BROTHERS (continued 4)

He looked at Betty, who slightly lowered her parasol and made no reply.

"I never forget my losses."

"Because they have been few?"

"Because they have been heavy. The fellows in our market would tell you that I have a very serious failing: I don't know when to let go."

"I call that a virtue: in a word, you don't know when you're beat."

"No," he said steadily. "I don't know when I'm beat."

A silence followed, during which the tamer of bulls and bears decapitated a few dandelions. Betty watched him out of the corner of her eye. A certain dexterity and ruthlessness in Jim's use of his cane had significance. Then she found herself wondering what Jim looked like when he was a boy. She could not recall her old playmate, being obsessed for the moment by the man beside her. Some men always retain the look of youth—Mark was one of these; others would seem to have been born old; many, like Jim Corrance, assume early a hard and impenetrable crust of middle age. Jim's face was thin and lined, although he had the square figure of an athlete. One could not picture him as a rosy-cheeked urchin, nor could one believe that he would grow feeble, and bent, and white-haired. And yet, despite his strength and success, Betty felt poignantly sorry for him. And being a woman she showed her compassion in a score of inflections, gestures, which were as spikenard to the man who loved her.

"I wonder you are so nice to me," he said presently; then as she raised her delicate brows he added quickly: "I've cut loose from so much you revere. It's a pill for the mater, but I couldn't play the humbug. I look at life as it is: as it appears, I mean, to me—a place where the devil takes the hindmost."

"And those in front——"

"Oh—I dare say the devil takes them also—later."

Betty changed the subject, not because it was distasteful, but for the subtler reason that she feared her own thoughts, which stuck in a slough of despond. For the rest of the walk they prattled gaily enough of the pranks they had played as boy and girl. Jim's face insensibly softened, so that Betty caught a glimpse of the Harrovian. Then, at the mention of Archie's name, the talk flowed back into the present.

"I never asked you what you thought of that wonderful sermon of his."

Jim admitted surprise. "Old Archie has come on," he added. "He's a plodder, and he's good to look at, and he means to 'get there.'"

"To get—where?"

"To the bench of bishops."

"I used to underrate Archie, but there's a lot in him."

"A lot of him, too. Oh—you needn't frown, Betty. I think that Archie makes a capital parson; and I dare say he'll personally conduct a select party of you Slowshire people to heaven."

"How bitter you are, Jim."

"I won't be bitter when I'm with you," he promised. "I say, there's the bush where we caught the Duke of Burgundy fritillary. I saw it in the old cabinet the other day. You nailed it with your hat and gave it to me, although you wanted it yourself. I felt a beast for taking it, but I adored you for being so unselfish."

"You offered me your Purple Emperor next day."

"And you refused it," said Jim quickly.

"So I did. I must tell everybody that I have refused an Emperor."

"Not to mention smaller fry. Three months ago I thought you meant to marry Harry Kirtling, and he thought so too, by Jove!"

"You dare to insinuate that I encouraged him?"

"You have a way with you, Betty." He glanced at her ardently, but she looked down, faintly blushing, as he continued: "You are not one of these modern young women who can stand alone."

"That is true," she said simply. "I am not strong enough to stand alone, and I admire in men the qualities lacking in myself. We had better go home; your mother will be waiting for her tea."

Jim said no more, but in the evening he asked his mother if she had any reason to suppose that an understanding existed between Mark and Betty.

"When she refused Kirtling, Pynsent and I made certain she was engaged to Mark. Now he has gone to the uttermost ends of the earth, and she never mentions his name to me."

"Nor to me," said Mrs. Corrance. Then she touched her son's shoulder very gently. "Do not make ropes out of sand, dear."

Jim went back to town on Monday morning, but he returned to King's Charteris the following Friday, and walked once more with Betty in the lovely woods which lie between Westchester and the New Forest. Naturally and by training an acute observer, although a keener judge of men than women, Betty puzzled him. He saw that she was slightly contemptuous of the material side of life, although willing to listen by the hour to his presentment of it. This, however, might be a phase, a mood. He felt assured, now, that Betty would have married Mark had he asked her to do so, and he lay awake at night wondering whether she would marry anybody else. For the rest he determined that he must make haste slowly. He would give the girl the fellowship she craved without defining its elements. That she was grateful for such abstinence her manner proved. She became at once open, candid, a delightful companion.

Meantime the Squire had not left Pitt Hall. When he met Betty, he said, with some confusion, that the "Madam" (as he called Mrs. Samphire) had opposed so long a journey; one, moreover, which was like to prove a fool's errand. He excused himself by complaining querulously of an estate which exacted constant supervision. His face was even more florid than usual, and his manner less complacent. When Betty mentioned this to Archie (who rode over from Westchester on a well-bred cob), he expressed a fear that his father was losing money.

"He spoke of going North," Betty said, after a pause. "If Mark is really ill, surely he ought to be nursed by—by his nearest and dearest?"

Archie betrayed astonishment.

"Ill? Really ill? I've heard nothing of serious illness, not a word. How do you know, Betty?"

"I have guessed," she answered vehemently. "He has slipped away to—to die, perhaps!"

Archie showed a most lively concern.

"No, no, you exaggerate. Look here, Betty, if someone ought to go North, I'll go."

"Oh, Archie—if you would."

"Dear old Mark! Of course I'll go. It happens that I can get a week's leave. I'll bring him home with me."

He spoke in a warm, sympathetic tone, kindling Betty's gratitude and affection. Never had she liked Mark's brother so well.

"You can spare the time, Archie?"

"Yes, yes; I'm so glad you spoke to me. By the way, I've a piece of news for you—great news, too. I am commanded to preach at Windsor."

"Oh, Archie, I am pleased to hear that. It will mean so much—won't it."

"Yes."

She asked questions: Was the date set? Had he a theme? and so forth. "You know," she continued gravely, "I shall never forget your Westchester sermon. Many sermons touch one, but that gripped. Often, I've not been quite fair to you, and now I'm horribly ashamed of myself. You forgive me?"

"My dear Betty! I say—was there so great a difference between that sermon and others I have preached?"

"Why, Archie, how modest you are! Don't you know that you climbed to the heights that Whit-Sunday? Before, you seemed to be rambling about on the comfortable plains. Oh, I know we can't scale mountains every day. Lord Randolph said as much——" She paused.

"What did Lord Randolph say?"

"He did not intend that it should reach your ears."

"Betty—you will do me a favour by repeating what he said as he said it. I am not thin-skinned."

"Well, he said that beer was good liquor, and that spirits should be used sparingly. You couldn't preach such a sermon as that every Sunday."

"Not I," said Archie.

"The great thing is that you can stir up hearts when the occasion comes. I feel sure you will surpass yourself at Windsor."

"I wish I felt sure, Betty. Well—I'll do my best to persuade Mark to return with me, but he's obstinate as a mule where his health is concerned. Shall I give him any message from you?"

"You can give him—my love."

She spoke with assumed lightness of tone. Archie found a phrase.

"A man would travel farther than Sutherland to receive that." Then he took his leave, gravely smiling.

"He's a good sort," said Betty.

None the less she told herself that her intuitions in regard to men were fluid. Again and again she tried to grasp them, to mould them into permanent form, into definiteness; always they flowed away—peaceably sometimes, with a sweet melodic cadence, as of a Scotch burn, but more often roaring, like the same burn in spate; in either case leaving but a small silt behind.

The two days following Archie's departure she spent alone in the woods (for Mrs. Corrance seldom left her pretty garden), seeking from Nature an answer to the problem in her heart. The great oaks and beeches preserved an inviolate silence in those languorous July days, but the pines seemed to have a message for an attentive ear. Their sighs were, perhaps, the warning voices of the innumerable dead, hushed and (to most mortals) inarticulate. Here and there amidst this rich pastoral country Betty found sterile acres where even the hardy fir failed to find sustenance. These patches in the landscape had a weird fascination. Betty perceived beauty, dignity, in their subtle, faded tints, their delicate greys and shadowy browns. Once upon a time, doubtless, these barren spots had bloomed, too luxuriantly, perhaps; in due time they would bloom again in splendid resurrection. In the centre of one of the stony places a young birch tree of great beauty stretched slender limbs toward the green paradise which encompassed it, inclining slightly to the south.

"I am like that birch," said Betty.

CHAPTER XIX

A SANATORIUM IN SUTHERLAND

Archibald Samphire took with him to Scotland a suit-case and a small handbag. After leaving Perth, where he made an early breakfast, he opened the bag and pulled out a roll of foolscap covered with neat, scholarly handwriting. The reading of this MS. seemed to give him pleasure; but presently his fine brow puckered into wrinkles, and an excellent cigar was allowed to go out prematurely.

"It's not as good as I thought," he murmured; and he was not speaking of his cigar.

Presently he lit another cigar and reread the MS.—the sermon prepared for Royalty. When he wrote it, he told himself it eclipsed the one preached on Whit-Sunday at Westchester. Afterwards, rereading it in cold blood, he had come to the conclusion that it did not quite "grip," as Betty put it, although sound to the core doctrinally, and discreet; better suited, perhaps, for august ears than the other. Now, in this clear, cool northern air, judgment was of a less sanguine complexion. The theme warmed into life in the Close at Westchester lacked vitality in the Highlands. Mountain and moor made it seem anæmic. Archibald looked out of the window, which was open, and inhaled the fresh, pungent air. Not a house was to be seen, not even a shepherd's hut; the moors spread a purple carpet on which no human creature walked; the mountains, vast, rugged, solitary, encompassed the moors. Yet in the heart of this lonely wilderness men had swarmed together in conflict. These mountains had not barred the progress of an army. Guns, horses, transport waggons had defiled through the passes and across the treacherous peat bogs. That clear burn yonder had run red with blood. Here was fought the battle of Killiecrankie! Archie thought of these things as he sat with the sheets of his sermon in his hand. He bundled the MS. back into his bag, and closed it with a snap, divining his inability to deal adequately with what was primal!

He had wired to Mark that he was coming North; accordingly, at Lairg he found a "machine" awaiting him, a ramshackle cart drawn by a sturdy pony, whose attempts to leave the rough roads and plunge on to the moor indicated that he was more at ease beneath a deer packsaddle than between a pair of shafts. The driver eyed somewhat derisively Archie's clerical garments. "Ye're no a meenister?" he asked; and receiving a reply in the affirmative, added with emphasis, "Ye're verra young for that." A minute later he asked if his passenger were college-bred.

"I took my degree at Cambridge," said Archie.

"Indeed. A'm interested in the Punic Wars. Yon Scipio Africanus was a gran' man. I'd be obliged if ye'd tell me all ye ken aboot him."

Archie changed from pink to the colour of Turkey twill. What he knew about Scipio Africanus could have been put into a grain of millet seed. In some confusion—not wasted upon the critical Scot—he explained that the Punic Wars were beyond his horizon. The driver nodded compassionately, expressing no surprise at the Sassenach's ignorance. He was thin and angular; his grey eyes had curious flecks of brown in them; his face and hands were very red and hairy, and beneath the red hair Archie detected a certain amount of dirt. This restored the minor canon's sense of superiority. The Scot, however, wore stout homespun and superb stockings.

"You wear good clothes," said Archie.

"D'ye think they're too guid?"

"Certainly not," said Archie hastily. "Your Highland sheep look in fine condition."

Once more the driver's queer eyes met his. The brown flecks danced in the grey.

"They're no mine, and they cam frae Teviotdale—they white-faced sheep." The contempt in the man's voice was unmistakable.

Archie wondered if the man also came from the border; he did not look like a Highlander; Highlanders always said "whateffer." He wished to ask questions about Crask, Ross's lodge, but the brown flecks in the small, closely-set eyes were oddly disconcerting, so he stared at the face of the landscape instead of that of the man. They were driving over a bleak moor which stretched, far as the eye could reach, to some delicately blue hills fringing the western skies. The scene was panoramic and indescribably desolate. Along the road black posts, set at intervals, served as guides to such travellers—shepherds for the most part—who were obliged to cross the moors in winter-time, when snow covered all things. Archie thought of November and shivered. Presently they passed a small slate-tiled cottage built of rough grey stone and surrounded by a grey stone wall. Peats were piled close to a vast midden, on which some hens were scratching; beyond the peat stack stood the byre; garden, ornamental or useful, there was none. As the pony came to a sudden halt, three rough collies rushed out, barking furiously. The driver spoke to them and got down; he strode into the house, remained there ten minutes, and came out wiping his hairy chin. Archie smelled whisky. The driver picked up the reins, the collies barked, the pony shambled forward. Evidently the whisky had had an effect, for the Scot became communicative.

"He's a verra mean man, yon," he said, jerking his head in the direction of the house. "We were tasting the noo, and I said, as he was filling the glass—'Stop!' And wad ye believe it, the brute stoppit?"

Mark would have laughed. Archibald remained calm.

"There's too much whisky drunk in Scotland," he said.

"There's' mair drunk oot of it," retorted the driver.

Archie refused to enter into argument, and the driver filled a black cutty with evil-smelling tobacco. After the moor was crossed, the character of the scenery changed. The road wound its way beside a charming burn to which heather-covered hills sloped steeply. Farther on, a loch reflected the saffron splendours of the sky. A splendid mountain—Ben Caryll—towered to the right.

"Yon's the hoose," said the driver.

The house crowned a small spur of Ben Caryll. At one side stood a small wooden chapel embellished by a diminutive bell-tower, in which hung a single bell of great sweetness of tone. A big lawn lay on the other side of the house, and Archie noted with surprise that tennis-courts were marked out. He noted also, with equal surprise, the profusion of flowers and flowering shrubs and the care which allotted to each its particular place in the general plan of the garden. The house looked grey and grim, like all houses in this part of Scotland, and the windows had been enlarged, giving the building somewhat the appearance of a small factory. Behind the tennis-courts stood a row of rough sheds covered with creepers and facing the south. In the sheds he caught a glimpse of tables, chairs, sofas, and other simple furnishings.

Archie rang the bell, which jangled discordantly. The door was opened by Mark, who held out both hands, smiling. "It's awfully good of you, old fellow," he said. "I don't know how to thank you. You're just in time for supper. Here's the Bishop. He's up for a day or two."

David Ross nodded cordially and gripped Archie's hand. Two men came forward and were introduced. One shouldered the big suit-case and went upstairs with it, ignoring protests. Archie followed, carrying his small black bag and feeling that he had come on a fool's errand so far as Mark was concerned. Dying? Why, he looked stronger than he had looked for months. As soon as the brothers were alone Archie said as much.

"I suppose it's the air," Mark explained. "I'm out-of-doors night and day. My trouble is scotched."

"I can't understand how you can joke about it," said Archie.

"A vile pun, but irresistible. I say, wash that frown off your face and come down. We'll have a pipe and a good jaw afterwards. If you think, by the way, that I do look better, you might say so to David Ross. He's been awfully kind."

"Why didn't you go home?"

"I c-c-couldn't," said Mark shortly.

In the refectory, a long, low annexe to the house, the Bishop's guests sat at meat. Some of them were ruddy and robust; others looked thin and white, but not one, so Archie remarked, wore the sable of discontent. The eyes that met his were candid and clear—the eyes of men satisfied with their lot in life. At the foot of the table sat a little fellow with a big head, which waggled comically. Archie wondered where he had seen him before; then he remembered. The little man looked like Mr. Pickwick, although he lacked that illustrious character's deportment and dignity.

"Who is that?" he whispered to Mark, who sat beside him.

"That's Stride, our resident doctor. He's mad keen about the open-air cure. He got his ideas from Father Kneippe."

In those days neither Father Kneippe nor his ideas were famous. The open-air treatment for disease was practically unknown. Mark explained Stride's methods: his theories on diet and physical culture, facts now familiar to everybody.

"Stride lives here all the year round, you know. David Ross comes and goes at long intervals."

"It must be desolate in winter." Archie gave his impressions, including a description of the house with the huge midden. "It was larger than the cottage," he said in great disgust, "and the drunken savage who drove me wanted to learn what I knew about Scipio Africanus and the Punic wars. Punic wars indeed!"

"I like the country and the people," said Mark, "but you have to climb to get at either."

After supper the guests marched outside and settled themselves in the sheds, which were lit with lamps. Some read, some played chess, some listened to Stride, who talked unceasingly. The Bishop led Archie aside and asked him if he would like to smoke a pipe on the lawn.

"I'll smoke a cigar," said Archie. "Can I offer you one?"

"I prefer a pipe," said the Bishop.

They strolled together on to the lawn. Although it was nearly ten, twilight still lingered about the landscape, as if loath to leave a scene so fair in darkness. Archie listened attentively to what his companion was saying.

"Your brother has neglected his body." (Ross had been warned by Mark to say no more than this.) "In such cases more or less of a breakdown is inevitable. I am delighted that you see a change for the better. Six months up here, under Stride, may set him up."

"I hoped to take him back with me. I came up for that purpose."

"Your brother can return with you, if he wishes, but would it be wise?"

"Perhaps not, perhaps not," said Archie. "We did not know that you were prepared to offer so generous a hospitality."

"He will be a paying guest in more senses than one. I dare say you would like to talk to him. Good night! I have an immense pile of letters to answer. I hope you will stay with us as long as you please."

He grasped Archie's hand, and strode off. Archie watched him for a moment, enviously. Ross gave the impression of power in action. It was certain that his amazing stride would take him far on any road—and always upward and onward: the motto adopted by his followers.

When he found himself alone with Mark, in the bedroom assigned to him, Archie said: "Ross seems to think that you are doing better here than you would, for instance, in Slowshire."

"Why, of course. I'm mending rapidly. One cannot do anything rapidly in Slowshire. It's not even a place to die in. One would dawdle over it."

"You will speak with such levity——"

"I've not your gravity, my dear old fellow. Now then, tell me about yourself. What are you doing?"

"I've been commanded to preach at Windsor."

Mark was so eager and warm in his congratulations that Archie found it easy to go on.

"I've brought my MS. with me. I want you to skim through it."

"I must read it at once. This is wildly exciting."

Archie paced up and down, while Mark sat on the bed reading the sermon. Judging from his face, the fare was proving unpalatable. Archie saw that he was frowning and fidgeting with his fingers, as he used to do at Harrow, when he was looking over his major's verses. This familiar expression made the big fellow feel ludicrously like a boy. He half shut his eyes and waited for the inevitable: "I say, you know, this is awful bosh," of the Fifth Form days. Mark read the MS. through, and then glanced again at certain passages, before he said a word.

"Well," said Archie nervously, "will it do?"

Mark slid off the bed, put his hands in his pockets, and stared at his brother.

"That depends. It will do to light some fires with; but it won't set the Thames, near Windsor, ablaze."

"Call it 'bosh' and have done with it."

"It's not bosh. You've taken one of the Beatitudes."

"The Dean suggested that. He said it would please. Of course he knows."

"The text is the most inspiring in the New Testament, but you've treated it conventionally. Now look here——" He paused to collect his ideas. Archie saw that his eyes were shining with that suffused light which betokened in him mental or spiritual excitement. He began to pace up and down the narrow room; then he burst out: "You lay stress on the reward hereafter; a hereafter which the finite mind is unable to grasp. The pure in heart shall see God in His Heaven. Don't you know that the pure in heart see God here? That He is revealed, and only to the pure, in everything that lies around us. Ah, that is a theme, a celestial theme: the revelation of the Creator in the things created. And impurity blinds us. We look up to God, if we do look up, through a fog. You must take that line, Archie. Burn this—and begin again. And be sure that you define purity of heart aright. Don't confound it with purity of body. You are eloquent on the purity of a child. Why, man, the purity which knows not impurity is emasculate compared with the purity which knows impurity, which has fought with impurity, and yet, in the end, after conflicts innumerable, vanquishes impurity! I tell you that what men and women want to-day is substance. An ideal Heaven, an ideal earth, appeal to us, yes, but they charm as a mirage charms; they melt and fade as the mirage does. What you have written here," he tapped the foolscap impatiently, "might feed saints, but flesh-and-blood sinners would go empty away. By Heaven! if I had your voice, I would make the sinners hear."

"You must help me," said Archie in a low, hesitating voice.

"Why not?" said Mark excitedly. "Give me the night to think. To-morrow we'll put our heads together and the sparks shall fly. I haven't used my brains for a month. This will do me good."

"Will it?" said Archie doubtfully. Already Mark's face was drawn and haggard; he looked ten years older than his brother.

"What is life," said Mark contemptuously, "if the salt of helping a pal be taken from it? I'm not useless yet. Good night. I sleep in a shed, you know. And I can see the stars whenever I open my eyes."

"It's so cloudy here," said Archibald.

"I can see through most clouds, but s-s-some——"

Mark paused abruptly, the light faded in his eyes, as he turned and left the room.

CHAPTER XX

BETTY SEES A SPRIG OF RUE

Archibald returned to Westchester some three days later. In the small black bag was another MS. quite as bulky as the first, and covered with Mark's handwriting. Blots and smudges deformed it; the edges were dog-eared, whole sentences were excised, red pencil marks flamed amidst the black. Yet Archibald read it through again and again, smiling, and nodding his handsome head. He was not alone in his first-class carriage, and his companion, a shrewd Scotch lawyer, guessed why the minister kept moving his lips as he read his MS. In fancy he was declaiming it.

The day after his arrival at the lodge the elder brother had said to Mark: "By the way, Betty Kirtling sent her love to you. Have you any message for her?"

"None," said he slowly. "I hope she is well."

Archie, not detecting the anxiety in his tone, thought Betty was looking very well. Then he mentioned Jim.

"He comes from Friday to Monday, every week. He wants Betty, but I don't fancy he'll get her."

"Have you any reason for saying that?" Mark asked, wondering whether Archie was clearer-sighted than he had supposed.

"Jim is a materialist."

"Oh, come now!"

"A money-grubber and an agnostic."

"One of the best of fellows. Ross never appeals to him in vain."

"As if any rich man couldn't write a cheque. Betty ought to marry somebody very different."

"Don't abuse him to Betty."

"Betty is rather—undisciplined."

"You can say that of all of us. I hope to God she won't marry a schoolmaster." He glanced at his brother with an eye that flamed. He had been smitten by the fear that Betty might marry Archie.

"What strong expressions you use, Mark. It doesn't sound quite—how shall I put it?—well, seemly, for a man who holds Orders. I see no chance of Betty marrying a schoolmaster. I have great hopes that she will choose wisely. She said 'No' to Harry Kirtling, and she will say 'No' to Jim Corrance."

"And she said 'No' to you," Mark reflected.

Within the week Archibald rode over to King's Charteris, where he found Betty in Mrs. Corrance's garden gathering roses. He had wired that he was returning without Mark. She took the telegram to her room, where pride dried her eyes and hardened her heart. That night Jim told himself he had a chance. She had never been so kind to him, so understanding, so alluring. But on the brink of declaration he hesitated, fearing to leap. Afterwards he wondered what might have happened if he had—leaped boldly instead of looking and longing.

Betty received Archie with the question, "Is Mark really ill?"

Archie hesitated.

"He looks stronger," he said slowly. "And he is in his usual spirits: the life and soul of the place. There can't be anything really wrong. In fact he joked about his health. He doesn't take anything very seriously, you know. David Ross told me that he had overworked himself—more or less."

"You gave him my love?" Betty murmured lightly. She had the faintest tinge of colour in her cheeks, but her voice was almost cold.

"Yes."

"And I hope he sent a nice message to me in return?"

"No. He asked if you were well. I said—yes. You do look uncommonly well, Betty."

She wore white, which set off the delicate tints and admirable texture of her skin, but her hat was black, giving a necessary note of contrast. At her throat, holding together a jabot of creamy laces, sparkled an old-fashioned enamel ornament set with tiny brilliants. Standing on the sloping lawn, her figure defined against a towering yew fence, and holding in her hand the roses she had just gathered, the girl made a picture which lured Archie's thoughts even from Windsor.

"I suppose a country life agrees with me."

"You are wonderful."

She moved to a bench, the young man following her with eager feet and eyes. He could not see that her heart was beating, nor did he notice that the brilliancy of her eyes was due to an abnormal enlargement of the pupil. She sat down, smiling derisively. Then she bade him tell her about the sanatorium. When he had finished, she said quietly, "You were very, very kind to take that long journey."

"It's easy to be kind to people like you—and Mark."

His delightful voice softened, because when he mentioned his brother's name the memory of what that brother had done on his behalf filled him with gratitude.

"I hear you are kind to everybody. All Slowshire sings your praises."

Archibald shook his head, wondering whether Betty would mention the sermon. He was burning with impatience to try on, so to speak, some of its phrases, to watch the effect of them on a woman who had listened to the Gamaliels of the day. Betty possessed sincerity, imagination, sympathy. These would flow freely at the touch of a friend's hand.

"If it would not bore you," he said, "I should like to talk over the Windsor sermon. You can help me——"

"I? Help—you?"

"You can, indeed"; his voice grew eager. "Whatever I say will be the fresher and purer if it passes through your mind before it is given to the world."

"My mind is a sort of filter." She laughed. None the less she was pleased and flattered. Archibald began to speak in a soft monotone. Betty half closed her eyes and the lines of her figure slightly relaxed beneath the caressing inflections of the speaker's voice. Whenever Archie sang she was affected in the same way. A languor overcame her. For the moment she was not attempting to grasp the meaning of his words, which, even as inarticulate sounds, possessed value and significance. But, soon, she opened her eyes wide and sat up. By this time Archie was at the core of his theme, and his treatment of it was so masterly that Betty found herself thrilling with surprise and delight. A few minutes before life had seemed empty. Now it was full again, brimming over, bubbling, with possibilities swelling from shadow into substance. Archie, be it remembered, was not preaching the sermon. He was rather submitting the material, the tissues, the threads, the patterns, out of which a fine piece of work had been already fashioned. Now and again Betty was invited to choose, to select, out of these wares some one which pleased her fancy. She realised that Archie had more of Mark in him than she had deemed possible. Once or twice she seemed to hear Mark's eager tones.

"You say that like Mark."

"Has Mark talked to you on this theme?"

"Oh, no," Betty replied, "but he pours out his ideas, as you do."

"Mark and I have talked about this. He helped me. He always does."

Archie spoke hesitatingly, on the edge of full confession. He had a genuine desire to tell Betty the truth. The words formed on his lips.

"Yes, yes," said Betty absently. "Mark has helped me too, many a time; but he's in Sutherland." Her voice became cold as she recalled his letter. "I feel as if he were at the North Pole! Well, Archie, I've enjoyed our talk immensely."

"And when may I come to talk to you again?"

"You are not going—now?"

The "now" brought a sparkle to his eyes.

"I must. I'm one of the busiest men in Westchester."

"I shall run down to Windsor to hear your sermon," she said.

"Our sermon, Betty."

"That's rubbish. You must never pay me compliments, Archie. I couldn't stand them from you——" she broke off, irrelevantly: "How did you attain to your pinnacle? I suppose you've been climbing ever since we were children. It's quite wonderful. Don't come Friday or Saturday. Jim will be here. Poor, rich Jim! What do you think of Jim?"

Archie remembered, in the nick of time, what Mark had said about not abusing Jim.

"I think what you think," he said slowly. "Poor, rich Jim!"

After he had gone, Betty picked no more roses, but sat down on the bench, feeling rather forlorn. Archibald had taken something away with him. What it was she could not define precisely. For instance—was it Jim's character? He had said nothing. Nothing—except her own words: "Poor, rich Jim." Jim had been his friend, although the men had now little in common. Of course, he would not speak unkindly of an old schoolfellow. Yet as a preacher of Christ's gospel, he must in his heart rank Jim amongst Christ's enemies. Jim was not with Christ. He did not believe in Christ. The conclusion was obvious: he must be counted as an enemy. An enemy? Poor Jim!

She was still thinking of Jim, when his mother came towards her. She seemed to ascend the grass slope with difficulty; so Betty ran forward to offer an arm, which was accepted. As they moved slowly on, Betty glanced at the quiet face so near her own. Again, curiosity devoured her. She observed a faded look which she tried to interpret. Did it spell disappointment? Were the last draughts of life proving bitter? Perhaps she felt that her work was done, that her little world would wag on without her. They sat down, and Mrs. Corrance produced her needle, her silks, and a piece of embroidery from the old-fashioned velvet bag, which she always carried on her arm. Betty, who never sewed, wondered if the day would ever dawn when she would find solace in such trivial occupations. Then Mrs. Corrance asked for news of Mark. After that was told, silence fell on both: the silence which precedes the breaking of barriers. Then Betty said softly: "Are you glad that you have lived—or sorry?"

The frail hands, poised above the delicate embroidery, sank upon it, and remained still, while faint lines of interrogation puckered the placid forehead. Betty continued: "I ought not to ask such questions. I rush in like a fool. But then I am a fool, although I long to be wise. There is so much a girl like me wants to know, but if you tell me to hold my tongue I shall not be surprised or offended."

"I'm glad that I have lived, Betty."

"That is because you have loved. Your love for Jim has filled your life, ever since I have known you. If—if—oh, I am ashamed to put it so brutally—but if you lost Jim, or if Jim had never been born—what then?"

"My dear, you press me too hard. I can hardly conceive of life without Jim," she smiled. "He came when all was dark, and there has been light for me—ever since."

"When all was dark——" repeated Betty. She knew that Jim's father had died when Jim was a small boy.

"Yes. My married life was not happy. Perhaps I expected too much, as is the way with women; perhaps it was not meant that I should be happy."

"Not meant?" Betty spoke with impatience. "Surely the design, the intention, includes happiness, only we mar it."

"All young people think that," said Mrs. Corrance, "but as we grow older we see so little real happiness that we must believe, if we believe in the mercy of God, that, save for the few, happiness on earth is not to be enjoyed but earned rather, so that it may be enjoyed, without alloy, hereafter. And I believe that to everyone a glimpse of happiness is vouchsafed. Were it not for that, how many would struggle on?"

Betty asked no more questions. The youth in her rebelled against this placid acceptance of suffering and strife. She told herself that she had enormous capacity for enjoyment. Politics, literature, history, sport: all were fish to her net. But religion, and in particular that concrete presentation of it by the Church of England, had, so far, left her cold. She seemed to have touched but its phylacteries, out of which came no virtue. She had met many clever men who confessed themselves agnostic. Her kind friend, Lady Randolph, never spoke of religion, either in its wide or narrow sense. Certainly she did her duty without aid or formulæ. In fact, when Betty came to think of it, some freethinkers of her acquaintance lived more Christian lives than many Churchpeople who took the Sacrament every Sunday. This was puzzling. On the other hand, the life she had led since the Admiral's death, the life of Mayfair, of big country houses, of race-meetings, of perpetual pleasure-seekings, had begun to pall. The grandmothers—some of them—who gambled, and made love, and over-ate themselves, revolted her. That they were at heart discontented and unhappy she could not doubt. Finally, she had just come to the trite conclusion that, in or out of the fashionable world, the people least to be pitied were those who had some definite object in view. Politics, for instance, had probably saved Lord Randolph from the hereditary curse of his family; fox-hunting made Harry Kirtling ride straight and walk straight; Jim Corrance admitted that money-grubbing kept him out of mischief. These pursuits, however, led to negative results: being preventive of evil, not productive of good, except indirectly. Mark Samphire not only avoided evil, but did good, as dozens were eager to testify, including herself. When with Mark she had always been conscious of his power to bring out the good in her. And this afternoon, listening to Archie, she had felt the same thrill, the same irresistible yearning to ascend, to scale the heights. None the less, she was whimsically aware, being a creature of sense as well as sensibility, that Mark cast a glamour. She loved him, and, loving him, loved what he loved, tried to see Heaven's wares with his eyes, and succeeded, so long as the magician remained at her side. When he was at work in Whitechapel and she was shopping in Bond Street, Heaven, somehow, seemed distant. At such times she looked at a set of sables or a diamond ornament with a pleasure which proved that the clay within her was very far from being purged.

Upon the following Saturday, when Jim asked her to become his wife, to share the fortune which would be no fortune without her, she said No, as kindly as words and looks could say it. Her distress at the pain she inflicted touched him profoundly.

"I shall remain your pal, Betty," Jim declared. "The other thing was always a forlorn hope. Is it any use saying that I have known for years that I wasn't first, and that I was sanguine enough to believe that if the first failed, I might be second? Isn't half a loaf better than no bread, dear?"

She let him take her hand, but she turned aside eyes full of tears.

"We'll go on as before. The mater needn't know—eh? It has been a great thing for her having you here."

"And a great thing for me," said Betty unsteadily. "I wish I could marry you, dear old Jim, but I can't—I can't."

She broke down, sobbing bitterly. Jim patted her hand, wondering what he could say to comfort her, but the words which came into his head seemed inadequate. If he had taken her face between his strong hands, kissed away her tears, and sworn passionately that he would love and cherish her so long as she lived, she might have changed a mind which was less strong than her body. While she sat weeping beside him, she was thinking not so much that she had lost Mark, but that she had lost love. The woman within her groaned, the flesh and blood protested. She saw herself as in a vision, treading the dreary years alone, with no strong arm to protect and defend, with no tiny hands to cling to and caress her. And at the end of the pilgrimage stood old age, grim and grey, carrying a sprig of rue in palsied shrivelled hands!

CHAPTER XXI

RECUPERATION

Mark went North with David Ross convinced that his months, if not his days, were numbered; but as time passed, this conviction passed with it, and hope once more fluttered into his heart. Stride took extraordinary interest in his case.

"You must become an animal and remain an animal till I give you leave to assume again the man," he told Mark after Archibald had left Crask. "I don't know what you and your brother have been up to, but you've had a relapse. You must go on all-fours till I tell you to walk upright."

Mark promised, but he added: "I feel an animal—an ass!"

Stride growled out something about dead lions, and set Mark to work in the garden, bare-legged and bare-headed. The work was light, but it strained every muscle in Mark's body. Then he was made to lie down in one of the sheds. After such rest came refreshment—easily digested, nourishing food, taken in small quantities, but often. During this month Mark reckoned that he was sleeping fourteen hours out of the twenty-four. At the end of each week Stride weighed him and applied a number of tests to determine what strength he had gained. There was a sort of rivalry between the patients. Dick who had gained two pounds crowed over Tom who had gained one. Into this competition Mark entered with boyish keenness. Stride said he was the star pupil of the class.

By the beginning of October, a radical improvement had taken place. The cold weather set in sharply, but Mark, always susceptible to atmospheric change, braved the frosty nights with impunity, sleeping in the sheds with the winds howling about him. He had the confidence in Stride that a well-trained dog has in his master. Some of Stride's "animals"—as he called them—proved at first unmanageable. Coming, as most of them did, from the strenuous life of crowded cities, accustomed to and yearning for the stimulus of constant mental action, such stagnation as Stride enforced seemed insupportable. These kittle cattle were yoked for a season with Mark.

Meantime he had received many letters from his friends, but none from Betty, who had returned to Lady Randolph. Jim wrote that he had been rejected, but made no mention of Archibald, who was often seen crossing the downs between Westchester and Birr Wood. As a matter of fact, Jim was not aware of these rides. He remained in London making money. From Pynsent Mark learned of the enthusiasm aroused by Archibald's Windsor sermon.

"Reading in the paper" (he wrote) "that your brother was preaching in St. George's Chapel, I went down to Windsor yesterday to hear him. He is quite amazing. What he said and the way he said it took us by storm. The Whitsuntide sermon gave only a taste of his quality. Out of the pulpit he has always struck me as being the typical English parson of means and position; in it he is—apostolic! I can find no other adjective to describe his persuasiveness, sincerity, and power. Lord Randolph tells me that it made a profound impression in the highest quarter. I saw Betty Kirtling and Lady Randolph in the knights' stalls...."

Mark thrust the letter into his pocket with an exclamation which made the man working next to him raise his brows.

"Anything wrong, Samphire? No bad news, I hope?"

Mark blurted out the truth. His companion, broken down by hard work in Manchester, had sympathetic eyes and lips which dropped compassion upon all infirmities save his own.

"I've had good news, Maitland: my brother has preached a great sermon at Windsor, and—and there is something wrong with me. I have the damnable wish that he'd failed—as I failed." Then he laughed harshly, bending down to pick up his spade.

That afternoon he climbed the mountain, which sloped steeply to the loch. The air, he felt, on the top of Ben Caryll would purge and purify; the panoramic view would enlarge the circle of his sympathies. And so it proved, although a materialist might assign another cause. When Mark reached the highest peak he became aware that he had accomplished a feat of physical endurance beyond such powers as he possessed two months before. He was not aware of undue fatigue; on the contrary, a strange exhilaration permeated mind and body. He could have danced, but he sat down, soberly enough, and reread Pynsent's letter. When he had done this, he tried to transport himself to Windsor. He wanted to sit with Betty in the knights' stalls, beneath the gorgeous silken banners, and the emblazoned shields of the princes of the world, under the eye and ægis of a living sovereign. But fancy left him—in Sutherland. He gazed upon moor and mountain whitened here and there by snow. He looked into the pale, luminous skies above, into the frosty opalescent mists to the westward, through which the sun glowed like a red-hot ball, and wherever he looked Betty was not. For the moment he could not recall her face. It seemed as if he were seeking a stranger with a written description of her in his hand.

Sitting there, some voice whispered to him that Betty wanted him, that he must descend the mountain and go to her. Then he told himself that he was mad. If he obeyed this beguiling voice in his ears, if he went south—what then? The hope in his eye and heart would kindle like hope in her, and such hope was a will-o'-the-wisp flickering above—a grave!

When he came down from the mountain, he found Stride busy in his laboratory. Stride possessed a magnificent Zeiss microscope and all the accessories—incubating ovens, sterilising apparatus, stains, and reagents—for the highest bacteriological work. Of late, Mark had given the little man some help in staining and mounting preparations.

"We are out of one world," Stride had said, "but I will introduce you to another through an apochromatic lens. You will find yourself quite at home, my friend. Here, in this drop of water, you will note the same struggle for existence, the same old game as it is played in Whitechapel or Whitehall."

When Mark began to understand something of the technique of the microscope, when Stride had shown him its uses, for instance, in the analysis of diseased tissue or blood, and revealed its magical powers of diagnosis, Mark asked a question: "How can any doctor work without one?" Stride laughed at such innocence.

"It takes up too much time. No hard-working practitioner ignores the value of it, but he cannot use it. When necessary, he sends preparations to some specialist. A microscope exacts more attention than a wife. That is why I"—he slapped his chest and winked furiously—"have remained single."

This devotion to his work strengthened the chain which linked patient to doctor. Stride—Mark felt assured—might have secured fame and fortune in London. Yet he chose to remain unknown and poor in Sutherland.

Mark told him that he had climbed Ben Caryll, and felt none the worse for it. Stride shook his big head.

"You oughtn't to attempt such walks—yet."

"Then the time is coming. I shall regain my health?"

He had never put the question so directly before. Stride eyed him attentively, hearing a new note in his voice.

"Per—haps."

"If I asked for leave of absence——"

"It would be refused—peremptorily," said Stride. "Why, man, you'd douse the glim which I've been coaxing into flame all these weeks. What magnet draws you from Crask? A woman?"

"Yes—a woman."

"Oh, these tempestuous petticoats! Now, Samphire, I'm not a fool, and I guessed, when you came here, that you left a girl behind you. You are not engaged to her?"

"No."

"Good! Now, listen to wisdom. If everything goes well with you—if fresh air and simple food and freedom from worry make you whole, you may marry some day—but you'll have to wait a long time, so as to make sure, and even then, after years of comparative health, you may break down again. Will this young lady wait for you—indefinitely?"

"I should never ask her to do that."

"Um! I daresay she's flirting with someone at this very minute. Eh? I beg pardon, Samphire. Your goddess, no doubt, is an exception; but few women, if they are women, can get along without a man. And now you must leave me. I'm on the edge of a small discovery. I've done some good work to-day."

"Your good work will tell, Stride."

"What d'ye mean? Recognition? If it comes, so much the better; if it doesn't, I've had 'the joy of the working'—eh?"

Next day, a letter from Archibald gave many details. He had enjoyed the honour of meeting his Sovereign, who said gracious things; he had dined with a Cabinet Minister; he had been interviewed at length by a reporter. The letter concluded as follows:—

"I cannot doubt that my sphere of influence and activity is about to be enlarged. If so, I shall count upon your help. I am deeply grateful for what you have done already. I recognise in you, my dear, dear brother, an insight into human life and character wider than my own. You have come into contact with what is primal and elemental: an experience lacking as yet to me. I have spoken of this to all our friends, acknowledging frankly my debt to you...."

Mark's smile, when he read these lines, was not easy to interpret, but the sense that, for a brief hour, he had grudged his own flesh and blood a triumph, made him reply cordially and affectionately. He ended his letter by assuring Archibald that such help as one brother could give another would always be at his disposal.

About this time, feeling stronger day by day, he began to wonder what work he should do in the future. Stride was emphatic that life in the East End would mean a return of his malady. Not being able to preach, a country curacy was unavailable; and in any case Mark told himself that such work would be distasteful. Stride startled him by saying abruptly, "Why don't you write?"

"Eh?"

"It's in you, I'll swear. It would be only a crutch, at first, but you have private means. You can write out-of-doors. You will be your own master. You can take proper care of yourself...." Stride waxed eloquent, and Mark listened with a curious exaltation.

"By Jove!" he said, drawing a deep breath, "I believe I can write."

"Everybody writes nowadays," said Stride, "but I have the feeling that you can write what a lot of us will want to read. Think it over!"

Mark thought it over for a week. Ideas inundated his brain, clamouring for expression. He begged permission to try his hand at a short story: four thousand words. Stride gave a grudging consent.

"Mind you," said he, "you're not fit for any sustained mental exertion, but go ahead—full steam, if you like, and we'll see what will happen."

Mark wrote his story, and submitted both it and himself to the autocrat. This was a week later, and the scales proclaimed a loss of two pounds. Stride pursed up his lips and waggled his big head.

"Back you go to the garden to-morrow," he growled. "I'll read your stuff to-night, and tell you what I think of it. It's almost certain to be rubbish."

In the morning, however, he had nothing but praise for the author, whose mind was by no means as familiar to him as his body. He beamed and gesticulated as if he had discovered a new bacillus. The story was despatched to an editor, Arthur Conquest, whom Stride knew, and Mark was enjoined to think no more about it. Think about it he did, naturally. The possibility of doing good work in a new field filled him once more with the ardours of youth. He told Stride there was a certain inevitableness about his failures. What had gone before—all trials and disappointments—were part of a writer's equipment. He could not doubt that he had found at last a strong-box, so to speak, for such talents as he possessed. Action had been denied him, articulate speech was not his, the power of putting a noble conception on to canvas he lacked; but he could, he would, he should write according to the truth that was in him, so help him God!

Stride warned him that the odds were greatly against his manuscript being accepted. The editor, however, read the story himself, and promised to publish it. His letter contained a message to Mark.

"Will you tell Mr. Samphire" (wrote Conquest) "that I am going to red-pencil his story, which I take to be a first attempt. He must serve his apprenticeship, which in his case needn't be a long one. I can see that he sets for himself a high standard. If he means business I should advise him to write a novel and burn it. When he comes to town, I hope to make his acquaintance."

"Conquest is cold-blooded," said Stride, "but he has a prescient eye. All the same, if you have business dealings with him—look out! And now—go back to your cabbages."

Mark told Maitland what had passed. Maitland entered with sympathy into his plans, confessing that he had tried writing as a trade.

"Grub Street is a long lane with no turning in it for nine-tenths of the foot passengers. I hope you'll gallop down it, Samphire, not crawl as I did."

Maitland looked, so Mark reflected, as if he had gone afoot down many paths. Failure was branded upon his pale, too narrow face, his stooping shoulders, his large, clumsy hands: all thumbs, and crudely fashioned at that! But Ross, who was no longer at Crask, had told Mark that Maitland filled a very large place in his huge Manchester parish.

"What made you go into the Church?" Mark asked abruptly.

"I had to earn my bread and—scrape; but afterwards——"

"Yes?"

Maitland's dull, sallow complexion seemed to be suffused with a glow. It struck Mark that between his face as he was accustomed to see it and as he saw it now lay the difference between a stage-scene lighted and unlighted.

"Afterwards," said Maitland, "I knew that the choice of my profession had been determined by a Power infinitely greater than my own will. I became a parson from ignoble motives. I was soured, bitter, sick in mind and body, unfit for the duties I undertook. And then suddenly—one hardly likes to talk about it—my eyes were opened. I came into contact with hundreds worse off than myself. Some of them bore their burdens with a patience, a serenity, an unselfishness that were a revelation—to me. And then I realised that no life is a failure which brightens however faintly the lives of others. Napoleon is the colossal failure of history, because he darkened a continent. I would sooner be a beggar sharing a crust with a child than such as he."

"If you were offered preferment——?"

"I hope to live and die in Manchester."

"You nearly did die. Suppose you were not strong enough to go back? You wince, Maitland. That would try your faith. You have been frank with me; I shall be frank with you. I have always wanted one thing, and because I wanted it so much, I tried to bargain with Heaven. I said, 'You shall do what you like with me, only give me, give me the woman I love!' Well, Heaven seemed to take up the challenge. You know my story. I was defeated again and again. And I said to myself I'll grin and bear it, because she is mine. Ah, if you could see her, Maitland, as I see her, if you knew what I have f-f-felt, when I saw her image f-f-fa—fading——" He paused, overcome by his stammer, controlled it, and continued quietly, "I was told that I must die. Ross found me in despair. I—I do not know, but the river was close at hand, and—perhaps—at any rate he rescued me, brought me here, and now, now, I am beginning to live again. I see God in His Heaven. And I see my angel in mine."

He was so excited that Maitland entreated him to be calm, introducing, as an anticlimax, the cabbages to be cut and carried in.

Shortly after this Stride allowed him to begin his novel. After the first distress of beginning it became plain that this work agreed with him. Weight and appetite increased as the manuscript grew fat. He was out all weathers, and his face became tanned like that of a North Sea fisherman. Stride rubbed his hands chuckling, whenever he saw him.

During these months Mark told himself that it was impossible for Betty to write to him till he broke the silence which he had imposed. Meanwhile, he heard that Archibald had accepted a London living: St. Anne's in Sloane Street. Mrs. Samphire sent Mark a long cutting from the Slowshire Chronicle, a synopsis of his brother's labours in and about Westchester. As secretary, and member of many committees, as a lecturer on Temperance, as a pillar of the Charity Organisation Society, as the first tenor of the Westchester Choral Association, Archibald Samphire had honestly earned the gratitude of the community and the very handsome salver, which embalmed that gratitude in a Latin sentence composed by the Dean. Archibald had been asked to preach four Advent sermons in Westminster Cathedral. Mark suggested a theme, revised the sermons, interpolated a hundred passages, cut and slashed his brother's beautiful MSS., and when the sermons were preached and attracted the attention of London, wrote a letter of warm congratulation to his "dearest old fellow." He had taken greater pains with these sermons than with his own novel, because—as he put it to himself—he had grudged his brother a triumph which Betty Kirtling had witnessed.

One week after the New Year, he was writing the last lines of his book, when Stride came into the room and flung down a letter in Archibald's handwriting. Mark glanced at it, and at the pile of MS. beside it.

"Is the magnum opus done?" said Stride.

"Very nearly," Mark replied.

"Are you going to take Conquest's advice and—burn it?"

"I shall let Conquest see it first," said Mark. He rose from his chair, crossed the room to where Stride was warming his hands at the fire, and laid his hand upon his friend's shoulder. "It's not bad," he said slowly; "I know it's not bad; and I owe it all to you, Stride."

"What is it about?" said Stride, repudiating the debt with a shake of his head. Mark had not shown him any portion of the MS., nor discussed the theme.

"It's the story of a faith that was lost and found," said Mark. "I can say to you that it is part of my own life, red-hot from my heart, the sort of story that is written once, you understand, and I have the feeling that it could have been written only here, in these solitudes."

"I hope it ends happily," said Stride.

"It ends happily," said Mark, staring at his MS.

Stride filled his pipe and then moved to the door.

"It's going to snow," he said. "We shall have a heavy fall, unless I'm mistaken. It was just such a night as this, last year, when we lost our shepherd on Ben Caryll."

He went out, whistling. The door slammed behind him, and the draught from it fluttered the pages of foolscap lying loose on the table. Mark stared at them, smiling, with such a look on his face as a mother bestows on her first-born, when she is alone with him. Then, still smiling, he picked up his brother's letter and broke the seal, the seal of many quarterings, which Archibald habitually used.

"My dear Mark" (he wrote): "I am the happiest as well as the luckiest of men. Betty Kirtling has promised to become my wife. We shall be married as soon as possible, before I settle down to my new work in London...."

The letter fell from Mark's hands. He bent down, trembling, picked it up, and reread its message. Then, crushing the letter into a ball, he flung it into the fire, and watched it crumble and dissolve into ashes. As the flame licked the white paper, the face that stared into the fire shrivelled into a caricature of what it had been a few moments before. The lips were drawn back from the teeth in a snarling grin; colour left the cheeks and flared in purple patches upon the brow. The slender limbs shook as with a palsy....

Suddenly, the silence was broken by a laugh: the derisive laugh of the man who knows that his heavens have fallen. The sound of his own laughter seemed to move Mark to action. He seized the manuscript, and thrust it into the flames. When it was destroyed, he laughed again, crossed to the door, opened it, and passed out—still laughing—into the driving wind and rain.

CHAPTER XXII

ON BEN CARYLL

Mark stood still for a moment, as the wind whipped his face. Then he strode towards the burn which runs into the loch at the foot of Ben Caryll. He was meeting a north-easter, which drove the rain, now turning into sleet, with stinging violence against his face. When he reached the burn he saw that it was beginning to rise. It would be in spate in an hour or two if the storm continued. The big stepping-stones, shining through the mists, were almost covered by the peat-stained, swirling waters, as Mark sprang from one boulder to the other. Having reached the other side, he paused and looked at the burn. Above it widened into a broad, deep pool, with flecks and clots of white spume lying like cream upon its chocolate-coloured surface. Below, it narrowed, running foaming through steep rocky banks, and falling some twenty feet into a bigger pool. Standing where he stood the roar of the fall drowned all sounds. His blood was cooler now; he was able to think. He stared at the stepping-stones. Had his foot slipped, the raging torrent would have whirled him over the falls. If he returned an hour later the ford would be impassable. He would have to go round by the bridge some two miles higher up. With this thought lurking in but not occupying his mind he breasted the heather hill immediately to the right, fighting his way against the wind. He plunged on until he reached some peat hags, when he paused to recover breath. The blood was racing through his veins. Never had he felt so alive, so strong; and yet poison was consuming him. What poison? An answer came on the roaring blast. Hate! Hatred of his brother. He threw out his arms towards the darkening skies.

"Curse him!" he cried. "Curse him! Curse him!"

Then he crossed the hags, and gained a small turf-covered plateau, whence Ben Caryll rose steeply and stonily. This part of the mountain was known as Eagle Rocks, because for many seasons a pair of golden eagles had nested on one of the crags. On a calm day it was no easy feat to scale these rocks. Tourists, for instance, always went round by a deer path, which the gillies used also. Mark laughed. He felt strong, a man: here was an opportunity to test his strength. He grasped a tuft of heather and swung himself to the top of the first rock, but when he tried to stand upright the wind wrestled with him and prevailed. He was constrained to crouch and crawl, clinging to every stick and stone which hands or feet could find. But the spirit within would not allow him to turn back. Foot by foot he ascended the face of the precipice, knowing that if a stone turned, or a tuft gave way, he must fall on the sharp rocks below—knowing and not caring. When he reached the top he was perspiring, breathless, bleeding and spent. He lay still, letting the sleet lash his face. When he felt able to move he sat up and looked across the corrie which lay to the left of the Eagle Rocks. Beyond this stretched a gigantic spur of the mountain; and immediately below lay the strath, with the Crask burn curling down the middle of it. As he looked a veil of mist and scud swept over the mountain. When it seemed thickest, the wind took it and tore it asunder. Glimpses of objects familiar to him during the past five months succeeded each other in procession, filing by to the roar of the wind and the voices of the mountain. In like manner glimpses of his past life presented themselves for an instant, only to be wiped from memory and obliterated as swiftly. Out of the mirk soared the spire of Harrow Church. In the Yard below the boys were cheering a school-fellow, who ran bare-headed down the steps and into the street. It was Archibald, newly elected a member of the school eleven. He saw him again, as he stood in the pulpit in Westchester Cathedral. Again and again, in the arms of Betty!

Suddenly he became aware that the wind had moderated somewhat in violence and that snow was falling. He recalled what Stride had said, as he rose, stretched his stiffening limbs, and turned to the huge spur which led to the bridge across the Crask burn. The snow fell in larger flakes. The wind moaned like a woman who has no strength left to scream.

After stumbling on for a mile or so amongst the rough heather, Mark was obliged to sit down in the lee of a "knobbie." With the waning light of a Highland winter's afternoon, the air had turned cold; and it seemed to have thickened, so that Mark breathed as a man breathes in a close and stifling room. This rapid fall of temperature and wind produced weird effects. The voices of the mountain changed their note. Defiance died away in a diminuendo. Mountain rills, trickling from a thousand springs to join the burn below, purred beneath the touch of the snow. The roar of the falls came faintly to the ear. After strife and confusion, Nature was crooning a lullaby.

Exhausted by what mind and body had endured, Mark fell asleep. The snow fluttered down, thickly, silently, as the minutes passed. The cold grew more intense. Night came on. Mark stirred in his sleep; he uttered inarticulate words; he frowned; he smiled. And then, as if touched by some warning hand, he woke. He stared round him, seeking some familiar face. When the snow fell into his eyes he rubbed them, and stared harder than before, trying to pierce the shadows. Then he cried in a troubled voice:

"Who touched me?"

No answer came out of the white silence.

"Who touched me?" he cried again.

His ears caught the purr of the rivulets and the muffled roar of the burn in spate. He knew where he was. And then, for a moment, he hesitated. A pleasant languor was stealing over him. Let him sink back upon his feathery bed—and sleep. No—no! He had waked to live.

The instinct of life began to throb when he realised the imminence of death. Fatigue left him as he strode forward, quickening his pace, where the ground permitted, to a run. It was difficult to see, but salvation lay down hill. He staggered on, peering to left and right, as the faint light that remained slowly failed. Before he reached the burn it had failed entirely. He was now in a sore predicament, for the ground no longer descended sharply, but sloped in undulations. He began to grope his way like a blind man, walking in circles. The roar of the falls far away to his right could no longer be heard.

He was lost!

He stood compassless in a desert. No friendly ray from a lantern could pierce this white horror. If his friends discovered his absence, which was unlikely till too late, what could they do? Search Sutherland in a snowstorm for one man?

Staggering on through drifts and hags, he realised that the time was fast approaching when his muscles would fail.

Did he pray for deliverance? No. If at that moment one thought dominated another, it was the conviction that God, if a God existed, had forsaken him. The struggle for life involved a paradox with which his brain could not grapple. Life had become sweet because it seemed inevitable that he must die.

Stumbling over a tuft of heather, a cock grouse rose, cackled, and whirled away. The vigour of the flight, the vitality of that defiant note, stimulated the jaded man. He chose at random a direction, and began to run, stopping now and again, straining his ears to catch the sound of the burn.

Presently he stopped altogether, sinking inert, hopeless, spent, upon the soft snow which received him wantonly, touching him with a caress, winding itself round him. He lay still, submitting to Nature, stronger than he, confessing himself vanquished, and asking that the end might be speedy. With death impending, he turned his thoughts towards the woman he loved—the woman about to marry his brother. He would die, as he wished to die, gazing into her face, feeling the cool touch of her fingers, hearing her voice with its tender inflections and modulations. And her image came obedient to his call. Her eyes, with their beguiling interrogation, showing the full orb of the irid between the thin black lines of the lashes, looked into his. For the last time he marked the pathetic droop of the finely curved lips, coral against the ivory of cheek and chin, lips revealing the teeth which were such an admirable finish to the face. Her dark hair, with the dull red glow upon it, curving deliciously from the forehead, was held together at the top by a white niphétos rose he had given her. She was like the rose, he reflected, a blossom of the earth, sweet, lovely, ephemeral. He could not conceive her old, faded, crushed beneath the relentless touch of time.

The fancy possessed him that she was his, to be taken whithersoever he might go. He stretched out his hands, trembling with passion, and the vision melted. He grasped the cold snow, not the warm flesh.

At this moment, out of the suffocating silence an attenuated vibration of sound thrilled his senses. Instantly he was awake, alert—conscious that help was coming; how and whence he knew not. The sound permeated every fibre, but, numbed by exposure and fatigue, he was unable to interpret its message. Such as it was, it possessed rhythm—a systole and diastole, like the laboured beating of his heart. Was it merely the heart, recording with solemn knell the passing of a soul? No—no! He sprang to his feet, aflame once more with the lust of life. The sound he heard was no delusion of a fanciful brain, no fluttering of a moribund heart, but a clarion note from without, steadily increasing in volume, forcing a passage through the blinding snows—the Crask bell!

But at first he was unable to localise the sound: plunging madly this way and that, settling down at length to his true course, which brought him within half an hour to the bridge across the burn. Even then he strayed again and again from the road, led back to it as often by the voice of the bell, growing clearer and louder with every step he took. Presently he heard voices, hoarse shouts, which he answered in feeble whispers; then a yellow light swinging to and fro shone through the darkness. He staggered on to meet it, falling fainting into the arms of Stride.

* * * * *

Stride asked no questions. Mark was put to bed, and lay still for some four hours: then he began to grind his teeth, to clench his fists. Stride sat beside him watching his friend and patient, with eyes half shut, like a purring cat's, the pupils narrowed to a black slit. Presently he went to the window. The wind had ceased. Outside, in silence, the snow kept on falling, spreading its pall upon the world, while the cold grew more and more intense. The crystals were forming upon the pane, and despite the big peat fire, the temperature in the room fell point after point. Staring through the pane, Stride could see nothing save the piled-up snow on the sill, and the myriad fluttering flakes beyond: each, as he knew, a crystal of surpassing symmetry and loveliness, each fashioned by the Master in His sky and despatched to earth, there to be destroyed, trodden, maybe, into mire and filth, and, rising again, seeking the skies anew, to be transformed by the same Hand into rain, or dew, or sleet, or snow, ordained to fall as before, and as before to rise, the eternal symbol of the soul which descends into the clay, softens it, is tainted and discoloured by it, and then, in glorious resurrection, ascends to be purged and purified in the place whence it came.

CHAPTER XXIII

HYMENEAL

Upon the morning of his wedding-day, Archibald Samphire went into the church of King's Charteris and prayed before the altar. While he was praying, Jim Corrance pushed aside the heavy curtain of the west door and peered in. A whim had seized him. He, the freethinker, the agnostic, had said to himself that he would like to spend a few minutes alone in the church where he had been baptised and confirmed. Rank sentiment! But Jim at heart was a man of sentiment, although he took particular pains to prove to the world that he was nothing of the sort.

When Jim saw Archibald's fine figure he frowned, thrusting forward his square chin, and the short hair on the top of his head bristled with exasperation. Upon each side of the kneeling man were ferns and palms, whose fronds touched overhead. The priests' stalls were ablaze with daffodils and primroses picked by the school-children in the water meadows and woods near Pitt Hall. Through the east window a May sun streamed in full flood of prismatic colour. The pure rays of the sun passing through the gorgeous glass absorbed its tints and flung them lavishly here and there, staining with crimson, or blue, or yellow, the white lilies which stood upon the altar. Jim smiled derisively. The fancy struck him that Archie's prayers would absorb, so to speak, the colours of his mind. The words of the General Thanksgiving occurred to Jim.

"And we beseech Thee, give us that due sense of all Thy mercies, that our hearts may be unfeignedly thankful, and that we shew forth Thy praise, not only with our lips, but in our lives; by giving up ourselves to Thy service, and by walking before Thee in holiness and righteousness all our days."

Surely this set—so Jim reflected—forth Archibald Samphire's pious ambition. Doubtless he did aspire to give himself to God's service, particularly that form of it which is held in cathedrals; and he intended, honestly enough, to walk before Him (and before the world) in holiness and righteousness all his days (which he had reason to believe would be long and fruitful).

Archibald rose and walked down the aisle. Jim hid himself behind the tall font, but he stared curiously at his old school-fellow. Archibald's face had lost its normal expression of a satisfaction too smug to please such a critical gentleman as Mr. James Corrance. His massive features were troubled. He looked humble! Why? Surely the crimson carpet beneath his feet, bordered with flowers, over-shadowed by exquisite ferns and rare shrubs, indicated the procession of a successful life: a majestic march through the hallowed places of Earth to the Heaven of All Saints beyond!

Had Jim been able to peer within that mighty body, he might have seen a self-confidence strangely deflated, a conscience quickened by pangs. The colossus, whose physical prowess had become a glorious tradition at Harrow and Cambridge, knew himself to be a moral coward, inasmuch as he had withheld a vital truth from the woman he loved. Fear of losing, first, her good opinion of him, then the greater fear of losing the woman altogether, had withered again and again the impulse to say frankly: "Mark wrote the two sermons which have made me what I am." Unable to say this, realising that the many opportunities for speech had passed, he had just vowed solemnly that his transgression should be expiated by hard work in his new parish. Truly—as Lady Randolph had said—was Archibald Samphire an unconscious humourist! And before we leave him to return to Jim, let it be added that the big fellow did not know (and being the man he was could not possibly have known) that he had wooed Betty with Mark's words, that he would have wooed in vain with his own. Not unreasonably, he was absolutely convinced that the qualities which had won success in everything undertaken by him had assured this also, the greatest prize of all, a tender, loving wife.

Jim waited till five minutes had passed, then he strolled back to his mother's house, telling himself that he was a brute, a dog in the manger, because he had misjudged a God-fearing fellow-creature, immeasurably his superior, who had won in fair competition a prize beyond his (Jim's) deserts.

When he returned to his mother's house a trim parlourmaid handed him a note. She told him at the same time that Mrs. Corrance was taking breakfast in her own room. Jim nodded, and broke the seal: a lilac wafer with Betty Kirtling's initials entwined in a cypher.

"Dear old Jim" (Betty wrote): "please come up after breakfast and take me for a walk.

"Your affectionate Betty."

Betty was installed in The Whim for her wedding; and the Randolphs and Harry Kirtling—not to mention other relations—were keeping her company. Since her engagement had been announced, Jim had scarcely seen her. He had taken the news hard. His clerks, and the jobbers with whom he dealt found him difficult to please, argumentative, contemptuous, and a glutton for work throughout that Lenten season.

As Jim approached The Whim, Betty joined him on the drive. He saw that she was very pale.

"How good of you to come," she exclaimed.

"Good!" growled Jim. "As if I wouldn't cross the Atlantic or the Styx to walk with you. Where shall we go?"

Betty took a path which led to the lane running at right angles to the Westchester road. High hedges bordered this lane, with ancient yew trees at uncertain intervals. To the right lay the best arable land in King's Charteris, rich alluvial soil, now green with spring wheat; to the left, the ground ascended in undulating slopes of pasture till it melted in the downs beyond.

"Sun is going to shine on you," said Jim.

The sun was blazing in a sky limpid after a week's heavy rain. Beneath its warm beams the soaked landscape seemed to be smiling with satisfaction. A peculiar odour of fertility, pungent and potent, assailed the nostrils, the odour of spring, the odour of earth renascent, rejuvenated, once more a bride.

"I wish it were June instead of May, Jim."

"That's the most absurd superstition."

"Jim, I want to ask a question. Have you seen or heard of Mark?"

Jim looked cross.

"He's in Sutherland."

"Go on, please."

"He doesn't answer my letters," said Jim, after a pause.

"He writes to nobody."

"Did you expect him to write?"

"Yes, I did," said Betty vehemently. "If it had been an ordinary man, but Mark—Heavens! Why should I beat about the bush with you, Jim? Once I wanted to marry Mark! You know that. But he didn't want—me."

She paused, blushing, her eyes, pools of brown light, opened wide with their strange look: entreating, interrogating.

"Which was a woman's reason, I suppose, for engaging yourself to somebody who did."

The words slipped from him. Caring for Mark, how could she have accepted Archibald? That cried to Heaven for explanation. He stared at her, seeing no reproach in her eyes, only a soft shadow of wonder—or was it regret—or something subtler than either.

"Oh, Jim, feeling as you do about religion, you can't understand. I was looking down, down into the depths. Archie taught me to look up."

"To him?"

"To God."

"You say that Archibald Samphire revealed God to you?"

"In that sermon at Windsor—yes. If you had heard it——"

"I heard of it. You will be the wife of a bishop some day."

He tried to give the conversation a lighter turn, fearing that she would speak again of Mark, understanding at last that Mark, standing under sentence of death, had deliberately hidden his heart from her. What else could such a man have done? And if Betty realised this, even now, at the eleventh hour, she might refuse to marry the silver-tongued brother. And because the temptation to tell her the truth was so poignant, he resisted it. It lay on his tongue's tip to exclaim: "Good Lord! Is it possible that you, with your intuitions and sympathies, have failed to divine Mark's love for you? Can't you understand that his love keeps him in Sutherland, that he dares not write for fear that he should reveal it?" At the same time, he knew that marriage between any young woman and a man suffering from an almost incurable malady was unthinkable. And if Betty could not marry Mark, was it not better from every point of view that she should marry his brother? Would not he (Jim) be taking upon himself a terrible responsibility if he broke the silence which Mark's self-sacrifice had made sacred? These, and a thousand other thoughts, jostled each other in his brain.

"That sermon touched me at first, because I thought it was Mark speaking. Not till then had I realised that Archie possessed the wonderful power of making life easier, happier, ampler; but why does Mark, if he cares nothing for me, stand aloof, why—why?"

"It is strange," he admitted slowly.

"Ah," she cried, "you say that reservedly. You, too, have guessed or at least suspected——"

"What?"

"That Mark is—jealous—of—Archie." The words dropped from her lips as if she loathed them, as if she loathed herself for speaking them. She continued quickly: "At Westchester, he was alone with me. I was thrilling with surprise and admiration. We had underrated Archie; you know that, Jim. And he had vindicated himself so gloriously. Well, Mark said nothing, not a word of praise. Oh, it was ungenerous—abominable! But I did not think so then. But now, what other interpretation can I put upon his silence?"

When she paused, Jim burst into a vehement defence of Mark. He spoke as he spoke to his clerks, clenching his fists, thrusting out his chin, repeating his phrases: "What? You say that? You use such words as abominable, ungenerous? You, Betty Kirtling? Abominable? Ungenerous? Well, if he be jealous, is it surprising, is it not most natural? Abominable? Great Scott! He looks at the man, the brother, who has everything, everything which he lacks—the physical strength, the persuasive voice, the luck—the devil's own luck—I don't pick my words, Betty Kirtling! Why—if he were not jealous, if envy at times did not tear him, he would not be Mark at all, but some impeccable, immaculate humbug! Abominable! From—you!"

Betty turned her back, and walked down the lane; Jim hesitated, and pursued.

"Betty, forgive me! I'm a brute, and this, this is your wedding-day. Here, give me your hand, both hands! That's better. Tell me I'm a beast. I deserve kicking. I'll lie down and let you wipe your boots on me. Your wedding-day—and I've treated you to this."

The feeling in his face went straight to her heart.

"It's all right, Jim," she whispered, half crying, half laughing. "And I take back—abominable." She sighed, gazing towards the downs where she and Mark had played truant. Then, with quivering lips and wet eyes, she murmured, "Poor Mark—poor Mark!" disengaged her hands, and ran down the lane and out of sight.

After the wedding there was an old-fashioned breakfast at The Whim, with toasts, speeches, cutting of cake, and so forth. Slowshire came in force, ate largely, drank deeply, and made merry in the solid, stodgy, Slowshire way. None the less, to Lady Randolph and other less acute observers, the function was somewhat depressing. The Whim, where so many cheery gatherings had taken place, had been sold. The furniture was to be moved into the Samphires' London house, while the bride and groom were on their honeymoon. The Squire's wife, in purple satin slashed with heliotrope silk, supplied every guest who belonged to the county families with details.

"The dear couple will be so comfortable. No—there is no rectory. They will live in Cadogan Place. Lord Minstead was glad to sell the lease. They say, you know, that he—pst—pst—pst——" The speaker's prominent blue eyes seemed positively to bulge from her plump, pink cheeks, as she whispered Minstead's unsavoury story into attentive ears. "But, as I was saying, our dear couple—really the handsomest couple I ever saw in my life—will be très bien installés. I am to find them a cook—fifty-five pounds a year—do you know of one? She must be a cordon bleu. Yes, a kitchen and a scullery-maid. They are very well off, very well off indeed. It is expected that they will entertain——"

The Squire, meantime, exchanged a few words with his old friend Lady Randolph. His face was flushed and his eyes congested and very puffy below the lids. Lips and chin, too, had a faint purplish tinge, always seen on the faces of those afflicted by a certain form of heart disease. He was certainly failing, Lady Randolph reflected. Still, he had lived his life, enjoyed the cakes and ale—too much of them!—and might reckon himself amongst the lucky ones. Pomméry had loosened his tongue.

"They will have—this between ourselves, my dear lady—nearly five thousand a year. Archie has done well. I am very proud of Archie—a fine fellow—hay? You may call him that—a fine fellow—a very fine fellow indeed! Sound"—the Squire thumped his own broad chest—"sound as I am, sound as a bell, and likely to make old bones."

Lady Randolph, with eyes half closed, nodded, wondering if this pitiful assumption of high health were genuine or assumed. Surely the Squire must know himself to be no sounder than a big pippin rotten at the core. He stood beside her, tall, portly, scrupulously dressed as a country gentleman of the old school; and the purple flush deepened and spread as he talked.

"Archibald will be a bishop. Do you know that his portrait is coming out in Vanity Fair? The Chrysostom of Sloane Street they call him. His Advent sermons have been widely discussed. And he will have no land to bother him. These are hard times for us landowners. Is Randolph pinched? Of course, he has his town property; but it's different with me; it's the very deuce with me. I'm worried to death about it."

What was fermenting in his mind had come, as it generally does with such men, to the surface. Lady Randolph looked unaffectedly sorry, and expressed her sympathy. The Squire plunged into the interminable subject of falling prices, rates, impoverished soil, the difficulty of finding good tenant farmers, and so forth. Not till the bride entered did he cease from his jeremiads.

"Here is Betty," said Lady Randolph.

She wore a travelling dress of pale grey cloth edged and lined with lavender silk. Betty had refused to adorn herself in bright colours, which happened to suit her admirably. A parson's wife, she observed, should dress soberly, and she quoted the Vicar of Wakefield, to Lady Randolph's great amusement. A controversy had arisen over this particular frock. Betty, however, seconded by the dressmaker, had her own way about it. Now Lady Randolph was certain that her protests had been justifiable. The dress, lovely though it was in texture and fit, had a faded appearance; it suggested autumn instead of spring, dun October, not merry May.

Betty tripped here and there, bidding her friends and neighbours good-bye, while Archie stood smiling at the door. He looked very large and imposing in a rough grey serge suit, which fused happily the clerical garb with that of a bridegroom. Calm and dignified, he received the congratulations of the men. Once or twice he drew a gold watch from his pocket—a present from the Dean and Chapter—opened it, glanced at it, and closed it with a loud click. He had never missed a train, but the possibility of doing so now impended.

Mrs. Samphire held her handkerchief to her face. Mrs. Corrance's handkerchief was in her pocket, but her kind eyes were wet. The young men from the barracks were laughing loudly, cracking jokes with the bridesmaids, "whooping things up a bit." The elderly guests smiled blandly, thinking possibly of their own weddings. The children alone really enjoyed themselves. Jim Corrance waited till the bride had passed him; then he rushed into the dining-room, where he found two generals and an Indian judge solemnly employed in finishing the Admiral's famous Waterloo brandy.

"Wonderful stuff," said the judge, as he passed the decanter to Jim; "it puts everything right—eh?"

Jim nodded. Through the open doors, leading into the hall, he could see Betty run down the stairs, followed by Archibald.

The Squire called after her: "God bless you, my dear! God bless you!"

She was gone.

Jim went out of the dining-room, which was situated, it will be remembered, at the top of The Whim. Most of the guests had followed the bride and groom downstairs. Upon the Persian carpet lay a small spray of lilies of the valley, fallen from Betty's bouquet. Jim glanced to right and left. Nobody was looking at him. Furtively, scarlet in the face, he stalked and bagged the spray of lilies. He placed it carefully in his pocket-book.

"That's the last of our Betty," he said.

CHAPTER XXIV

A RED TIE

Archibald had ordered a coupé to be ready for him at Westchester, but when the Bournemouth express dashed up, the stationmaster was obliged to confess that a blunder had taken place; no coupé was on the train. A first-class carriage was found, in which two seats were already occupied.

"Somebody ought to be censured for this," said the bridegroom, as the train slid out of the station. "It's inexcusable carelessness. I shall write to the directors about it."

"Pray don't," said Betty. "The matter's not worth a penny stamp."

"We shall find a coupé at Victoria," he whispered, bending forward. They were en route for France, having agreed to spend their honeymoon in Touraine. Betty glanced at the elderly couple, whose curiosity had been quickened. Archibald drew back with a slight frown. "I shall write from Dover," he said. "I regard it as a duty."

Betty pouted, surprised that he should treat her injunction so cavalierly. Men, she reflected, were men, and must be humoured. After all, her husband's annoyance was a compliment to her. She blushed as she lay back against the cushions, shutting her eyes. Her husband! She repeated the word very softly, the colour ebbing and flowing in her cheeks, as she gave herself up to the thought of him. Archibald said nothing; that was tactful. He had plenty of tact—a great gift—and most agreeable manners. Suddenly she realised that she was making an inventory of his good qualities, repeating them to herself like a parrot. She sat up, opening her eyes, opening them indeed wider than usual when she saw what had happened. Archibald had risen early; he had spent a busy and exciting morning; he had made an excellent breakfast, although, being a total abstainer, he had refused the Pomméry and Waterloo brandy. Now, not being able to talk to his bride in the presence of strangers, seeing that she wanted to rest and reflect, he had settled himself comfortably into his corner and—had fallen asleep!

Betty eyed him furtively. She did not like to wake him, but his appearance distressed her. She bent forward and touched his arm.

"Dear me," he said. "I saw you close your eyes, Betty, and I closed mine. You did right to wake me."

"I couldn't help it," she replied. "Your hat had fallen over your left eye. It made you look—ridiculous."

They spoke in whispers, leaning forward, so that their heads almost touched. But at the word "ridiculous" the bridegroom winced.

Betty had pierced a sensitive skin. Seeing this, she tried to turn the incident into a joke, laughing lightly, sorry that she should have hurt him, yet still seeing the hat tilted over the left eye.

At Victoria the coupé was awaiting them. The train, however, had only just backed into the station and would not leave for a quarter of an hour. Archibald and Betty arranged their belongings, and proceeded to walk up and down the platform. A great station was a never-failing source of interest to Betty. The infinite variety of faces, the bustle, the pervading air of change and motion, even the raucous, ear-splitting sounds, stimulated her imagination. Nothing amused her more than to invent stories concerning fellow-travellers. She brought to this an ingenuity and an insight which had often delighted Lady Randolph. Now, as usual, her eye drifted here and there in search of some attractive lay figure. As a rule she selected someone out of the ordinary groove. The flare of an eye, the twist of a moustache, a peculiarity in figure or gait instantly aroused her interest. Passing the bookstall, she saw a man in an Inverness cape made out of Harris tweed. Because he had the appearance of coming straight from Scotland, she examined him more closely. At the moment he turned, and their eyes met. The stranger was very brown of complexion and wore a beard, but the eyes, blue eyes with sparkling pin-points of frosty light, were Mark's eyes.