Part 1— Chapter I. (continued 3)

Martin had gone to town to attend the funeral, but as Grizel had not attended the ceremony had had no glimpse of her. The ordinary letter of condolence had been forwarded, but had received no reply. A week dragged by, a fortnight, almost three weeks, and Martin, strained almost beyond endurance, was tentatively suggesting to Katrine that it would be a kind action to run up to town to pay Grizel a call, when the morning post arrived, and with it a letter in the large, well-known writing.

“Will you put me up for a week?” Grizel wrote. “There is a lot of clearing away to be done here, and I must get away. Expect me to-morrow by the five o’clock train!”

Chapter Twelve.

“Lebong, August 20, 19—.

“Dear Katrine,—

“Your grumbly letter safely to hand. You explained the reasons right enough, for all your protests, and honestly, dear, I can’t sympathise! All is going as I could have told you it would, and in the best way possible for all concerned. You’ve only to sit still, and await events.

“I should like to meet Miss Grizel Dundas. She doesn’t sound the sort of a girl a man would look at with sorrowful eyes. I shouldn’t myself. I’d think small beer of Martin if he did. Dorothea says there’s an erratic old aunt in the question, and that no human soul can foretell what she may do. Personally I hope she’ll leave her fortune to the Home for Stray Cats, or any mad scheme which old ladies approve, rather than to fascinating Miss Grizel. A few hundreds a year to buy frocks and frills is agreeable enough, but a colossal fortune is a handicap to a girl, so far as decent, single-minded men are concerned. You are not an heiress by any chance, are you? My annual income from every source tots up to something like eight hundred a year, and as this is an expensive station, and the caste question necessitates an army of servants, it might very well be more... However! we were not talking about ourselves.

“You are wrong about Martin, dear girl, and the sooner you realise it the better. There’s no stepping down from pedestals in opening the heart to love and joy—the demoralising thing is to close it, out of a mistaken sense of duty. Are these years of repression shaping him into a kinder, wider, more generous form? Think over the question, and if you answer ‘no,’ then what is to be his cure?

“I expect the truth of it is that like most dear women the religious question troubles you. How, you ask yourself, would Martin feel, if he married again, and died, and met Juliet in another sphere? What would happen when the two wives met?—I should laugh over that question, if I did not guess that it bites deep, for what sort of a spiritual world could it be in which jealousy and self-seeking counted before love! I can imagine Juliet meeting Grizel with open arms, and blessing her for having brought back joy to the beloved’s heart; I can imagine them united by the very fact of their mutual love; what is utterly beyond my imagination is that having reached a higher plane of thought and vision, there should be any grudge, any envy, any question of who comes first!

“We’ve got to grow, little girl! Plants can grow in the dark; sickly, pale-coloured things, but they cannot flower. Think that over too. You’ll find I am right.

“I’m hanged if I am not preaching, after all. Sorry! You’ll have to forgive me this time.

“Dorothea and I have had ‘words.’ She represents that as she allowed me to hear extracts from your letters for years past, she might now be treated to occasional extracts from mine. From a logical point of view there’s nothing to be said, only—it can’t be done. My letters are my own. Not so much as a comma can be shared. It appears also that a certain photograph has disappeared from her mantelpiece, and that she blames me. I took it right enough, but it looked as if it wanted to come! Give you my word it did. And it lives perdu in a drawer, where no eye can see it but mine own, and I say good-night to it every night, and good-morning when I’m not too late, and an occasional salaam during the day, just to see that she’s there all right!

“We have just been giving a big send-off to a fellow in the regiment, Bedford by name, who is taking a few months’ sick leave. His people are to meet him in Egypt as he can’t stand an English winter, and he hopes to get back in spring. A bad case of rheumatism, which will play the dickens with his work if it is not stopped in time. The desert air is the best cure he can have, and he ought to put in a pretty good time. You’d like Bedford. A big, bony chap, rather after your own description of the fortunate orphan, with a curt, shy manner, which the women seem to approve. With men he is as straight as a die, and a splendid soldier. It gives one a choke in the throat to see Bedford hobble.

“I’ve told him that I know a spinster lady in England who collects brasses, and asked him to keep a look-out for old specimens, so I expect you’ll hear from him one of these days. It will give him an interest in poking about, and besides—Christmas is coming!

“Well, good-bye, little girl. Take care of yourself, and look forward as I do to a good time coming!

“Yours ever,

“Jim Blair.”

Chapter Thirteen.

Grizel in a grey dress, with a hat wreathed with violets, was a shock to Katrine’s sensibilities. In theory she disapproved of conventional mourning, and approved of fulfilling the wishes of the dead; in reality she was still under the thraldom of public opinion, and the prospect of walking down the High Street with a mourner in colours assumed the dimensions of a dread. “They” would say,—what would “they” say?

The unchanged demeanour of the mourner was likewise a shock. There was every reason why Lady Griselda’s death should be regarded as a relief, but an assumption of regret and gravity were customary under the circumstances, and Grizel was not even subdued. She smiled, and jested, preserved her lazy, untroubled air, and to an outside eye was in no respect altered by the happenings of the last weeks. Katrine waited impatiently for some reference to the dramatic will, and when none came, was driven to open the subject herself.

“Isn’t it glorious,” she questioned curiously, “to be mistress of that enormous fortune? To know that you can practically get anything in the whole world which you happen to fancy?”

Grizel stroked her nose, her eyes asking the question which would have been too banal in words. Anything? Katrine understood the reference, and flushed brightly. She hurried to add a clause:

“Of course, if you had been sentimentally disposed, it would have been different, but you have never—”

“No,” responded Grizel amiably, “I never have.”

Voice and manner were all that is friendly; there was not a particle of resentment, nevertheless the subject was closed, and Katrine knew that she could never refer to it again. That Martin would not do so on his own accord she felt convinced, for though Grizel herself was unchanged, there was an unmistakable difference between his present behaviour to his guest, and that during her recent visit. Now he was merely the courteous host, concerned with the comfort and amusement of his sister’s guest, but making no personal claim for attention. By day he shut himself in his study; in the evening he sedulously avoided tête-à-têtes. A still, set look had come back to his face, which brought with it a haunting memory of the past. Katrine had not realised how far from the desert of sorrow he had travelled until she recognised that look, and at the sight her heart contracted with a pang of protective tenderness, startling in its intensity. At that moment, and for the first time in her life, Self was wiped out, and her own welfare ceased to weigh in the balance. “Not again! Not again!” cried the inner voice. “He has suffered enough!” It was intolerable to think of living to see Martin pass through a second period of despair!

Katrine set her wits to work to puzzle out the problem before her, and at each point in her reflections the same question recurred with ever-increasing force. Why had Grizel come back? Realising as any woman must have done the depth of Martin’s love, why, at this moment of all others, had she deliberately put herself in his way? Grizel was not heartless, her numerous flirtations had been of an open and innocent nature, stopping well short of the danger point; it was inconceivable to believe that she would deliberately increase Martin’s pain. Then—could it be possible that she was willing to sacrifice all; was but waiting for a word, a sign? It was almost impossible to believe, but at least, Katrine determined, the opportunity should be given. Now that the critical moment had arrived all other dreads dwindled before that of failing to do her share to secure Martin’s happiness.

That very day at lunch she made her attempt.

“I have to be out this afternoon, Grizel,” she announced. “A committee meeting, and a tea. Martin must amuse you. The study is cool in the afternoon, you might sit there, or have tea in the garden.”

Martin’s start of surprise held no sign of pleasure. He appeared to be on the point of an objection, when Grizel’s calm acquiescence closed his lips:

“Yes—I’d like to! We’ll try the study first.”

“We shan’t need a fire to-day... I’m afraid it will be dull for you, but I can give you a good book.”

The words fell mechanically from Martin’s lips, but it was Katrine who flushed with resentment; Grizel smiled on, unperturbed. An hour afterwards she was sleeping like a child on her bedroom sofa, and Katrine peeping in to say good-bye, asked herself amazedly if such composure could exist side by side with any deep feeling. “If I—” the very suggestion made her heart leap, she looked on the sleeping face with a stirring of indignation. Martin’s life, and her own, shaken to their foundations, while Grizel slept! For a moment she wrestled with the temptation to shake the still form into consciousness, then turning slowly, left the room.

Half an hour later Grizel opened her eyes, and sat up on her couch. There was no intermediary stage of heaviness and confusion, with the very opening of her lids she was vividly, composedly awake. She rose, sauntered to the glass, and surveyed herself with critical detachment. Her cheeks were flushed with sleep, her hair ruffled into a disorder undeniably becoming. Her lips parted in a smile of transparent pleasure, then deliberately she took the brush and smoothed back the curling ends, which being done she seated herself by the open window, took up a book, and read composedly until the pink had faded from her cheeks. It was a pale, orderly, infinitely less attractive Grizel who tapped at Martin’s door, and seated herself by his desk.

“I’ve come, you see! You didn’t want me, but I wanted to come, and I always do what I want—”

“Grizel! that’s not true,” protested Martin hastily. He was still sitting in his swivel writing-chair, turned sideways from the desk so that he could see her face. A few scattered sheets of MS lay before him, but the ink was dry on the last words. When Grizel had entered the room, it had been to find him gazing blankly into space. It was not obvious against which part of Grizel’s declaration his protest was directed, nor did she trouble to enquire. Folding her hands she looked in his eyes with childlike directness and said simply:

“Martin—I want to talk! You have said nothing about my position, but I am waiting to hear what you think! I came down on purpose to talk.”

“But, Grizel, what is there to say?” Martin spoke in quick practical accents, his eyes sedulously avoiding hers. “I have not congratulated you, because it hardly seemed that congratulations were deserved. On the other hand, I cannot condole. Lady Griselda’s mind had been failing for years. I cannot believe that she was fully responsible when she concocted—”

“You are wrong there. She was perfectly clear. I have always expected some arrangement of the sort. She loved me; she was anxious for my happiness. If it could be happily arranged she wished me to inherit the money, but she had been an heiress herself, and had suffered by it, and she was sharp enough to estimate the sincerity of the men who hung around me. It’s quite simple, Martin, if you remember the clue. If I choose to remain single, I enjoy everything that her money can give; if I marry, I marry a man who wants me, not my wealth; Grizel Dundas,—herself—not what she can bring.”

“He would be a bold man who could ask a girl to give up thirty thousand a year, for the sake of his love!”

“Yes! He would need to be brave!”

The substitution of the word was so quiet as to appear unconscious. Martin shot a piercing look, but the eyes which met his were as expressionless as the voice. He leaped to his feet, and restlessly paced the floor.

“But you, Grizel?” he cried. “No one could expect it of you! You are born to the position; have been trained to it all your life. You will be one of the great hostesses of the day. You are young, brilliant, beautiful. The ordinary woman looks to love to provide the interest of life, but you have so much. The world is at your feet—”

“Yes,” sighed Grizel softly. “Yes.” She sat staring before her with rapt, smiling eyes. “And I love it, Martin. Pomp and show, and jewels, and beautiful clothes, and—power! All women do at the bottom of their hearts. If they pretend they don’t, it is a humbug and a sham. I can see myself living alone in that great house, very rich, very gorgeous; not a bit lonely! Friends would flock around, more friends than I need. Lovers too! for the unattainable is always tempting. I could amuse myself very well.”

“For heaven’s sake, Grizel!” Martin came to a standstill in front of her chair, his face flushed with protest. “For heaven’s sake speak the truth, and drop pretence! You are going to keep the money,—very well! but it is not for such reasons as those... There are precious few illusions left in life,—don’t kill one of the few that remain! You will keep the money, not out of self-indulgence, but because it was Lady Griselda’s wish, and because there is no stronger claim upon you, until—until the time arrives, as it will arrive, when you meet a man—”

“Whom I love,” concluded Grizel calmly. She was silent for a moment, then in the deepest, most bell-like notes of her beautiful voice, she added a few soft words. “More than the world! More than riches—more than my life. And then—”

“Then?” queried Martin breathlessly. To the end of his life he would hear the echo of Grizel’s voice intoning those thrilling words:

“It will depend upon him, and how brave he can be,” she returned quietly. She rose in her turn, and bending over the desk, drew together the scattered sheets. “How is the novel going, Martin? What is happening to them all? I was going to help, but fate intervened, and turned me into a heroine myself. Is she happy, your little girl with the hill-tarn eyes?”

“Yes—no. I couldn’t get on. The novel is shelved pro tem. My head was too full of other things. Your position, and the problem of the whole situation were so constantly in my mind, that it was a relief to work it out on paper... Those sheets are the draft of a short story, dealing with such a position—but not for publication.”

“I’m glad of that! I should not like it to be published,” said Grizel quickly. Her cheeks were flushed, she glanced at the sheets with an air at once timid and eager. “It would be interesting to hear what you make of it! May I read?”

“There’s so little done. Just the situation roughed in. A girl beautiful, alluring, left with a choice like yours, a man, loving her—”

“What kind of a man?”

“Ordinary—quite ordinary. A dull dog, but with a capacity, a hideous capacity for suffering—”

Grizel subsided on to the swivel chair, and lifted a quill pen from the rack. The seriousness, the quiet, almost timid manner of the last few minutes had disappeared as by a flash. Now she was composed again, mischievous, audacious; the dimples dipping in her soft, round cheek. She rested her elbows on the desk and nibbled at the pen with a delicious assumption of the professional manner.

“Make him a little bit interesting, Martin! He must be interesting. Is he tall? Is he handsome? I insist that he is thin and clean shaven. And charming, too—he must certainly be charming, or she wouldn’t have qualms, and at the least she must feel qualms! ... No girl could even imagine giving up a fortune for a dull man with a beard. Suppose you made him an author like yourself, so that he had something to offer on his own accord, such as a reputation which she would be proud to share! Then on his side would be love, fame, home, and on hers, ambition, wealth—”

“Opportunity—?”

“Humph!” Grizel stroked her chin. “In a sense! It’s a fact though, Martin,—humiliating as it is to acknowledge,—that man is the medium through which a woman discovers every possibility worth having. The opportunities which come apart from him are only makeshifts. I think we’ll rule out opportunity... Won’t he, at least, give her the choice?”

“I think not. He is not such an ass as to consider himself worth the sacrifice. The only decent thing he can do is to efface himself, and stand by ready to help her whenever he can be of use.”

“Humph!” commented Grizel again. “Admirable—but dull. How mad she’ll be! ... It’s just as I said, Martin—you don’t understand your own sex. You need me to write the man-ey bits. What he should really do, is to take her in his arms, and say, ‘Thirty-thousand-a-year! Thirty thousand pounds’—her light voice suddenly swelled into earnestness. ‘Ah! but I’ve more than that,—a better offer to make you!’ And he should hold her tight, tight, and laugh,—a strong man’s laugh, and look in her eyes, and cry: ‘You are mine! All the fortunes in the world could not buy you. All the fortunes in the world could not keep you. You belong to me! ... Leave your empty palace, and come Home, and as you are a true woman, and worth loving, I’ll give you more, far, far more than you ever dreamt,—ever imagined—’”

The soft voice broke: she wheeled suddenly round, hiding her face, but Martin leaped after her, seized her by the arms:

“Grizel—Grizel!”

Her face quivered into tears.

“Oh! Oh! you made me do it; and I vowed I wouldn’t!—If I’m worth having, I’m worth asking, and oh, Martin—I’ve waited!”

“Grizel, Grizel!” cried Martin again. She was in his arms, she clung to him, sobbing with the abandonment of a child. Grizel, in whose gay eyes he had never yet seen a tear! His grasp, the trembling of his strong frame, the dazed rapture of his face, told their own tale, but as yet he had no words; it was Grizel who poured out her tale of love.

“It was always you—never any one else. And I was happy because I knew that some day—! And I tried, I tried to make you! ... Oh, Martin, your arms at last! To rest here! And you talk of money! Oh, now I am rich; but for years I have starved,—Martin! Martin!”

He strained her close, still dazed, incredulous with joy.

“Grizel. Beloved! You are my life, but can I take you? Dare I? Is it right?”

“You have no choice—I’m here! Martin, I’ve loved you since that day I saw you first, standing with little Juliet among the roses... She’ll be glad, Martin—there can be no jealousy in a spiritual world. She’ll just rejoice that you are happy, and that love has come to you again. I’m so sure of that!”

Was there another woman in the world who would have spoken of Juliet at that moment? Martin flinched, for at the back of his mind still lingered a consciousness of disloyalty, but he loved Grizel the more for her sweet comfort.

“I—I hope she is,” he said unsteadily. “Grizel you brought me back to life, but I dared not hope for this.—I’ll work like ten men; I will pour out my life for you like water, but I can never repay—never be worthy. Oh, my beautiful, that you should give up so much for met The wonder of it stuns me. Ought I to let you?”

“You can’t help it. I’m here,” cried Grizel once more. She tilted her face to look up at him, laughing, with the tears still wet on her lashes. “And, oh, Martin, won’t it sell your books! Think of the advertisement! Shall we keep it quiet until the new novel is out? Not too long, because, you know, I don’t mean to touch that money. It wouldn’t be straight, when I’m going to break the condition. There must be no question of staying on in the house, and making a book. I am not going back...”

“And when—when?” queried Martin hotly. “Grizel, will you come to me at once? Why should we wait? Everything is ready, if you are really willing to come to this tiny house. If it comes to that, I can’t wait, and I won’t! You shall never leave me again.”

“Oh, won’t I though,” Grizel laughed softly, pushing him from her with determined hands. “Now—let’s be sensible!—Sit over there, and I’ll tell you just what I will do, and what I won’t—I won’t marry you until the old Buddy has been dead for some months, and I won’t ever live in this house. We’ll find another, that looks to the sun, and I’ll furnish it in my own way, with my own fads. Buddy gave me lots of treasures for my own rooms. They are mine whatever I do, and I must have room for them. I have five hundred a year, you know, Martin. Shall you be able to afford a better house with an extra five hundred?”

“I can afford it now. You are quite right, it would be better to move, but I’m not going to touch a halfpenny of your money, sweetheart. You must keep that for yourself. It will seem little enough.”

“It takes a great deal to dress me!” sighed Grizel plaintively. “Can’t think why, when I’m so thin. And my lame dogs! I must squeeze out something for them. Well! there are some good pictures, and curios, and jewels. They are mine, too. With an occasional visit to the pawnshop, we’ll last out, somehow, till I’m fifty. Won’t be so long either! But, Martin! in heaven’s name, Who will order the dinners?”

“Perhaps—er—Katrine!” Martin’s voice sounded nervous and miserable. Grizel had thought of Juliet, but she had not mentioned Katrine, the obvious, living difficulty. He hated to remind her of it; hated to feel that his home was not his own.

“Yes. Perhaps—er—Katrine,” returned Grizel sweetly. She smiled into space, her face swept clear of expression, while Martin searched vainly for the hidden thought.

“I’m—sorry, darling! I hate the thought of a third person. It would be so perfect alone, but—Katrine has given me her youth, and there is nowhere else she could go. I should be a cur if I turned her out.”

“An ungrateful cur. We’ll never do it. I wouldn’t, if you could!”

“And do you think,—could you manage to be happy with her here, always with us?”

“I think,” pronounced Grizel judicially, “I might stand it for a week. With grace! Then I’d poison her with lingering torture.” She turned to him as she spoke, eyes shining, lips apart, deliberately inviting caress, but when he leaped to take her in his arms she waved him away. “No! This is business. Let us finish this first.”

“Oh, Bewildering Woman! Have you the least idea what you mean! Shall I ever understand you, to the end of my life? It’s a choice then between being a cur, and having you hung as a murderess. How do you reconcile that with your statement that you couldn’t, if I would.”

“I wouldn’t, and I shan’t. You won’t either. She will!” replied Grizel lucidly. “Oh, Man, don’t worry! Katrine is sensible if you are not! You must be good to her, and generous, and loving. Not affectionate, remember! laving, and things will arrange themselves well for us all. You’ll see!”

“I hope I may. At present I’m in a maze. I am to say to her—what am I to say?”

“That so long as you have a house there will be a Katrine’s room, and a welcome for her, if she chooses to stay. And you are to take no notice—not the slightest—of anything she says in reply, but to leave things to time, and her own good sense... Now we’ve wasted quite enough time on silly details. Let’s be sensible!—I love you, Martin!” ...

Chapter Fourteen.

Grizel came to meet Katrine on her return from the afternoon expedition and drew her into the oak-panelled morning-room. Her cheeks were flushed, but her air was serenely unmoved.

“What do you think I’ve been doing? I’ve been proposing to Martin,” she announced placidly. “He’s upstairs now, suffering from nervous shock, but he is going to take me! ... Katrine, are you pleased?”

“But, but,—all that money!” At the moment of certainty, the remembrance of the enormous sacrifice involved swamped everything else. Katrine gasped, and Grizel sighed.

“Yes! isn’t it a bore? I am sick about it,” she said simply. Another woman would have rolled her eyes, protested that “money was as naught when compared with love,” or some such banality, but that was not Grizel. She heaved a second sigh, before recovering her cheerfulness, then added hopefully: “However! I shall soon be fifty... Katrine, are you pleased?”

For a moment Katrine was silent. Then she bent her tall head and kissed Grizel on the cheek.

“Yes,” she said sweetly, “I’m pleased. Martin will be happy.”

“He is,” Grizel held on to her hand. “Incredibly happy! And so am I. I’ve loved him a long time, Katrine. I want you to know. There has never been any one else. Thank you, dear, for taking care of him for me so well.”

Katrine was silent. That acknowledgment had a sting, sweet as it was, since it seemed to point out the finality of her own office. Martin needed her no longer. Grizel would take care of him now. She moved away, and sat down in a chair.

“I didn’t know. I should have suspected, I suppose, but you have known each other so long, and Martin showed no sign.—I thought you were just good friends.”

A gleam shone into Grizel’s eyes; an impish gleam. Her red lips curled.

“Martin would have jumped at me, any time during the last five years! I had only to lift a finger; but it suited me to wait. I had my old Buddy, and I knew he would be there, waiting for me, whenever I was ready.”

Katrine’s glance was full of wounded dignity.

“You may be right. Probably you are. I begin to think I am very dense, but I don’t think, Grizel, you ought to have said so!”

“Oh, be hanged to it, no! of course I shouldn’t, but it was your fault! You insinuated that he didn’t care, and I won’t be insinuated! He did—he does—he will, he always shall!” cried Grizel belabouring the table with a startling vigour. “And I’ll kill you dead this moment if you dare to doubt it! For pity’s sake, Katrine, be nice!”

“I am nice, and I’m sorry. I was jealous, and just for the moment I snapped, but I won’t do it again. I did suspect during that last visit, and I know he cares, but I was afraid that Lady Griselda’s will might come between you. It’s a difficult position for Martin.”

“It’s difficult for Me, but—” Grizel shrugged, “what can’t be cured must be endured! I’m bound to have Martin, so I shall have to put up with being poor, but I am not coming to this house, Katrine. It’s too dull and dark, and full of sad old thoughts. Martin will have to find a new one for me. It will be a good thing. Keep him quiet while he is waiting.”

Katrine stared blankly. The news of the new home hit her like a fresh blow, removing as it did another landmark in the familiar life. Despite all her efforts to rejoice unselfishly, a feeling of unutterable loneliness possessed her.

“And when will you be—?”

“Married? In three or four months, I suppose; probably January. I am leaving the town house at once, and going on a round of visits; Martin will join me sometimes, and be introduced to my friends. Then there’ll be the trousseau! Won’t it be great, Katrine, choosing one’s trousseau for such a scrumptious man?”

It was all settled! Grizel had dictated, and Martin had agreed. That one eventful interview had settled it all. Nothing remained to be arranged but that one insignificant problem, her own future. Katrine tasted the bitterness of loneliness; her strained glance met Grizel’s, soft with understanding love.

“I know!” she said quickly. “It’s hard on you. Martin will tell you that it will make no difference, but it will, and you and I won’t pretend. It can never be easy to step down and take a second place where one has been first, and a sister fares poorly when there’s a wife in possession! But Martin is not like other men; he is big, big enough to love us both. He wants you to live with us; it was one of the first things he said. He thought of you in the—midst! And he meant it, Katrine!”

“It was good of him. I know he meant it, but I could never consent. That is the last thing I could do. Honestly, Grizel, do you think it is possible?”

Grizel pondered thoughtfully.

“It would be difficult! Worse for you than for me. You’d be in my way—sometimes, I’d be in yours—always! And if I were cross, I’d snap, and grumble to Martin, and you, poor lamb! would shut it all up in your heart. I think, dear, we won’t discuss it to-day. There’s plenty of time, and I’m not in the mood to come down to bare, bald facts.—I’m horribly happy, Katrine, but you must be happy too! It will spoil it all if you are mumpy. Think what you want most, and I’ll get it for you, if the skies fall!”

That was kind and sweet, and wise into the bargain, but Katrine did not know what she wanted; for all her resolution she could not banish the haunting fear of the future. She dreaded the first meeting with Martin; knew in her heart that the dread would be mutual. When they did meet an hour later she was amazed at the change on his face. He looked pale and shaken; oppressed, rather than exultant; but it was the extraordinary revival of youth which struck her dumb. The heavy lines seemed wiped away, the eyes looked at her, glad and shy; the eyes of a boy.

Katrine held out her hands, but he took her into his arms, and pressed his lips to her forehead.

“Grizel has told you!—I can’t realise it yet. It is too wonderful. You will be glad for me, dear, for you knew what has gone before. I can never thank you enough for all you have done for me, these eight years. And I have been so dull and impatient. This will make no difference between us. You know that, Katrine!”

Katrine smiled. It would make just all the difference in the world, but she could not be ungenerous enough to damp his joy. It was something that Grizel understood!

“I am glad that you are happy, dear boy. I do congratulate you. Grizel will be an inspiring wife. No one could live with her and find life boring.”

“Isn’t she wonderful? So beautiful, so fascinating, so—simple! I am overwhelmed that she should give up so much. That’s the only fly in the ointment. I can’t feel that it is justified. You must help me to look out for a house for her, Katrine—a bright, sunny place, which won’t be too painful a contrast. I can afford a higher rent nowadays, and she must have all that she wants. She said to me—‘Wherever we go there will always be a Katrine’s room, a place for Katrine.’ That was one of the first things she said!”

“Sweet of her!” said Katrine, smiling bravely once again. “I shall be delighted to come as a visitor sometimes, but not to live! Newly married couples are best alone. I must move my camp.”

Martin looked troubled and anxious.

“For a time perhaps; just for a time. What about that visit to Dorothea? Wouldn’t it be a good chance to fit that in?”

The blood rushed over Katrine’s face.

“No!” she said sharply. “No!” and there was such unflinching decision in her voice that Martin dared not pursue the subject. Was there after all some foundation for Grizel’s romance about a mysterious lover in India? It seemed like it, since no human girl would blush like that at the mention of a female friend. And yet, if there were a lover, why this emphatic refusal?

Martin gave it up, too engrossed in his own beatitude to feel much interest in the problem.

“Well! we needn’t discuss things to-day, dear. There’s plenty of time,” he said, using Grizel’s own words. “Only remember this—we shan’t be satisfied, either of us, unless you are happy!” He kissed her again, and passed on to his study. From the central place on the mantelpiece the portrait of his dead wife gazed at him with innocent young eyes as it had gazed every day of the last eight long years. He stood before it, gazing back, his face working with emotion.

There had been a time when to return that gaze had been his first impulse upon entering the room, days when he had sat for hours holding the photograph in his hand, had risen from his work to bend over it once and again; times again when work, and success, and the trend of life had brought a passing forgetfulness, followed by periods of passionate longing and despair. He had even thought of ending life itself for the sake of that smiling face. Now for months past it had counted for little more than the ornaments by which it was surrounded...

“Juliet!” he murmured beneath his breath. “Juliet!” It was a summoning cry, as if he would call the dead girl’s spirit from the unseen world. He stretched out his hand as a prisoner at the bar. “Little girl! Little girl! I was faithful to you. I gave you all that was mine to give...”

The wide eyes stared on. The lips smiled; a blank, unanswering smile.

Chapter Fifteen.

“Cumly, September 30, 19—.

“Dear Captain Blair,

“Martin is engaged to Grizel Dundas. She is giving up thirty thousand a year to marry him, and he is going to let her do it. I sent Dorothea a cutting from the newspaper, which no doubt you have seen, so I need not enlarge upon the details of a ‘millionaire’s extraordinary will,’ and the subsequent ‘Romantic engagement. Millionaire’s heiress gives up her fortune to marry well-known novelist.’ (See Morning Post.)

“The marriage is to be in January, and we are house-hunting, answering letters of congratulation, looking at patterns, discussing dresses and wallpapers, and hats, and carpets, and what to do with drawing-room walls, and where to find new places for such trifles as sideboards, and buffets, and bookcases, and maiden sisters... They’ll fit in somewhere, I suppose, and look fairly comfortable and at home in their new positions, but it will take a little settling down! The sideboard was made especially to fit a niche here; the maiden sister thought she was, too, but they’ve both got to move, and look distrustfully upon new corners.

“Grizel spent a week with us, then went off on a round of visits. She has left the old house and given up her claim to the money at once, so as to avoid all appearance of ‘making a purse’ for Martin’s benefit. They are preposterously happy, and have each explained to me most carefully that the other is so anxious for me to live with them, and confessed that from their own standpoint it might perhaps be better—for a time at least ... and I have relieved their feelings, poor dears, by proclaiming at once that nothing could bribe me, either sooner or later.

“Now, Lonely Man, go down on your knees and thank Providence, fasting, that you are not a woman! You’ve done it heaps of times before, but do it once again. No man in the world could find himself in such a position as I am in at this moment, at twenty-six, past, after doing my duty in my appointed place for a painstaking eight years. For what have I gained—in what single way have I prepared myself for the journey ahead? I can keep house satisfactorily on a satisfactory income, but I shall have no house to keep; I can train servants, but I shall have no servants to train. In any case I could have learned as much in one year, and I’ve wasted eight! Not wasted, you’ll say, as it was an obvious duty to look after Martin’s home, but the fact remains that the years have gone by, and left me at the end, adrift, with the alternative of living on charity, or working for myself, and no work that I can do! Too young to be a housekeeper, too old to begin a training.

“It is a big problem, and must be gripped. I have many invitations, enough to fill six months at least, but I’ve refused them all! I can’t frivol with that big question unsolved, so I’m going away quietly by myself to think it out. The friends here are keenly interested, and proffer advice, tinctured with consolation as follows: ‘Have you ever thought of dispensing? I knew a girl who had such a good post, and married the doctor. Of course you will marry, too, dear!’—‘I’m told there’s quite a big income to be made out of fashion designing’ (Can’t draw a line!). ‘Then you could go on with it at home if you married a poor man. Of course you’ll marry.’ ... ‘You might be a matron at Eton...’ (Might I?) ‘How would you like to be a Cookery Demonstrator?’ (Not at all!) ‘So useful when you marry.’—‘Charity Organisation Offices need Secretaries. Couldn’t you get your brother to get the Bishop to write to say you’d be suitable?’ (Story-teller if he did! I shouldn’t. Too much sympathy, and too little judgment, I’d give them money on the sly!)

“‘Dear Katrine! promise me one thing,—that you will not be tempted to go on the stage!’ (Vicar’s wife having seen me act charades at a mild tea fray.) ‘Wait patiently and trustfully, performing faithfully the little duties that arise, and in good time...’ (She means the curate!!)

“Oh, dear, it’s funny, but I’m not laughing. I’m trying not to cry. In the horrid, ungrateful way we have, I realise for the first time how well off I’ve been; how comfortable, and snug, and independent, and—necessary! That’s the crux of it all. I was necessary—now I’m superfluous!

“Well! here I am, you see, for the first time in twenty-six years really at grips with life, about to experience for myself the troubles and perplexities which so far have been mere matters of hearsay! I growsed and grizzled about the dulness of monotony, now I’m to taste uncertainty for a change. It may be very good for me; the vicar’s wife says—confidently!—that it will be. I can imagine myself pouring forth the most inspiriting sentiments to my next-door neighbour, similarly bound, but when You write to me, don’t be inspiriting! I pray you, don’t make the best of it! Say that it’s an unjust world; that brothers have no right to get married, and chuck their sisters; that it’s confoundedly hard lines, and that I’m a hardly used, unappreciated, despised, abandoned angel and martyr. That will buck me up, and give me courage to go on!

“But I want you to know one thing! If I could alter everything by a wave of the hand, nothing would induce me to do it! To see the cloud lifted, to watch blank eyes grow deep, and sweet, and satisfied again,—that’s a wonderful thing, and it would be a pigmy soul who did not rejoice. So think of me as I am, really happy, and truthfully thankful, but naturally a little agitated as to personal plans. Here’s an excitement for you! Guess what I’ll be, when you hear from me next!

“Superfluously,

“Katrine.”

Cable message from Dorothea Middleton to Katrine Beverley:

“October 10, 19—.

“Come immediately year’s visit. Cable dates.”

Reply cable from Katrine Beverley to Dorothea Middleton:

“October 11, 19—.

“Regret quite impossible. Thanks.”

“Lebong, October 23, 19—.

“Dear Katrine,

“So you have refused Dorothea’s invitation to come out to her for the next year. She, poor girl, is surprised and hurt; I, on the contrary, am neither one nor t’other. I knew it; felt it in my bones; could have drafted beforehand your reply—and what’s more, dear, I know precisely by what train of argument the refusal came about!—I—Jim Blair—am the bogie! You are saying to yourself: ‘A year ago I should have gone. It would have seemed the obvious thing to go to Dorothea. Her companionship, and the novelty of the surroundings would have been my best medicine and cure, but now it’s impossible! There’s that man! ... Behind the friendly import of his letters, there’s something else, the which I have strenuously ignored, but I have recognised it all the same. If I went out now, leaving Martin married and content, he would think,—that man would think,—imagine,—perhaps even (he’s audacious enough!)—Expect! ... My presence would give ground to these expectations. Therefore, Q.E.D., as a modest, self-respecting damsel I cannot go! I must stay at home. I shall be dull; I shall be lonely; I shall be disappointed,’ (You would be disappointed, Katrine!) ‘But my self-respect will be preserved. No man shall ever have it in his power to say that I have travelled to the end of the world “on appro,”—that I have deliberately thrown myself in his way. Sooner a hundred times death or life-solitude! The question is settled. Let it rest. Selah!’

“Are you angry, dear? Are your cheeks red? Is there a light burning in those deep eyes? I’ll bet there is, and don’t I wish I could see it! Don’t be hurt with me for divining the workings of your mind. I’ll make a clean breast of my own in return...

“I do think! I do imagine! I do expect! It’s not a new phase, it began a couple of years ago, when I fell in love with the portrait of a girl’s face, and the portrait of the girl herself, as portrayed in her weekly letters. And I diagnosed the position from those letters, and thinks I:—‘That Martin fellow will soon break loose, he’s coming to life with a rush;—that little girl’s billet is about run out. She will be needing another, one of these days. I could give her another!’ And I set myself to pave the way.

“So there it is, Katrine; you have it at last—the full and free confession of a man, who, bereft of force, resorted to guile wherewith to win a wife...

“I’ve been sitting for a quarter of an hour staring at that last word, and thinking!

“It seems an extraordinary term to use in connection with a woman one has never seen, but I know you, we know each other, better than half the couples who go to the altar. It’s no good reminding me that this is only the fourth time I have written to you. I know that perfectly well, but will you kindly recollect that I have been sharing in letters written by you for the last six years, besides which, of course, I have had the advantage of hearing constant descriptions from Dorothea’s lips. It’s more difficult for you; don’t think I minimise that! If I seem wanting in consideration it is only seeming; I realise only too well how hard it must be for you, poor, proud little girl. But you must come, you know! There’s no way out of that. Be sensible, Katrine. Don’t get angry! Sit down and let me talk to you quietly, and show you how the question appears to me...

“I have never wanted to marry a woman before, though I’ve met scores of nice girls. I never felt for one of them the sympathy, the affinity I know for you. You are not in love with me; I don’t expect it for the moment, but you are interested; so far as you’ve gone, you like and approve. You’ve shown that in your letters, and are honest enough to admit it now. Then why not give me a chance? Is there anything derogatory to a sane woman’s dignity in meeting, at his own request, and on perfectly free, unconditional terms, a man who loves her, and wishes to make her his wife? You know there is not.—I ask for no promises; nothing but the chance to meet you on an ordinary friendly footing. If it eases the way, I promise to say no word of love for, shall we say three months? I’d prefer weeks—but it’s your verdict.

“I want you, Katrine! I need you! I want a tangible, flesh and blood love, instead of its shadowy substitute. I want to take you in my arms, and hold you close till the red burns in your cheeks. I want to look down into those deep eyes, and to see them look back into mine. I want to stroke that curly hair, and to kiss those lips. Most of all I want your lips. I hunger to love, and I hunger to be loved. The thought of your coming would be like life; your refusal, blackness like death.

“Is there a soul at home in England who can say as much? And if not, are you justified, Katrine, in sacrificing me to your pride? You won’t do it. You can’t do it! Come to me, Katrine!

“J.C.D. Blair.”

“Cumly, November 20, 19—.

“Dear Captain Blair,

“I have received your letter. What can I say? Honestly, I have tried to weigh your arguments,—not calmly,—that is impossible, but unselfishly, thoughtfully, from every point of view, and indeed, and indeed, I can’t alter my decision!

“I hate the thought of giving you pain; I hate it so much that I will confess that it gives me pain also. I want to give in, and say yes; I want to leave behind the pain and the jar of the last few years, and sail out into the sun,—to see Dorothea, and yes! to see you too; to continue our friendship face to face. I could waive the shyness, waive the pride; what I cannot do is to waive the risk! You are a man; you see, man-like, only the plain, obvious facts; you don’t realise, as a woman does, the hundred and one difficulties and risks. You say that you love me, and you do love the imaginary Katrine whom you have created out of paper and ink. What you don’t realise is how tiny a difference between the real and the imaginary might turn that love to disillusion. I’m honest in my letters; I don’t pretend; Dorothea has no doubt told you my faults as well as my virtues; my photographs are not flattered; because I am young, and healthy, and alert, I am better-looking in real life, yet if I walked into your room at this moment looking my utmost best, you might still feel a shock of disappointment! You might acknowledge that this woman was handsomer, finer, in every way more personable than you had imagined, but that would not soothe the disappointment. She had made unto yourself a dream, and she was not your dream!

“Such a little thing can do it,—a little inconsequent thing, a tiny personal peculiarity, a trick of manner, an expression, a look. It’s not a question of whether it is beautiful and admirable in itself; it is a question of attraction, the indefinable, all-important attraction about which there can be no reasoning, no appeal.

“We discussed it before—do you remember? I told you there was every conceivable reason why I should have loved one man who wanted me, but there it was,—impossible! and nothing could alter it.

“If we had met in the ordinary way, as strangers, we should have been able to test the presence or absence of this attraction in a simple, natural fashion,—now, the realisation of its failure on either side must bring with it misery and embarrassment.

“Honestly, I can’t answer for myself. I do like you! There have been times—my loneliest times—when I have almost loved Jim Blair,—the Jim Blair of my dreams, but how am I to know that he is anything like you? The face which looks at me from beneath the white topee in the various groups which Dorothea has sent is vague enough to lend itself to mental adaptation, the real one may be a very different thing!

“If I could see you for even five minutes, face to face, I could tell if it were possible; but as things are, I can’t, and I dare not cross the world on the chance. I must find a niche at home, and work hard, and try to be of some use in the world. Perhaps some day, say on your next furlough, we may meet, if you still wish it, but in the meantime it would be better not to write. After what you have said, I should feel it unfair. The best thing you can do is to forget.

“Don’t think me unkind. It seems brutal to write so coldly, especially to-day, when I have just received a letter from Captain Bedford in Egypt, and with it the most wonderful old brass tray—quite the finest specimen of its kind that I have seen. He explains that it is your commission, and sends me quite a genealogical tree of its history. From his letter he sounds a charming man. He says he returns in March. If I had been coming out, we might have travelled by the same boat...

“Oh, Jim, I wish I could come—I wish I could! It’s hard work looking on, and feeling eternally number three. Do you think I don’t want to love too, and to be loved? Do you think it is easy to say ‘no,’ and throw away the chance? If only I could think it right! It is not pride which is hindering me, truly it isn’t, it is more like cowardice. We have defied convention, and as a result have created an impossible situation, and I shrink from the probable pain and disillusion of a meeting in the flesh. Your letters have meant a great deal to me; I don’t know how I should have come through the last few months without them. For my own sake I should not regret the episode, but it has been hard on you. At the bottom of my heart I guessed all along that it would lead to this. I pretended that I did not, and deliberately shut my eyes, and now I must pay up. I care for you too much to run any more risks. I won’t write again, and please don’t answer this. You will hear of my doings through Dorothea, and I shall always care to hear about you; so it is not like saying good-bye.

“Don’t be angry with me, I’m very miserable!

“Katrine.”

“Lebong, December 10, 19—.

“Katrine,

“I’m not angry, dear girl—but you’ve got to come! Every word that you write only makes me the more fixed in my determination. I can understand your shyness and your pride, but I’m hanged if I can understand all this business about disillusion and humiliation. If you find on investigation that I’m not the man for you, I shall regret it, but I shall feel no humiliation. Why should I? The fact that I do not please your taste, makes me no less a man, nor worthy of esteem. If—by a strength of imagination—I were disappointed in you, the situation would, I admit, be more charged, but being ‘only a man,’ I emphatically deny your assertion that the sentiment which you have evoked could be evaporated by any outward feature or trait. My dream woman is very dear, but, have no delusions on the point—she is not perfect! I have created for myself no plaster saint. You have plenty of faults, my dear, but there is this big difference between them, and those of any woman in existence—they are Katrine’s faults!

“I have given my word to speak no word beyond those of friendship for three months after your arrival. If you then decide that I am impossible as a husband, you need fear no unpleasantness. I’ll clear out, exchange into another regiment, apply for leave. You shan’t be troubled. After that three months’ trial, I’ll take your answer as final, and leave you in peace. I’ve no desire to badger a woman into being my wife. But I demand my chance!

“I think you will come, Katrine. Putting myself out of the question, I think you will come, and I’ll tell you why. It would be rank selfishness on your part to stay in England for the present! Martin has had a rough time of it, but life is opening out for him afresh, and if you love him you won’t stand in his way. How do you suppose he will feel if you are wandering about from boarding-house to boarding-house, or working among strangers? The thought of you will be a continuous shadow over his sun, and that’s what you have no right to be, if there is any legitimate way of avoiding it. Real happiness is a rare thing, it is holy ground, which ought to be sacred from our touch. I’d as soon cut off my right hand as cloud a man’s joy in his new-made wife.

“And after Martin there’s Dorothea.

“It’s not a lively life for a woman in a small hill station. It grows monotonous, meeting year after year the same people. Dorothea’s a brave woman, but the life tells. The boy is delicate also. There’s a talk of sending him home to his grandmother. Dorothea won’t leave Middleton; she considers that he needs her more than the child, and I think she is right, but it will be a pill. There’s nothing on earth which could cheer and help her more than a visit from you. She has written to you again I know. This time you must not refuse. The climate up here is quite reasonable. You will have no great heat to face.

“And so, dear, I think you will come! I know you will come, and, God willing, you shall not regret it.

“That’s a good idea about Bedford! He’s a capital chap, and would look after you well. We must see that that comes off. He will stay in Egypt till the last moment, I fancy, and join the ship at Port Said, but, you’d still have ten days together, and he would be useful on landing. He is a good thirty-five, staid, and level-headed. It’s quite conventional, I suppose? I never know about these things. Book your passage in good time, and cheer Dorothea by the news. Write at once, no! in my present state of health I don’t feel up to waiting five whole weeks. I have not been fit—feverish, sleepless—so am not in the mood for patience. Cable just one word—the name of the steamer—to our code address. When I read that I’ll know that your passage is booked.

“Oh, my Katrine—sorry! I’ll be more careful—

“Yours,

“J.C.D. Blair.”

Cable message from Katrine Beverley to Dorothea Middleton: “Accept invitation. Sail by Bremen.”

Chapter Sixteen.

“Cumly, January 2, 19—.

“Dear Autocrat,

“I We done it! I’ve given in, and sent off the cable. By now you will have seen it, and be either chortling with triumph, or wishing remorsefully that you’d left well alone. I hope it’s the former, because, to be candid, I’m chortling myself. Oh, I’m so glad! I wanted so badly to say ‘yes.’ It was clever of you to make it appear so clearly my duty to do just the one thing I wanted above all others!

“Hurrah! For a whole year I am free. The office, the surgery, the kitchen, and the stage, can retire gracefully into the background. I’m going out to India with a box full of new clothes, to stay with my dearest friend, and have a good time. Inadvertently also to meet a nice man...

“Oh, Jim, I hope you are nice—my kind of nice! I hope, hope, hope with all my heart that I shall tumble right in love with you the moment we meet, and that you’ll do ditto with me, and that we’ll go on tumbling all our lives.

“I’ve no pride left this morning; I’m so excited and glad. Martin put his arm round me on Wednesday when I told him of my cable, and swung me off my feet. ‘Now everything is perfect!’ he said. ‘You will be happy as well as I.’ And he has been so dear and generous, insisting that he owes me no end of money for my work for him, and I have been to town to buy clothes, Lonely Man, scrumptious clothes, with Grizel to help, because I should like—Dorothea—to see me look nice!

“Grizel is the most bracing person to shop with. When you think it’s extravagant, she calls it cheap, and when you are wondering if you dare have one, she orders a dozen, and just for once in a way, when you’ve been careful all your life, it is lovely to go a bust. Besides—

“My bridesmaid’s kit is Grizel’s present, and seems stretching to immense proportions. A dress for the ceremony, and a dress for the evening, and a hat and a cloak, and fal-lals of every description. Do you think the regiment will give some function to let me show them off? Now that my own future no longer casts its shadow over the whole landscape, I am immensely enjoying the engaged couple. They are so deliriously gay and young, and happy and hopeful; and the nice part about it is—it is going to last! I feel sure it will, for through his long experience of sorrow and loss Martin has learned how to give the one all-important thing that is necessary to a woman’s happiness. Have you the slightest idea what it is? You will smile at the sentiment of women, and say ‘Love, of course,’ but it isn’t love, at least it is not necessarily included in that term. Many a man honestly loves his wife, and yet succeeds in making her miserable. No! it is just a simple, homely quality without which the grandest of passions is incomplete! Tenderness! Tenderness means kindness and understanding, and sympathy, and imagination, and patience—above all, patience! When a man is in love he thinks a woman perfect, but she isn’t, she is an irrational, inconsequent creature, whose mate will have need of patience every day of his life, and sometimes many times a day. Of course there do exist female paragons, calm, correct creatures, with smooth hair and chiselled features, who are always serene and self-contained, but then they are also independent of tenderness. This grows complicated! I’d better drop pretence and confess at once that when I talk generalities I really mean You and Me, the two people who are at the back of all generalities!

“I am erratic and variable... On Tuesday, for no tangible cause, I feel bubbling over with happiness; on Wednesday, for an equally logical reason, I crave for death. On occasions I can be exasperatingly contrary. I know it all the time, and am furious with myself, but that only makes me worse! On after reflection I either pray and fast, or in brazen fashion excuse myself on the score of electric influences! After all, why shouldn’t I? We are the most sensitive of machines, and if climatic disturbances affect the wires at a distance of thousands of miles, why should We pass unscathed? I sometimes think we are too hard on our own moods and tempers, but they are trying enough in any case for the other person. The question of the hour is this—Could You be tender to Me???

“Only four weeks and I’m off! It will be more convenient for me to leave directly after the wedding, and if ’twere done, ’twere well done quickly. Grizel’s trousseau is reaching the acute stage, and I thought I was busy enough helping her, without starting a second on my—

“What am I saying! I must be mad. You understand that I trust to that three months’ truce, and that I promise nothing—nothing. I only hope!

“Au revoir, Jim. To-morrow I shall be tearing my hair for writing all this, but the mail will have gone... It will be too late.

“Katrine.

“P.S. A happy new year, Jim, Will it be happy?”

Chapter Seventeen.

“Cumly, January 7, 19—.

“Dear Captain Blair,

“This follows quickly to retract everything that I said last week! If I had not already spent so much on cables, and if it were not so difficult to explain, I should have sent a flying order to burn that effusion unread! It makes me hot to think of the things I wrote. I am not usually so heady and bold, but the excitement was too much for me, the brilliant shifting of the scene, the finding myself of a sudden a leading lady, instead of a forlorn super,—the new clothes!—

“Honestly, I believe the clothes had as much to do with it as anything else! Do you remember a character in a book a year or two ago saying that the consciousness of being perfectly dressed imparted a peace and joy which religion can never bestow! I have quoted that saying to many women in turns, and each and all on the spur of the moment exclaimed ‘How true!’ though the serious-minded ones tried to back out afterwards. I have wondered sometimes if the difference in temperament between the two sexes isn’t after all mainly a matter of clothes. A man goes to a decent tailor, puts on a well-cut tweed or dress suit, arranges his tie with a certain amount of skill, and—kings can do no more! Never in all his life does he experience the agonising sensation of entering a room and realising at a glance that he is all wrong, while the right thing is hanging idly at home in the wardrobe; never is his heart torn by the consciousness of inferiority, or the necessity of putting up with a second best, when the first is a dream of beauty and becomingness. He knows none of these trials, but then, on the other hand, he has none of the thrills! Who could be thrilled by an old black coat, but when it is the exact shade of blue that matches your eyes, when the lines of the skirt make you blush at your own grace, when the trimmings are dreams, and the very linings a picture, then, oh, man! the elation of it mounts to the feminine head like wine, and no mere male can understand...

“I imagined until now that I was superior to such folly. I never cared much about clothes, but then, as Grizel brutally explains, that was because I never had none! Now I am as susceptible as the rest...

“All this chatter about clothes is simply to cover my embarrassment, because I don’t know what else to say!

“You must all have made very sure of me, to write to Captain Bedford as you did! ... I had the kindest letter from him yesterday, promising every help en voyage. I am to tip the steward to arrange that he has a seat next to me at table from Aden onward. I shall have found my sea legs by then, I suppose, and be able to turn up for meals. He—Captain Bedford—isn’t too well, I’m afraid, for he talks of feverish turns which can’t be good in his condition, but there seems no doubt of his return. I shall cross-question him (artfully!) about you, and expect to pick up some useful information. Don’t expect me to write again before sailing. I am too busy and—shy! and when I do arrive, please arrange to meet me first among a crowd of people, and look the other way hard whenever I’m looking. I’m capable of coming home by the first boat if I’m druv!

“Katrine.”

“P.S.—I have no money; not a cent. ‘My face is my fortune,’ plus a pearl necklet, and a loving heart! The situation is so unusual that I think I am justified in being personal and inquisitive. Here’s an examination paper for you on certain burning points. You will have time to post answers to Port Said, and if unsatisfactory I can always drown myself, or—turn back!

“Question I.

“Do your ears stick out?”

“NB.—This is important. Prevarication forbidden.

“Question II.

“When annoyed do you rage or sulk?

“Question III.

“Have you tiresome little ways? If so, how many? Clearly define their nature, and specify in particular whether you fidget, scatter tobacco, sneeze loudly, scrape your plate, argue, frown over bills, repeat yourself in conversation...

“Question IV.

“What sort of tobacco do you smoke, and how much? I don’t smoke at all. Too Cranford! Are you pleased or sorry?

“Question V.

“What would be your manner of proceeding under the following circumstances:—

“Wife irritable. Wife hysteric. Wife homesick. Wife unreasonable and provoking? Wife all at once.”

“My Dearest Katrine,

“If I write at once I shall just catch you before you sail. When you are here, when I see you face to face, and after the period of truce is over, I shall tell you how I felt when that cable arrived yesterday, and I realised that in less than three months we should meet in the flesh. I have felt a new man since that hour, and Dorothea says I look it. She had already written to Bedford (at my instigation) saying that you would probably be coming by the Bremen, and giving him elaborate instructions on your behalf. No fear that he won’t carry them out! Heavens! the luck some fellows have. What would I give for the opportunity of ‘looking after you’ through those long, lazy days, but I’m not jealous, Katrine—don’t imagine that! Whatever you may decide in the future, you’ll play fair to me in the present. I asked for my chance, and you’ve given it by agreeing to come out, so for the time being I hold the field. I trust you utterly, with a glad heart.

“This will be the last letter you get from me, unless perhaps a line at Aden, and I can write no more to-day, dear. My heart is too full...

Chapter Eighteen.

The new house had been found; a sunny, airy, sufficiently spacious house, and the bride-elect having graciously expressed her approval, an army of workmen were busy with the decorations. Grizel had come to pay a flying visit to The Glen to superintend their efforts, explaining that though she possessed sufficient strength of character to bear with equanimity such trial as Providence might please to send, to live with a wrong shade of paint passed the limits of her endurance.

“If it were even the tiniest degree wrong, I’d nag at Martin till his life was a burden,” she announced, smiling the while the slow, imperturbable smile which gave so emphatic a contradiction to her words.

“But it wouldn’t be my fault!” protested Martin, trying to show sufficient distress at the threat to satisfy Grizel’s sense of dignity, but his thanks for the effort were a grimace, and an emphatic: “It will always be your fault!” which silenced him once for all.

Grizel indeed was in her most irresponsible mood, scandalising Katrine by refusing to be serious even on that most solemn of subjects, the ordering of Martin’s food.

“I couldn’t possibly think of food beforehand. It’s disgusting! If I knew what was coming to table, I couldn’t eat a bite! The cook must do it. What are cooks for?”

“Plain cooks at under thirty pounds a year don’t consider menus within their province. They stare into space, and twirl their fingers while you plan. And even then they need directing.”

Grizel sighed.

“But I don’t like plain cooks! I’ll have a fancy one. Forty pounds,—fifty—whatever she asks, and a kitchen maid to do the work.”

“Then,” prophesied Katrine gloomily, “Martin will be ruined. She’ll fry up all his royalties.”

“I’ll tell her she’s not to. And besides,” Grizel’s voice swelled with importance; she had caught the sneer on Katrine’s lips at those first words, and now she had a really sensible addenda. “I’ll bribe her! In reverse ratio. The smaller the bills, the bigger the bribe.”

“Then,” pursued Katrine relentlessly, “she’ll give you bad qualities. Salt butter; dripping instead of lard; cheap jams; rank tea!”

“Oh, my gracious!” Grizel grimaced again, more violently than before, but the next moment she smiled triumphant. “I’ll buy a vidder! A gentle, domesticated little vidder who’s redooced, and seeks a home. She shall have two rooms, and kind treatment, and be paid by results. Good food, small bills,—big salary. Small food, big bills,—out she goes! Don’t tell me I can’t! There are thousands of vidders. It will be a pious deed.”

“And what,” queried Katrine the practical, “will you do?”

“Interfere, of course! What d’you expect?” Grizel turned her head toward her fiancé, who had been a delighted listener to the discussion. “And make love to Martin. I shan’t have time for anything else.”

Katrine left the room, head in air, whereupon Martin made haste to take his bride in his arms.

“Happy?” she asked softly, tilting her head so as to look into his face. “Content?”

“Ah, Grizel, not quite... When I have you always... when you are my wife!”

“No qualms at all—no doubt? Because there’s still time... Sure you realise exactly what you are getting? An expensive wife, impracticable and lazy. And I’m twenty-eight. I shan’t change. And not a bit clever, except in one way!”

“What way, Grizel?”

“You know—”

“I want to be told!”

The golden eyes grew dark, the pale face glowed. Ah! Grizel’s lover needed no telling. Not one woman in a thousand could love like this soft, sweet thing, whose outer appearance was so calm and still. She who had contrived to love with tenderness a cantankerous old woman, lavished a very flood of devotion on the man of her choice. His starved nature absorbed it like a thirsty plant, but his delight in her was still fearful, incredulous; the sudden transformation of his life had the perilous radiance of a dream.

The engagement had been a veritable nine days’ wonder. English newspapers had published more or less accurate life histories of the interesting couple; American journals had excelled themselves in imaginative details. Blurred caricature portraits of the prospective bride and bridegroom had appeared side by side, to the amusement of the one, and the helpless fury of the other. The outer world labelled Grizel, fool, and Martin, knave; envied the unsuspecting distant relations, to whom would come the news of a great inheritance; and then promptly, mercifully, forgot. Friends also ceased in due time to forward notes of ostensible congratulation, behind which the real amaze was plainly stamped; only one effect was of any lasting nature, and regarding this Martin felt an odd mixture of chagrin and elation. His agent reported a large increase in the sale of his books, and publishers bid against each other for the privilege of publishing his new novel. The artist in him resented so spurious a success; the lover rejoiced in the prospect of increased prosperity which would make it possible to provide more luxuries for his bride.

Grizel was whole-hearted in her choice of love rather than riches, but when one has been accustomed to think in thousands, it is difficult to grasp the importance of fractional amounts. She thought it absurd to weigh the matter of an extra hundred a year in so important a matter as the rent of the house in which one would have to live; she took for granted the existence of a carriage, as simply as that of a table, and had not dimly imagined the possibility of existence without a maid. Martin did not delude himself that the financial future was free from difficulty, but as for years past he had been living well below his income, he was prepared to meet the exigencies of a period of adjustment. Meantime Grizel’s suggestion of the “vidder” seemed an admirable solution, and he told himself cheerfully that with such a check on household expenses, things could not go far wrong. In a few years’ time Grizel would have adapted herself to the new conditions and be able to take over the reins; in the meantime he was well content that she should devote herself to a more attractive rôle!

But one shadow had clouded the sun of Martin’s content, and within the last weeks that also had been removed, for after having obstinately refused all overtures from himself and her friends, after proclaiming by day or by night that she must go out into the world and fight her own battles, Katrine had shown a sudden and mysterious volte-face. One Thursday morning she had retired upstairs to digest her Indian mail, and half an hour later, knocking at his study door, had announced her intention of cabling an immediate acceptance of the Middletons’ invitation! She was trembling as she spoke, and her eyes were moist, but Martin did not need to be told that it was joy and not sorrow which caused her emotion. A woman would have pondered the why and wherefore of the sudden change; Martin merely told himself with a sigh of relief that she had “come to her senses,” embraced her affectionately, and proffered money for the cable. Later on he came to the conclusion that Katrine must all along have intended to accept, and had been merely indulging in a little feminine fuss, since it appeared all cut and dried that she was to be looked after en voyage by a member of Middleton’s regiment, now invalided in Egypt, Well! everything was turning out in the most delightful fashion. In a hill station, which was a health resort even in the hottest months, the question of climate was practically non-existent. After the marriage Katrine would stay behind superintending final arrangements in the new home, then travel overland to Marseilles, where he and Grizel would meet her and give her a good send-off. A visit of a year was mentioned, but when a girl so handsome and striking went out to India, one could never tell... “Perhaps she’ll marry this Bedford,” soliloquised Martin happily, Jim or Bedford, what did it matter, so long as he was a good, straight fellow, and made the girl happy!