Front matter (continued 5)

Farquharson spoke to a silent House, a House which hung upon his words. But suddenly from the distance another noise made itself heard—cries, shouting and disturbance. Evelyn and those about her did not take the interruption seriously at first. Yet presently it penetrated to the body of the House; Members broke free from the spell of Farquharson's words and turned, uneasily aware that some important matter was in progress.

The shouts concentrated, then reached even to the gallery. One or two Members left their places, attendants were seen hurrying, now at the gallery door, and again in the lobby below that immediately faced the Ladies' Gallery. Farquharson went on speaking, apparently unmoved, but he had lost his hold upon his hearers. Every eye was turned away from him in the direction of a white-faced member of the Government who, at Beadon's direction, handed him a slip of paper.

Outside the House the noise reached its climax, the shouting of an angry mob at bay. Evelyn saw other Members come back hurriedly; there were whispered colloquies between separate members of the Opposition; the Irish benches were almost deserted. Then suddenly Beadon rose to his feet, catching convulsively his collar; he flung his hands up, with an inarticulate cry, and fell down as though he had been shot.

Evelyn heard the outside cry taken up again by those within the House itself, and saw peace broken visibly as though an earthquake had rent the whole assembly. Farquharson had leapt to Beadon's side, and was bending over him; for a moment the business of the House was set aside in the sense of imminent personal disaster. Impervious to private sorrow, the Leader of the Irish Party sprang upon his feet, gesticulating and pointing at the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. And Evelyn saw the men of his own party turn to look at Farquharson as though they could not trust the evidence of their own eyes; she saw him break and falter as the word "traitor" rang through the House.

In the Speaker's Gallery, confusion, horror; in the Peeresses' Gallery, a flash of light as women in evening dress rose hurriedly from their seats; in the Strangers' Gallery, a murmur of comment and dissension; the body of the House, convulsed with new and overwhelming emotion, collapsing like a house of cards.

An attendant with papers was at the door of the Ladies' Gallery; there was a rush in his direction. Evelyn must have pushed forward and bought one, how she hardly knew. She was just about to open it when Dora Farquharson, at her side, caught at her arm and fell, terror-stricken, across the seat; she felt Lady Wereminster snatch the paper from her with shaking fingers, and, while she was lifting Dora to her feet, she looked over her shoulder and read the headlines of the page aloud.

"Treachery in the Foreign Office; the text of the secret Treaty in the hands of a Foreign Power. A European war inevitable."

Below: "The Emperor's letter to Lord Gaunt given verbally. Startling disclosures."

CHAPTER VIII

"The longer I live the more I am certain that the great difference between men—between the feeble and the powerful, the great and the insignificant, is energy, invincible determination—a purpose once fixed, and then death or victory. That quality will do anything that can be done in this world; and no talents, no circumstances, no opportunities will make a two-legged creature a man without it."—SIR F. FOWELL BUXTON.

"I have been sitting here with my pen in my hand, wondering how to find words in which to tell you what really happened at that awful scene in the House of Commons," Lady Wereminster wrote to Hare next day, with shaking hand. "I want to put it all down in plain English, to make myself see the main facts more clearly—at present my whole vision seems blurred and vague. I now know something of what women felt when they stood outside a door and knew that within the room their husbands were being racked. One of my nieces was out in South Africa during the war, you know. She told me that one of the most terrible things she saw was a man, a common soldier, in one of the hospitals at Kimberley, who had been wounded by expanding bullets in the hand between the thumb and forefinger, and in the thigh. Both, under ordinary conditions, would have been mere flesh-wounds; as things were, the space between the forefinger and thumb had swollen as high as a muscular man's arm, and the wound in the thigh was in the same condition. But the man could not die, and medical convention prevented his doctor from putting him out of pain. He lingered on, to Mary's knowledge, in agony, from the battle of Roidam, which took place on the fifth of May, until she left Kimberley on the thirty-first of the month. Throughout that time he had not even momentary cessation from torture. And when she went away the doctor told her that the man's vitality was such that he might well last a fortnight longer.

"A fortnight—think! Remembrance of that suffering man flashed back to me the other night in the House. Nobody likes having to see physical pain; as for mental pain, the only way we treat it is to slur it over. Like St. Thomas, we can only understand wounds we can put our fingers into and probe.

"But you have imagination; you can guess what last night meant to Richard Farquharson and us all. He had been warned that some mischief was afloat, but he never dreamed how far it could go. He came in quite buoyant and undismayed; the first taunts and invective left him unmoved. He bore them down by sheer force of will; giving one rather the impression of facing his enemies 'with his tongue in his cheek,' as Shakespeare says. But presently he began to realize that matters were serious enough to bring the best he had in him to the fore, and then he did indeed give us the best he had of truth and sincerity. He shook off his cynicism and indifference like a cloak. The words sound cold—oh, if I could but make you hear the man's speech as we heard it, spell-bound, breathless! Old members of the House, who had been there for forty and fifty years, say they never heard any speech approach it. I suppose he actually reached the summit of his power in those few moments. Then downfall came.

"The panic that spread as the news about the Treaty filtered through the House was absolutely indescribable. Farquharson never flinched. That's where blood tells. A man of the people in a like crisis would have wavered and lost his head. But when our class is face to face with imminent peril, mental or physical, we are encompassed with a host of silent witnesses, before whom it is impossible to quail. Voices of our dead forbears murmur, 'We are watching you from the heights. We, too, knew danger in our day, and met it. And our blood flows in you, remember. Be true, not only to yourself, but to the dignity of your race.'

"You will remember the story of that Marquis in the Revolution who, driving to the guillotine with other aristocrats, finely attired, sniffed at a rose to the last, because, as he explained, the smell of the rabble so annoyed him?

"We found afterwards that influence had been at work undermining all one side of the House with suggestions and innuendoes. It appears that the whole of the Opposition was expecting some dramatic dénoûment to Farquharson's speech; what it was they didn't know, but they were prepared for some great climax which would tell in their favour. Anonymous letters had been sent to individual members; the whole work had been done subtly. But for that I doubt if there would have been that instantaneous reaction, the sudden change of aspect between a great assembly hanging on a man's words, one with him in spite of themselves, and a body of men scenting treachery and dishonour, furious at having been fooled and tricked. It took one back to Pilate's house, to the judgment of Christ, when the crowd cried 'Crucify Him, crucify Him!'

"They say that but for Mr. Beadon's seizure a vote of censure would have been moved at once. Under the circumstances it was impossible to go on with the ordinary business of the day; at the moment we all feared that the poor Prime Minister would actually die in his seat. The House was adjourned. There are rumours of Mr. Farquharson's resignation, but I heard just now that he absolutely refuses to give up his post until he is assured that he has lost the confidence of the country. It seems as though he could not take in the fact that he had hardly a friend in the world except our own little coterie. He got on too well and too quickly not to arouse envy and jealousy on all sides.

"I send you, under separate cover, some cuttings from the papers; the leading ones were of course non-committal, the others are full of invective and denunciation. As for the Moon, it did not mince matters at all. Caring not a jot what it said so long as it just escaped the law of libel, it practically accused Farquharson of selling the nation for his own ends. As you know, he has never been popular with the Press. No newspaper can say of him, 'This is my puppet; I pull the strings and he does as I direct.'

"It is now supposed that Mr. Farquharson's study and safe must have been opened by duplicate keys on the afternoon of the great crisis in the House. The question is how an impression could have possibly been taken of the key of the safe, as it never leaves Mr. Farquharson's personal possession. The safe was ransacked, nearly everything in it being taken—everything official, I mean; private papers were left. Detectives are at work on the affair, of course.

"It appears that Mr. Farquharson went out early that afternoon, leaving the Prime Minister to lock the door. Lord Creagh, who was with Mr. Beadon all the time, says that he never parted with the key until he returned it to his son-in-law. Both of Mr. Farquharson's secretaries can prove alibis on the day in question; the servants have borne irreproachable characters for years. The fact that Richard himself spent the afternoon with Herr von Kirsch, the representative of that Government into whose possession this special information was proved to have been given that very day, is dead against him. Mr. Farquharson means, I hear, 'to face the music' to-night; the papers will tell you that most of the other Ministers have been suddenly stricken down with influenza. Wereminster says that the party is in a state of absolute panic; they got into office on a wave of public emotion, and are terrified lest the tide should turn.

"Did I tell you that Dora Farquharson was there? Somehow or other, I don't know how, the three of us got together at the door of the Ladies' Gallery, and were the first to read the paper—Evelyn, Dora and I. I think Evelyn did one of the pluckiest things I ever saw a woman do in my life. There was such confusion in the House below that no noise in the Ladies' Gallery was likely to be specially noticed. The tumult was shocking and the rush. With Dora Farquharson clinging to her arm she read the news aloud, and calmed the tumult. 'They dare to say Mr. Farquharson has done this thing,' she said; 'it is a lie. It may not be proved to-day or to-morrow, but it is a lie all the same.' You should have seen those women pause. We are like sheep, after all; we follow our strong leader, be it man or woman. Another woman took Evelyn's cue; she was, I think, one of the heads of the women's franchise movement, or some such thing. Anyway she was quick enough to see that in a moment of national excitement it would speak well for women if they could comport themselves quietly and with dignity. To quote the morning papers, 'In spite of the disturbance and dissension below, the occupants of the Ladies' Gallery withdrew in perfect order, and with no signs of excitement, a great contrast to the prevailing attitude of the House.'

"Evelyn and I led the way with Dora Farquharson. She had, of course, to be taken home at once and put to bed. One dreads the advent of the evening papers; more still the comments of the foreign Press. And if we dread them, what must Richard Farquharson feel? I never knew how much I loved my country until now. These low little papers!—every stone they fling hurts me personally. To hint of corruption and bribery here, in England!—I am only a woman, and I feel this acutely. Again, what can it be to Richard Farquharson? As things stand, it is as though he had wounded almost to death what he loves best and would sacrifice most for. This is a blow at his heart, and a blow at the nation. How to meet it, decadent as we are, demoralized by that love of luxury and advertisement which brings us day by day nearer disaster and downfall?"

CHAPTER IX

"Never make a defence ... before you are accused."—CHARLES I.

In youth, a great crisis may only spiritualize and refine the features; in maturity, it leaves ineradicable scars.

The first great blow of Calvert's life had embittered him; the second left him shattered. Farquharson was like his son, more to him in some ways than his own son would have been. Parents have always to face the possibility that their children may go absolutely contrary to their wishes; the transfusion of two souls may create a being which develops on entirely different lines from those desired by they who willed it to exist. But Farquharson had fulfilled Calvert's every hope; his appointment in the Ministry was the culmination of Calvert's ambition. Calvert, looking upon him, felt that he could say his Nunc Dimittis thankfully; how easy to depart in peace when one had left behind, as legacy to the empire, so strong a man of war!

But human strength is, after all, limited; no single unit can hold on steadily against a battalion of armed foes. Farquharson woke the day after the attack in the House to find himself hemmed in, surrounded by enemies, his name bandied from one man to another, in the dockyard, on tubs at Hyde Park Corner, in open booths at Walworth Bridge Road. The socialists saw their opportunity and made the most of it: "A starving man may steal a loaf of bread and be sent to prison for five days—this man, who has sold the secrets of his nation, will probably go unscathed because he is of gentle birth."

It was torture to Calvert to go out that day; he never knew when in 'bus or tube or district railway he would hear Farquharson's name spoken contemptuously by strangers. For men spoke of circumstantial evidence, and "Circumstantial evidence is the hardest to disprove, and frequently unreliable," as a great criminal lawyer once said. Brand had done his work well. But—"In so gloomy a climate as ours we must expect the powers of darkness to prevail," said Lady Wereminster.

Stunned and horrified, Farquharson himself did not at first take in the full force of the rumours that were being spread about him. It was impossible to conceive that he should be suspected of treachery. When, the night before, he lost grip of his audience, he had at first believed that it was through some fault of his own. He had never seen suspicion in men's eyes before. But next day's papers were more explicit. Men and women discussed the subject over the luncheon table, at Princes or the Piccadilly Hotel. "Such a pity—one had always thought Mr. Farquharson quite a nice-minded man." There is after all no ball so light to fling as that of a man's or woman's character, and no sport so amusing to the players.

When the question of moving the vote of censure was fixed for the next evening, Calvert's last hope died. Who was there to stand by Farquharson? Beadon was lying sick to death. Shock had snapped some lesion of the brain, and he lay paralyzed. Richard would pull through, of course—what would he not pull through? But the older man felt the shame, the ignominy of his position almost as keenly as he did himself. Farquharson, called to account for his actions by a set of men who did not know the meaning of the word honour; Farquharson, impeached by some who could scarcely spell the word—Farquharson, steady of purpose, sure of aim, a king amongst puppets, held in contumely, derided, blackened a little as a man or woman must always be blackened by the mud thrown even by the very scum of humanity.

It was bitter, it was unbearable. Calvert counted the hours until the moment when, across the Bar of the House, the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs would have publicly to repudiate a deed which the powers of hell themselves would never have forced him to commit.

Evelyn, instead of having been paralyzed by the shock, found it had quickened every instinct. She felt as if she were charged with a new and strange force, a kind of super-consciousness which made her the recipient of a thousand telepathic messages, along which communications carried with the speed and safety of a telegram. It took her away from ordinary surroundings and left her indifferent even to all Brand said and did—although he naturally spared her nothing. There is an inner chamber to every heart, a place of refuge and concealment of which at times one may mercifully turn the key. Evelyn withdrew there now when he attacked her; safe within its four walls, she listened to his criticism of Farquharson as one listens to the ravings of a madman. He could touch her no longer; he could hurt her no more. That is the comfort of receiving a mortal wound. The thrust of spear and bayonet may tear and lacerate to an unendurable pitch of torture, but a blow at the heart kills.

"As we have seen nothing of Mrs. Farquharson," said Lady Wereminster, "we will charitably suppose that for once she has been of use to her husband. There are women who fail in every minor office who can yet rise to occasions. And a man in trouble must have sympathy, no matter from what source. Dora Farquharson has got the opportunity of her life if she did but know. Never expect me to pity a woman who can't keep her husband. She's a fool, and I hate fools. Men are naturally more domestic animals than women. The ties of daily intimacy make enduring claims upon them. A man may be consumed by the fire of undying passion for one woman, but he's dependent on the one he lives with, if she will only minister to his daily needs, and never let his supply of whisky or cigarettes run short, and be ready with a new dish or a soothing medicine as each is required."

"If Dora fails her husband now——" said Evelyn. She stopped.

"Oh, if it were but the ideal marriage," said Lady Wereminster. "With the right woman he would have braved all this and carried it through triumphantly. They have been married long enough now to have begun to form the deeper ties of union and of confidence. It partly amuses, partly hurts me when people talk of the early days of marriage as though all the sweetness and ardour and passion and tenderness of life were concentrated in them. When two people really love each other those things not only endure and strengthen, but take exquisite sanctity as years go by. The plant strengthens. Its blooms are finer. As the years go, its colour and texture are fit to grow in the Garden of God. Something of the Eternal Love has filtered directly through from some crevice of heaven and shone upon them; their scent isn't of this world, but eternity."

"And you think that might apply to Mr. Farquharson and his wife?" said Evelyn. She stood quite silently, looking away from Lady Wereminster.

"Never," said Lady Wereminster; "but men are human. They're like dogs who are hurt. They cringe away into corners where, for a while, they miss accustomed voices, and presently creep out, ready to lick the hand of even the hardest master so long as he is master. When men are hurt they slink off, in much the same way; but daily routine tells. They are creatures of habit, who miss even the harshest voice if they have once got used to it. Dora Farquharson is on the spot, and there's the other tie.... How far that will tell one doesn't know. Fatherhood affects different men differently, but I have an idea it will constitute a strong claim on Mr. Farquharson."

There was a knock at Evelyn's bedroom door; her maid entered with a letter.

"The man is waiting for an answer, ma'am."

"Excuse me," said Evelyn. The letter was from Mrs. Farquharson, so hurried, so incoherent that she did not at first grasp the meaning of the few excited words.

"Please come at once, no matter what you're doing. I must have you; I must speak to you. I am almost out of my mind with agony and horror; you mustn't fail me. Richard doesn't know I'm writing. I don't know what to do. For God's sake, come at once."

"She's failed him again," said Evelyn slowly. Lady Wereminster snatched the letter from her.

"It isn't that at all. Here, get on your things, I'll take you on in the car. That it should come to-day of all days—poor Mr. Farquharson!"

Dawn—cold, grey, chilling. The stir and bustle of servants' steps; low voices. The household at Chester Street had been hurrying to and fro sending telegrams and dispatches and messages ever since Evelyn had arrived at twelve o'clock on the previous day. While the Leader of the Opposition was preparing his vote of censure on the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and such members as were in the country were hurriedly returning to town in order to be present at one of the most dramatic debates of the century, the fate of Farquharson's child hung in the balance between life and death.

Lady Wereminster was right; when Evelyn entered the house she saw at once how matters stood and sent for the doctor. She had found Dora in a state bordering on frenzy, bitter, reproachful, incoherent. The torrent of words with which she was met dazed Evelyn so that she could scarcely take in their full force; Farquharson, very still and pale, was standing upright by the fire-place in the dining-room, listening with a face that might have been carved in marble, so still was it, so utterly expressionless. But Evelyn, entering, saw the deep lines cut obliquely from nostril to lip; saw the furrows in the brow, cut as if by a chisel—those lines of ineradicable pain which the years deepen instead of smoothing.

She swept across the room, and, catching Dora's trembling figure in her arms, put her hand above the girl's mouth and checked the hideous torrent of words.

"You must come up-stairs at once to your room," she said sharply. "You've sent for the nurse, of course, Mr. Farquharson? Then please do so at once. Come up with me, Dora—or, better still, let your husband carry you. No, I'm not going to listen to a word now; you're better for the moment, and this sort of scene does you no good at all. You may think I'm speaking harshly, but I'm not. Send for Felice, Mr. Farquharson, will you? Or, if she's hysterical, the head housemaid, please; she's a sensible woman."

"It's awful, it's ghastly," said Dora, fighting them both, as they tried to carry her up-stairs, between spasms of pain. "It's unendurable, and I won't bear it. Doctors are beasts; I know this man won't give me chloroform until the very end. I won't bear it till the end, do you hear? Why should I be tortured so for a man I loathe? I won't have it, I tell you; I won't have it!" Her voice rose to a shriek. "Make the doctor come, Evelyn; make him give me something. I won't stand it, I tell you; I won't stand—oh, God——"

This was the prelude of hours of revolt and rebellion. It seemed to Evelyn that for a lifetime she had listened to Dora's ravings. She tried to excuse them on the score of delirium, and failed. In some ways Dora was a typical modern woman, eager to take all that life offered her and pay no penalty; rebellious at the gift of a new responsibility which compelled her to take life from another point of view.

Nurse and doctor both came presently, and then another nurse was sent for, Mrs. Farquharson was too unmanageable for one alone.

Evelyn, sitting in the room beyond, was called for ceaselessly. No one could do anything so well as Evelyn. No one else fanned Dora in the right way, or knew when she wanted her pillows moved. Now she must have her head laved; now she wanted special scent on her handkerchief. The pillows were wrong again now.... No, Evelyn could not have anything to eat at this moment. How could she when Dora was in such pain? She could go down-stairs and have something presently, when the nurse had finished her meal.

But the "presently" never came. Hour after hour Evelyn sat, waging perhaps the hardest battle of her life, as Dora's rebellion gave way to hatred, and hatred to passion so intense that the very room seemed charged with it. Evelyn had seen Farquharson come to the door; from her bed his wife had recognized him, and poured out such a torrent of contempt that Evelyn ran to her and put her hand upon the quivering mouth.

She dragged her tired limbs now to the head of the stairs, but Farquharson had gone. She wondered which would be the hardest ordeal, the facing of that stern tribunal before which he would presently stand at bay, or the one through which he had just passed.

Of late Evelyn's prayers had been merely mechanical. To-night they concentrated; let him have this at least, dear God—one thing in the world which might comfort and cheer him.... But where it became a question of the child's life or Dora's there was, in Dora's mind, no choice. She had never wanted the child from the first, she loved her own life.

At midnight Evelyn heard Farquharson return. She knew by the sound of his footsteps that the vote had gone against him. She tried to disengage her hand from Dora's, but failed. By the time she was free, he had gone to his own room; she heard him move heavily across it.

Physically spent herself after hours of struggle with a woman whose strength in intervals of pain was almost incredible, Evelyn watched day dawn, with a face that was haggard and worn. Dora's shrinking at pain she would have borne so gladly shattered her. In moments of physical anguish souls are revealed, and she had never seen Dora in so pitiful, so low, so unworthy a light as she did now. Wearied out at last, she moved mechanically, like one in a dream, going to and from the sick-room as she was bidden. Dora had got her way; the doctor had administered chloroform long before he would have given it in the case of a courageous patient. Sitting alone in the little anteroom, Evelyn watched grey shadows come and go, frightened servants stepping on tiptoe, the doctor and the nurse, even Farquharson, whose ravaged face put him beyond the reach even of her spoken sympathy. In the house it was presently rumoured that the real struggle with death had begun; the piteous struggle of the child to whom Dora had denied any chance of vitality which might have given her one added pain.

The end came in the morning as light trembled into being. As if in a dream, Evelyn heard a cry that pierced her heart; a cry that seemed to sound the death-knell of her own dream-child, that put Farquharson further away from her. Some smell of chloroform or ether—she was no longer able to distinguish between the two—was penetrating into the inner room. When presently her name was called, it seemed to make a definite atmosphere through which she feebly groped her way to Dora's bedroom. One of the nurses met her there with a tiny bundle in her arms. Evelyn took it; it was pitifully light.

"He may not live," the nurse said; "the doctor thought his father would like to see him. I must go back to the room, Mrs. Farquharson is so dreadfully nervous and hysterical; we are both quite worn out. Just hark at her now! Would you kindly take the baby down, Mrs. Brand."

The gods have an unlimited belief in one's powers of endurance. Slowly, with breaking heart, her eyes drowned partly for self-pity, partly for fear lest the flickering little life she held might breathe its last before the end of her journey, she went downstairs and entered the sitting-room where Farquharson stood waiting. She saw his face as he greeted her, its pallor, its anxiety transfigured suddenly by the light which comes but once in a lifetime to a man, and that only when he looks upon his firstborn son. Without a word he held out his arms; without a word Evelyn handed him her dear burden. Then the room rocked, she put out her hands blindly, swaying. So bitter, so cruel, so overwhelming was the moment's agony, that it was as though a chord had snapped in her heart, and left her struggling for breath. But Farquharson neither saw nor heard. She closed the door gently—how she did not know—and left him alone with his son.

CHAPTER X

"The cord breaks at the last by the weakest pull."—Old Spanish Proverb.

At one point in pain, all sense of value dies. Nothing is left but the overwhelming realization that, throb by throb, it will increase until it reaches the climax, when a woman bites her pillow to stifle her shrieks, and a man in all probability blows out his brains—the shortest way of escape. To the woman there succeeds what may be called reaction, a temporary lull, in which body, mind and soul are alike so bruised and stricken that, possibly from sheer weariness, sleep may come for a brief hour. But next day the pain begins again and concentrates again, and so on and on from day to day and week to week, the only change being that soul and mind and body become daily a little more bruised, a little more stricken.

This is worse than a mere period of spiritual dryness; it is an active wrestling with the powers of hell. It is in such moments that religion fails, and the faith to which one was born seems to spell restriction. One would prefer to fling it away altogether, to deny its truth, to escape to a world where the light of the heart might give out its full radiance, even if the soul shrank in gloom.

Doubts creep in in such moments of peril. Catholics do not mince matters. They do not expect to cheat God in their lives and the devil in their deaths by tardy repentance. If they sin, they risk eternal damnation, and know it.

The description of a picture she had once seen had often been in Evelyn's thoughts lately. God sat in judgment on His throne. Before Him was ranged a tribe of kneeling figures—kings laying down their sceptres, soldiers their swords, queens their jewels, men their symbols of ambition, women their guerdons of beauty. Some hung back as though unwilling to give up so soon all that was pleasant. In the foreground of the picture knelt a young girl's shrinking form. Her eyes, mystical and reverent, were looking at the throne; she held one hand bravely outstretched, but the other was concealed within the drapery of her gown. In the hand that pointed direct to God there was the half of a little human heart, her own, all that she had to give, for the other half was withheld. Amongst so vast a crowd of worshippers she thought that perhaps God might not see the gift she offered was divided.

Torn with conflict, every energy, every force concentrated on one prevailing thought, the daily routine of her life temporarily suspended, what had Evelyn now to give God? Little pitiful utterings of prayer, the mechanical moving of lips to the rhythm of habitual words—that was all. Yet, after all, what proof had she that what she had been taught in childhood was true?—Think of the bitterness that would come, if at the end of life, when the secrets of all are revealed, we were to find that we had given up love, in bitterness and agony, for the sake of a phantom God and a phantom creed....

The thought passed. Belief held her still. But in the conflict between self and soul lay her real torment.

It was the sight of Farquharson's child that had broken her, a child born in rebellion and anger, wresting its life from the God of Being in spite of its mother's cowardice. She felt as if her own child had been stolen from her. Wounded and weeping tears of blood, she must stand by and watch it in another woman's arms.

The inscrutable laws of human destiny! Call them rather those of blind chance, since some of us seem born only to be first tossed to and fro on the waves of disaster, and then thrown, helpless and mangled beyond recognition, upon the shore with other refuse.

It was in such a mood as this that Evelyn awaited Lady Wereminster's arrival a week after the vote of censure. Farquharson had allowed himself this specified time in which to battle with public opinion. If at the end it still went against him he would hand in his resignation. It is only when a man is called upon to defend his honour that he knows which are his friends and which his foes.

All through the week Evelyn had hoped against hope; had worked and striven on his behalf as much as she dared, only to meet an icy wall of indifference. The world had given its verdict. Temporarily the Farquharsons were to be ostracized. When your acquaintances in high places are openly accused of bribery and corruption by the foreign Press, it is high time to revise your visiting-list. Obviously Mr. Farquharson had to resign. That he should continue to hold such an important post would make matters very uncomfortable for all who knew him. Eventually things might blow over; but in the meantime society shrugged its shoulders, and shook its discreet skirts free from the least trace of contamination.

"The time is up. We shall know Mr. Farquharson's decision to-night," Lady Wereminster said. "I must save you from hearing the news shouted in the open street. I shall come on to see you directly his announcement is made, if it is made to-night."

The moments crept by, and hours, while Evelyn waited. Mercifully she was alone. Brand had been called to the country on some mysterious business, and she had sent her servant away for the night. West Kensington is not usually a neighbourhood where there is much traffic during the social hours of the evening; its inmates are more inclined to go by foot or rail to their engagements than by carriage or motor. But it seemed to Evelyn that night that the streets were full of noise and movement. Time after time she heard the approaching hoot of a motor, and went to the door to find that the sound existed only in imagination.

But Lady Wereminster came at last, slowly, with head bent and lagging steps. Her news was written on her face. Evelyn drew her into the inner room without a word.

"He has resigned," Lady Wereminster whispered. "And he looks as if it were his death-blow."

"I must try to tell you consecutively," she went on presently. She stretched her hand out trembling towards the liqueur glass of brandy which Evelyn had poured out for her, and drank it off at a gulp. "I'm unnerved, I suppose. It was one of the most awful things I've ever witnessed. The scene in the House the other night was nothing to it; men were beside themselves then with the sudden shock, the very noise and tumult helped to carry one through. But to-night there was a frozen silence, a great icy wall of horror and contempt and deadly purpose, that turned the very blood in one's veins. When Mr. Farquharson entered, I thought of a time in Egypt when I had seen the people shrink from a man who was stricken with leprosy. One looked to right and left and asked, 'Where are his friends? Where are the people who have canonized him and idolized him, fawned at his feet, and cringed before him?'"

There were tears in her eyes; she stopped abruptly. Evelyn, quite tearless, listened.

"And then?" she said.

"It was as though when he spoke they were stripping him threadbare," said Lady Wereminster, her mouth rigid. "To my mind, he dealt with charge upon charge with absolute sincerity and conviction. His hearers listened with the air of spectators at a play, a play whose chief actor lacked what the French call vraisemblance. There's nothing so impossible to grip as an audience that has wrapped itself in the cloak of indifference. I suppose at heart there isn't a man in the House but covets Farquharson's position; not a man but thinks he could fill it as adequately were he called upon to do so. And jealousy, as you know, has been at the root of every betrayal, of every libel, since the world began."

"Were there no cheers, no interruptions?" asked Evelyn. Her hands, gripped tightly together, alone betrayed her. "Surely his colleagues cheered him? It was the least they could do."

"There's not a man amongst the lot," said Lady Wereminster. "They were all deadly nervous. Each waited to see what his neighbour was going to do before he dared act on his own initiative. One or two nodded to Farquharson, that was all. There was only one course open to him, and he took it."

"He resigned, then?" said Evelyn.

"He explained very clearly at the beginning of his speech that it was the only course open to him under the circumstances. The whole affair being without precedence, I understand that he was practically given a free hand in his way of dealing with it. He said that he had from the first courted the fullest inquiry; he had immediately put matters into the hands of Scotland Yard. Everything that could be done had been done to compel the Power which had bought the information to admit from what source it was obtained. Up to the present moment its refusal was absolute. He accounted briefly for his actions on the day in question; even reading a letter from Von Kirsch, which, in my view, entirely cleared him. He said he knew that as yet he stood in the position of a man who had not legally proved his innocence, but that up till now he had not thought it possible that his fellow-members should seriously suspect him. In the face of public opinion, which he supposed was echoed by the House, he would resign his office until he was once more asked by his colleagues to take a seat in that great assembly. The whole speech was on these lines—direct, concise and manly. But he ended as he had begun, in silence."

"Silence!"

In the street below a man and woman were singing the refrain of a popular music-hall melody. The windows of the little flat opened on to the street, so in the pause that followed the words echoed distinctly, accompanied by the giggling murmur of the crowd, and the strumming of three primary chords on the piano-organ.

"Don't you wish 'e might get it, Bill?

Oh, ain't he a powerful man!"

"Good-bye, I'm going now," said Lady Wereminster brokenly. "The street boys will be here soon, calling the extra specials. Well, you're prepared for them now, thank God. Go to bed soon. You're looking absolutely dead beat." She took the girl's face in her hands and turned it towards the light of the little lamp which stood upon the three-cornered table by the mantelpiece. "Your heart's been bad again, hasn't it? Your face has got its old grey look—the look that always frightens me."

"Oh, I'm all right," said Evelyn tonelessly.

At the door Lady Wereminster turned suddenly back and put her arms round Evelyn again, as tenderly as a mother.

"Hold on," she said; "you are one of those who must hold on, because we expect you to. So far you've been brave, Evelyn; don't give in now."

Usually a quiet sleeper, Lady Wereminster found that night that her thoughts were as clear, her mind as capable of action, as in the day. She had a pleasant little boudoir attached to her bedroom; at about two o'clock in the morning she rose from her bed and flung herself down upon the couch, a most unusual proceeding.

To be able to see from only one point of view is indescribably consoling. Unluckily for her, Lady Wereminster could put herself in other people's places, could judge the result of her own work as critically as she judged the work of others. When she had, more or less, compelled Farquharson to marry, she had acted emotionally; her one idea had been to save Evelyn from threatened scandals. She had not reckoned, for one moment, on Farquharson's temperament. She had practically bid him seek a wife—any wife. What was the result? She forgot that she was dealing with a reckless and adventurous man—the type upon which one can never count with certainty. There had always been a spark of dare-devilry in Farquharson's nature. She had expected him to weigh the various advantages of the various charming ladies who tripped across his social stage as possible candidates for marriage. Instead of doing this, he had flung himself headlong into the first abyss which gaped before him. It would have been worth another man's while perhaps to marry Dora; but Farquharson could get on without Beadon's influence. And Dora's character was, as any woman of discernment would observe, one which must inevitably repel and alienate him. Such women are like cancerous growths; they eat away a man's vitality, robbing him in time of strength and force of will.

And she was responsible for this outrageous marriage—she, Mary Wereminster. She who had always prided herself upon her judgment and balance. Lives are, after all, very dangerous chemicals to play with. Mix the wrong two together, and disaster follows.

With the best intentions in the world, what had Lady Wereminster compassed after all? She had not really saved Evelyn; there are times when even a surgeon decides that a disease is inoperative. She had taken Farquharson from a life of comparative peace and thrown him into one of petty annoyance and difficulties—jars which strain such a man's endurance to the utmost. Lady Wereminster did not for one moment believe that Farquharson had committed the act of which he had been accused; but she thought that he might possibly have been careless, and, if it were so, his failure was due to the consequence of that mad marriage into which she had pitilessly flung him. So the tragedy, the betrayal, the very position that her nation stood in at the moment, was due to her own folly, her own ruthless activity.

Impulsively spoken words, letters written under misapprehensions, can never be withdrawn. If as a child one makes a mistake in a sum, one can erase the figures and add them up afresh. But in life a mistake once made is irremediable, as Lady Wereminster knew.

CHAPTER XI

"To all men there comes the last battle."—GEORGE STEVENS.

The door closed with a bang. How final it sounded! Almost as if Lady Wereminster were going out of her life, Evelyn thought. She put her hands to her head. Momentarily she was overpowered by the strange, sudden faintness which had come upon her so often lately.

It passed, and she went back to the sitting-room, waiting with a set purpose. Sooner or later he would come. She looked for no merely human message. Between two hearts that beat absolutely as one there is no need for such communications in moments of great crisis. The one calls to the other, and the other obeys.

At about eleven o'clock, the echo of boys' voices calling the news rang through the open windows. Evelyn, still strangely idle, listened unmoved. She heard front doors being hurriedly opened, the shuffling of many feet up and down the kitchen steps; now and again voices from bedroom windows calling to the men below to wait for a moment until some hastily-awakened servant had time to get down and unlatch the door. Even in West Kensington such news had its interest. Evelyn pictured the thousand and one faces which, in London, were at that moment bending over "late specials," reading the lines which crushed a man's career, temporarily at least, and broke his heart.

The noise lulled. With ears extraordinarily quickened, Evelyn had heard the sound die away in the direction of Hammersmith and Fulham. The words echoed in her brain, like a discordant piece of music, recurring again and again—

"RESIGNATION OF THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS!"

"MR. FARQUHARSON'S RESIGNATION."

Then new sounds came to distract her; the bustle of feet as the last Tubes disgorged late occupants returning from the theatre; the whir of an occasional taxi-cab; the hurrying wheels of hansoms; the almost inevitable discussion as to fares.

Silence again. Then a new chorus of sounds—altered in character. This was the hour when belated clients were turned out from public-houses. They were uncertain, stumbling footsteps that passed now, confused voices, readily roused to mirth or anger. She heard a jumble of conflicting notes, annoyance, irritation, cajolery, laughter, broken at last by a policeman's voice and a sharp order to move on.

Then silence again. Nothing, now, but the bark and growl and eventual whimper of a stray fox-terrier shut out from the house opposite, and the never-ending wailing of cats, which sounds so exactly like the cry of a frightened child.

Two o'clock—three o'clock. He was late. Evelyn, hearing the clock strike, tried to move, and found herself held in the grip of almost intolerable physical pain. For hours she must have sat in one position, leaning forward in her chair, with hands lightly crossed upon her knee; every limb was cramped. She crossed to the window, and pulled aside the blind for a moment. In the daytime the windows were alight with a thousand eyes; now they were blank and sightless. The street was deserted; the reflection from the lamp showed a long expanse of deserted pavement.

Then from afar she heard the sounds of approaching footsteps, firm, determined; belonging to one she knew. Her thought had drawn him as she wished. She let the blind fall, and going to the hall door awaited his coming.

We read, mostly in books by spinsters, a great many unnecessary details of what in their view is a scene of passion. But when a man is overwhelmed and broken it is the mother-love of the woman he cares for most to which he looks for peace and security. There are no sweeter or more tender services than those which a woman can offer her lover under such conditions, and nothing draws them nearer than his temporary dependence.

Farquharson came in blindly, like a dazed man, gripping her arm with a strength he did not realize. She knew there was some new pain behind his stricken eyes; when the hospitable gods give you a bitter cup to drink they are very careful to fill it full. He sat in absolute silence for a while, and she knelt beside him. It struck her afterwards as a wonderful proof of the tie between them that he did not question her when she met him at the threshold, that he took her waiting, her expectation, her very silence for granted.

It was a long time before he turned. Then he looked her full in the face, with eyes from which all the light and youth had gone.

He caught his breath.

"You have heard the news?" he said. "I thought so. The streets were alive with people last night. I was pressed to buy papers over and over again on my way here. The result had barely been announced in the House when a message reached me from home"—Evelyn winced—"from the nurse, to tell me that my wife"—he laid stress on the word—-"was ill, and wanted me. As I was leaving the House, at the very door, I was stopped by another messenger, it was an important cable in reference to a big Russian question; it required special knowledge. The man who is taking over my work had to deal with it then and there, and couldn't without help. I stayed. That meant ten minutes' delay, but it had to be. It took me another eight minutes to get home. Two minutes before my son had died in agony, left by the nurses in order that they might attend to Dora, who was in violent hysterics because she thought they were neglecting her to look after my child."

He pushed Evelyn's hand away and walked to the mantelpiece. The light of the little electric lamp defined every line, every feature, with all the havoc that the night had wrought.

"My dear! my dear!" said Evelyn brokenly. There was a fierce battle in her heart, but she stood silently beside him, and dawn filtered slowly through the half-drawn blinds.

"I could not have left him but for you," Farquharson said, after a pause. "He's lying there now in my dressing-room, on a little bed of flowers; there were flowers enough in her room and to spare; I took them. Have you ever seen a dead baby, Eve? He's like marble now, the little mouth all set and cold—you would never think it, but he smiled at me only yesterday. He knew me, you know. I know they say it's absurd that a baby of a week old should, but I'm sure he did. He used to clutch my finger—you would never have believed how strong he was!—and snuggle in here in the bend of my arm, where I'm holding you now. I had to be everything to him, you see; his mother had never even had him in the room from the first." He stopped abruptly. "When I went in to tell her he was dead, she said, 'Well, I'm afraid that's the end of your hopes of an heir, Richard. I shall never go through this again, I assure you.'"

"Don't, don't," said Evelyn; "I can't bear it!" She caught him in her arms and held him close, with strength that seemed to have been given her for that one purpose.

But presently she spoke; clearly, concisely.

"You asked me once to go away with you, Richard, and I refused. You had your life before you then, and you could do without me. Now you have nothing. Do you know how I suffer with you in every ache that's tearing your heart-strings at this moment? I had my dream-child too, dear—its loss was bitter enough, but yours was worse. You've got the touch of little, living fingers to remember, the light of dear wee smiles that were your very own from the beginning. If you want me still I'll come to you anywhere, anyhow, so long as I can be with you and comfort you. When you could do without me, religion was strong enough to keep us apart, but now it isn't. Things are too hard for us, and I've given in."

"Eve——!"

He looked at her, stupefied; hardly understanding what she said.

She pulled the blind back.

"See, there is the dawn. Our dawn, Richard. There shall be no grief or repining if you take me, dear. I'll make you as happy as I can, and give you all I have and all I am—your absolute possession, bought by pain."

The light from the east came in upon the man and woman, standing close together, more in the position of two persons who had been one for many years than that of lovers whose lips had met only for the second time. They watched it touch the commonplace houses of the dreary street with its transfiguring light. As Evelyn looked, a sense of peace came over her. After all, it was the conflict which had been so infinitely bitter, the civil war between soul and body, reason and heart.

"You needn't speak," she said; "I know what you've decided. Let me know in a few days when you want me to come, what you want me to do. You'll have to say good-bye to your little son, you see; you'll let me come and say it too, won't you? Good-bye till then."

"When I want you—God!"

"Now you must go!" She faltered; all that the man had suffered showed in his last words.

He kissed her and went out. The sun rose, flooding her with light as she stood on the doorstep watching him. He thought of her many times afterwards as he saw her at that moment, tall, pale, yet radiant, unashamed, with eyes mystic and sad, and features a little drawn but spiritualized by the night's waiting and suffering. She looked as though peace encompassed her, stilling the turbulent forces which had enfolded her so long. Had she been summoned before God just then she would have used the very selfsame words in which she spoke to Farquharson: "Things were too hard for us—I have given in."

PART V

VICTORY

"Love ... when weary, is not tired; when straitened, is not constrained; when frightened, is not disturbed, but like the lively flame of a torch all on fire, mounts upwards and securely passes through all. He that loves most willingly embraces all that is hard and bitter.

"... If the works of God were such as might be easily comprehended, they could not be called wonderful and unspeakable."—THOMAS À KEMPIS.

"It were not hard to suffer by His Hand,

If thou couldst see His Face;—but in the dark!

That is the one last trial:—be it so.

Christ was forsaken, so must thou be too:

How couldst thou suffer but in seeming, else?

Thou wilt not see the face nor feel the hand,

Only the cruel crushing of the feet,

When through the bitter night the Lord comes down

To tread the wine-press—Not by sight, but faith....

Endure, endure—be faithful to the end."—MRS. HAMILTON KING.

CHAPTER I

"'Tis not the grapes of Canaan that repay,

But the high faith that failed not on the way."

Lines written upon a photograph.

At the same hour as Evelyn and Farquharson parted, Hare, wrapped round with all the paraphernalia of illness, sitting beside his window at an hotel in Biarritz which faced the Plage, braced himself by force of will to write a letter which he felt impelled to send.

"By the time this reaches you, dear Evelyn, I shall be dead. I shall leave instructions with the solicitor to whom I telegraphed six hours ago, that this letter shall be held back until the end. I have always been fond of you, as you know; it is not often given to childless men to meet with their ideal daughter; but in my heart I have always regarded you as that. I have been powerless to save you from the consequences of your actions, to spare you one lash of the whip with which the malicious sprites which govern this world's happenings have seen fit to scourge you. Throughout the vicissitudes through which you have passed, I have stood detached, a critical spectator. You might have resented my explanation in life; you are amongst those who forgive with exquisite tenderness the past impertinences of the dead.

"I suppose instinct led me to read you aright throughout. I saw you, as a child, battling against the inevitable; you are waging the same war to-day. You may, or you may not know, a phrase which is bandied about by 'common people' in Hindoo bazars—'Likka hai'—'It is written.' From the first, you have had to brave the most cruel enemies that can beset a woman—enemies of the household—secret enemies; enemies far more powerful, of faith and doubt.

"People will tell you that at the end, our thoughts are usually concentrated upon self—that the scenes of a man's mimic life pass each in turn before him in succession. I have not found that to be true. I am thinking of you now, your doubts, your difficulties, the problems that you are grappling with, which you have never told me, but which I have never mentioned until now.

"I am not a pious man, as you know. I pay no attention to the ordinary claims of religion. I take precisely the same pleasure in the Tenebrae of the Catholic Church, as I do in the Burial Service of the Church of England. In both you are swept from your ordinary course of placidity on the waves of the eternal. In the first, you have the dull rhythm of sound, with breaks, and curious changes of key and tune—if tune it may be called which is so Gregorian in its methods. Working up, step by step, with the disciples in their vigil with the Lord, you have the putting out of candle upon candle, the pause, the heart-stirring silence, culminating in complete darkness symbolical of dissolution. That is dramatic and intense. In the second, you have the direct voice of God. St. Paul never spoke with so clear a note as in his wonderful description of the triumph of things spiritual over things temporal. 'We shall not sleep, but we shall all be changed.... There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars: for one star differeth from another in glory. So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption: it is sown in dishonour; it is raised in glory: it is sown in weakness; it is raised in power.... As is the earthy, such are they that are earthy; and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly.... The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law.' We can never find words to match these either for concentration or for power.

"Catholicism is, as you know, not so abhorrent to me as it is to some Anglicans. To begin with, I am an historian; that in itself is a strong point in favour of a creed which personally I dislike. I think myself that it was a good thing for England when she threw off the yoke under which she had bled for so many centuries; my greatest contention against the Catholic power is her interference in the politics of nations, and her attacks on men's independence. On the other hand, I admit that one of the first charges we bring against her exponents is a paradox; we call them too worldly and too mystic; complaining that their eyes are fixed so steadily on the vision of Heaven, that they fail to recognize ordinary precautions which men of business, dealing with men of business, should observe. There are a million paradoxes in the Church; you can explain them only by admitting her claim, acknowledging her, like Christ Himself, to be the possessor of two different entities, Divine and human.

"I have known many Catholics in my day; I have never known one like you. You weigh all questions fairly, without prejudice, but shed on the solution of great problems the light of an undying faith. You know I obey no active claims of religion; yet I have never willingly abjured God in my heart. Mine is a negative quality, not aggressive. I am as sure that, were your faith called into question, you would go to the rack to uphold its most trivial point as I believe in God myself. There are many who trust you in this way; I am one of the number. If you failed, their faith would shatter; it would be as the foundation of a house sinking suddenly.

"Many things have been denied you in life, those things even which you most ardently wished, and for which from our human point of view you were most fitted for. But this is yours: The power to point the way by example; to uplift, as a living witness of its purity, the creed to which you have subscribed, and against which here in England so many barriers are raised of scorn and contumely and indifference.

"Here, on the very brink of the unknown, having gone through life as best I might, faultily. no doubt, but as, I hope, a gentleman to the last, I look to you with failing eyes and raise my hat in farewell. And perhaps I see you more clearly now than I ever did. You have been led away by emotion in your day; the devil seldom errs in aim; in your case, he has lodged his shaft in your most sensitive spot. Other women fall through egotism or ambition; you would fall through pity. But you are eminently logical. Should the time come when you are face to face with a great crisis, I beg you to remember my words and to pause and inquire. You would sacrifice yourself to one; yes, but would you sacrifice others? And there are many others who look to you as I do now, as the living witness of the purity of a faith which has kept its pre-eminence in spite of scorn and mockery and scourging—a faith which will, I think, always endure.

"The sea has lashed itself into absurd frenzy as I write. The sea can be very cruel. It longs to destroy, to tear and rend, like any human being. Three or four nights ago, as you doubtless read in the papers, it broke up a big ship like matchwood; it met and battered the men who tried to fight it beyond recognition, from mere wickedness. The sea and life are very alike in their methods. Life mars and mutilates the body. But if the soul has been true to itself, it looks upon those human wounds as outlets through which it may creep hour by hour, filtering through earthly channels to be one at last—bleeding but satisfied—in the image of its Creator.

"You have the ordinary human struggles against poverty to confront, amongst others. I have neither kith nor kin of my own. I have left you what I die possessed of, absolutely, with the exception of a few small legacies which I desire you should give as soon as possible to the members of my own household, my servants and personal attendants. Money has its value—at times it may even remove you out of the way of a disaster which you could not otherwise escape. And I know that in the past you have suffered many small inconveniences through being unable to give in charity as much as you wished. Now you are my almoner—chosen because of my explicit trust, both in your guardianship, and in the beacon of light to which you look, which guides so many faltering footsteps in the eternal way."

CHAPTER II

"I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano;

A stage where every man must play a part,

And mine a sad one."—SHAKESPEARE.

The great decisions of our lives are generally made in very undramatic settings. There is no stage music to carry us through the dreaded moment; we live through a crisis, and take up the thread of ordinary life again without a pause.

Morning dawned dull and grey, inclined to be rainy. Breakfast was served at eight-thirty as usual; at nine o'clock Evelyn interviewed her cook-general. Half-an-hour later she was hard at work upon the ordinary duties of the day. There was household linen to mend, silver to clean, china to be dusted; we have to go on with our daily work until the heavens mercifully fall.

There was no item of regular routine which she omitted: not even that of prayer. Yet Evelyn was no hypocrite. She knew quite well what the Church would say of her decision; she knew that she was risking her hold even on Christ's all-embracing pity. For the wantons and sinners He had forgiven had come to Him in shame and penitence, meaning to sin no more. In the one Biblical incident where He was brought in contact with a woman who expressed no remorse for the past, He Himself had given His injunctions solemnly—even while forbidding others to condemn her—"Go thou and sin no more."

Evelyn, of her own deliberate choice and will, from whatever motive, was setting out upon the path which religion and the world alike call iniquitous. The point of difference between the two judgments lies in this alone, that whereas the Catholic Church tries to stamp out and does actually condemn deeds which may for ever be concealed from those about us, the world condones all sin that clokes itself attractively, until the cloak is torn away. Then it is prompt to give sentence.

Those who, like Evelyn, make their choice in something of the spirit of a martyr, neither shirk nor evade the details of their fall. She was offering herself to Farquharson as the alternative of worldly fame. Had he retained his post in the Ministry she would, little by little, have drifted away from his life. But as things stood, this was impossible. Last night she had seen him shorn of every ambition, every hope, bereft of power and honour, shamed and broken, disappointed and disillusioned, forced to live with a woman who, once only uncongenial, was now actively abhorrent; stricken to the core of his being by the loss of the little son whose tender breath upon the waters of life had turned its gall and bitterness into sweetness and solace.

Now, having made her decision, there would be no turning back, no failure in carrying out the least of the many arrangements which it demanded.

Mechanically, she set about her task of tidying the house, of setting in more precise order that which was always orderly. She had withdrawn what little money she had in her banking account, and left it in the table drawer; Brand should not be pecuniarily the worse for her absence. She wrote to various friends offering them the flat for the season; she told them to deal direct with her solicitor, at 88 New Square, Lincoln's Inn, as she was going away shortly. She would not saddle her husband with the rent of a flat when he could live in bachelor quarters far more cheaply and conveniently.

There were a few personal possessions of her own, too, which were of value—an old diamond pendant, a pearl necklace which her grandmother had left her, a sapphire bracelet her godmother had given her at her marriage, and a few other wedding presents which were marketable. She telephoned to a jeweller whom she could trust, and interviewed him in the afternoon. The result exceeded her expectations; she was able to leave over two hundred and fifty pounds in bank-notes and cash in the table drawer, for her husband to dispose of as he chose.

Five o'clock struck before Evelyn had time to think of herself. And then it was only a very ordinary incident that recalled her. In her bedroom, on her mantelpiece, there stood a plaster cross which she had bought in Italy some years before. It was unusual in its way, the work of a man she had rescued from starvation. The cross was shaped conventionally enough, but the Figure upon it was clumsy and distorted. It looked like a travesty of suffering, an almost grotesque image of the sublime sacrifice. Of late, she had noticed that the pedestal on the right side of the cross had worn away a little; in her hurried dusting, the maid had perhaps given it a knock which made it likely to overbalance. Evelyn came into the room suddenly, and the Image fell, shattered, at her feet—crushed into so many pieces that nothing would mend it. She lifted it up with a little cry of dismay; one may renounce one's creed, in action, yet worship it in the temple of the heart.

She did not often enter Brand's dressing-room, so full was it of little things which jarred. Over his bed there was the figure of a satyr chasing a nude figure; water dripped from the woman's limbs, surprised while bathing. The walls had been distempered in a pale green tone which gave significance to the frames of the other pictures, mostly reproductions of French impressionist studies, types of the art of Claude Monet and his followers. One showed a naked woman lying on a bed with black sheets and black pillows; round her neck was a narrow band of black velvet. Another was the picture of a ballet-dancer, done by a leading member of the New English Art Club, a clever study in its way. In the foreground was the flare of footlights, concentrating their illumination upon the bare boards of a Paris music-hall stage. The central figure was that of a ballet-girl with whirling skirts and disordered hair; she was leaning forward, smiling, as she danced, at an audience roused to the utmost pitch of frenzy by the suggestion of pose and gesture. Another was the copy of an old French print, called in simple language, "Le Bouquet." A woman was lying in a wood, her head resting on a mound; her lover was kneeling beside her, looking down; he was crushing a bunch of roses against her breast and its disordered drapery.

The writing-table was in the window. Evelyn crossed to it; it was dusty. She cleaned and tidied this room herself, remaking the bed, which the servant had made carelessly; washing the glasses of the pictures, and the frames; tidying the dressing-table and polishing the wardrobe. When all was done she stopped to look back at her work, to see if anything was forgotten. The waste-paper basket was still full.

She slipped off her apron and emptied the contents of the basket in the folds. She was just gathering the bundle up when a stray word caught her eye. She glanced back at it, puzzled, suddenly suspicious. "Concession?"—that was not a term of which one made general use. She took up the torn slip of paper—"... garding the terms of the concession."

The first word was broken, but it was obvious enough: "Regarding the terms of the concession." What did that mean? The note was in Brand's handwriting; to what concession did he refer? Forgotten words and acts returned to her; the terrible suspicion raised by Lady Wereminster's innocent words—the scene in the hall, now some time back.

She stood for a moment looking down, bewildered; then bolted the door and prepared slowly to sift, one by one, the contents of the basket. Brand was a careful man. He had disposed of the torn-up pieces of his notes of the Treaty which he had stolen from Farquharson in various channels. Some had been thrown from the window; others scattered in the wind on his way to the Strand; there were but a few pieces of the original paper upon which he had scrawled his first rough translation of the cypher in the waste-paper basket, which Evelyn's careless maid-servant had left there for more than a week, because it was not noticeably full.

She had set out upon the table certain familiar words and phrases in an unfamiliar shape. As yet she did not take in their full force. Yet they rang, with curious insistence, at the door of her heart; she was sure that in some way they affected the welfare both of herself and him she loved. Fate—rather, God—had decreed that she should find them and act upon her knowledge.

She looked at them again, amazed and stupefied. They had been written in a hurry, and blotted, seemingly, upon soiled blotting-paper; the words, even the separate words, were blurred and almost unintelligible. Yet some stood out, clear and distinct: "Treaty—concession—negotiations," the very name of the Power involved. And all these she recalled; she had read them on the morning after the great scene in the House; they were the terms of the Treaty which Farquharson was supposed to have sold to the Power that coveted England's supremacy.

Why should Brand have copied them when he could have cut out the more concise account that was printed in the daily papers? ... And this work showed signs of obliteration and change, as though translated by an unaccustomed hand; there were many erasures and corrections. In one case, for instance, there was the revision of a complete sentence which had obviously been misunderstood at first by a reader unversed in the code.

Evelyn had caught up the heap of scattered fragments in her hurry. Such portions as had been destroyed had evidently been chosen in haste, picked at random from a number of torn pieces; for occasionally one could put together half a consecutive line, while often again whole lines were missing. The notes and letters were in various handwritings. White to the lips, her face set and stern, dreading she knew not what, she separated those which were not written by Brand from those which were. Pausing a moment to reflect, she went back to these, and patiently grouped them into little heaps, piecing them together with infinite care. Amongst others there was a note from Dora—this was the first time she had learned that Mrs. Farquharson was in communication with her husband.

Dora's note—oh, the rashness of women!—was dated two days before these inexplicable notes of Brand's. "I don't see how I can do what you want," she had written; then a few lines were missing, "should you press me ... can't hold up against ... too strong ... as you wish ... time is short ... we have ... hurry. Cruel of ... he has never done much for me ... should think ... his piece of mind? ... Miserable ... unhappy ..."

A few odd fragments of note-paper were still left in the basket, written in a strange hand. Evelyn took these out. They contained a brief message arranging an immediate interview, signed with the name of the man through whose hands it was suspected, failing Von Kirsch, that the stolen notes had passed.

The envelope was addressed to Henry Brand.

"To-day at four-thirty—Meningen." And the date upon the letter was one never to be forgotten.

"To-day at four-thirty—Meningen." Evelyn repeated the words aloud. The sound reached her meaninglessly, in confused vibrations, as sounds reach the ears of the deaf. For the moment reason swayed; how could she grapple with the difficulties that faced her? with all that the little scraps of paper involved?

Cold, stern, pitiless, Evelyn stood beside the table, looking down at her work. How clear things seemed now, and yet—could they be clear? Would any Englishman, however poor, be treacherous to his country where her honour was imperilled, where her safety was threatened? Would any wife betray her husband to save herself? Her heart answered her. Only a man like Brand—the man with whose life she had been linked indissolubly; only a woman like Dora—without heart or imagination.

This must be given to the world—at once. Her heart leapt. Farquharson would be saved—by her—his character re-established. Once reinstated he would hold his own; the stronger for the seeming fall, he would go on from strength to strength.

But what of her? He would not need her now. And what of Brand? Shamed and broken, proved a traitor, forced perhaps to pay the penalty of his crime, how could she desert him now?

Yet—how to stay? She shuddered. No, to stay was impossible. But she must safeguard Brand as far as possible. There was no one she could take into her confidence, no one to help her. And again there was so much to do, so little time to do it in!

Evelyn knew something of official methods in dealing with secret agents; the country which had benefited by Brand's betrayal of the negotiations would be the last to help him. Yet he must be got away at once, to another country under another name. He was staying at Seaford; from there it would be easy to get to Newhaven; if she wrote at once, he would get her letter by the second post at latest, he could in all probability take the morning boat to Dieppe, and from thence journey inland. There was a little village she knew of, a few miles from Paris, where he would be secure until he had arranged his plans. Or he could ship straight to Marseilles; there were no towns more easy to be lost in than Marseilles and Barcelona, hotbeds of cosmopolitan intrigue.

Her brain cleared. She would arrange to meet Brand at Marseilles, to give him the money which she dared not trust by post. A cheque was, of course, too dangerous to be thought of for a moment; notes even might be traced, so could money orders and drafts upon foreign banks. It would take an hour or two at least to change so large a sum of money into the English gold which alone was secure.

So much for the practical side; what of the human?

How could she go back to her old life now, when the new life had been within her very grasp? Hourly to spend oneself for others, to wake in the morning with no thought but how best to equip relations and friends with armour to shield them from the world's slings and arrows, to be a sort of model housekeeper with no wages, is doubtless excellent and useful, but it is not life.

She went into the little sitting-room and stood where she had stood a few hours before, her lover's arms about her, his kiss on her hair. It was the hour of her life, all she would ever have. Other people talked of love; she knew what it was. There was a difference. She had always known it in her heart; known what it might be to surrender herself utterly, in the way which most human beings cannot realize, bending will and mind and heart in joyous service, one with her husband, as Lady Wereminster had meant when she said that only in the later days of marriage was its summit reached—because to the right man and the right woman custom only deepens the tenderness of first tremulous ties and changes their promise to fulfilment.

Her love and Farquharson's was born of conflict and sacrifice. It is the only love which survives. For years her life had been actively paralyzed; the frozen blood in her veins had warmed at his touch. When, at parting, she had seen his eyes kindle at the reflection of the light in her own, her heart had leapt radiantly, as though for the first time conscious of its power. Yet now at the very moment when life had opened out limitlessly, she must turn her back upon it, must shut out the glowing picture.

Must she shut it out? Must she? Would he wish it? She could give him the human happiness which he craved, peace and oblivion.

Peace, when he had left his wife? And what of Evelyn herself? Before her stretched two paths. Which should she take?

There were voices in her ear; the voice of her director, stern, implacable; the voice of conscience, loud and shrill; Cummings' voice, grieved and pitiful.

"Marriage is a sacrament," said one; "how have you observed it?" "You have abandoned yourself to sin; you have renounced your safeguards of salvation, abjuring the help of your creed for the sake of a passing illusion," said another. "Alas! because of you, Christ is crucified daily," said the third. "Not a wound of His but bleeds afresh when you sin." "How can there be aught but eternal damnation for him who sets his hand to the plough and turns back?" asked the first. "Faith encompassed you as a garment," said the second. "You have rent its mantle. You have stripped yourself to stand in voluntary wantonness before the eyes of men, you who were made in the image of your Maker, upon whose brow there has been set the seal which for ever places you apart from your fellow's—the mark of God by which He knows His own, that you are ready to sear now and efface."

"You plead love as your excuse," said the third sadly. "But is it love to drag down the soul of another into eternal conflict? A mother refuses her child what it wants, although it hurts her to deny him, because she knows he cannot take the thing he would without harm. God knows best."

"It is the eleventh hour," said the first; "but the Church has spoken and you must obey. Therein lies her power; she does not plead, but she demands. You subscribed to her irrevocable tenets as a child; they hold you still. No merely human power is mighty enough to withstand her, because she rests upon unshakable foundations, and you, unstable and derelict as you are, still know that from afar the beacon of light shines, that although you have strayed now from your Mother, she will guide you to the end."

A derelict—a human derelict. Yes, it was true—the words described her.

She fell down on the floor of the little sitting-room, sobbing great tearless sobs and beating fruitlessly at the air. Useless to fight the most perfect, the most complete, the most unanimous system that has been since the world began. The Catholic Church is like a wonderful machine; unlike that made by man, it cannot break down. Evelyn was its child, bred in obedience. Once, many years ago in Liverpool, she had seen some wonderful invention which revolved at the rate of some hundreds of turns in thirty seconds. Unluckily for her, she entered the room just after a serious accident. A careless workman standing near had been caught by the wheels and cut to pieces before it could be stopped. The invention itself was beyond praise; it had done incalculable good to humanity. Only a few comparatively worthless lives had been sacrificed to it. That was all. It had helped millions. Was that not also true of the Church?

She rose wearily. Time was passing.

She took up her pen and wrote to Brand, sealing the letter.

"I hope that this will reach you in time, that you may catch the morning train to Marseilles. I have found the absolute proof in your own handwriting that you stole the Treaty. I am withholding these proofs for twenty-four hours; that will give you time to leave the country. You will, of course, change your name. If you go at once, on receipt of this, to the Hôtel de Londres, I will meet you as soon as possible, within twenty-four hours or forty-eight, as the case may be, with about two hundred pounds in English gold. That should make your position clear until I have time to carry through my intention—which is to make over to you, under whatever name you permanently assume, the hundred pounds a year which I received from my father.

"At the Hôtel de Londres I shall ask for Mr. Hendry. See that your name is booked as that in the hotel register."

Evelyn fastened the letter deliberately. No very difficult task this. But—what of her letter to Farquharson?

For here—how many sides took arms against her? Nature—cowardice—physical frailty, even. They were so mighty an array, these almost visible temptations which struck at the very root of her being, which surrounded her and weighed her down with a solid panoply of strength. And to meet them she had but her piteous array of threadbare honour and tottering faith.

For Farquharson it was different. Those who have fame cannot reasonably expect love; life is as best a compromise. Farquharson's career was wide and high. The fate of nations lay in his hand; nations, like individuals, move mechanically to a set tune. The average man deals in small issues; his view is bounded by his neighbour's fences. But Farquharson's boundaries were limitless; they stretched from empire to empire.

"I send you these enclosures," she wrote at last, "they explain themselves. I trust to your honour to keep them back for two and a half days from your receipt of this letter. You have borne so much already; you will bear this for me. This alters everything, of course. You won't need me now. Had I been able to atone in the smallest degree for your shame and betrayal, you know that I would have given myself gladly, without a moment's hesitation. But your career is opening out again before you. You are not mine really, you see; you never were mine in the biggest sense. Men like you are too big to be bound down by a woman's love; you will reach your goal the quicker because you haven't me beside you. Everything is settled; my husband's escape and my own. It will tell in his favour if I too seem involved in the inevitable scandal. We shall have to stand or fall together in this. Such help as I can give him by identifying myself with his interests must be his—is, in fact, his due, considering that in my heart I violated every law of God's that bound us.

"Don't try to find me; I have to take my courage in both hands as it is. There are some things beyond expression.

"Good-bye. That's a cold word to say. I doubt if it ever has been said with a more profound sense of farewell. We shall never meet again in the future; we have met too often in the past. Yet how sweet it has been, some of it—worth every pang, every wound. How sweet it might have been, you and I know.... But we cannot stand against God's will.

"I could write on for ever—what's the use? We know the truth. We belong to each other, now and always. The two lives which stand between us now are shadows, which once in eternity will disappear."

She folded the two letters, addressed them, and went down-stairs to post them herself. There was a letter with a foreign postmark in the box; she recognized the handwriting as Hare's, although so weak and tremulous. She held it for a moment in her hand, wondering what it contained; Hare was an infrequent correspondent. She decided to post her letters first, and read his message afterwards. There was so much still to be done that night. She had still to arrange her own plans of escape. To Marseilles she must inevitably go—but afterwards? That lay on the knees of the gods. When once she had seen Brand, she would take the next train out to the unknown.

CHAPTER III

"They kill me, they cut my flesh ... what then? ... In matter of death carry thyself scornfully ... either the gods can do nothing for us, or they can allay the distemper of thy mind. If they can do nothing, why dost thou pray?"—MARCUS AURELIUS.

To overwrought nerves there is occasionally something soothing in the movement of a train. Evelyn, on her way to Marseilles, looked back to the rush of events of the last few days with amazement and wonder. By the same post as Hare's letters there had come one from his solicitor; a brief announcement of the fact that he had received instructions from his client authorizing him to communicate with Mrs. Brand immediately upon his death. The solicitor wished to see Mrs. Brand, if possible, within the next twenty-four hours, as she, amongst others, benefited by the will. Would she telephone to 8431, Central, at once to fix a meeting?

She had met him then and there, in view of her sudden departure abroad. It was necessary to make a fresh will; having disposed of Hare's legacy in charity, the solicitor obeyed her instructions regarding her husband, without restriction. An hour later found Evelyn ready to leave England, to start a new life under new conditions. Through the train windows she watched village after village flit by, as though she was looking at the shifting scenes of a biograph. Only dimly aware of beauty, she whirled through the kaleidoscope of colour, of full and fragrant orchards, of fields of daffodils, by vineyards and woods, until at last she reached the coast, and before her the view of the Mediterranean stretched, in its eternal blue. She had gone through the hours of travel oblivious and stupefied, hardly conscious even of the occasional stoppages of the train.

Brand was awaiting her, he had arrived twelve hours before. Their interview was brief. He took the money, and promised what she asked. He would never trouble her again; this was the end.

She did not take his hand; she could not. At the last he turned.

"You're a good woman, Evelyn," he said suddenly.

That chapter of her life was closed, and she set out for the unknown.

She was bending her steps towards a radiant vision—Monserrato. Years before, on a night's journey from Barcelona, she had come upon it unexpectedly in the dawn. Her fellow-travellers in the compartment had departed; she was just then alone with her companion, a portly lady of uncertain age, who would have slept profoundly through an earthquake. Tired and over-wrought, Evelyn had for some time been looking at the landscape with eyes which scarcely took in its significance. Suddenly, on her right, there rose a vision so startling, so mysterious, that for a moment she believed it to be the image of her brain, a supernatural vision. Spire upon spire showed before her, serrated hills, bare and austere, grey and cold in the first gleam of the morning. She saw their outlines distinctly for a full half-minute; then, as the railway line swerved, they were lost to sight, and for a little while she thought they were a dream. They looked so like hills of illusion, behind which lay God's gift of eventual peace. But as the train converged towards the station the hills came suddenly close again, and she knew them to be real.

So near at hand, they almost terrified her. One realized in face of them how Ignatius Loyola had toiled, barefoot, every step of the way across those rugged paths. They were an obvious viâ crucis. To step across them in shoes, with the ordinary trappings of civilization, was sacrilege; they compelled renunciation, the absolute denial of all that life held dear, before a believer dared set foot on that sacred pathway.

Well, she had proved her right to stand there, to walk in the way of the martyr. The bleeding of human feet is, after all, a temporary small inconvenience; when the soul bleeds, God tests its loss and gain.

Hour after hour went by; she was too tired to think or read. Now and again a sharp pain at her heart, like a blow, brought her to herself, and she had to raise herself from the cushions against which she had fallen, limp and lifeless, absolutely apathetic, to gasp for breath. The little physical interruption cleared her brain; she looked quite clearly at the future, and knew what its ensuing hours would bring. In time, probably, she would take up old threads again. Habit is strong, and friends assertive; bury herself as she would, some one would find her out and come inevitably for help or pity. But she would have to draw now upon the well of bitterness instead of a sacred fount. No matter. The water looked as crystal clear; those who sipped it would not know from what source it had sprung.

Before her interminable days, immeasurable nights. The nights were the worst. Already terror seized her in its grip. She had awakened to find herself calling upon Farquharson with passionate frenzy; shrieking to him to come and help her bear what could not be borne alone; to drive away, if it were but for an instant, the host of shapes that threatened her, the inward foes that tore at every bleeding fibre, and mocked her as they bathed themselves in the blood of her heart. When she was awake, she longed for sleep; when sleep came, she prayed for wakefulness.

That way lay mania; better death. Ah, but death comes so seldom to him who craves it as a boon; it only robs the mother of her son, the husband of the wife he cherishes, the little, helpless baby of his mother's care!——

She fell into a troubled sleep.

She woke to find the beauty of the Mediterranean on her left, its exquisite coast-line soft with the flush of evening. Leaning back in hopeless weariness, she wondered how, had she come face to face with her Maker at that moment, she would have justified her existence. For a short while before she had asked herself, in all gravity, why she should give up all that life held dear for the sake of what might be after all, the beautiful dream of a young Nazarene, who died for the sake of His philosophy, as many others did before his time?

Yes, love had been her betrayer, the seducer of her soul. In the old legends the gift of love was always made by the good godmother. Treasure as it was thought to be, it had sharp facets which wounded the heart of her who pressed it to her bosom.

Looking at life now with that sense of curious detachment which comes to some of us when we stand on the brink of a moral precipice, it seemed to her that God had given His Great Gift of Love for this, and this alone—to show by the mutability of earthly things—even by the very highest passion which human love can attain—the necessity of leaving all for eternity, of tearing every human chord and tie to shreds, that from the broken strands we might weave a tiny ladder upon which wearily to climb into God's Kingdom.

One compensation had been given her. She had helped the man she loved. She had made him forget the bitter memories of his childhood; she had rejoiced at his success, and mourned with him in pain; she had reinstated him in the eyes of the world he loved, and made it possible that he should leave behind an honoured name. Only one thing was wanting.... But suddenly a vision formed; her life was full of visions now—she could not tell reality from dreams. She saw the open door of a little church on the hillside, far away in a distant land, but full of the presence of God. She saw the light of faith issue from it in a visible stream, pouring like a mountain torrent down the hillside, giving life to flowers which sprung up on the way. Up the steep hill a traveller came; he moved faintly and wearily, the light had gone from his eyes; she recognized him. Slowly Farquharson came to the door, there to stand blinded in the transfiguring light shed from the jewelled monstrance high upon its throne. And a man came forward, a man with outstretched hands, whose look was very welcoming—Cummings. She heard his voice ring out with a great gladness: "This is what she wished; it was for this that she laid down her life...."