F.E. Mills Young (continued 5)

He leaned over her and rained kisses on her mouth, kisses that seared her lips, that almost stifled her. He was giving rein to his passion. A quality both wild and lawless sprang to life in him and overrode his better nature for the time. Disappointed hope and baulked desire drove him to a frenzy of excess which in saner moments he would not have believed himself capable of. He would have been horrified at this complete loss of control had he been able to appreciate it. But a spirit of recklessness held him before which his commonsense melted like snow consumed by the fires which passion lit in his breast. It occurred to him while he held her, crushed and trembling, in his arms and kissed her madly, that he was a fool to attempt to reason with her. A girl nursed in the washy traditions of her class, as Prudence was, should not be hampered with the responsibility of choice: he ought to decide for her—ought to take full responsibility for the step he was urging her to accede to. It wasn’t fair to burden her conscience with a sense of willing concession. That was where he had made the mistake. He was asking too much of her.

“Little love,” he whispered against her lips, “don’t be afraid. There is nothing to fear in love; and I love you better than life. You are going with me to-night. No, don’t speak! You are nervous and unstrung. You don’t know what you want. Leave this to me. I’ve got a car waiting in the village. We’ll travel up to town in it; and later, when I am drafted across the water, you’ll go to France as my wife, and live there until I can be with you again.”

He drew back his head to look at her, and his face softened to a wonderful tenderness; there were tears in his eyes. After a barely perceptible pause, he resumed more quietly:

“Prudence, I’ve thought of this hour day and night since I saw your dear face light up at sight of me, and your dear eyes smile their welcome into mine. You are mine by every natural law; and I’m going to take you. Scruples! We have no use for such folly. They didn’t scruple to marry you to a man too old for you. He had no scruple against taking you without love. They’ve themselves to thank for this. What does it matter? It’s our own lives we have to think for. Leave everything to me. Don’t worry. I’ll manage things. I am taking you away with me to-night... Life’s going to be just splendid, dear. We’ll be together. Oh, Prudence, it will be great—wonderful! My dear! ... Oh, my dearest!”

Very tenderly he kissed her lips again. Prudence suddenly disengaged herself from his arms and slipped to her feet and stood facing him, the moonlight splashed on her hair and face, and on the slender bare arms, which she lifted on an impulse, bringing the hands to rest on his shoulders.

“We can’t, dear,” she said. “We can’t. It isn’t that I’m afraid; it isn’t that I don’t love you—better than any one in all the world. It’s just because I love you so well, I think, that I can’t have the beauty of it spoiled. That sort of thing brings regret—always.”

“You don’t dare,” he said in sullen tones. “You are thinking of what people will say.”

“No; it isn’t that. I don’t wish to pose as good—I’ve never been good. But clean and decent living appeals to me. I’m cold, perhaps—even a little hard; it isn’t so difficult for me to practise restraint—when I try—hard. I’m loving you with all my heart, dear; but I don’t want to do what you ask. If I agreed, I should hate myself, my life, everything, when the glamour faded and I had time to reflect. I know myself so well. I would rather go on with my dull loveless life than go away with you and lose my self-respect.”

“You don’t love me,” he said. “You couldn’t talk like that if you were in love. It’s unnatural. I’d risk damnation for you.”

She leaned a little nearer to him, and a new quality came into her voice; her face was solemn and tender.

“There’s something else I’m thinking of besides these things,” she said. “I can’t bear that you should go to face death—to meet death, perhaps—with this sin upon your soul. I don’t like to think that men can talk so lightly of sinning in such grave and terrible times.”

He made an impatient sound that was like a cry of protest, and moved restlessly under her hands.

“Oh, hang it all! One doesn’t want to be thinking all the time about that.”

“When death stands so close as it stands to nearly every one of us these days; when one reads of nothing else,” she added quietly; “it makes one think. It alters all one’s view of life. I used to feel that my own life mattered tremendously; that I had to make the most of every opportunity which might add to my enjoyment. Now I see things differently. I don’t hold a lesser belief in the importance of life, quite the reverse; but the personal point of view is altogether unimportant. Satisfaction comes from living worthily. I have never done that. I have been always selfish and inconsiderate for others. I believe that to-night you have taught me self-knowledge. Teach me also to be strong.”

Her voice fell into silence, but she did not remove her hands from his shoulders. And he remained for a few seconds motionless, looking at her without speaking. The appeal in her eyes and in her voice was irresistible; it was as an appeal to his manhood from some one pathetically weak and conscious of her weakness; and the better side of his nature responded to it. But it cost him more than she could ever know to relinquish his dreams at her bidding.

He put his hands over hers and stood up. And so they remained for a while close together, looking into each other’s eyes.

“You are everything to me,” he said at last, breaking the silence unexpectedly. “I’ve thought of you so much—thought of you always as belonging to me. It doesn’t seem possible to rid myself of that idea. I’ve no interest in life outside it.”

“I know,” she said. “I know. It is not going to be easy for me either.”

They came upon another pause.

“At least you have a cause to fight for,” she said presently.

He shook his head.

“All that doesn’t count, somehow. But I shall be glad to go now. I shall never come back. Prudence.”

“Ah, don’t!” she cried, with a sob in her voice. “Don’t say that. I shall pray for your safety every day of my life.”

“Pray rather for a swift and merciful bullet,” he said. Then, seeing the pain in her eyes, he took her face between his hands and kissed it. “Don’t cry, little love. There are worse things to face than the long sleep. Alive or dead, you will live in my heart always. Keep my place green in your memory, dear.”

She dropped her face on his breast and sobbed her heart out in the shelter of his arms.

Chapter Thirty Nine.

More credit is given to heroism which arises from physical courage than is accorded usually to moral bravery. Yet the standard of physical courage, however loudly acclaimed, ranks no higher. To win a victory over one’s self demands greater strength of purpose than is required for the defeat of an ordinary foe. To obey a sense of right from motives other than discretion necessitates courage of a superior order. And it is through this courage, this quiet self-denial, that the world is kept a little better, a little sweeter, than would be possible if each individual set-out with the poor determination to gratify his every desire.

Prudence had won a victory; but she did not feel triumphant; there was no conscious elation in her heart. If the night air struck fresher and purer by reason of this restraint, it also struck very chill. Its cold breath enveloped her. She was weary and sad at heart.

Steele, too, was silent and dispirited. He parted from her in the road outside the gate, parted in almost apathetic calmness, and turned and walked quickly away down the hill. He did not once look back to where Prudence waited at the gate and watched him with sad eyes, tearless now, until the night enfolded him and hid him from her view. Then she let herself into the house and went wearily up to bed.

That was the beginning and the end of her romance. All the fine thinking in the world could not reduce the feeling of irreparable loss which she experienced in the knowledge that he had passed out of her life for ever. She had sent him away; and all her happiness went with him, all her love. If for a moment she regretted the triumph of virtue, it was but a transitory regret; but she did regret, passionately, that life had come between her and the realisation of love. She believed that she could never feel happy any more. She also believed that she could not return to her husband. The thought of living again beneath his roof was hateful to her.

Then merciful sleep overtook her, and the darkness closed down upon the misery of her thoughts.

The morning brought no relief. Heavy-eyed and languid, Prudence went downstairs, to find that she was late for prayers. She was aware of William’s gaze, as she slipped quietly into the room and took her seat, fixed upon her with a curious, it seemed to her, even a suspicious scrutiny. He paused in the reading and waited with a sort of aggressive patience until she was seated. Then he continued in his sonorous voice reading the lesson for the day.

Upon the finish of prayers breakfast followed, after which Mr Graynor repaired to the library with Prudence who since her return read the papers to him because of his failing sight. William prepared to start out on the day’s business. From the library Prudence could hear him calling loudly for his boots, and demanding of the servant who brought them why they were not in their accustomed place. It transpired that he had omitted to put them outside his bedroom door on the previous night and thereby caused delay in the cleaning of them. He muttered something in response, and hastily proceeded to draw them on.

The servant meanwhile went to the front door in answer to an imperative ring. Commotion followed upon the opening of the door. Mr Graynor looked round at these unexpected interruptions and signed to Prudence to cease reading. She sat with the newspaper open in her hands and listened to the sound of angry voices without.

Some one had entered and was talking loudly and defiantly to William in the hall. William was doing his utmost to eject the intruder and to talk her down at the same time—two impossible feats. The noise of their voices raised in fierce altercation drew nearer; and, attracted by the disturbance, Agatha made her appearance from the morning-room and stood, pink and trembling with indignation, looking upon the scene in incredulous amazement.

“What is that—creature doing here?” she asked of her brother.

He seemed to find some difficulty in answering her, and, evading her eyes, glared furiously at the defiant young woman, who, holding a child by the hand, maintained her stand with an air of assurance which refused to be cowed by his lowering scowl.

“You tell ’er what I want,” she said. “I don’t mind.”

“Go away,” he shouted. “Do you hear? Go away!”

“It isn’t difficult to ’ear you,” she retorted sharply. “I want a word with you, William Graynor; and I’m not going away until I’ve ’ad it.”

“Turn her out,” Miss Agatha exclaimed, shocked and affronted. “How dare she speak to you like that?”

“Why don’t you tell ’er,” the insolent voice insisted, “what I’ve come for, and why I speak as I do? Seems as if you was afraid of ’er.”

She looked round suddenly, and caught sight of Mr Graynor, standing with the library door open, surveying the scene. She shrank back, quailing before the cold anger of his look. But he had recognised her, and spoke now in a voice of sharp command.

“Come in here, girl,” he said; and to his son he added fiercely: “William, bring that woman inside, and shut the door.”

From force of habit, perhaps too because he recognised that there was no possible chance of evading explanations, William obeyed the order. He allowed Bessie Clapp to precede him, and following her into the room, shut the door sharply behind him, and stood with his back against it in an attitude of gloomy anger. Once he looked at Prudence, seated opposite their father with the newspaper in her lap, regarding the woman and child with pitiful understanding eyes. He would have liked to suggest the advisability of her retiring; but his natural effrontery had deserted him, and he remained silent.

Bessie Clapp also looked at Prudence. The sight of the quiet figure, the light of friendly interest in the blue eyes, proved heartening: the hardness melted from her own face. Standing a few steps inside the door against which William leaned, superb in her magnificent beauty, with the child clinging nervously to her hand, she confronted Mr Graynor, who, reseating himself, remained staring at her fixedly across the writing-table upon which he rested his shaking hand.

The stillness of their various poses, for with the closing of the door each had maintained a rigid immovability, was fraught with significance. There was no need for a verbal explanation of the presence of the woman with her child in that house. Mr Graynor knew, Prudence knew, as surely as William and the girl, what brought her there. Nevertheless Mr Graynor, leaning heavily upon the table, with his cold eyes upon the girl’s frightened face, demanded the reason of her noisy intrusion.

“I told her not to come,” William interposed sullenly. “I dared her to come here annoying you.”

Mr Graynor silenced him with a gesture, never once removing his gaze from the nervous, but still defiant, face. His question had been addressed to the girl, and he waited for her to answer him. She drew the child closer to her, and looked into the cold unsympathetic face of her questioner, and answered with a sort of sulky shame:

“I’ve brought William Graynor’s son ’ome.”

William made a move, taking a quick step towards her as though he would have silenced her with force; but no one looked in his direction; and he shrank back to his former position by the door.

“You make a serious charge,” Mr Graynor said, speaking harshly. “It will go hard with you if you cannot prove your words.”

“I can prove them all right,” she answered sulkily.

“I do not believe you,” Mr Graynor said. “This sort of thing has been tried often enough. It is an audacious lie. I say it is a lie. Give me your proof.”

Bessie Clapp smiled faintly. Her manner was growing more assured; the nervousness which the unexpected sight of him had caused her, was less apparent now.

“You can’t ’ave looked at the boy,” she said, and bent down and removed the cap from the child’s head and turned his face towards the man who questioned the truth of her statement.

Mr Graynor had given only a cursory glance at the child; he looked now more closely, and, staring with dim eyes fierce with passionate anger into the small face, beheld as in the days of his own youth the features of his elder son faithfully reproduced. There could be no dispute as to the likeness. A sickening sense of the truth of the woman’s claim, which before he had not so much doubted as refused to admit, held him dumb. He put his hand before his eyes to shut out the sight of the child’s face; and the little fellow, thoroughly frightened now, began to whimper. His mother held him and hushed his cries.

“You see,” she said, watching Mr Graynor curiously, fascinated and somewhat awed by his evident emotion; “that’s my proof. One ’as only to look at ’im to see who’s ’is father.”

A groan escaped Mr Graynor’s lips. He took his hand from before his eyes, and pushed aside some papers on the table, and rested his arms on it as before.

“How dare you bring him here?” he asked in low shaking tones. “Why do you bring him—now—after all this time? You want money, I suppose?”

Bessie Clapp turned a resentful gaze from him to William, who, furtively watching her, remained with his shoulders hunched dejectedly, scowling malevolently at her, and at the child whose claim upon him she sought to establish.

“’E knows why I came,” she said, indicating William with a brief nod. “I gave ’im ’is chance; but ’e wouldn’t ’elp me. I asked ’im to take the child off my ’ands, and ’e refused. ’E thought the work’ouse good enough for ’is son. But the work’ouse don’t ’elp these cases; and anyway I wouldn’t care for ’im to go there. And I can’t keep ’im no longer I’m going to be married. My man’s joined up, and I’ll draw the separation allowance. But ’e don’t want ’is child.”

Again she gave a nod indicating William, and then brought her gaze back to Mr Graynor’s face. The sight of the pained humiliation of his look caused a softening in her voice and manner. She had not wanted to distress him; she was not vindictive. She only required that the father of her child should make provision for it. He was wealthy enough to do so.

“I am sorry to ’ave ’ad to come,” she said. “I didn’t mean no ’arm. If ’e ’adn’t treated me mean, I wouldn’t ’a come. But I’ve got a chance now to start fair. I want to place the child somewheres. Plenty would take ’im if I could get the money guaranteed. But ’e,” with another nod at William, “won’t do nothing. That’s why I came. I warned ’im all right.”

The red of William’s face deepened to purple. He looked at the woman as if he would have killed her had he dared; but he did not move, did not utter a word even in his own defence. His animus against this girl, who had been his mistress, arose from the fact that she had broken with him. Had the initiative been his he might have acted differently. He hated her while he listened to her scornful denunciation of himself, and the sordid story of his meanness which she mercilessly unfolded. Not a word of what she uttered but had the ring of truth in it, and not a word in the miserable recital reflected any credit upon himself. He shifted his feet uneasily, and turned his furtive eyes from the spectacle of her standing there in her dark and tragic beauty, with the boy clinging timidly to her skirt, hiding his tear-stained face in her dress in fear of the old man who sat and glared at him and spoke to his mother in harsh angry tones. They frightened him, these strange people. He wanted to go away from the big house, and this fierce old man, and the red-faced man, whom he knew slightly but did not like. The red-faced man so often made his mother cry. But the mother took no heed of the small hands tugging at her dress; her thoughts were intent on other matters than the child’s distress.

Mr Graynor, his face transformed with anger, turned to his son, and, in a voice broken with emotion, with shame for that son’s dishonourable conduct and most despicable meanness, bade him speak.

“You stand there and say nothing to these charges,” he cried. “Why don’t you speak? Have you nothing to say in answer to what this woman alleges?”

“What is there to say?” William returned. “No doubt the child is mine. But I don’t flatter myself that I have been more favoured than others. She is a loose woman; and she is lucky enough to have forced a claim on me.”

“You lie, William Graynor,” she said fiercely. “And you know that you lie. From the time you pursued me, when I worked in the factory, a girl of sixteen, to the moment when I met the man I am going to marry, I never looked at another man. You are a mean liar, that’s what you are.”

Mr Graynor, ignoring the speaker and still looking towards his son, struck the table violently with his hand in an access of indignant anger.

“You admit the paternity of this child, and, instead of sharing the responsibility, meanly try to shift it, and impugn the morality of a woman whose immorality you brought about! How dare you utter these things in my hearing?”

“I’ve paid her,” William excused himself, and fingered his collar nervously as though it were too tight. “I kept her so long as—” He broke off abruptly; and added in a savage voice: “She’s had money enough from me.”

“I’m not complaining of what’s past,” the girl interposed. “If you ’adn’t stopped the payments I shouldn’t be ’ere now. I can’t afford to keep the child. ’E’s as much yours as mine.”

“There,” Prudence broke in to the general astonishment, for she had remained so quiet until now that they had almost forgotten her presence, “you are mistaken. The law protects the man in these cases.”

“Then the law’s rotten bad,” said Bessie Clapp bitterly.

Whether the sudden recollection of his daughter’s presence decided Mr Graynor to bring the interview to a close, or if he felt unequal to further discussion is uncertain, but at this point he waved the girl to silence, and unlocking a drawer in the table, took out his cheque book and wrote a cheque and tore it out and passed it across the table to her.

“I will see that my son makes suitable provision for the child,” he said quaveringly.

Bessie Clapp took the cheque and stood with it in her hand, looking at him out of her dark, sombre eyes.

“I’m sorry I come,” she said falteringly. “I’m going right away from ’ere. You won’t see me no more.”

Then suddenly Prudence rose. She left her place by the fire, and crossing to where the other girl stood beside the table, she bent over the child and took the little fellow by the hand and drew him to her.

“I am a childless woman,” she said, in a sweet voice full of sympathy, “and I love children. Give him to me.”

Chapter Forty.

A bomb falling in their midst could scarcely have caused a greater sensation than was produced by Prudence’s request. The effect of her speech and of her action was electrical. Only the child remained unmoved; and he, reassured doubtless by the quiet composure of her bearing amid the general tension, which he realised without understanding it, and the sweet gentleness of her voice, ceased his plaintive whimpering and stared at her with round eyes filled with wonderment, and forgot his fear.

Bessie Clapp stared also, a solemn light in her dark eyes, and with a face grown tender and womanly, with all the hardness gone from its look. But William Graynor, flushed with anger, strode forward to intervene; and the old man, looking with disfavour upon the grouping, uttered: “No, no!” in tones of sharp protest, and put out a hand and touched Prudence’s sleeve.

“The child will be all right,” he said. “Leave this to me.”

She turned to him with a wistful smile.

“He’s nobody’s bairn,” she said. “Nobody wants him—except me.”

“Your husband wouldn’t like it,” he remonstrated. “You have to consider him. Take the child away,” he added, addressing Bessie Clapp. “I will communicate with you later.”

Prudence gave the boy into his mother’s charge and walked with them to the door.

“If I can arrange it, are you willing to give him up to me entirely?” she asked.

“Yes, miss,” Bessie answered in awed tones; and added, almost in a whisper: “It ’ud be a fine thing for ’im, any’ow.”

“’E’s good,” she said, with the door open and her hand upon it. “’E ban’t like ’is father; ’e ban’t mean.”

Prudence returned to confront her father and brother, both of them disturbed, though in different degrees, by her unlooked for interference. Mr Graynor regretted having allowed her to be present at the interview, while William resented deeply the fact that his double life should have been revealed to the young sister whom he had systematically snubbed and preached to all the years she had lived in the home. The knowledge that she wished to adopt his bastard son was insupportable.

“Let me beg, sir,” he said, crimson and spluttering for words, “that you won’t permit this. It’s indecent. It’s—unthinkable. I can’t agree to it.”

“It has nothing,” Prudence answered quietly, “to do with you.”

Mr Graynor fixed his dim angry eyes on his son’s face, the passion which he had kept under until now blazing up like a conflagration fanned by a sudden draught. He had never felt so humiliated and ashamed in all the years of his long life. For generations they had lived in Wortheton, honourable men and women, with an unsullied record which it remained for the present generation to smirch. It hurt him in his most vulnerable spot, his pride, that this base and sordid sin should be laid to his son’s charge.

“You despicable hypocrite!” he shouted. “How dare you question the right of any one to undertake a responsibility you are not man enough to shoulder? Had I known before of this low intrigue I would have compelled you to marry the mother of your child. Fortunately for her, she has found a better fate. As for the child—” He broke off abruptly, and turned in his seat and sat looking into the fire. “Prudence and I will settle that matter,” he added more quietly. “Leave it to us.”

Without uttering another word, William went heavily out of the room. Prudence approached the old man, who sat, a shrunken dejected figure, before the hearth, and kneeling on the carpet beside him, put her arms about him lovingly, and remained so in silence, while he looked steadily into the fire, thinking back—hearing again in imagination her indignant young voice speaking out of the past: “I will pray hard night and morning that God will befriend Bessie Clapp.” He put a hand upon her hair and smoothed it caressingly.

“This is a blow, Prue,” he said. “It hits me hard.”

He roused himself after a while and sat straighter in his chair and looked at her inquiringly.

“What makes you think you would like to have the child?” he asked.

“Because I have no little one of my own,” she answered. “And this little child’s life promises to be a sad one. He has a claim on our consideration; the same blood runs in his veins.”

“That is what makes your proposition impossible, as I see it,” he said. “Edward would not wish it. Think of the disgrace, my dear. One likes to hide these things.”

“That’s where I don’t see with you,” she replied gently. “In my opinion it is in refusing to accept our responsibilities that we merit disgrace. I’ve learned that quite lately. Let me try to explain.”

She clung closer to him and laid her head on his shoulder and was silent for a space, plunged in thought. The old man continued his occupation of stroking the bright hair, and was silent too, wondering what it was that needed explanation.

“You never asked me,” Prudence said presently, “what it was that brought me home so unexpectedly.”

“I was so glad,” he replied, “to see you. It never occurred to me to ask the reason of your coming. It’s sufficient for me that you are here.”

“Dear!” she said, and pressed his hand fondly. “I’m always glad to come. I’m sorry that ever I went away. I came home because of a quarrel with Edward. I left him in anger. I had thoughts of leaving him altogether. You see, dear, I too have behaved badly. I meant to shirk my responsibilities because they had grown irksome. Don’t grieve, daddy; that’s all past. I’ve come to see that life can’t be twisted to suit each person’s needs. We should make a hopeless tangle of it if we followed that principle. There’s one simple course for the straight and decent liver—to accept life as it is and make the best of it. I mean to write to Edward to-day and ask him to come down and fetch me. Then I will tell him about the child. If he consents to my adopting him, I shall take him back with me.”

“You will make Edward’s consent a condition to your reconciliation?” Mr Graynor asked.

“Oh, no!” Prudence looked swiftly into his face. “I am hoping that he will give it as a concession.”

She twined her arms about the old man’s neck and drew his cheek to hers and pressed hers against it.

“I’m just hungry for a little child,” she said. “I long to hear little footsteps about the house, to know the clinging feel of little hands. I’m just a sackful of motherhood tied down and repressed. I feel that I can’t go on like this much longer.”

“I wish you had a dozen babies of your own,” he said wistfully.

“My dear!” She was laughing now, though the tears shone behind the laughter. “Half that number would serve.”

“I still don’t like the idea of you adopting this child,” Mr Graynor said after a pause. “He comes of bad stock, Prue.”

“Not bad stock,” she contradicted. “I’ve known his mother all my life. She made a mistake. That was largely due to environment: many girls in her position would have done the same. And William... we won’t judge William. We don’t know—everything, do we? I am a great believer in training. I know the faults I have to watch for. I shall teach my child to be honest and generous and self-controlled.”

He smiled at her a little sadly. Youth is so hopeful and so sanguine. But experience had proved to him that there is something which strikes deeper than training, something which no training can overcome—the nature which lies at the root of every human being.

Chapter Forty One.

Edward Morgan came in immediate response to his wife’s letter. It was highly inconvenient with the press of business at the mills for him to leave; but he spent the night in travelling in order to save a day, and arrived at Wortheton, cold and stiff, in the early hours of the morning, risking chills and all the evils he was wont to avoid in his alacrity to respond to his wife’s unexpected summons.

It had come to him in a flash of unusual perceptivity that if he did not seize this moment which her softened mood generously offered for effecting a reconciliation, another opportunity might not present itself. Despite a certain narrowness of outlook, there was no smallness in Mr Morgan’s nature. Because he read in Prudence’s letter a sign of relenting, an earnest wish to close their differences, it did not occur to him to take a dignified stand and leave her to make all the advances, extending his forgiveness only when fully assured of her penitence. Such unequal methods, he realised quite clearly, never effected anything beyond a compromise. And he was very anxious for a complete understanding between himself and his young wife. Complete understanding and complete trust. Without these no married life could be congenial.

His own marriage had fallen far short of his expectations. He knew that he had not won Prudence’s love. Since the night of their quarrel, when she had confessed to loving Steele, the hope which he had fostered patiently through the disappointing years, that he might yet win it, had died utterly. But, oddly, that night with its ugly memories, its noisy wrangling and bitter recrimination, had revealed with a certainty beyond question that his own love for her, which he had believed was faded to insignificance, was still very much alive. He wanted her very earnestly. He missed her, missed her bright presence about the house, her youthful prettiness, her coming and going in her independent search for pleasure outside his home. She had brought a glimpse of the unexpected, the delightful irrelevance of pleasant trivial things, into the prosaic setting of everyday life which had caught him away insensibly from the dulness and the worries of his stupendous business undertakings, and brightened his home, very much, he often thought, as the swift appearance of the sun would brighten the prospect on a grey day. He had not realised, until she left him, how much he appreciated these things. It was some return anyway, if not the most adequate he could have desired, for the love he felt for her. He had made no particular concession, had not even attempted to adapt himself to her view of life. He had demanded a great deal of her and given little in return.

These thoughts floated through his mind as he drove up the hill to the house. He was seeing their case altogether differently from the days when he had taken his young wife home and quarrelled with her seriously over such unimportant matters as ventilation and the direction of household affairs. He was, he realised now, directly responsible for the beginning of the breach which had widened yearly and ended in an open rupture. It remained for him to make amends for those earlier mistakes which had broken up the peace of his home. He had led too self-centred a life. In future he would evince greater interest in his wife’s doings, show more sympathy with her aims. After all, a wife needs something more from her husband than board and lodging; she has a right to his confidence and companionship. He had never attempted to make a companion of her. He had treated her always as a child, a child to be spoilt and petted, until she refused the petting. Lately he had treated her with greater indifference, but still as a child, an unreasonable child towards whom kindness was misdirected. It was not surprising that the woman in her had rebelled.

It came as an agreeable surprise to Mr Morgan when he reached Court Heatherleigh in the grey dawn, weary and cold after his long journey, to be met on the doorstep by Prudence, who was the only member of the household awake at that hour.

Their meeting was somewhat constrained. He had not expected to see her and was at a loss for words. They faced one another a little self-consciously in the big empty hall; and then Edward Morgan bent down and kissed his wife, with an air of uncertainty as to how his caress would be received. Prudence flushed warmly, and, to cover her embarrassment, became actively helpful in disentangling him from his numerous wrappings.

“I didn’t expect to see any one at this hour,” he said, and struggled out of his heavy coat and hung it on a peg. Then he turned to her with quick unexpectedness. “Thank you for the kindly thought, dear. It is good to find a welcome awaiting one at the end of a journey.”

“You shouldn’t have travelled by the night train,” she said. “You know you hate it.”

“It saved time,” he explained.

Arrangements had been made for an early breakfast for the traveller. Prudence led him into the breakfast-room, and poured out the hot coffee which she had made. They did not talk much. Each was conscious of the strain of this meeting; and the remarks which passed between them were impersonal and confined to the business of the moment.

On finishing his meal Mr Morgan expressed a desire to go to bed; he thought he could sleep for a couple of hours. Prudence accompanied him upstairs, and parted from him outside his bedroom door with a smile that was friendlier and more ready than any she had given him of late. He was puzzled. He could not understand her. It was as though they had gone back to the days of the courtship, when he had been diffident and awkward and had found her shy and a little difficult, but kind always. The wife who had left him in anger, who for years, it seemed to him on looking back upon the past, had felt entirely indifferent towards him, ceased to be a vivid memory with him; her place in his thoughts was blotted out by the sunshine of Prudence’s smile.

He did not understand what had worked this change in her, but he realised that in some subtle way she was changed. She had grown suddenly older, more self-contained and womanly. She was as a person who, after walking aimlessly for a long while, strikes the right road unexpectedly, and proceeds more surely, with a definite purpose in view.

Still puzzling over these things, he got into bed and soon forgot his perplexities and fatigue in sleep.

While Edward Morgan slept heavily, and the rest of the household slumbered on undisturbed by the early arrival, Prudence remained at her bedroom window, wakeful and deep in thought, looking out upon the new day, upon the garden drenched with the heavy dews and saddened looking in its mantle of unrelieved green. There were weeds upon the paths, which formerly had been weedless. It occurred to her that the disorder was significant of the disorder in their own lives. They had been careless of what they should have tended carefully, and had allowed things to fall into neglect. There was a good deal of weeding to be accomplished on her own account. She had let the disorder accumulate until it threatened to choke all the pleasant places in her mind and leave her just a discontented woman with no object in life, no mental outlook.

Many lives as they unfold reveal a less agreeable vista than anticipation has led one to expect. The philosophic mind makes the best of these disappointments, and sets to work to discover hidden beauties in the less alluring prospect ahead; it is the shallower mind which is dismayed by adverse conditions. The road upon which Prudence had set her feet was not the road of her inclination; it was none the less the road she must travel. To follow it finely was the desire of her heart, as she leaned from the window and thought sadly of the love she had let pass out of her life, and of the responsibilities she had undertaken, and so far neglected entirely. She had endeavoured to shape life to her purpose, and instead life was shaping her to certain definite ends.

Prudence leaned her chin on her hand and looked down upon the white riband of road beyond the walls. Love had appeared to her along that road, and love had parted from her there and gone on down the road out of her life. There were two sad hearts more in the world, that was all. But the road of life, like the road beyond the walls, remained to be trodden. One had to go on. It is better to travel with a brave confidence than to cherish vain regrets.

Prudence and her husband met and had their talk out in the library after breakfast. It was not so difficult a talk as she had imagined it would be. Mr Morgan was as eager to make concessions as Prudence. He had been doing a good deal of private thinking on his own account; and he saw very clearly that his young wife had never received fair treatment. He was anxious to make amends.

His insistence on taking the greater share of the blame left her with curiously little to urge. She scrutinised him, faintly amused. It occurred to her that this generous closing of differences resembled the impulsive overtures of two children who had quarrelled needlessly and were bent on making it up. On one point he was very decided: he refused to open up the cause of their quarrel. All that was past. He wanted to start afresh from that moment; he was not going to look back.

“I’ve been a fool, Prudence,” he said. “A man is apt to forget the value of even his dearest treasure, simply, I suppose, because of the assurance given by possession; but when he is in danger of losing it he discovers his need. My dear, I have been very unhappy.”

He was seated beside her on the sofa, and he moved as he finished speaking and put a hand upon hers, which rested on the seat beside her. She twisted her hand round and clasped his warmly.

“Perhaps it was rather a good thing that I came away,” she said, after a moment’s pause. “I was growing nervy. A woman with nerves is difficult to live with. I have been thinking, and finding out things. It is astonishing what a lot I’ve learned about myself just lately. I want to do better.”

“It’s been my fault,” he insisted. “I never made sufficient allowance for your youth, dear. We’ll try again—make a fresh start. We’ll talk things out together and not bottle up grievances. We have never talked freely enough to one another.”

“No,” she said.

“I’m rather glad,” he said presently, “that things came to a head. It has opened up the way to a better understanding. You are the sort of woman a man learns to rely upon. You’re honest. When I recall the things I said to you that night I am ashamed of myself.”

“Never mind that now,” she said quickly. “I don’t want to think of that. We agreed not to talk of that.”

She got up suddenly and stood in front of him, looking down at him with softened, smiling eyes.

“I want to ask a favour,” she said, “and I feel that that isn’t quite honest just at the moment. It’s like taking advantage of our talk. That’s so like a woman, isn’t it?”

He sprang up from his seat and took her by the shoulders and kissed her.

“It’s the most generous response you could make,” he said—“to ask a favour. It’s a proof of your trust anyhow.”

“It’s something very big,” she said, with her earnest eyes lifted to his face. “If you are altogether against it I’ll not insist.”

“Tell me what it is,” he said, manifestly surprised by the seriousness of her manner, and entirely unsuspecting the nature of the request.

A faint increase of colour stole into her cheeks, but she kept her gaze lifted to his.

“I have discovered a little child,” she explained softly, “whom nobody wants; and I want to mother him. I want to take him home with me.”

“You’ve always wanted that,” he said, and waited for further enlightenment.

Briefly she confided to his scandalised ears the story of William’s illegitimate son, observing him closely while she unfolded the sordid tale in simple direct language, making no appeal to sentiment, merely relating the bald facts and leaving these to work their own effect. She was not in the least surprised that he was too shocked on hearing the story to feel any sympathy for the child in his deserted condition. That side of the picture left him unmoved.

“You couldn’t bring that child home,” he said, with more than a touch of firmness. “A child like that! ... In our home! My dear, how could you wish such a thing in view of his parentage?”

“It is on account of his parentage I wish it,” Prudence answered quietly. “He is a Graynor, Edward. I want to give him a chance—a chance to grow up honest and decent living, a chance to become a better man than his father.”

“You talk as though the child were your responsibility,” he complained. “It’s nothing to do with us.”

“Not directly, no,” she said.

“Nor indirectly,” he insisted. “There isn’t the faintest reason why you should assume responsibility.”

“There is every reason,” she urged. “He is a child launched evilly into a world which shows little sympathy for these children. His life will be a hard one with no good nor kindly influences surrounding it. There are numberless cases like this—little children brought into the world shamefully, and left to drift. It is not surprising that they grow up to become bad citizens; it would be surprising if they didn’t. I want to give one of these small citizens his chance. The knowledge that he is closely akin to me makes me more earnest in this wish. We are childless people, Edward; we could do this without injuring any one. Are you very set against it?”

She paused, and gazed inquiringly into his grave face, while he looked back at her for a long minute in silence, looked into the blue eyes, raised to his with a frank trustfulness he had never beheld in them before; and he knew that he could not refuse her her wish, however distasteful the idea of introducing this child into his home might be. Still gazing steadily into her quiet eyes, he said:

“You wish to give this child his chance? I don’t like the idea, but I have no doubt it is none the less right because it is objectionable to me. I withdraw my opposition. Give him his chance, Prudence. And in return let me ask a favour of you.”

“What is that?” she said.

He did not take his eyes from hers. He remained standing before her, observing her with such a yearning wistfulness in his face that her heart went out to him in pity because she had no love to offer in return for the love he still bore for her.

“What is the favour, dear?” she asked. “Give me also a chance,” he said hoarsely, and held out his hands to her, and waited.

Prudence put her hands into his, and the tears were in her eyes.

|

Chapter 1

| |

Chapter 2

| |

Chapter 3

| |

Chapter 4

| |

Chapter 5

| |

Chapter 6

| |

Chapter 7

| |

Chapter 8

| |

Chapter 9

| |

Chapter 10

| |

Chapter 11

| |

Chapter 12

| |

Chapter 13

| |

Chapter 14

| |

Chapter 15

| |

Chapter 16

| |

Chapter 17

| |

Chapter 18

| |

Chapter 19

| |

Chapter 20

| |

Chapter 21

| |

Chapter 22

| |

Chapter 23

| |

Chapter 24

| |

Chapter 25

| |

Chapter 26

| |

Chapter 27

| |

Chapter 28

| |

Chapter 29

| |

Chapter 30

| |

Chapter 31

| |

Chapter 32

| |

Chapter 33

| |

Chapter 34

| |

Chapter 35

| |

Chapter 36

| |

Chapter 37

| |

Chapter 38

| |

Chapter 39

| |

Chapter 40

| |

Chapter 41

|