BROTHERS (continued 6)

"You look," said Betty, "as if someone had left you a fortune! Those potted things may come in handy, if you insist on refusing the help which your friends are only too glad to offer."

"I shall make my way, Betty."

Her eyes were troubled, as she said hurriedly, "Are you sure of that, Mark? If—if you should break down again. Oh, I know what's in your mind. You are going to drudge. And why should you, when Archie and I would be so delighted to have you here? You could help him. He has told me——"

"What has he told you?"

His sharp interrogation slightly puzzled her.

"Oh, he says that your hints have been invaluable."

So Archibald had withheld the truth. He heard Betty's voice entreating him to come to Cadogan Place. His heart was throbbing. Perhaps she wanted him.

"I c-c-can't," he stammered. "I have my p-pride."

"So had Lucifer," she retorted.

That she supposed him cold, he knew. When they parted, he smiled to himself because she said angrily: "You think of nothing but your Songs of the Angels!"

"Angels won't sing in London," he said.

Shortly after this he received a letter from Dudley McIntyre, the head of an historic publishing house. McIntyre had read the novel which would not sell, and begged to have the pleasure of meeting the author at an early date. This again was a piece of luck which Mark discovered, later, to be due to Tommy Greatorex. Tommy, who loathed Conquest, had told McIntyre of what had passed. McIntyre had no love for Conquest and despised his business methods. When he met Mark, he took a fancy to him. Mark, for his part, was charmed with McIntyre, who represented the publisher of the old school: being all that Conquest was not: courteous, sympathetic, speaking with precision in well-chosen words untainted by slang. McIntyre, however, published belles lettres, biographies, books of travel, rather than novels. Still, he expressed a wish to see The Songs of the Angels, and said that the theme appealed to him.

"Not that I pretend to be a judge of what will sell or not sell," he concluded. "And I seldom pass an opinion upon a manuscript."

"I should be glad to undertake translations," said Mark.

"Will that be worth your while, Mr. Samphire?"

Mark frankly explained his position. He thought he was qualified to translate either French or Italian books. McIntyre said he would make a note of it, and did so, entering Mark's address in a small pocket-book.

"Finish your novel," said he at parting. "And give it undivided attention."

Accordingly, Mark remained at Weybridge. He realised that if this novel failed, he must become, as Betty said, a drudge; and he was certain that hack-writing meant the sacrifice of higher literary ambitions. McIntyre was right. He must make the effort of his life to grasp something substantial. If he failed, let him clutch at straws!

Necessity lent edge to the enterprise. Each morning he woke with an appetite for work which seemed to increase rather than diminish. He became so absorbed in his task that everything and everybody became subservient to it. Archibald had taken Betty abroad; Pynsent was in Paris; Jim Corrance had been summoned to New York; David Ross still held aloof. So, for six weeks or more, he was undisturbed by the claims of friendship: the only claims at that time which he would have considered.

But to such a temperament as Mark's, speech is vital. Having no one else, he talked with Mary. He told himself that Mary was a remarkable girl, endowed with a fund of practical common sense upon which he was entitled to draw. Mary walked every other Sunday, if it was fine, with the young fellow of whom mention has been made. The rest of her time was spent with her mother and in the prosecution of duties which lay within the apple-green palings of her home. Mrs. Dew kept one servant, a cook; Mary worked in the house and in the garden.

The Dews, mother and daughter, knew that Mark was a writer. Mrs. Dew, however, considered literary work not quite "genteel." When Mark said to her: "You know, Mrs. Dew, that I'm an author," she sniffed and replied: "I didn't think you liked it mentioned."

It is curious and instructive to trace any friendship to its source. Mark had a character in his book not unlike Mary. The reviewers of his first novel agreed that Mark drew men with a firm touch; his women, on the other hand, were unconvincing, artificial, idealised. It was the most natural thing that he should say to Mary in his pleasant, friendly voice: "I s-s-say, Honeydew, if you found yourself in such-and-such a quandary, what would you do?"

Mary answered this first question so simply and convincingly that it led to many others. Mark ignored her sex, talking to her as he talked to Pynsent and Corrance.

"Such a lot depends upon the success of this book," he told her. "Journalism means bread-and-scrape, at best cakes and ale, but I'm hungering for the nectar and ambrosia of Literature. I feel my power with the men, but with the women—I grope. What I don't know about your delightful sex, Mary, would fill an encyclopædia."

He eyed Mary with wrinkled irritability as a type of composite womanhood. After all, he reflected, "Judy O'Grady and the Colonel's lady are sisters under their skins!" Mary was a bridge by which a poor ignorant man might cross the gulf which separates the sexes. The Songs of the Angels was a love story. He submitted the plot to Mary, who confounded him by an apt suggestion.

"By Jove, Honeydew, you know all about it. I suppose you've had half a dozen lovers?"

Mary blushed.

"Only Albert Batley."

He spared her confusion, but Mrs. Dew supplied details. Albert Batley had a nice growing business, as a contractor, in and about Weybridge, where houses were popping up like mushrooms in a night. Mrs. Dew fretfully complained that Mary did not know her own mind. Albert, it appeared, was quite willing to accept a mother-in-law as a permanent guest, if Mary would only accept him. "But naturally I'm not considered," she concluded, in that querulous whine which penetrated so far.

"Now, Mrs. Dew," Mark replied, "that won't do with me. Mary is as good as gold and your faithful slave."

"She won't have me long, Mr. Samphire. I'd like to see her settled, before I die."

Mark had met Albert, and been much entertained by him. Without wasting time in superfluous verbiage, Mr. Batley had given Mark to understand that he was ready to buy a wedding-ring, not to mention other trinkets, as soon as Mary gave him the word. If ever man was deeply, inextricably in Cupid's toils, Mr. Batley was he. À propos of this Mark said one day:

"You see, Honeydew, when a man is in love, he knows it."

"It works the same way with a woman," said Mary. "Only more so."

"Eh?" said Mark.

Mary explained that a girl really and truly in love was of necessity aware of her condition, because the fermentation, so to speak, took place in the bottle, instead of in the barrel with the bung out. "With men," she concluded, "it often bubbles away."

Mark detected a note of pain.

"My poor little Honeydew," he said, with warm sympathy. "You have suffered. Some day you must tell me about it."

"I cared for a man," she murmured, "who cared nothing for me; but that's over and done with." Then she added, blushing: "Albert knows all about it, and he says he doesn't mind."

"There's no chance of the other——"

"No, no," Mary interrupted. "He married."

"You will make Albert very happy," said Mark; "and you will be happy yourself."

"I am happy now," she replied with conviction.

Mark said no more; but Mary's words gave him pause. She called herself happy. Happy—in what? Only one answer was possible. Inasmuch as she had given in fullest measure to others, happiness had been given to her.

CHAPTER XXX

A NOTE OF INTERROGATION

The Samphires returned to Cadogan Place in November. It was now settled that Archibald should take the Basilica whenever it was finished, but the world knew nothing of this till after Christmas, when there appeared paragraphs in the papers controlled by Conquest. One of these caught the eye of Betty, and she took it to her husband, with the direct question: "Are you thinking of leaving St. Anne's?"

He replied with a certain air of restraint: "Yes."

"Why?"

"My dearest, I can do better work there than here. I had not meant to speak about it to you—yet. Lord Vauxhall has paid me a very great compliment."

"What sort of compliment has he paid me? Did he ask you to keep so important a matter from your wife?"

"I so understood him."

"And your word is pledged?"

"Yes."

"Has he offered you more than you receive here?"

"We shall be richer by some hundreds a year."

"I am sorry," said Betty, with heightened colour. "Lord Vauxhall is shrewd. Had you seen fit to consult me, I should have implored you to remain where you are. Money is no object to you."

"True. But preferment——"

"Preferment! Promotion! That implies service. You have only been here eighteen months. There will be gossip about this."

"As if I cared for gossip."

"We will say no more about it," said Betty; "but I tell you frankly that I am hurt!"

She turned and left the room. That he should not have trusted her was hard to be borne; yet later she made allowances for him. Doubtless, Lord Vauxhall had insisted upon secrecy. Her husband's sense of honour had closed his lips. She had been unjust, unkind, a disloyal wife. She had even insulted him, hinting that an increase of income had lured him from duty. At this point she bathed her eyes, arranged her hair, and ran downstairs to beg pardon and entreat forgiveness. Archibald was magnanimous.

"You have shown the right feeling, dear Betty, which I knew you possessed. I am acting according to my lights."

Next day the Rector of St. Anne's wired to Mark to come to town; Mark replied that he had had a bad bout of influenza, in those days a new and virulent disease. Archibald, nervous about his Lenten sermons but laughing to scorn the possibility of catching influenza, went down to Weybridge in the afternoon. He found Mark looking pale and thin, but otherwise in good spirits, and on the high road to recovery.

"You're a valiant man to visit me. This confounded disease is so infectious. You laugh? You'll cry if you get it! I've been as weak as a baby. If it had not been for Honeydew——"

He spoke enthusiastically of all his nurse had done for him. Archibald nodded absently, turning over in his mind certain possible themes which he wished Mark to consider.

"Yes, yes," he interrupted. "She did what she could, I make no doubt."

"She's one of the very best," cried Mark. "I say—it was awfully good of you, old Archie, to run down here. I expect work has piled up."

"It has; it has. I want to speak to you about that." He paused for a moment, as a smile flickered across Mark's lips. Archibald, Mark was reflecting, had an axe to grind. He had not left home merely to visit a brother laid by the heels. Suddenly his feeling which had flamed grew chill. He listened perfunctorily to some introductory remarks.

"My Lenten sermons are giving me grave anxiety; I find that something out of the common is expected. If you will bear with me, I'll walk over the—er—course which I've marked out."

"Cut along!" said Mark.

Archibald winced. Mark had no sense of the fitness of things. He spoke at times as if he (the Rector of St. Anne's) were a boy in his teens. Perhaps a word in season might——

"À propos," he said, with dignity, "don't you think, my dear fellow, that it is time for you to put away certain childish—you will pardon the adjective—certain childish expressions. It's absurd to talk of a man of my weight—'cutting along'...."

"True! You can stroll if you like, as the placid Pecksniff strolled. You have put on weight, Archie."

Archibald, indeed, was broader and thicker about the neck and shoulders. He had lost the look of youth; the hair on the top of his head was thinner; his eyes were less clear; his fine skin had become redder and coarser in texture.

"I carry great burdens," he replied. "Perhaps I ought not to ask you to share them."

Mark responded instantly, touched by this unexpected solicitude: "I'm all right."

"You might come to us for a week. Betty will nurse you."

"That is impossible. I must finish my book."

"Oh, yes—your book. I am looking forward to reading that. But I wish you would turn your talents to something more serious than fiction. I——"

"Shall we talk about your work?"

Archibald smiled, but Mark fidgeted and frowned, as carefully culled platitudes fell upon his ear. Archibald was indeed strolling placidly down familiar paths to the great festival of Christendom. The very name of Easter had always quickened Mark's pulses. Hitherto he had hastened to the feast, the most joyful of pilgrims. Now he was shut out; or rather, the door stood wide open, but he dared not pass it. The ban lay upon him—and upon how many thousands? His imagination flared, revealing a multitude staring with yearning eyes at tables spread for others. Archibald, in his silky tones, was enumerating celestial joys. His words flowed like a pellucid stream.

"What are you smiling at?" he asked abruptly.

"I beg your pardon," Mark replied, "but you remind me of an alderman reciting to a starving mob the names of the dishes to which he and his corporation are about to sit down."

Archibald had wit enough to see and feel the point. He saw, too, that Mark was moved.

"You have an idea. I should like to hear it, although——"

"Although I am without the pale, you would say. Archie, if you would descend from your pulpit and walk in the shadows with me for a little while—and if then you could set forth my doubts and perplexities, how many, think you, of your congregation would not say: 'I, too, have wandered in those blind alleys.' And having pierced the crust of their indifference with your sympathy and insight, if then you could transmit the light which seems to have always blazed on you, this Easter would indeed be a Day of Resurrection to hundreds who now lie cold and dead." He paused, gazed keenly at Archibald, and continued: "But you—you cannot do that. You have not trod the wilderness...." He covered his face with his hand.

"It is true," said Archibald, in a low voice, "that I do lack an experience common, I fear, to hundreds of my parishioners. And if I cannot open their hearts, and you can, lend me your key."

Mark was silent. Then, as before, the sense that he had envied and hated this once dearly beloved brother made him generous.

"I will write down and send what is in my mind. No—don't thank me!"

He began to talk briskly of other things. Presently Mary came in and reminded him to take his medicine. Archibald had not seen her before. Twice during the previous summer Betty and he had come to Weybridge, but each day had been spent upon the river. Mark went into his bedroom, and Mary disappeared, to reappear a moment later with a tea-tray. Archibald was alone with her for a couple of minutes. She arranged the tea-things with quick, deft fingers, displaying the admirable lines of her figure as she moved to and fro, now standing upright, now bending down. In the soft light of the spring afternoon she looked charming, with the inexpressible freshness of youth and health. Archibald addressed her.

"You are," he was about to say "Mary," but changed it to "Miss Dew."

"Oh, no, I am Mary," she replied, smiling. "Your brother calls me 'Honeydew.'"

"My brother calls you a ministering angel."

His soft voice had that fluid quality which percolates everywhere. He meant to be polite, nothing more; he wished to thank a pretty girl who had nursed a brother: but to Mary his words had other significance; his glance became an indictment, his tone inquisitorial. Without reason, her cheeks flamed. Archibald turned aside, murmuring a commonplace. When he looked at her, after a discreet interval, she was composed but pale. She went out of the room and did not return.

"Um!" said Archibald to himself, "I must speak to Betty about this."

Not, however, till late did he find an opportunity. Harry Kirtling was dining in Cadogan Place, and loath to say good-night. The young fellow had crushed a muscle of his leg out hunting, and had come up to London to see a famous surgeon, who prescribed gentle walking exercise and massage. Harry complained bitterly of the hardship of spending a fortnight away from his kennels, but was consoled by Betty, who promised to entertain him. Despite his injury, he looked astonishingly well, and brought with him from Cumberland a breezy atmosphere of mountain and moor which Betty inhaled gratefully. He had managed to make it plain that he was still her devoted slave—a tribute which the best of women accept without scruple. And he had asked her advice upon a score of matters connected with Kirtling.

When Harry had taken his clean, lean body out of her drawing-room, Betty turned rather impatiently to Archibald.

"Has anything happened? You have been so glum. Surely you do not resent my asking Harry to dine without consulting you?"

"Harry?" His tone was heavily contemptuous. "Harry can waste as much of your time as you like to give him. Yes; something has happened."

He told his story.

"I don't believe it."

"The girl is attractive. Her mother, I am told, reckons herself a lady. Something must be done. I give you my word that I am not mistaken."

"I don't believe it," Betty repeated.

None the less, she did believe it. Here again Archibald's voice beguiled her understanding. He had acquired that power, invaluable to a clergyman or a barrister, of making every statement sound as if it were irrefutable fact.

"I went down to Weybridge to see Mark on important business, and for a quarter of an hour he sang this girl's praises. It is obvious that he wished to impress me, to make me see with his eyes."

"What is she like?" Betty asked, shortly.

Archibald described her with a deliberation which annoyed his wife.

"The girl is very comely, my dear; alluring, many men would call her. A seductive figure—round, but not too plump; the complexion of Hebe."

"That's enough," said Betty.

"I tried to do the girl justice," replied her husband with dignity. "Personally speaking, her type of beauty does not appeal to me, but as a man of the world I cannot deny that it may appeal irresistibly to others!"

"You call yourself a man of the world," said Betty suddenly. "You do not preach to us as a man of the world. If this girl loves Mark, if he has made her love him, you ought to be the first to urge him to marry her. From a pagan point of view such a marriage may seem disastrous, but from the Christian's——"

She confronted him with heaving bosom and flaming eyes. Her agitation and excitement amazed him. But he grasped the essential fact that he had blundered, that it might be difficult to retrieve the blunder. He was aware that some of his sermons moved his wife to the core, for she had told him so a score of times. He was also aware, but as yet in less degree, that as mere man he had aroused without adequately satisfying her expectations.

"If you choose to misinterpret me——" he began.

"But I don't choose. I ask you, you the preacher and teacher, to make plain a puzzle which you, not I, have propounded. Let us admit what you tell me. Heaven knows that Mark has lived a lonely and forlorn life. Never has he complained to me; but I have guessed, I have felt that—that—beneath the mask he chooses to wear a devil tears him. That devil drove him from the Church. Well, we know that misery loves company. He has talked to me about this girl. She is a plucky creature, like Mark, inasmuch as she faces adversity with a smile. She has a selfish, querulous mother to whom she is devoted. Such a girl would appeal to such a man. And now you tell me that she is attractive. It is significant that Mark never mentioned that to me. I take back what I said. I believe you are right. Mark has learned to love this girl, and she loves him. And what are you going to do about it? And in what capacity? As a man of the world? Or as a priest of the Most High God?

"I beg you to compose yourself."

"You can compose me by telling the truth——"

"You dare to imply that——"

"I dare be honest with my husband. I have not been happy for some weeks, and you must have noticed it. Sometimes, particularly of late, I look for the man I married, and I find somebody else. Let me finish! I am too conscious of my own shortcomings not to be aware that between most husbands and wives lie troubled waters only to be passed by mutual faith and patience. Why, happiness is faith; and women, I often think, are on the whole happier than men, because their faith is stronger. A woman can believe in her child, in her husband, in her God. Well, as years passed, my faith in God grew dim, and you restored my sight. But now, somehow, I no longer see so clearly. Is it my fault or yours? I listen to your sermons, and then I come back to this luxurious house, and somebody tells me that you are persona grata at Windsor—that you are sure to be made a bishop, as if preferment were salvation; and——"

"My dear!" said Archibald, "it is late, and I have half a dozen letters to write. You have been talking in an unrestrained manner. You are not yourself."

He left the room, erect, impassive, master of himself, but not of her. She gazed defiantly after him, clenching her slender fingers. Intuition told her that this man was trying to serve God and Mammon, but when he came to bed an hour later, she owned herself humbly in the wrong. Again Archibald was magnanimous, assuring his dearest Betty that already he had forgiven and forgotten her offence. The "forgotten" sounded patronising. As if he, with his memory, could forget! She lay awake, perplexed and dismayed, for she knew that Mark was still so dear to her that the thought of his caring for any other woman was insupportable.

CHAPTER XXXI

BETTY SEES DANGER SIGNALS

Second thoughts constrained Archibald not to interfere with Mark. He told himself that he had been alarmed unnecessarily. Mark was in no position to marry a penniless girl; the infatuation—if infatuation had been aroused—would subside, the more quickly, doubtless, if undisturbed. Moreover, he was too busy to give affairs other than his own more than a passing thought. Four days after the visit to Weybridge he received from Mark a huge envelope filled with rough notes and suggestions for a course of Lenten sermons. With these (and supplementary to them) were a score of sheets of foolscap setting forth the phases of modern unbelief, or want of belief. Archibald read this record with a keen appreciation of its dramatic value, but—it would be unfair to suppress the fact—touched to issues higher than those involved in rhetoric. His extraordinary "flair" had not been at fault. Mark had given him more than ideas: insight into a human heart. And whatever he saw Archibald could describe with emphasis and effect. At once the plan and purpose of his sermons were made clear. He would take infidelity as his theme, and treat it synthetically, putting together all forms of unbelief, and exhibiting them as the root from which evil sprang and flourished. Faithlessness was the common denominator of suffering and sin. He remembered what Betty had said about happiness in women being dependent on faith, and told her that wittingly or unwittingly she had hit a truth. But if he expected her to hit another, he was disappointed. She said quietly that she had drawn a bow at a venture.

About this time she paid a visit to Weybridge, Mark still pleading work as an excuse for not coming to Cadogan Place. Archibald awaited her report with awakened interest. Betty told her husband that Mark was certainly madly in love—with his heroine.

"And he tells me," she concluded triumphantly, "that Mary, who seems a nice modest girl, is going to marry a Mr. Batley. When The Songs of the Angels is sent off to his publisher, he will come to us."

About mid-Lent the novel was despatched to town. After a few days a letter came from McIntyre, accepting the MS. and offering better terms than Mark had expected—fifty pounds upon the day of publication and a royalty upon a sliding scale. An American publisher, Cyrus Otway, who had large dealings with McIntyre's house, happened to be in England. He offered Mark similar terms for the American rights. Mark was jubilant, but McIntyre predicted limited sales.

"It will be well received," he said. "My readers have no doubt on that point, but we do not expect it to be popular. You have an admirable style, but your subject—eh?—is sublimated: over the heads of many. And the story is sad. The public likes a happy ending. Other things being equal, the story with the happy ending sells four to one at least. Mr. Cyrus Otway would like to meet you." Mark lunched with Cyrus Otway, and was entertained handsomely.

"I'll be frank with you, Mr. Samphire," said the Boston publisher, a thin, pale, carefully dressed man, with a typical New England manner as prim and precise as a spinster's, and very bright, restless eyes. "This is an experiment on our part—a leap in the dark. Our people, sir, know a good thing when they see it. But the difficulty lies in making them see it. Have you done any dramatic work? You have not. Ah, there's a goldfield! And, if I may be allowed to say so, I think that you would strike rich ore there. You have dramatic power and a re—markable insight into character...."

Mark repeated this conversation to Betty. He was staying at Cadogan Place and in high spirits. The drudgery of hack-writing no longer impended. Already he was in a position to do the work he liked best where and when and how he pleased.

"A hundred pounds is not much," said Betty doubtfully.

"It will last me a year," said Mark.

Meantime, Archibald's Lenten sermons were filling St. Anne's every Sunday and exciting widespread comment. Mark had seen and revised the first three before he left Weybridge. The others were prepared and written out under Mark's eye in the comfortable library at Cadogan Place. The Rector of St. Anne's made no scruple of accepting what help his brother could give him. Mark honoured all cheques, reflecting that this was a labour of love, which made for his happiness as well as Betty's. It never struck him that he was compounding a moral felony. Such knowledge came later; but, at the moment, had any person—Lady Randolph, for instance—pointed out what he was doing, he would have indignantly (and honestly) repudiated his own actions.

Betty listened to every word of these sermons and told herself she was the wife of an evangelist. None the less, she did not ignore the fact that a sharp distinction lay between Archibald as Man and Archibald as Priest. One day she said to Mark, "Somehow one does not expect a great preacher to lose his temper because the cook has sent up cod without oyster sauce."

"Oh, his little weaknesses ought to endear him to such a woman as you are. He tells us each Sunday what a man ought to be, and on weekdays he shows us what a man is. A preacher without his little infirmities would be as uninteresting as—as cod without oyster sauce."

After Easter, Mark returned to Weybridge. Betty missed him so much that she had a fit of nervous depression which lasted two days. She made a resolution to devote herself to parochial work, to begin a course of stiff reading: pamphlets dealing with the better housing of the poor, and kindred subjects.

Mark was now absorbed in writing another novel, and in the correction of proofs. The Songs of the Angels appeared simultaneously in New York and London upon the first of May. Mark wrote to Betty that he had never felt in such good health, or more sanguine about the future. He was living in the open air, and had the appetite and complexion of a gipsy.

Archibald, meanwhile, was working hard on committees, hand-in-glove with a ducal philanthropist, whose music-loving duchess declared that Mr. Samphire had the best tenor voice in the kingdom. In return for this high compliment, the Rector of St. Anne's was persuaded to sing at the duchess's small dinner parties; and this led to a widening of a circle of acquaintance, which now included some very great people indeed. Betty found herself dining out three days in the week, and was amazed to discover that her husband enjoyed this mild dissipation. As a celebrity he began to be courted wherever he went, and his photograph embellished certain shops. Young women entreated him to write in their albums.

The world said that Chrysostom was a good fellow and still unspoiled, but his wife noted an ever-increasing complacency and compliancy which gave her pause. He had begged her, it will be remembered, to keep at arm's length certain frisky dames whom she had met at Newmarket and Monte Carlo, when she was under Lady Randolph's wing. These ladies were of no particular rank or position. But when Lady Cheyne, notorious all over Europe before and after she married her marquess, called upon Mrs. Samphire, Archibald insisted upon Betty returning the call and accepting an invitation to dine at Cheyne House. Betty protested, but he said blandly: "I have reason to know that Lady Cheyne is an indefatigable worker in Chelsea. She will be a parishioner of ours when we go to the Basilica. Personally I do not believe half the stories they tell about her."

"I should hope not," said Betty. "If a quarter be true, she is dyed scarlet."

Often she talked to Lady Randolph, but never with the candour of bygone days. Intuition told her that her old friend had no great liking for Archibald, although she rejoiced at his success.

"You were at Cheyne House last night," said Lady Randolph, with the twinkle in her eye which Betty knew so well. "I dare swear the dinner, my dear, was better than the company."

"Archie says the dinner was perfection." Then she flushed slightly, remembering that her husband ought to know, for he had spared but few dishes. "Have you read Mark's new book?"

"I have," said Lady Randolph.

At once Betty began to praise the Songs. It was to be inferred from her sparkling eyes and eager gestures that Mark's success had become vital to her. Lady Randolph drew conclusions which she kept to herself. But that night she said to Lord Randolph: "I saw Betty Samphire this afternoon. It is as I feared. Her parson, the man beneath the surplice, never inspired anything warmer than respect."

"Ay, say you so? Dear me—that's a pity. But there's stout stuff under the surplice."

"Stout?" Lady Randolph smiled. "You have hit the word, Randolph. Stout—and growing stouter. And some of the stuff is—stuffing."

"My dear, you are severe. Who drives fat horses should himself be fat. I have noticed that your good round parson is the most popular; your lean fellow makes everybody uncomfortable. Archibald is thought highly of. He is approachable; he has great gifts of organisation; he is liked by Nonconformists and Roman Catholics."

"No doubt," replied Lady Randolph impatiently. "In a word he can lunch at Lambeth and dine at Cheyne House, but I am thinking of Betty. A sword impends."

In a vague, mysterious way Betty herself was conscious of danger. As a girl the pageant of the London season had excited her. Her sensibilities, too keen, her adaptability, her faculty for enjoyment, inevitably were overstrained during those feverish months between April and August. When she married a clergyman she told herself that she was out of the rapids and at rest in a placid backwater. Now, involuntarily, she had been sucked into the current again. And curiously intermingled with the feeling of apprehension was a thrill. At times the desire to let herself go, to fling herself, like a Mænad, into the gay crowds, to be reckless, as they were, became almost irresistible. The devil-may-care temperament of the De Courcys set her pulses a-tingling. But so far she had restrained these longings. And then one night, in late June, Harry Kirtling met her at a ducal house to which Archibald deemed it a duty to go. A splendid entertainment had been provided. A famous prima donna and a brilliant violinist enchanted lovers of music; a French comedian travelled from Paris to recite; minor luminaries twinkled round these fixed stars. A few choice spirits, however, had withdrawn to a small room set apart for cards, wherein a young guardsman had opened a bank at baccarat. This was in flagrant bad taste, for both host and hostess detested gambling. Yet it lent a spice to the adventure. Lady Cheyne told her cavalier that she felt as if she were meeting a lover in a church. When the fun was getting furious, Betty and Kirtling came in on the heels of curiosity. Betty drew back, but Harry held her arm. A moment later he was recognised and invited to try his luck. Always easy-going and thoughtless, he pressed forward, half dragging Betty with him. Lady Cheyne looked up, saw Betty, and screamed with laughter. Her mocking laughter roused the devil in Betty. She had not gambled since her marriage; and gambling in all its forms was regarded by Archibald as a deadly sin. Upon the Sunday succeeding Derby Day he had preached upon this very subject. He had shown that betting had become a national vice; he had described with dramatic force its moral effect upon servants and children. This was one of a series of sermons upon the sins of the day, in the preparation of which the Rector of St. Anne's needed no assistance from others: culling his facts from pamphlets and Blue Books, and marshalling them with the skill which comes from long practice. To such sermons Betty lent an indifferent ear. They were of the Gradgrind type: too didactic, too florid, too obvious, to appeal to the intellectual members of his congregation. He preached in the same Cambyses vein upon drunkenness and gluttony. When Lady Cheyne laughed, Betty was vouchsafed a vision of her husband as she had seen him ten minutes before, sharing a pâté with a be-diamonded countess who admitted frankly that she lived to sup.

"You must not peach, Mrs. Samphire!" cried Lady Cheyne, turning up her impudent nose.

For a moment the game was stopped, and those present stared at Betty.

"Peach?" echoed Harry, who had certainly taken more than his allowance of champagne. "Not she! Come on, Betty, let us venture a sovereign!" He put his hand into his pocket and pulled out a five-pound note. "Halves?" Betty nodded. "When it's gone, we'll stop—eh?"

Betty nodded again, beginning to laugh. One of the young men offered her his chair.

"You play," said Harry. "I'm such an unlucky beggar." He pushed the counters which he had received in exchange for his note in front of her. The dealer picked up the pack in front of him, and began to deal. Up till then he had won. Now his luck deserted him and fell on Betty.

"Tapez sur la veine," said Harry. "Pile it on, Betty!"

By this time Betty was sorry she had sat down. In the hope of losing what she had won already, she did pile it on, the banker making no objection. But still she won, and won, and won. And then, in the middle of the noise and laughter, the host walked in—and out! But the expression on his face put an instant stop to the proceedings. The young guardsman, looking exceedingly foolish, pulled out a pencil and began computing his losses to Betty.

"I make it seventy-five pound," he said. "I'll send it to you to-morrow, Mrs. Samphire."

"No, no," said Betty.

"Pooh," said Harry. "You forget that I'm your partner. We'll have a spree together with this ill-gotten gold." He laughed, and the others joined in, but Betty smiled dismally. All London would be prattling of this escapade within a few hours.

Going home in the brougham she told Archibald what had passed. The light inside the carriage was dim, but she felt rather than saw his face stiffen into amazed displeasure.

"And the Duke came in?"

She understood from his tone that being caught was not the least part of the offence.

"I have said that I am very sorry."

"You have made me ridiculous," said Archibald in a tone she had not heard from him before.

"You will make yourself ridiculous," she retorted, "if you take this too seriously."

He exclaimed hotly: "I would not have had it happen for five hundred pounds."

The opportunity was irresistible to murmur: "The moral obliquity of it seems to have escaped you."

"What? You laugh? You sneer? This is too much, too much."

"Much too much," Betty answered disdainfully. "I said I was sorry. Well, I'm nothing of the kind—now. I'm glad. And I shall play again, if I choose, and back horses, as I used to do, when I was a happy sinner."

To this Archibald made no reply, and Betty told herself that she was a shrew. As the brougham stopped she said in a low voice: "Archie, I apologise."

Her husband, in a voice colder than liquid air, replied: "I accept your apology, Betty, but let me beg that nothing of this sort occurs again."

CHAPTER XXXII

BETTY MAKES GOOD RESOLUTIONS

During July a deanery in the West of England fell vacant and was offered to Archibald Samphire. Conquest, acting on a hint from Lord Vauxhall, came post haste to Cadogan Place. It happened that he was shown into the drawing-room, and it also happened that on the balcony Betty sat in a chair, fast asleep, with a dull novel on her lap. The balcony was a pretty place, protected from the sun by a striped awning and filled with palms and plants.

Conquest looked more enormous than usual in a light grey frock-coat, open in front, revealing a vast extent of white waistcoat. His eyes sparkled keenly beneath the heavy black brows. Archibald found himself shirking these piercing eyes, as he explained that his library was filled with a deputation of working men, from whom he had escaped with difficulty. Conquest nodded impatiently as Archie's polished periods fell softly upon the air heavy with the heat of summer and the perfume of many flowers.

"Yes, yes," he said; "I'm obliged. I hate to be kept waiting. About this deanery—hey?"

"I am giving the matter earnest consideration."

"You can't afford to take it," said Conquest abruptly. "If you go there, you'll stay there, mark my words! That'll be the end of you. I told Vauxhall you'd too much common sense to chuck him. If it were a bishopric, of course, Vauxhall would not stand in the way. I can't pick my words. And by this time you and I understand each other."

He spread out his broad, pudgy hands in a gesture familiar to Archibald.

"How did you hear?"

"It's my business to hear things. I've a hundred eyes and a thousand ears. Well?"

"It's great preferment."

"You will be 'Mr. Dean' of course. But you'll be out of sight and out of mind. How did you get this offer? By being on the spot. I'll say a word more, only you mustn't give me away. You met the Prime Minister at Belgrave House the other day. My friend, he had heard you preach a certain sermon at Westchester, but, by gad! he'd forgotten you."

"Forgotten me?" exclaimed Archibald. "Why, he came up as soon as the ladies left the dining-room, and was most civil."

"He can be civil when he likes," said Conquest drily. "All the same, he had forgotten your name; he did not know what you were doing. The Duchess, who is a capital friend of yours and a good creature although she does sniff, sang your praises for five minutes. And that did the trick. Of course, he made inquiries; he satisfied himself that you are a corking good worker and a discreet fellow, and all that, but, bless my soul, aren't there hundreds of such? Lord—yes. But they don't dine at Belgrave House. Now, look here, I've no time to waste. I came here to do you a friendly turn. You will gain far more than you will lose by refusing this so-called preferment. And I'll see that your self-sacrifice is duly recorded. Trust me for that. You think you've made a mark. So you have; so you have; but you must deepen the impression. You've a magnificent voice, but, man—it won't carry four hundred miles. If you want it to be heard by the right people you must preach in a London pulpit."

"My dear Conquest, I really——"

"Pooh, pooh! You don't like me the less because I talk straight when no one is listening. Now—stand and deliver a monosyllable. Are you going to chuck Vauxhall? Yes—or No?"

"I have no intention of chucking Lord Vauxhall or anybody else."

"Right. That means No. Good-bye. You'll see a leader in next Saturday's Mercury which will warm the cockles of your heart."

Before Archibald could reply, Conquest was out of the room. For a big man he could move—when he so chose—with amazing quickness and lightness. He disappeared, leaving a vacuum which Betty filled. As Archibald turned, after ringing the bell for a servant to show out Conquest, he saw his wife standing in the window, framed by the ferns and palms.

"Betty!" he exclaimed.

"Why didn't you kick that—that beast downstairs? I heard what he said. He insulted you. I was asleep outside. His voice woke me. For your sake, not mine, I resisted the temptation to come forward, and—oh, I could have flown at him!"

Her bosom heaved; her eyes sparkled. Archibald stared at her dully, wondering what words would meet this emergency.

"Have you nothing to say?" she cried.

"My dear," he said, "you do not understand."

"Then explain—explain!"

"Conquest means well. He is our friend; a rough diamond, I grant you, but he means well. He is our friend."

He repeated the words, sensible that they were inadequate, yet unable to find others.

"Save us from such friends!"

"I had almost decided to send a refusal."

"Why—why, only last night you were on edge to accept. You gave me a dozen pros against my two or three cons."

"And perhaps," said Archibald, in what Betty sometimes called his "antiseptic" manner, "those cons outweighed the pros, although numerically less. Conquest takes your view of the matter. He feels that I have undertaken a task here in Chelsea, which cannot be abandoned. He——"

"He tells you to reculer pour mieux sauter," said Betty derisively, "to refuse a deanery and accept a bishopric later! He—the apostle of expediency, of diplomacy, of compromise! Well—I do not judge him. But he counts you to be of his own opinion. He brands you as a time-server, a worldling, a parasite. And you let him do it—and shake hands with him! And, on next Saturday—you will read a leader in the Mercury which will warm the cockles of your heart."

"Protest would have been wasted," said Archibald. "If you will excuse me, my dear, I will go downstairs. The deputation is waiting for me."

"One moment," said Betty. "I have something to say which must be said—here and now. Last night you spoke eloquently enough of that west country and the life we might lead there. And I—I," she faltered and blushed, "I was not honest when I urged you to stay here. I am drifting into the old hateful whirlpool from which I thought I had escaped for ever. I pictured to myself life in a cathedral close—stagnant, dun-coloured, full of uninteresting duties—and I recoiled from it. I smelled that old smell of cleaned gloves at all the parties. I thought of myself, not of you. But now, I beseech you to consider what London means to both of us—to you and to me. And if Mr. Conquest is right, if your sacred profession is a trade, if great success in it can be achieved only by such self-advertisement as he thinks justifiable, is such success worth having to a Christian gentleman?"

Archibald frowned. Then, feeling that his powers of speech had returned to him, he answered at length, citing certain prelates whose piety, sincerity, and humility were above reproach. Conquest took the worldling's view. He was more than half pagan, and he posed openly as a scoffer and a cynic. Still, he was right in contending that the great places in the Church's gift were held by those whom a wide knowledge of the world had equipped. Such knowledge was not to be gleaned in a cathedral close lying in the heart of a sleepy west country town. He hoped that his dearest Betty would not misunderstand him when he confessed frankly that he did aspire to the highest positions, not for what they might hold of honour or emolument, but for the power they conferred of doing widespread good to others. Warming to his theme, he flooded Betty's perplexed mind with scores of ready-made phrases—phrases laboriously accumulated: stones, so to speak, with which he had fortified his own position.

"Oh—I am muddled, muddled," said Betty.

"I have been muddled myself," her husband admitted. "Modern life must perplex and distress the wisest. And all of us at times feel a desire to get out of the hurly-burly. Shall I say that last night, feeling worn out and discouraged, I did long for the quiet and peace of that west-country deanery; but this morning—now," he expanded his chest, "I am myself again."

He smiled assuringly and left the room.

When he had gone, Betty went back to the chair among the ferns and palms. She tried to go over what her husband had said, to look at the matter fairly from his point of view. But the effort was greater than she could compass. She felt as if she had been submerged in a torrent of words, and of these words nothing was left—only a sense of desolation and isolation.

When she saw Mark a few days later, the article in the Mercury had been published. Conquest was given to boasting that he could "boom" an author with such subtlety that none, not even the man himself, suspected what was being done. The readers of the Mercury rose from the perusal of the article in question convinced that a seasonable and well-deserved tribute had been paid to a saintly and self-sacrificing preacher of Christ's gospel. Archibald, reading it, was aware that his cheeks, as also the cockles of his heart, were very warm indeed. Betty did not read the article. Mark, however, was full of it, not knowing that Conquest had written it.

"The truth is," he told Betty, "the truth is, Betty, that I did not like his acceptance of the Basilica. It bothered me a good deal. Now this proves plainly that Archie is above worldly considerations. Not another man of his age would have refused such an offer."

Betty asked for news of the Songs.

Of this Mark had nothing very encouraging to tell. The book, handsomely received by the Press, was in fair demand at the libraries, but less than two thousand copies had been sold. In America as yet it had not, so Otway wrote, "caught on." The new novel, A Soul Errant, was sure to be a success. He talked with animation for half an hour, describing his characters.

"You live for this," said Betty abruptly.

"Do you blame me," he answered quickly, "because I make the most of what is left?"

"I beg your pardon," she replied.

Later, she inquired after Mary Dew.

"She's having a better time of it," Mark declared. "I don't mind telling you, Betty, that I've tackled her mother. I told her she was a slave-owner, a despot, and a bully. She took it like a lamb, and things at Myrtle Cottage are easier, I can assure you."

"And Albert what's-his-name, who is going to marry your paragon——"

"Albert Batley is making money. He has a big building contract near Surbiton. He will give Honeydew all she wants, and deserves."

"You know nothing of women, Mark."

"So the critics say—confound 'em; but I tell you, Betty, I know a good woman when I see her."

"There you are; displaying your ignorance. You talk in that foolish masculine manner of good women, as if good women were in a class by themselves, and different from all others. Why good and evil are such relative terms that sometimes I can't tell one from the other."

"Then you're a miserable sinner, and blind to boot. Good, the genuine article, can never be mistaken for evil, although evil, I grant you, may counterfeit good. Bless me! I've been puzzled a score of times by sinners, but I never mistook a saint."

"How many have you met?"

"More than you think," he replied gravely.

"And where do you place me? Among the sheep or the goats?"

Mark wondered why her lips trembled. She looked tired and pale, much paler than usual.

"What a question!" he said lightly.

"I'll answer it myself, Mark. I have an extraordinary appreciation of good. There are times when I have soared—yes, that's the word—into another world. I had dreams, visions if you like, when I was a girl, but the most vivid experience of the kind came upon me unexpectedly—in Westchester Cathedral, upon the day Archie preached his sermon. I grasped Something that morning which cannot be described, but It was real substance. I grasped It, and I let It go. Since I have wondered what It was. Perhaps I—touched—God."

"Ah!" said Mark. "Go on, go on!"

She saw that his eyes were shining, that the expression which she had missed from his face since her marriage had come back.

"Go—on," she sighed. "I am going back. Can you help me?"

She turned to him with a pathetic gesture of entreaty. The light faded in Mark's face. He began to stammer.

"If I c-c-could——"

"You believed once. And now your faith is gone! Why? How? You must tell me."

In her excitement she laid her hand upon his wrist, clutching it fiercely. He felt that her fingers were burning, that the fire in them was fluid, that in another moment the flame would flare in him, consuming them both. He rose, releasing his wrist with violence.

"I c-c-can't tell you that." He moved half a dozen paces from her, before he turned. When he spoke again his voice was quite steady. "Faith oozes from some people imperceptibly: there is a steady drain of which they may be unaware, but my faith left me in an instant. It may come back as suddenly. It may be redeemed. I have thought sometimes that faith is God's franchise which is given freely to all, and taken away from the unworthy. And once taken away, it is never given again, never. It must be ransomed—paid for."

As he spoke he was aware that at any cost to his own feelings the talk must be turned into safer channels. His first impulse had been one of unreasoning fear and horror. When she touched him, he lost for a terrible moment his self-control. Love is a despot whose lightest word may make the bravest coward. Seeing her distress, hearing her quavering voice, feeling her trembling fingers, he had divined his own weakness.

"Paid for?" She echoed the words. "How?"

"By sacrifice," he answered slowly. "By blood sacrifice."

When he had gone, she went to her room and locked the door. Alone, her face flamed with anger against herself. Had she betrayed her secret? She could not answer the question. Had he spoken coldly, precisely—on purpose? Nine women out of ten distrust a man's works, and have absurd and infantile faith in his words. But Betty had had a surfeit of words from her husband. Of late, much of her leisure had been wasted in trying to determine their value. Archibald's works were self-explanatory. He was indefatigable as parish priest and philanthropist. Such work could be measured; it lay within a circle, say the inner circle of the Underground Railway. But his sonorous phrases, his dogmas and doctrines, were immeasurable: including this world, past and present, and the world to come. It was natural, therefore, that finding herself compassless in a sea of sentences, she would steer by the light of such fixed stars as frequent communions, charity organisation, the visiting of the sick, and the crusade against alcohol. In a word, she had come to the conclusion that it did not matter very much what a man said, but that what he did was vital to his own welfare and the welfare of others, the true expression of his character and temperament. Whenever a woman touches the fringe of such a commonplace, you may be sure that she will watch a man's actions, the more closely, perhaps, because she has become too heedless of his words. Betty had seen Mark shrink with a violent effort from her touch; he had kept out of Cadogan Place during the summer; he had lost faith in revealed religion. What if these effects were to be traced to one cause—herself?

When she was able to think articulately, pleasure in her discovery was obliterated by pain—the bitter pangs of retrospection. Why had she doubted him—and herself? By what irony of fate had she given herself to Archibald? But almost instantly she curbed these unavailing regrets. The past was irrevocable. What did the future hold for Mark and for her? One thing was certain: they must meet but rarely, perhaps not at all.

And then ensued a struggle, from which she emerged weak indeed, but triumphant. Once again she was conscious of that sense of detachment, of looking in spirit upon the flesh; once again a strange giddiness warned her that only in fancy had she attained to the heights, that the cliffs were yet to be scaled.

When she met her husband that afternoon a closer observer than he might have detected a tenderness in her voice and manner: the first-fruits of a resolution to do her duty as wife to a good man. That night, when she said her prayers, she thanked God passionately, because she could esteem and respect the Rector of St. Anne's.

CHAPTER XXXIII

ILLUMINATION

In August the Archibald Samphires moved from Cadogan Place to a house on the Embankment, which belonged to Lord Vauxhall, and was part of that property which he was so anxious to populate with the "right kind of people." The house faced the Thames and contained some charming rooms, which combined the quaintness and fine proportions of the old Chelsea houses with such modern luxuries as electric light and radiators. The house in Cadogan Place had been papered and decorated by a former tenant, whose taste was severely æsthetic. Betty abhorred the olive-greens, the dingy browns, the sickly ochres of the Burne-Jones school. But she had accepted them philosophically, reflecting that houses in London must be repapered and decorated more often than in the country. None the less, she sometimes told herself that certain fits of depression were due to her bilious-coloured walls, and that Babbit's theories, as set forth by the Squire's widow, were worth consideration.

Now she had been given a free hand, at a moment when fashion was changing with Protean swiftness from darkness to light. Rose-red and yellow, delicate greens, ethereal blues, and white-enamelled woodwork wooed the fancy of housewives. Betty told Lady Randolph that she was no longer a woman, but a colour scheme diffusing prismatic tints.

"The rainbow after the storm."

Betty glanced up quickly. Did her old friend guess that she had passed through a storm? Or was it a happy allusion to that frightful bistre-coloured paper in her bedroom in Cadogan Place?

"I shall be happy here," she said gravely.

They were standing in the drawing-room of the new house. The Admiral's Chippendale furniture was in its place, delicately revealed against lovely white panelling. The walls were rose-coloured, of a paper whose texture was as that of brocade. The general effect was fresh and joyous: vernal in the delicacy of its tints, without a hint of the bonbonnière. Outside, the sun was declining in the west, and the river ran all golden past the trees and meads of Battersea Park. Some barges, laden with hay, were gliding by on the ebb-tide.

"Archie's room will be ready to-morrow," said Betty, "and we ought to be in the day after. You have all pitied me, but I have enjoyed the dead season immensely."

Lady Randolph, who was passing through town on her way to Scotland from Birr Wood, nodded understandingly.

"The room is just like you, Betty, and that is the prettiest compliment, my dear, I have ever paid you. And I must say that the dead season has agreed with you. I never saw you look more alive."

"The fact is," said Betty seriously, "I have been setting more than one house in order."

Lady Randolph smiled. "I have seen—I have guessed—— Ah, well, we wives try to remould our husbands, and the time is not wasted if we succeed in remoulding ourselves. My dear, I must fly. Can I give you a lift?"

Betty said that much remained to be done, but after her friend had gone she showed no inclination to set about doing it. Instead, she sat by the open window, gazing at the river flowing slowly and silently to the sea. Already she had come to regard this as the great waterway of her thoughts. She rejoiced because she was about to live upon its banks; she recognised its suggestion and symbolism, its myriad beauties, its mystery and power.

At this moment she was reflecting that the Thames was a source of pleasure and profit to man, because man, as embodied by the Thames Conservancy, controlled it. When it burst its banks, the abomination of desolation followed. Without the innumerable dams and locks cribbing and confining it, these splendid waters would be wasted. Now they percolated everywhere, into hundreds and thousands of homes.

Would it be so with her own life? It ran in a channel other than the one she would have chosen, had choice been given her; it was diverted to uses she had not apprehended; it was likely to be diffused infinitely, trickling here and there, instead of rushing free and untrammelled over a course of its own making. Since that memorable interview with Mark, Betty had accepted the limitations which duty imposed. She had not shirked the trivial tasks of a parson's wife, albeit she was tempted to spend more time (and money) than was lawful in alluring shops. She had not seen Mark alone. She had put from her comment and criticism of her husband: striving to think of the strength that was in him rather than the weakness.

Now she was aware that these efforts had not been made in vain. Life had become easier, happier, more profitable to herself and others. She dared to look forward, and refrained from looking back.

Presently she rose up, glanced, smiling, at the pretty room, and leaving it reluctantly went downstairs. Archibald was out of town for a few days on duty in the Midlands, and by the morrow she hoped that all his furniture would be moved. Part had come from Cadogan Place that afternoon, and, before returning home, she wished to see it placed in the right room. In the hall she met one of the servants, who was acting as caretaker. In answer to a question, the man said his master's desk had arrived in the van which was leaving. Betty entered her husband's room trying to remember the exact spot where Archie wished his desk to stand. It was an immense affair, with a fluted, revolving top, which, when closed, locked itself and all drawers. As she crossed the threshold of the room, she remembered what Archibald had said. The desk had been placed in the wrong position.

"Oh, Dibdin," she exclaimed, "that will never do. Have the men gone?"

Dibdin said respectfully that the van was still at the door, but suggested that the men should move the desk on the morrow. Betty, however, was anxious to see how it looked in the place her husband had chosen. So the men were summoned. Doubtless, they were tired, and possibly sulky at being called as they were about to drive away. The desk was very heavy and awkward to move; it stood on a rug upon a slippery parquet floor. The men, using unnecessary violence, canted it slightly forward. In the effort to steady it, their feet slipped, the desk fell forward with a crash, and burst open: the fluted lid flying back, and the contents of a dozen pigeon-holes and drawers being scattered over the floor. However, upon examination it was found that no damage had been done. The desk was lifted and placed in the desired position, and the men dismissed. Dibdin looked so dismayed that Betty laughed.

"Why, Dibdin, all's well that ends well."

"Master is so particular about his desk," said Dibdin. He had been with Archibald before his marriage. "He'd never allow me to touch his papers."

"You shan't touch them now," said Betty. "I'll arrange them, Dibdin, before I go home."

Dibdin went out, leaving his mistress sitting on the floor surrounded by notebooks, cheque-books, manuscripts, and all the accessories which usually cover a busy man's desk. As she began to arrange these, she reflected that the best-laid plans gang agley. Archibald had insisted upon locking up everything, and yet, despite precaution—his precious desk had burst open. What a lot of MMS. to be sure! And she had not the vaguest idea into what drawers and pigeon-holes they ought to go. Archibald had a reasonable dislike of being disturbed when at work, and when he was not at work the huge desk was always locked.

Betty recognised an enormous pile of papers as sermons. Some were typewritten, date and text being inscribed upon the outside. Betty touched them tenderly: her husband's title-deeds, so to speak, to the honour and respect she bore him. Looking at them she blushed faintly, thinking of the warmer sentiment they had provoked. As she blushed her glance fell upon the sermon she had just picked up. This bore no text, but across it, in Archibald's handwriting, were two words: Whit-Sunday, Westchester.

The words provoked a score of memories. Once more she knelt in the chancel of that splendid fane, hearing the flute-like notes of the boy; once more she was conscious of being whirled aloft to ineffable heights. Then she dropped to earth as suddenly, with a vivid realisation that if this sermon had never been preached, she would not be here in this house, the wife of the preacher. With this reflection came a desire to read the sermon. She laid it aside, while she finished the work of replacing the other MSS. Then she closed the desk, and discovered that the lock was hampered. She was wondering whether she ought to seal it, when she remembered that it would be easy to lock up the room. The light was failing, yet the fancy took her that she would like to read her husband's sermon in her own room, overlooking the river as it flowed to the sea.

She went upstairs carrying the MS. in her hand, and sat down. The sun was about to set; and the river ran red, no longer golden. Shadows obscured the city beyond. A mist was stealing up from the east, and the barges floating into it were swallowed up.

Betty unrolled the MS., spread it upon her knee, and began to read. But at the first glance she blinked, as if her eyesight were deceiving her. Then with a muttered exclamation of surprise, she held the sheets of blue foolscap to the light, and examined them attentively. The MS., from beginning to end, was in Mark's handwriting. Here and there words were interpolated or excised. In the margin were her husband's notes, but the MS. was Mark's. What did it mean?

She read it through. Yes: as it was written, so it had been preached, and it had been written by Mark!

Why had she not guessed as much before? She rolled up the MS., tied it with the red tape which the orderly Archibald used, and went downstairs. The only other sermon in Mark's handwriting was the "Purity" sermon, but many were covered with his notes. Again and again a phrase remembered, a thought treasured—because it revealed the man she had chosen as wise, and noble, and good, and therefore justified that choice and silenced any doubts she might have entertained regarding it—stood out as Mark's. Again and again she read some common-place, some compromise, some paragraph which rang false, slashed by Mark's red pencil. Once or twice she held up the sheets, examining closely the condemned passages; smiling derisively as she perceived the violence of protest in the broad, deeply indented excoriations. Suddenly Dibdin appeared, bland but surprised.

"Shall I bring a lamp, M'm?"

"Bring me a basket, Dibdin, and then whistle for a hansom."

She put the sermons into the basket and went back to Cadogan Place, where a cold supper awaited her. The footman told the cook that his mistress had eaten nothing, but had called for a pint of champagne. The cook expressed an opinion that nothing in the world was so upsetting as a "move"; which turned everything and everybody upside down, and produced "squirmishy" feelings inside. Presently Betty's maid went upstairs, and returned with heightened colour. Her mistress, so she reported, was as cross as two sticks.

Betty, indeed, was pacing up and down her bedroom in a fever of indecision and unrest. The husband she had honoured was destroyed. The ghost of him inspired repugnance—a repugnance which found larger room in the new house. The pleasure she had taken in furnishing became pain, inasmuch as not a chintz had been chosen without the reflection that she was recovering what was dingy and discoloured in her life, substituting for the old and worn the fresh and new. And now, in the twinkling of an eye, her good resolutions, her hopes and aims, her readjusted sense of proportion—had vanished. She was in the mood to set ablaze that dainty room in which in fancy she had passed so many happy hours, to tear down and destroy the tissues through which she had looked out upon a future as rose-coloured as they.

She passed a sleepless night, got up feeling and looking wretched, gave her servants certain hasty directions, and drove to Waterloo. In her hand she carried a small bag containing the Westchester and Windsor sermons.

From Weybridge she walked to Myrtle Cottage, and the exercise brought colour into her cheeks. She was sure that she would find Mark in the shelter, so she approached it from the side of the grove, being unwilling to face Mary's clear and possibly curious eyes.

Mark was at his typewriting machine when she saw him, and as usual so absorbed in his task that he never perceived her. Betty reflected that he could not have approached her without her being aware of it, but men surely were fashioned out of clay other than what was used for women.

"Mark!"

He sprang up, with a startled exclamation, and came forwards, holding out both hands.

"What has happened?"

As he spoke her indignation began to ooze from her. Intuition told her that the expression upon Mark's face revealed intense sympathy. Her trouble, whatever it might be, had moved him to the core. Suddenly, a light flickered out of the darkness. For the first time, she saw herself and him alone together, shut off from the world. It came upon her with a shock that she was glad that Mark, not Archibald, had written the sermon. Only he, the lover of her girlish dreams, could have found the words which had stirred her so profoundly. Mark repeated the question, "What has happened?"

"You wrote this?" she cried, holding out the Westchester sermon.

He nodded, realising the fatuity of denial. For a moment they gazed into each other's eyes. Then she said slowly—

"You wrote the 'Purity' sermon?"

"M-m-m-most of it," he admitted reluctantly.

"You have helped him ever since?"

"I have revised some of his work."

"And I never guessed it," she exclaimed passionately. "If I had thought for a moment I must have known that it was you—you—you, not him. Oh, my God, I shall go mad! I married him because you—you had tricked him out in a garment of righteousness! Had you come forward at the eleventh hour and spoken I should have thanked you and blessed you. Why did you hold your tongue—why—why—why?"

"I thought you l-l-loved him," he stammered.

"Loved him?" The scorn in her voice thrilled his pulses. "I loved what he said, which was yours. Why did you not say it yourself?"

"Because," his infirmity gripped him, "I c-c-c-couldn't." Her face softened, and the lines of her figure relaxed.

"It is my fault," she said, gazing at him through tears; "I ought to have guessed."

"Betty"—he had recovered his self-control, now that she was in danger of losing hers—"Betty, I have done you a wrong. I withheld the truth, because truth, faith, love had gone out of my life, blasted by—b-b-by——"

"By me?"

"No—n-n-no."

"By whom?" He paused, and she continued vehemently: "Mark, I want the truth. Nothing else is possible between us. What killed your faith? You have never answered that question. What changed you from the man you were to the man you are?"

"Hate."

She recoiled at the grim word, recoiled, too, from the expression on his face.

"You hated—your brother?" The words fell from quivering lips. He saw that she was about to swoop on the truth he had hidden so long. He was impotent to avert discovery. She came very slowly towards him, her eyes fixed on his. The expression in them bewildered him. She raised both her arms and laid her hands upon his shoulders.

"You hated him. Then you loved—me."

"Always," he answered. "To me you came out of Paradise, and brought the best part of it with you."

"Say it again," she whispered.

"I loved you—always: as child, as boy, as man."

She smiled piteously. "As child, as girl, as woman I have loved—you. And yet loving me like that you could believe that I loved him. Ah, love is blind indeed." She held him with her eyes and hands, speaking softly and quickly: "And because you loved me you gave him what he lacked. That was like you. But did it never strike you that I might find out?"

"Not till too late. Betty, I have behaved like a fool. I gave him that sermon which I would have given my right hand to preach. But I had not foreseen its effect. Having given it, I could not take it back." He went on to describe his breakdown, the scene with Ross and the doctors, the silence which he dared not break, his slow recovery, the renascence of his hopes and their destruction. A dozen times his stammer stopped him, as many times he was made aware that this abhorred weakness bound him the closer to the woman who loved him. When he had finished his story she looked up.

"What shall we do now?" she asked.

Above, the song of the pines rose and fell in melancholy cadence. The day was hot, and would become hotter, but here in this sylvan temple the air flowed in cool and fragrant currents. Mark was silent, reflecting that always he had known this hour would come. From the moment he had read Archibald's letter announcing his engagement, Destiny, with the leer of some hideous gargoyle, had decreed that he should hate his brother and love his brother's wife. Up to the present moment both passions had been controlled and confined. The unforeseen had turned them loose.

"What shall we do now?"

She stood before him absorbed in the love which at last had found expression. What else the world might hold for her was not.

So standing, delicately flushed, but with eyes which neither faltered nor fell beneath his, the daughter of Louise de Courcy awaited Mark's answer.

"You are my brother's wife," he said slowly.

Betty shrugged her shoulders. The gesture, almost piteous in its shrinking protest, moved Mark more than any words she had spoken.

"If—if I asked you, you would come away with me?"

She nodded, meeting his passionate glance, facing, as he did, the issues involved. Her hands moved towards him—timidly, but with unmistakable invitation.

"Betty," he cried, "Betty!"

"Ah! you want me. You do want me—you do, you do!"

"Want you?" his voice broke. Instantly she had seized his hands, drawing him towards her. He held her firmly—at arm's length. In that supreme moment he was perhaps stronger than he had been ever before, inasmuch as the faith which once had fortified him was his no longer, and yet without it, believing in nothing, holding in derision God's law and man's, he resisted her, because he was counting the cost to her. Then, reading his thought, she inclined her head, whispering, "If there is a God, and if he bade me choose between life here with you and life hereafter without you, not being allowed to have both—do you know what I should say?"

"Do not say it," he entreated. His face was so twisted by the consciousness that he was taking advantage of her weakness that she thought he was ill. When he remained rigid, she added gently, "Let us go to some place where my love shall make up to you for every pang you have suffered."

"Stop!" he cried hoarsely. "Apart from our love, you have not considered what this means: to me, the man, nothing; to you the loss of everything which women hold dear. You must not decide rashly—you—must—take—time."

She laughed derisively.

"I will take anything you like, so long as you take me."

He caught her to him, closing her mouth with kisses.

CHAPTER XXXIV

CHARING CROSS

Betty returned alone to London before mid-day. Mark decided to follow by an afternoon train. They had agreed to meet at Charing Cross, to cross that night to Ostend. Then, in some remote corner of the Ardennes, they expected to make plans for the future. The "move," as Betty had pointed out, covered anything that might appear odd to the enlightened Dibdin. Her divided household would understand that she was going to a friend's house for the few hours during which her own bedroom furniture was being shifted.

Mark accompanied her to the station, returning home to pack a portmanteau. What doubts he had entertained were dispersed. He swore that he would look forward, never backward, and found himself whistling as he climbed the hill to the cottage.

In the shelter, the first object that he saw was Betty's handkerchief lying in the corner of a chair. He picked up the small, square piece of cambric and put it to his lips. A faint essence reminded him that fragrance had come again into his life. Then he began to arrange his papers. When Mary came in to arrange the cloth for luncheon, he told her that he was going away for a few days. She expressed no surprise. Why should she? It lay on his tongue's tip to say: "I have been wretched: now I am going to be happy. Let us shake hands!" Watching her moving here and there he was sensible of an impatience, an irritability almost impossible to suppress. Mary subtly conveyed an impression of protest. He told himself that this was absurd. Suddenly her eyes met his.

"What have I done?" she faltered.

"Why, nothing," he answered.

"You were staring at me so queerly," she answered. "The business which takes you away is pleasant, isn't it?"

He smiled reassuringly.

"Connected with your work, I suppose?"

Her curiosity was natural. He always spoke of his work to her.

"No," he said shortly. "It is not. I dare say you think that I could not be really keen about anything or anybody outside of my work. If I told you——"

He closed his lips, wondering why the truth had so nearly leaked from them. His joy had expanded so quickly, that it exacted a larger habitation.

"I have nothing to tell yet," he said confusedly, "but I may write; you shall hear from me; I shall be frank—with you."

He fell into a reverie, as she left the shelter. In a minute she returned.

"There is a gentleman to see you, Mr. Samphire. Shall I bring him here?"

She handed him a card. A cry escaped Mark's lips.

"David!"

The card fell to the ground. For the moment he felt as if some icy finger had been laid upon his heart. He had not seen David since the Crask days. And he had told himself that this old friend had held sorrowfully aloof, because he had divined that intercourse between the faithful and the faithless, between Christian and pagan, would prove (temporarily at least) inexpedient and abortive.

"Please ask his lordship to come here," he said, frowning.

Mary glanced at his face and withdrew. Mark followed her with his eyes as she crossed the pretty garden between the shelter and the cottage. Not a cloud, he noted, obscured the soft azure of the skies; upon all things lay the spell of summer.

"Why has he come?"

Instinctively he armed himself for conflict. It was curious that he associated the Highlander and his strange powers of second sight with the quiet English Mary. The impending fight would be two against one. Good would side with good, although evil might array itself against evil.

These thoughts flitted through his mind as David was advancing. Mark, summoning up a smile of welcome, met his friend, who smiled back, extending both hands.

"Mark," he exclaimed, "I am glad to see you. Thank God, you're well."

"And stronger than I ever was in my life," said Mark. "You'll lunch with me, David. I must go to town this afternoon, but we can have an hour together."

"I must go to town too," replied David. "You look a different man, Mark."

"I am a different man."

David followed him into the shelter and sat down, with a puzzled glance at his surroundings. During luncheon both men were conscious of a new and disagreeable sense of restraint.

"Have you another novel on the stocks?"

"Yes."

David jumped up, eager, vigorous, impetuous.

"I have come a long way out of my road to ask you a question."

"Ask it," said Mark.

"When are you coming back to us?"

"Can God only be served in cassock and surplice?"

"You evade my question," said David. "Mark, I have had the feeling that you were in trouble: ill, dying perhaps. I—I had to come to you. But I find you a strong man, and "—he glanced round at the pleasant garden—"and wasting time. Don't mistake me! You have been working hard, no doubt, but at work which others can do as well. You have recovered your health and——"

"Go on."

"The work God intended you to do is being left undone," said David. "Why?"

"If we are to remain friends, David, you had better not press this question."

"If we are to remain friends, I must. You have resigned a stupendous responsibility—why?"

"Shall we say—incapacity to administer it?"

"Give me the true reason."

"Can't you divine it?"

"I have divined it," said David, after a long pause. "You sneer at a gift which is given to few; but you, of all men, ought to know that it has been given to me. And I have divined more. I know that you are on the edge of an abyss which may engulf you and another."

"You have divined that?"

The sneer had left him; amazement, incredulity took its place. David must have heard some idle rumour. He asked him at once if it were not so.

"I have heard nothing."

"On your oath?"

"Certainly—if you wish it."

Mark paced the length of the shelter; then he turned and approached David, who was watching him. When less than a yard separated them Mark stood still and pulled his watch from his pocket.

"It is now two o'clock," he said. "At half-past six this afternoon I meet the woman I love and who loves me at Charing Cross. To-night—we leave England—together."

The relief of speech was immense, but with this, and dominating it, was the fierce desire to confront David with the truth, to invite his arguments, so as to trample on them.

David said hoarsely: "The woman is your brother's wife. You—you—Mark Samphire, the man I thought so strong, will do this shameful thing? Impossible!"

Mark laughed.

"I'm going to speak plainly, David. For the first and last time I mean to let myself r-r-rip!" He drew in his breath sharply. "You shall see me as I am. I appeal not to the Bishop, not to my old friend of the Mission, but to a more merciful judge than either—a man of flesh and blood."

He paused, frowning, trying to compose, to marshal his thoughts. Then he began quietly, exercising restraint at first, but using increasing emphasis of word and intonation as he proceeded.

"You say it is impossible that Mark Samphire should do this thing. Strange! You have intelligence, sympathy, intuition. Impossible! Oh, the parrot cry of the slave of convention and tradition, of the worshipper of his own graven images, bowing down before them, unable to look beyond the tiny circle wherein he moves and thinks. Impossible, you say? Impossible for Mark Samphire to run away with his brother's wife!"

"Incredible then," Ross interrupted.

"Incredible. It's incredible you should use such a word with your experience. Can't you realise that the same strength which made me struggle up towards what you call good or God is driving me as relentlessly down the other road? I am not the Mark Samphire of the Mission days, but the Mark Samphire who came from Ben Caryll knowing that if he had met his brother alone upon that mountain he would have killed him, or been killed by him. And having felt that, do you think I would stick at running away with his wife?"

His tone was so bitterly contemptuous that Ross could only stammer out: "I have never understood why such love as you bore him turned to such hate."

"Let your God answer that question. As man to man I swear to you that my brother's extraordinary success in everything we undertook together, and my own failure, did not sour me. I grudged him nothing—except her. And I could have let her go to any other. I tell you, David, I've been tried too high. The irony of fate has been too much for me. A time comes to the stoutest runner when he falls. Then the fellows who have been ambling along behind trot past blandly complacent. They are not first, but they are not last. The man who might have been first is last. I fell at a fence too big for me—and I broke my neck. We've said enough, too much, about that, but the fact that I could love as few love ought to be proof to you that my hate would be as strong."

Ross saw that he was trembling violently.

"If you had written to her——"

"If? That 'if' is crucifixion. Yes; yes; if I had written one line, whistled one note, held up one finger—she would have come to me. But then hope had scarcely budded. My life was so pitiful, so frail a thing to offer. And, voluntarily, she had engaged herself to him. He had won her, as he had won everything else——"

"Fairly."

"No. Not fairly."

Briefly, but in vehement words, Mark told the story of the sermons, concluding with Betty's discovery of the truth.

"And now," he demanded, stretching out his shaking hands, "do you see the real Mark Samphire? Is your finger on the pulse of a poor wretch who tried to do his duty and—here's the rub, David—who was punished the more heavily on that account? If I had played the world's game, Betty would be my wife. Archibald would be still minor canon of Westchester."

Ross took the outstretched hands.

"My poor Mark," he murmured.

"Thanks, David; but don't pity me! I envy no man living. You have listened to my story, patiently. One thing more remains to be said. If Betty had not discovered the truth, I could have held aloof from her to the end. On her account, not because she was my brother's wife, I respected the law. But now," his voice was triumphant, "she wants me. Do you hear? She wants me. I'm necessary to her. And because of that, and for no baser reason, I am going to her—to-night."

Ross met his eyes.

"In a word," said he, "you refuse to protect the woman you love against herself?"

"Once, I should have used that very phrase. What an ocean flows between us, David!"

"In six months," continued Ross, "you and she will be tormented in a hell of your own making. There are men and women, thousands of them, who can steep themselves in the life of the senses. You are not of them, Mark, nor ever will be; nor is she."

Mark smiled derisively.

"She and I," he retorted, "are two of the myriad insects crawling upon one of a million worlds. Something within both of us bids us make the most of our hour. We shall do so. You mean well, David, but you rack me—you rack me. Go!"

"So be it," said David.

As he was turning, Mark clutched his sleeve. An expression in David's eyes—the expression which refuses to acknowledge defeat, which indicates unknown resources—alarmed him.

"You are not going to Archibald," he said hoarsely.

David's face was twitching with emotion, but his voice was firm and even.

"You must know where I am going," he said simply. "I have failed—through my own weakness—as I have failed before, as I shall fail again and again, but I believe that He, whose help I am about to implore, will not fail. You will not leave England to-night."

When Mark looked up the speaker was gone.

During the next hour preparations for the journey occupied his attention. But after his portmanteau was strapped and a fly had been ordered to take him to the station, nearly an hour remained. Mark went into the grove and flung himself at length upon the soft carpet woven by the singing pines. He closed his eyes, invoking the alluring image of Betty. Instantly she came with outstretched hands and shining eyes, but between them, a grim and sombre figure, knelt David Ross, his face upturned in supplication. Mark found himself straining his ears to catch the words of the prayer, but they escaped, fleeting upward whither he dared not follow them.

Presently he seemed to hear voices other than David's, and like his inarticulate, although familiar. In his room at the Mission he had often listened to such voices. What man of ethereal attributes has not? But since that night on Ben Caryll these sounds had ceased.

He told himself, irritably, that once again he had fallen a victim to nervous imaginings, echoes of the material world rather than spiritual communications. Barger had told him that it was easy—given certain purely physical conditions—to hypnotise oneself, to sink into a subconscious coma vibrant with sensations and sounds subject to scientific analysis. But even Barger had never denied the transcendental gift of David Ross, even Barger believed firmly in the Seer of Brahan, whose predictions concerning the Seaforth Mackenzies had been verified so marvellously.

It was impossible to ignore the coincidence of David's visits. Twice David had sought him out, when he was in sore straits.

At whose bidding?

The question could not be exorcised by sneer or sophism. Mark had compared himself to an insect, a metaphor used ten thousand times by the agnostic school and properly, since none other is more expressive of the insignificance and ephemeral nature of man's body in relation to the universe. None the less Mark was aware that moral or spiritual facts, as a writer puts it, have no relation whatever to physical size, and that a man's soul can no more be measured with a yardstick than the cardinal virtues.

At whose bidding had David Ross been sent?

He travelled to London by a train which reached Waterloo just after five. As he neared the city his mood changed from one of doubt and perplexity to reckless satisfaction. The hansom which took him to Charing Cross passed over Waterloo Bridge and down the Strand, always crowded at that hour of the afternoon. Twice the hansom was stopped by the uplifted hand of a policeman. Each time it drew up opposite a bar to which thirsty souls were hurrying. Mark's ears could catch the sound of ice tinkling in long tumblers. Corks were popping intermittently. A woman's laugh rang out above the buzz of innumerable voices. Mark stared at the faces of the foot-passengers. Most of the men were returning from work. An air of relaxation informed them. The day had been insufferably hot, but now a breeze from the river was flooding the streets, deliciously cool, astringent, tonic.

The hansom turned in at the station gates, and a moment later a porter was asking Mark his destination. Mark gave the man instructions as he handed the cabby a florin.

"Thank ye, sir. 'Oliday times, sir."

"Yes," said Mark, smiling. All round him were men and women, hard-working Londoners, about to escape into the country or to the seashore after a year's unremitting grind. The great summer exodus was now at its height. Some of the humbler folk carried articles wherewith to beguile the leisure hours: musical instruments, shrimping-nets, spades and buckets, telescopes, and the inevitable hamper of food.

Mark, with time to spare after he had made arrangements for a coupé to Dover, caught the contagion of excitement and gaiety, and could enter into the feelings of an octogenarian who was renewing his youth by playing a penny whistle. Couples were numerous as birds in pairing-time. Mark looked at these with sympathetic interest. They drifted by, pair after pair, an eternal procession of Jacks and Jills. It struck Mark, not for the first time, that these couples were very youthful. And he felt that Betty and he shared their youth, that they had not waited too long. Presently a man of his own class approached, peering eagerly to right and left, consulting first his watch, and then the great clock. Mark watched him and followed him. The man was excited and nervous. Suddenly his face brightened; he ran forward, with both hands extended. "You have come at last," Mark heard him say. A pretty girl, her face suffused with blushes, murmured something, and the man answered hoarsely, "If you had chucked me, I should have cut my throat." Then they passed, arm in arm, laughing and chattering, into the crowd and out of sight. Mark looked at his watch. In less than ten minutes Betty would be here; she also would blush and smile; her hand would be on his arm; and together they would pass out of the noise and confusion into sweet, secluded spaces beyond!

His train backed into the station, and passengers began to take their places. Mark made sure that his coupé was reserved for him, but he would not allow the porter to put his traps into it.

"I am expecting a friend," he said; and the porter grinned. He walked back to the trysting-place under the clock, one of half a dozen who had agreed to meet beneath it. Overhead, the great dial recorded the flight of time with inexorable, inhuman deliberation. Mark was fascinated by the minute hand, creeping on and on, nearing the appointed hour. Betty was running things rather fine, he reflected. In less than seven minutes the train would be despatched.

Five minutes more glided by. The discordant noises of the station fell like the boom of distant breakers upon an ear attuned to the sound of one voice which out of all the voices in the universe was now mute. The porter approached, anxious and insistent. Mark stammered out a score of questions. The porter shook his head dismally.

"She must come," said Mark harshly.

As if in derisive answer, the locomotive of the train about to start whistled. Doors banged. The long line of carriages began to move.

"'Ere she is," said the porter phlegmatically.

Mark turned with thrilling pulses. A woman had rushed up to him, out of breath and scarlet in the face. That she had missed her train, and was distressed inconceivably, no one could doubt; but she was not Betty. Mark could have struck her. She stared stupidly at the vanishing train.

"It's gone," she said.

"Yes," said Mark grimly.

He turned from her to meet the inquisitive stare of a messenger boy. The boy stared unblinking, and then said, "You're Mr. Samphire?"

"Yes," said Mark.

"I'm to give you this."

He held out a letter. Mark took it, broke the seal, and read it, unmindful of porter and boy, who exchanged glances and winks; then he turned to the porter.

"Put my things into a hansom," he said in a dull voice.

"Yes, sir," said the porter.

The boy took one more look at Mark.

"That was a knock-out," he murmured to himself, "a knock-out—sure!"

CHAPTER XXXV

CHRYSOSTOM RETURNS TO CHELSEA

Betty returned to Cadogan Place, conscious of an extraordinary buoyancy of spirit, of a gaiety even which made her demure maid stare. "Getting out o' this dirty old house makes you laugh, ma'am," she remarked.