Front matter (continued 3)

Cummings waited.

"I feel like a rat in a cage sometimes," said Evelyn passionately. "I gnaw a bar of my cage and make a passage, and then I'm put into another cage with stronger bars and told to stay there."

"Come to the light," said Cummings. "Yes, I thought so. You're overwrought and overdone. Well, I say to you as I should say to any other woman, 'Go away.' Remember the accommodation muscles of one's soul need rest just like those of one's eyes. Their focus gets strained too. And there's another point." He hesitated for a moment. This was hard to say under the circumstances, knowing Brand as he did. "Something about marriage. Remember that marriage garments have to be fitted like any others; they don't always suit at the first trial or the last; but, unlike other clothes, you may neither sell them nor give them away."

He turned away. His window opened on to a narrow side-street; a hawker selling decayed vegetables and flowers was calling his wares a few doors away. Children, playing hop-scotch on the pavement below, wrangled and screamed over the game. From the Western Road came the jar and clatter of motor omnibuses. Everything was noisy and turbulent.

"So I'm to go away," Evelyn said at last, blankly, drawing a deep breath. "That's your decision. Well, I suppose you're right. The real country must be very sweet now. Late the other night, coming back from Weybridge, we stopped by the bridge to hear the nightingales in the woods, just about midnight. I know a tiny cottage where I can go quite by myself and be rural. There's a farm near which is kept by the kindest, fattest woman I've ever seen—just like a very amiable porpoise. She has cows and poultry, and once she let me try to milk a cow. It took me a quarter of an hour even to get the bottom of the pail damp. Suppose I go there later, Jack? There's a big meeting at the Albert Hall next week, which I've absolutely promised to do some work for, and go to."

"Take your cottage, by all means, but please have mercy on the cows," said Cummings. "You'll get off as soon as you can, won't you?"

They stood for a moment looking at each other—friends whose paths might probably never cross again. Then Evelyn went out with bent head. Cummings watched her go. When she was out of sight he made the sign of the cross and sat down wearily in his chair.

CHAPTER IX

"A woman wishes and believes; a man wills and achieves. The wish of the woman ripens into a faith; the will of the man hardens into a fact."—J. S. BLACKIE.

From floor to ceiling the Albert Hall, which normally contains ten thousand people, was packed to overflowing.

Tickets for the great Tariff Reform Demonstration had been begged, borrowed and bargained for; it was said that a newly made peer had given a hundred guineas for a box. Orderly files of subdued men and women—the prevailing characteristics of an English crowd are melancholy and dejection—stretched spirally like a huge serpent, outside each separate door, awaiting the remote chance of returned seats. Hawkers had pursued them to the edge of the barrier, chaffing them and harassing them with a motley row of wares—gaudy painted flags and ribbon badges, highly coloured and totally unreliable programmes of the evening's performance, printed on coarse handkerchiefs, Japanese fans and cheap scent, photographs of the leading members of the League, postcard views of their homes and pets, sticks of chocolate, strips of gay-coloured tissue papers tied together with string and known to the initiated as "ticklers." It was a typical crowd except for its magnitude: street loafer, cab-runner, British workman, bank clerk and wide-eyed child who never stopped eating oranges, the suburban man of business with his family, the socialist reformer whose personal habits made his immediate neighbourhood unwholesome, the cynic who complained aloud of his own special wrongs and the evils of the Empire, the people's orator who swelled with importance and big words, and spoke with patronage of the King—all were there.

The night was still young, and the policemen, still good-natured, bore with patience the ceaseless effort of the crowd to break down the barriers. Again and again they piloted such privileged beings as had tickets through the seething, jostling lines of massed humanity; no easy matter, in view of momentarily increasing numbers. Good-natured still, they bore the banter and abuse of the great army of the ticketless as the crowd swayed to and fro with love of excitement, that strange passion for "seeing things"—from however uncomfortable a position—which stirs most human breasts.

"London may have its ten men or its million on the brink of absolute starvation, but while the half-penny papers exist, it can count upon a given number of spectators wasting hour after hour of idleness outside any public building where an important function is in progress," said Lady Wereminster, arriving early.

Inside the hall itself, the brilliant gas-jets lit a brilliant throng.

The gallery was packed so closely as to suggest a probable need of the nursing sisters and ambulances outside—now and again a solitary figure in the background, man or woman, was lifted upon the shoulders of the person in front to catch a momentary glimpse of the hall below. But nearly everywhere, spaces accustomed to hold one as a rule held two on this occasion; in the body of the hall whole extra rows of stalls were added. The padded arm-chairs in the boxes had been taken out and cane seats substituted, and in the larger boxes so many as twenty or thirty people were assembled. Amongst these were some of the most notable and distinguished men in England. Statesmen, diplomats, men who had helped to uphold or save their country, bishops, admirals, generals, explorers, war-correspondents, critics, leaders of society and commerce. Many women were in evening dress; some wore jewels. Lady Wereminster was holding a reception afterwards to meet the chief speakers of the Tariff Reform League.

Almost every opera-glass was focussed upon the central platform where the Executive Committee sat with their friends, eight rows of them all told, each member of whom was notable in his own line, and could be recognized by the man in the street, even without the aid of the printed programme. The entrance of many more immediately prominent than others had been cheered, but, except when the organ pealed out its jubilant marches or national songs, at intervals, during the assembling of the meeting, the tension was so great that hardly a sound or movement broke it.

Evelyn, leaning forward in her box, with quickened breath and leaping pulses, wondered if, with the exception of the four great functions of the century, a more impressive sight had ever been seen in England. For like the Jubilee and Coronation and the passing of the quiet dead, this was essentially a "one man's show."

Unmoved, and with absolute composure, the veteran leader made his triumphal entry in the midst of men and women who had for once lost all their national calm, whose senses were wrought up to the highest pitch of almost frenzied welcome, whose enthusiasm echoed in cheers so loud that the great building seemed to rock in sympathy. The storm of feeling swept alike from stall to gallery in a wild rush of gesticulation and movement, so that in every part of the house there was a confused blur of white waving arms, of fluttering handkerchiefs and lace scarves, of flags and banners floating triumphantly in welcome. There is still a heartier ring in British cheers than in those of any other nation, although they come but seldom.

The moment was over, men and women sat back in their places, physically spent, and a gasp of relief came simultaneously from the hall. Much the same note broke from the men who reached the summit of Dargai, with ranks thinned and broken by the enemy's rolling stones and concentrated fire; one hears such a sound sometimes from a woman who looks upon her child for the first time. Then the audience began to settle down to its practical work of the night.

There was a mighty rustling of papers while the agenda was examined by some twenty thousand persons at the same moment.

The chairman's opening speech was brief. He left them, he said, to the care of the man who had their interests at heart; a man whose aim was to keep British factories in England, to give to her sons of the Colonies, who had so lately fought and bled for her in South Africa, a preference in trade above that offered to foreign nations whose secret ambition was to lower our flag and dim our glory. He called upon "the man of the evening" to speak; cheers followed. A moment later "the man of the evening" was upon his feet.

His first words justified the presence of the great audience. One of his hearers heard them with sickening dread. One by one, straight and to the point, the telling phrases fell, delivered in a quiet voice that carried even to the gallery, as fiery comments from that quarter testified. As an Imperialist, Evelyn rejoiced; the speech was historic, it would live: but as a woman, her heart fell, aware, as only the sensitive are aware, of every point the great leader made and how he made it.

What remote chance had Farquharson of making his mark to-night? The ground was being cut under his feet. How hard to follow on an expert speech like this, which seemed to say all that could be said, which dealt sharply and subtly with every argument against Protection in a voice that became ever the gentler and more penetrating after the characteristic pause which, to one versed in the ways of public speakers, invariably heralded some especially telling or sarcastic phrase.

Farquharson was to second an important resolution which followed the great Fiscal Reformer's speech, a resolution which Beadon was to propose. The Leader of the Opposition had pleaded influenza as an excuse for dealing with the subject very tersely, and leaving its actual explanation to a man who, should he win his political spurs to-night, would be his colleague in the House. He was giving Farquharson his chance in every sense of the word for Evelyn's sake.

And now the long-looked-for moment had come, and she trembled. That critical crowd! So eager to thrust at the one weak point in the armour even of its own knights. How would Farquharson face it? He had told her that he did not excel especially in public speaking; what if he failed? And why—why did it matter so to her of all people?

Beadon could always be relied upon to amuse his audience. He did not attempt to meet his leader on his own ground; the aim of his brief speech seemed to be merely to lighten the tension which succeeded the conclusion of the former speech, given in words of solemn warning, rendered the more intense in view of the speaker's having appeared so little in public of late years.

As the Leader of the Opposition took his seat a pleasurable flutter of anticipation moved the audience. Like women at a bargain sale, they eagerly watched the advent of the latest novelty. Hare, well to the fore amongst the critics, raised his field-glasses towards the platform. In the arena there was a little hum of expectation. Even the reporters below the platform laid their fountain pens and pencils down to stare up half in curiosity, half in interest, wondering what signs of nervousness the administrator of a place which had never been heard of until ten years ago would show as he rose to confront the largest concourse of people he had addressed, amidst the perfunctory applause of a few friends.

But there were no signs of nervousness to detect in Farquharson's assured step as he moved forward or in the glance he flashed over the hall. He had himself in hand from the first. So much Evelyn could see. Not a movement, not a tremor betrayed his emotion, yet the emotion was there, she knew. She knew that his heart beat to it; that, as before the eyes of a drowning man, a vision of past and present opened before him as he looked down upon the audience.

Evelyn caught her breath. Only once before had this wave of absolute momentary unconsciousness swept over her, leaving behind a definite physical sensation as though every drop of blood had ebbed from her body and the little torch of life was flickering out. All was dark. For the moment she heard nothing and saw nothing and could do nothing but pray. All her remaining will seemed concentrated on one point, a frantic appeal to God that this man, to whom it meant so much, and who had no near kith or kin at hand to ask for him, should do his best, that the crisis should prove no crisis at all, but triumph.

The wave of faintness passed; presently, out of a tangled confusion of sound she distinguished the notes of a voice familiar and yet strange, a voice whose magnetism seemed to have drawn every soul in the hall to one central spot on the platform. Her tired brain righted itself by sheer strength of will. She meant to notice every detail; next morning he would expect her to know just what portions of his speech had told, how the crowd had taken this and that dubious point. She called up every faculty of criticism and judgment in view of his demand, weighing and balancing, like an opponent, the new line Farquharson had taken, his methods, his choice of language, his rare actions—not with those of the average politician, not even with an acknowledged master of debate like Beadon, but with the orator of the evening, the man who, since Gladstone's death, had been known as the best speaker in the House of Commons.

And as she listened her thoughts swept back to all that she had read of other statesmen—Pitt, Burke, Peel, Palmerston, Bright, Cobden, Disraeli and Gladstone—men whose names lived still in England, and would live for ever. For Farquharson beat his leader. His was the real gift of oratory, form combined with substance, a flow of eloquence and imagination kept in check by reason—the Heaven-sent inspiration which comes, perhaps, to half-a-dozen men within the century. His audience did not applaud—applause would have interrupted. They listened spell-bound, every thought given up to the quiet figure on the platform, who made use neither of sensational phrase nor dramatic gesture, but held them by sheer force of brain and personality, as he marshalled an array of facts against which there seemed to be no appeal.

"The mantle of Elijah..." said Lady Wereminster below her breath. But Evelyn did not answer. Through her opera-glasses she saw the tears of pride on Calvert's cheeks and Creagh's delighted expression—"Wasn't I right this time, you fellows?" she could almost hear him say. There was a tender smile on Hare's face as he turned in Evelyn's direction and nodded, bringing the palms of his hands together in noiseless applause at the same time. And she saw more still. A wonderful light had leapt in Farquharson's eyes as he bowed his acknowledgments; the light which, having once seen, no woman can mistake, as he looked straight at her and through her, as though laying his triumph at her feet.

There was a voice in her ear.

"Ex-cel-lent," whispered Brand. "You've done very well, my dear. I'll make it worth your while." He stooped down and patted the disarranged lace of her fichu with the air of a proprietor. "I saw that look. There's not much I don't see, you know. But I'm an amenable husband, and won't interfere; indeed, if you go on playing your hand as well as you're playing it now, I shall have nothing to complain of. Whatever happens, you are to keep in with Farquharson—do you hear? Whatever happens, mind!"

Lady Wereminster looked down ruefully at her glove. She had herself in hand again.

"Good gracious, look at that. Split right across, my dear, with all this clapping. How my maid will scold me! She ran about all over London for them, trying to match the colour of my gown, and in the end we had to order them from Paris. As for that young man, he's wonderful. The eighth wonder of the world—he must have escaped direct from Ephesus. I only hope his head won't be turned after this. Why, Evelyn, what's the matter?" She turned to a young King's messenger at her side. "Here, help Mr. Brand to get his wife out of the box; she's fainting."

"Indeed, no; I've never fainted properly in all my life," said Evelyn. But she went outside obediently, summoning wit and courage to her aid. The air was cooler there, the platform hidden. She laughed and talked with the others while Brand waited on her assiduously, the image of a devoted husband, plying her in turn with smelling salts and scent, and Dora Beadon's ever-ready fan.

But her thoughts were turbulent; the scruple was no scruple now, but visible danger. A thousand dreads and terrors shaped themselves before her, ghosts of the past, and newer and more terrible phantoms. How far could she trust herself—how far trust him? Then, too, she had looked into a man's heart that night—her husband's; even she, who forgave much, would never forget what she had seen. Cummings was right, she must go at once; escape for a time at least from the hideous knowledge of what her husband was, more clearly defined now than ever before. And meantime and afterwards she must go on living with him, must show herself in public beside him as his possession, must return with him that very night to West Kensington to share his bed and board. She must suffer all, must bear all, insults, wrongs bodily and mental, bracing will and spirit, nerving her frailty to meet such horrors as convention called upon her to endure.

This was life, this was duty; this stern uncompromising Catholic ideal of marriage, the Sacrament. It was not true, it was not true! Those whom God had joined together were joined for all eternity, but what had God had to do with her own and many another such marriage?

CHAPTER X

"Faith is required of thee ... not understanding."—THOMAS À KEMPIS.

Public praise does not always come to him who has legitimately earned it. A man gives his life to extend the commercial resources of his native town, and hears the devotion and sacrifice of some man of means who has just presented a handsome donation to the fund openly acclaimed at local meetings. By twelve o'clock next day the steps of No. 50 Carlton House Terrace were besieged by a crowd of district messengers and telegraph boys with an array of communications for Miss Beadon. Everybody believed her to be the one behind Farquharson's success of the previous evening, and Dora was the last woman in the world to deny a rumour so obviously to her advantage. Indeed, by the time she had mastered the contents of all her numerous congratulations, she had persuaded herself that the young man owed his appearance on the Albert Hall platform to her, and to her alone.

And now she set to work seriously to weigh the pros and cons of the situation. Miss Beadon, remember, was no longer a débutante. She realized that her name had appeared sufficiently often in daily papers with the same prefix. There is a limit to public credulity—it is difficult to believe that one woman has refused every eligible suitor in the marriage market. But Miss Beadon had still to find that convenient person who would add to, instead of detracting from, her present position.

Farquharson, who, virile and determined, had a fighting spirit and a great capacity for work, seemed to solve the problem. Dora realized that to gain her point she must lay siege to Farquharson before his position was established. She had heard her father and other ex-ministers talk openly of his talents; had heard the wildest predictions of infatuated women taken seriously even by men like Hare and Creagh.

If she were ever to hold him, the chain must be forged soon. But how to deal with such a man? Dora had, of course, no doubt as to her personal charms, but Farquharson was a misogynist. He had made as many enemies as friends by his aloofness. So ordinary wiles and ruses would probably leave him cold, and she must summon stronger forces to her aid. Her father was naturally the trump-card in her hand; moral suasion or dissuasion, in politics, is often a synonym of social blackmail.

Evelyn must be confided in, naturally,—one went to Evelyn for sympathy as one went to Paquin for frocks—both supplied "the superior article." Evelyn, all the same, had done her best to commandeer Farquharson—Dora supposed he pitied her. The Brands were so very badly off. There could be no question of rivalry, of course, where Evelyn was concerned; nor was Dora likely to be jealous. Even had Evelyn not been married and a Catholic, one is not jealous of a woman who has to go through the season with three frocks, and turn last winter's gowns, Miss Beadon mused. Evelyn had a tiresome knack of pandering to men's vanity, though—or why should they all combine to rave so idiotically about her?

Only the generous appreciate generosity. And gratitude is an ephemeral bloom which flowers in too few gardens.

The capture of Farquharson—from a different aspect—was the object of Brand's thoughts too. Eminently practical, he was the first to acknowledge what a mistake he had made the night before. If he knew Evelyn at all, she would avoid Farquharson for the future; religious women were like that—they always ran off at a tangent when you tried to pull them up. Somehow or other she must be conciliated; must be made to meet the man again on some plea impossible to withstand.

Appeal to Evelyn's love of help and you won her at once. Unluckily, in the present instance Farquharson seemed rather in the way of conferring than of receiving favours. Other means must be used, as powerful, if less obvious.

It was precisely at this crisis in his thoughts that, sauntering slowly in the direction of Hyde Park Corner, Brand came face to face with Dora Beadon.

Farquharson's pressure of work, which had been rapidly increasing for the last few days, came to a climax on the morning after the Albert Hall meeting. Acquaintances with whose name he was scarcely familiar telegraphed congratulations; his friends thronged to his flat in relays. The Taornian Council cabled a long code message; the Stock Exchange and Wall Street felt the movement. His secretaries were kept so busily employed that he was forced to send his valet with a handful of notes to interview the representatives of the less important Press, who had been found upon his doorstep with the morning milk.

But Farquharson was not openly exhilarated or depressed. He was too sure of himself to be easily surprised. Last night his pulses had beaten a trifle quicker, of course; conflict braced him. But it was the pride of moving men, not doubt of his ability to move them, which thrilled him. The Albert Hall meeting was a matter of course; a thing he had worked for, and planned. Christmas Day falls on the 25th of December; he was as certain of his success as that the festival would not be altered.

Calvert, entering his room at the luncheon hour, found him cool and collected, absolutely unruffled by events which might legitimately have stirred him.

So busy was he that it was not until comparatively late in the afternoon that he had time to think of Evelyn. Perhaps he took her rather for granted, too. His faith, after all, was based on surer reasons than the average man's trust; he had proved her loyalty and endurance more in a month than most men would in a lifetime. From her alone of his friends there was no morning greeting, but he was not disappointed. Even in small matters it was impossible to mistake her. He was to dine that evening at the Brands'; she would tell him then what she could scarcely say in a letter.

The last few weeks had altered him more than he knew. Between him and Calvert there was now a sympathy and tenderness which had never existed in Taorna. Farquharson had been a machine then, a magnificent machine which could be relied upon to produce the best work—nothing more. Now he was human.

Too human, probably, he thought suddenly, realizing in a flash how his work was tending to the moment when he would reach the Brands'. "Peace after Toyle" was what Evelyn brought, absolute rest of mind and body. A dangerous quality to come in contact with when it belonged to the wife of one's neighbour.

For primitive man may be awakened in even the most hardened diplomatist. And Farquharson was not naturally hard. Love of victory, too, counts—the spirit which makes a man want to carry off the woman he loves in face of danger, and put her before him on his horse and look back laughing with bullets whizzing about them, and a precipice ahead, for sheer love of devilry and adventure and desire to possess the thing he wants.

To Evelyn, counting the hours till dawn, and saddened when dawn came because it brought the parting of the ways, it seemed that life, so broad and beautiful only yesterday, had narrowed again into the old grey road without a turning. All that had made life so sweet lately must go now: the little plans, the little projects to help Farquharson, their daily meetings, ...; all that had brought colour into the monotonous road, had made it fragrant and glowing—how fragrant, how glowing she had never realized till now when she must make up her mind to stand aside for evermore; hardest of all, perhaps, possibly to watch another woman in her place.

For she could no longer cheat herself with half-truths, and talk of vanity and imagination. Last night the very beating of her heart betrayed her. In the strange inconsequence of memory, her mind went back to five years before, when two Glasgow engineers, who were building a temporary bridge at Comrie, talked slightingly in her presence of "little Highland burns," when wise men of the neighbourhood told them that their bridge was built too low, and that they had not allowed for the rising of the floods. For those same little burns took counsel together, biding their time, waiting until a night when all was still, when they suddenly drew the forces of the mountain and swept down the hillside in a mighty torrent, gathering strength as they went, carrying all before them, undismayed, until at last they reached the temporary bridge and tore it from its moorings, to play with it in mid-stream as children play with a broken fragment of wood.

So love, once recognized, sweeps all before it, honour, loyalty, faith, a torrent that nothing can withstand, nothing compel or alter but the will of God....

A little book lay open on her writing-table, a frequent companion. It had comforted her before; she wanted comfort now. She opened it at random, and her eyes fell on these words—

"To be fully satisfied shall not be granted thee.... Be valiant in doing as well as suffering things repugnant to nature.... Do that which is against thy inclination and let alone that which thou art inclined to. That which is pleasing to others shall go forward; that thou would'st have shall not succeed. Others shall ask and shall succeed. Thou shalt ask and not obtain."

"Others shall ask and shall succeed." That sounded like Farquharson. "Thou shalt ask and not obtain." Was that herself—an omen of the future?

She took up her pen to write a note postponing Farquharson's visit that evening. For once she must run counter to her husband's interests; she was in a mood to welcome even the physical roughness with which he was wont to meet her failures to obey him. Just then he entered with a letter, a pencilled note obviously scrawled with great rapidity upon a visiting-card of Dora Beadon's, enclosed in an envelope.

"I met Miss Beadon just now in the street," Brand said. "She asked me to give you this. She said it was very important, and that she wanted a reply at once by wire."

He watched her closely as she read the letter.

It was short and to the point—

"DEAREST EVELYN,

"Will you help me? I have asked the one man in the world I want to meet to dine with us to-night, and he has declined on the score of going to you. Do not suggest putting him off—he will guess that I have asked you. But will you have me too? You have often told me that I ought to marry—well, I've met the one man in the world who could persuade me, and I owe it all to you.

"Evelyn, you must! I count on you.

"D.B."

"She wants the answer now?" Evelyn repeated dazedly. She put her hand to her head. Calvert's little gesture on the opera night came back to her; a thousand trivial incidents which pointed the way to further possibilities of intimacy between Dora and Farquharson.

"Here's a telegraph form," said Brand. He pushed it towards her, tapping impatiently on the floor. "Well, what are you waiting for? I thought you were a woman of decision."

"Miss Beadon wants to dine here to-night," said Evelyn slowly. The words were wrung from her. Was this the solution of the problem? It was so difficult to judge. She had not meant to see Farquharson again before she left town, but now——

"You are to accept," said Brand, with his hand heavy on her shoulder. "To accept—do you hear?"

He stood waiting as she wrote her answer, noticing the hesitating, illegible scrawl, that was so utterly unlike Evelyn's usual firm hand.

"Miss Beadon, 50 Carlton House Terrace, Shall expect you to-night at eight o'clock.—EVELYN."

"Good!" he said jubilantly. He took up his hat. "I'll take it myself. Clever woman! We're getting thoroughly well in with the Beadons. Miss Dora's a nice girl, too. What a match she'd be for a man who's starting in his career. She'd get him to the top of the tree in half the time it would take any one else."

He left the room whistling. Evelyn, alone, sat on idly at her table, her hands resting upon the book of telegraph forms. Well, she had had her day, a perfect one. No one could take that from her. But there was to-morrow to face, and all the to-morrows still to come.

CHAPTER XI

"Whether you be men or women you will never do anything in the world without courage. It is the greatest quality of the mind—next to honour."—J. L. ALLEN.

Lady Wereminster put up her lorgnette and looked round Evelyn's cheerful little sitting-room at Bramley with intense dissatisfaction.

"Comfortable in its way, yes. But, my dear child, why on earth should you come to such a dull place in the height of the season? You must have had some reason for it. Illness, economy? You are not a woman of moods to do things purposelessly or in a temper. And to go away and leave no address too! I tell you every one's talking about it. The charm of the country indeed! The world won't swallow that. It only looks upon the country as a means of wearing a different set of smart clothes, that's all. And you yourself have always waited until August to go to the country until now.

"I wish you were not so reserved, Evelyn. You've made enemies, you know; women like you always do. You know they say that in a successful play an audience has to be taken into the author's confidence from the first act. Well, the world's like an audience, and wants to know one's secrets too. (It'll betray them at the first opportunity, but no matter.) It doesn't understand you. It calls itself Christian, but it sees Christian principles so seldom that when it comes across them it suspects their probity at once. When it meets a person who helps others for the sheer love of giving help, like you, it says, 'Hallo, there's something behind this; I must set to work at once and rout it out!' And on it switches its most powerful flashlight of envy and malice.

"Don't contradict me, my dear. When I was young I believed I knew better than any one else, and now I'm sure of it. If I hadn't learnt something of life by seventy-five, I should be a fool. You're quixotic, and quixotry is out of date. Now-a-days we only take trouble because we want to get on, to fill our pockets, or be advertised. Politics—art—we try to excel in these because it will make people talk of us. As for charity——! In nine cases out of ten charity is the refuge of the uncharitable—the means by which elderly spinsters and widows of no social importance foist themselves on the notice of a public which would never have heard of them under any other circumstances, and delude themselves in the belief that they are personages."

"I wish you'd have some lunch or something," said Evelyn blankly; "you'd feel ever so much better then."

Lady Wereminster chuckled.

"A polite way of stopping my tongue, eh? But what I've said is for your good, Evelyn, as unpleasant things always are in the view of the person who says them. Every one's discussing this sudden flight of yours, and the world can't talk about anything long without saying something scandalous. And we all miss you so! Creagh's depressed, Wereminster's so irritable that I can hardly face him at meal-times, and as for Dora Beadon, she's more odious than ever."

"You dear old impostor, I've only been away a week!"

"A week, my dear—a day's enough to start a sensation in London, if it's properly spread. You see, try as you will, you can't escape being a personality. You're known, and you're watched. Must I speak plainer? Well, then—when it happens that the motor of a very notorious personage has been waiting outside your house day after day for six weeks or more, and the visits suddenly cease and you run away into the country, the world scents out a quarrel, and begins agitating itself as to the meaning of it all."

"I care very little for the world's opinion," said Evelyn.

"No incense, please," said Lady Wereminster sharply. "Not care for the world—a good-looking woman like you! Stuff and nonsense! You're living in the twentieth century, not the sixteenth. People can't go and stand on pillars like St. Simeon Stylites, and be comparatively disregarded. The telephone has made that impossible. Why, if anybody did such a thing now, within half-an-hour he would have a row of Pressmen at his feet, expecting him to fall off."

"But I don't want to sit on a pillar or do anything remarkable," said Evelyn. "I came here because I was tired out. I had a lot of work over that Albert Hall meeting, you know. As for Mr. Farquharson, the one or two things we did together are over now. One doesn't expect a future Prime Minister to go on calling on insignificant people like ourselves day after day."

"Umph!" Lady Wereminster looked her up and down critically. "The man's not in Parliament yet, even. So you were tired out? And never let one of your friends know? Is the air supposed to be especially good here, by the bye?"

"It's the best in Sussex," said Evelyn promptly. "We are I don't know how many hundred feet above the sea. There's no known disease we can't cure in about ten minutes. Didn't you notice the russet-apple faces of the village children as you came?"

"All I can say is you don't do the air credit," said Lady Wereminster; "you're drawn and pale, and you've got deep lines under your eyes. And your protégé, by the way, has scarcely been heard in public since you left. If you don't come back and look after him, people will say the famous Albert Hall speech was his swan-song."

Evelyn laughed outright.

"What utter nonsense! My dear lady, there's nothing that man can't do. If he's quiet now it's for a purpose. He means to show us we can't do without him and so force our hands."

"Perhaps you're right," said Lady Wereminster slowly, proceeding once more to enfold herself in a voluminous motor veil. "By the way, you never asked me how I found out your hiding-place. Your husband gave me your address—in the very strictest confidence. I'm not sure he hasn't given it to other people too. I saw him standing in a corner last night at the Beadons' party, with Mr. Farquharson; the future Prime Minister wrote down something on his shirt-cuff as your husband left. It may have been an appointment, I don't know." She turned briskly. "Well, there's the motor. You won't change your mind and let me take you back? Good-bye, then, wilful woman."

She was gone. And Evelyn, standing alone at the gate watching her out of sight, found her voice at last and called, "Come back, come back," too late. She even ran a few steps in the direction that the motor had taken before realizing the utter futility of her action.

Only one's thoughts can keep pace with a forty horse-power car!

Half-indignant, half-despairing, she repeated Lady Wereminster's words. So the world was talking, was it? Well, it had no respect of persons. She was blamed in good company. In days of old, a king's conduct was supposed to be beyond reproach; now-a-days even his Majesty's actions were occasionally called into question by the daily Press to whom he gave the liberty which they thus abused. Surely an insignificant person like herself could afford to let the world say what it would and bide her time. For sooner or later evil tongues bring evil on themselves; they carry their own corruption with them.

The poison of asps killed Cleopatra in her day. And souls and reputations are alike easily slain. For herself it did not matter. But Farquharson had his foot on the ladder of success. He was in the thick of enemies; this, the outset of his campaign in England, was the critical period. He must not be checked now, whatever happened.

Too late to repair it, she saw the mistake she had made. She had run away like a frightened school-girl—run away from thoughts and fears and memories which had only taken a stronger hold on her in the past week. A little forethought—a hint of enforced economy to Lady Wereminster, and she might have got some post as chaperon to a girl abroad, and let her flat. There was her husband to be reckoned with, of course, but with board and lodging paid for, she herself could have managed on very little money, and long experience had shown her that Brand well paid was Brand well satisfied.

In solitude, in contemplation, the heart sounds the depths of its own bitterness. Solitude brings peace for the worker who has a task to fulfil which its special conditions make imperative, or for the mystic, already detached so far from earth that human longings can no longer reach him. But in the restless and passionate spirit, it breeds new restlessness and passion. Only the glare of the world can blot out certain dreams and visions, only the hum of Vanity Fair stifle the voice that calls in darkness.

Bareheaded, her hair stirred by the light breeze, hardly conscious of where she was going, Evelyn walked on and on, looking neither to right nor left. Dusk deepened and found her still searching aimlessly for peace which had for ever escaped her. She had eaten nothing since morning, and now it was nearly nine o'clock. Physically spent and broken by the struggle, exhausted and fainting, she knew suddenly that she could not walk a step further. There was an opening in the little wood beyond which offered temporary shelter. She was making her way to it, blindly groping in the darkness, when from behind she saw two great lights sweep rapidly upon her, like an animal on its prey. She gave a startled cry. The car slowed down; the man who was driving it got down. It was Farquharson.

How did he guess who it was? Trembling, she turned to meet him. He lit a match and held it in front of her, looking straight into her eyes as it burned out. He was pale, and his mouth was set in the determined lines she knew.

"So you thought you could escape me!" he said, laughing.

It seemed to Evelyn afterwards that years passed in the moment he held her to him, stifling her fluttering cry with the torrent of his words.

"You ran away, did you? That was very cowardly, Eve. Didn't you know I should move heaven and earth to find you? As a matter of fact, no heroics were necessary; I asked Brand for your address last night and got it at once." The explanation was so typical! "I have been trying to get to you all day; I came here, in fact, two hours ago, but they didn't know at the cottage where you had gone, so since then I've been chasing you all over the county." He took her face in his hands; he could not see its expression, but he felt her quiver. "I've learnt a lot of things since I saw you last, Evelyn," he said, very gently. "You can't go on living with your husband, that's one thing. I can't go on living without you, that's another. Where are the matches?" He let go of her to light up again; even in that moment it struck her how unlike the things that happen in real life are to the scenes in books. His eyes were alight with triumph; there was no tragedy here, only joy. He asked no questions, he was sure of himself and sure of her, strong in the hope of victory.

"Career—did I hear you say something about my career? Careers don't depend upon conventional morality. Besides, it's only a question of shifting the scene. If England won't have anything to do with us, there's always Taorna, my own place with my own laws. Or if we want a bigger field—America. They let one have the courage of one's own opinions there."

He stopped. His eyes looked past her, on into the world he had never seen where they could begin life together. The darkness hid his face or she would at once have wept and rejoiced at its look of half-boyish exaltation. He had had to wait and work and fight for things all his life; but they had come to him. Unconsciously from childhood he had waited and worked and fought for this—so surely it was his.

Voiceless still, she swayed in his slackened clasp, and he bent down, wondering. His voice softened.

"Still nothing to say for yourself, Eve? Won't you even tell me that you're glad? Try to understand. It's you who are living a lie, not I. Real adultery is to live your life with the wrong man, as you are now. You're made for me, and I for you. The world shan't dare to throw a stone at you—I'll see to that. We'll win through everything, hands down. Love's the fulfilling of the law. Sinning against it is the one unpardonable crime. It's when a man does that, that he deserves the hell to which he's probably already sent the woman who loves him."

"Wait," said Evelyn at last. "Let me think—I must think." She put out her hand to warn him back. She was face to face with naked facts; it had never been Farquharson's way to lie to those he trusted; he was not lying now. There would be no concealment in his actions now or ever, so far as she was concerned; he would take and keep her in view of the world, because he thought she was his by right of love. So strong, indeed, was he that he might even wrest a certain sympathy from the world for his courage and daring.

His words had driven away her faintness; they were, after all, but the echo of those she had already stifled in her own heart. Weakened and unnerved by the day's fast, they sounded in her ear like a trumpet call. Here, beside him, away from husband and friends and priests and confessors, there swept before her a sudden glorious vision of they two together defying the world and yet trampling upon it. Were they strong enough to point the way, to sacrifice themselves openly and without shame that the great truth behind his words might reach mankind and help others, weaker than they, to see the exquisite sanctity of a tie that would be to them for ever sacred?

But what of faith, what of religion? She might defy the world's judgment, there was still God's to confront. Hell would be to bring punishment on another; her own soul might go, but what if she plunged his into everlasting fires? Suddenly Cummings' words came back to her; the boy's words, not the priest's.

"You're not playing the game, Evelyn," he had said once, more gravely than occasion seemed to warrant, when she had just successfully evaded some trivial rule he had been at pains to teach her. "One must always play the game in life, however trivial it may seem."

"One must always play the game in life, however trivial it may seem."

Perhaps she said the words aloud; she never knew. He started.

"My dear, my dear," she said, "I can't!" She hid her head on his shoulder, not daring to face him. She heard him draw a deep breath, and stand tense and rigid. She drew back. "You don't want heroics, nor do I. I am not afraid of the world or you. You'd be good to me for ever, and the best of our friends would be friends still, whatever happened. As for you, you're too big a man for me to harm you here—your career, I mean. But that's not all. There's God and there's eternity. They frighten me, not for myself, but you."

"Eve——!"

She put out her hand again.

"Don't—don't dear, have some pity!" The anguish of her tone arrested him midway to her. He stopped short, a man who had received a mortal blow.

"No—never again. It will all be harder for you because you're a man and I'm a woman," she said, "but you've got to get on without me, and you will, you will! That's the beginning and the end of it. Oh, there's not a spark of all your generosity to me that I don't love and worship. And it will all be dreadful in the future. But it's just got to be.... And we must meet, too, ordinarily, in front of people and by ourselves, as if to-day had never come to us, as if we'd made a mark and crossed it from our lives. We shall do it, and get through—because we've got to, because we're strong, because we love each other."

She heard the beating of his heart, she felt its pulses against her hand as he drew her to him for a moment in spite of what she had said, in voiceless pleading while they clung together, and she wondered, with a little smile, if death would be more bitter.

Silence again. He understood he could not move her. Then darkness, full and complete.

She heard him go from her, heavily; the car throbbed. Presently there was a flash of light as it whirled past. It was well, perhaps, that he did not see her look of dumb agony as she stood alone, shaking from head to foot, straining her ears to hear the last echo of the car, making herself ready to face the long walk back and the long life ahead.

PART III

THE BETRAYAL

"Iniquity shall bring all the earth to a desert, and wickedness ... o'verthrow the thrones of the mighty."—Wisdom (Douay Version).

CHAPTER I

"As for them whose heart walketh after their scandals, I will lay their way upon their head, saith the Lord God."—ECCLESIASTICUS.

"Black thoughts breed black ills to those who think them." ... "Curses, like chickens, come home to roost."—MRS. HODGSON BURNETT.

"After all," said Miss Beadon solemnly, "there's nothing like a man's sympathy. Men are so much more helpful than women. With women, some outside element always seems to spoil the completeness of sympathy. Jealousy as a rule, of course. How much I've suffered from that no one will ever know."

"So one would naturally imagine," said Brand gravely. "The gods have been unusually kind to you, Miss Beadon."

Dora smiled consciously.

"Oh, I dare say I have as many disadvantages as other women really. Of course I've come in contact with a great many interesting men, that's in my favour; I always think experience broadens one's point of view. Most women are so extraordinarily petty. Now look at Evelyn, even. I used to think she was my best friend, but she hardly helps me now. Since that night I dined at your house, and you guessed how matters stood with Mr. Farquharson and me, and put things before me with such wonderful delicacy and tact, she has never invited me once, unless I deliberately asked her to do so. And he's such a busy man now—he has very little time to come here. Besides, of course it's a little awkward when every time a man dines with you the papers get hold of it. Now with Evelyn it's different. The public eye isn't always upon her as it is upon me."

"No man worth calling a man would willingly compromise a woman he cared for," said Brand.

He leant back in his chair and looked at Miss Beadon critically. Beadon had married beneath him, of course; all the world guessed as much, and Brand knew every detail of the story. Dora was pre-eminently her mother's daughter; she had fallen an easy prey to Brand's flattery. Little by little he had made himself indispensable to her for the last few weeks. She consulted him now about her engagements and her gowns. He had made her the means of paying off many an outlying score which had rankled for years. Little by little, he told himself, his luck was turning; he was regaining his old power and position. In time, if things went on as well as they were doing, he would again become a force to be reckoned with. If he could but obtain some permanent hold on Miss Beadon, the conquest of a great portion of the social world would be easy, and if he could but marry her to Farquharson——

But Farquharson himself was a stumbling-block in the plan. He had got on, not slowly and surely as other men may, but in leaps and bounds. Lady Wereminster declared that he had signed a bond with Satan. Brand saw no way of pointing out how valuable an asset a charming and tactful wife would be; for that matter neither adjective applied to Dora. The two men seldom came in contact now; they had nothing in common, and Farquharson's reserve and courtesy were more baffling than open antagonism.

Occupied with public affairs, and in much social request, it was difficult to think of Farquharson as having either time or inclination to play the part of a modern suitor—to woo the object of his affections with lunch at one restaurant and tea at another, and dinner at a third and supper at a fourth, after the modern mode. Indeed, so far as Miss Beadon was concerned, he scarcely seemed to recognize her existence. But for Brand, one doubted if even Dora could have construed his "good-mornings" and "good-nights" into the protestations of undying love.

A clever and unscrupulous woman can usually get what she wants without help. But Dora was not clever. Her platitudes, her plainness, told against her. Things seemed at a deadlock. It is not much use to have written what you think is a successful comedy if all the leading characters refuse to play the parts you have assigned to them.

As well attempt to influence the elements themselves as Farquharson. Unless Evelyn could be made to intervene. But Evelyn, once so tractable, was unmoved now by threats or pleading; nothing would induce her to meet Farquharson voluntarily.

Ah, but what if she could be used unconsciously? Suddenly Brand saw light. What had he told Miss Beadon just now? "A man will never willingly compromise the woman he cares for." If Farquharson could be made to think that he had put Evelyn in a false position, he would take the readiest means of disproving the statement. And the announcement of a man's engagement or marriage to one woman is the best public contradiction of his interest in another. Once Evelyn's name was called into the question, Farquharson was the man to act quickly. Let Miss Beadon be but near at such a moment, and she would seem the easiest solution of the difficulty.

"I may be able to help you," Brand said after a pause. "It won't be easy—it may give me and those I love infinite pain. But friendship isn't worth much if one isn't willing to risk a great deal for it, and I am sure you are the last woman in the world to forget such a kindness."

He spoke meaningly. Dora held out her hand. Her vanity was piqued, and as much of her heart as such a woman can give was involved. Generally, to set her heart on anything meant that it became hers very shortly. These unaccustomed barriers had completely unnerved her; she would have taken any means to secure Brand's help.

"You can count on me," she said, ready at that moment to promise him anything he asked. "There's nothing you can ask of me that I won't do for you in the future if you'll only help me now. I mean it; and I never break my word."

Brand smiled.

"Oh, well, it won't be a very serious matter. Perhaps I shall ask you to do some little service for me later on, but I don't suppose it will tax your resources as wife of—the Prime Minister, shall we say?"

They were walking in the direction of Knightsbridge. The clock at the Guards' Barracks struck the hour.

"Suppose you go and see Evelyn now? I see a way of helping you which must be put in train at once." He lifted his hat, and, crossing to Hyde Park Corner, hailed a hansom. "The Crystal offices, Fleet Street," he said.

"Mr. Brand, Mr. Brand, did you say? What on earth can the man want with me? Take him to the library, James, and say I'll come as soon as I can."

Lady Wereminster, erect and stately, gave Henry Brand the mere tips of her fingers, and withered him with her most disconcerting stare. She knew that to meet an unwelcome guest in complete silence puts him at the most serious disadvantage. Her quick eye took in every detail of Brand's faultlessly arranged air of distress. "Good Heavens, the man looks like a mourner; even his tie-pin is in keeping. Has he come to borrow money, or what?" she wondered.

"Lady Wereminster, forgive me. May I sit down?"

The voice was low and broken. Lady Wereminster raised her eyebrows, allowing but one word to escape from her tightly pursed lips.

"Certainly."

Brand hesitated.

"I have come to consult you about a matter that is very near my heart, Lady Wereminster. A matter that concerns Evelyn's welfare. Otherwise I should never have dreamed of intruding upon you."

"The time between half-past two and a quarter to three is usually spent in idleness," said Lady Wereminster grimly. "Go on, please."

"I shall go straight to the point," said Brand. "I am in great trouble, I've heard rumours——" He stopped again, choked by emotion, while Lady Wereminster watched him with a look of stone. "A man can fight his own battles, good or ill scarcely matter where his character is concerned. But when the name of the woman one loves best——" He corrected himself hastily, seeing his hostess's momentary expression of surprise. "When one's wife's name is spoken with ever such slight levity, it's another matter." He paused, shielding his face with his hands, pent-house fashion, as though utterly overcome.

Lady Wereminster looked rather pale.

"To what, pray, are you alluding?" she asked.

Brand looked up desperately.

"Have you seen this week's Crystal, Lady Wereminster? It came half-an-hour ago. I've kept it from Evelyn till now. You know those accursed problems that they print weekly—one's meant to read between the lines. The ghastly part of them is that they are veiled under so damnable and complete a cloak of anonymity."

"Will you kindly oblige me by being more explicit?" asked Lady Wereminster, after a glacial pause.

Brand turned, at bay, his eyes flashing. He was really playing his part excellently.

"There's something about Evelyn!—about Evelyn!—in the paper."

"An unopened copy is on the table beside you," said Lady Wereminster. "Will you kindly read me the paragraph to which you refer?"

Holding the table for support, Brand read on slowly, giving each word its full significance.

"'A woman who contemplates an eventual ménage à trois is wise not to marry an athletic husband.'

"'Gratitude is a virtue, remember, though it does not always lead to virtue where politics are concerned.'

"'He was lately seen in Sussex, where she had temporarily taken up her residence.'

"'After all, more ways than one lead to the Divorce Court.'"

There was a long pause.

"And you mean to tell me," Lady Wereminster began very slowly. Then she stopped, her voice was shaking.

Brand bowed his head.

"Unmistakable. I heard a man laugh at it just now in the club. 'Farquharson and——' he said. Then he saw me."

Lady Wereminster put out a warning hand.

"No names, please; it's not safe even here. Oh, if I were a man!" Her eyes blazed. "Couldn't one horsewhip the editor? or—no, that would make a scandal at once. That's where people like these have everything in their hands. Nothing is so easy to spread as a lie about a woman. One word of suspicion and you could blacken Una herself. This must be stopped—but how? What can we do?"

For the first time in her life she was identifying herself with Brand, even consulting him on mutual terms.

"They are bound to go on meeting. And now at every turn there will be eyes to watch and lips to sneer. If I had my way, I'd have the people who spread lies like these stand naked in a public pillory. There's a jealous woman or women behind it, of course. Trace any scandal to its source, and you will find that the one man or woman from whom it originally emanated was the one who would benefit by its being spread. In a question of work, you will find it is the woman beaten in her own field by a younger woman, socially superior, who starts the scandal; in love, the vanquished rival. Scandal can't create itself; there's always at least one pair of lying lips to bring it into being."

"What if the man were to—but then he never would——" Brand faltered.

Lady Wereminster threw up her hands with a cry.

"You have it," she said; "there's only one way he can stop it. He must marry. People must think that she has been his confidante throughout—has known about it from the first. She's not the kind of woman to stand up against a stab in the dark like this. It would kill her!"

"But is Farquharson likely to marry? Is there any one with whom his name is associated?" said Brand doubtfully. "He never seemed to me a marrying man."

"That's not the question," said Lady Wereminster decidedly. "The whole point is that he must save her. Good Heavens, that Evelyn should be the talk of any club!" She rang the bell violently. "Give me the paper. I shall go and see Mr. Farquharson myself at once, and put the matter straight before him. He owes everything to Evelyn, and he's brought this upon her. They say it's always the woman who goes to the wall in these matters. Well, she shan't in this case, if I have to take the man to the church myself. Good-bye, and thank you."

She extended a hurried forefinger and waved him to the door. He bowed, well satisfied.

"Order the victoria at once, James; I'm in a hurry."

Taking out her glasses, Lady Wereminster re-read the paragraph line by line.

"Oh, if I had but seen Evelyn lately! But meeting Miss Beadon when I ran in the other morning stopped my going for a week. 'Sussex'—and 'politics'!—Oh, Evelyn, Evelyn!"

CHAPTER II

"The cleverest of all devils is opportunity."—VIELAND.

"Evelyn, you must help me," said Miss Beadon angrily. "How can you say no, and be so horribly cruel? It's such a tiny favour to ask; it shan't cost you a penny, I promise, if you'll only come. I'll let the carriage pick you up." She was on the verge of tears.

Evelyn, to whom tears came with difficulty, thought that they caused other women acute mental agony like her own.

She held out her hand.

"Please don't cry, Dora. There's more in this than you know. I've got to think things out. Be quiet for a minute, dear."

On the face of it it was a small thing Miss Beadon was asking, merely that Evelyn should make a point of accompanying her to the last reunion that night in Hare's rooms before he left town. Evelyn had already accepted the invitation tentatively, meaning only to go if she heard that Farquharson would not be present. At large parties they were able to avoid each other easily. They had never been much together in public. But at so small and intimate a gathering as this—Hare was expecting only ten or twelve people—they must infallibly be thrown together and meet as though things were on the old footing, before their bitter-sweet secret had drawn them near.

But now Dora had come to demand Evelyn's help, and she was made to confront the very thought which she most dreaded. Dora wanted to marry Farquharson. Evelyn shut her eyes and tried to think what life would be under such changed conditions. If the idea was no longer new, it was none the less terrible. Spiritual forces may be called up to battle with many foes successfully, but there are times when spiritual forces fail, when foes from within, the very roots of our nature, take arms against us. It seemed to Evelyn at that moment that the civil war within her was sapping the very life in her body. She could have stood aside to watch Farquharson rise higher and higher, alone, unhampered, even although every step took him further from her, but how could she bear to see him live his life out with another woman, reaping the small domestic joys, gathering in time, perhaps, even the perfect fruit of the tree of life?

"Thou shalt ask and not obtain." The words came back to her. This was, perhaps, what God demanded of her, the penalty for having come near sin. Daily crucifixion—not a mere seven hours agony, but one which would endure to her life's end.

And yet the horrible selfishness of the point of view! What right had she to deny him such little gifts as he might secure from life, which is so rarely bountiful? His inward life, all its purposes and ambitions, would be hers, and in a career like his there must inevitably be dark moments when home comfort and joys, which he had never had, might brace him to meet his difficulties, and nerve him, by sheer force of reaction, for future battles.

She looked at Dora critically. Perhaps they had all misjudged her. Her heart seemed to be set upon her object with absolute determination; and if she loved Farquharson enough, nothing else mattered. Love was what he needed—love near at hand, love wrapping him round. The love which "feels no burthen, gives all for all and is all in all, which watches and, sleeping, slumbers not, when weary is not tired."

"You love Mr. Farquharson—you want me to understand that you really love him?" she said at last. "Love is such a big thing, Dora, I often wonder if girls understand it. Modern men and women take more trouble to choose a housekeeper than they give to the choice of a life-long companion. Marriage is all give and take—and there's more in those words than you will ever realize until you've gone right through the marriage service, and come out at the other side. It's a thing of deadly gravity, marriage, not a mere shifting of responsibility, or the prospect of a better position, or the escape from home discomfort. You are one of the lucky people to whom none of these three incentives need appeal. Oh, Dora, there are so many unhappy marriages in this world, and I'm so tired of them! Do make up your mind that yours shall be a beautiful success, not just a brilliant one."

"You always take things so seriously," Dora said tartly. "Of course I love him. Why should I want to marry him rather than any one else? It's not as if he were the only one. I'm only asking you to chaperon me for this one evening, not a lifetime, and it's nothing to make such a fuss about, after all. I never get an opportunity of saying a word to him without everybody seeing. Even servants may be reporters in disguise. It makes even me unlike myself; and I know it's only the fear of being seen and watched that keeps him from speaking to me. When he was not so important he used to talk to me quite a lot, and quite intimately. I remember one night at the Wereminsters' when he spoke of you—implied he liked you, but said you weren't his style, or something of the sort. For such a man that meant a lot. I'm not a woman to make confidences, as you know, so I appreciate reserve in others. I've come to you because you've seen everything from the first. You're married, you've got all you want; why can't you help me by giving me one or two of the opportunities nobody else in the whole world knows that I long for?"

This sounded plausible enough. Dora's ways were not as Evelyn's, but that was perhaps a mere matter of temperament. And the glow of sacrifice burns with so white a flame that it illuminates even those trivial objects that it falls upon.

"I'll come," said Evelyn, sighing. "What time shall I be ready?"

"We ought to be there at half-past nine," said Dora. "Will you be with us at nine-fifteen? Then we can have a talk first. By the way, you'd better take a cab, Evelyn, after all—you do live such an awfully long way out."

"Thanks. Then you don't think me an interfering old woman?" said Lady Wereminster.

"I think you are very kind," said Farquharson courteously. His tone was final. He rose and held out his hand, and Lady Wereminster, who was known amongst her circle of intimate friends as "The Social Tyrant," meekly acquiesced and left him.

"The man's extraordinarily reassuring," she told herself as she drove away. "He says very little. But he's a man of his word, and he'll do as I want. There's nothing he wouldn't do for Evelyn. I didn't dare even say I was sorry for him. And these are matters that the world would tell you you might not even pray about!" ...

Farquharson, left mercifully alone, went back to the table in his study and sat down heavily. Blue Books, pamphlets, the records of his work lay all about him, in orderly piles; Farquharson was nothing if not scrupulously neat; his life lay there. Methodical, orderly, brilliant, complete—which adjective best described it?

Yet in that moment it all seemed to him of little worth, little real value. After all, to have your name in men's mouths for a season, what is it? Success and enmity go hand in hand; the man or woman who finds the highest is beset by a thousand treacheries and betrayals. The little bank clerk, with his hundred and fifty pounds a year, setting out to his work in the morning unnoticed, and unenvied, and returning to the woman he loves at the close of office hours, has a happier lot than the most important statesman in the empire. His small cup is full to the brim with wholesome wine and water; that of the other is mixed with vinegar and gall.

What had Farquharson's country done for him that he should work for it? It had given him a legacy of dishonour, it had torn his heritage from him. Why should he sow in blood, that the wastrel and incompetent should reap the fruit of his toil in ease? Why should he spend himself that England, who reared heroes only to spit upon them, should put him on that pedestal which had so often, of late years, turned to a pillory? And yet other men had braved and achieved so much more than he.

His mind leapt back to Kabul; to the doings of a little Corps of Guides, Hamilton, Jenkyns, Kelly and the rest. Who remembered those deathless heroes now? Hamilton, the most intrepid, he who had charged over two thousand of the enemy, first with four men, and then with three, and last of all alone, had his memorial in stone at Dublin. But stone cannot speak or glow. Cold and immovable, it is the symbol of a nation's heart.

Yet the call of one's country is strong. Now, at this moment, when he, the strong man, wavered between allegiance to her service and denial of her claims, weighing duty in the scale with happiness, her voice rose with the calm insistence which drives a man to do the thing he would not—to achieve what, humanly speaking, we should call impossible. Peace and ease might have been Farquharson's in Taorna—life with the woman he loved. He knew his power; he underrated Evelyn's. He faced again in that moment the temptation to take her away against her will, maybe, strong in the certainty that he could satisfy her, that they would find together something which the average man and woman could never attain.

But the voice of the nation spoke, implacably. "I want you. You must stay. I shall bruise and break you. No matter, you are dust, you can return to the dust from which you came. You may ride in my car of progress day and night, neither sleeping nor resting so long as your wits are keen and your intellect alert. Once your eyes fail or your hand trembles, I shall have no further use for you. From nothing you came, to nothing you may then return. But my car will go on, and you will have driven it for a little time."

Yes, he must stay. And if he stayed, he must make this sacrifice for Evelyn; he must give up his dearest dream. For, grimly as he faced life as a whole, he had always cherished the thought of marriage as his one hope of human salvation. What he had said to Evelyn was true; not mere words, but conviction. He believed that a man should only give himself in marriage to the one woman who could make an equal gift of mind, body and soul, the supreme trinity of surrender. Marriage was a sacrament—marriage as God instituted it, not the false union that convention recognized.

"And now the dream must go," he said aloud. His thoughts went back to the old phrase of the picture gallery when he had spoken to Dan. "Yes, dreams are only made to break, I suppose." He got up. "Since one woman is as much or as little to me as another, if I can't have Eve as my wife—I'll leave it to chance, and propose to the first unmarried woman, if she will let me, who speaks to me to-night at Hare's."

"At last!" Miss Beadon said. "I thought you were never coming." She was standing near the door, awaiting Farquharson's entry. She knew the value of a convenient position. "We have hardly seen anything of you of late." For once she was a trifle nervous. "But I've read all your speeches. Father has told me how splendidly you've got on."

Not the ideal woman this, but a woman who at least could sympathize, who would not need to be taught the necessities of her position. Farquharson looked at her gravely. Something of her self-complacency had left her; she was nervous and a little tremulous as to the result of this meeting, for which she had plotted so eagerly.

"I have something to say to you," he said. "I must speak to these people first, and then—— See, there are chairs in that little recess. Will you wait for me there in ten minutes' time?"

CHAPTER III

"Youth from the windows of his innocence

Sent forth his soul to scan the future years.

Homeward it brings this strange intelligence—

'In life there are no tears.'

We who are older, shake our heads and say

'Another tale, we know, we who are men.'

But haply Youth espies the deathless years,

Seeing beyond our ken."

"I am not sorry that, after all, you were not there," wrote Lady Wereminster to Hare, a few weeks later. "The Burial Service always strikes me as comparatively gay when matched with the amended Marriage Service of the Church of England. The one gives hope; the other preaches duty instead. There is no romance in it, no mysticism. You are practically told it is your duty to marry because you are not good enough to remain unmarried, that you must bring children into the world because it would look so remarkably odd if you did not. As to the meaning of it all, whether it is to the glory of God or your next-door neighbour, the advertisement editor of the Morning Post is the best judge. Anyway, he is the person who immediately benefits.

"Did I tell you that Richard Farquharson and Dora Beadon were indissolubly united at St. Margaret's, Westminster, yesterday afternoon, by the bye? I suppose you read all in the papers; there was fuss enough, in all conscience. Miss Beadon saw to that. I dislike that girl more than ever. Is there anything more annoying than the incompetence of a woman who cannot fill the position she was born to?

"And now what will happen? I feel responsible, having set the machinery in motion. As a girl, I played with lives quite easily; it amused me to turn fate, or juggle with purposes the meaning of which I could not fathom. Now, in old age, I have grown afraid. Souls are such tiresome things. I know old Akbar said, 'I never saw any one lost on a straight road,' but occasionally one wonders if there are any straight roads left, now the County Council has played so many tricks with London streets?

"Dora Beadon is neither a fish nor a vegetable. She belongs to the new world which we have created in this after-Victorian era. Don't think I complain of her hypocrisy; I suppose we are all hypocrites more or less. I was one when I tried to persuade a man with a career to marry a selfish woman, with what I hoped to be a nondescript character, because I wanted him to save the reputation of a woman who reminds me more of my niece Asenath than any one I have ever met. As Dora is nondescript, she may be amiable. But—that mouth of hers! Have you ever seen it in repose?

"Well, now they are started for good or ill. I pin my faith on the man's ambition. All life's a compromise. No woman can have both a Grecian nose and a perfect figure; no man can have success and happiness. And success means more to a man than to a woman. If we are human, there's no single moment in which we would not lay down the biggest prize the world can offer us at the feet of the man we love, and say, 'Please take it, dear; I only won it for you.' But a man likes to have his prize in a substantial form, and keep it on his sideboard, so that his wife can show it, very highly polished, to his guests. Look at the presentation cups in our men's messes! The trophies, challenge cups! Why, a man can't even kill a big salmon without having it photographed or modelled in a glass case. We women kill our salmon every day and no one knows it.

"So I dispose of Richard Farquharson. He is off my conscience. Life will give him something, although it is not the thing he wants. And Dora—she need not complain; she will have a little more wealth, a little more luxury, a little more panoply of amusement and flattery; that is enough for her. But there's still Evelyn.

"She came to the wedding. He made her—her husband. Oh, if she were only a less good Catholic! It is a magnificent system. It reduces its subjects to such a pitch of subjection that they obey in spite of themselves. The happiness, the welfare of one unworthy little soul—what does it matter, so long as the Vatican coffers are full, so long as the Celebrations on high days and festivals have still their proper number of spectators? Inviolable, magnificent, the one wall that will never be broken, it rears itself ever higher and higher as the ages roll on, cemented with the blood of a thousand victims whose names will never be written in any book of martyrology.

"You like human problems, so I give you one. There they stand, the three of them, as opposed in temperament as any of the subjects in Browning's Ring and the Book. I cannot depict them; I cannot even prophesy. Very long ago I found that God knew a great deal more than I did—a fact that hardly seems possible to the cocksureness of youth. So—wicked old woman as I am supposed to be by many of my best friends—I end this letter to you, who know me well, with a real pious intention.

"You remember the story of the bishop who was told the ship upon which he was travelling was about to sink? I will try and quote it from memory—

"'The sea it was rough and the ship it did lurch,

And it blew without reason or ruth;

And the consequence was this mainstay of the Church

Suffered much for the sake of the truth.

And the sea it grew rough, and the night it grew black,

And the rain-drops fell heavy and thick,

And the bishop he heartily wished himself back,

While Rangoon—it might go to Old Nick!

"Oh, skipper, I really enjoy a good blow,

And 'tis truly a glorious sight;

But your candid opinion I'm anxious to know—

Do you think there is danger to-night?"

The skipper he hitched himself up, and he laughed,

Then he suddenly grew very grave,

As a hurricane squall seemed to stagger the craft,

And she buried her nose in a wave.

And he said, "Well, your Grace, it's a dirtyish night,

But whether the vessel will ride,

I really can't tell you; you'll know before night,

In Providence we must confide."

"Good gracious!" the bishop exclaimed in dismay

As he clutched at his old shovel hat;

"This is terrible, skipper; you don't mean to say

That really it has come to that!"'

"I think it has 'come to that' in this instance too!"

PART IV

THE BESTOWAL

"Human endurance is the one miracle left in the world."—E. ROBINS.

CHAPTER I

"Lord, I have laid my heart upon Thy altar,

But cannot get the wood to burn;

It hardly flames ere it begins to falter,

And to the dark return.

'Tis all I have—smoke, failure, foiled endeavour,

Coldness and doubt and palsied lack;

Such as I have I send Thee; perfect Giver,

Send Thou Thy lightning back."

GEORGE MACDONALD.

"Let men see, let them know a real man who lives as he was meant to live."—MARCUS AURELIUS.

The sensation of pain does not immediately strike a man who is severely wounded; first, he feels a sting like a lash, then numbness succeeds, presently he falls.

Mental pain is, after all, very like physical. Acute shock paralyzes mind and soul; it puts a clog in the wheel of human machinery. Great calamities do not necessarily stop human functions from fulfilling their duties; a man eats or drinks, or may, in exceptional cases, even sleep as well in the first moment of a great crisis as before. Body and soul are braced to the day's routine; for a time they continue their offices unchecked. But presently the chill and paralysis of thought and action spread throughout his being. Then ordinary work is impossible. Merely to live is a labour, the most trivial effort an arduous achievement.

In paralysis, limbs refuse to obey the message of the brain, or, misinterpreting it, do the thing they would not. So, when the roots of a life's happiness have been struck, the soul cannot hear the message of the over-wrought body that pleads to it for help in vain.

In the days that followed, Farquharson and Evelyn travelled again, invisible companions, down the same via crucis of agony and shame. To Evelyn, perhaps, the path was the more difficult to tread because for the first time faith had failed her. "Doubt comes," says the Catholic Church, "to those who wilfully play with sin." Unyielding, inflexible, she would have those who profess her faith remove themselves from the first taint of guilt, failing to help even the sorely wounded if he who suffered were one whose imminence brought danger. It is another of the paradoxes with which faith abounds; there are times when these same paradoxes raise an impenetrable wall against which the human heart beats vainly—bruised, bleeding, outwardly broken.

Doggedly Evelyn kept to the open evidences of her belief, sure of their truth, though unable to find comfort in them. She knew priests who had done the same, men who had striven for weeks and years against overwhelming apathy, alone in the desert of temptation. She knew one who had died so, to whom no ray of illumination had come even at the last, although only she and his confessor knew as much. He was a man who had helped more men and women than any other member of his brotherhood; faith seemed to be given him merely to be spent in the service of others.

But he was a man, and she was only a woman. And peace of some kind must surely have approached him, if one believes at all in supernatural influences, from the very atmosphere of the praying souls he stood amongst at Mass, from the mere nearness of the Sacred Host. Evelyn lived in an atmosphere of cynicism and doubt; it pressed upon her, bearing her down now that she had no rival force with which to combat it. And because by the narrow channel through which one doubt enters a thousand may follow, she found that the silence and solitude she had once loved were now thronged with ghosts, ghostly visions of the love she might have had but would not, and the life she might have lived with him she loved, one in companionship, one in ambition, one in the most dear and sacred intimacy of marriage, one in failure, one in success, one in the love of the children whose feet they would never now hear, whose lips would never now meet their own.

There is no hell which equals in intensity the hell of an imagination so vivid as to create being from what is void. When Farquharson left the church with his wife, Evelyn followed them every step of the way home. She looked on to the future; she forced herself to pray for their happiness, while in her heart she knew that happiness would be her death-blow. As she had striven for him in the past, using all the human forces at her command in helping him attain the thing he wished, so she strove now to make herself desire that he should have the best life has to offer, not the mere earthly wreath of laurels, but the unfading crown of peace.

But Farquharson, although she did not know it, had a harder task. He had tied himself for life to a woman who violated his every belief, whose nature warred with his at every turn. Realist and man of purpose as he was, his dear belief that in the world somewhere, somehow, there lived a second Margaret Cunningham whom he would ultimately possess, had sweetened all his work since he left Glune. When he met Evelyn he knew the dream was true, and Glune and she were absolutely at one. He pictured her its fitting mistress, visiting every haunt of his childhood, satisfying every memory and tradition, washing away with her tender tears the bitterness that had grown part of his heritage, as labourers would clear away useless timber and refuse, making all wholesome and clean.

Glune was his now again, a princely wedding gift from Calvert and Beadon, but all pleasure in the possession was gone.

A French writer once said that it is impossible to predict of any woman the exact change that marriage will make in her. We have all seen love turn to hate in a few hours under certain circumstances, but there are subtler changes still. Great emotions may bring havoc to certain natures; change comes inevitably, whether the emotions be great or small. Perhaps Dora had cared for Farquharson so far as in her lay before he became her husband, but now he was her property, an object of daily use, as important, perhaps, as her sponge or toothbrush, but quite unworthy of any deep regard. It was better to be with him than without him. It never struck her that she owed him any duty; if she thought about the matter at all it was merely to consider that a beneficent Creator had brought him into being for the special purpose of accompanying her when she wanted him, and transacting the business that she had slurred even as an unmarried woman; investing her money to its best advantage, and paying bills about whose magnitude she no longer felt even the smallest compunction.

With those early days of marriage she was entirely content and satisfied. No doubt of her ability to please him crossed her mind; the useless are invariably self-satisfied. She had mapped out a motor tour which was intended to outdo anything that other brides had accomplished; restless, untiring, she swept Farquharson on from place to place, great towns and cities whose very stones breathed glory and mystery, under the shadows of mountains which at night looked cold and full of awe, types of the crushing power that seemed to rule men's destinies, but which were warmed and quickened to life by the first gleam of the morning sun. Beauty, tradition, mystery, these things meant nothing to Dora, and Farquharson, who longed to stay, was openly derided. Of late years he had had little or no time to spare for the love of nature which had trained him as a boy; he steeped his soul in colour which she did not even see.

They went from big hotel to big hotel; nights spent in little village inns bored Dora inexpressibly. Day after day she went out of their road to buy the English papers. If their tour was not mentioned in them she flung them aside; when it was, she collected the cuttings eagerly. Farquharson realized that for his wife the meaning of life was resolved into a single hope—that the glare of publicity should be for ever upon them. He thought of the future. He could picture her at Glune, entertaining the Press, dragging out his relics, giving chapter and verse succinctly of all those dear records which had made him what he was. She would gossip with the villagers, she would leave no stone unturned to find out all about his childhood, and then repeat it at her next afternoon call. Nothing was sacred to her, and now for Evelyn's sake he had learned to look upon women as sacred, and to try to understand something even of his mother's nature. Women like Dora would drag her memory and his brother's in the dust that they might make suitable headlines for an "interview."

It was for this he had bartered his dream—for this and to save a woman's honour.

Well, there was work to do; thank God for work. Daily routine has saved many a man's brain from snapping, before now.

Farquharson returned to town after six weeks' absence to find great arrears and accumulation of work, which he welcomed. Various by-elections were taking place all over the country; the issue of the next election mainly depended upon the people's decision concerning Tariff Reform versus Free Trade. Since the great Protectionist leader was unable through illness to carry on the contest, Farquharson was appealed to on all sides as the worthiest exponent of the cause. He was invited to speak in the north, in the midlands, south and west alike.

In Taorna, too, there were difficulties. The position of the man he had left to act for him wanted strengthening. The Council for once was undecided; Farquharson's message flashed across the sea and was obeyed. Beadon read its terms and smiled.

"Men talk of grit," he said, "but you've got grip. Do you never lose touch of what you've once held?"

"That's a real man," was Hare's comment as he read next morning's paper. "What he has done for Taorna, he can do for England. I am beginning to have hopes for her. One man has saved his nation before now."

That the country was passing through a crisis was apparent. Farquharson had set men talking. His speeches spread dissatisfaction and dissension, and unrest alone will make a nation rise. The Ministry sent its best men to oppose him; in one important ward it was even rumoured that the Liberals had bribed men to heckle and annoy the candidate whom he supported. But on the night in question it was Farquharson who faced them, having persuaded his somewhat timid follower to plead temporary illness. And as he spoke better than he had ever spoken before, even his enemies were silenced.

Up in the north, that hot-bed of Liberalism, men weighed his words and were discomfited. It was their force, their overwhelming conviction which told with these level-headed men of business, who, unlike their Irish neighbours across the sea, were seldom swayed by impulse or carried away by enthusiasm. In Rowan, the nearest town to Bruchill, a Radical constituency from time immemorial, a meeting was held eventually, at which it was decided to ask Farquharson to stand in place of the retiring candidate. The news came at breakfast. It touched him very deeply; he had waited for this, hoping against hope, and refusing other invitations against the wishes of his party. He handed it to Dora without comment.

She flung it down.

"A trumpery second-rate place like that! You'll refuse, of course," she said.

Farquharson took his seat in the House as Member for Rowan three weeks later. After that matters moved more dramatically than usual in the undramatic House of Commons. Amongst its members may be found a great crowd of wavering and irresponsible beings delighted to identify themselves with a real leader; they followed Farquharson like sheep. A certain Bill, just brought forward, had roused the nation's indignation; it touched all classes, since every insurance office held large shares in the especial traffic which it threatened. The Bill gave Farquharson an early opportunity of taking his stand in the House, and he made the most of it.

A few weeks later, in a crowded assembly representative not only of British but of foreign interest, as the Strangers' and the Speaker's Galleries were both full, Beadon proposed a vote of censure on the Government, which was seconded by Farquharson in a speech that turned the scale. The motion was carried by an overwhelming majority. The inevitable General Election followed, and event followed event in quick succession. Conservative agencies mustered all their forces, and Farquharson was bidden to speak in every direction. The pendulum swung round, and the Conservatives returned to power with a gain of twelve seats on the last amazing Liberal majority of three and a half years before.

CHAPTER II

"If glory does not intoxicate you continually, do not stand beneath her banners."—THE PRINCE DE LIGNE.

"Historians and the Press make the mistake," said Hare, "of treating the nation as a party. She is an individual, subject to fluctuations of health and reason, capable, like a true woman, of reaching any height or any depth. She is baffling, inconsistent, base, and noble within a breath. Wise men predict her rise or fall according to her temperament and environment. Look at Spain. Melancholy to the roots of her being, mysterious, ardent—she has those qualities which attain to the utmost height of glory for a while, then decline. The Escorial shows one side of the nation; much the same brooding silence and enmity as were the hall-marks of the Inquisition. I doubt if any man or woman can fully understand what made inquisitors act as they did until they have been to Spain. There is no power so cruel as that of a faith which literally obeys the scriptural injunction of destroying limb by limb the body which turns to evil and forsakes good. In Grenada you have another side, everything steeped in colour and mystery. Moorish, of course—how few of us realize, by the bye, that Spain was held by the Moors for an even longer period than she has been under the sway of the Spaniards. But Spain needs balance. Till she gets it she will never be a great nation. Take Italy, again. Had she cultivated her pagan characteristics, as opposed to the qualities which priests would tell you make for ultimate happiness, she would have done better. As it is, she is rebellious, chaotic, a mass of intrigue and suspicion, unreliable and weak. Germany—ah! there's a power to be reckoned with, scarcely, in my mind, to fear. Her death-blow is ambition. She is a one-man country, and one man is liable to err. France is a house divided against itself; a nation of charming women and irreligious men. In her dissensions our security lies. Russia"—he shrugged his shoulders—"with her internal troubles and her exchequer at so low an ebb, we need not fear her. In the future aspect of the Alliance, I fancy China and Japan united may be our bitter enemies. Theirs is a waiting game. At Berlin and Paris and London you will find students from these countries assimilating all that we can teach them, wisely using the best means that other nations can furnish for their own ends. You have the dominant characteristics of different types in every case. The real diplomatist deals rather with the Russian, the Italian, the Spaniard, than with Russia, Italy, and Spain."