Mrs George de Horne Vaizey (continued 6)

“My dear, I have not stopped! I do care. You have been all that is sweet and kind. I tell you honestly that I care for you more, not less, than when we were first engaged.”

“Then—Why? I don’t understand!”

“Ah, Teresa, neither did I... That’s the pity of it. It was a mistake from the beginning. I was lonely, and I wanted a wife, and I liked you better than any of the other girls. I was honestly fond of you, dear. I am now,—but, Teresa! it was affection, not love. I had no idea what that meant.—It is only the last few days that I have known... There is a world of difference between the two things.”

The colour flamed in Teresa’s cheeks.

“There is a world of difference. One is right. The other is—sin! It is wicked to love your friend’s wife.”

Dane’s lips twisted in a grim smile.

“It is a misfortune, Teresa, a horrible misfortune for us all, but there is nothing that could possibly be called wicked about it, as matters stand to-day. Don’t be too hard on me. I am about as miserable as a man can be. There seems no way out of it. I’d give everything I possess, if I could go back and be as I was when we were first engaged, content and happy, with the prospect of happiness to come.”

“I did make you happy for a time, then, even though it wasn’t—the best?” Teresa’s face relaxed from its hard composure; a faint twitching showed at the corner of the mouth. “Dane! what was it? Tell me! I must know. What was it made you love her more? She’s beautiful, but I’m pretty too, and so much younger, and she wears lovely clothes, but you liked me to be simple; and she’s clever and amusing—sometimes! but other times she’s quite dull, and we had always plenty to say, you and I. I took an interest in all you did.”

Dane’s sigh was compounded of pity for Teresa, and for himself at the memory of that “interest.” It was true that she had questioned him ceaselessly about his affairs, and had on frequent occasions offered advice concerning their management. He had been mildly bored, mildly amused; looking back on his intercourse with his fiancée, a contented boredom seemed to have been his normal condition. And she compared herself with Cassandra, wanted—pitiful heavens! to have the difference defined. He shook his head in dumb helplessness, but Teresa’s flat voice obstinately repeated the request.

“Dane! You must tell me why?”

“Teresa, it’s impossible. Good God, don’t you realise how impossible it is? Why did you care for me instead of other fellows, younger, better looking—that young Hunter, for example?”

“Mr Hunter never paid me any attention.”

“You mean to say,” he stared at her blankly, “that if he had, if any man had—”

But at that she showed a wholesome anger.

“You know I don’t. You know I would not. At once, from the very beginning I cared for you. I prayed every night of my life that you would love me back. I used to watch for you wherever I went. If I saw you drive past in the dog-cart, I was happy for hours. When you were ill that time I was ill too. They thought it was a chill, but it wasn’t, it was misery, and not being able to help. One day there was a button hanging loose on your coat. I longed to mend it! That’s all I wanted,—just to be able to look after you, and mend your things, and make you comfortable, and sit beside you in the evenings and talk, and watch you smoke. I’m old-fashioned and domesticated. Lady Cassandra used to laugh at me, and call me Victorian and men laugh too. They say they like old-fashioned girls, but they don’t. They may be ‘fond’ of them, as you are fond of me, but they get tired, and then—then... they meet the Cassandras... and forget everything! duty, faithfulness—honour—”

“There is no loss of honour in this case, Teresa. That is one of the things you must not say. This is a bad enough business for us all—don’t make it worse than it is! There has been no deceit, no double dealing. It was only two days ago that I realised how things were, and then I determined to leave. It was that accident which took us unawares.”

Before he realised his slip, Teresa had pounced upon the word.

“Us! You mean that? She cares too? How do you know? How do you know?”

“I did not mean to imply anything of the kind,” Peignton said sternly, and his eyes sent forth a warning flash. Not for the world would he have answered, not for a hundred worlds have confessed to a living creature—the wondrous, incredible fact that even in her deadly exhaustion Cassandra had understood, and responded to his love. Her eyes had met his, her lips had moved, the tiny flutterings of movement had brought her nearer to his heart. He knew that her spirit had responded, and through all the bristling difficulties of the moment the knowledge brought joy. “We will leave Lady Cassandra’s name out of the discussion,” he said coldly. “You are not concerned with her, only with me. It’s banal to go on repeating that I’m sorry, you know that well enough. The question now is,—how can we break off our engagement in the way least unpleasant for you? It’s bound to be unpleasant, but—things pass! In a year or two you’ll meet another fellow, and look back upon this episode, and be glad that it came to nothing. I’m giving you a lot of trouble, but I’ve not made a hash of your whole life, as I have of my own... Think of that, Teresa, and try to forgive me!”

“I shall never care for another man while you are unmarried, and I should be miserable living on at home, as Mary has done, year after year, with nothing happening to break the monotony. So you would spoil my life as well as your own. And what would you do living alone? You are not strong. You said you needed a home. You’ll have to leave this place and go away among strangers. You’ll be miserable!”

“Very miserable, Teresa!”

“And I shall be miserable too. It’s senseless. Dane! will you do something for me—to show that you really are sorry, and to help us both to,—to get over this?”

“I will indeed, Teresa. Only try me.”

“Then marry me at once, and let us go away together to live in another place.”

He stared at her, stunned, incredulous. Of all the wild, impossible requests this was the last which he had expected. He could hardly believe that he had heard aright.

“Marry you? Teresa! You can’t mean it. When you know that I love—”

She held up a warning hand.

“I thought she was not to be mentioned! Yes! I do mean it, Dane. It’s the best thing for you, as well as for me. Can’t you see that it’s the best thing?”

“I see that it’s impossible. Excuse me, if I’m brutal. If you could do it, I couldn’t. I should be wretched. I should make you wretched.”

“You weren’t wretched when we were first engaged! You chose me, and you were satisfied, until this happened. If we were far away in a new place, you would be satisfied again—I could make you satisfied.—I... I don’t say—” the even voice quavered over the admission—“that it would be the same. It can never be the same for either of us, it would be better than nothing. We would find a little home, and make it pretty. You would be interested in the land. There’d be the shooting, and you could keep a horse, and hunt. We’d grow all our own fruit and vegetables. There would be neighbours... They would ask us out, and we could give little parties in return. Quite cheaply. There would be quite a lot of things to interest you, and fill up the time. And... there might be children!”

These last words came with a gasp, rendered additionally touching by the effort which they entailed. Teresa did not approve of such allusions, and did violence to her own feelings in giving them utterance. It was only the desperation of her need which made her daring. Her chin quivered with a childlike helplessness, and Dane looking on felt a pang of tenderness and remorse.

“You poor little girl! You dear little girl! You are too kind to me. I don’t deserve it, but I’ll be grateful to you all my life. I’ll never forget you, but, I can’t do it, dear—I can’t! Try to understand. Put yourself in my place... I’m in love.”

“But it’s no use,” Teresa repeated stolidly. “It’s no use.” She was fighting doggedly with her back to the wall, fighting for love, and for something only less precious than love, the preservation of her own position among her neighbours. In the estimation of the village Teresa Mallison was a social success. Lady Cassandra had “taken her up,” and while other girls hung on season after season without sign of an admirer, Teresa at twenty-two had become engaged to the most eligible bachelor of the neighbourhood. At the present moment she had reached the zenith of her success, and was actually visiting “in the county.” Only those who have had their habitation in country towns can realise the devastating burden of public opinion. In the first bitterness of disappointed love, Teresa could still think with a shudder of what “they” would say; could imagine eyes peering from behind short blinds, hear the jangle of the bell announcing callers, sympathetically curious, and full of commiseration for the “Poor Dear!...” It was torture to Teresa to think of becoming a Poor Dear!

“It’s no use. You can’t live here. It would only mean—Dane! have you thought for a moment what it would really mean? Of course you will have to leave Chumley.”

“Is it ‘of course’?”

Her eyes rebuked him for his weakness.

“It would be wicked to stay. The Squire would never have you in his house if he knew, but he would not know, and he would keep worrying you to go... if you stayed away you would have to lie and pretend; if you went, it would be just the same—lies and pretence! And it would get worse, not better. There could be no happiness meeting each other like that. Only misery and deceit. Think of what it would be, and then of the other life, the life with me... Doing right... Comfort. Peace.”

The tears came now, and rolled down her cheeks. She looked very young, and pitiful, and appealing, with her hand stretched out towards him, the hand on which shone the ring he had given!

Dane took that hand and folded it between his own, he was touched into tenderness by the girl’s clinging devotion, and his conscience told him that she was right in her prophecies. He was one of the many Englishmen whose religion amounted to a determination to be straight in their dealings with their fellows. He knew himself to be guilty of many failings, but it had seemed inconceivable that he could ever stoop to double dealing, far less to the extremity of deceit involved in making love to the wife of a friend. Six months ago had such a case been presented to him he would have tolerated no excuse, no palliation, would have poured forth condemnation with relentless lips, but now... God knew his ideals were unchanged, God knew he wished to do the right, but he was no longer confident of his own strength. If in the future he found himself alone with Cassandra, and she looked at him as she had looked for that one breathless moment, if her hand clung again to his, as it had clung, what about honour then, what about loyalty to his friend, and fealty to the girl to whom he was engaged? By the beat in his heart, by the throb in his veins, he knew that such considerations would be but straws upon the wind, to be hurled aside by the rushing forces of nature. Despicable, base, unworthy it might be, but if that moment came, it would find Cassandra in his arms!

It came to this then, that there was only one course open to him as an honourable man, and that course was—flight! He must leave Chumley, put a barrier of distance between himself and his temptation, and start life afresh.

“I made you happy once.—I could do it again if we were alone.”

Teresa’s voice broke in upon his reverie, repeating her former argument in insistent tones. Her blue eyes were so wistful that it seemed cruel to point out the difference between then and now. Nevertheless it had to be done.

“I am afraid it would not be so easy. At that time I had no other thought. Now I know!”

“It is not going to make you happy to hanker after a married woman. It will make you wicked. You will begin to wish in your own heart that he would—die! It would be like committing a murder in your heart. We are taught to pray to be delivered from temptation, it would be walking into it deliberately to stay here,—to allow yourself to go on caring... Oh, Dane, wouldn’t it be better for you, wouldn’t it, wouldn’t it, to have me beside you, loving you, helping you, making a home? I don’t say it could be the best thing—the best thing is over—but wouldn’t it, wouldn’t it, be better than loneliness, and wandering, or... sin?”

Peignton looked at her helplessly. The deadly logic of her words there was no denying. A man must have been a stone who had failed to be touched by her earnestness.

“Teresa, if it were possible—anything that is possible I would promise at once. But I cannot face marrying just now.”

“But you won’t break it off!” Teresa cried eagerly. She had now the first advantage in the fight, and her eye lightened with hope. “Promise me that, and we will leave the rest... You can make an excuse and go abroad. There was no time fixed for our wedding, so no one will talk. And in a few months I could come out to you, and we could be married abroad, and travel until you heard of another post. I’ve always wanted to travel. You said you looked forward to showing me things.”

It was quite true. Dane as a world-traveller had found amusement in the country-bred girl’s primitive ideas of sightseeing, and had occupied occasional spare hours in sketching out programmes of imaginary tours. The remembrance came back to him with the remoteness of a childish dream, from which years had sapped the savour. Then he had been interested, amused; it had seemed a goodly task to act as Teresa’s guide; now the prospect filled him with dreary dread. He saw a mental picture of himself walking the sunlit streets, with a leaden heart, dragging through interminable lengths of galleries, sitting over tête-à-tête meals in crowded restaurants, obliged to talk, obliged to smile, and act the bridegroom’s part. With a wince of pain he saw himself and Teresa ensconced in a dream-like hotel on a dream-like Italian lake, watching happy lovers wander about a garden of almost unearthly beauty. Oh God, that beauty! How it would intensify every longing; how hopelessly, maddeningly wretched a man might be, alone, in Eden!

He did not speak, but his face spoke for him, and Teresa flushed and winced. She had humbled her pride to the dust, but it was impossible any longer to blind herself to the fact that for the time being her influence over Dane was dead. He had no feeling left but the kindly pity which was but another stab to her heart. Mind and heart alike were so filled by another image that there was no loophole by which she could enter in. For a bitter moment Teresa digested the fact, and faced the truth. She had done her utmost and she had failed, there remained to her but one hope—time! Given time and separation from the temptation her chance might return, but for the present she must stand aside. One more argument remained to her, and that she had hoped need not be made. She braced herself now to deliver it.

“For Lady Cassandra’s sake, it would be better if our engagement were not broken off now, when we are staying in the same house. People have noticed that you admire her. They might talk.”

He looked up quickly, and stretched out an impetuous hand.

“That’s good of you—to think of that! I wouldn’t for the whole world drag her name into it. They’ve no right to talk; I’ve given them no cause, but if there’s any fear... Thank you, Teresa!”

His hand gripped hers, but for the first time the girl’s fingers remained limp and irresponsive in his grasp. She was horribly sore, horribly wounded, her endurance was at an end, she wanted to get away to her own room, and hide her head and cry. She rose and faced him with a grave young dignity.

“I want you to understand that if she, Lady Cassandra, were free, I would give you back your promise at once! You would not have needed to ask me, I should have spoken myself; but if I set you free because you love a married woman, I am helping you to—sin! I won’t do it. You are engaged to me, and I shall keep you to your promise. It isn’t nice for a girl to have to force herself upon a man. If I didn’t love you I couldn’t do it, but I do love you, and I know that some day you will understand, and be grateful to me.”

She turned without allowing him time for a reply, and marched stiffly across the lawn towards the house.

Chapter Twenty Four.

The Chain Holds.

The next day Cassandra was still confined to bed. Grizel said that it would probably be some time before she was able to be about, and announced her own intention of acting as nurse, while her husband played golf with the Squire. So plain an intimation that visitors would be de trop went beyond a hint, and in truth Dane had already made up his mind to return home by the first possible train. That being so, it was obvious that Teresa must return with him, since it had been solely on his account that she had been invited at all. Peignton looked across the breakfast table around which the little party were seated, and Teresa met his eye, and said instantly as though she had been waiting for the sign:

“I think, Dane, it would be better if you and I went home this morning! I am afraid we can do nothing to help, and shall only be in the way. Could I have the carriage for the eleven o’clock train, Mrs Beverley?”

“I will come with you, of course,” Dane added, and Grizel shrugged her shoulders, and held out her hands with an eloquent little gesture of appeal.

“Dear people, it’s most inhospitable and horrid, but I think so too! I shan’t have a moment to spare. I expect we shall be rushing home ourselves by the end of the week.”

The Squire and Martin looked uncomfortable, but said nothing. Plainly they also thought that the lovers would be better away, so Teresa excused herself and went upstairs to pack her box, an operation which she could not be persuaded to leave to a maid. With care and contrivance she could contrive to give the effect of a wardrobe that was sufficient, though not in any degree to be compared to those of her two hostesses, but the gimlet-like eyes of a lady’s maid would speedily discover and despise the little contrivances inevitable to small means. Teresa had the true middle-class dread of what servants would “think.” She had discussed with other Chumley girls the horror of staying in houses where a maid “poked about.” One friend in especial had recounted a thrilling incident which had befallen her on a recent visit. For the purpose of impressing the maid she had borrowed from a married sister her very smartest “nightie,” a cobweb confection of lawn and lace, which, discreetly crumpled, was hung over a chair in the morning, the while the utility flannelette was locked in a drawer. All went well, until one fateful morning, when, on the arrival of early tea, drowsiness overcame discretion, and the flanneletted figure had reared upright in the bed.

“My dear,” concluded the sufferer tragically, “I could have died!... After that her manner entirely changed.”

It was a sorry task, refilling that box which had been packed with such high hopes. As she folded ribbons, and stuffed tissue paper into the sleeves of dresses, Teresa could recall the exact sentiments which had been in her mind as she had gone through the same process a few days before. Dane liked blue, so she had decided to wear the new blue dress on the first evening. The new sports coat was green, which suited her fairness almost as well as blue. She would wear that when they went out walking together, and he would slip his hand through her arm. There was a filmy white scarf which she had intended to throw over her shoulders when they escaped together into the garden after dinner. That scarf had never been taken out of its wrappings. It had never been required. The visit to which she had looked forward, as she had looked forward to nothing else in her life, had ended in tragedy and upheaval.

An ordinary girl would have assuredly shed tears over such a packing, but Teresa was not given to tears; moreover, in another hour she would be starting on a tête-à-tête journey with Dane, and a disfigured face would not help her cause. She recognised the fact, and set her lips, refusing to give way to the choky sensation in her throat, to the pricking at the back of her eyes. Tears were for those who had lost hope, and she had not yet come to that pass. If much was lost, a great deal remained. She would go on fighting.

Downstairs Teresa made her adieux with smiling composure. It was Grizel who cried, crumpling her tiny handkerchief into a ball, and dabbing at her eyes without an effort at concealment. The curse of a vivid imagination was presenting to her the inner tragedy of the journey ahead, when the two who were supposedly lovers were left alone together for leaden hours which should have been winged with joy. She envisaged the home-coming too, the flood of maternal questionings, the blankness of spirit which would descend upon the girl when she attempted to settle down. While Teresa had been packing her trunk Grizel had been with her in spirit, feeling the reflex of every pang, and now as the carriage drove from the door she cried unrestrainedly, to her husband’s mingled bewilderment and concern.

“Are you sorry they are gone? You said you would have no time...”

“I haven’t. I’m glad; but, oh, Martin, I am Teresa at this moment, and it hurts! I know exactly how she suffers...”

“That’s impossible. Teresa could never feel in your way, and besides, dearest, why should she suffer? She’s not such a baby as to grouse over a few days’ visit. Especially when she has her man.”

Martin knew nothing of the awkwardness of the position, and Grizel realised that she must appear hysterical in his eyes, and longed to pour out the whole tale, but it would not do; for everyone’s sake it would not do. There might come a time when his unconsciousness would be the greatest boon to all concerned.

“It’s all the fault of my beastly imagination!” she sniffed ruefully. “I’m always living through other people’s dramas, and tearing my heart to fiddle-strings imagining how I should agonise and despair if I were in the same place. You said one day that it was easy to be philosophical about a neighbour’s toothache, but it isn’t easy to me. I feel the horrid thing leaping inside my own mouth, and stabbing up to my own ear, and taste the nasty chlorodyney cotton-wool in my own mouth. I’m such a sensitive little thing!”

“You’re a little goose,” Martin said, laughing. “In nine cases out of ten, while you have been torturing yourself, the toothache has stopped, or the poor martyr has shaken off his troubles, and gone off to play golf. We can’t carry other people’s burdens for them, darling, they’ve got to struggle through by themselves. It’s curious with your happy temperament, that you should have such a lurid imagination.”

“No, it isn’t! Not a bit curious.”

“Isn’t it? Why not? I’m interested to hear.”

“Because I imagine happy things as well, stupid, and they come out top. If I worry over other people’s troubles, I glory in their joy. You can’t do one without the other; if you don’t feel one you can’t feel the other. You may never shed a tear in your life over an imaginary woe, but have you ever wakened in the morning and thanked God because the housemaid’s young man had come home from abroad?—Have you ever felt your soul flooded with joy when you saw the sun shining in through pink and white curtains on to a brand-new wall-paper you had just chosen? Did you feel as if you could have jumped over the moon, when the Czarina had a son?”

“I—I was very glad.”

“Well, I wasn’t! I cried with joy, and said my prayers all day long, and thought of her lying there, and hugged the thought of her happiness, the poor, beautiful, tragic thing! What do you do, may I ask, if one of your own friends is in trouble, and doesn’t see the way out?”

“I—er,—well, if I can help him, I invariably do. For my own sake, as well as his. I like helping. Take it all round, it is the most agreeable sensation one can have. If the other fellow feels as light-hearted and generally bucked up afterwards as I do myself, he is jolly well off. But if I can’t—”

“Yes?”

“Well! I don’t worry. What’s the use? It would do him no good for me to be miserable as well as himself.”

“The thought of him doesn’t follow you wherever you go, like a nightmare, squeezing up your heart?”

“Don’t mix your metaphors, darling. That squeezes. Certainly not. I should call it weakness. I dismiss it from my mind.”

“Well, I think you are a callous wretch, and I like my own disposition a million times better than yours.”

“There is no discussion on that point is there? because I most heartily agree.”

“There you are, then!” cried Grizel triumphantly. “But you will argue.”

She shook out the damp ball of a handkerchief, and held it flag-ways to the breeze, tilting her head to look into her husband’s face. “Do I look very plain?”

“Comparatively speaking—yes!” replied Martin, seizing on his revenge, whereupon Grizel proceeded to declaim in a loud, artificial voice:

... “‘Teardrops still lingered on the long eyelashes; the lovely, mutinous face was wasted and ravaged with grief, yet never in her most queenly moments had she appeared to him more alluring and sweet. For weal or woe his life was in her hands.’ ... Another fine instalment to be given in our next number!” She waved her hand and turned back to the house, while Martin, laughing, walked across the lawn to join the Squire.

Meantime Peignton and Teresa had reached the station, and he was unhappily facing a two hours’ journey which might easily devolve itself into a tête-à-tête, since considerate travellers have a habit of avoiding carriages occupied by interesting-looking young couples. He was divided between a horror of a repetition of the scene in the garden the day before, and an overpowering sympathy for the girl whom he wished to avoid. Her set composure went to his heart when he recalled the radiance of the face which had beamed at him in the same place only a few days before. She had been so happy, poor girl, so fond, so unsuspicious; and now...

Teresa turned towards him hastily.

“You will go in a smoker, Dane, won’t you? I am tired out. I expect I shall sleep all the way. Come for me at the Junction, in case I am carried on.”

She stepped into a carriage, and moved towards the farther side, arranging impedimenta upon the seat, with her back turned towards him. There was no time to wait, for he was obliged to move along quickly to take his own seat, but though the alertness of relief showed in his movements, his heart went out towards his fiancée with a rush of gratitude. How kind, how considerate, how singularly wise and far-seeing! Most girls, he was convinced, would have manoeuvred for a tête-à-tête, and turned the journey into a torture of tears and reproaches, but Teresa had voluntarily sent him away, and had done so, moreover, in a natural, commonplace fashion free from trace of offence.

Bravo, Teresa! As he took his seat in a corner of the smoker Peignton was probably more warmly her admirer than at any previous moment in their acquaintance. A sensible, level-headed woman, who would help, not hinder through the hard moments of life. Mentally he took off his cap to Teresa; but when he had lighted a cigarette he fell back into dreams of another woman who was neither practical nor level-headed, as admirers of sensible women are apt to do.

As for Teresa, she cursed herself a hundred times over for having thrown away a valuable opportunity, but her resolution not to harass Dane in this first miserable day of indecision sprang into life again at the sight of his worn face when he came to join her at the Junction, and she braced herself afresh to help him through the ordeal of arrival.

Mrs Mallison had been prepared by wire for her daughter’s sudden return, and her curiosity was at boiling point as to the reasons thereof. The statement that Lady Cassandra was ill, and Mrs Beverley engaged in nursing, was far too vague to prove satisfying. She wanted to hear what nature of ill, how long an ill, how serious an ill, with details of the premonitory symptoms, and the precise circumstances under which they had developed. She waved the way towards the dining-room, explaining that lunch had been delayed half, an hour for the travellers’ benefit. Of course Dane would stay and take pot luck. Mutton haricot and gooseberry fool. “You can tell us all about it over lunch, and afterwards,” she added meaningly, “Teresa and you can have a nice quiet afternoon!”

Peignton quailed at the prospect, but once again Teresa came to the rescue.

“Dane is very tired, mother. We are both tired. He is going straight home to rest. Be sure you do rest, Dane,” she added, turning towards him, and holding out her hand. “I shan’t expect to see you again until Sunday.”

“I am quite sure he won’t agree to that!” Mrs Mallison declared, and continued to protest volubly against Dane’s departure, and to sing the praises of the haricot and fool, but her flutters had no power against the inflexibility of Teresa’s calm, and finally she realised her defeat, and scurried back to shut the dining-room door, with the obvious intention of giving privacy to a tender farewell.

“You are very good to me, Teresa,” Dane said. The next second he realised that he was expressing gratitude to his fiancée, for giving him a chance of escaping her own society, and the realisation infused an added warmth into his last words. “Thank you, dear.”

Quite simply and naturally Teresa lifted her arms, and clasped them round his neck. She did not kiss him, but she laid her fresh, cool cheek against his, and said:

“I love you, Dane. I shall always be good to you.”

Peignton went out into the road hating himself because the sound of that “always” had dried up the spring of tenderness. God help him, he wanted nothing of this girl which should last for always! If he were free of her to-day he would remember her all his life with gratitude and affection, but those twining arms chafed him like a chain.

Peignton took Teresa at her word, and paid no visit to the Cottage for the rest of the week. He sent down a hamper of flowers, however, with an envelope enclosing a short note written on his thickest paper, which to the maternal eye might give the effect of length. He would not be less careful of Teresa’s feelings than she had been of his, and he knew well that to allow three days to pass without visit or message would stamp him in Mrs Mallison’s eyes as neglectful and unappreciative. The best flowers which the hothouses afforded were collected to fill that hamper.

Since the announcement of his engagement it had been an understanding that Peignton should spend Sunday with the Mallisons, appearing in time for early dinner, and remaining until after the eight o’clock supper. In the afternoon he and Teresa sat in the morning room together, or walked into the country, and after tea he played a game of chess with the Major, while from the drawing-room came the sound of hymn tunes played on a cracked piano. Mrs Mallison had been “brought up to hymn tunes” after tea on Sunday afternoons, and commandeered her daughters to produce her old favourites for her delectation. “The Church’s one foundation” led the way to “Onward, Christian soldiers,” while “Oh come, all ye faithful,” enjoyed a vogue independent of time or season. Sometimes Teresa sang the words in a strong soprano voice, an excellent voice for a choir, but a trifle harsh when heard by itself, but one afternoon, during one of the protracted pauses which preceded the Major’s moves, Peignton’s ear was attracted by a new tune, played with a softer touch, and presently another voice began to sing, a soft, somewhat tremulous voice, with a quality of extraordinary sweetness. The hymn was “Abide with me,” and the sound of the well-known words sung in that soft, tremulous voice brought back a hundred boyish memories. That was the hymn which he had liked best in the old knickerbocker days when he trotted to church with his parents; that was the favourite closing hymn at the school chapel; away on the Indian plains he had heard his men whistling it over their work. On the impulse of the moment Peignton pushed back his chair, and crossed the little hall to the drawing-room. The door was intentionally left ajar, owing to Mrs Mallison’s persistent belief that “Papa liked to hear the music,” so that Dane found himself able to see, without being seen. Teresa was not present, Mrs Mallison lay back in an easy chair, her eyes closed, her head swaying to and fro in time with the music; at the piano sat—could he believe the evidence of his senses?—Mary Mallison herself, that machine-like automaton in human form, whom he had believed incapable of feeling! Through the chink of the door Peignton stared for one incredulous moment at the bloodless lips through which breathed those low, crooning notes, then drew noiselessly back, with a tingling in his veins which was curiously like shame. He had caught a glimpse of a naked soul, and the revelation filled him with distress. No woman could have that note in her voice, and not possess the power of feeling an acuteness of joy or grief. No woman could have it who had not already tasted the sweets and bitters of experience.

But if Mary could feel, how could she endure the life that was hers? As he went slowly back to his game, Peignton had his first glimpse into the tragedy of the life of a woman to whom nature has bequeathed a sensitive heart, and a plain and unattractive exterior.

Sunday in the Mallison ménage was not at the best of times a cheerful occasion, though hitherto Teresa’s society had made it bearable; under the new conditions it became a penance difficult to endure. The one o’clock dinner was invariably the same. Roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, a pie made of the fruit in season, flanked by custard in glasses; biscuits and cheese, and a sketchy dessert. Mrs Mallison invariably discussed the morning’s sermon. Teresa invariably disagreed, and the Major preserved a dejected silence.

To Peignton’s supersensitive sight it had appeared sometimes as if each daughter had assumed a startling likeness to a separate parent. Mary had her father’s features, her father’s shrinking air. Teresa—why had he never noticed it before?—Teresa was a youthful replica of her mother. Given another twenty years she would develop into the same stout, bustling matron. His flesh crept at the thought of sitting opposite to her in the Major’s place.

In the afternoon Teresa suggested reading in the garden as an alternative to the usual walk; she also announced that Mr Hunter and his sister were “coming in” to tea, an innovation in the day’s programme for which Peignton was devoutly thankful. He had met the young doctor and his sister, and knew them to be lively, talkative young people, eminently capable of rolling the conversation ball. Their presence would prevent personalities, and keep the talk away from dreaded topics. Never in his life had he accorded a more cordial welcome to comparative strangers.

The table was set beneath a tree in the garden, and Teresa in her white dress made an attractive figure against the green of the background. Her hair was carefully dressed, a touch of blue at the throat intensified the blue of her eyes; there was in her manner that touch of self-consciousness and artificiality which to a discerning eye bespoke the presence of an admiring male. Roused to a momentary interest, Peignton realised that the admirer was not himself in this instance, but Hunter, the young doctor. He hovered about the table with eager looks; he discovered what Teresa needed, as soon as she found it out for herself, and darted forward to help. When she moved, his eyes followed her; when she spoke, he was all ears; and once, turning from the tea table, the young fellow knitted his brows, and stared fixedly into Peignton’s face.—“What does she see in You?”—said that look as plainly as words could speak, and Dane, knowing himself to look weary and absent, felt an answering sympathy.

He roused himself to take part in the conversation, and for the rest of the evening was careful not to relapse into silence, but the whole thing was like a dream, a dull, long-drawn-out dream which had no connection with life. He was moving as in a dream, speaking with forced, unnatural words, but presently he would awake. All day long the sense of waiting was upon him, of doing time until a a certain period was reached. If this sort of thing were to continue, it would be unbearable, but it would not continue. There was a limit to his endurance. In a few days, in a week at longest, Cassandra would be home again, and they would meet! The sense of waiting grew stronger...

Chapter Twenty Five.

A Crowded Hour.

An interminable period seemed to elapse before Peignton heard the news for which he was waiting.

He had received one or two post-card bulletins from Grizel, and knew that the shock of the accident had left no lasting effect on Cassandra, but it was not until the morning of the tenth day that he heard of her arrival at the Court. His informant was a workman on the place, who mentioned having seen her ladyship driving, as a proof of that more interesting event, the Squire’s return.

The natural enquiry, “How did she look?” could, of course, not be asked under the circumstances, but Peignton knew that it would be impossible to exist for another twenty-four hours without settling that question for himself. If he had been asked what plans were in his mind he would have replied that he had none, yet deeply, subconsciously, during every one of those long ten days a plan had been shaping. When he left the house after lunch that afternoon, he knew exactly where he was going, and although he might delude himself that he was following a sudden impulse, it would have been in just that direction that he would have directed his steps on any one of the previous days.

Half an hour’s brisk walking brought him to the northern gate leading into the Squire’s grounds. It was the farthest entrance from the house, but Peignton had no intention of visiting the house. The gate was but a short distance from the secluded summer-house in which Cassandra had given him tea on the afternoon on which they had run away from the incursion of afternoon callers, and it was to the summer-house that he was bound.

Cassandra would be there. He knew it as certainly as though he had had her written word of promise, and he knew also that she would be awaiting his arrival. Such knowledge is not to be accounted for in ordinary terms, nor is it given to all, but those who have once heard the voice recognise and obey.

Peignton quickened his footsteps as he passed the lodge, then turned down a small grassy path, followed its windings for a few hundred yards, and saw before him the timbered roof, with its drapings of ivy. The window was in front, level with the door, so that he could not see into the interior; but if Cassandra were there she would hear his footsteps and know that he was approaching. The last yards stretched long as a mile, the laboured beating of his heart seemed to mount to his throat, he set his teeth, and went forward.

The next moment he saw her, even as his mind had pictured, seated on a low cane chair, her hands clasping its arms, her face bent forward to greet him. She wore a white dress over which a knitted silk coat of a bright rose-red hung loosely apart; her hat lay on the table by her side, and the dark wings of her hair fell low over her brow. Seen through the arch of greenery which covered the doorway, the colours of her dress attained an added vividness, and the beauty of face and figure were thrown into fullest relief. She looked like a princess imprisoned by the evil genii of the forest; like an enchanted princess watching for the prince who should set her free.

For one moment Peignton paused silently, his eyes meeting hers, then he crossed the threshold and stood by her side. Neither had spoken, neither had affected any sign of astonishment, and now as he stood waiting, Cassandra lifted her face to his and said simply:

“I knew you would come. I was waiting for you.”

“I knew you would be here,” replied Peignton as simply. He sat down on the seat next hers and looked into her face with a long, lingering glance. The last time he had seen that face it had been marked with bruises made by his own hands; the bruises had disappeared, nevertheless this was not Cassandra’s face as he had known it; there was something new in its expression, something wonderful, something that thrilled to his heart. Instinctively he held out his hand, and in an instant hers lay inside it, warm and close. The great lady had disappeared; it was a girl who was sitting beside him, a girl with soft Irish eyes and a soft Irish voice which spoke impulsively, asking tremulous question:

“Dane! Is it my fault?”

“Your fault that I... care? Only in so far as you are yourself... Once I had met you, the rest was bound to follow; but I never dreamt... I never dared to dream that you—”

“But I did,” she said quickly. “I did! I cared first; before you thought of me... That is why I asked if it was my fault.”

“I have always loved you, but I didn’t understand... Cassandra, there are some things a man can’t say, but that night—I had no intention of getting engaged to Teresa. We... the car... there was an accident... she was afraid. I had intended to propose to her months before, when I knew you only as a name. I had given her every reason to suppose that I should... There is not a word to be said against Teresa, but that night I had come straight from you... I don’t want you to think—”

“Ah!” Cassandra turned her hand to clasp his more firmly. “Need we talk of her now? I know. I understand! We make mistakes; haven’t I made my own? but they are past, they can’t be helped, and now—we are together! I have waited so long. I don’t want to talk of her, or of anyone else, but just ourselves...”

Her eyes met his; their message was the same as that of the lips, the beautiful vivid face was close to his own, he saw it with a clearness of detail which had never before been possible. The dark eyelashes grew thickly on the lower lids; underneath the lids the skin had a faint bluish shade. Was that the explanation of the tired look which, even in moments of animation, gave a touch of pathos to her air? The quality of pathos was there at that moment, and with it a fragility which gripped at Dane’s heart. He forgot everything but the dearness of her, the nearness of her, the wonder of her love. With an impetuous movement he held out his arms and she met him half-way, swaying into them with a soft murmur of joy.

That which Dane had foreseen had come to pass: he had confessed his love to his friend’s wife, and she lay wrapped in his arms, yet there was no feeling of guilt in his heart at that moment, and he knew that Cassandra herself felt equally guiltless. The overpowering forces of nature had hurled them together, and they clung helplessly, like two children, dismayed by the dark.

“Dane! Dane!” sighed Cassandra tremblingly, “I wanted you, I wanted you! It has been so long lying there alone, all these days, hearing nothing, knowing nothing, having no one to speak to...”

“Mrs Beverley—?”

“I couldn’t. I wasn’t sure. It was all so misty and confused at the time that I did not know how much the others had heard... Your voice sounded to me like a trumpet call, bringing me back to life, but it might have been only a whisper. I couldn’t tell if she knew, and until I did, I couldn’t speak.”

“And she never—?”

“No! Grizel wouldn’t. She was just her natural self. Did she know then? You talk as if... Did they both know?”

Peignton bowed his head.

“Yes. Both. There was no disguise. There was only one thing in the world for me at that moment, and that was you. Heaven knows what I said, but it was enough. Fate has been against us all the way. If it had not been for that accident, no one need have known.—I could have kept it to myself.”

“Oh, Dane, would that have been better? Do you think that would have helped me?” Cassandra asked pitifully. “There is only one thing that makes life endurable at this moment, and that is that I do know. It’s wicked; it’s selfish; but it’s true! I was starving with loneliness. All those dreadful days at the sea when she was there, and I saw you together, I was longing to die. It seemed as if I could not endure to go on with life, but when death really came near, I was frightened. It’s terrible to feel your breath go. I think for a few moments I must have lost consciousness, for I remember nothing after you seized hold of me, until I was lying—like this—with my head on your shoulder, and you were saying—saying...”

Peignton’s breath came in a groan.

“Did I say it? I mean, am I more responsible than for the breath I drew? What I said to you then, Cassandra, said itself. If I had been in my sane senses, I would have killed myself rather than have said them then—before her!”

Cassandra lifted her fringed eyelids in a questioning gaze.

“For my own sake I am glad; but it was hard for her. Poor Teresa! Was she—did she... What has happened between you, Dane?”

“Nothing has happened. We had it out, of course. The next day. Before we came home I wanted to set her free, but she refused.”

“Refused! But how could she? When she knew! Why did she refuse?”

Dane flushed in miserable discomfort.

“If you had been free, she would have broken the engagement herself, but she believes that it would make things harder for—for us both, if she stood aside. She thinks we might be tempted to—to—”

“What are we going to do, Dane?” Cassandra asked simply. “Isn’t it strange how one comes up against problems in life, and how different they are in reality from what one has imagined? I’ve heard of married women falling in love with other men, and meeting them, as we have met now. It seemed so despicable and mean. I felt nothing but contempt, but we are not contemptible; we have done no wrong. We needed each other, and all the barriers in the world couldn’t keep us apart. We are sitting—like this!—but I don’t feel that I am doing wrong. It helps me. If I could meet you here—not often—just now and then for half an hour, a quarter of an hour, and could put my head on your shoulder, and feel your arms holding me tight—I could go on... I could be better—”

Peignton shook his head, and a dreary travesty of a smile passed over his face. He was marvelling for the hundredth time at the extraordinary difference between a woman’s sense of honour, and that of a man. He could have set his teeth and stolen his friend’s wife, carrying her off boldly in the face of the world, prepared to pay the price, but it would have been impossible for him to continue a series of clandestine meetings, however innocent, and still hold out the hand of friendship. Cassandra was not the type of woman to desert her home and child. She had made a vow, and she would keep it, yet she could declare that she would be the stronger for such meetings. Poor darling! she meant it in all sincerity. He would never allow her the misery of discovering her mistake.

“No,” he said firmly. “Never that, Cassandra. It has to be all or nothing. There’s no midway course possible for you and me. I love you; there’s nothing in the wide world that counts with me, beside you. If you could trust yourself to me, I would swear to serve you until my death, and it would be joy, the truest joy I could know. It is for you to order, Cassandra, and I shall obey...”

He felt her shrink in his arms; her voice trembled, but she forced herself to speak.

“What do you mean? Say it plainly, Dane, please, quite plainly. Let me understand!”

“If you will come with me, Cassandra, we’ll go abroad. I’ll take a villa in some quiet spot, out of the tourist beat. We could stay there, together, until... He would divorce you; he is not the kind of man to shirk that. The case would be undefended, so you would not have to appear... In less than a year we could be legally married.”

“But—but—my boy!” cried Cassandra, trembling. She passed her right hand against Peignton’s shoulder, the hand with the emerald ring, and raised herself from his embrace. There was a look in her eyes which he had not seen before, the mother-look on guard for her young. It was not of the stolid, freckled-faced schoolboy that Cassandra was thinking at that moment, but of the small, soft-breathing thing which had been the reward of her anguish, which she had greeted with such a passion of joy.

“Dane! have you forgotten my boy?”

“No. I have forgotten nothing. Is the boy more to you than I am, Cassandra?”

“No. No,” she turned to him with eager penitence. “Not so much; not so much; but he is mine; I am responsible. And he is growing so big—in a few years he would understand. ... Even now the other boys—I have done very little for him in his life. I have been allowed to do so little, and he isn’t affectionate. It isn’t me personally that he would miss... a new gun, or a pony would more than make up now! But he would care!... The time would come when he would be ashamed.—I couldn’t bear my own little son to be ashamed of me, Dane!”

There was no answer to be made to that protest. Dane stared at the ground, miserably conscious of the hopelessness of the situation. He was determined to keep to his resolution that it should be all or nothing between Cassandra and himself, yet the prospect of parting was intolerable.

“Are you thinking entirely of the boy?” he asked slowly, after a pause. “Your husband? Doesn’t he enter into your calculations?”

Cassandra’s face hardened.

“No,” she said coldly. “I am not thinking of Bernard. If there were only Bernard to consider, it would be different. Bernard has not kept his promise to love and cherish me all his life. I am a live woman, and he treats me like a machine. A man like that has no right to a wife. If I left him, it would open his eyes to his own selfishness, and do him good. He would marry again, and his second wife would reap the benefit. You need me more than Bernard needs me, and I need you... But there’s the boy—”

“And,” said Peignton heavily, “Teresa!”

Cassandra glanced at him swiftly, and into her eyes came fear.

“Dane... will you, can you,—marry her new?”

“I have told her that it’s impossible, but she insisted on keeping on the engagement. I stood out, but she said that possibly your name might be dragged in if the engagement were broken off just now, after our visit to you.—I could not stand the risk of that, so—it was left!”

“And you are engaged to her still?”

“Nominally. Yes. She is very considerate. She makes it as easy for me as she can... That’s a hateful thing to say! I hate myself for saying it. If it’s hard for us, it’s harder for her. She’s the one left out. She might have made things unbearable. Can you imagine what it would have been if she had blurted out the whole tale,—told it to her own people, to have it handed round the neighbourhood, with a hundred exaggerations within twenty-four hours? A girl might so easily have lost her head under the circumstances, but she—I don’t think she reproached me once! She seemed all the way through to think of me more than herself.—I never saw her more sweet!”

A vision of Teresa had come into his mind as with flushing cheeks she had said, “There might be children!” Many times over had he recalled that moment, and always with the same tenderness and pain. Cassandra recognised the note in his voice, and felt a very human pang of jealousy.

“What did she say about Me?”

“You and I count as one. We must do. There’s no considering us apart. She fears that if I were free, it would be one barrier removed, and we should be the more tempted.—By holding me to my word, she is doing all that is in her power to prevent—”

Cassandra’s short upper lip curved with a touch of scorn. It touched her pride that insignificant Teresa Mallison should presume to lay down rules for her guidance. It had pleased her to admit the girl to a certain amount of intimacy, but always it had been she who had condescended, Teresa who gratefully received. Cassandra was not a snob, but she was an Earl’s daughter, and the consciousness of her birth was very present at that moment.

“It seems,” she said coldly, “that we are in Teresa’s hands! She has given you her orders, and you have obeyed.”

Then Peignton looked at her, and she quailed before the passion in his eyes.

“Give me your orders,” he said thickly, “and she goes, everything goes! I’ll throw over the whole thing to-night, work, honour, friends—everything there is, if you will give me yourself—if you’ll come to me to-night, and let me take you away—Oh, my Beautiful, if you only would...”

“Dane! Dane!” cried Cassandra sharply, “I want to!” She covered her face with her hands, and he wrapped her close to his heart. “Am I wicked? Am I wicked? I’ve always called a woman wicked who felt like this, but it seems now as if it would be so right, so natural: so much more natural than saying good-bye! But I can’t—I can’t do it. I’m bound with chains. It’s the boy’s home...”

They clung together in silence. On this point at least there was nothing more to be said, and each realised as much. The chains might tear Cassandra’s heart, but they would not give way, for they were forged out of the strongest sentiment of the human heart. The mother in her would not stain her boy’s home. In the midst of his misery, Peignton loved her the more for her loyalty.

Presently she spoke again in a low, exhausted voice:

“Dane—what shall you do?”

“I? I don’t know. Leave Chumley as soon as possible. Go somewhere else. It doesn’t matter where. Nothing matters. But I must clear out of this.”

“Is it necessary? If we meet very seldom? Never, if you think it better, in private! Would it really be easier if you never saw me? I don’t feel as if I can live if I lose you altogether. Even to see you driving past in the street—”

Peignton shook his head.

“It’s impossible. The thing could not be worked. The Squire would ask me here. I could not always refuse. I couldn’t stand it, Cassandra; it would be too much for flesh and blood. It must be all or nothing.”

“You won’t go at once? I must see you again; I must! I must! There is so much to say. I’m going to do what is right, Dane. I’m strong enough for that, but I must have something for myself! You will meet me again, just once, to—to say good-bye—”

Her voice broke, and the tears poured down her cheeks. Dane kissed them away, murmuring passionate words, promising everything she asked. If they were to part for a lifetime, fate need not grudge them a short hour. He promised, and Cassandra lay silent with closed eyes, her hands clinging to his, her cheek touching his own. In both minds was the thought of the barren years to come when they would remember this hour as a treasure snatched from fate. This was the golden time, the fleeting glory,—let them realise, let them make the most!

Neither spoke; it seemed a waste of time to speak. Dane lifted the beautiful hands and gazed at them with adoring eyes; Cassandra lifted his in her turn, and found their sun-baked strength every whit as beautiful. They looked into each other’s eyes, deeply, endlessly, as lovers look who are about to part, and the world and all that is in it has ceased to exist.

Footsteps came along the winding path but they did not hear; light, tripping footsteps drawing nearer and nearer. They reached the summer-house, and halted before the opened door.

“Cassandra!” said a quiet voice. “It’s me. It’s Grizel!”

Chapter Twenty Six.

Enter Grizel.

Cassandra lifted her head and stared blankly, then with cold displeasure, into the intruder’s face. There was not the faintest tinge of embarrassment in her mien, nothing but surprise, and anger, and an intolerable impatience. She sat in silence, struggling to collect her thoughts, and the while she stared, Grizel stepped lightly over the threshold, and seated herself on one of the scattered chairs. It was done so quickly that there was no time for protest, if protest had been possible, and Cassandra, biting her lip, turned towards Dane for support. He had risen to his feet, and looked miserable and embarrassed as a man is bound to do when placed in an awkward situation. Cassandra looked for signs of an anger corresponding to her own, failed to find it, and in consequence felt angrier than before. Her voice was steely in its hauteur.

“Did you wish to see me?”

“Please!” said Grizel softly. Her hazel eyes met Peignton’s with a long, straight glance, whose message he could not misunderstand. He flushed, and held out his hand.

“I’ll go... Good-bye—”

“I shall see you again. I am free on Wednesday and on Friday.” Cassandra spoke in a heightened voice, as though scorning an attempt at deceit. “You will meet me here?”

“Yes. Yes. I’ll let you know—”

He dropped her hand, bowed slightly to Grizel, and swung rapidly away, leaving the two women alone.

“Grizel Beverley,” said Cassandra deliberately, “I hate you!”

“Poor darling!” said Grizel, trembling. “Of course you do!” She shook out a minute handkerchief, and wiped the moisture from her face. It dawned on Cassandra’s perceptions that she was deathly pale.

“Why did you come?”

“I don’t know.”

“Was it just chance?”

Grizel’s lip trembled.

“Cassandra, I loathe to preach; but I don’t believe it was!”

“How did you get here?”

“I walked. It’s the longest walk I’ve ever taken. I never came in by the north gate before. I’ve never turned up this path. I just—came!”

“I see. It was a coincidence, which you are trying to turn into a special guidance of Providence on my behalf. I’m sorry that I cannot recognise it in that light. I wish with all my heart that you had stayed away... What good do you suppose you are going to do?”

“The Lord knows,” said Grizel, shrugging. The next moment, with a startled air, she continued. “He does know! I said that without thinking, but it’s true... Won’t you let me help you, darling? I’m not a bit shocked, you see. I knew before, and I’m not a chicken,—I’m twenty-eight. I know that love doesn’t work to order. I was horribly afraid for you before that day on the cliff, and then of course I knew!”

“How many people have you told?”

Grizel was silent. Cassandra moved her shoulders with an impatient shrug.

“I beg your pardon. I didn’t mean that. But—your husband?”

“Not one word.”

“I thought you told him everything?”

“About myself I do. Not about friends.”

“Thank you for that, at least,” Cassandra said ungraciously. The next moment she threw out her hands with a gesture of hopeless appeal. “Oh, Grizel, I’ll have to forgive you, for I need you so much, but it was hard! You needn’t have grudged us that little time... I could have killed you for coming in just then. As you know everything, tell me what we are to do?... I feel as if I were going mad... What are we to do?”

“What does he suggest?”

“He asked me to go away with him to-night. I’ve told you, so now you can go and warn Bernard. Perhaps Providence will throw you up against him on the way home!”

Grizel mopped her eyes with the little handkerchief.

“Why sneer?” she asked softly. “It’s bad enough, goodness knows, without that to make it worse... And are you going, dear?”

The voice was so tranquil that Cassandra started in surprise.

“What would you say, if I said I was?”

“I think—at this moment, I rather expect that you will! I should have said ‘Yes’ myself at this point.”

“Well, I didn’t! I am stronger than you. I refused, because of the boy. But you needn’t praise me. I deserve no praise. I’m going to do my duty, but I’m not doing it from my heart. I want to go, and I told him so. Did you know I was a bad woman? I didn’t. I was rather proud of myself for being so unflirtatious all these years. It was only because I had not been tempted. The moment I am tempted, I go to pieces. If we are judged by our thoughts, I’m a wicked woman. I’d give everything I possess in life, if I were free to go to him to-night!”

“So would I, so would I,—if it had been Martin,” cried Grizel, sobbing. “Everything that belonged to myself. And it isn’t wrong; it isn’t wicked; it’s the human nature in us that we can’t help. Every consideration for oneself goes down like ninepins before the one big thing. They don’t count... It’s the other people who block the way!”

“One other person in my case. Bernard doesn’t count. I am nothing to him. Why should I ruin my life by staying with a man who doesn’t want me? If it were not for the boy, I’d go to-night. You know what my married life has been,—would you think I was doing wrong if I left the pretence to take the reality? It would be a truer marriage, even if it were not blessed by the Church. Yet people would think we were wicked. Would you think so too?”

Grizel hesitated.

“Sure I may speak straight out?”

“Of course. Of course. I asked you. I’m hurt so much already that you can’t hurt me any more.”

But for several minutes Grizel sat silently, her hands folded on her knee, her eyes steadily gazing ahead. And as she sat, gradually, surely, the expression of her face changed. The sparkle died out of her eyes and left them soft and grave, the curling lips took on a new tenderness. It was as though she were deliberately banishing the things of this world, gathering to herself a strength to help in time of need. The little face grew tense with earnestness; when she spoke her voice had a deepened note.

“Yes, dear, I think it would be wicked. Not so much for your own sake, as for all the people around. You know the inwardness of things, but they don’t. They would see only the bare, ugly fact... ‘Lady Cassandra has eloped with her husband’s friend!’ It would be a bad breath stealing out, infecting wherever it went; searching out weak places, and weakening them still more,—If you three were alone on a desert island, I wouldn’t hesitate a moment in your place. I should go to my mate, and there would be no sin on my soul, but we’re not in the desert, we’re in a crowd, and you, poor darling! are perched high up. You are a big person here in this little place; down to the very school-children, everyone notices, everyone copies, everyone takes you as an example of what should be. And they have to keep the laws themselves, poor souls! whether they like them or not... How do you think it would look to them if you, who have so much, threw over your duties, just to please yourself?”

Cassandra shook her head with a dreary indifference.

“But I don’t care, you see; I don’t care. Nothing matters to me at this moment but just our two selves! It’s so easy for you to talk, Grizel. You are more than happy; you are content! I’ve never been content in all my life. I’ve been starved of all that really matters in a woman’s life, and now, when I am offered a full meal, I must give it up and be hungrier than before! I am going to do what is right, for there is something in me which is stronger than passion, an inheritance, I suppose, from generations of stiff old Protestant ancestors,—but the doing of it will break my heart. According to the old ideas it should make me happy. Oh, Grizel, Grizel, it isn’t true! How can I be happy if I give up Dane?”

Grizel shook her head.

“You can’t. Not for a long, long time. You’ll be miserable... There’s only one thing, darling!”

“Yes?”

“It would be worse if you didn’t! You may be unhappy as Bernard’s wife, but you would be a hundred times more miserable as—Dane’s mistress!”

Cassandra flushed hotly.

“He would marry me!”

“I’m sure of it. If he could. But—”

“Well, well! why discuss it; it is not going to happen. I’m going to live on at the Court, and set an example to the school-children, and keep Bernard’s accounts... and grow old, and die, and be buried. That is all I have to look forward to, and you have this to remember, Grizel Beverley, that it was you interrupted the one hour of perfect happiness that I have ever known!”

“I’ll stay away on Wednesday,” Grizel said meekly, and they laughed together in feeble, halfhearted fashion. “But I’ll come up later, and say everything all over again,” she continued presently, “and I’ll go on saying it, as often as you need it, and do my penance that way... Take long views, Cassandra, darling, take long views! One isn’t always young and ardent; it’s only for a little spell, after all, and all the long, long time stretches ahead, when one has to be middle-aged, and elderly, and old... Think how thankful you’ll be at forty, when the boy comes of age. Think how thankful you’ll be at fifty, when the grandchildren begin to appear. Think what a far-off tale it will seem at sixty, when you don’t want romance any more, but just to be quiet, and comfortable, and respected. And when you are seventy—”

Cassandra stopped her with a hasty hand.

“I’m not a bit interested in what I shall feel at seventy. I want to be happy now. I could say all these things to you, Grizel, if you were in my place, but they wouldn’t help. I want to be loved!”

Grizel sighed. She knew better than to advance the reality of her own affection at that moment, for the truest friendship on earth can never feel the gap left by love. There was only one person on earth who in any fashion could console Cassandra for Peignton’s loss, and he was the one for whom she was making her sacrifice. The glimpse she had had of Bernard junior during an exeat spent at home, was not inspiring, but Grizel’s indomitable optimism surmounted all difficulties.

“The boy will love you, darling,” she said softly. “That will come! He is getting to the age when he will appreciate your beauty, and that means so much. He will begin by being proud of you, and the rest will follow. And he will mean more to you after this. When you have sacrificed so much for a person, he becomes more precious... You’ll grow together. I know it, I feel it! In a few years’ time he will be your devoted companion. I’m going to have a son like that myself some day, but I shan’t have the right to him that you have. I shan’t have paid such a big price!”

The tears welled slowly into Cassandra’s eyes. She turned her head aside, and sat gazing into the mist of green which formed the outer world. A son’s love would be sweet, but it was at present merely a possibility, while Dane’s love was real, and near, and strong. And other women had both! Blessed women on whom husbands and sons waited with rival devotion. The bitter problem of inequality, old as the earth itself, tore at Cassandra’s heart, demanding why she should starve, while others sat at a feast; why the narrow path should sometimes be strewn with flowers, and again with jagged stones. She fought it out in her mind while Grizel sat waiting, but to-day she had no power to find comfort for herself. Body and mind alike were spent and weary. She was thankful to feel the presence of a friend...

“Are you one of the people, Grizel, who preach that all lots in life are equally good?”

“I should hope not. I have some common sense.”

“Oh, it’s not a question of common sense; it’s a question of faith. Mrs Evans would say they were. She says every heart knows its own bitterness, that people may appear very fortunate, but one can never tell that there is not a skeleton locked away. And if other people are terribly poor, or chronic invalids, or anything desperate like that, she says that they have a temperament that makes up, or that we can only see the present, and not life as a whole...”

“I’ve known,—by sight and hearsay,—many whole lives, and they’ve been a martyrdom, nearly all the way through. I’ve known others, in the same way, which were nearly all sunshine. Rainstorms, of course, and an occasional squall, but never, never the whirlwind or the lightning. Life is not evened out; it’s folly to pretend it. It’s fifty times harder for some than for others.”

“But why? Why? It doesn’t seem fair. It’s not always their own fault?”

“Of course not. That’s absurd. Some of the best people have the most trials. We’re bound to have our training, Cassandra, dear, and to go on being trained till we’ve mastered our lessons. In that way we all fare alike, but some of us get most of it in this life, and so have the less to learn over there. Whatever happens to us after we die, we are not going to be metamorphosed in a moment into perfected saints; we shall have to go on working our way up, and oh, Cassandra, wouldn’t it be a discouraging feeling to be done with earth, and still drag about the same old sins? How thankful we’ll be when we awake, for every struggle which had thrown off a bit of the load! That’s my explanation of life’s inequalities, and it has helped me more than anything. When the troubles came along,—there were plenty of them, my dear, in the old days—just as a detail I was in love with Martin for eight years before we were engaged!—I used to say to myself: ‘No use shirking; if you don’t fight it out to-day, you’ll have to do it to-morrow.’ It will wait for you, my dear!... Set your teeth, and get it over.”

Cassandra looked at her with thoughtful eyes.

“Eight years!” she repeated softly, “eight years!” and stared again, wistful and perplexed. “You are a continual joy to me, Grizel, and a continual surprise.—I didn’t know that you were a religious woman!”

“But I am,” Grizel said nodding. “Very! In my own way. The worst of it is, it isn’t other people’s way, and they are always getting shocked at me, which is hard lines, for I’m never shocked at them. I’ve needed lots of help all those years, and I’ve always found it, and I wish I could hand over my secrets to you ready made, but it would be no use. We’ve got to worry them out for ourselves, and it takes time before the comfort begins to soak in...”

“I don’t want to learn lessons. I want to be happy,” Cassandra repeated piteously. All the long lean years of her marriage added force to the yearning to take advantage of the long-deferred joy now that it was within her reach. “And I want him to be happy too, but not—with her! Grizel, did you know that she wishes to keep him to his engagement?”

“Yes. I know. She told me.”

“Told you!” Cassandra’s voice took the old haughty ring. “Then she discussed me with you also, and her altruistic efforts on my behalf! Dane is to remain engaged to her as a safeguard against myself. That’s the idea, isn’t it?—Life is a curious business. I never imagined that the time would come when Teresa Mallison would dictate to me!”

Grizel smiled mischievously.

“And doesn’t it rouse the devil in you when she does! Never mind! I’m pleased to see it. It’s a healthy sign under the circumstances. You’ll need a good supply of that pride to see you through the next month, and I guess there’s no fear of its running out.” Then her face sobered, and her voice took a serious tone. “Cassandra! you must try to be fair to Teresa. She’s young and crude, and opinionated, but this has been a great big test, and she’s been rather—fine. I never admired anything more than her composure that day on the cliff. It wasn’t because she didn’t feel. The slight must have been all the worse, just because she is so complacent and sure of herself. She went through torture with her lips shut. She’s even more to be pitied than you, Cassandra, for she was happy, and she believed so firmly that she was going to be happy ever after, and now—at the best—it can never be the same—”

Cassandra interposed with a sharp-cut question.

“What do you mean by ‘the best’?”

“From her point of view,—that he should eventually marry her, and make the best of what remains. It’s pretty hard on a girl of twenty-four to know that her lover has to nerve himself up to take her like a disagreeable tonic which may eventually do him good. I could not have stood it; I’m quite sure you couldn’t, but Teresa can. The bull-dog quality in her won’t let go; she can sit tight and wait, and it’s the waiters who win. She will go through a bad time, but in the end—” Grizel met Cassandra’s flashing eyes, and said gently, “Dear! if you had the choice, wouldn’t you rather think of him in the future with a home and children, happy again, if not just in the same way, rather than as a lonely man, eating his heart out for what he couldn’t have?”

“No!” cried Cassandra defiantly. “No! I want him to remember. I want him to think. I’d rather anything happened than that he should forget...”

Then Grizel laughed, a soft, tender little laugh, and looking back on that scene in the days which followed, Cassandra knew that more than for any words of comfort, she was grateful for that laugh. There was in it the tenderness which a nurse bestows upon the railings of pain-racked sufferers, and with it a beautiful incredulity which refused to believe mere words, and set her faith on the force within, content to wait until it should resume the mastery.

The task of a comforter is only less difficult than that of the sufferer himself. He has need of infinite tenderness, infinite tolerance, above all, of infinite patience. Not in one hour, or one week, or one month will his solace work its effect; again and again must he open his heart, and pour forth all that is his of wisdom, and strength and inspiration, only to find himself thrown back to the very position from which he started.

“Oh, Grizel!” cried Cassandra sharply. “Why did you come? Why did you interrupt us? And oh, what are we to do? What shall we do?”

Chapter Twenty Seven.

The Summons.

Cassandra returned home to fight her battle hour after hour with weary reiteration. In her mind was one predominating determination,—to be loyal to the son she had borne, and to bring no shame upon his name, but against the cold rock of that decision dashed the waves of a passionate desire. She was starving for love, and the gates of her woman’s kingdom stood open entreating her entrance. All that she had longed for, all that she had dreamt, was waiting for her; the lifting of a hand would bring it to pass. Duty faced passion in grim stolidity; passion lashed itself in fury, only to fall abashed before that impenetrable front. Cassandra had sufficient strength to hold fast to her determination; sufficient weakness to regret its power, and to long, wildly, weakly, overwhelmingly for courage to throw everything to the winds, and snatch her hour of joy.

Grizel had prophesied that the joy would be but of an hour, that continued happiness was impossible under wrong conditions, and in her heart Cassandra acknowledged the truth. Both Dane and herself had lived their lives in an atmosphere of convention and morality; they were not the stuff to defy the world, and live undaunted by snubs and chills. The first wild rapture would be succeeded by mutual loneliness, mutual remorse. On each would press a burden of responsibility for that other dear wrecked life. Cassandra acknowledged the inevitability of regret, in imagination lived through it, saw the cloud on Dane’s face, felt the cramp at her own heart, but even so... even so... they would have had their hour! If the ship were sunk, there would be treasure saved from the wreck. Better to sail forth for the high seas, facing dauntlessly tempest and fire, than to spend the whole of life in a backwater, anchored to a stone!

So the battle waged, hour after hour in weary repetition. Cassandra fought vainly to sink the woman in the mother, and resurrect the old thrills of devotion. She thought of the baby who had lain in her arms, the little cooing, kicking cherub who had been the light of her eyes; she thought of the first toddling steps, of the first coherent word, of the first, the very first time that the little arms stretched out, of the little dimpled baby splashing in a bath. One by one she recalled the landmarks sweet to a mother’s heart, but before them all, veiling them like a cloud, stood the image of a stolid, freckled-face boy in an Eton suit, a boy who signed his letters “Raynor,” considered affection bad form, and preferred to spend the “hols” visiting other fellows’ homes. It was not for the adorable baby of old, but for the Eton-suited boy of to-day that she was to sacrifice her love!

Would he care? Would he really care? Guiltily she allowed her mind to wander down the forbidden path. He would hear nothing. Bernard would keep everything from him until—the divorce. The case would be undefended, no savoury morsels would appear in the newspaper to whet the appetites of the unclean, the vast majority of readers would not notice its presence. Eventually, of course, something would have to be said. Cassandra winced as she imagined Bernard’s bluff words to his son: “Look here, boy, never speak of your mother again. She’s not coming back. Some day you’ll understand; until then do as you’re told, and keep your mouth shut. She’s dead. D’you understand that? Dead and buried so far as concerns us. Never speak of her again.”

Bernard would not abuse a mother to her son, his sense of fair play was too strong; he would simply shut her out from his life, and leave the boy to form his own judgment later on. But with the sharpness of dawning adolescence Bernard junior would sense something wrong, something shameful, flush unhappily beneath the servants’ gaze, and return to school miserably dreading that the fellows had heard!

No! Cassandra could not do it. She could not shame her child. She could not step down from the pedestal on which the most prosaic of sons instinctively places a mother. Every fresh struggle ended in the same most piteous, most womanly cry: “I can’t. I can’t. But oh, Dane, Dane, I want to!”

During these three days Cassandra stayed entirely within the grounds and denied herself to visitors, but she had a constant terror that Teresa would call and force an interview. The girl must suspect some such meeting as had taken place in the summer-house; must realise that her own fate hung in the balance. What more natural than that she should want to plead her own cause? Cassandra stiffened in anticipation. Nothing, she knew, would induce such a reckless disregard of duty as to hear it advocated from Teresa’s lips. For Heaven’s sake, for her own sake, let the girl keep away!

But the days slipped past, and Teresa did not appear, and a new terror dawned in Cassandra’s heart. Suppose instead of coming to herself, the girl went to Bernard and warned him of the threatened danger to his house! Every time that her husband entered the room afresh, Cassandra glanced at his face with an eager scrutiny, and every time Bernard smiled with unruffled cheerfulness and said, “Feeling better, old girl? Had your tonic?”

Grizel had laid down strict injunctions as to the treatment of her patient on her return to the Court, and had perjured herself by giving the Squire a highly pessimistic opinion of his wife’s health, the result of which had been a certain amount of bluff kindliness and unfailing enquiries as to the consumption of tonics. Cassandra detested the idea of Bernard’s hearing the truth from Teresa’s lips, but there were occasions when she burned to tell him herself, occasions when it would have been the greatest relief in the world to say, “I am not ill. I am not suffering from shock. I am in love. I want to elope with your friend Dane Peignton. I am breaking my heart because it’s my duty to stay.”

Imagination pictured his face as he stood and listened. The steely eyes, the glint of teeth, the ruddy colour surging up over the thick throat, the large clean-shaven face, up to the roots of the short sandy hair. “You can look me in the face,” he would say, “and dare to say such a thing? Have you no shame?”

“Why should I have shame?” she could hear herself answer. “I have done no wrong. I am breaking my heart to do what is right. I am not ashamed, but I am dreadfully, dreadfully unhappy!” But Bernard would have no compassion. He would make no distinctions. She would henceforth be contemptible in his eyes. To the end of their life together he would regard her with suspicion; enquiring into her every action, reading guilt into the simplest friendship. The horror of that suspicion sealed Cassandra’s lips.

The days passed by, Wednesday arrived, and Teresa had not moved. Cassandra vouchsafed a grudging admiration. There was—as Grizel had said—something fine about the girl’s restraint. What was she thinking, what was she doing all these days, when of a certainty Dane must be standing aloof, waiting for the message which never came? How could she bear it, caged in that tiny house, with the terrible mother probing for explanations? Cassandra recalled how Mary had declared that it was impossible even to cry without attracting curious rappings at the door. She heaved a sigh of thankfulness for the blessing of space.

Wednesday morning passed by, lunch hour came bringing with it Bernard, and the inevitable enquiry re tonics, two o’clock arrived, three o’clock. In another half-hour she would leave the house, take her way to the summer-house, meet Dane once more, look deep into his eyes, feel the clasp of his arms. All life seemed concentrated into those next few hours, the expectation had been in her heart since the moment when she had parted from him four days before; the near prospect of meeting had mitigated every pang. Now that that meeting was at hand every other feeling was merged in joy. The moment was hers, she seized it greedily, with no consciousness of guilt. She was going to do right, she was going to say goodbye,—surely even Teresa would not grudge her her short hour!

Cassandra put on a shady hat, and stood before the long mirror regarding her own reflection as a woman will who is about to meet her lover. The white dress fell in soft lines accentuating her long slimness, the hat was white also, a simple affair of straw, with a twisted scarf of crêpe, the gold-flecked hair, the soft carmine of the cheeks, the blue, pathetic eyes gained an added beauty from the lack of colour.

Cassandra knew that she was beautiful at that moment, she also knew that that beauty would plant a sharper thorn in Dane’s heart, but being a woman she rejoiced nevertheless. If she could have made herself more lovely, she would have done it unto ten times ten. She turned from the mirror, opened the door of her room, and crept quietly downstairs. It was her desire that no one should see her or know that she had left the house. Once the great hall was reached she would slip into the library, and thence through the open window to a side path giving access to a shrubbery, thereby avoiding observation from upstair windows or from the gardeners at work on the terrace beds. Then let what might happen, she would be undisturbed for the afternoon.

She had reached the lowest step, the library was but a few yards away, when fate shot her bolt. The door of Bernard’s office opened, and he came towards her, telegram in hand. Many telegrams arrived at the Court. Cassandra was too much a woman of the world to share the fear with which many of her sisters regard the orange-coloured sheets, but she needed no words to tell her that this message was no mere business communication. At the mere sight her heart died within her. There was just one thing on earth which she lived for at that moment, and the telegram had come to block her way. She stood still and cold waiting Bernard’s explanation.

“Look here, I say,—here’s bad news! The old Mater. Taken worse this morning. Another stroke. The second this time, so it may mean the end. Jevons has been looking up the trains.”

Cassandra did not speak. The old Mater was a venerable and disagreeable old lady whose bronchitic tendencies had made it necessary to abandon the dower house and make her abode in a more southern county. The necessity had been to the daughter-in-law a matter of continual thanksgiving, but to the Squire a real regret. His intensely conventional nature recognised the duty of honouring a parent, and he had a genuine and rather touching affection for the cross old woman, who rarely opened her mouth except to grumble and lament. To Cassandra the mother-in-law had been an unmitigated trial, and she could not affect to feel regret at the prospect of an end to a weary invalidism. The knife-like pang which rent her heart had no connection with the house of Raynor.

“You—you are going down at once?”

“What do you think! Of course we’re going. I was just coming up to tell you to get ready.”

The pang of presentiment had been well founded. Cassandra felt the hopelessness of a trapped animal, but desperation nerved her to a feeble protest.

“Me? Bernard! ought I to come? She’ll be unconscious. I couldn’t do anything. I should only be another person in the house—giving more trouble.”

The blue eyes had their most steely glance as he turned upon her.

“More shame to you if you did! You can nurse her, can’t you? Take your turn with the maid? She has a prejudice against hired nurses. Good heavens, have you no feeling? My mother ill—dying—and you talk of staying at home! What’s the matter if she is unconscious? Your duty is to go and look after her, and I’ll see that you do it.” He pulled out his watch and looked at it hastily. “You have twenty-five minutes before the car comes round. Get Rogers to put a few things in a bag—just what you want for to-night. She can bring along the boxes to-morrow. Goodness knows how long we may have to stay...”

He wheeled round and went back to his room, and Cassandra dragged wearily upstairs. Twenty-five minutes—in twenty-five minutes’ time Dane would be awaiting her in the summer-house, and she herself would be leaving the house, leaving the neighbourhood, travelling down to the wilds of Devon, there to remain for goodness knew how long, out of sight, out of touch,—a prisoner, when of all times in her life she most longed to be free.

Wild impulses flocked into her mind, an impulse to turn back, make her escape into the shrubbery, and fly to keep her tryst. If Dane were waiting, would it be possible to reach him, to explain, feel for one moment the grip of his arms, and get back in time to change her dress, and be ready for the car? No, it was impossible. Moreover, what if Dane had not yet arrived? When she had gone so far, would she have courage to drag herself from the spot, where at any moment she might behold him approaching? She knew she had not, and for one wild moment wondered if she could dare still further; deliberately disappear, deliberately stay away until Bernard was forced to depart alone, but even while one by one the questions raced through her brain she continued to drag wearily up the great staircase. Here was an illustration of the greater struggle on a lesser plane. Her heart was vagrant, panting to escape, but the chains of duty held. Bernard was her husband; he was in trouble; he demanded her help; at whatever cost to herself that help must be given.

Cassandra gave instructions to her maid, and retired to her boudoir to send a telephone message to the one person in Chumley who would come to her aid. Grizel was at home, and her voice came over the wire clear and distinct.

“Yes, it’s me. I’m alone. What is it?”

Cassandra’s words came haltingly. Her proud spirit had difficulty in framing that message.

“This is Wednesday... Wednesday afternoon. You remember what was to happen on Wednesday afternoon?... Bernard has just had a wire to say that his mother has had a stroke. He is going to her at once—we are both going. He says I am to nurse her... We leave in—er—in a quarter of an hour... Grizel! I... I was just starting for the summer-house, when he met me with this news. There is no time for—anything... Will you explain?”

Grizel’s voice came back in instant reassurement.

“Cassandra, I will! Leave it to me... Cassandra, darling, how long are you to be away?”

“I don’t know. How should I? Goodness knows!” cried Cassandra bitterly.

Like a faint, sweet echo came back the words in Grizel’s deepest tones:

“Goodness knows!”

Chapter Twenty Eight.

Farewell!

The old Mater was not unconscious. The mysterious physical lightning had smitten the left side of the body, left a drawn, disfigured face, and a helpless arm and leg, but the spirit within was untouched. By the time that her son arrived, the old Mater had realised what had happened to her, and was seething with bitterness and rebellion. It was a terrible sight to see the blaze of the living eye in the dead face; a piteous thing to listen to the mumbled words which proceeded from the twisted lips.