left no trace.




XIX


The disposition of Montagu Rivers's property proved--as Mr. Wormald had
already advised Laurence it would prove--of a simple and straightforward
description. All the servants connected with the house and stables would
receive a couple of years' wages. Lowndes, the valet, would in addition
draw a substantial pension. Outside these provisions, Laurence inherited
wholly and solely. A single clause in the brief will revealed somewhat
of the eccentric character of its maker. Mr. Rivers directed that within
forty-eight hours of his reported death a London surgeon of acknowledged
eminence should use means to ascertain, beyond all possibility of doubt,
that death had veritably and indeed taken place. He further directed
that Armstrong, the agent, and a local practitioner who had attended him
at intervals during his illness, should be present at this rather
ghastly demonstration. It was added that the corpse should receive
Christian burial not less than twenty-four hours after the autopsy had
been carried out. The clause concluded with the following words:--

"I desire these measures to be taken--childish and superstitious though
they may appear--as a precaution against that happening, in my own case,
which would appear to have happened in the case of a former inhabitant
of Stoke Rivers."

The eminent surgeon in question, hastily summoned from amid a press of
work, could spare but one evening for his visit. He proved to be a
courtly and agreeable person, an amateur of the fine arts, with a turn
for copper-plate engravings, a weakness for Italian ivories, and an
enthusiasm for antique and renaissance gems. His work in the
death-chamber accomplished, he readily turned his attention to more
pleasing investigations; and during the hour after dinner, before the
coming of the carriage to take him to catch the up-express at Stoke
Rivers Road, he examined the contents of certain glass cases in the
library, and looked at the engravings hanging in the lower corridor.

"I little imagined, when I left town this afternoon," he said,
addressing Laurence with a peculiarly charming smile, "that such
delectable entertainment was in store for me. I am proud of my
profession--no man more so; but I am not sorry to put it aside for a
time and forget injury and disease, and even successful dealing with
them, in favour of art. This collection of your uncle's, though not
large, is remarkable. It reflects great credit upon his judgment and
taste. It contains absolutely no rubbish, hardly, indeed, a single
object which it would be just to qualify as second-rate.--Ah! here is
another admirable thing, though less in my line than those delightful
gems."

The two men had reached the end of the corridor, and the doctor paused
in front of the tapestry curtain.

"This is a very fine example," he continued, "though I could not, off
hand, be sure of the date. How broad and yet how harmonious in
colouring! Just a trifle broad in subject, too, perhaps; but our
forefathers were blessed or cursed--I am often at a loss to decide
which--with a more robust taste in sentiment than ourselves. A witty
modern writer has spoken of 'the saving grace of coarseness.' There
have been times when I have been tempted to endorse his phrase."

As he spoke, he laid hold of the edge of the curtain.

"Dear me, how singularly weighty!" He looked at his host quickly,
inquiringly, and with heightened interest. "Singularly weighty," he
repeated. "This house enjoys a reputation for a certain originality, I
understand. Would it be indiscreet to inquire to what this splendid
_portière_ either gives, or denies, access?"

Just for a moment Laurence hesitated, staring his guest very full in the
face. So far this new acquaintance had interested him greatly. His
conversation had been refreshingly varied; moreover, Laurence, in
listening to it, had become increasingly and pleasingly impressed with
the value and distinction of his lately acquired possessions. He
recognised a steadiness and sanity in the great surgeon's outlook; an
appreciation of things rare and beautiful, combined with a wisdom born
of wide practical experience; a large compassion, too, for the foibles,
and sufferings, and sins of poor human nature, unembittered by any
flavour of contempt. And so it happened that, during that moment of
hesitation, Laurence was sorely disposed to lay bare to this man--whom
he would in all probability never meet again--the abnormal situation in
which he, at the present time, found himself. If any one could grasp
that situation, and deal with it at once justly and sympathetically, he
thought this man could do so; since he appeared to have passed the
limits of denial and scepticism, and reached that composure and poise of
mind wherein revolt ceases and the capacity of acceptance and belief
becomes almost unlimited. But--perhaps unfortunately--Laurence put the
inclination towards free speech from him as a temptation. Was he not
bound by his promise to the dead? He was bound still more, perhaps, by
personal pride. It appeared to him free speech would be a yielding, a
weakness; so he answered suavely, yet with a sufficient loftiness to
leave no room for further question--

"Behind the curtain is that which, indirectly, has procured me the great
pleasure of receiving you here to-day."

As he spoke he turned, and led the way in the direction of the hall
again.

"I'm uncommonly glad," he added, "that you have such a high opinion of
my uncle's little collection. Perhaps it may induce you to come down
here again sometime, from Saturday to Monday, and overhaul the contents
of these cases at your leisure. I am afraid I'm a bit of a barbarian,
and don't reckon with them as reverently as I ought. I am a good deal
better up in the points of polo ponies than in those of Popes' rings, I
know."

"That is no matter for regret," the doctor replied, in his most courtly
manner. "My esteem for the barbarian increases rather than diminishes as
I grow older. And I never forget that these delicacies of art are, after
all, the refuge of those who have outlived or injured their digestion
of, and appetite for, simpler and more wholesome diet. Such dyspeptics
are to be commiserated rather than commended. As long as the romance of
sport and travel holds you, as long as you still 'love the bright eyes
of danger,' you can very well afford to leave the consolations offered
by gems, and ivories, and such like sweepings from the ruins of departed
civilisations, to the physically and emotionally decrepit."

He shrugged his shoulders.

"Ah, youth," he said, "immortal youth, and the rather savage joys of
it!--I congratulate you far more profoundly upon the possession of
these, and upon the magnificent health which I cannot but perceive to be
yours, than upon your extremely interesting house and both its seen"--he
paused, looking rather hard at Laurence and smiling--"and unseen
treasures.--A cigar? Yes, thanks, I think I will permit myself that
indulgence on my way down to the station.--But to return to my
contention. Remember we only take to sweet-sop when our teeth are no
longer sound enough for ship's biscuit. Eat ship's biscuit and relish it
just as long as a merciful Providence permits you to do so, my dear
young gentleman. The days of sweet-sop, of the armchair, of what we are
pleased to call 'the judicial attitude of mind,' but which is really
nothing save the natural consequence of a sluggish and defective
circulation, will come all too soon in any case. Adieu to you--"

A flash of carriage lamps at the open hall door, the two
men-servants--restored to their habitual correctness of bearing--armed
with rugs, greatcoat, and narrow leather bag of slightly sinister
aspect--the snort of a horse in the night air, fresh from the
comfortable warmth of the stable--and, after further farewells, Laurence
went back into the hot, bright, silent house.

"No one need sit up, Renshaw," he said to the waiting butler. "I shall
watch in Mr. Rivers's room alone to-night."

For this was to be a night of abstinence, so the young man had decided,
from the dear sight of his fairy-lady and the delight of her
miraculously recovered speech. He had a duty to perform to the dead man,
lying solitary upstairs--though hardly more solitary now, than during
the long years past in which he had repudiated all solace of human
affection. To Laurence himself life had become almost terribly well
worth living since he had set foot in Stoke Rivers little more than a
week ago; and it was to this man, of cold and narrow nature, that, after
all, he owed this notable enlargement of interests and opportunity--not
to mention those material advantages of houses, lands, and costly
furnishings which had come to him. Gratitude was very much in place; and
it seemed to him that a silent vigil in that stately bed-chamber would
be only fitting, both as an act of piety, and as testimony to the
gratitude now no longer permitted expression either in spoken word or
kindly act. Nor could Laurence help hoping that during those solemn
hours he might arrive at a clear determination regarding the
future--ceasing merely to drift passive and acquiescent to the push of
circumstance, as a rudderless boat to the push of the tide. He would
direct his own course, be master of his own action, prepared to
take--for good or ill--all the consequences that action might involve.
For, all the while--and it was worse than useless to shirk remembrance
of that--all the while, across the Atlantic, under the bright American
skies, bright as they, immediate and modern as the civilisation on which
they look down, was the vivacious, young, society beauty, whom he had
believed he loved, whom he very certainly had married, and to whom--in
the opinion of both her world and his own--his honour and his whole
future stood pledged. The question of Virginia--for the whole situation
resolved itself fundamentally into that--the question of Virginia must
be reckoned with, and the results of such reckoning accepted once and
for all.

He had not visited that upstairs room since the night of his uncle's
death. The impression then received of the furnace-like fire, and the
apparent life and motion of those figures of enslaved and half-bestial
womanhood supporting the bed, were still present to his recollection.
But now, as he passed into the room, he found the change worked there
very arresting. All trace of that which had gone forward, earlier in the
evening, under the hands of the eminent surgeon, had been obliterated.
The room was orderly, stately as ever; but it was very cold. The hearth
was swept and empty. One casement stood wide open, and by it entered a
continuous breathing of bleak wind. A single electric burner was turned
on, and, in the low steady light shed by it, the carven figures of the
ebony bed offered no illusion of life or motion; they showed rigid as
the long, narrow body they guarded, the angular outline of which was
perceptible beneath the fine linen sheet--upon the surface of which
sprigs of rosemary and box lay scattered.

Laurence moved across, intending to turn back the upper part of the
sheet and look on the face of the dead; but as he did so a bent form
rose silently from the armchair, set at right angles to the fireless
hearth, and took up its position on the far side of the bed opposite to
him. Though by no means addicted to nervous alarms, Laurence felt a
chill run through him, right up to the roots of his hair. Was it
conceivable that he beheld the Umbra or Corporeal Soul, of which Ovid
speaks, and that this phantom would keep watch with him over its own
unburied corpse during the coming hours? His sweet fairy-lady was one
thing, and this quite another, in the line of disembodied spirits. Stoke
Rivers, apparently, was not a comfortable place to die in. Laurence
registered a hasty vow that he, for one, would take precious good care
to arrange to die somewhere else! But as he gazed, somewhat fearfully,
at the intruder, it declared itself pathetically and pitifully
human--nothing more recondite, indeed, than Lowndes, the wiry,
long-armed, grey-faced valet.

"I thought it proper to wait till you should come, sir," he said, under
his breath. "Though Mr. Rivers has no need of my services now, I have
attended on him too constantly to feel it fitting I should be out of
call."--His voice quavered, and he cleared his throat.--"He was a
gentleman that rarely praised, sir. Some might have thought him harsh;
but that was because his mind was so engaged with study. In all the
forty years I waited on him, he never gave me an uncivil word; and it is
not many gentlemen of whom you can say that."

He lent across, carefully removed some sprigs of box lying high on the
sheet, then folded it down quickly and skilfully across the chest.
Laurence was aware of a jealous devotion in his attitude. No hands save
his own should again touch his dead master. But the sheet once arranged
to his satisfaction, he stepped back, a pace or two, into the shadow of
the damask curtains.

Then the young man looked long and silently upon the dead.
Notwithstanding its extreme emaciation, the face was gentler than in
life. This was not merely owing to the closing of the brilliant eyes. An
immense calm rested on it. The hunger of the intellect was stayed at
last; and the face was majestic in its composure--the face of one who
has passed, for ever, beyond the tyranny of desire. Looking on it,
Laurence bowed himself reverently in spirit, while the conviction rooted
itself in him, that of all virtues the most fertile, the most admirable,
is courage. For the weak, the dismayed, for skulkers, liars, and
dastards, in whatever department of action or of thought, there is small
hope--so he told himself--either here or hereafter. The battle is to the
strong; and, therefore, to be strong is the one and only thing which
really signifies.

And then it came to him, with a sense of sudden satisfaction, that this
most desirable thing, strength, was altogether part of his own
inheritance, did he choose to claim it. For the first time he
appreciated the value of that strain of fanaticism resident in his
blood. He had feared it a little, and apologised to himself for its
existence heretofore. He had made a prodigious mistake; for now that
strain of fanaticism revealed itself as among the most excellent things
of his birthright. He remained motionless, gazing, no longer at the
carven bed and its rigid burden, but away to the open casement--in at
which came the breathing of the bleak night-wind--his head held high,
and a singular compression about the corners of his mouth.
Virginia?--Just now Virginia, and all and any obligation he might have
contracted towards her, went for very little. He stood apart, complete
in himself, regardless of custom, regardless even of so-called morality,
should these interfere between him and his purpose. His sense of humour
in regard to himself--humour, eternal enemy of all exaggerations and
fixed ideas--was in abeyance. He knew that, knew it was dangerous. But
then, as the courtly surgeon had so lately reminded him, what so
adorable, after all, as those same "bright eyes of danger"--let danger
come, how and when it may?--Conventionalities? He bade them pack, all
the sort of them. Their day was over. The day of scruples was over
likewise. His position was unexampled. He took the risks, along with the
joys, of it. As his forefathers had been, so would he be. He felt an
extraordinary exaltation and freedom of spirit. And feeling this he
laughed a little, just as he had laughed when rallying his men amid the
roar of cannon and scream of the grinding ships, in the famous sea-fight
off the southern Spanish coast at Trafalgar.

But the old valet, hearing that most unexpected, and to him unseemly,
sound, emerged from the discreet shadow of the damask curtains and
stretched his long arms to draw the sheet again up over the face of the
corpse.

"You have done, sir?" he asked in accents of severity.

"No," Laurence answered, the excitement of his thoughts still strong
upon him--"I have only just begun; but, thank God, or devil, or what you
will, I have begun at last."




XX


The funeral was over. Those few gentlemen of the neighbourhood who had
felt it incumbent upon them to appear in person, had departed. So had
the empty broughams of their more numerous neighbours, who proposed to
offer a maximum of respect to the dead with a minimum of trouble to
themselves. The Archdeacon also had started on his homeward journey to
Bishop's Pudbury. At Mr. Beal's earnest entreaty he had been invited by
Laurence Rivers to take part in the function. The young clergyman had
been sadly exercised by scruples regarding the propriety of consigning
the mortal remains of an admitted sceptic and scoffer to the grave, with
words of Christian hope and blessing. What was left for believers if
unbelievers thus benefited? The conscience of his superior officer was
happily of less flabby texture.

"Charity before all things, my dear Walter," the latter had said, in his
full, sonorous voice, when the ingenuous young man had unfolded his
difficulties. "It is not for you, or even for me, to judge and condemn
a fellow-creature. If not an active churchman, remember Mr. Rivers
displayed no leanings towards Rome or any other schismatic body. For
this we must be very thankful. There are occasions, moreover, as you
will learn in time, when the purely ecclesiastical attitude may fitly be
modified by the knowledge of the man of the world. We yield no point,
mark you; but we abstain from pressing a wrong point at a wrong time.
Judgment, statesmanship--therein lies the practical application of the
sacred injunction, 'Be ye wise as serpents and harmless as doves.' To
raise objections in the present case would be to increase rather than
mitigate the possibility of scandal--probably, moreover, it would be to
alienate the sympathies of young Mr. Rivers. We must learn never to
sacrifice the future to the present, my dear Walter. To do so is to fall
into errors of misplaced zeal--a very dangerous thing. Much, I cannot
but think, may be done with young Mr. Rivers. Wisely handled, he should
prove of considerable local service to the Church."

So the good young man's soul received comfort.

"What a privilege it is to talk with you, sir!" he said. "I always learn
so much."

Last to go, as he had been first to arrive at Stoke Rivers, was Captain
Bellingham.

"Poor old chap, I tell you, I've had him very much on my mind, Louise,
these last few days," he had said to his wife, that morning, at
breakfast. "It's only decent charity to see him through. I hear he's
looking uncommonly hipped. You thought him rather queer, you know, the
day he had luncheon here. Mercy for him the old gentleman died as soon
as he did--perfectly mad, too, I hear, and an infernal temper. It's
enough to make any one jumpy to be dancing attendance on such a deathbed
as that day after day; and in that gloomy, ghostly house too. I couldn't
have done it, I know, without getting most frightfully broken up. We
must try to get him over here for a day or two. Write him a nice note,
will you, Louise; it would be awfully good of you, and I will do my best
to bring him back with me to-night. Ought to be quiet to-morrow, I
suppose, for the sake of appearances; but the day after let's have
General Powys and the Westons to dinner. I want to rattle him up a bit."

But neither Mrs. Bellingham's neatly worded note, nor her husband's
hospitable entreaties, moved Laurence Rivers. He had quite other fish to
fry. All he asked for was solitude and sunset; and his courtesy was
slightly perfunctory and formal in consequence--so much so, indeed, that
on his return Jack Bellingham remarked to his wife:--

"Rivers always was such a good-hearted, sensible sort of fellow, that
it's hardly likely coming into this property would turn his head. He's
above any vulgarity of that kind. All the same, he really was curiously
stand-offish to everybody to-day. The Archdeacon meant to make an
afternoon of it, and was a little bit huffed, I think. Rivers was
perfectly civil, only he gave us pretty clearly to understand there was
no call for any of us to dawdle. I don't know, but somehow I tell you,
Louise, I don't quite like his look. We shall see. It would be an awful
pity if he followed in the footsteps of the late lamented and turned out
a crank."

"I know it," Mrs. Bellingham replied calmly. "But you omit Virginia. I
have never seen a woman less likely to tolerate a crank as her husband
than Virginia."

And so at length the accustomed quiet settled down on Stoke Rivers.
Dinner was over, and the unwelcome daylight fairly flown. Abstinence had
gone to sharpen the edge of hunger, and Laurence made his way down the
corridor, pulled the curtain towards him, and entered the room of
mysterious meetings in a humour to venture much. At the escritoire stood
his fairy-lady, and at the sound of the closing door she turned and
extended her arms, a world of delicate welcome in her gesture and her
face. Then, as he came towards her, she drew back a little, as though
penitent of the fervour of her greeting. Her lips moved, but no sound
issued from them; and a quick fear went through the young man that,
through the action of some malign influence, she had declined upon her
former condition and once again become dumb. This raised the spirit of
battle in him, and reinforced his resolution to effect her emancipation
from the control of whatever opposing power--physical or
spiritual--might hold her in its grasp. The more so that, for all her
gladness, there was a hint of trouble, a little cloud of distress upon
her face, which provoked him to indignation. He hated that--be it what
it might--which held her sweet being in thrall.

"Agnes, why is this? Why don't you speak to me?" he demanded.

Whereat she smiled, as one who loves yet deprecates another's
unreasoning heat.

"How can I speak," she asked, "until you have first spoken to me?"

"But why not? I don't understand," he said.

"Nor I," she answered; "only I know that so it is. I cannot explain the
why and wherefore of this, or of much besides, to myself. I am to myself
at once real and unreal--as an echo, a shadow, the reflection in a
mirror, is at once real and unreal."

She looked at him seriously, wonderingly, as though trying to take
counsel with him against herself.

"I see with your eyes, I speak with your voice, I comprehend with your
mind when you are present. When you are absent, I become as the echo
unevoked by any sound, as the shadow when neither sun or moon look
forth to cast it, as the reflection in the mirror when that of which it
was the image has moved away. Only my heart remains to me; and it, when
you are absent, longs and searches, journeying from place to place,
formless, wordless, and blind, sensible only of its own infelicity,
while seeking that which alone can bring it ease and light."

"My poor love!" Laurence said gently, greatly moved; "my poor love!"

For a space he was silent, pondering upon her words, almost staggered by
the intensity of her innocent passion. He was not worthy to inspire such
devotion. Had that other Laurence Rivers, his predecessor and namesake,
been more worthy, he wondered. Shame covered him in face of the
deception he was in process of practising upon her. But he put the
thought of that from him fiercely. For was he not prepared to take all
the risks? Surely his action was justified--was it not a work of mercy
to rescue and restore this gentle and homeless ghost? And then, since
the air was mild and the young moon lent an added charm to the formal
alleys of the Italian garden, Laurence, hoping thereby both to allay his
own perturbation of spirit and dissipate the melancholy which still sat
in the clear depths of Agnes Rivers's lovely eyes, engaged her to come
out, once more, and walk. But though the charm of the garden was great,
he almost regretted that he had invited her to leave the shelter of the
house, she appeared so anxiously elusive and fragile a creature.
Watching her, though his courage was stubborn and his will fiercely set,
the task he had undertaken appeared hopeless of accomplishment. But if
the task was hopeless, all the more must it be fulfilled--that had been
the way of his people, and henceforth it was to be his way. And so he
talked to her with a certain lightness, looking at her and smiling.

"Are you happy, Agnes?" he asked her at last.

And she answered with a return to her daintily demure and old-world
manner--

"I should, indeed, be ungrateful were I not so, dear Laurence. Yet,
since you question me, I must own a distrust of the future works a black
thread through all the glad pattern of the present."

She paused, glancing back somewhat timidly at the house. Every window of
it was lighted, save those of Mr. Rivers's bed-chamber. These last were
dark and blank, producing an arresting effect, and recalling to Laurence
the empty eye-sockets of the crystal _memento mori_.

"You are here with me," she continued, "and again I taste happiness. Yet
I am oppressed by the persuasion that, as before, in some hour of
peculiar promise and security you will be called from my side. And that
this time--ah! I fear you may justly reproach my weakness and deride my
far-fetched alarms--this time, going, you will not return; or returning,
you will no longer find me here to greet you."

"Then very certainly I will never go--that is unless you yourself send
me," Laurence said. He walked on a few paces, and then added, speaking
almost sullenly, answering his own thoughts rather than her
words--"Thank Heaven, I am my own master at last. No one can compel me.
I can do as I think fit; and since I think fit to stay, stay I most
assuredly will, here among my own people, and in my own house."

He looked at his companion, instinctively desiring to read approval in
her eyes; but her expression was one of startled inquiry.

"Forgive me," she said, "either Mrs. Lambart has omitted to tell me,
fearing to shock me, or in my heedlessness I have forgotten. Are you
indeed master here, dear Laurence? How is that? Can it be that your
brother Dudley is dead?"

"Yes," he answered, "the old order has changed--and yet not changed
perhaps so very much after all, for it appears the owners of Stoke
Rivers, ancient and modern, are very much of one blood. But, in truth,
Dudley is gone, and others have gone--God rest both him and them--and I
reign in their stead."

"Yes, God rest his soul," she said; and then repeated softly--"Poor
Dudley! poor unhappy Dudley!"

But Laurence, noting her pensive bearing, and hearing the gently
regretful tones of her voice, was pricked pretty sharply by a point of
jealousy from out the long past.

"Is it a matter of so very much grief to you, Agnes," he asked, "to hear
the news of your cousin Dudley's death?"

Whereupon she turned on him eyes very reassuringly full of love;
while--after a little space--her lips curved into a delicious and almost
saucy smile.

"Ah! I feared you had grown old and wise," she exclaimed. "I was foolish
to vex myself. I see you are indubitably the same Laurence as ever."

She laughed very sweetly, sweeping him a delicate curtsey.

"The very same Laurence as ever," she repeated exultingly.

Then she flitted away--as though, child-like, joy of heart must needs
find relief in movement--down the long alley across the oblique shadows
cast by the sentinel cypresses, until she reached the great, stone basin
of the terminal fountain. Here she paused, gazing down at the smooth,
slow movements of the sleepless fish.

The borders on either side the walk were set out with bulbs and early
flowering plants. As yet the majority of these showed but bud, or
upstanding sheaths of leaf. The gilly-stocks only were fully in blossom.
The clean, homely fragrance of them hung in the still air; but the
moonlight had bleached their honest orange and russet faces, making
them, like all else of the scene, but varying degrees of light and dark.
Alone in this colourless world, frail though it was and ethereal, had
the sweet figure of Agnes Rivers retained its actual hues. The brown of
her hair, the warm pallor of her skin, the blue of her profound and now
laughing eyes, the soft rose-red of her silken gown, defied the chill of
the moonlight. And this, as Laurence moved towards her, deepened alike
the charm and the mystery of her appearance. It captivated his
imagination. It stimulated his ambition. It challenged the deep places
of his love. The hopeless task must indeed be accomplished. The
impossible must come to pass. Daring that which no other man had dared,
he would earn a reward such as no other man had dreamed. But he must be
cautious, and discreet, and very gentle. The diplomatist, for a long
while to come, must hold the lover in check if the end was to be gained.

And just then Agnes Rivers's voice broke into a little song, hardly
articulate, but clear and instinct with delight, even as the songs of
birds, very early in spring, when pairing time has but just begun. Yet
enchanting as the tones were, there was in them something remote and
beyond the compass of human thought, piercing the young man to the very
heart, so that he cried to her--

"Ah! my dear, come down, come near. Leave your singing, it is too sweet.
It has too much to do with spirit and too little with flesh. It cuts
like a knife. There--there--I am not blaming you, God forbid. Only, you
have lived so long on the borderland between those two worlds, of which
you once spoke, that you have a little lost touch with ordinary mortals
such as I. Come down, come near. Don't you see what I mean? Don't you
know what I want?"

And after gentle converse, when that morning the dawn broke and with
words of tender farewell, his fairy-lady crossed the yellow drawing-room
and passed at the back of the outstanding satin-wood escritoire, as her
habit was, it appeared to Laurence that, for the first time, a faint
shadow followed her little feet. And this filled him with great and
far-reaching hope--as the first dim greyness of land along the horizon
fills the sailor after long voyaging upon the open sea. Nevertheless,
she vanished as before, leaving him solitary, while of the manner of her
going there remained no sign.




XXI


Days multiplied into weeks, March passed into April, April into May,
June came with all its roses, the lime-trees flowered once again, and
the scent of them was wafted across the broad lawns and in at the open
windows, yet Laurence stayed on at Stoke Rivers. He had ceased to
apologise for, or seek to justify his action. The fanatical, extravagant
element of his character was fully in the ascendant, and it was
conveniently contemptuous of criticism. He had become a law unto
himself. He stayed because he intended to stay--there was the beginning
and end of the matter. Meanwhile, he made discovery of pleasures subtle
and subjective, hitherto unimagined. Living the life of the recluse, he
enjoyed that sense of inward harmony and freedom of spirit known only to
those who dare divorce themselves from society, with its many tyrannies,
and from familiar commerce with their fellowmen. He experienced the
sensible increase of will-power, and the mental elation, that are born
of solitude, silence, and whole-hearted devotion to a single idea. The
values shifted, and many worldly matters, many amusements, which had
formerly appeared to him of vital importance, now began to appear
slightly absurd. He ate and drank sparingly, since meat and liquor tend
to render the action of the brain sluggish, and the imagination somewhat
gross. His dear fairy-lady should regain the completeness of her
humanity; but he would fit himself to meet her half way on her
mysterious return journey from the regions of the dead, by purging
himself of all superfluous animality.

And his environment lent itself to these practices and experiments. The
household had settled back into its accustomed decorum and regularity.
It asked no questions, it obeyed in respectful silence. And, if certain
tremors shook it at times in face of its new master's supposed dealings
with things occult and supernatural, it accepted them as a necessary
part of its service. Indeed, it may be questioned whether Lowndes, the
grey-faced, long-armed valet, Renshaw, and Watkins, irreproachably
correct of demeanour, would not have suffered far greater inconvenience
and perturbation had they been called upon to adapt themselves to the
ordinary ways of the ordinary, English country-gentleman. Their pride
would have suffered likewise, since eccentricity had been so long
enthroned in their midst, that its absence would have seemed a loss of
_prestige_, a regrettable coming down in the social scale. They
displayed much solicitude for Laurence's comfort, and much grim alacrity
in turning guests from his door. Captain Bellingham's fears that his
friend might develop into a crank appeared to be in very fair road to
fulfilment; but the household rejoiced silently and grimly thereat.

So did not Armstrong, the shrewd and kindly Scotch agent.

"Whether the place induces a whimsicality in the family, or the family
in the place, I would not presume to declare," he lamented one day, when
having a crack with a trusted friend and fellow-countryman. "It is like
the matter of priority between the owl and the egg, a hidden thing,
transcending human wit. But a certain impracticability is assuredly bred
in their bones, poor bodies, which needs must eventually come out in the
flesh of every one of them. They're over proud of the intelligence of
which it has pleased the Almighty to bestow on them so handsome a
portion--as the intelligence of Saxons and Southerners go, you
understand. And being puffed up with conceit of themselves they proceed
to apply their bit of unusual reason in wild and impolitic speculations,
to the endangering of their own and other persons' peace and security. A
sair pity, a sair pity! Not that I would deny degrees in the natural
wrong-headedness of the poor, misguided creatures. The present
representative of the family is a young man of excellent parts and
practical ability; and though I fear he is going astray in some
particulars, I find in him a praiseworthy application to business, by
times."

For in good truth, notwithstanding the dominion of his fixed idea,
Laurence was determined on the improvement of his somewhat neglected
estate. Every afternoon saw him ride forth to visit farm or distant
hamlet, to superintend operations of fencing, draining, or building, to
mark wood and copse-land for future cutting. Specially was he interested
in the construction of a light railway from Stoke Rivers Road to some
gypsum quarries at Hazledown, about three miles distant, the worth of
which would be doubled by direct and permanent means of transport.
Silent and self-absorbed for the most part, he rode about the charming
Sussex country while the gay, spring weather matured into the glow and
heat of summer. And all the while against his heart lay the poignant
delight of a great romance, and in his eyes sat the light of a great
adventure. He was very happy, so happy that, while he longed for the
attainment of his purpose and strained every nerve to accomplish it, he
almost dreaded that accomplishment since it must rob him of the sweet
and gracious present.

And that such accomplishment drew on as the summer went forward he could
not doubt. For his fairy-lady had grown less timid than of old, braving
now the earlier dusk, now the later dawn, as the fancy took her; while a
veritable shadow clung unquestionably to her little feet, and lengthened
behind or beside her. Though no less slender and graceful than before,
her person was less ethereal. It appeared to gain a certain substance, a
greater opacity; while her movements were more measured. Once or twice
Laurence had fancied he saw her pale face flush under sudden emotion, as
though blood once more began to course beneath the clear, smooth skin.
Her talk, moreover, was less of the past than of the present. At times
she would ask questions, not wholly easy for him to answer without
revealing those things regarding which he had agreed with himself to
keep silence. But on many matters he had come to speak to her freely,
telling her of his daily occupations and affairs, of the books he read,
even of passing events of public interest. And to all his talk she
listened now thoughtfully, now with pretty mirth, offering not only
sympathy, but discreet counsel, while sometimes a touch of far-reaching
and singularly mature wisdom gave a significant value to her speech.
There were moments, indeed, when Laurence gazed at her in wonder, for
she betrayed a depth and daring of thought impossible to a young girl,
however good her training and notable her natural talents--thought only
possible to one who had discounted the many subterfuges and illusions of
life, as most mortals see and live it, by apprehension of things
supramundane, eternal, and so of infinite moment to the conscience and
the heart.

She grew in womanhood, and she grew in the charm of distinction and of a
fine equality. Yet the mystery surrounding her was to Laurence in no
wise lessened. For he began to perceive that, if he held back somewhat
from her knowledge concerning himself, she, notwithstanding her
transparent sincerity and the perfection of her love, held back somewhat
from him. She played with him, she eluded him; and he perceived that her
lovely soul--did he dwell with her for a thousand years--would still
have its surprises for him, and its secret places, adorably difficult of
access. Then, too, for all her increasing humanity, the way of her
coming at sundown, and going at sunrise remained unexplained as ever.

One morning in late June, standing in the bay-window, with the fragrance
of the blossoming garden and the songs of awakening birds saluting them,
he questioned her on this matter. Her hand rested in his--no longer
perceptible as a mere pulsation, such as might be caused by the
fluttering wings of a captive butterfly. It had substance now, actual,
though very delicate, weight. And feeling this, amazement and ecstasy
invaded Laurence. His eyes were alight and his blood hot.

"You are going?" he asked. "But why should you go? Stay and see the day
in its beauty."

But she smiled on him, a serious and enigmatic smile, though very full
of tenderness.

"The day does not belong to me yet," she answered. "I cannot take that
which is not mine."

"Everything is ours if we dare take it," Laurence said. "Possession is
in the act, not in the fact. You create law by believing in and
submitting to it. Cease to believe, cease to submit, the prohibition,
the obligation, vanishes into fine air. The day is yours, dear love, and
all the vigorous life and joy of it, if you will but venture. Have just
a little courage. Try--"

But she shook her pretty head, still smiling, though, as it seemed to
Laurence, rather mournfully.

"Then tell me where you go," he said. "Tell me where you pass all the
hours when you are not here? See, I have been very patient, I have
asked you no questions. And yet, loving you as I do, I have a right to
hear."

"Ah!" she answered playfully, though with a touch of sadness--"what an
importunate being you have suddenly become! Yet why?--Half your life is
hidden from me, dear Laurence, and I do not ask to have it otherwise.
Why, then, should not half of mine be hidden from you? Indeed, it is
always so between man and woman, I think, whether they know it--as we
do--or know it not."

But Laurence was not in the humour to have his inquiry put aside thus
lightly.

"Still tell me--tell me," he insisted. "Look here, really I am not
unreasonable." He laughed a little, looking at her very charmingly in
mingled eagerness and command,--"For your exits and entrances are not as
those of other women, Agnes, so tell me. Or let me go with you
wheresoever you go. Or just--it is very simple--don't go--stay right
here, and brave the glory of the sunrise. Stay!--"

As he spoke, long shafts of pale, golden light shot through the openings
between the high-standing trees of the eastern woodland, and lay in
misty radiance along the dewy lawns, touching the heads of the
cypresses, and flashing upon the upspringing waters of the fountains.

"Ah, have patience--but a little trifle of patience yet, dearest love,"
Agnes Rivers pleaded. "Only wait, and that which is to be will surely
declare itself. I would so gladly stay--or gladly take you with me,
going; but I can do neither, though why, I do not at present fully
comprehend."

She turned, and for a moment stood facing the sunlight, bright in its
royal brightness, looking out on the fair, summer landscape, an infinite
hope and yearning in her lovely face. Then she folded her hands high
upon her bosom--slightly ruffling the smooth surface of her dainty,
muslin cape--bowed her head meekly as in worship, and moved away. As she
passed, Laurence--standing a little behind her--for the first time heard
the soft sound of her rapid footfall, and the whisper of her silken
gown.

The young man, too, worshipped the rising sun after his manner--a
manner, it must be admitted, by no means of the meekest. The room was
empty, but he did not greatly care, for his great purpose seemed so
close upon consummation. The crisis was very near now. Before that
splendid, June sun rose to-morrow--so he told himself--his work would be
complete. She was so nearly human, his dear fairy-lady; her pure spirit
so strangely, yet sensibly, in process of clothing itself with sweet,
living flesh. He would set bread and wine before her, in the small hours
when this bright day was dead. She should eat and drink of a sacramental
feast, designed to secure, not eternal life to the soul, in this case,
but mortal life to the beautiful, young body which he so desired and
loved.

Thus did Laurence Rivers hail the sunrise, filled with an immense pride
of his own action, his own will, and the powers of his race, deeming
himself a worker of miracles and equal of the immortal gods.




XXII


Laurence swung himself down from the high, two-wheeled dogcart at the
front door. The sky was lowering, the evening sultry after a burning
day. Down in the south-east a storm was brewing, with low mutterings of
thunder. The air was curiously still, yet now and again, among the thick
foliage of the limes and chestnuts, a few leaves would flutter
tumultuously as though stricken with panic, and then become motionless
as suddenly and causelessly as they had become agitated. Laurence was
late and had driven home rapidly, not sparing his horse--a young,
thorough-bred brown, which he had bought about a fortnight before, and
which was new as yet to harness. It was all of a lather and sweat, and
stood with outstretched neck and open, heavily-breathing nostrils. He
looked at it with a slight sense of compunction, and gave some orders to
the groom. It was a little hard to have pressed the poor beast; but he
had been out all the afternoon, mapping out the projected course of the
light railway to the Hazledown quarries, with Armstrong and an
engineering expert, and he had been kept later than he anticipated. As
it was, he had barely time for a bath, and to dress, before dinner at a
quarter-past eight. His mind still ran upon questions of gradients and
detail of expenditure. He had thrown himself energetically into
practical work. It was best to do so, with the climax of his great
adventure looming so large just ahead. All day he had been conscious of
a quiet, sustained excitement engendered by the double life he was
leading. It stimulated the action of his brain. The engineer had warmly
approved some of his suggestions and adopted them. This pleased
Laurence. It was not a little satisfactory to find himself thus capable
and "on the spot," while interests of so very different a character
formed the under-current of his thought. It fed self-confidence, and
justified his determination of daring action.

After a look, first at the sweating horse and then at the lowering sky,
he hurried into the hall. The storm, if it came up at all, would not
break yet. Probably it would travel along the northern horizon following
the line of the Downs. How hot it was, though! The house felt cool by
comparison with the atmosphere outside. Then, just inside the door, the
two men-servants met him, Renshaw with a salver in his hand.

"A telegram for you, sir," he said--adding--"do you wish dinner put off
for a quarter-of-an-hour or so, sir?"

"No--no," Laurence answered absently, "I shall be down in plenty of
time."

As he spoke he tore open the ugly, orange-coloured envelope. The sheet
of dirty-pink paper within contained but a few words.

"Wanted here immediately. Return next steamer. Virginia."

Laurence bathed, dressed, dined, while at intervals the thunder muttered
far away in the east, and the dark came swiftly as with great strides.
In the centre of the table the cut-glass bowl, upheld by the dancing,
golden figures, again to-night, as on the second night of Laurence's
visit to Stoke Rivers--which now seemed such an incredibly long time
ago--held fantastic, single flowers and sprays of orchids, some mottled,
warty, toad-like, some tiger-coloured striped with black. These last
gave off a heavy, musky scent. The oppressive heat, too, was suggestive
of that earlier evening,--though the windows now stood wide open. But
then, whatever the discomfort of his physical sensations, Laurence had
been light-hearted enough. His life, if not particularly full of
purpose, had at least been free of entanglement. He had neither climbed
heights nor sounded depths. His honour was untarnished, by so much as a
questionable thought. Now the splendour of life had got him, he was in
the full swing of his great opportunity; but his conscience was not
clear as at that former period, and that--which seemed not a little
ironical--though he had lived more austerely than of old, abjuring all
frivolity and denying himself all bodily indulgence.

Laurence juggled neither with himself or with the facts of the case. He
did not whimper or grumble. In accepting the risks of his own action, he
had of necessity accepted this one. It was just the fortune of war--not
an altogether pretty fortune for a man who plumed himself on a nice
taste in matters of honour, perhaps, but that was hardly to the point.
The present position was an inevitable consequence of all which had
preceded it, and was bound to present itself sooner or later. Remorse
and anger were alike futile and out of place. The question resolved
itself into this--what to do next?

Laurence dropped the stump of his cigarette into his finger-bowl, and
sat resting his elbows on the table and his forehead in his hands,
thinking.--For Virginia meant what she said. Of course she did. Virginia
always meant what she said, sometimes a little more--certainly never
less. And her reasons for saying that which she said were always
perfectly convincing to herself. Virginia was never impulsive; her
action was always the outcome of intention. Therefore it was useless to
temporise or ask explanations by means of that far-flashing cable. In
her letters Virginia had lately commented upon the length of his
absence--quite good-temperedly. Virginia was always good-tempered;
partly, perhaps, because she had never had occasion to learn what
opposition meant. This telegram was her ultimatum; but whether delivered
of her own free will and initiative, or in deference to some unusual
circumstance, illness, accident, or sudden financial crisis, he could
not, of course, divine. Yet even so, the position remained very simple.
There were but two paths. One or other he must choose. Either he must
obey her, and that unquestioningly and directly--this was Thursday, the
next American mail left Liverpool at the end of the week--or he must
refuse; and that, he believed, meant a break with Virginia.

Laurence remained very still for a time. A break with Virginia?--Yes;
the storm was working round by the north as he had anticipated.--He had
no complaint to make against Virginia, Heaven forbid! She was just
precisely that which she had always been--in her own sphere and
connection, from the modern and mundane point of view, an eminently and
admirably clever person. He agreed with her disciple, Mrs. Bellingham,
that in social affairs she possessed a _savoir faire_ and intelligence
amounting to positive genius. She was absolutely self-reliant. She had
never been surprised or nonplussed in all her life, and--and--

Laurence rose to his feet, crossed the room and rang the bell. His face
had grown singularly hard. It bore but slight resemblance to that of his
namesake, the gallant and debonair young Laurence Rivers of the Cosway
miniature. Indeed, his eyes were coldly brilliant, his lips almost as
thin as those of Montagu Rivers, his uncle, but lately dead.--Well, he
proposed to enlarge Virginia's experience. He proposed to surprise, to
nonplus her. It was a blackguardly thing to do, and she, of all women,
would be the last to forgive it. So much the better, he did not want her
to forgive it. He proposed to repudiate Virginia, he proposed to desert
her--and then, fortunately, the American divorce laws are easy.

When Renshaw answered the bell he said--

"Leave the fruit and wine on the table, and bring an uncut loaf of new,
white bread. Don't sit up. I shall be late, and I wish to have the house
to myself to-night."




XXIII


Pulling out the heavy curtain, Laurence paused, for an unwonted sound
saluted his ears, to which, at first, they refused credence. He opened
the door quietly. The sound continued. The keys of the piano were struck
so softly that they gave forth little more than the echo of a melody.
His fairy-lady sat at the instrument; and, so absorbed was she in the
making of this dainty music, that the young man had crossed the room and
leaned his elbows on the edge of the flat piano-case opposite to her
before she looked up at him. Nor, meeting his eyes, did she leave
playing, but let her fingers still draw forth that procession of slender
phrases from the discoloured, ivory notes--phrases not only exquisitely
refined, but with a tremulous _coquetterie_ in them, the music of some
polite and graceful minuet, in which Boucher's fine fanciful, little
figures of lover and mistress, courtier and prince, painted upon the
satin-wood escritoire, might have moved and postured, with a hundred
pretty arts and invitations at the court of Louis the Fifteenth, over a
century ago.

The fine-drawn, little melody, and all its suggestions of past
intrigues, heart-burnings, elegant if questionable joys, and luxurious
living, knocked at the door of the listener's heart with rather perilous
pathos, notwithstanding his stern humour. Agnes Rivers's eyes too, as
she looked steadily at him, were at once grave with thought and
beseeching as those of a child, covetous of a possible pleasure, yet
ready to swallow its poor tears should that pleasure be denied. Her lips
were parted, but she did not speak. She only gazed and gazed at
him--while still calling forth those frail and courteous harmonies--as
though she sought to penetrate the most hidden recesses of his nature.

And all this worked strongly upon Laurence, stirring in him memories of
just such hot evenings, when, with windows set wide upon the fragrant
garden, and the wild brightness of the summer lightning pulsing--as
now--upon the far horizon, they had sat together making music, she and
he, nearly a hundred years back. That first love of theirs had been
shattered by cruel calamity of wounds and death. It had never found its
consummation; and now the ache of its frustration was added to the ache
of the present--of his passion so strongly held in check during the last
many weeks; of his long-sustained effort, now touching on attainment; of
his so recently made resolution to let honour go by the wall rather than
again be defrauded of his love.

At length he could no longer endure the playful, yet in a way tragical,
music, nor the sustained scrutiny of those grave yet wistful eyes.

"That's enough, Agnes; that's enough," he cried, and, leaning across the
case of the piano, laid hold on her hands and raised them off the
keyboard. And as he did so the blood leapt in his veins, for the fact
was no longer open to question--those hands were firm and softly warm as
a living woman's hand should be, and the clasp of them met and clung in
his. He drew her up, making the sweet musician stand opposite to him,
while, bending down, he kissed and kissed those dear, warm hands,
looking at her, his face on a level with hers. And as he did so her
cheeks lost their waxen pallor and became beautifully flushed with clear
colour, while--so it seemed to him--he could hear the beating of her
heart. And thus for a space they stood speechless, consumed by a very
ecstasy of love.

Laurence was the first to break that enchanted silence. For he was
feverish to complete the working of the miracle--to establish her in
this earthly life upon which she was re-entering, to chain her spirit to
this recovered human body by some corporeal act. He was feverish to set
a seal upon her new condition, which it should not be possible for her
to evade or to break.

"The perfect hour has come," he said, with fierce exultation. "Do you
understand what has happened? You asked me once what was lacking. Well,
that which was lacking has been restored to you. But it won't do to rest
here. We must go on, go forward, so as to make security doubly secure."

Yet she sighed, turning her face away and gently releasing her hands
from his grasp.

"Ah! the perfect hour has come--yes," she said. "But, dear Laurence, it
came once before, and, remember, along with it came the call for you to
depart. Sorrow trod hard on the heels of joy; and I fear--how can I do
otherwise?--lest it should do so again to-night."

Laurence felt his throat go dry and his lips stiffen, so that speech did
not come quite readily.

"It lies with you to prevent that catastrophe," he answered. "Only be
brave. Do as I ask you, and we can put all fear behind us for ever and a
day. All the world may call me; I shall not go. It may howl at me, even,
using foul names; but what does that matter? I have chosen. I abide by
my choice."

As he spoke she moved a little further from him, while the thunder
growled and muttered in the north, and the lightning showed fitfully, as
with the glare of a burning town, low down in the night sky.

"What has taken you, Laurence?" she asked. "You are strange in manner
and in voice. I hardly know you thus. Yet indeed I would do anything you
ask, however difficult, if that which you would have me do is not in
itself sinful or wrong."

"And this is right," he declared; "incontestably, everlastingly right.
Indeed, it is little more than bare justice--the restitution of that
which was once ours, the paying of a long-owed debt. In past years
happiness was snatched from us by jealous fate. Fate has
repented--though late--and gives us back our happiness. We should be
fools not to take it."

He stood by her holding out his hand, his eyes alight as with a dull
flame, the determination of conquest very forceful in him.

"See," he said hoarsely, "I have loved you back into life again, Agnes;
and so your life belongs to me as no woman's life has ever belonged to a
man before. That which I ask, you must do; for, believe me, I comprehend
this matter and all the issues of it best."

He led her towards the door and she came meekly, yet with a certain
wonder and reserve in her bearing, as one who ponders and questions
silently even while they obey. He threw the door wide open revealing
the back of the leather-lined curtain. But on the threshold she
hesitated and drew back.

"I have never crossed this," she said with gentle decision. "I cannot
cross it."

"But you must cross it," he answered, "or all is lost."

A strong shuddering ran through her. The corners of her sweet mouth
turned down and quivered, while her hand grew very cold.

"Ah, me! ah, me! my love," she cried, "then I fear indeed all must needs
be lost. For to cross this threshold is to force some barrier which I
have neither the strength or the right to force. I do not know its name,
but it is ancient and venerable, and forbids my passage with authority."

"All the more shall you force it then," Laurence replied. "Just now,
sweetheart, I tell you I admit no authority but my own. And barriers are
made to be forced, that's the use of them. The more apparently ancient
and venerable, the more must they go; so that the new may supersede the
decrepit and old, truth may supersede superstition, hope fear, and the
living the dead."

He laughed a little, partly in defiance of that more sane and modest
self of his, with whom for the time being he had parted company, partly
to rally his dear companion's courage, and compel her faltering steps.

"Come," he said; "don't I love you better than my own soul? Would I, of
all men, do you any injury, do you think? Surely you can trust
me--come."

But still that strong shuddering ran through her and she hung back. Then
Laurence lost patience.

"You foolish child," he said, "you are very much a woman. Your words are
so wise; yet you prove so weak in action and scare yourself with
self-invented terrors."

He set his back against the heavy curtain, pushing it outward. Then he
took her delicate body in his arms, lifted her over the threshold, and
set her feet on the crimson carpet of the sombre and stately corridor
without. The curtain swept back into its place across the door with a
dull thud, which mingled ominously with the muttering thunder. Against
the panes of the long range of windows the lightning peeped and
flickered, as in malicious curiosity of that going forward within,
while the Roman emperors looked on, supercilious, impassive, with
sightless, marble eyes. His fairy-lady's delicate body had been light as
a feather, so light that, lifting it, Laurence had trembled lest it
should slip out of his encircling arms, as the little summer winds might
slip should one strive to embrace them; and yet that same lifting of her
had taxed every muscle in his frame, and set his heart thumping like a
steam hammer. It was the very oddest sensation, suggesting that there
was something very much more than a narrow piece of polished, oak
flooring and deep, pile carpet to lift her across. He stood now,
breathless, singularly shaken by the effort, notwithstanding his natural
vigour and physical strength--shaken, yet triumphant.

"There, my beloved," he cried, "there! It's not such a very dangerous
experiment after all, you see, to go out at an open door!--And now you
are redeemed from slavery, free to range the pleasant earth at will and
accept all the glad chances of it."

But she shrunk against him, trembling, all her pretty pride humbled,
like that of a little child detected in a fault. Her countenance had
become shy and wild, moreover, and clear reason had ceased to sit
enthroned in her serious and lovely eyes. She looked now, as she had
looked on the night he first found her flitting to and fro in the yellow
parlour, searching, searching, vainly and hopelessly, for the lost key
of the satin-wood escritoire. And Laurence, seeing her thus, was smitten
with self-reproach and alarm. Was it possible that, along with the
restoration of her body, had returned that alienation of mind from
which--as he had learned from her own testimony, and from the
well-authenticated tradition of Armstrong, the agent--she had formerly
and so pitifully suffered? As more than once before, an immense
compassion filled the young man; so that, coaxing her, and using tender
and endearing names--such as even the wisest of lovers weakly decline
upon at times--he half-led, half-carried her past the doorways of all
those brightly-lighted, silent rooms, through the square hall--its
flying staircase gleaming upward step above step--until finally the
dining-room was reached.

Here the musky odour of the tiger-coloured orchids met them, with the
effect, as it seemed, of a presence rather than a scent. It was full of
subtle suggestions, that seeming presence, wooing them with insidious
provocations of sense to partake of the mysterious, sacramental feast
set out before them--a feast designed to wed, irrevocably, the sweet
spirit to its so lately recovered body, and rivet upon it once again not
only the natural joys, but the inevitable cares and pains, all the
grievous burdens of mortal life.

The cloth had been withdrawn and upon the dark surface of the bare
table, doubled by vertical reflections, a service of costly china,
antique silver, and fine glass, was spread. Rare wines filled the
long-necked bottles and quaint high-shouldered decanters; while the
painted and gilded dishes held velvet-skinned, hot-house peaches,
red-gold nectarines, little black Italian figs, and pyramids of fragrant
strawberries set in a fringe of fresh and lustrous leaves. The loaf of
white bread was there also, a simple and humble item offering something
of contrast to its ornate surroundings.

Laurence placed his fairy-lady in the carven armchair at the head of the
table. Seated there, her slight figure, in its high-waisted, rose-red,
silken gown and transparent lace and muslin cape, looked singularly
youthful and fragile. Her graceful head and white throat showed up
against the dark panelling of the wall. Her hands rested languidly upon
the arms of her chair. The corners of her mouth still quivered, and her
eyes were wide with inarticulate distress. And all the while, opposite
to her, in at the windows at the far end of the room, the lightning,
away there in the north, peeped evilly and flickered, and sometimes
glared, a broad sheet of pale flame, behind the blackness of the distant
woods crowning the rounded hills.

Laurence stood close beside her. He filled her glass with wine and
placed fruit upon her plate, speaking to her very gently; possessed,
meanwhile, by an adoration of her extreme and pensive beauty, a great
resolution to complete his work in respect of her, and a distrust lest
that work was going sorely amiss. But though he did his best to secure
her attention, for many minutes she neither moved nor uttered any sound.

"See, dear love," the young man pleaded--"see, I have made you a dainty
supper. Remember, this is the first time I ask you to eat a meal in my
house. You were Dudley's guest often enough in old days, and did not
refuse what was set before you. Surely it is pleasanter to you to be my
guest than his? So do not wander off, even for a little while, to walk
those dim and dreary interspaces between two worlds. All that is over.
Don't become intangible and remote, or yield yourself to malign
influences which would enthrall you and draw you away. Lay hold of your
womanhood, sweetheart; and let human love wrap you about, and keep you
safe and warm. There is nothing, nothing in all this to fear, if you
will but believe me. Eat, my beloved, you have fasted long. You have
come from very far--how far heaven only knows! You are faint and weary
with the length of the way. Therefore eat, drink--let your body be
refreshed and let your heart grow glad."

And presently, while he thus encouraged her, slowly, as one who shakes
off the torpor of exhaustion, she stretched, sitting very upright in the
great, high-backed chair. The distress and desolation of her expression
began to give place to a gentle curiosity. She looked at the costly
furnishings of the table, the dancing, golden figures in their flowing
robes, the fantastic flowers, the delicious fruits; fingered a silver
spoon, and seeing her own reflection in the bowl of it, quaintly
distorted, smiled. Then suddenly putting up both hands and covering her
face she gave a quick, little sneeze--sign in the East of Life, but in
the West precursor of Death. Of whichever the sign in the present case,
incontestible it was, that, with this same little sneeze a change was
perceptible in her, which her lover noting, hailed as indicative of
success. So he urged her yet more.

"Yes, my beloved, you are tired," he said; "and it is so long since you
have sat at table in this room, that very simple things appear
perplexing to you. But that's a small matter. The old habits will soon
re-assert themselves, and all be natural and obvious enough. For in the
coming days I intend we shall very constantly sit here together, you and
I; and perhaps others will sit here with us as time goes on"--Laurence
paused, his voice shook a little--"our children, fair girls and handsome
lads, whom we shall greatly love, and in whose youth our own youth will
live again. But to secure all that, Agnes, you must eat and drink now in
plain, honest fashion, sleep sound of nights, wake in the kindly
sunshine, put morbid fears and fancies far from you and grow strong. You
are compounded of too tenuous and sublimated stuff for motherhood as
yet. Therefore eat, dear love. Delay no longer. The hours run on towards
the morning and this matter must be assured before the morning comes. Do
not be wayward. In the name of your love for me, and of all your
sorrows, I entreat you, eat and be strong!"

Once again she covered her face with her hand and gave a quick, little
sneeze. Then looking full at him, she smiled, though somewhat sadly.

"Let it be even as you wish," she said very meekly. "Give me bread."

Laurence, mightily rejoicing, cut the loaf, and placed the bread upon
her plate. Tremblingly, as though putting a great force upon herself,
she broke it into little pieces, carried one to her lips, then laid it
back beside the others on her plate; next stretched out her hand for
the glass of wine her lover held towards her, but shook her head, and
set it down untasted. While he, eager to the point of desperation, yet
dreading in any way to affright her and so defeat his own ends, fell to
coaxing her once more, with a certain playful seriousness.

"See here," he said, "learn by experience. The threshold which you
declared impassable was very easily crossed. And this affair of your
little supper is exactly parallel. You are the victim of your own
imagination. What after all holds you back?"

Once more she essayed valiantly to obey him; but once more laid the
morsel of bread down on her plate. The thunder rolled from east to west
along the northern heights, and the lightning flickered; but both had
grown faint and very distant, while a soft, cool air wandered in at the
open window, dispelling the clinging and insidious odour of the orchids,
purifying the heavy atmosphere of the room, and lightly stirring the
little lace frills of Agnes Rivers's muslin cape.

"What after all holds you back?" he demanded, with some agitation. For
that cool draw of air, though pleasant, affected him unexpectedly. It
appeared to blow across the valley from Stoke Rivers churchyard, where,
in the spring morning three months before, he had watched the little
shadows cast by the feathery branches of the age-old yew-trees dance and
beckon among the grass-grown graves.

But his fairy-lady pushed her plate aside. All her gentle dignity had
returned to her, and a wisdom born of knowledge more profound than that
granted to most human creatures sat once again enthroned in her eyes.
There was an effulgence in her loveliness which almost awed him, yet she
did that which during all their intercourse she had never done before.
Calmly, fearlessly, and as of right, she put up her sweet lips and
kissed him.

"This holds me back," she said, "that at last all the confusion which
oppressed my mind is gone, and that I understand who and what I am. I
have striven, and ah! how gladly would I have proved victorious in that
strife, for all my heart goes forth in natural desire, not only to obey
your dear wishes, but to secure to myself those things which your wishes
would bring. I perceive that to eat is to live, not the shadowy,
unrelated life of a disembodied spirit, divorced from the activities of
earth, yet--by some inherent wilfulness--still so wedded to earth that
it cannot enter the peaceful regions of the Faithful Departed. To eat is
to live, as you live--and rightly--in the shock and tumult of the world;
to love as you love--needs must, dear heart--with all the passions of
the unstable flesh, as well as the pure and immutable passion of the
soul. I have dallied too long with temptation, and in my weakness
brought sorrow on you--perhaps worse than sorrow, disgrace. But the
temptation was so potent, the promise of it so enchanting, that, until
to-night, I had not grasped its full significance and scope. As to our
first mother Eve, ages back, in the mystic garden, so to me to-night to
eat, O my love, is sin!"

Laurence straightened himself up, and all the fierceness, the
relentlessness of his race, stiffened itself within him; yet he kept
himself in hand because love still was paramount to all other emotions.

"And if it be sin, it is too late to vex ourselves about that. You have
forced the barrier after all. The curtain, which closes the entrance to
your not very cheerful Eden, has swung back into place. I have you, and
I keep you. I have fought for you, won you, not wholly without personal
loss. So you are to me as the spoils of battle, which a man having
taken, is very certainly in no humour hurriedly to give up. And even
were this so, had I not these claims on your obedience, to eat, my dear,
couldn't be sin. On the contrary, it is bare common-sense--just the next
move, logically necessary, in the particularly delicious game which you
and I, for cause unknown, are ordained to play together. With logic and
common-sense as backers, how can sin have a word to say in the matter?"

"Thus," she answered--"because now as once before, when the perfect hour
had come, and things showed so fair that to better them appeared almost
impossible, the call has come for you to leave me, and leave me you
surely must."

"You are mistaken," Laurence answered hoarsely. "You confuse both the
events and obligations of the past with those of the present. The call
has not come."

Then Agnes Rivers rose up, pushing the carven chair away from her, and
standing with a certain graceful independence before the sumptuously
spread table, in the centre of the highly-lighted room, between the open
window and the open door. Her person, thus seen, suggested some clear
jewel of infinite value in a dark and heavy though splendid setting; or
some tender, solitary flower amid the lifeless magnificence of a desert
city, rich with the tombs of long-dead kings. A gentle daring, a
self-assertion strong as steel yet soft as a silken thread, seemed to
animate her whole being.

"Rather is it you that are mistaken," she answered; "but whether with
your consent or against it, I cannot tell. It is you that dream just
now, my love, and suffer, perhaps subscribe to, delusion--strong man
though you are--and I that wake. For the call has come to you; and
though you should employ all the eloquence of all the sages to convince
me it is otherwise, I could not be convinced."

"You are very stubborn," he said.

"And yet, I spare you," she replied, in a tone of half mirthful, half
tender, reproach; "for I only assert the fact. The exact nature of the
call I do not know, and I do not ask you to tell it me. I am
sufficiently human--you have brought me so far on the backward road,
which my naughty feet were only too willing to tread--to greatly long to
know the exact nature of that call. Yet, did I know it, I fear it might
provoke a wicked spirit of jealousy in me, and of envy towards one who
has, in the natural sequence of things, that which I have not, yet fain
would have. Therefore do not try me too far, lest my courage fail and I
decline from right, and break the perfect circle of our dealings with
one another, so painting both past and future with the ugly colours of
remorseful regret. You told me you would never leave me again unless I
bade you do so. Well, now, the time has come. Redeem your word."

Laurence would have spoken; but, still with that air of almost heavenly
mirth, she laid her hand upon his mouth. There was hardly perceptible
substance or weight in it; and once again--now with despair, though the
sensation was in itself delicious--he felt that fluttering, as of the
wings of a captive butterfly, against his lips.

"No, no," she protested, "do not speak, for I am woman enough to be
resolved to have the last word. Put away delusion and all
extravagance.--Think, after all, what do you leave? Not much, believe
me. For I am but a ghost. I have no right to any earthly dwelling-place,
no right to lie in the arms of living man. It would be monstrous, a
thing abhorrent to nature, an insult to the awful and unbroken order of
cause and effect that has operated from the beginning of being and of
time, that I should force the barrier completely, and project myself, at
once unburied and unborn, for a second time into the arena of earthly
life. It would be an act of rebellion, of self-seeking, beside which
that of Lucifer grows pale--for he at least was an archangel, which
might give reasonable cause of pride--whereas I?--No, God in His
infinite mercy has granted me fulness of understanding just in time; and
I have no fear but that, since I voluntarily resign myself, curb my
imperious will and forego the desire of my heart, He will further grant
me access to that place of refreshment, light, and peace, in which souls
wait until their final beatitude. In God's hands are all things, and I
now see that behind the loves of earth, just in proportion as those
loves are noble and have in them a seed of permanence, stands for ever
the love of God Himself, sure and faithful, full of a satisfaction that
can never lessen or pass away. I have been blind and very wilful, loving
Him too little, loving you too much. But He who made all men and sees
how beautiful they are, so that in loving them--they being made in His
image--we unconsciously all the while but love His image evident in
them--He will surely understand me and forgive."

There Laurence broke in madly--"Ah, stop talking, stop talking! What are
words at such a time as this? You are mine by right of conquest, as I
have already told you. For God and the eternities I care not, just now,
one little bit. You belong to me. I have bought you at a great price. I
love you and will enter into possession of my own."

And he essayed to lay hold of her, his blood on fire, for the moment,
with frustrated pride, the agony of relinquishment, and passion baulked.

"And I love you too," she answered fearlessly, "so greatly, so
absorbingly, that I have broken all bonds of time and space, and defied
all laws of life and death, to find you, and behold you, and speak with
you again--"

Yet even as she made this declaration, she slipped away from his urgent
embrace, even as a rosy snow-wreath slips from the cliff edge, when the
sun climbs high in heaven, drawing back to itself, by the power of its
strength and heat, snow and vapours, dews and fair, dissolving mists,
such as cling at dawn along the water-courses and haunt the quiet
underspaces of the woods. There were tears in her sweet eyes, and that
airy frame of hers was shaken by sobs; yet her face very brave and of a
marvellous brightness.

"Go back to the world, dear love," she said, "and play your part in the
great game finely to the close. Let no shame touch you, or breath of
dishonour smirch any page of your record. I will go back too--yet rather
go forward--reaching a fairer world than yours, a world which in my
folly I disdained, being blinded by the things of sense. There I shall
await your coming; and we shall be one at last, being one with Almighty
and Eternal God."

She passed from the room; but, though Laurence followed her swiftly, he
found the corridor empty. The yellow drawing-room, when he entered it,
was vacant too, though retaining its gracious and friendly aspect. A
cool wind blew through it, laden with the scent of the rose borders of
the Italian garden. The storm was over, and the night sky was clear and
very full of stars.




XXIV


Quite a number of people had come to luncheon. Quite a number still
remained, though it was past four o'clock, upon the great, deep-eaved
verandah, in attendance on Virginia. There was a babel of clear,
penetrating voices, occasionally an outbreak of laughter, though, in
point of fact, notwithstanding its ready verbal wit, the New World is
less addicted to laughter than the Old. Laurence had listened, had put
in a lazy sentence here and there; but now the entertainment began to
pall on him slightly. It was too continuous. They were all so young, so
emphatic, so tireless in the business of pleasure, these bright,
clear-cut, young people. He remembered it was mail day. The English
letters and newspapers should have arrived by now. He got up and
sauntered, cigarette in mouth, into the great, pale living-room. The
Venetian shutters were closed, and the room, with its spare though
elegant furniture, and butter-coloured, parquet floor, was full of a
clear, green light, quiet, and excellently cool. Sure enough, on one of
the tables lay, in goodly array, lately arrived letters and papers.
Laurence began opening these in desultory fashion. The glass doors,
standing wide on to the verandah, framed Virginia's perfectly finished
person lying back in a rocking-chair. Her profile was outlined against a
soft, sea-green cushion. She was talking, others were listening, as was
usually the case in respect of Virginia. Beyond the hand-rail and
uprights of the verandah, could be seen a long sweep of rather coarse
grass, and the waters of the river, white in the brilliant, afternoon
light, whereon lay some trim rowing-boats and smart pleasure-yachts at
anchor. The water was absolutely still, even and gleaming as the surface
of a silver mirror; yet it lapped with a just audible gurgle and suck
against the indentations of the low, green banks. And this cool, liquid
sound formed an agreeable undertone to those clear, penetrating voices,
the ceaseless chirrup of crickets and strident fiddlings of countless
grasshoppers.

Behind the ample, wide-ranging, wooden house--spotless in its purity of
white paint, dignified by its ranges of dark-green, slatted shutters,
its grey-brown, shingled roofs, and many gables--a certain puritan
simplicity pervading it, somewhat quaintly at variance with its
highly-developed appliances of modern comfort, and the almost
surprisingly civilised examples of modern humanity now domiciled within
it--behind it the ground trended upward, through pleasant orchards of
apple, pear, and peach trees, past commodious wooden barns and stables,
long, grey snake-fences, and corn patches, where the pumpkins began to
grow golden beneath the wide, glistening leaves, the giant cobs and
silken tassels of the maize. Down to meet this spacious foreground
unencumbered by superfluous detail, wandered the sparse, untamed,
ubiquitous woodland of the New England States. Everywhere slender,
long-limbed trees, endless scrub, festooning vines, heavy with bunches
of little fox-grapes, and below outcroppings of grey rock. Some two
months hence, the edge of the woodland would be fringed by spires of
golden-rod and processions of purple asters, while the maples set forth
an amazement of verdigris green, lemon-colour, and all manner of radiant
pinks and scarlets, and sumach dyed the hollows blood-red; but as yet
the woods retained their summer tints. There was a slight want of
atmosphere no doubt. The landscape was oddly lacking in values of
distance; while the sky was blue to the point of crudity, and the sun
blazed, had blazed, would blaze, with a youthful and tireless
energy--not unsuggestive of the conversation of Virginia and all those
friends of hers--throughout the unshadowed and unmitigated day.

To right and left were other hospitable mansions, the limits of their
private grounds unmarked by jealous wall or paling. A wide-ranging
spirit of good-nature and confidence appeared to reign; yet, in point of
fact, the inhabitants of these agreeable country houses formed a
distinctly close corporation. The Van Reenan property had been broken up
into building lots on the death of its first owner, old Erasmus Van
Reenan, merchant and financier of New York, nearly seventy years ago.
But the said lots had been acquired by members of his numerous family;
and still Van Reenans, direct and collateral, their children and their
children's children, found relaxation at times in this amiable, American
Capua. But woe to any intruder from the outer world, unless furnished
with irreproachable passport and the very highest of high-class
references, who should venture to set sacrilegious foot on this thrice
sacred ground! For, as Laurence had frequently reflected--not without a
measure of amusement--nothing is so essentially aristocratic as a
democratic country, nothing so socially exclusive as an immature
civilisation.

It was the first time since her marriage that Virginia had honoured the
Van Reenan property with her presence; but being debarred, by the fact
of her mourning for her husband's uncle, from participation in the gay
life of those summer resorts where the _élite_ of the smart world do
mostly congregate, she had elected to retire upon one of these
many-gabled, ancestral mansions. She was explaining all this--and really
it appeared to require a surprising amount of explanation--to Mr. Horace
Greener, a young man of distinguished, social pretensions, the constant
frequenter of her entertainments both in Newport and New York, who,
finding himself obliged to visit the city on business, had sought at
once physical refreshment and satisfaction of the emotion of friendship
by running out by train, to-day, to visit her.

Virginia's clear intonations rose superior to the chorus of feminine
voices around her, their singular vivacity and singular composure alike
offering an unconscious challenge to Laurence's mental attitude as he
lazily tore open his English letters and newspapers. He had left Stoke
Rivers just three weeks, and all that time he had been a prey to
vacuity, to a sort of gnawing emptiness. At moments a blind rage took
him, but only at moments. In the main his attitude was cynical.
Disappointment had embittered him. Nothing mattered much, nothing ever
would matter much again. He had had his great chance and lost it,
muddled it somehow. A bigger man would have over-ridden the difficulties
of the affair. But he was a bungler, a poor creature. He was profoundly
contemptuous of himself, and not a little contemptuous also of men and
things.

But here was a thick packet from Armstrong, and that awoke an unexpected
interest in him. It would be quite pleasant to have news of the light
railway, and the gypsum quarries.--Nice fellow, that young engineer,
and not at all conceited. Most experts have such a confoundedly good
opinion of themselves!--Laurence fell to whistling softly, and
involuntarily he recalled the slender, courtly music of a certain
eighteenth century minuet. Then he stopped suddenly, an immense
nostalgia taking him for a very different scene and place, and--well, a
general outlook less secure and circumscribed, and, he had almost said,
trivial. He didn't want to be censorious--who was he, after all, in good
truth, to be that?--but Horace Greener's trim, light-clad person,
leaning against a pillar of the verandah close to Virginia's
rocking-chair, caught his eye. The young man was excellently got up, he
was well-bred, agreeable, would pass muster in any society; yet Laurence
wearied mightily of him just then--of his neatly handsome features,
which would photograph so well and paint so poorly, and of his alert and
civil manner.

"No, I imagined you would be surprised to find me so at home in this
idyllic and patriarchal _milieu_, Mr. Greener," Virginia was saying. "I
rather counted upon that. You did not accredit me with so much
adaptability. Some other of my friends have observed upon that also. And
I assure you I am rewarded; for I find it the most recuperative process
a woman can go through to retire upon herself and upon nature in this
way. My parents had been anxious to come out here all summer this year,
and when I concluded to join them we worked out a regular scheme. I
assure you it has called forth a quite affecting display of family
affection. There are nine houses on the place. They are all full. We all
meet daily. Even my cousin, Mrs. Bellingham, has come over with her
children from Europe.--Yes, I am very glad you should have met Louise
again, Mr. Greener. The English life does not altogether suit her. I
observed she was wanting at first in animation. It does her good to see
old friends. I apprehend she feels rather exiled. I wonder if I shall
feel rather exiled? But I don't propose to take it that way. I propose
every one there shall feel exiled because they have not had the
inestimable advantage of being born on this side. Do you not think that
is the true patriotic platform, now, Mr. Greener?"--

There was another letter. Laurence knew the handwriting, but he could
couple no name with it. Yet certainly he knew it, and the sight of it
conveyed to him an impression vaguely amusing. He laid aside the agent's
voluminous packet and opened the envelope.

"Why, the poor little Padre Sahib, to be sure," he exclaimed, half
aloud. "Have they been tripping him up with strings again across the
school door?"

But as he read, amusement gave place to quite other sentiments. His
eyebrows drew together, and his face, for all its healthy sunburn,
blanched to the indistinct, dusty grey of his well-cut flannels.

"This very shocking discovery has, as you will, I feel sure, readily
conceive, quite unnerved me," wrote Walter Samuel Beal. "But for the
support and invaluable advice of the Archdeacon I should have sunk under
the burden of responsibility thrown upon me. A case so extraordinary has
rarely, if ever, arisen, I should suppose, during the whole history of
the Christian ministry. I should add that the oak coffin was so charred
at one corner as to reveal a second coffin, composed of lead, within. As
the inscription upon the coffin plate was quite legible, and as Mr.
Armstrong was in possession of information bearing upon this very
painful matter, I abstained from further investigation myself and
entreated others also to do so."

"Thank God for that," Laurence muttered.

There was a drawing back of chairs upon the verandah, an outbreak of
rapid question and answer, of laughter, reiterated and extensive
farewells. Virginia's clear voice still rose dominant. She was
marshalling her forces, arranging future meetings, making appointments,
ordering her plan of campaign--and outside, all the while, the sun
blazed on the surface of the white waters of the river, the ripple
lapped against the green, indented banks, the crickets and grasshoppers
kept up their strident serenade.

"I felt that neither my courage nor my judgment was equal to the
ordeal," wrote the worthy young clergyman. "I dreaded to entangle myself
in legal questions of which I virtually know nothing. I can never
express the gratitude I owe to the Archdeacon. He advised that the
coffin should be placed provisionally in the plot of ground reserved by
you in our parish churchyard. He even came over the considerable
distance from Bishop's Pudbury, and himself read the shortened form
which he had selected from the burial service. For this I was deeply
thankful, as agitation might, I fear, have prevented my performing the
last solemn rites in a suitably impressive manner--"

"Why, certainly, Mr. Greener, I will go and put on my golfing suit,"
this vivaciously from Virginia. "It will be cooler in an hour. We shall
have the wind off the river.--Willie Van Reenan's theatricals? Yes, I
know it, Louise; I am coming to that directly. Now, Mr. Greener, if you
will walk over to her house with Mrs. Bellingham, I will drive around
and take you on to the links. I will arrange to have Laurence meet us at
the club pavilion. And, Louise, when you see Willie tell him he can come
right on here after dinner, and I will cast the play with him. We can
count on you for Lord Follington, Mr. Greener? Yes--you really are very
kind."

Laurence still stood by the table littered with envelopes and papers. He
was reading the agent's missive, or rather trying to do so, for the
words were not wholly easy to focus. His eyes had a mist before them,
and a singular sensation gained upon him--that of the inherent duality
of his being. For some time now he had only been conscious of the
existence of the modern Laurence Rivers, wholly and solely the modern
Laurence Rivers, and he, baffled and discomfited, by no means at his
best. Now that earlier life, the strong emotions and steady purposes of
it, crowded in on him calling to and claiming him, until his actual
circumstances and surroundings became singularly incredible. The heels
of Virginia's very pretty shoes tapped lightly upon the butter-coloured
boards of the verandah. She straightened a chair or two, replaced some
magazines which slipped from a basket-work lounge on to the floor. Her
movements were direct and deliberate; and all the while her trailing
skirts made a dragging sound like the wheels of a little cart. In a
moment more she would come into the house. The young man tried to pull
himself together; but it was so unbelievable to him, just now, this
whole matter of Virginia.

He looked across at her, as he might have looked at the merest
acquaintance, and found her extremely effective as she came through the
cool, green light of the great living-room, her tall, slight, yet
rounded figure backed by the untempered brightness of sky and water. Her
transparent, black muslin dress was thick with beautiful hand-embroidery
upon the tight-fitting sleeves and the shoulders of the bodice. It was
girt with a soft, black, chiffon girdle, knotted low down, emphasising
the length of the waist, and the spring of the hips--around which her
dress fitted very closely. Below the knees her skirts stood away
fanwise, over a bewildering arrangement of white, silk kiltings and
flounces, which hid her feet and gave a slightly Japanese effect to her
costume. Her fair, brown hair was loosely waved and puffed out over the
ears. Her eyes, a light hazel, harmonized charmingly with the even tint
of her rather sallow skin. Her neck was noticeably long, and her face in
shape, colouring, and feature bore an arresting resemblance to that of
certain of Botticelli's Madonnas. This, taken in connection with her
extremely fashionable attire and her otherwise declared and complete
modernity, had in it great piquancy, an element trenching on actual,
though unconscious profanity.

To Laurence, looking at her through the eyes of that elder personality
of his, these details and these suggestions were conspicuous. She
presented a perfect example of an immensely effective type. He
recognised that; yet he stared at it in almost desperate wonder, and
something approaching hopelessness.

"Why, you are there!" she exclaimed. "I am glad. I wanted you."

"Your people have all cleared out, haven't they?"

"Yes, they have gone. They had a grand time, I believe. I really think
it was very well your uncle's death put me into mourning. It has
afforded me the opportunity of giving my family a lovely summer. It
might have been a catastrophe; I have made it into an occasion. They
appreciate that."

Virginia made these statements with evident self-complacency.

"Of course," Laurence said. He still stared at her. She placed her
hands on her hips, smoothing down her close-fitting skirt. Her hands
were very small. Much art had been expended upon the finger nails.

"I think it was perfectly sweet of Horace Greener to come right on and
see me," she continued. "It was like a breath of air from the outside.
And I was glad he should know how finely everything was going. I think
they all thought I might feel a little left over. He knows now it is
they who are left over.--Laurence, you must hurry. I arranged you should
be at the club pavilion in an hour. I have to change my dress; but if it
should still be very hot I will not play. I will have you take my
place."

"Horace Greener is a charming fellow," he answered, "all the same I'm
afraid I can't play golf with him this afternoon."

"But I told him you would do so," Virginia rejoined, with absolute
assurance. "It is settled. I never go back on an engagement."

"Ah! but I'm afraid I do," Laurence said. "Specially in the case of
engagements about the making of which I have not been consulted."

So far the young lady had been occupied with her own conversation and
her own person to the exclusion of any particular observation of her
companion. Now she deigned to regard him more closely.

"Dear me!" she exclaimed, "you appear to me to be looking pretty
wretched."

"Upon my word I believe I am pretty wretched," Laurence answered,
smiling. "My home letters have brought me some news I don't in the very
least like. It entails a journey to England. And instead of playing golf
with Horace Greener, I must take the seven o'clock train to New York,
and see if there is a decent state-room vacant on any of the
outward-bound liners."

It was, in a way, characteristic of Virginia that her face,
notwithstanding her natural vivacity, possessed no great mobility or
range of expression. There were such a number of emotions she had never
been called upon to entertain. And now no movement of appeal or regret
crossed it. It merely hardened a little, becoming as serenely obstinate
as heretofore it had been serenely complacent. She spoke with exactly
the same conviction and assurance.

"But you cannot do that," she said.

"Oh, yes, but indeed I can," Laurence replied quite good-temperedly. He
felt so singularly unrelated to her, that assertion was sufficient. It
did not enter his head to protest or argue.

"You misunderstand," she said; "it is that I do not intend to have you
do it."

He paused a moment, making an honest effort to range himself in line
with her thought.

"Oh, come along," he began. But the young lady interrupted him with the
same unwavering composure--

"You place me in an objectionable position," she declared, "by forcing
me to explain. That is not considerate. You should meet me half-way; you
should be beforehand so as to secure me against the annoyance of
referring to all that. I had determined to sink it. But you make that
impossible. It is derogatory to me to explain."

Laurence sat down on the arm of the nearest chair. He felt curiously
helpless, and yet all the while he was getting the bit between his
teeth. If obstinacy was about, well, he had his share of it. Across the
Atlantic matters of such profound moment were awaiting him. It was
difficult to reckon seriously and courteously with this unlooked-for
opposition, and not to brush it impatiently aside. It seemed little
short of ridiculous.

"I give you my word, Virginia, I don't know what you are talking about,"
he said. "I have the most cogent reasons for going over--you haven't
given me an opportunity of stating them yet, but that doesn't alter the
fact. It is necessary I should go; and after all, you know, I am not
such a conceited ass as to imagine you can't do without me for three
weeks or so."

"I am not thinking of myself, I am thinking of others," she remarked,
with a certain _naïveté_.

Laurence smiled.

"Oh, in that case I can book my passage with a clear conscience," he
said.

But the young lady continued:--

"It is extraordinary to me how little regard you have for appearances.
Comments were made upon the length of your former absence. They came
round to me. That was not to be endured in the case of my husband. I
put a stop to all that by cabling for you."

"Ah! yes, I see," Laurence said slowly. "When I arrived there certainly
seemed no very obvious reason for the sending of that cable. That was
unlike you. When I thought of it I confess I was puzzled."

"If you leave again after so short a stay, it will give colour to those
comments." Virginia spoke with emphasis, almost with solemnity. "I do
not propose to submit to that. So you must choose, Laurence. Either you
must give up going, or you must wait till it is convenient to me to go
with you. I do not care for a summer voyage; it is dull. Between the
seasons nobody one ever heard of is crossing. One may meet the wrong
people. My leaving would cause great disappointment here. It would break
up their summer. Still I would risk that to avoid the other. It would be
a scramble too, and nothing is more annoying than a scramble, but I dare
say I could arrange to be ready in two weeks from now."

"That's very good of you," Laurence replied. "But unfortunately I must
go at once, and, pardon my saying so, it will be better for me to go
alone. Everything is at sixes and sevens. Confusion reigns at Stoke
Rivers. I would not take you there under existing circumstances. You'd
receive a quite wrong impression. Oh, it would be utterly disastrous!"
he exclaimed.

For the first time he beheld Virginia depart from her faultless
self-complacency, lose herself a little and display signs of anger. Her
chin went up with a quick jerk, her eyes flashed, her features seemed
for the moment swollen. This shocked him, it was so wholly
unprecedented. He felt very sorry, as though he had been careless and
clumsy, as though he had broken something hitherto flawless, and
therefore charming, if not of supreme intrinsic value.

"I begin to believe," she cried, "you have an intention I shall never
see Stoke Rivers at all."

"No, no, my dear," he answered rapidly, rising as he spoke. "Nothing of
the kind. You are very distinctly mistaken. I have never been more ready
that you should see Stoke Rivers than within the last hour--that is,
when Stoke Rivers is fit to be seen. The poor, old house seems to have
been in jeopardy of final disappearance about a week ago. There's where
my bad news comes in. They write me word of a nasty fire there. Nobody's
fault--an electric light wire heated, and not being properly cased
charred some of the panelling which finally caught alight. The house has
been kept at such a high temperature for years, that the woodwork is
like so much tinder."

Virginia's chin was still in the air, but she had in great measure
recovered her self-control. Her manner was rather elaborately cold.

"That is a pity," she said calmly. "But, of course, the house and its
contents are insured."

"Oh, yes, the loss is more a matter of sentiment than of money. Only one
room is burnt out, as far as I can gather; and it didn't contain any
very valuable pictures, or any part of my uncle's collection."

"Probably it is as well this fire occurred, then," Virginia observed. "I
have always supposed Stoke Rivers would need some reconstruction before
it came up to the level of modern requirements."

"Possibly--" he spoke rather drily. "Only, you see, I happened to
entertain a peculiar fondness for this particular room, and I am sorry
to part with the outward and visible signs of certain memories."

The young lady did not answer immediately, but examined the dial-plate
of the little watch, set in diamonds, upon her wrist.

"The carriage will be here," she said. "I have not time to change my
dress. I cannot play golf with Horace Greener. It is very embarrassing.
I have no valid excuse to offer him."

"Oh, the heat, my dear, the heat," Laurence said, smiling. "Any excuse
is valid if you make it with sufficient conviction."

Virginia looked hard at him.--"I wonder just what you mean by that," she
retorted. She put up her hand, puffing her hair out a little more over
her ears. "That fire was not very serious on your own admission," she
continued, "I cannot see that it necessitates your hurrying over with
this frantic haste. And if I am to live in it it would be desirable I
should overlook the reconstruction of the house myself."

Her tone was meditative. Her statements were concise. Laurence felt his
back against the wall. He must take the consequences of his own action
however distasteful and disagreeable. His course would have been very
obvious had his record been quite clean in regard to Virginia; but, he
was an honest man. Something of exquisite, of incalculable value had
tempted him; and the peculiarities of his temperament had heightened
that temptation. He had been saved from falling, not by his own virtue,
but by the virtue and self-sacrifice of one adorably his superior. He
could not plume himself upon the achievement. He acknowledged that his
conscience was not clear in respect of Virginia; and this necessitated
the payment of a heavy penalty in connection with his own self-esteem.
His pride rebelled against "giving himself away," against further
self-revelation; only, the logic of the situation prevailed. It cut him
to the quick, yet it had to be done.

"You're quite right," he said. "The matter of the fire could have waited
a little, I dare say, though it isn't exactly satisfactory to know part
of one's house is roofless under a wet, English, July sky; but I had
other bad news to-day." He paused a moment. "I heard of the funeral of a
very dear connection of mine."

Virginia moved slightly, sweeping those fanwise-cut flounces to one
side.

"Funeral?" she said quickly. "Really you have the very oddest manner of
statement. Had you not already heard of his death, then?"

The young man moved too. He turned away, and a poignant sensation tore
and hacked at him, so to speak. It hurt him physically. He gazed out
over the dazzling whiteness of the smooth river seeing nothing, his
whole being tense with the effort to resist the showing of that pain.

"Yes, yes, I have heard of her death, but I refused to believe it," he
answered.

There was a moment of ominous silence, save for the shrilling of the
insects, and lapping of the stream.

"Oh, a woman!" she said, with an almost alarming calm. "Have I ever
heard of her?"

"I think not," Laurence answered.

"Then Louise had grounds for her assertions," she said, still with that
deadly calm. "I thought it unworthy to listen. I forbade her to write or
speak to me upon the subject. I--"

Laurence wheeled round. His eyes were dangerous. All the fanaticism of
his race, and something finer than that, looked out of them.

"Think what you please of me," he cried; "but of her, think no evil.
Never dare to think any evil. She was one of the saints of God; and you,
of all women, have no cause to misjudge her. She saved me from
committing a great sin."

A singular expression crossed the young lady's face, an imperious desire
to ask, to search out the ultimate of the matter. But it was momentary.
Spoilt child of fortune, she was too unaccustomed to vital drama to know
how to deal with it. It staggered, it also slightly disgusted her. She
could not rise to it. So conventionality proved stronger than even this
very legitimate curiosity. Virginia remained true to her somewhat
artificial traditions, to her own canons of good taste and
self-respect, to that singular clause of the social creed which
declares the thing unsaid also non-existent. Virginia appeared, in a
way, admirable just then, yet she gave the measure of her nature. It was
not great. She turned aside, with a movement of well-defined and lofty
superiority.

"Are you aware that you become very indelicate?" she asked.

"Most men are indelicate at times, unfortunately."

"But not over here," she said. "American women do not permit that. You
must remember whom you have married."--She waited a little. "The English
standards are different, I presume," she added, not without a touch of
sarcasm.

"I begin to think they are," Laurence answered.--He was paying, paying
abominably; yet there was a sensible relief in so doing.--"They are
based on the logic of fact," he continued. "And fact is more often
indelicate than not. It has never yet, you see, learned to be a
respecter of persons."

There was a pause, in which once again the fiddlings of the grasshoppers
and soothing lap of the water became audible.

"Do you still propose to go to England?"

Laurence nodded. "Yes," he said.

"Then"--began Virginia; but the young man held up his hand, partly in
warning, partly demanding a cessation of hostilities. His thought had
taken a new departure in regard to his wife. Somehow she had destroyed
her own legend. She was more slight and shallow a creature than he had
supposed, and he would never really stand in awe of her again. His smile
was sad yet wholly friendly.

"Then--in a couple of weeks or so--I shall come back and fetch you," he
declared. "And then, like wise and politic human beings, we will eschew
controversy, each giving the other as much room as possible. I fancy
you'll find we shall shake down pretty easily, and rub along like most
other married people.--Meanwhile what's becoming of poor, neglected
Horace Greener? Go and amuse both yourself and him, my dear. If you're
not in before I start--well--for the moment, _addio_."




XXV


It was all very much in keeping with his mood--the reposeful landscape,
heavy with the solid green of the August foliage, the sweep of the low,
grey sky, the warm, still rain which drew forth an indefinable fragrance
from the pastures and hedgerows, the wayside flowers, and the underwood.
Already the evenings had begun to shorten. The rambling village-street
and its inevitable commotion of boys and dogs left behind, Laurence
looked away, with a stirring of the heart, over this goodly land of
which he was owner, as the brown thorough-bred breasted the hilly road
leading up from the station to Stoke Rivers house. The prospect at once
soothed and stimulated him. Emotion had been conspicuous principally by
its absence lately; it was pleasant to feel again.

At the hall-door the two men-servants met him; and Renshaw's large,
egg-shaped countenance bore an expression almost paternal.

"Excuse me, sir," he said, his complexion ripening to mulberry with the
effort of speech--"I do not wish to put myself forward, or go beyond my
place, but I must express the pleasure we take in welcoming you home,
sir. I speak not only for myself, but for Mr. Lowndes and Mr. Watkins,
and all the other servants--both upper and under, sir."

Lowndes, the grey-haired, long-armed valet, subsequently gave vent to
even more cordial sentiments.

"Excepting for the fire, we have been very dull during your absence,
sir," he said, as he laid out the young man's dress clothes, with a
critical eye to their packing which did not evidently quite commend
itself to his taste. "Living in this house has been like living inside a
run-down clock. I hope you have returned to make some stay, sir. We want
a head; we have forgotten how to take a holiday and amuse ourselves. Our
habits have been so very regular for so many years, you see, sir, we
feel lost without our accustomed duties."

This too was pleasant. To be precious in the sight of those who serve
you lends a singular graciousness to the conduct of daily life. Laurence
felt at harmony with himself and his surroundings, and with that sense
of harmony arose certain stirrings of hope. During the days and nights
of the past week, while the great ship ploughed her way eastward across
the mighty ridge and furrow of the Atlantic, he had not been wholly
unconscious of that hope--the hope that even now all might not be over,
and that he might once again be blessed by the vision, for however brief
a space, of his dear fairy-lady. Yet he had kept that hope under with a
stern hand. It was present, but at the postern gate, so to speak, of the
castle of his reason and his will. He kept it there, doing his heart
much violence by refusing it admittance and entertainment, since he knew
that, once admitted, it would have proved so dangerously absorbing and
alluring a guest. He tried to deny it admittance still; yet he shuffled
a little with his own conscience, permitting himself a renewing of the
routine which had marked his former sojourn at Stoke Rivers. He dressed,
dined, and waited until the twilight had very sensibly closed in before
visiting that which might remain of the room of mysterious and enchanted
meetings.

The near end of the corridor offered no noticeable signs of disturbance
or injury. Still it appeared to Laurence that, as on a former occasion,
a spirit of disorder, the winnowing wings of a profound and elemental
fear, had but lately swept through it. He could have imagined the
sightless, marble faces of the Roman emperors less impassive, less
wholly scornful, their heads carried with something less of arrogant and
invincible pride. An acrid odour of burned stuffs, burned woodwork,
pervaded the place. He had cabled instructions that nothing might be
removed, nothing renovated before his arrival. The tapestry curtain
still hung in its accustomed position; but it was blackened and
shrivelled to the obliteration of the figures wrought upon it. The satyr
no longer leered, from his monticule, upon the naked and reluctant woman
hurried towards him by the company of naughty loves. Tongues of fire had
licked away that pictured wantonness and purged its offence.

Behind the wreck of the _portière_, the door--its panels split and
tormented by flame--stood wide open, as on the night when, straining
every muscle to carry that apparently so light and fragile burden,
Laurence had lifted Agnes Rivers across the threshold. Once within the
yellow drawing-room the desolation of that heretofore gracious and
friendly apartment touched hard on tragedy, seen, as now, in the
furtive, evening light. The rain had ceased, and through the remaining
sheets of glass, in the partially boarded and barricaded bay-window, the
flower-beds of the Italian garden showed in rich variety of leaf and
blossom. The statues gleamed calm and graceful from their white
pedestals. The spires of the cypresses rose with a certain velvet
softness of density towards the pensive and slowly clearing sky. But the
room itself was ruined in most unsightly fashion, stained by smoke,
rendered clammy and dank in places by water. Wreckage of the pretty,
costly furniture lay scattered in formless heaps upon the blackened
floor--with here and there a shred of fine porcelain, the gilt handle of
a drawer, the pages of a book reduced to tinder, or the unlovely remnant
of carpet or hanging. It was as a place that has suffered siege, and
which relentless foemen have sacked and trodden underfoot. So that it
came to Laurence, very surely, that not here would he find his sweet
fairy-lady, were he indeed destined, in this life, ever to find her
again. Her gentle spirit could never be subjected to the indignity of
dwelling amid this scene of destruction. Some incongruities are
inadmissible to the imagination. They are too violent, too gross.
Therefore the days of his beloved companion's pilgrimage were ended--it
could not be otherwise--in respect of this once so comely place.

But though convinced that here it was useless to await her presence,
there remained somewhat for Laurence in all tenderness and reverence to
see. Since the electric light was now unavailable, he had ordered
candles to be placed upon the chimney-piece, which, though yellow and
disfigured, still remained practically intact. He moved across from the
neighbourhood of the doorway--sad, little clouds of corpse-coloured
ashes arising about his feet as he stepped--and put a match to the
candles. Then, as the light of them strengthened and steadied, he
looked, shading his eyes with his hand, towards that portion of the wall
at right angles to which the painted, satin-wood escritoire, with all
its pathetic store of cherished love-tokens, had formerly stood. The
high wainscot and brocade-covered panels masking this space had been
entirely burned away, disclosing a low, vaulted chamber hollowed out of
the thickness of the outer wall. This chamber had been roughly and
somewhat clumsily ceiled. The whole construction showed unmistakeable
traces of hasty and unskilled labour.

Yet Laurence looked at this rough-hewn place of sepulture with an
infinite tenderness, a chastened reverence, while a very vital emotion
clutched at his throat, and far-reaching questions of life past, life
future, and the august purposes of being through the abysm of the ages
and on to the ultimate goal of things, held and sifted his intelligence
and his heart. For it was here, upon the morning following the fire,
that Agnes Rivers's coffin had been found. And it was from here, from
this hard and narrow bed--by what alchemy and agency he knew not--it
transcended his powers to conceive--that her sweet ghost had come forth
nightly, through all those long and dreary years of which it sickened
him to think, flitting impalpable, in vain endeavour to find the key to
her little treasure chest, that was also the key to the love she had so
pathetically lost. And it was here also, to this same hard and narrow
bed, that she had returned with quick and innocently gladsome farewells
in the first flush of returning day, when that love, by unprecedented
circumstance--circumstance trenching on actual miracle--had been
restored to her.

Viewing that harsh and meagre resting-place which for the better part of
a century had held all that remained of her dear body, Laurence felt
himself strangely reconciled to actual happenings. For it was better,
ten thousand times better, that all now subsisting of her mortal
investiture should rest in Mother Earth's lap--blessed and set apart by
the faith and piety of ages as was that pleasant plot of sun-visited
grass, where the little shadows danced and beckoned, in the age-old
quiet of Stoke Rivers's churchyard. There he would go and watch for her
possible coming, and pay her the homage of his devotion, when the small
hours drew on towards to-morrow's dawn.

Meanwhile there was time to be passed, and he did not care to leave this
spot, though its present desolation tore at his very vitals, with
memories of incalculable promise, and of unconsummated delight. As,
awakening from his dream of satisfied love long ago, during that strange
former existence, in the summer noon under the light, sibilant shelter
of the lime grove, so now he hungered for completeness of possession,
for the crowning of desire. Yet he kept himself in hand, even as he had
kept the young, brown, thorough-bred horse in hand, when, finding the
level, would have broken its pace and run riot more than once on the
road up from the station. He moved away and sat down on the defaced and
ragged sill of the bay-window. The moon had risen, but its mild light
was often obscured by softly-moving floats of thin, opalescent vapour.
These crossed its face in apparently endless procession, herded up from
southward and the narrow Channel sea. Laurence watched them, at first
almost unconsciously, his mind occupied with other, and, to himself,
more immediate and vital interests. But at length their slow and stately
progress began to work upon his imagination, and insinuate itself into
the very substance and foundation of his thought. He began to see in
them a procession of the souls of all those generations of men and
women, whose efforts and emotions, power of intellect, fiercely pursued
ambitions, passionate devotions, passionate revolts, had gone to
generate his own constitution, mental and physical, and determine his
ultimate fate. And so he came to regard them with a sustained and
deepening attention, since their aspect seemed pregnant with suggestion
of admonition, of encouragement, of warning, or restraint. Once again he
decided to keep vigil in this house, to watch with the unnumbered and
unrecorded dead whose offspring and inheritor he was. Not until all of
them should have passed by, and the moon ride solitary in the heavens,
would he go across the valley--himself now somewhat bitterly
solitary--and visit Agnes Rivers's grave.

But that procession of low-floating vapours proved long in passing. More
than once a break came in it, making the young man suppose that the
whole of them was gone by. And then again, out of the south, now one
alone, now in close ranged companies, strangely shaped, as though draped
in dragging shrouds, that interminable procession crossed the vault of
the sky. A terror of incalculable number, of unthinkable multitude,
began to lay hold on him, as still they came, and came. Was it
conceivable that each human life had this almost appalling vista of
human lives behind it, of which it was the outcome and result, and in
which it had, consciously or unconsciously, taken part? There was a
certain splendour in the thought, though it left but little room for
personal vanity. Yet even while watching, and pondering of all this, the
personal note remained--for he pondered also, not without profound
discouragement, of his great adventure which just now appeared so
signally to have failed. At the half hours and hours the striking clocks
warned him that the night was far spent, but still that endless and
mystic procession passed before his watching eyes. As once before, in
this same room, his individuality seemed to sink away from him, while a
horrible sense of his own nullity and nothingness prevailed. But at
last, at last, when the first chill grey of the dawn began just
perceptibly to lighten the horizon behind the lime grove, the last of
these trailing vapours arose, passed over and disappeared. The moon
declined towards her setting, yet, though she hung low, the whole field
of heaven was at length her own.

Then Laurence rose, and went away across the quiet park and up the deep,
tree-shadowed lane to the churchyard, on the hillside across the valley,
sheltered by the bank of high-lying woods. The grass was long, starred
with tall-growing buttercups, blue speedwell, and ox-eye daisies, heavy
and hanging with wet. Only the plot beneath the grey wall of the little
chancel was neatly mown, while, on the near side of it, conspicuous from
the smooth surface of the turf rising immediately surrounding it, was a
new-made grave. The sods covering it were kept in place by a cage of
osier rods. Some one--and Laurence found it in his heart to bless that
unknown ministrant--had laid a spray of pink wild-rose upon the head of
the grave, twisted into a little crown, at once of blossom and of
thorns.

Laurence stood at the foot of the long, narrow mound, and again he kept
vigil--hearing the breathing of the moist earth, the quick sounds of the
woodland, and that strange, indeterminate, stirring of awakening
life--beast, bird, insect, herb, and tree--which immediately precedes
the birth of day. More than once his heart thumped against his ribs, and
the love-light sprang into his eyes, for, deceived by the growing colour
of the east, he fancied for an instant he again beheld the dear rose-red
of his fairy-lady's clinging, old-world, silken gown. But that fond
delusion was soon dissipated. Wherever her light footsteps might now
tread, they would never, in visible fashion, tend earthwards again.

Then on a sudden, from the stables up at the house, came the crowing of
a cock, answered in gallant challenge from cottage and from
farmyard--growing faint in the far distance, ringing out again close at
hand, lusty and vigorous, full of the joy of living. Stung by the merry
sound, Laurence straightened himself up, looked away from the
osier-bound, rose-crowned grave, over the fertile, peaceful landscape.
The hops hung heavy upon the poles. The corn warmed to ruddy yellow. The
grass and hedgerows, as the sun's rays touched them, glittered with a
thousand diamond points, even as his lost love's little, embroidered
slippers had glittered when he first led her forth along the alleys of
the Italian garden. A glad wind swept up landward, from that great
thoroughfare of the nations, that highway of stately ships, the narrow
Channel sea. It raced through the woodland, swayed the sombre,
plume-like branches of the ancient yew-trees, and passed, exultant, to
fulfil its cleanly, life-giving mission elsewhere. Laurence took a long
breath, filling his lungs with it. It was good to taste, sane and
wholesome. And then, somehow, those divine words came to him, spoken in
the far Syrian country nearly two thousand years ago.--"The wind bloweth
where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell
whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of
the Spirit."

Laurence stood erect and very still, his head held high, his face keen,
his lips parted in silent laughter, his whole being vibrant with the
surprise of a great conviction, a great discovery. For at length he too
saw and understood. He perceived that his love far from being lost was
his, close and intimately, as she had never been before, in either this
life, or that other half-remembered life, in both of which he had loved
her so well. He perceived that his amazing and desperate experiment, far
from being a failure, was on a high-road to a success hitherto undreamed
of. He perceived that his splendid adventure, far from being ended, had
but just begun; and that, could he but keep faith with his present
seeing, it would not end until he too had pushed back the heavy curtain,
and finally crossed the threshold of so-called death. Nor would it end
even then, were light lived in the light of this his present seeing. The
future was illimitable, since the goal of it was nothing less than union
with the Divine Principle itself. However innumerable the company of
human lives that had gone to produce his own, his individuality was
secure henceforth, since he had recognised and embraced the life which
alone eternally exists and subsists--the life in, and of, God.

Five months ago, crossing the Atlantic, in the chill of the March night,
while the big ship steamed eastward and the stars danced in the rigging
as she sunk and swung in the trough and then rose--as a horse at a
fence--at the coming wave, he had asked himself the question as to the
profit of gaining the whole world, if in so doing a man should lose his
own soul. All his experience since then had been a setting of that vital
question at rest for ever. For he had found his soul. The matter was
simply to the point of laughter, when once apprehended. In bidding him
farewell, his sweet companion had promised him that she and he would at
last be made one, being one with Almighty God. He had heard that as he
might mere rhetoric, idle though pretty words, placing it in some
unimaginable future, his mind still in bondage to human conception of
time and space. Now he beheld this consummation as already accomplished,
immediately present, constant, here, now, permanent. All that it needed
was just an attitude and habit of mind, and then work. Work, not so much
for any great benefit derivable by others from that work (though the
desire of the welfare of others must be a fundamental element in that
work); but for the maintenance of the said all-important attitude and
habit of mind in himself. Almost any work would do. There was his
property; and, happily, sufficient of the feudal idea still remains in
England to make the possession of a great landed-estate fruitful in
humane relations between class and class. There was the dear earth, too,
to till and sow, and render more fertile, and more useful to man. There
were politics and public affairs. In the light of his present
illumination he dare approach these things, strong to carve out a career
for himself, yet for ever keeping his secret against his heart.
Salvation is for the individual, each individual must find it for him or
herself. Souls cannot be saved in batches. But to each and all it may,
and will, come, if they have courage, and fortitude, and the single eye
which refuses illusion.

"And so farewell, yet never farewell, my first, and last, and only
love," he said, looking at the osier-bound grave, while the shadows of
the feathery yew-trees danced and beckoned upon the churchyard grass.
"There have been partings before, cruel to be born; there may be
partings again, but they will be transitory. I am not afraid that I
shall ever lose you, or you me. I am secure in that. Meanwhile for your
sake, O dear soul of me--for so indeed you are--I will make the best use
of the years I may still have to live here on earth. And since you once
were woman, no woman shall ever suffer at my hands--all womanhood being
sacred thenceforth since you once were woman.--Now the work of the world
calls, and, God helping me, I will help to do it. After all, dear love,
we go forth together,--amen."

       *       *       *       *       *

There are things Virginia does not quite comprehend in her husband. She
tells the Van Reenan family, that "the English character is very
obscure." But she has had no more dramatic moments in respect of that
character. She pays a long visit yearly to "the other side," and is as
popular as ever. On this side too she has had her social triumphs. The
yellow drawing-room at Stoke Rivers has been rebuilt, but Laurence keeps
it for his own use. He has moved the books into it from the libraries,
thus giving Virginia a large suite of rooms for social entertainments.
Lately, when the red flame of war threatened the integrity of the
British Empire, Laurence went south; and for a time lived that larger
life--in which woman takes her place, perhaps her safest one, as a hope
or a memory merely--the life a man lives among men. Jack Bellingham
volunteered also. He thinks Laurence a better fellow than ever; yet is
perplexed at moments as to whether he has, or has not, developed--like
so many of his family--into a thorough-paced crank.


THE END




_By the same author_


    THE WAGES OF SIN
    THE CARISSIMA
    MRS. LORIMER
    A COUNSEL OF PERFECTION
    COLONEL ENDERBY'S WIFE
    LITTLE PETER







*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GATELESS BARRIER ***


    

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