An Unknown Lover

Mrs George de Horne Vaizey

"An Unknown Lover"

Part 1— Chapter I.

They were seated together at the breakfast-table, a handsome, bored-looking man of thirty-three, and a girl of twenty-six, whose dress of a rich blue made an admirable touch of colour in the dim, brown room.

The house had been designed in the period when shelter from the wind seems to have been the one desired good, and was therefore built in a dell, from which the garden rose in a rapid slope. Today the house would crown the head of the slope, and the dell be relegated to a retreat for occasional hot afternoons; the breakfast-room would face east, and the sun stream in through wide bay-windows, from which fact the spirits of the occupants would benefit afresh with each new morn. As it was the light filtered dimly through mullioned panes, and the oak panelled walls gave back no answering gleam. Curtains and carpet alike were of dull neutral tints, and the one bright spot in the picture was the blue dress of the girl, who sat behind the coffee urn.

Was she beautiful? Was she merely pretty? Was she redeemed from plainness only by a certain quality of interest and charm? At different times an affirmative answer might have been given to each of the three questions in turns; at the moment Katrine Beverley appeared just a tall, graceful girl who arranged her hair with a fine eye for the exigencies of an irregular profile, and who deserved an order of merit for choosing a dress at once so simple, so artistic, and so becoming.

Martin was enjoying a breakfast menu which he sturdily refused to vary. Year in, year out, through dog days, and through frost, the same three courses formed his morning meal. Porridge—the which he ate barbarously with sugar, instead of salt,—bacon and eggs, marmalade and toast. The appearance of the same dish at the dinner-table twice over in a fortnight would have evoked complaint and reprisals, but he would stand no tampering with his breakfast. The Times and the Morning Post lay beside his plate. He glanced at the headlines in the interval between porridge and bacon. Nothing going on! It was the dullest of all dead years.

Katrine was nibbling daintily at fruit and cream. For the moment a fruitarian craze was in full swing, and she shuddered disgustedly at the thought of bacon, refusing to view it in its crisp and rashered form, and obstinately harking back to the sty. In a few months’ time she would probably be discoursing learnedly of the uric acid in fruit, and seriously contemplating a course of “Salisbury.”

When the maid entered the room with the morning’s letters and the young mistress turned over her correspondence with white, ringless hands, the discovery that she was not the wife of the man at the head of the table would have come to an onlooker less as a surprise than as the confirmation of a settled conviction. These two people had not the air of a married couple. As individuals they were more calmly, amicably detached than it is possible to be in that closest and most demanding of relationships; moreover, family likeness betrayed itself in curve and line, and in a natural grace of movement.

Brother and sister, alone in the dim old room, while from three different points of view the same pictured face looked down upon their tête-à-tête. From above the mantelpiece a painting; from the bureau, a photograph printed in soft sepia tones; from the bookcase a snapshot in a round black frame. All over the house the same face looked down from the walls, for Katrine saw to it that no room was without a pictured presentment of the young mistress who had reigned for one short year over the dim old house. In the first days of loss her heart had ached with an unbearable ache, not so much even for Martin himself, as for that other girl who had enjoyed her kingdom for so brief a reign. Poor, pretty, fair-haired child! there was something inconceivably shocking in the thought of Juliet dead. In life she had played the part of an irresponsible toy, born to be petted, to be served, to be screened from every touch of care; her very marriage had been treated in the light of an amusing joke. It was impossible to think of Juliet becoming middle-aged and responsible. She was a flower of a day, and her day had passed with startling, with horrible rapidity.

Martin had been stunned by his loss. He was but twenty-five at the time of his marriage, and had found no difficulty in turning into a boy again to make merry with his girl wife. As the months passed by, he had, it is true, shown signs of a growing restiveness, born of a desire for something more stable than everlasting frivoling, but before the restiveness had had time to culminate, a sudden wind had swept the delicate flower, and after a few days of agonising fear, the soul of Juliet had fled, leaving behind a still, majestic mask, which even to the husband who loved her was a strange and awesome thing.

Eight years ago! The colour was fading from the photographs. The fair face with the large eyes and small open mouth was growing more and more cloudy and indistinct, but as soon as her attention was directed to the fact, Katrine had industriously ordered new copies from the old negative, and distributed them about the house, waiting complacently for her brother’s recognition.

It never came. No word or glance betrayed Martin’s knowledge of the change. Even yet, Katrine reflected, even yet, he could not bear to refer to the past! In his heart he was grateful, no doubt, but his tongue could not speak. Juliet’s name was never mentioned between them. A blank wall of silence was drawn over that short, eventful year during which she had passed meteor-like across their path. So far as Katrine herself was concerned, grief had long since evaporated, but she reminded herself constantly that for Martin it was different. Martin’s sorrow was for life.

Eight years ago, when she was barely eighteen, he had come to her, white and haggard, and had spoken a few unforgettable words:

“You are the mistress now, Katrine. We are alone together, and I—and I shall never marry! Do as you please in the house. I shan’t interfere; I shall never care enough to interfere. My life is over.”

He believed what he said; they both believed it, the girl of eighteen and the youth of twenty-five, and alone in her room Katrine, who had never kept in the same mind for a month together, made, with sobs and tears, a life-long vow. Loyalty to Martin! faithfulness, devotion, unending patience and tenderness to Martin of the broken heart, and the broken, ended life. In the hour of his agony he had turned to her, and she would never fail him. It would not be easy; Martin had not always been easy to understand even in the good old times; now he would be sad, irritable, unresponsive; she would have to expend herself, and to expect but little appreciation in return. She told herself warmly that she wanted no thanks, all she wanted was to help. Incidentally, also, she herself could never marry, but as a mere school-girl, free as yet from any consciousness of sex, she accepted that privation with youthful calm. She would have her own house, her own place in the world; a life-work worth doing, and which no one but herself could undertake. She entered upon it with a serene content.

Eight years ago, and here they were still, sitting at either end of the breakfast table, with Juliet’s face looking down on them from the walls; the same people, living the same lives, looking practically the same, for life goes slowly in little English towns, thinking the same thoughts. Well! practically the same—poor Martin’s outlook, of course, was unchanged, Katrine decided, but for herself, when one was twenty-six... She heaved a sigh, straightened herself resolutely, and glanced at the letters by her plate.

They were three in number; a coroneted missive in white and gold, a pale violet envelope edged with a line of a darker shade, and bearing a dashing monogram upon the reverse side, and lastly, a bulky epistle with an Indian stamp.

“Nice mail!” exclaimed Katrine appreciatively, as she glanced over her budget. “Some one told me yesterday that the invitations for the Barfield Garden Party were out, and I felt a qualm in case ours had been overlooked. Here it is, however, safe and sound. Tuesday, July 9. Over six weeks! What a fearsomely long invitation! I do love that afternoon at Barfield; it is a very zoological garden of lions. If they could only be labelled, how interesting it would be! You will come with me to Barfield, Martin?”

“Oh, I suppose so. Possibly. If nothing happens.” Martin Beverley’s voice hardly echoed his sister’s gratification. He spoke with the air of a man laboriously anxious to be agreeable, but his lifted eyes held no sparkle of light. Then they fell upon the violet envelope, and he spoke again:—

“From Grizel, is it not? What has she to say?”

Katrine laughed with light amusement.

“The usual Grizel! Nothing whatever that’s worth repeating. I often wonder why I write to her at all, for her replies are nothing but a paraphrase of my own letters. This one for example. She is sorry it was wet for the picnic; she is glad you are enjoying your golf; how nice it is that the garden is looking so well! She echoes all my sentiments and thoughts, but”—Katrine’s lips curved with laughter, “in her own way! It’s just the Grizel touch which transforms the whole. Little wretch! she can make even a paraphrase charming.”

Martin helped himself to another slice of crisp brown toast. His sister’s description of her friend’s letter had not been enthralling, nevertheless his eyes dwelt upon it with a persistence which was easily understood. Martin wanted to read Grizel’s effusion for himself. Katrine was perfectly aware of the fact, but a latent obstinacy, for which she would have found it difficult to account, prevented her from granting his desire. There was nothing whatever in the letter which could interest a grown man. She persistently looked the other way, waiting in silence until he should speak again.

“Are you going to ask Grizel for the Barfield Garden Party?”

Katrine looked up sharply, her tell-tale face betraying the fact that the suggestion was not to her taste.

“Grizel! To Barfield. I never thought of it. Why should I?”

“She would enjoy it. She hasn’t been here for some time.”

Katrine looked down, and drummed on the table impatiently. A moment before she had been decidedly pale; now there was a suspicion of temper in the quick reddening of her cheeks. Her lips were pressed together as though to keep back impetuous words, but before the pause had time to grow serious, she had put another question, with an air of elaborate calm:

“Do you wish her to be invited?”

“Well!” Martin Beverley waved his hand carelessly, “it was a suggestion. I thought you might be glad of her company, and Grizel can always be trusted to turn herself out well. She would do you credit.”

“Oh, clothes! I was not thinking of clothes,” Katrine pushed back her plate, and fidgeted impatiently with her cup and saucer.

“Of course it is your house. If you wish—”

A fragment of toast broke off sharply at a twist from Martin’s fingers. There was a moment of strained silence, then he said suavely:—

“Let us say then that I do not wish! It’s too hot to argue—and even if the house is—ostensibly—mine, I have no wish to force your own friends upon you. You don’t want Grizel. Very well! There is no more to be said. I’ll have some more coffee. It’s particularly good this morning. This new woman of yours makes it better than the last. What are you going to be about to-day?”

“Oh nothing! The usual thing. Pottering around.”

As Katrine filled up the cup she reflected that it would be easier to deal with Martin if he would let himself go occasionally, and say what he meant. These self-contained people made one feel such a brute, and exacted so heavy a penitence for a slight offence! She ought not to have made that remark about “your house,” it had been intended to annoy, and it had annoyed. The vigorous snap of those strong fingers had not passed unnoticed, but Martin had controlled himself, and poured coals of fire on her head; she had been not only forgiven, but besought to take her own way, had received into the bargain a sop to her housekeeping pride. A right down good scolding would have been less difficult to bear!

“Oh, the coffee! It’s not the making. I paid sixpence more. The grocer’s bill will be bigger than ever this week,” she declared perversely. To herself she was saying irritably: “I will not be stroked down! Why should Grizel come? It wouldn’t be half so much fun. I should be obliged to stay with her, and introduce her to every one who came up, and come home when she liked.—I go out so seldom that on a special occasion like this, I want to consider myself! She’ll never expect—”

“Your other letter is from the faithful Dorothy, I suppose?”

“Yes.” Katrine’s hand instinctively covered the grey envelope, her glance softening to a smile. “She never misses. It is not once in a year that I have a blank mail.”

“What on earth does she find to say?” Martin Beverley’s voice betrayed a decided impatience. Now that the subject was impersonal he had evidently relaxed his guard. “You must have heard all there is to hear about her surroundings, years ago, and there can be precious few happenings in life out there. Of course in your case it is different!”

“Life being so thrilling in this giddy vale!” Katrine was rebellious once more. “Martin never realises how dull it is for me! It’s just because we have both so few outside interests that Doll and I count so much on our letters. I believe Martin considers that life here is quite full and satisfying, and has not the least idea of how monotonous it is, or of how much I give up.” She let her mind ponder on the episodes of the last month, feeling an increasing glow of satisfaction in the remembrance of her own sacrifices. A week’s invitation refused because Martin would have been left alone; a musical evening abandoned at the last moment because Martin’s head ached; two whole evenings devoted to sleepy bridge, when she had wished to play tennis. No one could say that she was not the most devoted of sisters! Martin had not even heard of that first most tempting invitation; she had refused it without a word, denying herself the meed of thanks and appreciation. Katrine felt that a special laurel wreath was due to her for that fact alone;—every time she recalled her own silence, she was thrilled anew with content. Dozens of invitations she had refused for the same reason during the last six years! She might certainly be allowed to enjoy her few pleasures after her own fashion!

Suddenly her mood changed; her eye rested upon the tiny coroneted sheet, and her previous elation died into distaste. What did it amount to after all—this gala day of the season? A tiresome cross-country journey, or, as an alternative, a long motor drive, tiring and costly; a crush of smart celebrities making merry among themselves, while the country folk stared from afar, avoiding each other at the beginning of the afternoon, but in the end glad to meet, to compare notes, quiz and admire, and so mitigate the growing loneliness. And it was to this that she and her neighbours looked forward for weeks at a time, preening themselves on the invitation received, or smarting beneath its omission! What volumes it spoke of the flatness of life in a country town! How tired, how tired, she was of it all! How she thirsted for a change...

“Has Dorothea never suggested that you should pay her a visit?”

Katrine started violently. The question leapt out at her suddenly as if in continuation of her own thoughts. She gave a short, light laugh.

“Dozens of times! Years ago. She doesn’t mention it any longer now that she realises that it is impossible.”

“Why impossible?”

“Martin! What would become of you?” The note of pained surprise in Katrine’s voice was very real, but her brother refused to treat it seriously.

He shrugged his shoulders, and smiled an easy smile.

“Oh, I should rub along. I might get in a working housekeeper, or I could take a room in town. I might work better for a change of scene. If you would like to go—”

“I shouldn’t like anything which left you alone. It would not be worth going for less than six months, and I couldn’t possibly do that. I am of some use to you, Martin!”

This time the appeal was too direct to be ignored and the response came readily enough.

“A very great deal. You have managed admirably, but it is possible to be too unselfish. If you would like a change—”

Katrine drew in her breath with a sharp inhalation. “Like it!” like to spend months with Dorothea and Jack Middleton! Like to have the experiences of that thrilling voyage, past the Bay, past Gib., along the Mediterranean, through the Canal to the glowing East! Like to see India, with its riot of sun and colour, after six long years in a sleepy country town! It would require an infinitely stronger word to give an indication of the passionate longing which filled her heart. But to Katrine, as to most people, the big sacrifice was less difficult than the small, and all that was noble in her nature rose to meet the strain. A week’s recreation denied had left a sting which had found vent in captious mood, but she had long since buried the great desire. It was only the hopeless inadequacy of that word which had stung it into life. Like!

Martin was watching her intently across the table. There was a hint of anxiety in his face which touched a sensitive chord in Katrine’s heart. He needed her! She was all he had left. Unselfishness had prompted the suggestion, but it had cost him dear. Impulsively she bent towards him, her face a charming mingling of tenderness and fun.

“Dear man! It’s noble of you, but it’s no use talking. I—am—not—to be budged! My place is here, and here I remain. In September you will be off shooting, and then I’ll take a trot around. One does want to get out of Cumly sometimes. But I’ll come back in time to have home ready for your return.”

Martin nodded absently. He made no further protestations one way or another, and Katrine in her recovered complacency did not miss their absence. The marmalade stage was reached and approaching a conclusion before he spoke again, to ask a new and unexpected question:

“How old is it that you are now, Katrine? Twenty-three, twenty-four?”

“Twenty-six!” corrected Katrine with a grimace. “I’m a woman growed. Getting most horridly old.”

“Nonsense, nonsense!” Martin brushed aside the suggestion, but a moment after contradicted his words with a suggestive: “Still, it’s getting on.—Of course you realise, Katrine, that if ever there is any talk of marriage, you mustn’t let me—I must not interfere.”

The girl’s lips twitched. Ever any talk! Blessed innocent! did he suppose that no one had ever—? What would he say if he realised that she had already dismissed two solid, eligible suitors, who had laid before her feet not only themselves, but their not inconsiderable worldly goods, pointing out to each in gentle, sister-like fashion that her life work was already fixed. Apart from the pain which she had been obliged to inflict, the incidents had afforded Katrine real satisfaction. It was pleasant to know that some one had cared! When one grew elderly and fat, it would be satisfactory to remember that one had remained an old maid not of necessity, but from choice. It was true that no self-denial had been involved in rejections, but this was a point over which memory skimmed lightly. However sorely she had been tempted, Katrine was satisfied that her answer would have been the same.

“Thank you, dear,” she replied demurely. “I’ll remember. But there aren’t so very many chances here, are there? I counted up the other day, and found that there are just twenty-six eligible and attractive girls within a radius of three miles, and exactly three and a half young men. The half is represented by Edgar Bevan, who comes home for the week end. I don’t wish to exaggerate, so I’ll confess that there are also three widowers!”

“Including myself?”

Katrine’s look was full of a shocked surprise.

“Martin! How can you! Three and a half bachelors, and the widowers. But one widower has a fine car. He might almost be counted as two! Even so, it leaves a considerable margin. My own chance, dear brother, is but one to five!”

They laughed together, but Martin appeared to ponder the subject, and to find it disconcerting.

“That’s so; no doubt it’s so. The young men gravitate to the towns. It’s hard on the girls.”

“Oh, we are happy enough!” The very acknowledgment of the hardship seemed for the moment to remove its sting. “So far as I am concerned, if they all arrived in a body and sat in rows on the hearthrug waiting to propose (which they show no immediate signs of doing, by the bye!) I would not look at one. You and Dorothea are all the sweethearts I want.”

“Well!” ejaculated Martin Beverley vaguely. “Well!” He pushed back his chair and strolled over to the window, drawing a cigarette case from his pocket as he went. Every morning of his life he took up this position after breakfast, smoked a regulation cigarette, presumably digested the morning’s news, and thought out his plans for the day. Katrine was accustomed to the sight, but this morning something in the pose of the figure attracted an uneasy attention. The shoulders drooped, the whole attitude bespoke weariness, a lack of purpose.

Martin Beverley stood in the alcove of the window, and the light shining through the upper panes left his figure in the shade, and fell full upon the pictured face above the mantel—the fair young face with the unending smile. The scene might have been taken as the motif for an artist’s picture, portraying the desolation of a widowed home. Katrine’s quick sensibilities grasped its significance, and her heart contracted with sympathy. “Juliet! Juliet!” she sighed to herself. “The old ache; the old pain!” but in truth Juliet might never have existed, for all the part she played in her husband’s thoughts at that moment. Martin Beverley was passing through that trying stage in the life of an author when he casts about in his mind for the plan of a future book, and can find no satisfactory response. Three months ago, when his last manuscript had been despatched to the publisher, he had acclaimed his liberty with the zest of a schoolboy released from school, had found it sheer joy to wake in the morning to the expectation of a lazy day, but now the holiday mood was fast turning into unrest; the creative instinct had awakened from its sleep, and its voice would not be denied.

Imaginary characters flitted before Martin’s brain, he lived with them, carved out their lives. In a flash of enthusiasm he saw the completed whole, and found it the finest thing he had yet achieved. From time to time he wrote out notes; sketched out the first few chapters, then reading them over, fell once more into the trough of despair. A day or two of restless wanderings, and he would begin again, and again would follow the check, the discouragement. He had lived through the same misery with each fresh book which he had written. Experience had proved that in this instance it was indeed the first step which cost, that once fairly afloat his characters would grow in reality, and in inexplicable fashion would take the reins in their own hands, and work out their own destinies, but where, since the beginning of the world, is the artist to be found who can be comforted by common-sense while floundering in the valley of discouragement?

This morning for Martin Beverley had begun badly, and breakfast, instead of being a time of refreshment, had left him feeling still more jarred and dreary. Mentally he laid the blame upon Katrine’s shoulders. There was no denying the fact that Katrine was getting upon his nerves. For the first few years of their lives together all had gone well; he himself had been too bruised, too sore, to take more than a passing interest in life; and she had been but a young and malleable girl; now at the end of eight years he was awake once more, while Katrine was a woman of twenty-six, and, it was no use denying that the home atmosphere was out of time. Katrine was a clever housekeeper, careful and considerate of his comfort, she was also handsome, capable, and affectionate, yet the bitter fact remained that the tête-à-tête was beginning to jar, and an unspoken friction to shadow the air.

Martin was grateful for the help which his sister had given him, he tried persistently for self-control, yet in the recesses of his mind the question was growing daily more insistent: “How long could he endure the present manage?”

An intolerable longing possessed him to break loose from the chains which cramped his life, and to start afresh, free and untrammelled. For the moment the very presence of his sister in the room seemed more than he could bear. He turned on his heel, and walked quickly from the room.

Chapter Two.

Katrine meantime had accomplished her duties, and given herself up to the enjoyment of reading, and replying, to her Indian letter. The temptation of beginning the reply could seldom be postponed, for Dorothea’s words brought with them a personal demand, to which it was imperative to respond.

Dorothea was the one person in the whole world who could always be relied upon to understand, and follow Katrine’s mental flights. At school she had been the staunchest of chums; through the first black years of Martin’s widowerhood her enthusiasm had kept her friend’s resolution at white heat, and when two years later she had met her fate in the guise of a young officer, and had been spirited away to India, her departure had been the sorest grief which Katrine had yet been called upon to bear.

The weekly letters which crossed each other with unfailing regularity were in each case a diary of daily happenings, enlivened by such moralisings, grave and gay, as were natural between the friends, who were deeply in each other’s confidence. Dorothea’s latest letter was no exception to the rule, except as regards one startling item of news, given, woman-like, in the postscript.

“By the way, Jim Blair discovered a charming old box in the bazaar this week, and is sending it home to you as the latest addition to your collection. Be sure to answer his letter nicely, and be properly pleased! He is a dear, and I have read (edited) extracts from your letters to him weekly, for years past, so that he knows you quite well by repute. He is lonely, poor man. You wouldn’t grudge him that small distraction!”

Katrine’s cheeks flushed to an unusual pink as she digested that postscript. Jim Blair! Jim Blair was a bachelor, and the ami intime of the Middleton ménage. Katrine searched her memory for further details, and had an impression of a tall, thin man, who had had a rough time in life, and had come through his trials with flying colours. Whence had the impression arisen? She could not tell, but determined to re-read old letters to find out exactly what had been said. Meantime the present announcement caused a distinct stirring of the quiet waters of life...

A strange man had written to her, had sent her a gift, in the shape of a brass box, to add to the collection of antiques which lay before her, their polished surfaces gleaming brightly against a background of old oak. Katrine had a passion for antique brasses, and through Dorothea’s agency had acquired an interesting collection during the last few years. An addition to her collection was always a triumph, but in this special case her expectations were engaged more with the message itself, than with the treasure which it introduced. The letter had not arrived by the ordinary post, although Dorothea had spoken of it as already despatched. Probably then it was enclosed in the box, and would arrive by the later parcel delivery!

A letter! How extraordinary that a man should take upon himself to send a letter to an unknown girl at the other end of the world! As for the brass itself, he had probably seen other specimens which Dorothea had forwarded from time to time, both as commissions and gifts; had been consulted as to their value, possibly even taken to the bazaar to assist in bargaining; then, coming by chance across a good specimen, it might have occurred to a generously-minded man to secure it in its turn. Katrine would have found the whole transaction natural enough if the gift had been offered through Dorothea’s mediumship—But to write direct!

A letter! What would that letter contain? A few brief lines of formal explanation; a colourless, characteristic thing, as lifeless as the sheet on which it was written? Assuredly so. How in the name of fortune could it be anything else? Katrine stifled a stab of disappointment, and set herself resolutely to foretell the words which she was presently to read.

“Dear Miss Beverley—Dear Madame—Knowing your liking for old brass—um—um—I am taking the liberty of forwarding—” No! that’s too sudden and businessy.—He must offer some sort of explanation... “Coming across this old box the other day in the bazaar, and knowing your liking for old brass, I consulted with Mrs Middleton as to whether I might venture—” “Really, it’s horribly difficult! Why didn’t he just put in a card, and leave it to Doll to explain? I must accept, of course; it would be churlish to refuse, but as to answering nicely, that’s another matter! A few lines in the third person would be the best way out of the difficulty—”

“A parcel for you, miss.”

The waitress brought in a small box, oblong in shape, sealed and tied with a security which bespoke a long journey. Katrine’s hasty hands scattered the wrappings on the floor, and even as they fell, the musty, pungent smell of the East filled the air, and her eyes looked with surprise upon a cedar-wood box, carved, and inlaid with delicate skill. Cedar wood! but Dorothea had said brass. It seemed inexplicable that the offering should consist of a thing in which she took no special interest. Katrine’s hands weighed it carefully, and discovered an unexpected weight; she prized off the lid, and beheld yet a second parcel, wrapped in soft, rough silk. Ah! here came the brass. She drew her breath with a quick gasp of delight as the treasure came into sight,—a long, flat-shaped box, deeply carved with letterings, mingled with the most grotesque of figures. Katrine’s growing experience made her aware of its antiquity. No other item in her possession was worthy to be named in comparison. It was a treasure trove, such as would delight the heart of the most fastidious collector.

For a moment surprise and admiration engrossed her mind, then quickly following came another thought. The letter!—where was the letter? Was there no letter enclosed? Katrine dashed at the scattered wrappings, shook them apart, and failing to find any trace of what she sought, fumbled with the lid of the box itself. It was tightly jammed, but a little coaxing set it free, and in the cavity lay a sheet of foreign paper, closely covered with a man’s strong, well-formed writing.

Katrine seated herself on the chair by the window, with a strange, dazed feeling of expectancy. A narrow strip of garden separated the side of the house from the lane without. With half-conscious eyes she saw a blue-robed figure strolling slowly by, followed by a fat, waddling pug. Mary Biggs, the lawyer’s sister, taking Peter Biggs for his morning’s stroll. Approaching from the opposite direction came a trim figure in grey, sandwiched between two small girls, with skirts cut short to display shapely brown legs. Mrs Slades’s governess taking the children for their morning stroll... The little hamlet was pursuing its quiet, machine-like way; no tremor of excitement had disturbed its calm, but in Katrine’s room was the scent of the East, and out of the silence six thousand miles away, a man laid bare to her his heart.

Chapter Three.

“Lebong, May 10, 19—.

“Captain Blair presents his compliments to Miss Beverley, and takes the liberty of forwarding for her acceptance an antique brass box, which he trusts may be considered worthy of a place in her collection.

“Katrine! It is such a delicious little name; it is the only name by which I have ever heard you called. Will you forgive a lonely fellow, six thousand miles away, if he writes to you as he thinks? It’s ridiculous to let conventions throw their shadow across the world, but if you will have it, enclosed is the conventional, colourless, third-person missive. Keep it, and tear up the rest unread. I give you full liberty to do it.

“But you won’t.

“I might as well confess at once,—that box is a delusion and a snare. I didn’t ‘hit upon it’; I searched for it far and wide. Properly regarded, it is not a box at all; it is an excuse; a decoy. I wanted one badly, and it was the best I could find.

“The nuisance of it is that we meet on such unequal terms! You know my name; you have probably gathered an impression that, as fellows go, I’m not a bad fellow, though a trifle dull. Dorothea Middleton is an angel of hospitality, but an up-country station has its limits even for a saint. To your mind I’m dead as Queen Anne, but to me you are quite distractingly alive. Why do you send out photographs taken in such a fashion that your eyes look straight into the eyes of any lonely fellow who chances to sit smoking his pipe in a friend’s bungalow if you don’t want trouble to follow?

“There’s one photograph which smiles. You know it! the one in the white frock. When I’m pleased to be witty, I look at those eyes, and they laugh back. My other hearers may be dull and unappreciative, but those eyes never fail. Katrine and I have shared many a joke together during these last years.

“There’s another photograph—the dark one! A white, little face looking out of the shadow; pensive this time, but always with those straight-glancing eyes. It’s your own fault, Katrine! If you had been ‘taken’ like ordinary folk, gazing blankly into space, all this might never have happened... The pensive portrait is even deadlier than the glad. It looks sorry for me. When I’m turning out at night leaving Will and Dorothea alone, it understands how I feel. Its eyes follow me to the door.

“I haven’t a photograph to send you; I wouldn’t send one if I had. What’s the use of a portrait of a big skeleton of a fellow, brown as a nigger, and at thirty-five looking a lot more like forty? Let that slide; but within the walls of the skeleton lives a lonely fellow who has no one left to send him letters from home, and who for the last three years has enjoyed his mail vicariously through extracts read from a young girl’s letters.

“You write wonderful letters, Katrine! I don’t know if they are the sort a literary critic would approve, but they bring new life into our camp. Dorothea is generous in reading aloud all that she may, and I could stand a pretty stiff examination upon your life in that delightful little Cranford of a place, which you don’t appreciate as you ought. Those letters, plus the photograph, have done the damage.

“So this is what it comes to,—I want some letters for myself! I want (it sounds appallingly conceited; never mind! Let it go at that), I want you to know me, to realise my existence, even as I do yours. Will you write to me sometimes? I give you fair notice that in any case I mean to write to you. It can do you no harm to read my effusions, and if you do violence to your natural curiosity and burn them instead, the snub would miss its point, for I shall be no wiser. I’m not afraid that you will burn them. The feminine in you is too strongly developed for such a lack of curiosity, but will you answer them? That’s the question!

“Think it over, Katrine! At the moment of reading, you haven’t a doubt of what you will say. Sit down at once to write that haughty letter of reproof and denial, but—don’t send it off by the first post! Relieve yourself by letting off steam, and then think out the thing calmly.

“Your own life is not all that you could wish, but compare it just for a moment with mine, and consider the compensations which you enjoy! Friends, books, papers, happenings of world-wide interest at your door, or what seems your door to exiles across the world—all these, and into the bargain, home, and comfort, and cool! You must acknowledge, Katrine, that the odds are on your side!

“If I could take a holiday and come home, you would receive me graciously as Dorothea’s friend. Why should it require a greater effort to receive me in the spirit?

“Get away from the Cranford spirit, Katrine; refuse to be bound by it, I see signs,—I tell you frankly, I see signs of its encroachment! Here’s a fine chance of throwing it to the winds. Are you brave enough, fine enough, woman enough, to work out this thing for yourself, and to decide as your heart dictates?

“I am very humble; I ask for the moment nothing more than an occasional letter. Now, what are you going to do? At any rate there’s that box! In common decency you must write once at least to acknowledge that! Your answer ought, I calculate, to arrive about four weeks from to-day.

“Yours faithfully,

“Jim Blair.”

“Well, I’m—!” ejaculated Katrine, and stopped aghast. The failure to finish her sentence was attributable less to good feeling than the utter inability to find a word strong enough to express the sentiments of the moment. An onlooker, however, could not have failed to remark the fact that, be the sentiment what it might, it was certainly extraordinarily becoming. Katrine’s eyes shone, her pale cheeks blazed a damask rose, the firm lips gaped, showing a flash of small, white teeth. Seated bolt upright in her high-backed chair, the blue dress outlining the fine lines of her figure, she reached at that moment her highest possibilities of beauty, but there was no one to see her, and for the moment she was oblivious of her own good looks. The world of monotonous order rocked in chaos beneath her feet; volcano-like, those written words had convulsed the landscape, transforming the familiar features into new and astounding shapes.

Out of the shock and amazement it was difficult to realise the predominant sensation. Was it anger; was it excitement; was it relief that at last, at last, something had happened to lift life out of the eternal jog-trot? Katrine did not know, she did not trouble to think; for the moment it was enough to sit still, and let the whirlwind rush through her veins. Whether she were angry or glad, for the moment, at least, the latent powers of feeling were stirred into being; she was strongly, vitally, alive!

An unknown man had accosted her with what was virtually an expression of love; had flung down the gage, and challenged her to the reply. “For the moment” he demanded nothing more than an intimate correspondence, with the object of gaining an opportunity to reveal his own identity, and evoking her sympathy in return...

She looked at the brass box lying upon the table, the beautiful antique whose real nature had been so openly confessed; she looked at the stiff, three-lined message of decorum; she looked at the letter lying open in her hand, at the strong, clear lettering of that opening word.—“Katrine!” she murmured beneath her breath,—“Katrine!” The word came to her ear with a new delight. The commonplace had vanished, it seemed to breathe of beauty and romance. Her hands retained their hold of the letter, she raised it from her knee, read it once more and bit hard upon her lip. “What can he think of me? What impression must my letters have left, if he can believe that it is possible that I could agree to such a suggestion? He can’t have much respect—”

She fumed, flushed, scorched him with disdain, then suddenly found herself faced by another paragraph, and suffered a humiliating collapse. “The Cranford cramp.” He had seen signs! How had he seen signs? Could it indeed be true, that while she was complacently denouncing the narrow-mindedness of her neighbours, the infection had touched herself? Impulse prompted her to thrust aside so humiliating a suggestion, but a doubt remained...

Was it possible to live for years in a narrow sphere, surrounded by an atmosphere of petty detail, and yet keep one’s own attitude broad and free?

With a certain fierceness of sincerity Katrine searched her conscience, summoned the image of herself before a mental bar, and passed sentence. It was true! Compared with friends from afar; compared even with the Katrine of years ago, she was slowly, surely stiffening into the Cranford Model. Another ten years of steady following would find her with a horizon limited by the High Street and the tennis ground, and a mind incapable of braving the verdict of a village tea-party. Katrine sighed; a short, impatient sigh. Self-pride suffered in the revelation, but she told herself boldly that she was not to blame. She had had no change, no distractions. Year after year she had vegetated in the same small place. The past tense came unconsciously to her lips, for already her thoughts dwelt upon yesterday as a far-off past. Yesterday Jim Blair had been but a name, the most shadowy of figures; to-day, with amazing audacity, the shadowy figure had stepped into the very foreground of life!

Katrine searched her memory for the stray items of information which her friend’s letters had from time to time contained with regard to her husband’s friend. The two men were fellow-captains in the same regiment. Blair was the senior of the two, but even so his chances of promotion were small, owing to the hopeless blocking which is the soldier’s greatest handicap. Blair had seen active service, had distinguished himself in an expedition to Tibet, could with ease have achieved an exchange, but he was devoted to the regiment, a prime favourite with the mess, and having private means, preferred to defer the evil day.

Dorothea’s descriptions, though flattering, were somewhat vague. She had stated frequently, and with conviction, that “Jim was a dear!” but to which particular brand or type of dear he belonged was left to the imagination. Jim was the godfather of the son and heir; in descriptions of domestic scenes and conversations he seemed naturally to play a part; Dorothea was complacently convinced that in the society of her husband and herself he found complete satisfaction. It had never occurred to her to consider the part played by a fourth person in those same interviews! A quiet, well-mannered young person who sat on the mantelpiece, taking notes!

“Katrine and I!”

The real Katrine gasped once more at the remembrance of those words. So extraordinary were they, so unbelievable, that to make sure that they were not the creation of her own brain, she turned back to the letter, and re-read the sentence.

“Katrine and I have shared many a joke together.”

For a moment the girl frowned, then suddenly a wistful expression stole into her eyes. She herself had enjoyed so few jokes in these long flat years! The photographs had the advantage there. She found herself for the moment almost envying the photographs. The laughing one, that was to say; not the sad. The sad one had been guilty of unpardonable boldness in looking sorry for a strange man; in exchanging glances with him, forsooth! from the doorway, in covert sympathy with his bachelor estate!

“If it had been just an ordinary friendly correspondence, one might—perhaps—have agreed! It would be interesting to be friends with a man, but—but it is not! He doesn’t mean it to be; he doesn’t mean me to believe that he means it. It’s a kind of verbal ‘walking out’; a correspondence ‘with a view to matrimony!’ In a few months’ time he would be asking—”

Katrine jumped to her feet, and paced excitedly to the window, the letter still clutched in her hand. It crackled beneath her fingers, as she stood staring out into the lane.

A man in a white apron was walking rapidly along the farther side. Rogers, the butcher’s foreman, homeward bound for his mid-day meal. The clock of Saint Dunstan’s struck twelve chimes, and celebrated the occasion by chiming a verse of “Onward, Christian Soldiers.”

Every morning of the year that white-robed figure passed up the lane at precisely the same hour; every morning the same verse was ground out on the church bells.

“And there is Martin!” said Katrine, in a slow, dull tone of finality. “There is Martin!”

For the first time in her experience she felt a flood of pity for her own self-enforced celibacy. Hitherto marriage had presented no especial lure and the two men who had appeared as suitors had failed to awaken even a passing interest. No one could look at Katrine’s face and fail to realise that she was capable of deep and passionate love, but she had none of the easy sentiment of the ordinary young girl, and having failed to meet her mate, the softer part of her nature was still dormant. Moreover she had an immense advantage over the ordinary unmarried woman, in being mistress of a home, in the management of which she could indulge to the full her natural feminine instincts. It had appeared to her that if Martin were more responsive, she could be satisfied with her lot. There was a certain flatness, no doubt; a certain dread in envisaging the years, but experience showed that such moods were not confined to spinsters alone. They followed as a natural sequence the awakening from youth’s bright dreams; to encourage them would be both morbid and weak! But with the reading of that amazing letter a new rebellion surged in her soul...

She was giving up her life for Martin, and Martin was not made happy thereby. Her mind travelled back to the interview of an hour before—she saw the tall figure, the weary droop of the shoulders; caught again a glimpse of the lean dark profile, which, in contradistinction to the pose, had still so boyish an air. Like a flash of light came a realisation which galvanised into life the stereotyped pity of years. He was young, poor Martin; still young, at an age when he might most have enjoyed his life!

For the first time a faint doubt shot through the certainty of Katrine’s conviction that all that was best worth having was for Martin past and over. A man of thirty-five, in the prime of health and vigour—was it natural, was it right, that his heart should remain buried in the grave of his girl wife? Loyalty would not allow Katrine to confess as much in words, but deep down in her heart she realised that her brother was growing yearly less loving, less lovable, more difficult to please. Bereft of Juliet, thrown back upon himself, the best part of his nature was slowly atrophying from disuse.

Was the fault on his side or hers? Woman of twenty-six though she was, Katrine was curiously limited in her ideas on the great facts of life. The Cranford cramp had laid its hand upon her, so that her judgments were made from the standpoint of convention, not fact. It never occurred to her to blame human nature for the fact that a brother and sister of mature age had failed to find completeness in a life together; instead, she peered anxiously into her own shortcomings of temper and tact, and laboriously built up resolutions.

“I must be more careful, more considerate. He has nobody but me.”

She sighed, and this time the sigh was undisguisedly wistful in tone.

“If it were possible! If she could indeed be brave enough, fine enough, woman enough, to throw conventions to the winds, what a wonderful new interest might come into her life! The arrival of Dorothea’s letters had made epochs in the week, but how much more—” She stopped short, aghast at the suggestion. How could the letters of a strange man be more engrossing than those of the friend of years? Comparison between them was ridiculous. The whole proposition was preposterous and impossible. She would write at once, a firm and dignified rebuff.

Then suddenly, in the midst of her protests, Katrine caught sight of her own image gazing at her from a mirror across the room—a transformed image, youthful, glowing, incredibly alive. The eyes flashed, drooped with a guilty shame, then flashed again bright and defiant. She looked, and burst into a great peal of laughter; she threw out her arms with the gesture of one pushing aside imprisoning chains, advanced with a swaggering gait, and nodded defiance into the tell-tale glass.

“You’re a fraud, Katrine Beverley; you’re a fraud! It is all humbug and pretence, and you know that it is. His letters would be more interesting, just because he is a man, who admires me, and wants—things—he can never have! And I’m not sorry, I’m glad. If it wasn’t for Martin, I’d say yes.—I’d say it at once, I want to say yes!”

Her face fell, she sighed despondently, then straightened herself, reassured.

“At any rate there is the box. In common decency I must write to thank him for the box!”

And meantime Martin was swinging along the country lanes, recalling the morning’s conversation, and pondering for the hundredth time how he could best escape from the impasse of his life.

“Any other woman would have understood—would have realised that I wanted to be alone, but the mischief of it is Katrine doesn’t see, and I can’t be brute enough to tell her in so many words. If she could be induced to take that Indian tour, we might start afresh after a year’s absence. Or she might marry out there. She’s a handsome girl, and would make a rattling wife,—to the right man! Poor old Katrine! I hope I did not show her too plainly... The furniture will have an extra polish this morning, and we shall have a superfine dinner, my favourite dishes,—an ice, and Angels on Horseback,—for a ducat we’ll have them, and I shall buy her a box of chocolates on my way home... She tries her best, poor girl. So do I, for that matter, and that is the devil of it. Effort! Effort!”

The air seemed black with clouds; the pain which long custom had dulled revived into throbbing life. He was racked with mental nausea: life stretched before him level, uneventful, intolerably dull. His very work was a mistake. Long months of effort, and struggle of spirit, and as a result a few patronising reviews, and a monetary reward, which, worked out on a time basis, approached a sweating wage. If he never wrote another line, should he be missed; would the world be a whit the poorer? What was the sum total when all was told, but amusement for an idle hour!

It was in the depths of depression that Martin entered the golf club half an hour later, but on the threshold his good angel stood waiting. His favourite partner, a retired civil servant, living in an adjoining village, stood within the pavilion and acclaimed him with delight; the most intelligent of caddies was at his disposal, and half-an-hour’s play demonstrated the fact that the day was his.

By the end of two hours the vapours had disappeared beneath the combined influences of bracing air, congenial companionship, and a succession of long drives; and then as he climbed up the side of a heathery slope, suddenly, mysteriously, in the fashion known to all writers of fiction, inspiration flashed! The longed-for clue appeared, the tangles smoothed, the barren scene vibrated with life.

Martin stood still on the hill-side, and his lungs expanded with a deep, envious breath. Work! Work! The study table—the scattered leaves, the click of the typewriter; the barren hours, the hours when thoughts flew so fast that the pen could not keep pace,—each different phase of work rose before him, and each in its turn seemed good. His former lethargy disappeared. Useless? Valueless? Was it of no value to be one of the few writers who in a decadent age kept his pages clean? When so many streams ran foul, was it a light thing to provide a crystal well? And this last book should be the best he had written; stronger, deeper, more vital. Already in his own mind it was a living thing. He conceived a man, and lived in his image; he made unto him a wife. The two faces flashed at him out of the blue...

Ten minutes later, as he took up his position before a buried ball, Martin was telling himself briskly: “Hang it all, it’s true! It is my house. I can ask whom I like—”

Chapter Four.

“Cumly, June 1, 19—.

“Dear Captain Blair,

“As you say, I am bound in duty to thank you for the box.

“Considered as a box, it is a treasure indeed. It is so ‘worthy’ of my collection, that every other specimen looks in comparison poor and tawdry. I have placed it on a little pinnacle of its own, where it shines afar, leaving the lesser lights undimmed.

“Miss Beverley returns warm thanks to Captain Blair for his kindness in remembering her collection, and adding to it so valuable and antique a specimen.

“But—there remains Katrine, and Katrine’s duty is so much more complicated! She has written, as you prophesied, four separate letters, all well spelt, and punctuated, and admirably composed, the sentences rounded to a marvel, but alas! each separate one said a different thing, and was afterwards torn up for a different reason.

“Number one was haughty and firm: firm, without a quaver of doubt. ‘Miss Beverley was surprised that Captain Blair could suppose for a moment, that etc., etc.. Miss Beverley could certainly not consent to sacrifice the dignity and self-respect so dear to the heart of every true etc.’

“So far, so good, but Katrine here came to the conclusion that Miss Beverley was a hopeless prig, and effort number one was destroyed forthwith. Number two was also firm, but more affable in tone.

“Miss Beverley had been duly amused by the perusal of Captain Blair’s letter. She realised that it had been written on the spur of an impulse, and that he had not intended his suggestion to be taken seriously. She would proceed to banish it from her mind, as she felt sure he would now wish her to do.

“Here again Katrine interfered, rated Miss Beverley as a hypocrite, declared that she believed nothing of the sort, and sent the second missive packing after the first.

“The third and fourth attempts were destroyed for—er—other reasons! One flies at times from one extreme to another. Here now beginning the fifth.

“If you are sure; if you are quite sure that my letters would be a help, I should like to say yes, but conscience pricks.—the Cranford conscience which sees not only straight ahead, but round every conceivable niche and corner.

“Take first your own point of view! Suppose a moment that I did write, you might be horribly disappointed with my letters! You have enjoyed my weekly effusions to Dorothea, but you must remember that she and I are the friends of years, who have shared together all the big experiences of our lives, so that we have a thousand mutual links and interests. Also,—and the importance of this there is no denying—we are both women! When writing to Dorothea I can be just as frivolous, as morbid, as unreasonable as I please. She understands; she’s been there herself. But no mere man—

“Suppose my letters were insufferably flat and tame, what a position for the Lonely Fellow to find himself bound to reply in kind! He ought seriously to consider this point.

“Then there’s my own position, and with myself goes irrevocably Martin, my brother.

“Am I quite justified in taking up any interest, which must more or less engross my thoughts, and distract them from what is my real life work?

“I am all that he has left. He turned to me in his trouble, and I must always put him first. It’s not the easiest thing in the world to live with a literary man. The readers who praise his books and gush over his lofty sentiments, would be surprised if they could live in the house for a week, and listen to his flow of language over such a trifle, as, say, a banging door! For the last eight years all my time, and all my thought, have been devoted to the effort of pleasing Martin, and,—(one can acknowledge things on paper more easily than in words!)—it isn’t a brilliant success!

“I thought that it was; no! I didn’t think at all, I just complacently took it for granted that he was very lucky to have me, and that I made him as happy and comfortable as he possibly could be under the circumstances, but just lately I’ve had an awakening.

“He isn’t happy; he isn’t even content. I’ve been quite an efficient Martha, but the Mary rôle seems to have been neglected, and we are growing apart, rather than together. That must be stopped! I must give more thought to him; not less.

“I am all he has left. I should be false to my trust if I deliberately undertook anything which would separate me from Martin by so much as a thought.

“Are you fine enough, honest enough, man enough, to acknowledge that I’m right, and to respect my decision?

“Lonely Man! I ought not to begin a regular correspondence with you. Just occasionally, perhaps, I might write; for Christmas, or Easter, or your birthday, and to receive a letter in reply would make a break in my life, which as you so blightingly remark begins to show symptoms of ‘cramp.’ (How could my letters be ‘so delightful’ if they were ‘cramped’?) The very first thing you must do is to explain just how, and in what way, you discern in me the fatal growth! I’m so down upon it in other people; I imagined myself so immaculately free! The least you can do is to warn me of the danger point, before the infection has time to spread.

“Also,—as the aim and object of the correspondence is that I should know your honourable self, let me in to some of the secrets which my photograph understands so well, and most of all, tell me what makes my eyes sorry? It seems a little hard to be shut out, when mere photographs see so much!

“Miss Beverley presents her compliments to Captain Blair. She finds it a very difficult thing to wind up a letter to a man whom she has never seen. Miss Beverley will be obliged if Captain Blair will therefore kindly consider this letter concluded in the manner which seems to him the most graceful and appropriate.”

Katrine carried the letter to the post in her own hands, the address carefully turned inwards so as to be screened from the scrutiny of peering eyes. Although the distance from the house to the post-office was about an eighth of a mile, it was seldom that she could traverse it without being accosted at least three or four times. This morning, however, the ordinary gossip jarred upon every nerve; she realised with a shiver of distaste that upon previous occasions she had enjoyed these encounters, had looked forward to them as to one of the prized episodes in the day; had been moved to excitement when she herself possessed a tiny item of news to add to the general store. As she crossed the road to the post-office, she debated with herself as to the cause of her change of mind, and found it in the envelope clasped in her hand.

A real interest had come into her life, and in its presence she had no room for trivial make-believes. Until now, for eight long years, nothing had happened to reach the real heart of her, and make her feel. Never, never once, a thrill, a surprise, a feeling that the great procession of life had halted to give her place, until one short week ago, when out of the void a voice had spoken, and across the world had come a challenge, an appeal! She, who owned little, was asked for much; at the moment when her own heart was starved, she was asked to fill another. The voice had called; all that was vital within her sang a reply.

The letter was held out in an extended hand, was pressed for one moment between tightening fingers, then dropped deep into the box. She stood motionless for a moment, overwhelmed by the irrevocability of the action, then turned aside with the feeling of one facing a new life.

That evening Martin was conscious of a special attempt on Katrine’s part to be agreeable and sympathetic. The secret lying warm and fragrant at her own heart made her especially tender over his loneliness, added to which tenderness was a decided leaven of compunction. Theoretically, she was ready to sacrifice all for Martin’s sake; virtually, she had stubbornly set herself to reject the one suggestion he had made for months past. It had taken a whole week of valiant striving against self to bring her to the point of giving in with a good grace. The prospect of a visit from Grizel Dundas was distinctly unpleasant, despite the fact that Grizel was a well-loved friend. Katrine searched her conscience for a reason for this contradiction, at the same time shutting a tight bolt over the one suggestion which endeavoured to make itself heard. Jealous! Why should she be jealous? Even if Grizel were a thousand times more attractive than herself, they moved in different worlds, and owned entirely distinct circles of friends. Why, pray, need she be jealous? The inner voice was sternly forbidden to mention Martin’s name in such a connection. Jealousy was out of the question where Martin was concerned. His suggestion had been made out of consideration for her own enjoyment; it lay on her conscience that she had received the suggestion ungraciously. She swallowed the last doubt, and said gravely:

“I’ve been thinking, Martin, that I will ask Grizel for next month. There’s not much to do, but the garden is at its best, and she’ll enjoy that. I’ll write to-night.”

Martin crumbled his bread.

“Oh, well,” he said slowly, “I wrote to her myself last night. I meant to tell you. We have been growing rather dull, living so much alone. It will do us good to have some fresh life.”

Chapter Five.

The fly stopped at the gate, the flyman alighted, and prompted by a sweet expectancy in Grizel’s eye, rose to a height of gallantry hitherto unknown, and offered his arm to assist her to alight. Grizel leaned heavily upon it, and having languidly descended to the level of the pavement, dropped her uplifted skirts and trailed slowly towards the house. In contradiction to the fashion of the day the skirts were trained both back and front, they floated round her in a soft billowy cloud, trailing in their wake a little shower of pebbly stones. They were most unfashionable skirts, for a railway journey they were ridiculously inappropriate; they were also undeniably unsanitary, but the most irate critic could not have denied that they were becoming. The skirts were of a soft, quaker grey, edged with a little foam of flounces. No one wore flounces in that summer of hobble skirts! A scarf of lavender chiffon was thrown round her neck, she wore a straw hat of no particular shape, draped in no particular fashion, with an old lace veil. Up the garden path she came between the two tall lines of hollyhocks, a slight nymph-like figure, enveloped in cloud-like draperies, with a glimpse of a small pale face between the dip of the veil and the float of the scarf.

Martin and Katrine rushed together to the door, vociferous in greetings and explanations.

“Grizel! We were going to meet you... You said four-thirty! What induced you to travel by the slow?”

“I like them slow,” drawled Grizel in her deep rich tones. She trailed into the drawing-room, subsided on to an oak settee, the nearest available seat, held up her face for Katrine’s caress, and extended a small hand to Martin with the air of an Empress bestowing an order. This done she yawned undisguisedly, rummaged in a bag—another floating accessory of violet satin—produced a minute purse, and asked with a frown:

“What’s his fare? Please ask him, Somebody, and pay him double. I always pay double; then they don’t swear. I do loathe being sweared. With my money, please. No paupery!”

The deep drawling tone was in the oddest contrast with the unconventional, not to say slangy mode of speech, but the listeners betrayed no surprise. They were accustomed to the discrepancy, and in common with the rest of the world enjoyed, the while they condemned. Grizel’s language grew ever more and more exaggerated and boy-like. She really ought to reform! but on the other hand how much less amusing it would be if she did!

“The full fare is two shillings. Tip him sixpence if you like, but to give more is corruption. You shouldn’t be cowardly, Grizel. It makes things hard for other people.”

Grizel blinked, and encouraged another yawn.

“Is that Socialism?” she drawled vaguely. “Have you caught it down here? I’ll join tomorrow, but don’t expect a fellow to have principles at the end of a journey. Give me crumpets!”

Lifting her arms she tugged at the two long, dagger-like pins with amethyst heads, which held her hat in place, flipped it to the ground, and blinked vaguely in Martin’s face.

“Don’t I look plain with my hair squashed?”

In truth at the moment Grizel was not beauteous. Her little face was without a trace of colour, marks of fatigue ringed the grey eyes, the mass of soft brown hair was flattened by the pressure of the hat. Just a little, tired, colourless face, not even in the first flush of youth, for the fine lines which are the surest tell-tale of advancing years were already beginning to show at the corners of her eyes. Katrine was sympathetically agreed that Grizel was plain this afternoon, but Martin felt a sudden flushing of the cheeks as he met the glance of the long eyes; a sudden swelling of the throat.

He did not know if Grizel were plain or not; what was more to the purpose, he didn’t care. An ordinary, commonplace woman might be appraised for her looks, but this woman’s lure lay in something infinitely more subtle. Ill or well, tired or alert, sorry or glad, she remained a very type of womanhood, from whose eyes looked out the eternal challenge, the eternal question. No man in Grizel’s presence could forget that she was a woman, and that some time, somewhere, some fortunate man might be her mate.

As he turned back to the tea-table Martin asked himself for the hundredth time if Grizel were conscious of her power. There was nothing consciously provocative in her glance; her manner with men was indifferent to the point of boredom, yet there it was, a turn of the head, a droop of the lid, a tone in the low rich voice proclaimed the man’s woman, the woman who from childhood to age is served and worshipped, who on a desert island would find a Prince Charming behind the first palm.

The serving of Grizel’s tea engrossed for some minutes the entire attention of her two hosts. She was supplied with a table, a footstool, a cushion for her back; her tea was first watered, secondly milked, and thirdly strengthened to its original state; her toast was cut into tiny strips. She yawned at intervals with infantile abandon; it is to be feared she scattered many crumbs upon the grey pile carpet, but unlike ninety-nine women out of a hundred, she made no effort to fluff her flattened hair, or to arrange the delicate disorder of her attire. There was something primitive, almost savage, in her childlike naturalness of mien.

In excuse for such lapses from conventional manners, Katrine was wont to remind herself that Grizel lived so much alone: no one in the grim town house but the old great-aunt, and the retinue of family servants who had grown old in her service. It was a ghastly life for a young woman still several years under thirty, it would have been considered so at least by most young women, but Grizel stoutly refused to be pitied. The old “Buddy” was alone. The old Buddy needed her; the old Buddy found pleasure and refreshment in her society,—why then should she not have what she wanted?

“S’pose you were an old Buddy of eighty-nine, and nobody wouldn’t come, how would you like it, d’you suppose?” she would enquire with her usual disregard of grammar, circumlocution, and other conventions practised by the polite, and her hearers mentally substituting “Grizel” for “nobody,” invariably decided that they wouldn’t like it at all.

“How’s the old Buddy?” enquired Katrine, when, the preliminary preparations over, she found a chance to begin tea on her own account. She took not the faintest interest in the venerable dame, who for the last ten years had refused to see any one beyond the members of her own family, but it seemed the proper thing to make the enquiry and get it over before proceeding to more interesting subjects. “The same as usual, I suppose!”

Grizel held a morsel of cake extended in her hand; frowned at it sternly, and shook her head.

“Failing!” she said solemnly. “Failing rapidly; sometimes quite lucid, but, generally speaking, dotty! Dotty, my dear, as the veriest March hare. Hallucinations. Delusions. Went in to see her last night in a new rig, and she took me for the Queen of Sheba. Chatted quite calmly for a moment, then blushed and started wriggling, trying to do obeisance from her wheeled chair. Said she hadn’t caught the name, and hoped I would forgive!”

“Poor old Buddy! Awkward for you both. And what did you do next?”

“Oh, I Shebaed, of course,” laughed Grizel lightly. “Bit embarrassing, y’know, because James was Solomon, and she made compromising remarks. Humorous! if you think of it—Solomon in whiskers and greasy black! I could have wished it had been John. John is a shapely young thing, and devoted to me. We had quite a rollicky evening. I made offerings of tea caddies and chimney-piece ornaments, and she kissed my hand. Poor old Buddy! She had quite a bean feast.”

Grizel’s deep voice could take on occasion a note of beautiful tenderness; it sounded now at the mention of the old mad aunt, and her listeners noting it, marvelled afresh. Lady Griselda Dundas might now be irresponsible for her eccentricities, but no one could deny that at a time when she was in full possession of her faculties she had complacently plumed herself upon the popular vote which placed her at the head of the cantankerous, ill-mannered women in Society. With all sincerity she had endeavoured to live up to her reputation, and though her grand-niece was possibly the only person on earth for whom she had any affection, she was also at the same time the most convenient butt. Grizel was ordered about, hectored, reproved, dragged here and there without the slightest reference to her own wishes. That the girl bore it cheerfully, uncomplainingly, even with an appearance of zest, was attributed to mercenary motives by society at large. Grizel was—presumably—heiress to Lady Griselda’s fortune, and it was felt that an even harder apprenticeship would be a cheap price to pay for so big a prize. Surmises in plenty were made as to the amount in question; Grizel went about labelled as one of the greatest heiresses in society, but not even her most intimate friends had the temerity to question Lady Griselda as to the reality of these expectations. No one but her “man of business” knew the secret of the will locked within his safe.

“What happens about your own bean feasts, Grizel?” Martin enquired from the corner seat, to which he had carried his tea. The position afforded a full-length view of the visitor as she lolled on the couch; it was also slightly behind Katrine at the tea-table. There were occasions when it was distinctly an asset to be out of the range of Katrine’s eyes. “Do you go out as much as you used? I suppose there is a capable maid whom you can leave in charge. You can’t possibly be bound—”

“I’m not bound, but she’s a beautiful excuse. I go out when she’s better, which means an invitation which tempts, and if it doesn’t she’s worse! In the daytime I’m on duty. Parsons is a brick, but she’s a serious brick, and it’s hard lines on the old Buddy to be taken seriously night and day. It needs a vast intellect to be vivacious with the insane, but it’s drefful interesting when you’ve learned the knack. I’m thinking of taking it up as a Pro. Doctor White has sworn to recommend me. He says he fears for his own brain, but just for the moment he ordered a change... I’m not used to taxing my intellect, and it’s a bit of a strain, so I took a mean advantage of the old dear’s infirmity, and told her certain sure I’d be back at four o’clock, and when I arrive at the week’s end, she’ll groan because I’m ten minutes late!”

“A week! Now that we’ve got you, we won’t let you go in a week. You must take a good rest while you’re about it. We have no excitements on hand except the Barfield Garden Party, but you shall be out in the fresh air, and feed on strawberries and cream, and sleep half the day. We must send her back with a little more colour in her cheeks, mustn’t we, Katrine?”

Katrine looked at her visitor, and smiled. She had not wanted to invite Grizel; the proposition had found her in an antagonistic mood, she had resented the fact that it had come from Martin rather than herself, but now Grizel had arrived, and with the personal presence, antagonism had vanished into space. Her thoughts turned back to yesterday, when at the same hour in the same room she and Martin had partaken of tea together. Certainly no one could have called it a lively meal. There were occasions when the coming of a third person infused a wonderful refreshment into the daily routine, but Katrine knew her guest’s nature better than did her brother. Martin desired that they should take care of Grizel; in reality it was Grizel who would take care of them. Martin had declared that Grizel must rest; Grizel was incapable of rest, and rest would weary her more than action. Where Grizel was, things happened. Even as she sat pale and weary upon the sofa, vitality flowed out of her; the atmosphere was instinct with electric force.

“Grizel,” said Katrine smiling, “will do as she pleases. She always did, and she always will, and she will please to gad! She will gad from morning till night, and drag me about to gad with her. It’s very easy for you, Martin; you issue instructions, shut yourself up in your study all day, and expect them to be carried out, but I tell you at the beginning,—I wash my hands of responsibility! I’ll go where I’m—dragged, and do as I—must! She’ll be tired out, of course, but it won’t be my fault.”

“But I haven’t the least intention of letting him shut himself up. ’Course I’ll gad! What else is there to do, but don’t you worry, my lamb, Martin shall gad with me!” announced Grizel calmly. She flashed her honey-coloured eyes across the room to where Martin sat among the shadows of the dark old room. His back was towards the light, she could see the outline of his long lean face, the fine modelling of the jaw, but the expression in the dark eyes she could not see. “We’ll have such—sport!” She laughed, a deep, soft-throated laugh.

“I’m working,” said Martin in a hesitating voice, a voice which seemed forced out of him against his will. “I’m afraid, Grizel, that I can’t—”

“And I’m afraid, Martin, that you must! What work are you trying to do?”

“I’ve started a fresh book. It’s just beginning to go. The first chapters are always a pull, but I hope at last that I’m well afloat.”

“I’ll help you!” announced Grizel calmly. “You play with me, and I’ll work with you. I’ve always felt it in me to write a corking novel. We’ll collaborate, and make ’em sit up! Present day, of course. I can’t contend with any century but my own. Very modern, and up to date, and the heroine lives in Kensington. She must be a duck, Martin! Is she a duck? What colour are her eyes?”

“Er—Her eyes are grey—”

“Grey as a mountain tarn—” Grizel rolled her own eyes to the ceiling. “Well! It’s a useful shade, and affords scope for variety. They can grow black under stress of emotion, and in evening dress when she wants to look her best. And the hero! he’ll be my affair, of course. I’ll write the man-ey bits, and you’ll do the girl—”

“You mean—”

Grizel waved an imperious hand.

“I do not! I mean what I say.” She screwed up her little face in an expressive moue. “Poof! Who knows more about a man in love—you or I? Who’d be fairer to another girl?—If more books were written in that way, they’d be a vast deal truer to life. We’ll show ’em! Katrine, congratulate us; our fortune is made.”

Katrine’s smile was a trifle forced. Of course it was nonsense to suppose that Grizel would be allowed to invade the sanctuary of Martin’s room; nevertheless, knowing as she did the heights of her visitor’s audacity, she felt it her duty to adopt an air of dignified reproof.

Martin’s work was not a subject for jest, it was a serious affair, with the stages of which his sister was well acquainted. First the stage of restless absent-mindedness, during which it was useless to expect punctuality, or even an appropriately sensible answer to a question; next, a brief period of intoxication when the long-delayed inspiration dawned with a brilliance which promised a glory never before attained; thirdly, the long months of labour and anxiety, in which the early triumph faded to at best a temperate content.

Katrine was never admitted into her brother’s confidence about his work. He had allowed it to be known that he could not suffer questions or remarks; never once in those eight years had she dared to question concerning a heroine’s eyes. Through mental storms and sunshine, she had “sat tight,” observant but silent, expressing her sympathy, Martha-like, in soups and sauces. It was not for Grizel to obtrude where she, a sister, might not go.

Katrine pushed back her chair, and rose to her feet.

“You are talking nonsense, my dear. Come upstairs! You look tired to death, and your hair is coming down. I’ll give you a book, and you can sleep or read until it’s time to dress. I’ll carry your things.” She gathered together the scattered hat, gloves, and bag, and led the way upstairs, Grizel trailing slowly in her wake.

The bedroom was sweet and fresh; after the manner of such rooms in country houses, a bowl of roses stood on a table; through the open window the air blew soft and clean. Grizel looked around with smiling satisfaction; then dropping her impedimenta on the bed, and wheeling round with a swift, unexpected movement, she faced her hostess, and nipped her chin between a thumb and forefinger.

The two faces were close together: for a moment Katrine smiled, unconcerned and amused, but the honey-coloured eyes stared on, stared deep, stared with a long, unblinking intentness which brought the colour rushing to her cheeks. She twitched her head, the small fingers gripped with unexpected tenacity; she frowned and fumed, but the eyes stared relentlessly on. Finally she raised both hands and forced herself free.

“Grizel, what is it? Why are you staring? What in the world has happened?”

“And that, my lamb,” returned Grizel calmly, “is just precisely what I am axing myself!”

She turned her back, and strolled nonchalantly across the rooms.

Chapter Six.

When Grizel sailed down to dinner two hours later, it would have been difficult to recognise in her the pallid traveller of the afternoon. She was gorgeously attired in a robe of golden net covered with an embroidery of the same hue. The golden sheaf clung round her, and trailed heavily on the ground; encased in it her body appeared of an incredible slimness, yet from head to foot there was not one angle, not one harsh, unlovely line. Nymph, elf, fay, she was all rounded curve and dimple, from satin shoulder to arched and tiny feet. Though one might marvel that a human being could live in such wand-like form, thin was a word which could never occur. Grizel was no more thin than Katrine herself. Her soft, mouse-brown hair was waved loosely back, and twisted in a fashion which preserved the shape of the head,—a rare and wonderful sight at a time when nine women out of ten carried a cushion-like appendage standing out many inches behind the ear. Grizel was too wise to disguise herself by any such freak of fashion; an artist would have noted with delight that she invariably respected the natural “line” of the body. Neck and arms were bare of ornament, her cheeks were still pale, but with a warm, cream-like tint which had no trace of ill-health, her honey-coloured eyes reflected the golden lights of her dress. The scarlet lips made the one contrasting note of colour.

Katrine stared blankly at the entrance of the apparition, the inevitable admiration largely tinged with reproach. How ridiculous, and unsuitable, and altogether Grizelish to choose such a dress for a quiet home evening! It was probably the first that had come to her hand, and she had put it on without a thought. When there was a dinner party, and the most important people in the neighbourhood were assembled to meet her, she would just as likely as not appear in a simple muslin. Katrine had lived through such experiences before, and had suffered much aggravation thereby. She stared with exaggerated surprise, whereupon Grizel gurgled, quick to appreciate the criticism.

“Yes, ma’am. My very best! Ain’t I a pr-etty ittle did?”

“It would be very suitable for a Court ball. What possessed you to put it on to-night?”

“I felt like it,—in a golden mood! I always dress to suit my moods. Besides it’s quite new, and the dear thing wanted its turn. It is my Sheba dress, but you aren’t nearly so appreciative as Aunt Griselda. She bowed down before me.”

“I’m not going to bow down, but it’s a marvellous frock!” Katrine felt a depressing consciousness of the shabby black net which had done duty for home wear for several winters in succession, and woman-like reflected with a pang that the price of that golden sheaf would probably equal that of her entire summer outfit. How would it feel to own a fairy purse, and bid Paquin do his best?

For a moment she was rent with envy, then curiosity claimed its day. She crossed the room, and peered with awe and admiration at the elaborateness of the dress, the chiffon skirts poised one upon another, which softened the glare of the satin slip, the exquisite design of the embroidery, the rare and varied beads with which it was intermingled.

“Grizel—what gorgeousness! Every bead is a treasure. It must have taken months to work. And on a piece of perishable net. I have read about such things, but I’ve never seen them... Mrs Brewston would read you a lesson on wanton extravagance—”

“Decadence,” interrupted Grizel firmly. “You must always call it decadence. And I should perfectly agree. But the poor lambs had embroidered it, so some one had to pay, and Aunt Griselda might as well do it as any one else. I wouldn’t have dreamed of giving the order!”

“Humbug! Quibbler!—Is there any possible way of getting into it, or do you wriggle in at the neck? There’s nothing of you, my dear, but you are modelled so considerately—plump in the right places! ... The sleeves are a trifle attenuated, don’t you think?”

“Perhaps they are, but it’s the fault of my arms. They are so pretty! Look at that ikkle, ikkle dimple... You wouldn’t have the heart to hide it!” returned Grizel, shutting one eye so as to peer with the other at the soft, infantile dents above the elbow. In praise or blame she was always markedly honest as regarded her own appearance. Even when Martin made his appearance at the door, and came to the sudden stand as if dazzled by the glittering apparition in the middle of the dark room, Grizel seemed to see no reason for changing her pose, but continued to peer and to crane with undiminished interest.

“I’m showing Katrine a bonnie wee dimple... This side, to the west! I can just peer at it like this, but it’s beautiful viewed from the side, I wear my sleeve cut short ‘a pupos.’ ... This is the dress that the Duck wears, Martin, the night she’s engaged. He hadn’t intended to speak so soon, but when he saw her in it he couldn’t resist—”

“I’m sure he couldn’t—!”

Martin’s echo came back with what his sister considered a painful banality. She flinched before it, as at a desecration. When one is accustomed to regard a man as seated on a permanent pinnacle of grief, it is a shock to find him condescending to the ordinary barter of compliment, but Martin was oblivious of her frown, for Grizel had opened her closed eye, and peered upward into his face with her sweet, lazy smile.

He gave her his arm, led her in to dinner, arranged her chair, and groped under the table for a footstool, leaving Katrine to follow, alone and unnoticed. Never in all the years they had lived together had he thought of a footstool for his sister’s feet! As there was only one of these articles in common use, she was obliged to do without the ordinary support, and the feeling of discomfort lasted throughout the meal.

The curtains were undrawn, leaving a vista of garden sloping upward to the knoll, the low panelled room was already dim, and the table was lighted by candles in tall silver stands. A bowl of beautifully cut old glass was piled high with roses, and the meal was dainty and well chosen, for Katrine was on her mettle before Grizel’s quizzical eyes. Martin sat at the head of the table; he had the long thin face, the deep-set eyes, the sensitive lips, which carry the mind instinctively to the days of old. For him a stock and a fob would have seemed more appropriate than twentieth-century attire. His eyes looked particularly dark to-night; he held himself buoyantly erect.

Grizel rested both elbows on the table, and began feeding herself with fragments of bread, before the soup was served.

“Excuse my bad manners. They’re so fashionable!” she mumbled in explanation. She attacked her soup with a zest which one would hardly have expected from so fragile a creature, and took little part in the conversation until it was finished. Then once more she rested her elbows on the table, and smiled across at her host.

“And so,” she said lazily, “to-morrow is the Duke’s bean-feast. It’s no end of a way, isn’t it? How do we go?”

“Martin has engaged a car. Several neighbours wanted us to share, and it was really quite a blessing to be able to refuse. Last year we went with the Morlands, and they stuck to us like glue to the bitter end. This time we shall be free.”

“We three, and a second man. Who is the second man?”

“We three, and no other man!”

Grizel dropped her hands on to the table, and stared with distended eyes.

“But, my child, how absurd. I’m the most unexacting of critters but I make it a principle, never to share a man! There must be an odd bachelor in the neighbourhood who’d be glad of a lift! A presentable, flirtable creature to make up the four!”

The youthful parlour-maid jerked at the sound of that second adjective, and scurried from the room, soup plates in hand, leaving Katrine to whisper hasty reprisals.

“Grizel, please! Wait until afterwards. It’s a young girl I am training. She belongs to the Y.W.C.A.”

Grizel’s stare changed to a smile.

“I don’t object, dear. I really don’t. So long as she’s pleased, I assure you I won’t let it make any difference!”

“But that’s just what I want it to do! Do please be sensible until dinner is over, and for mercy’s sake don’t talk about flirts. She’ll be so shocked.”

“Then she’ll be the first Y.W. I’ve ever met who was. And I don’t believe she will, neither. There’s a tilt to her cap—”

The door opened to admit the Y.W., bearing in her hands the fish, and on her face that expression of concentrated vacuity which denotes acute curiosity. Every householder has suffered such moments, and knows by experience the painful pause which ensues before one of the diners bursts vivaciously into impersonalities, but to-day there was no pause. Grizel was too nimble-witted to permit such discomfiture. There was not the slightest break in the continuity of her speech, her words flowed on in a smooth unbroken stream.

”—The which I take to typify a certain temperamental tendency towards the ornate, coupled with a desire to please, and be appreciated by those whom Providence has appointed lords among us, against which tendency all the restrictions of that admirable society—”

“Grizel! Idiot! Eat your fish. You talk too much!”

Martin had burst into a roar of laughter, in which Katrine perforce was obliged to join. The Y.W. marched stolidly round the table. She was by no means so dense as she appeared, was perfectly aware that the visitor had been reproved in her absence, and suspected a personal application in the long-winded speech. She disappeared in search of sauce, and to report the progress of events to the eager cook.

“I’ll make a compact with you,” whispered Grizel eagerly. “I’ll talk like a tract to the end of my stay, if you can induce her not to puff down my back! Principles I respect, but draughts I abhor. Just make it perfectly clear!” ...

The Y.W. returned, and puffed vigorously the while she handed the sauce, whereat Katrine suffered a moment of acute suspense, but Grizel only wriggled her white shoulders, and remarked sweetly:

“Chill, isn’t it, for the time of year!”

Katrine hastily turned the conversation.

“Grizel, did you know that Martin’s last book is already in its third edition?”

“No. Is it? How very good.”

The words were irreproachable but there was something lacking in the tone. Katrine frowned, Martin looked across the table at the sparkling golden figure, who sat with head on one side, and brows arched, like a penitent child asking for forgiveness. Their eyes met, and he smiled in reassuring sweetness.

“Martin’s books are a forbidden topic at Martin’s table. After dinner, Grizel, I’ll take you to see my roses. They are much more interesting.”

“In that dress! In those slippers!” gasped Katrine outraged. As neither of her hearers volunteered a reply she considered the proposition ruled out of court, but after coffee had been served it was necessary to retire to her room to write an order to the stores, and upon her return, lo! the room was empty, the French windows stood apart, and in and out between the bushes of the knoll passed a shimmer of golden light.

Katrine’s first sensation was one of shocked surprise at the recklessness of garden promenades in a costly new gown, her second an impulse to go out in her turn, and make one of a party to enjoy the fragrant dusk. She had gathered up her skirts, was on the point of stepping through the window, when like a dart came the remembrance of Grizel’s words, her avowed dislike to “sharing a man”; of Martin’s evident agreement. She drew back, seated herself on the nearest chair, and digested the unwelcome thought.

They would not want her! They had probably chosen the moment when she was out of the room to start on their ramble alone. If she were to join them now, her presence would form the proverbial “trumpery.”

Katrine could have understood it, could have sympathised frankly if it had been a case of love; lovers naturally wished to be alone, but Martin and Grizel were merely friends, not even intimate friends, since Grizel’s visits had come at long intervals during the past years. They could have no sweet secrets to discuss.

Sitting alone in the room looking out into the dusk, a memory darted back out of the years. Just so had she sat during her first visit to the house, in that brief summer of Martin’s wedlock. She had been a young girl then, lately released from school. She recalled anew the loneliness which had fallen upon her, while Martin and Juliet roamed the garden paths, and she sat alone, listening to the soft burst of laughter, watching the flit of the white dress.

A white dress, ghost-like, transparent; a light, slight thing, as befitted the youthful wearer. Grizel’s dress was gold; it flashed an opulent orange and red. There was nothing ghostly about it; it was warm, and human, and alive. It drew the eye with an irresistible allure.

How could he! How could he! Along the very paths which he had paced with Juliet. Beside the flowers which her hands had planted! Once again Katrine suffered the pang, the repulsion. All these years she had suffered at the sight of Martin sorrowful and lonely, now—mysterious, but incontrovertible fact!—she suffered afresh at the sight of him consoled.

Without, in the garden, Grizel was flitting from tree to tree like a big gold moth, bending her head to drink in the heavy perfume. The curve of the neck, the curve of the cheek half hidden against the leaves, the reed-like figure bent low from the waist, they were the very epitome of grace.

“Martin! Martin! I must have some of these to take up to my room. There’s magic in the scent of red roses... real country roses, living on their own stems. It has something different from all other scents. These are the trees which little Juliet planted? How sweet she was that day, when they were planted, and she was so happy, so dirty, like a pretty child in her big pinafore! They ought to be sweet!”

Martin winced. He did not reply, but taking a knife from his pocket cut off one or two of the best blooms, carefully pruning the thronged stems. For the first months after Juliet’s death her name had been continually on his lips, he had loved to talk about her, to hear her discussed; later on the reference had become rarer, more strained; now for years it had been avoided as elaborately as though it had belonged to a criminal, a prodigal. The young fair face still hung on the walls, but in the house where she had lived no one mentioned Juliet’s name. Only Grizel, an outsider, talked of her still, naturally, simply, with a transparent pleasure in the remembrance.

Martin was not sure whether the reference more pleased or jarred. Yes! he remembered! He should never forget that bright autumn day, the laughing crowd of spectators, the picture of his girl wife in her short garden skirt, waving her spade in triumph. He could never forget, but the personal significance had faded. There seemed little connection between himself and that boyish bridegroom; it was an effort to realise that that sweet child had truly been his wife.

The present moment seemed far more real, more vital. Himself, the man, occupied with the matured work of life; Grizel, the woman, instinct with the lure of her sex. He held the roses towards her that she might enjoy their fragrance, and for a minute they stood in silence, side by side. Then Grizel raised her head, and looked into his face with a long, penetrating glance. This was the real moment of their meeting, and both silently recognised it as such.

“How goes it, Martin?” she asked in her soft rich voice. “How goes it?”

“Haltingly, Grizel, haltingly!” his smile flickered, and died out. “We’ll talk of that presently; you are the one person to whom I can talk on that subject, but first of all there is something else. Prisoner at the Bar.—Why don’t you like my book?”

His voice was gentle, bantering, almost tender in tone. There was not the faintest touch of offence, but Grizel’s discomfiture was as naïve and undisguised as that of a child.

“Martin! you said that we were not to discuss—”

“Not in public; not at meals, not even before Katrine, but certainly when we are alone. There’s no getting out of it, Grizel. You said nothing, it was only a tone, but as it happens I understand your tones. The book may run through a dozen editions, but for you it has failed. Why?”

She stood before him, slim and straight, her face puckered in thought.

“I—don’t—know! Everything,—or was it nothing, Martin?”

“Can I help you to find out? A few leading questions perhaps... Is it clever?”

“Very clever.”