SIR HARRY (continued 3)

"Everything the same!" exclaimed Harry. "Why, every inch of it is different! I have never been to London, but the streets of a town must be much more alike than this is."

They laughed again at that, and the girl threw a glance at him, walking by her side, while Circe, held by his strong brown hand, curveted on the close turf and the dogs ranged here and there, a little subdued from their bounding energy, but still keenly interested in all that lay about them. The raindrops sparkled still upon gorse and grass and bramble, larks sang in the clear spaces of the sky, and the dying wind brought a salty thymy fragrance with it. The blood in the veins thrilled to the sweet glad freshness of it all, and youth called to youth as they trod the springy turf together.

There was such a lot to be explained. Everything that was said opened up endless more things to be said. He told her that he had lived all his life at Royd; she told him that she had seldom been away from London. But, whereas he showed himself quite content with the unusual limitations of his life, she spoke of hers with regret. "I've always wanted the country," she said; "I've never been so happy as I have been here, for the last two days. Even the storm this morning, I didn't mind. It was something big and grand, and I knew the sun would shine and it would all be lovely again."

They talked on and on. They had made friends, as children make friends, liking each other, and pouring themselves out in endless little confidences.

"My name is Harry Brent. I live at Royd Castle with my mother and grandmother."

"Oh yes, of course; you're Sir Harry Brent. Mrs. Ivimey has talked about you.

"My name is Viola Bastian. My father called me that out of a beautiful poem. He is an artist, but nobody buys his pictures, so he paints scenery at a theatre. We are very poor."

It didn't seem odd to Harry that this beautiful girl, whose speech was refined and whose clothes were such as a sister or cousin of his own might have worn, should be the daughter of a scene painter, who was also very poor. Nor did he blench in the least at a further statement, which explained, at least, the clothes. "I have to work and help father. He didn't want me to go on the stage, and I should have hated it, too. I am with a dressmaker in Dover Street—Nadine. She makes things chiefly for quite young girls. I have to show them off. It is hard work in the season, but I get a good long holiday, and if father can get away too, and we have enough money, we go into the country for part of it. That is why we are here now."

It was all very interesting, as anything she might have told him about herself would have been interesting. He knew nothing of states of life other than those which were immediately around him; he accepted everything she told him as quite natural to her, though he thought it a pity that she should have to work so hard and could not live in the country, as he did, since she loved it. She was what he saw and heard her to be, and what she did and where she lived was quite unimportant, except as she might feel them to be important.

But how did she come to be what she was under such conditions of parentage and environment? If it did not occur to Harry in his all-embracing ignorance to ask himself that question, it might very well have been asked by others with more experience of life than his. She was as frank in her address as he was, showed no sense of the social difference between them in any mauvaise honte or explanatory questions. It must have made itself plain to a listener that she was indeed a rare flower of unsullied girlhood, as innocent in essence as Harry himself, who had been kept from contact with the world outside his castle of romance, since she had lived at its crowded centre and remained unspotted by it.

They had not half finished their confidences by the time they came within sight of the cottage at which she was staying—or, rather, of the smoke from its chimney, which rose from behind a corner of the wood jutting out into the moor. Perhaps it was some acquired sophistication that caused her to stop there and to prepare to say good-bye, out of sight of the cottage itself and whoever might see them from it. But, whatever it was, Harry felt the same disinclination to being looked upon by eyes that might have been questioning or curious. She was for him alone—one of his cherished innocent secrets—all the more to be kept to himself because it was like no other secret that he had ever had before. A secret must be shared by some one, or it is no secret, but only a deception. Harry's secret had been between him and nature, or between him and an imaginary Harry who owed all initiative to the real Harry. But this was his and hers, and hers as much as his. She could keep it a warm nestling secret, or destroy it by a word. Which would she do?

"Good-bye," she said, holding out her slender girl's hand, and looking him straight in the eyes, as she had looked at him when first they had met. He took her hand, and the touch of it thrilled him. It was soft and firm and cool, like no hand that he had ever had in his, though he had taken the hands of other girls not noticeably different in shape or size from this one.

There was the hint of a question in her look. Was it to be good-bye?

Harry had no such thought. "There is a lot I want to talk to you about," he said. "Tomorrow afternoon—no, I don't want to wait till the afternoon—tomorrow morning I will come; quite early."

Her eyes softened, and she smiled. "Very well," she said, and waited for him to tell her where and when he would come.

They were to meet on the outskirts of the wood. He would show her a ferny pool in the very heart of it, which he thought nobody but himself knew of. "It will be very hot to-morrow," he said, throwing a weatherwise eye at the heavens. "We shall be cool and quiet there."

Suddenly he felt shy of her, mounted his horse, and cantered away, his dogs following him. Then he felt uneasy at the thought that she might have found him rudely abrupt, and when he had gone a few hundred yards he turned to look back. She was still standing where he had left her, and waved her hand to him.

He had the impulse to turn and ride back to her, but cantered on, with a flame of joy shooting up in his heart. When he looked back again, she had gone.

CHAPTER X

VIOLA

That evening at dinner all the talk was about the war. General Leman's heroic stand at Liège had ended in surrender. King Albert's government had retired to Antwerp; the way was open for the enemy to Brussels, and it was not yet certain whether Brussels would deliver itself up or defend itself.

But the great news, now allowed to be known, was that the British Expeditionary Force was all on French soil.

There was plenty to talk about. Lady Brent was pessimistic, and already saw the Germans over-running Belgium. Wilbraham thought that when the English and French once moved in concert the Germans would be rolled up and rolled back like a carpet, and the end of the whole mad business would come very soon afterwards. Mrs. Brent was inclined to agree with him. She alone of the three had her eye anxiously upon Harry as she spoke, with the fear working in her that, after all, he might be drawn into the vortex. "It can't go on for two years," she said. "It couldn't go on for three years, could it?"

They laughed at her. "You may make yourself quite easy on that score," said Lady Brent.

To Harry it all seemed extremely unimportant. The conviction that, whether it lasted one year or two years, or three, or ended before Christmas, he would certainly be involved in it somehow had been registered in his mind and could be laid aside until it should fulfil itself. He did not want to think about it, still less to talk about it. His personal connection with what was going on now, brought to his mind that afternoon by his talk with Fred Armour, had faded from his mind; and the tale of the war as it was being unfolded from day to day and as it was being discussed by those about him, had little more interest for him than the tale of a war centuries old which he might have studied with Wilbraham.

Yet he joined in the talk from time to time, and if he said nothing that had much effect upon the discussion he said whatever he did say in such a way as to arouse no suspicion in the minds of his elders that his thoughts were almost completely divorced from his speech.

The old dim hall in which they sat had its windows open to the night, which was now quite still, with a sky of spangled velvet, broken into by the dark spires of the cypresses in the garden. Harry could see them through the window opposite to which he sat, and in the intervals of talk he could hear the plash of the fountains. The thought came to him that he would like to walk with Viola in the starlit garden. He would like to show her this beautiful house of his; it would be a tribute to her, and his own love of it would be enhanced by her praise. He looked round at the hall and saw its carved and dusky splendour with new eyes.

They were dining at a table set in the oriel window facing on the garden. The table was lit by candles in branched silver candlesticks. On a heavy buffet by the door from the kitchens and buttery, under the gallery and on serving tables, were other candles. There were perhaps a dozen in all, and they gave what light was necessary, but left the high-pitched, raftered roof just a-glimmer, and parts of the hall in shadow. The portraits that hung above the dark wainscoting were dimly seen, the gilded carving of the gallery and the screen beneath it glowed softly where the candles shone upon it, and faded into rich dimness beyond the circle of light.

Viola! She would love this old hall, and all the other stately rooms of the ancient house. He had never thought of it, except very vaguely, as belonging to him, but he thought of himself now as belonging to it. He would like her to admire anything that had to do with him, and he would like her to share his admiration.

But such thoughts as these were a very small part of what was rioting through his mind. His chief feeling about his immediate surroundings was one of strangeness that he should be sitting there quietly dining and talking upon unimportant matters which had nothing to do with Viola. It was to connect her with them that he took notice of them at all, and he looked out more often into the still starlit garden, because it was under the sky that he had met her and talked to her, and her alliance with the things of nature that he loved was already fixed and established. All beautiful aspects of the world, and of the fair places in his own world, connected themselves naturally with her. She filled every corner of his mind, and to whatever source of familiar delight he turned she seemed to be there before him.

After dinner, on summer nights, Harry often walked in the garden with his mother. Lady Brent never went out, but sat with her book in the drawing-room. Wilbraham spent half an hour in the library, smoking and reading, and then came into the drawing-room to play the piano or to talk until they went to bed at ten o'clock. When they heard the first notes of the piano, Harry and his mother would go indoors. If they lingered, Lady Brent would send Wilbraham out for them, on the plea of the night air being dangerous, or, if the night was so warm that that seemed too absurd, of its being time for Harry to go to bed. She did not like these garden confabulations between mother and son, but never showed it except by confining them thus to the half-hour after dinner.

To-night Harry half hoped that his mother would not come out with him. He wanted to be alone, but reproached himself for the desire as she asked him to fetch her shawl and smiled at him with the pleasure manifest in her face. He knew how much it meant to her to have him for this quiet half-hour to herself. It was the only one in the long day that she could call her own. He was left free to his own duties and devices, except for the times when all of them were together. With his youthful sense of fairness he knew that both his mother and grandmother left him free in this way for his sake and not for theirs. He must not grudge them the short time that he was expected to be with them. And he had taken a pleasure himself in these little garden wanderings with his mother that arose not only from the satisfaction of giving her pleasure. He loved her—more than he loved anybody—and had a man's sense of protection towards her. He did not know yet that he loved Viola. The idea of love had not yet occurred to him in connection with her. As he ran upstairs to get his mother's shawl, the thought crossed his mind that he had never yet wanted to get away from his mother for the time he was accustomed to devote himself to her, and puzzled him a little.

He was more than usually kind to her as they walked up and down the long bowling green together between the close-clipped yew hedges. He made an effort to dispossess his mind of what was filling it, and to be to her what he would have been but for the thrilling adventure that had befallen him. The only sign of all that was hidden from her—and she had no clue to its meaning—was when he said that the garden made him feel shut in, and asked her to walk in the park with him.

She felt his tenderness and palpitated with happiness over it. If she had but known that the time had come when she was less to him than she had ever been, and that his kindness and gentleness were but vicarious tributes meant, though all unconsciously, to take the place of the love that must soon be withdrawn from spending itself only on her, and given to another! But these wounds to a mother's love were spared her for to-night. She thought he was nearer than ever to her, and all thoughts of losing him were far from her.

She ventured to talk of her fear of the war taking him from her, and he soothed her, laughing at her fears. He did not tell her of his conviction that it would do so, nor feel any desire to tell her. What he did feel a half-shrinking desire to do was to tell her about Viola. But an instinct which he did not understand prevented him, and the moment they had parted he was glad that he had resisted the impulse. The secret was not his alone. It gave him joy to think that it was a secret, and that it was not his alone.

Wilbraham called out for them. They went in, and Harry said good-night at once and went upstairs. He was no longer sent to bed before the rest, but no objection was ever made if he went.

When he was alone in his room he breathed relief. His mother, perhaps, would come in on her way to bed, but otherwise he would be alone for the hours of the night, and yet so much not alone. He thought that to-night his mother would certainly come, and he undressed quickly so that when he should hear her he could get into bed and pretend to be asleep. This small piece of deception did not trouble him, since it would not trouble her. He had never given her what he owed her. Now he wanted to think uninterruptedly of Viola.

He leaned out of the window with his chin on his hands and gazed at the dark masses of trees in front of him and at the starry roof of the sky above them, which was above her, too. His window was on the same side of the house as that of the room in which Grant had slept the year before, but the trees were nearer to it. He gazed more at the sky than at the trees. Yes, in that direction, almost directly in front of him, lay the cottage in which she was—now at this very minute. It was a moving thought. Perhaps she was asleep, perhaps she was looking at the same stars as he was. Perhaps she was thinking of him, as he was thinking of her. That was a very stirring thought, and led him to shift his position. He wanted to be in motion as he thought of her. Later on, when the house was all asleep, he would dress and go out. For the present he could only walk about his room, when the waves of emotion that came to him stirred him from his place at the window.

But he could not think like that. He did not know what to think about. His impatience grew for the time to come when he should be alone and undisturbed. Then he would be able to think, out there under the stars. The trees oppressed him, as they had never done before. He got into bed. He would lie and think there until his mother had come and gone. But the moment he got into bed he fell asleep, and did not awake when she came in softly, shielding the light of her candle from his eyes.

How beautiful he looked as he lay there, his head slightly turned on the pillow and one arm and hand along his side on the counterpane—and how innocent! How she loved him for that beauty and innocence! She felt it as uplifting her from the lower plane of unrest and petulance upon which she was apt to move. She blessed him for the calming, purifying thoughts which he brought to her, and took comfort to herself in the thoughts that there must be something good in herself since it was partly owing to her influence that he was so free from evil. Yes, he was hers; her own dear child whom she loved, and who loved her. She had set herself aside and allowed another to direct his life and hers. Soon he would be free from that tutelage, but not from the bonds that her love had woven around him. She would reap her reward. Oh, it was a blessed thing to bear children, and after long years to have them as a prop and stay, as well as a solace. Not for many years would he leave her, in spirit, though in body they would sometimes be parted. She must be more to him now than she had ever been, and when the time came to give him up to another she would not complain, since she would have had him so perfectly for a time.

It was nearly two o'clock when Harry awoke, suddenly, and in complete possession of himself. He might have thought that he had not slept at all, but that the moon shining in at his window told him the hour as plainly as if it had been called in his ear.

He sprang out of bed and began to put on his clothes, but paused for a moment, asking himself why he was in such a hurry to do so.

As happens so often in sleep, the perplexities with which he had lain down seemed to have resolved themselves without conscious process. He had wanted to ask himself what had happened to him, but it seemed now as if some romantic mist had cleared away from his brain and nothing in particular had happened to him—nothing, at least, that needed any careful process of self-examination. He had met a very charming and friendly girl, and he was going to meet her again in the day that was already moving towards dawn. That would be very agreeable, but what was there in it to have put him into the state in which he had lived through the evening?

But, as the thought of meeting her again with half the hours of darkness already gone—presented itself to him, he felt again the glow of pleasure and anticipation. Yes, he wanted to think about her, and he could think best about her out in the open.

He dressed quickly and dropped from his window onto the grass, which was not more than ten feet or so below him. And now he seemed to be more master of himself, as he passed across a strip of moonlit green and into the dimness of the wood. He was reminded of the night in which the vision of the fairies dancing had come to him. Now it was full summer and then spring had only been on its way; his long-trained sense marked the difference in a thousand little signs. But that had been a night of silver moonshine, as this was. The contact with nature was clear on such quiet, illumined nights as this.

Viola!

She grew slowly upon him as he trod the soft grass or the dry crackling beech-mast. Her face, somewhat to his surprise, he could not call up before him, though he tried to see it with his inward eye. But he dwelt upon the slight supple figure that had moved beside him so freely and so gracefully. It gave him pleasure to recall her slender hand, which had lain in his, and he remembered her feet and ankles in their neat brown shoes and stockings, and the fall of her skirt over them, and the little hat of soft white straw with its twisted ribbon.

Again he was a little puzzled at the effect these memories had upon him. He had an eye for beauty of animate form. He loved the grace of certain animals; he and Wilbraham together had taken delight in pictures of Greek statuary and vase painting, with special reference to that beauty; he had admired the quick, clean limbs of the two children with whom he had been so much, and of other children of the village, older or younger. But it had been purely an æsthetic pleasure, and had brought with it none of the emotion with which the thought of Viola moved him.

He was a little frightened of this emotion and inclined to resist it; but something out of the soft night whispered to him that its current was one with all the emotions upon which he had fed, and grown in feeding. It was part of the secret which he had only half divined at the end of that vigil which seemed to have marked a stage in his life.

His joy in the thought of her increased. He recalled the tones of her voice, and the ring of her happy laughter, and dwelt upon things that she had said. They were nothing; they might have been said by anybody; none of them at which he smiled to himself were so worth remembering as the things that little Jane often said and he had remembered afterwards, smiling at them too, but not with that tenderness of feeling towards them.

He came to the park wall, where there was a door to which he kept the key. He seldom went outside the park on his night roamings. The woods continued here for some distance before the open ground was reached, though by the ride he had taken in the afternoon they ended with the wall, in which there was another locked gate. If he wanted to go on to the moor at night, and stand beneath the open sky, with nothing about him but space, it was by that path that he reached it. But he seemed to have had a purpose, unknown to him, in making for this door, and when he reached it he had no thought but for passing beyond the bounds of the park. It was by that path that the cottage in which Viola was could be reached most directly. He knew when he came to the door, but not before, that he meant to go to it.

He had left the key behind, but scaled the wall, not without some difficulty, and went on through the wood. By and by he came to a garden fence, and there beyond it, across the fruit bushes and the untidy tangle of late summer, was the cottage, low and thatched and whitewashed, in which she was sleeping.

He stood still and drew his breath.

Viola!

There was a little dormer window in the thatch, open. It might be that of the room in which she was sleeping. A cottager would not sleep in a room with the window open. He tried to remember what the cottage was like inside, and what rooms would be most likely to be given up to visitors. It seemed to him of the utmost importance to have it settled which was Viola's room.

He moved round to the front of the cottage, treading softly on the turf lest a sound should reveal his presence. Perhaps she was awake. It was not part of their secret that he should come out at night to gaze at her window. He must not reveal himself.

The wood extended a little way on to the moor by the side of the cottage. It was the point that had hidden it from them in the afternoon. But it faced open ground across a narrow fenced-in strip of garden. The whole of its front could be seen obliquely from the wood.

He stood in the shadow of a giant holly—and saw her.

She was sitting at a window, her chin resting on her hand, looking out across the moor to where the sea lay gleaming in the radiance of the moon. She was in white; her dusky hair lay about her shoulders and framed her young face, in which the dark eyes were set.

It was only a glimpse that he had of her, for he stole silently away, abashed at having surprised a revelation not meant for his eyes.

But it was like the glimpse that he had had of the fairies dancing. It thrilled and calmed him at the same time. He knew now that the fairies had not revealed all the secret to him. Viola was the secret, towards which all his life and all that he had learned of nature had been leading him. Viola lay at the warm, sweet heart of it all. Everything was changed by that vision he had had of her, and soon he would see her and tell her so.

CHAPTER XI

THE WOODLAND POOL

They met in the woodland path which Harry had taken in the night. He was there before the time appointed and threw himself down on the grass to await her coming. He could see some distance along the path from where he had stationed himself. It was narrow just here and the thick overhanging branches of the trees made a green shady tunnel flecked with quivering points of light.

He waited in a state of patient expectation, not greatly moved or stirred, but happy and contented. The time did not seem very long, though he waited for half an hour.

At last she came. She was dressed all in white. It seemed that it must have been so as she appeared, in the glooming green, which had been like an empty frame waiting for just that picture of maiden whiteness.

He sprang up to meet her, and she waved her hand when she saw him and hurried her steps a little. That frank greeting took them back to the point at which they had parted the day before. An ocean of feeling and experience had washed over Harry in the intervening hours, but it was lifted from him as they met and smiled their greetings. His was as frank and untroubled as hers.

They chattered gaily together like happy children as they turned aside from the path and went up through the wood. Harry felt an immeasurable content at being with her, laughed at nothing, and sometimes broke into snatches of song, which interrupted the conversation and made her laugh in turn. He had a fresh, clear voice, which Wilbraham had done something to train. It was a happy little song about June that was running in his head. She knew it, too, and after a time she took it up with him. "That's the way of June." Once when they had come to a place a little more open, they stood and sang it together in unison, and then laughed and went on again.

Her father had gone out painting on the common, she told him. He had asked her to go with him, but she had said it was too hot in the sun. She would wander in the woods. "I didn't say I should wander in the woods alone," she said.

"They never want to know where I'm going," said Harry. "I go out after breakfast and come back to lunch, and sometimes I tell them where I've been and sometimes I don't."

It seemed natural that their elders should go their way, and they should go theirs, in which elders had no concern. It was their secret, to which no one had a right but themselves. But it gave Harry great pleasure to hear from her in that way that it was to be their secret. "That's the way of June," he caroled again, in no very obvious connection.

They came to the still waters of the hidden pool. It would not have been surprising if no eye but Harry's had seen it since the trees had grown up around it. They had to make their way to it through thick bushes, which even in winter time could have concealed it. He had been careful in his visits not to go in and out of the thicket by the same way, and so leave a break. It was as if he had kept it secret for himself and her.

When they had pushed their way through they were in a little grassy fern-fringed space open to the sky, though it was flanked by big trees. There were one or two more of these tiny lawns sloping to the edge of the water, but that on to which they came was the largest. An age-old oak stood sentinel in the middle of it and it was flanked on one side by a yew that must have been older still, so vast was its dark circumference and so thick its red ravelled trunk.

Viola exclaimed with delight. The pool stretched in front of them, its surface unruffled, mirroring the blue sky and the green depths of the trees and the tall ferns that grew round it. There was no vegetation on it anywhere. Harry told her that it must be very deep, with a spring somewhere, or it would have been covered with weed. "It's much nicer like this," she said, laughing at him. When he asked her why she laughed, she said: "You're so proud of it." It did not seem much of a reason, but he liked her to laugh at him like that, looking at him and showing her pleasure in everything that he said that revealed a little of him.

For one moment as they stood by the edge of the water he had a slight sense of anti-climax. He had brought her, not without difficulty, to the pool, as if in some way it was to be the end of things, and in some way also the beginning. But without some lead on her part there was nothing much to stay there for. It must be either the accepted scene, or nothing but a point of interest from which they would presently move on, with nothing more that he had yet thought of in front of them.

The feeling disappeared as she turned towards the mossed roots of the oak, which made a seat for her. He threw himself among the fern at her feet with a sensation of desire accomplished. She had accepted it. The little lawn by the still water, hidden from all human eyes but theirs, was now consecrated by the simple fact of her taking her seat under the oak. She was queen of the pool and the deep summer woods.

So far in their intercourse little points had arisen in which it had been for one or the other of them to take a step further, if it were to continue. She had stood waiting as Harry rode up to her, he had stopped, and she had spoken; he had walked with her; he had asked her to meet him again; he had brought her to the pool, and she had seated herself there to await what should come. The initiative had been more his than hers, and now it was his again. The fact of her taking her seat there, under the tree, was an invitation, though she may not have meant it as such. They might talk there through the long morning hours, but their talk could not be only of externals. It must be on a more intimate note, or they might just as well roam the woods together lightly. This green nook by the water, hidden and secret, was a shrine in which they would worship together, as yet they knew not what, but it would be something sacred and beautiful that was calling to both of them.

There was silence between them for a moment—the silence of recollection which comes before an act of devotion. Then Harry looked up at her and said, with his voice trembling a little: "I've never told any one of this place before. I think I kept it for you."

She smiled down at him, with the light soft in her eyes. "I'm glad you did that," she said. "I shall never forget it. It is so quiet and green and beautiful," she added, a little hurriedly, as if the meaning of her words might be mistaken.

"I might have shown it to the children," he said, reflectively. "I don't quite know why I didn't. But I'm glad I didn't, too."

She asked him who the children were, and he told her about Jane and Pobbles, and the things that they had done together. She asked him a good many questions and was a little particular in fixing the exact date of Jane's birth, and of her arrival at Royd.

Harry answered all her questions and told her of the map that he had begun to draw for them the afternoon before. "It seems such ages ago," he said. "I was missing them both, but I don't think I've given them a thought since, until just now."

She allowed herself to soften towards Jane; for at one point she had suggested that she seemed rather precocious for so young a child. "Poor little things!" she said. "I'm sure they must miss you, too. You have been so good to them. And they are the only young friends you have had, aren't they?"

Talking of the children had a little lowered the note of intimacy. Her last words restored it. "Until I knew you," he answered.

"And that's such a very short time."

"No; it's a very long time. It's all the time that matters."

She smiled at him, and he went on. "Think of it, that only yesterday—yesterday, much later than this—I was feeling dull and unhappy. Then I rode out to the sea, and felt much better, but I didn't know anything about you. Fancy—only yesterday I had never seen you."

She listened with her eyes fixed upon him and her lips a little apart. "What did you think when you first saw me?" she asked, softly.

He hesitated, and then laughed. "I don't think I thought anything in particular," he said. "That's what is so extraordinary. What did you think when you saw me?"

It was the children's pretty game. "I like you. When did you begin to like me?" But she was not ready to tell him that yet. Or perhaps she might have told him, if he had acknowledged to some emotion at the first sight of her. "I was very glad to see somebody who could tell me where I was," she said. "I had heard of you, you know, from Mrs. Ivimey; but somehow I didn't think of you as you till you told me your name."

What had she heard of him? She wouldn't tell him that, either, or at least not all that she had heard about him; but he was so unaware of the estimation in which he was held by the people about him that he did not divine that she was keeping something back.

What Mrs. Ivimey had said of "the folks at the Castle," generally gave them something to talk about. She wanted to hear all about his life and those among whom he spent it; and he talked about himself as he had never talked to anybody before. His desire was to bring her into it all. He told her a great deal about his happy childhood, and some of the secrets that he had cherished. He told her about the stories he had made up for himself, and, with a little hesitation, the one about the garden and the flowers, and the end of it. "I was terribly ashamed," he said, "oh, for years afterwards. I'm not sure I haven't been ashamed of it right up till now. Now I've made a clean breast of it—to you—I don't mind so much. I must have been a horribly vain little boy. It used to distress me that my hair wasn't very black and very smooth. I used to pray that it might be made so."

Her eyes rested upon his fair close-cropped head. He was looking down and did not see the look in them. "I'm glad your prayer wasn't answered," she said. "But I think you must have been a very dear little boy. I wish I had known you then. What were the violas like in your story about the flowers? Or didn't they come in?"

"Yes, they did," he said, looking up at her. "They were different from the pansies—gentler and rather shy. They were never naughty."

"How old were they? Grownup?"

"No; children—with dark eyes and a lot of dark hair all about their faces."

"Were they like any little girls you had seen?"

"I don't think so. I think they must have been rather like you were then."

"My eyes were dark, and my hair was loose on my shoulders. Perhaps something put it into your head that you would know a Viola some day."

"Scoop, young Jesus, for her eyes

Wood-brown pools of Paradise."

He said it gently, looking into her eyes. She was startled for a moment. "You know it, then?" she said.

"Yes, I thought of it when you told me you had been named from a beautiful poem. But I couldn't say it then. I didn't know you well enough."

"Have you said it since? Do you know it all?"

"I read it when I got home yesterday. I know it all now."

"Say it to me."

He said it right through, slowly, and softly, dwelling on the name Viola—Viola—with many gradations of his flexible voice, and she thought she had never heard anything more beautiful than the way he uttered it. Sometimes her eyes rested on the waters of the pool, but more often on him, but his were on her all the time:

THE MAKING OF VIOLA

I

The Father of Heaven

Spin, daughter Mary, spin,

Twirl your wheel with silver din;

Spin, daughter Mary, spin,

Spin a tress for Viola.

Angels

Spin, Queen Mary, a

Brown tress for Viola!

II

The Father of Heaven

Weave, hands angelical,

Weave a woof of flesh to pall—

Weave, hands angelical—

Flesh to pall our Viola.

Angels

Weave, singing brothers, a

Velvet flesh for Viola!

III

The Father of Heaven

Scoop, young Jesus, for her eyes,

Wood-brown pools of Paradise—

Young Jesus, for the eyes,

For the eyes of Viola.

Angels

Tint, Prince Jesus, a

Dusked eye for Viola!

IV

The Father of Heaven

Cast a star therein to drown,

Like a torch in cavern brown,

Sink a burning star to drown

Whelmed in eyes of Viola.

Angels

Lave, Prince Jesus, a

Star in eyes of Viola!

V

The Father of Heaven

Breathe, Lord Paraclete,

To a bubbled crystal meet—

Breathe, Lord Paraclete—

Crystal soul for Viola.

Angels

Breathe, Regal Spirit, a

Flashing soul for Viola!

VI

The Father of Heaven

Child-angels, from your wings

Fall the roseal hoverings,

Child-angels, from your wings

On the cheeks of Viola.

Angels

Linger, rosy reflex, a

Quenchless stain, on Viola!

VII

All things being accomplished, saith the Father of Heaven:

Bear her down, and bearing, sing,

Bear her down on spyless wing,

Bear her down, and bearing, sing,

With a sound of Viola.

Angels

Music as her name is, a

Sweet sound of Viola!

VIII

Wheeling angels, past espial,

Danced her down with sound of viol;

Wheeling angels, past espial,

Descanting on "Viola."

Angels

Sing, in our footing, a

Lovely lilt of "Viola."

IX

Baby smiled, mother wailed,

Eastward while the sweetling sailed;

Mother smiled, baby wailed,

When to earth came Viola.

And her elders shall say:

So soon have we taught you a

Way to weep, poor Viola!

X

Smile, sweet baby, smile,

For you will have weeping-while;

Native in your Heaven is smile,—

But your weeping, Viola?

Whence your smiles, we know, but ah!

When your weeping, Viola?

Our first gift to you is a

Gift of tears, my Viola!

When the musical flow of his voice had ended, they had advanced many paces further on the path they were treading together, but its end was not yet known to either of them. Viola's cheeks were rose-flushed and her eyes were shining. There was silence for a time as they looked at one another, and love flew to and fro between them unhampered in his flight but hidden from them.

Viola breathed a deep sigh, as she drew her eyes away from his, half unwillingly. "It's lovely," she said. "I didn't know how lovely it was till you said it. I'm glad I've got the most beautiful name in the world."

"And the most beautiful eyes in the world," he said. "I never knew that there was anything half so beautiful as you, though I have always loved the beautiful things in the world. I used to wonder what they meant, and a year ago I thought I had found out. But now I know that I only knew half of it."

"Tell me," she said. "What did you find out a year ago?"

He told her of his moonlight vigil, which he had never thought to tell any one, and the vision that had come to him at the end of it.

Again she listened to him, fascinated, with her eyes on his and her lips apart. But as he drew to the end of his story her face grew a little troubled.

"I should never have seen that," she said when he had finished.

"We might have seen it together if you had been there," he said. "There is no secret I could see that you couldn't see."

"No," she said, rather sadly. "You have always lived in this beautiful place, and you have seen nothing that isn't beautiful—all your life. Of course you could see that, because there was nothing to get in the way. But it isn't at all beautiful where I live. I have seen so many ugly things all round me."

"It must always be beautiful where you live—Viola."

He spoke her name caressingly. It was the first time he had uttered it, except impersonally, and it made a new sweet contact between them.

She smiled at him. "Perhaps if you love beautiful things, and think about them," she said, "it doesn't so much matter if you can't always have them about you. Do you think I could really see the fairies, if I were with you?"

He thought for a moment, with a slight frown on his face, which made the words that should come out of his thought of great importance to her. It was not in him to say something just to please her. The lightest thing that he might say to her would come from the depths of the unspoilt spirit that was in him.

His face cleared, and he looked up at her again. "I think that when you are very young you may see something like that," he said, "—or, by chance, when you are older. It means something very important, or else it doesn't mean much. It meant something very important to me to see them, but now it's not so important. If I had never seen it I should have seen you, and it would have been just the same."

"Why would it have been just the same?"

She was fascinated anew. Did ever a girl have such incense as this burned before her? And it was incense lit from a flame in the heart, not from a spark on the tongue. Her nostrils were eager for the fume of it.

Again the little considering frown. "It would," he said, "I know it would. It all meant you, somehow, though I have never seen you until now. There was something wanting in it all the time; and it was you. I should never look at anything now, and think how beautiful it was, without thinking of you."

Lover's words, spoken by an unconscious lover. They pleased and pained her at the same time.

"I'm afraid you make too much of me," she said, with a sigh. "If I had lived here always, as I am living now——!"

She did not complete her sentence. The memory of things she had seen and known and of which he had known nothing, rose up between them. But she put them aside, and smiled at him again. "After all," she said, "I am here now, and I have never been so happy anywhere else. Perhaps I have been keeping myself for it, without knowing that it was this I was meant for. I think I was meant for it, because all the rest seems like nothing at all. When I go back, it will be less than ever to me."

Her talk of going back stabbed him. Life would be an incredible thing when they were parted. They stirred each the other's fears and shrinkings as they talked of it, but behind all the pain was the thought that they would be with one another for a long time yet. They were so young that time in front of them was not measured by the same rule as time that had passed. More than two whole weeks and most of a third Viola had still to spend in Paradise. They would meet every day. Surely, nothing could prevent their meeting every day! Twice a day they would meet, in this secret place, and be undisturbed for long summer hours in their happiness. No need to spoil it by thinking of the end.

They parted for a time. The last Harry saw of her was the white figure framed in its arch of green. Before she passed out of it she turned and stood there for a moment, motionless. She was too far for him to see her face clearly, but the message passed to and fro between them again. It was all there, though they had not yet spoken it in words, and eyes were too far off to be read.

CHAPTER XII

AT THE THRESHOLD

Harry went home to luncheon and hurried to the wood again immediately afterwards. He had much farther to go to the trysting-place than she. She might even be waiting for him when he got there.

She was not there, and after half an hour she had not come.

Oh cruel! And yet he knew, as his longing grew and his hopes fell, that she would have come if she could. Her father had claimed her; something out of her power to prevent or foresee had kept her away. She would not stay away from him for ever.

Yet he was increasingly unhappy as the time passed and the green frame remained empty of its sweet picture. The heat of a summer afternoon lay brooding on the silent wood, and was like lead upon his heart. He paced up and down the path, to the corner from which the garden of the cottage could be seen. He thought of going to it, and talking to Mrs. Ivimey, who would know what had become of Viola, and would certainly talk to him about her. But no, he could not do that. It would be sweet to hear her name on other lips, but he would have to pretend that he was hearing of her for the first time, and he shrank from that, and from all that it would imply. He never went farther than the corner, and by and by his hope of seeing her that afternoon died away completely.

He had come out prepared to stay away until dinnertime, but now he thought he would go home to tea, and come back immediately afterwards. His absence would not then be questioned until he came back at night. They did not like him to stay away from dinner too often, but he had not done so for some time, and if he said that he was going out into the woods they would not seek to prevent him.

He was all at sea with himself as at last he dragged himself away from the empty place, which might still be brightened by her coming, with many backward looks and much lingering. He knew that something that could easily be explained had kept her, and yet he was desperately unhappy because she had failed him. Did she want him as much as he wanted her? Would anything in the world have kept him away if he had promised to come to her? Supposing she should not come at all that day! He shrank from the thought of the long night that would divide him from her, if he had not seen her before it fell. But his spirit was tired with suspense. The world seemed full of trouble and disappointment as he made his way homewards.

The one thing he never thought of was that, somehow, their meeting of the morning might have been discovered, and she had been forbidden to meet him again. They had met, and promised to meet again, in all the innocence of their youth. If their elders had known of it, it would have spoilt their happy secret, but that was all. It had not occurred to Harry that it would spoil anything else.

They had tea on the terrace outside the drawing-room. It was always the same at home. Day after day, all the year round, it was always the same. In winter the tea tables were placed near one of the two fires that warmed the long room, at other times near one of the windows, or in the summer on the terrace outside. The four of them would sit round and talk, Lady Brent dispensing the tea, over which she was very particular. Occasionally some one from the Vicarage would be there, but scarcely ever anybody else. The friendships that had formerly been between the Castle and other big houses within reach had fallen off, and it was the rarest thing for visitors to appear there.

It might have been expected that, meeting like that, day after day, at formal meals as well as at this informal one, and with no intrusion from the outer world to break the monotony of their lives, they would have had nothing to say to one another. But there was always a great deal to say. Wilbraham read voluminously, Lady Brent read, and even Mrs. Brent read. They talked of what they had read in the papers and what they had read in books; but Mrs. Brent did not take part in the conversation over what they had read in books.

And there was the life immediately around them to talk about. If Royd Castle was cut off from the ordinary social intercourse that gathers about a large country house, it was by no means divided from the interests that depend upon ownership. There were a few hundred people living around it in direct relationship, and the personal contact with them was the closer because it represented nearly all the human interest there was in the life that was led there. It supplied the gossip which in some form or other is congenial to the most exalted minds, and without which little Mrs. Brent at least would have found the conversation unbearably arid.

Lady Brent visited among the tenantry assiduously. She was inclined to exercise authority, but could not fairly be said to be dictatorial. They were on their best behaviour before her, but there were few among them who had not some kindness to remember from her. Mrs. Brent also visited them and avoided doing so in the company of her mother-in-law if she possibly could. Her intercourse with them was on a more intimate plane. Her position as a great lady had to be implicitly accepted, but if this was done she would sit and talk with more than mere affability. Harry was her chief subject of conversation, and all the people of Royd loved Harry and expected great things of him. It might have surprised Lady Brent if she had known how clearly it was in the minds of those whom she treated as her dependents that she was only exercising temporary authority, and how much they looked forward to the time when her rule would be over. This was not because they found it irksome, for she ruled justly and considerately. But she had ruled for a long time and change is pleasant to most of us. Besides, the Castle provided very little variety of interest to those who lived within its shadow. It had not always been so, and it was expected that it would not be so when Harry came into his own.

Mrs. Brent could sometimes be induced to talk about the time that was coming, if she was flattered into a state of intimacy and skilfully drawn out. She was always careful not to create an impression that she and Lady Brent were at all antagonistic, but it was understood by everybody that this was so, the extent of the antagonism was gauged to a nicety, and the causes for it were frequently discussed and generally agreed upon.

The fact that Mrs. Brent derived from the stage was not actually known, but it would have surprised nobody to hear it; nor did her claims to belonging of right to the class into which she had married carry the smallest weight, however much they might be indulged. It was generally agreed that Lady Brent had done the right thing in absorbing her into the atmosphere of the Castle, and in keeping her closely under its influence. Poor little lady! She'd have liked to get away from it sometimes, and small blame to her! But 'twouldn't ha' done. She was all right where she was, and a nice little thing too, if you took her the right way; but there! she wasn't what you'd expect for Sir Harry's mother, and her ladyship's was the only way to keep him from knowing it.

So these remote but clear-sighted and kindly people judged of the situation at the Castle, and on the whole approved of it. As for Harry himself they one and all adored him. They were the only friends he had had outside his home from his childhood, and they were real friends. There was not one of them, man, woman or child, who had not some special feeling for him different from that of the rest. He knew them all, and was interested in them all, with a purely human sympathy. When the time came for him to take the reins, he would be dealing not with an impersonal aggregate, but with those whose interests were also his; and he would be regarded with a loyalty and affection which is enjoyed by few landowners.

Wilbraham kept himself more to himself, as was said of him, but had his friends too at Royd. It was he who brought Harry's heart to his mouth this afternoon by the announcement, made in a casual voice: "There is an artist come to stay at Mrs. Ivimey's. He rejoices in the name of Michael Angelo Bastian, which ought to mean that he is a very fine artist; but I've never heard of him. Have you?"

"No," said Lady Brent, who had been addressed. "But I did not know that Mrs. Ivimey let rooms. I think she should have asked me first. Nobody at Royd has done it hitherto."

"I wonder how she could get any one to take rooms in such an out-of-the-way place as hers," said Mrs. Brent.

"I can tell you that," said Wilbraham. "I had it all from Prout." Prout combined the occupations of shoemaker and postman at Royd. "Mrs. Ivimey has a sister who lives in London and lets lodgings. Michael Angelo Bastian lodges with her. The rest is plain to the meanest intelligence."

Harry was faced with the immediate alternative of acknowledging that he was aware of the fact stated or of affecting ignorance of it. If he kept silence now it would be deliberate and purposeful silence, and he might later on be called upon to explain it. He had not faced this; he had not faced anything in connection with Viola that had to do with the future.

Perhaps he would have spoken, if his mind had not been so full of his late disappointment, and of his reviving hopes of still meeting Viola that evening. He could not bring himself immediately to the point of making a decision, and when Lady Brent had next spoken, and Wilbraham had answered her, the time had gone by for him to speak. His not having done so directly Bastian's name had been mentioned would need explanation now. With a mental shrug of the shoulders he kept silence, and felt a warm delicious glow as he took the further step towards a fenced and guarded intimacy with Viola which no one outside must penetrate. The pleasure of hugging his secret afresh swamped the half-guilty feeling which had preceded it in his mind. He did not even ask himself why it should have come to him, but his attitude towards his elders underwent a slight change from that moment. His youth was to be defended from them; it had its rights, which could brook no interference.

As he hurried off again to the trysting-place, he was glad once more that he had refrained from betraying his secret, as he had been glad that he had resisted the impulse to confide in his mother the night before. He knew now that they would have disapproved. Some breath from the outside world, which divides people up into categories in a way he had never had to take into account, had come to him from the discussion he had just listened to. His grandmother had shown persistent concern at Mrs. Ivimey's having let her rooms without consultation with her. Such a thing had never happened before in Royd. You didn't know what sort of people you might get, if it became a practice. An artist—there was no great harm perhaps in an artist; but— The postman had evidently not known, or if he had he had not told Wilbraham, that this particular artist had invaded the sanctities of Royd accompanied by a daughter, but Harry had felt instinctively that her presence would have increased the objections expressed by Lady Brent to Mrs. Ivimey's taking in anybody at all. It had come to him somehow that Viola's delicious charm would have done nothing to recommend her, had she been known, and that his mother would by no means have taken the confidence that it had been in his mind to make to her the night before in the spirit in which it would have been offered.

The reasons for all this were not clear to him. He had of course no idea that he was to be preserved at all costs from falling into unauthorized love; he had no more than a purely academic knowledge of what falling in love meant, and no idea as yet that he was already very deep in it himself. There were many things in which his inclinations had clashed with the rules formulated by his elders—as, for instance, in the matter of visits to the stables, during his early childhood. This was one of them, but he was not to be bound now by the views of his elders, and it was not necessary to examine their origin. There was a vague discomfort in the idea that he was setting himself against them, but no admission in his mind that he was in any way wrong in doing so. And even the slight discomfort was more than balanced by the feeling that his secret must certainly now be guarded, which had the effect of somehow bringing him and Viola more closely together.

It had been decided chat Wilbraham was to seek out the artist, and if he found him to be the sort of person who could be asked to Royd, he was to ask him there. Harry smiled to himself, as he thought of the possibilities ahead. He must tell Viola, and he and she must decide what was to be done about it. It gave him a thrill to think of their deciding anything together. He quickened his steps. There were such oceans to talk to her about. He had no doubts now about her coming to meet him; he had almost persuaded himself that she would be there waiting for him.

But the green frame was still empty of its picture, as he had left it an hour before. The evening light was slanting on it now, giving warning that the time they would have to spend together was diminishing. But there were nearly two hours of daylight still. Surely she would come before the dusk fell!

He stretched himself under a tree, from where he could watch the place where she would appear. His mood was not yet impatient. She would surely come, and in the meantime he could think about her.

He did not think of her as a lover thinks of the mistress enthroned in his heart, to worship her there. He had not consciously enthroned her as yet. He thought of her as a wonderful revelation of something he must surely have been looking for all his life, since it was impossible now to think of life without her. She had come into his life, in some way to translate its meaning for him—for both of them. She was a revelation from the good influences all around him, as the vision of the fairies had been. He had got as far as that, and had told her so. It had been very sweet to tell her that; it would be sweet to tell her everything that came into his head. There was nothing that he would not want to tell her, at once and first of all. In his innocence of the world and the way of the world, he had reached that point in love's pilgrimage where the loved one shines out as the sweet vessel into which all confidences may be poured, and the desire is strong for a common aim and a common vision. But he had not reached the point, which usually precedes it, of an ardent desire for some sort of surrender. Perhaps it is not true to say that he had not yet enthroned Viola in his heart, for she sat there the centre of everything. But she sat there apart, as if she had mounted the steps of the throne without his hand to raise her. She must descend again and stand with him on the level ground of mutual desire before her seat should be secure and acknowledged.

But as he waited for her, and the desire for her sheer presence became stronger and stronger, he was being led towards that desire for surrender. The sweetest thing now would be, not to pour himself out in confidences to her, which would still be very sweet, but to obtain from her that look or that word which would move him to the depths.

He went over in his mind the looks and words he had received from her, and thirsted for more. The very first time their eyes had met, before a word had been spoken between them, she had looked at him, with something behind the look with which his memory blissfully played. Once or twice that morning, by the pool, and again when she had turned towards him and stood gazing, far off, there had been something that thrilled him with happiness to remember. And there had been tones in her voice, little things she had said—he dwelt upon them all, and longed to draw more of them from her. He would say this to her; greatly daring, he would say that. And she would reply; or if she spoke no answer he would watch her face, and gain courage from it for speeches still more daring.

But an hour passed, and she had not come to him.

The sun was sinking now. Outside the wood, under the open sky, its rays would be drawing the shadow of the rocks and the gorse across the close turf; there would be a soft golden radiance in all the air, and on the bright distant pavement of the sea. But here under the trees it was already dusk, and a gloom descended on his heart, as he thought of the sunset, from the sight of which he was shut off.

It was like a parable to him. He had never before missed the glory of a sunset, if he was out of doors. The woods had never kept him from that enlarging sight. They were for other times; not less loved then, but now seeming to hold him enchained in a menacing gloom. And so, just out of his reach was the solace for which he craved, but in place of it darkness was settling down over his heart, and trouble clutching at it.

But he would not go out of the wood. She might come still. The thought brought him no relief; his long watch had emptied his mind of the springs of hope. But still he waited for her. If she did come, she must find him there.

The darkness had settled down now. There was a fading light in the sky that could be seen here and there through the thick canopy of leaves, but beneath them only eyes that had grown used to the darkness could have descried anything.

The boy lay stretched at length on the grass, his face to the ground, utterly weary and utterly miserable. He had no strength to tear himself from this unhappy spot and go home; he only wanted to lie there in his pain, which still had a little of sweetness in it as long as he lingered in the place where he had last seen her.

He never moved. His body was as still as on that night in which he had kept his eager vigil, and at last been rewarded. But it was the stillness of exhaustion. No hope was left to him now.

But his ears, trained since his childhood to catch the lightest whispers of nature, and to interpret them, alert in spite of himself, heard something that was not of the life sinking to rest around him. He raised himself suddenly, almost violently, and peered into the darkness, all his senses once more on edge.

And out of the darkness she came, no more than a moth-glimmer flitting towards him. A wild joy filled him, down to the very depths of his being. He sprang up and ran towards her.

She gave a little cry that was half a sob, and flew to his embrace. His arms were around her, and his lips on hers. In all the long hours through which he had yearned for her, and played with the thought of her sweetness, no such blissful end to his waiting had entered his mind as this.

CHAPTER XIII

THE TEMPLE

Her face was wet with her tears, but he could just see her smile glimmering through the darkness. His eyes were as hungry as his lips. That sweet flower-like face, with the tender eyes and the mouth a-quiver—would he ever be able to gaze his fill of it?

She made no effort to draw herself from him, but nestled to him, and poured out a broken sobbing explanation of her absence to which he hardly listened. What did it matter how she had been prevented from coming to him, since she had longed for him as he had longed for her, and was with him now?

He kissed away her tears; she had not returned his kisses since her first unconsidered impelled surrender, but was still sweetly receptive of them. "Oh, I ought not to," she said, smiling at him. "But I do love you, and I have wanted you so."

Yes, this was love, of which he had never consciously, thought. She had spoken the word first, but he knew before she had spoken it that all his joy and all his pain had sprung from that source, and exulted in his new knowledge.

"I love you too—Viola," he said, lingering caressingly on her name. "Oh, how I love you!"

He drew a long breath, and they gazed silently into one another's eyes, to find in them what no speech could utter. The melting sweetness of her gaze filled him with trembling rapture. The secret of life and all its beauty which he thought he had divined, now seemed to have depths beneath depths of meaning, beyond mental capacity to grasp, in their almost intolerable rapture. With a sigh they released each other, and speech flowed to their relief, broken and melodious, bearing them again to the surface of their bliss.

They withdrew a little from the path where they had met, and told over the tale of their love. By and by they moved along it again, in a common impulse to escape from the thick darkness of the wood, and gain the freedom of the starry night.

They passed the cottage where Viola dwelt and never gave it a thought. At a later time they confessed to one another that they had no recollection of passing it at all. They were so wrapped up in one another that nothing and nobody else in the wide world mattered to them at that moment. But when they had emerged from the wood they turned aside, instinctively perhaps, to escape prying eyes, and passed slowly along the path which they had taken the afternoon before.

After the darkness of the wood, the sky, moonless, but lit by the innumerable lanterns of the stars, had the effect of brightness. Their young faces could be plainly seen in this soft radiance, and they stood to worship one another afresh.

"You're so beautiful, Viola! How beautiful you are! I must have been blind not to see it before."

"I saw that you were from the very first."

Here were two statements of surpassing interest. They had to be enlarged upon and explained, with new and immeasurable content gained from the disclosures that were made. Nothing had ever happened like it before. They were pioneers in the uncharted country of love, and the springs at which they refreshed themselves, and the flowers brushed by their feet as they wandered through it, had been waiting for them unseen and unguessed at since the world began. The wonder of it increased.

They sat down on a low rock, jutting through the fern, and gave themselves up to the miracle of their discoveries. Harry held her hands in his, and his eyes were never off her face, except when he looked out into space as if trying to fathom something that passed his comprehension. Sometimes they drew together by an irresistible mutual impulse, but every kiss he gave her was a consecration. She was too beautiful and too sacred a thing not to be treated with high reverence. Instinctively he held himself back, though without cessation he thirsted for her sweetness, and her lips assuaged his thirst only so long as his were upon them.

For more than an hour they sat there, and the time seemed as nothing. Then she sprang up suddenly and said she must go in. She had only meant just to run out and tell him why she had not been able to come in the afternoon. As she said it, a voice was heard calling: "Viola! Viola!" out of the darkness. She raised herself hurriedly to kiss him, of her own accord, and tearing her hands from his ran off without a word.

Harry stood for a long time where she had left him, while the unhurrying stars marched on to their celestial music and looked down upon him, a creature of the moment, who had yet found his way into the courts of eternity. He looked up at them, and in the rapture of the revelation that had come to him worshipped anew in the temple whose gates he had besieged all his life. It was for this that he had been born; it was for this that the heavens were lit, and the earth put forth its beauty. At last he had been admitted into the innermost sanctuary of the temple, and the secret of life was his.

He moved slowly towards the cottage which enshrined his love, unable to leave its hallowed precincts.

There were lights in the lower windows, and presently in that upper one which he knew to be Viola's. Perhaps she knew that he would linger out there under the stars, for she came to the window and stood there for a long time, and before she left it she kissed the tips of her fingers and threw her message out into the darkness.

Presently her light went out. Harry laid himself down on the warm turf. He would sleep there that night, as he had sometimes slept out in the open on warm summer nights before, but not with that sense of bliss enfolding him. He would keep guard over her, and perhaps, when the stars had paced onwards in their western march, and the moon had arisen, she would come to the window again, as she had come the night before. He had told her that he had seen her there. He thought she would come. And surely her presence would make itself felt through his dreams, and he would awake to see her! It was not possible that he should sleep while she was awake near him.

He pillowed his head on the fern and slept, and for a long time there was silence, on the moor and in the cottage, while the stars watched over them and waited for their waking.

It happened just as Harry had thought when he laid himself down to sleep. He awoke to find the moor flooded by the bright radiance of the moon, which shone also upon the front of the cottage and the window of Viola's room. And she was there, with her dusky hair about her face and on her shoulders, and with some dark wrap round her, so that her face alone, and her hands, were softly illumined.

He arose and went towards her. She saw him coming, for she gave a little start, and then sat motionless again until he stood just beyond the garden fence, where he could see her face, though his was in shadow.

He stood there; neither of them spoke and neither of them moved, but drank their fill of one another's presence. They made no motion of farewell when at last Harry moved away and his form was lost in the shadows of the wood.

He could go home now and sleep, with his great happiness to bear him company. On the morrow he would see her again, and new happiness would be his lot.

CHAPTER XIV

BASTIAN

Wilbraham picked his way along the woodland path, humming a tune. His only preoccupation for the moment was to preserve his shoes from getting wet, for much rain had fallen, and there were spongy patches to be avoided.

Wilbraham disliked exercise of almost every sort. His bad times, in the winter, were when he felt impelled to go for a walk, which was for at least an hour every afternoon unless the weather absolutely forbade. In the summer he did not mind it so much, except when the heat tried him; but he would always have preferred to spend his leisure with a book in the library, or in the garden.

He had long ceased to accompany Harry in any out of door expedition. They saw quite enough of one another indoors, and their respective preferences in the matter of pace were so in opposition that it was a pleasure to neither of them to take the air together. Mrs. Brent sometimes accompanied him in his constitutionals, but he seldom invited her to do so. They also saw enough of one another indoors, or at least he saw enough of her. He liked her, but she did not interest him in conversation, while she did expect him to interest her. He was quite capable of doing so, but the effort spoilt the mild refreshment that came from leaving his brain to wander where it would while his body was being gently exercised. He found abundant interest in the thoughts of his well-stored mind, and sometimes stayed out for longer than he had intended because he had fallen into such an absorbing train of speculation.

Yet this man, who lived his monotonous life with books as his chief recreation and his intercourse with his fellows narrowed to the few with whom he lived, was very fond of company. His walk this afternoon, longer than he usually imposed upon himself in the heat of summer, was cheered by having an object other than that of keeping his liver from troubling him. He was going to make a new acquaintance. This artist, with the rather absurd name, who was lodging with Mrs. Ivimey, might possibly be a man of intelligence, with views upon the art he practised; or he might be a mere commercial dauber. If he proved to be a man of intelligence, it would be agreeable to exchange views with him, for after books Wilbraham liked pictures, better even than he liked music. Or rather, his taste for music had become a little atrophied, since he was cut off from enjoyment of it, while art could always be read about, and there were always pictures or reproductions of pictures to be seen.

He reached the cottage on the outskirts of the wood, and looked about him with pleasure before he entered it. The great open space upon which it faced was a refreshment after the wooded environment of the Castle, and the few buildings that enlivened this point relieved it of the impression of loneliness which was unpleasing to a man of Wilbraham's fibre. It was half a mile further by the path he had taken than by the one he usually took if his humour led him towards the common, but he thought as he stood there with his hat off, so that the breeze could cool his brow, that he would come there more often, even if Mr. Bastian should not turn out to be the sort of person that he might want to come for.

A well-satisfied gentleman he looked as he stood there leaning on his stick, his brow rather bald, his presence on the verge of portliness, though he was not otherwise of the habit of body that runs to flesh. The look of discontent that Grant had remarked about him on a first acquaintance was absent now. In his suit of dark grey flannel, with his black-ribboned straw hat, he had something of a clerical air, and as he turned towards the cottage his unusually sharp ears heard the sound of hurried movement through the open window of a downstairs room, and a voice uttering the words: "The parson come to call! Good Lord, I'm lost; I can't get out."

He stood chuckling to himself as he waited for an answer to his knock. The door stood open. The artist could not have escaped him if his fears had been justified. This pleased his humour, especially as he anticipated the pleasure of bringing relief to him.

Mrs. Ivimey did not respond to his summons, and as he was preparing to knock again, a door on the left of the little passage opened and the artist came out to him.

"I'm afraid Mrs. Ivimey is out at the back somewhere," he said. "Shall I go and call her for you?"

"Thanks, it's you I've come to see, if you're Mr. Bastian," said Mr. Wilbraham. "I'm tutor to young Sir Harry Brent at the Castle. We heard you were here, and as we don't get many visitors at Royd I came to look you up."

Bastian's face changed. "That's very kind of you," he said. "Do come in."

He led the way into the little sitting-room, and Wilbraham followed him with the feeling that his visit had justified itself.

Bastian was a tall thin man with a shock of untidy grey hair, but a curiously young face. His eyes were very light blue. He had a half-whimsical, half-appealing look, as if he was in a constant state of amusement at himself and was begging not to be taken too seriously. The upper part of his face was firmly and delicately modelled, but his mouth was indeterminate and his chin weak. He was atrociously dressed, in an old discoloured suit of light grey flannel, and a pair of stained canvas shoes, and he wore no collar; but he did not apologize for his appearance. Wilbraham judged him to be about forty-five, but discovered later that he was three or four years younger.

Mrs. Ivimey's parlour was furnished with the customary mixture of old good things and bad new ones. A few canvases stood with their faces against the wall, and a half-finished picture of a flaming sunset over the moor and the sea was propped on the mantelpiece. Wilbraham threw a glance at it as he entered, but could not make up his mind whether it was going to be a good picture or an exceptionally bad one. There were some books on the round table in the middle of the room, as well as some of the untidy paraphernalia of an artist. On a smaller table in the window was a bottle of whisky, a glass and a jug of water, and by the side of the table was a shabby but comfortable looking easy chair, upon which was a book face downwards. The room was full of the odour of strong tobacco.

"I'm afraid it's rather like a bar-parlour," said Bastian. "I have a horrible habit of smoking shag, which some people object to strongly. Will you have some whisky?"

He looked sideways at Wilbraham as he spoke, with an engaging smile. There was something attractive and appealing about him; he was rather like a naughty child, caught in the act—indoors on a summer afternoon with his shag tobacco and his whisky and his advanced dishabille. Wilbraham was one of those who hated the reek of shag, but he forgave him for it readily and took out his own cigarette case. He did not reply to the offer of whisky.

"I'll go and get you a glass," said Bastian. "I'm afraid there's no soda-water, but it's good whisky and better with water."

He went out of the room, and Wilbraham stood with his eyes fixed upon the whisky bottle, and a queer look in them, half of eagerness, half of repulsion.

Bastian was away longer than it would have taken him to get a glass, and when he returned he had on a collar and a flowing brightly coloured tie. He now looked like an artist, and not so much like a broken-down gentleman-loafer.

"Say when!" he said, pouring out the whisky, and Wilbraham said when, but not immediately.

"I get tired of painting," said Bastian. "It's very hot out there on the moor, and I didn't bring a sketching umbrella with me. I thought I'd have a lazy time with a book. 'David Copperfield.' One of the best books, I consider." He held his head aside as he looked at Wilbraham.

Wilbraham had taken his first sip of whisky. It was only a sip, but his face seemed to expand under it. His heart also expanded towards a Dickens enthusiast, and for a time they talked about Dickens, and found themselves always in encouraging agreement.

"It's a pleasure to have somebody to talk to," said Bastian. "I love being in the country and I hate being in London. I came down here to be as far away from London as possible, but there's no doubt one does want human intercourse. I'm devoted to my little girl, who's here with me; but one wants men to talk to."

"Oh, you've got a daughter with you," said Wilbraham. He had been considering all the time, underneath the conversation, whether or not Bastian could be introduced to Royd. He was a gentleman: that was obvious. But it was equally obvious that he had shed some of the customs usually followed by gentlemen. Would his innate breeding carry him through, with women—with Lady Brent? With a man, or at least with one who prided himself on being able to see beneath the surface, the shocking old clothes and the shag tobacco would make no difference. Then there was the whisky. Wilbraham had rather more than a suspicion that Bastian's case was not so very different from his own: that whisky meant a good deal to Bastian. There were signs of it on his smooth child-like face—a lack of clearness in a skin that was meant to be unusually clear, a slackness of muscle, a look in the eye and in the droop of the mouth; and the second—or possibly the third—allowance that Bastian had poured into his glass had exceeded by a good half inch the not meagre allowance that Wilbraham had accepted in his own. Perhaps it might lead to complications to invite him to Royd. If Wilbraham should decide not to, the daughter might be made an excuse.

"She's a dear child," said Bastian. "Her mother's dead. She was one in a thousand." He sighed. "Viola and I are everything to one another. We're scarcely ever parted, except when we're at work. She has to earn money, poor child, and neither of us manages to earn very much. Still, we're happy together, and happiest of all when we leave the streets behind us and get out into the country."

He was revealing himself as one of those people who like to pour themselves out about their own affairs, not so much out of egotism as from an impulse to show confidence towards their hearers, to establish relations which shall rest upon no misunderstanding, in which nothing shall be kept back.

Wilbraham was without that impulse, but he was also without any large share of egotism. He was interested in other people, and usually preferred that they should talk about themselves, since few people are interesting upon any other subject. He had some curiosity about Bastian's history, which seemed to have had contradictions in it, when his refinement of speech and manner was compared with his confessed and apparent indigence, which was rather below that to which men of birth and breeding sink, even if they are without the earning capacity.

"How old is your daughter?" he asked, a little confused between the mention of her as a child and that of her work.

"Sixteen or seventeen," said Bastian. "I can't quite remember which, and I don't particularly want to. I don't suppose I shall keep her with me for many years. She's a very beautiful girl. So was her mother. And gentle and sweet and good too—both of them. Ah, whatever I've missed in life—whatever mistakes I've made—I've had that. There's nothing in this world like a good and beautiful woman,—'A lovely apparition, sent to be a moment's ornament'—how does it go on? I can't keep these things in my head."

Wilbraham threw a look at Bastian's glass, of which the contents were now reduced by half. His speech showed no sign of deterioration—he was evidently one of those people who could "carry their liquor"—but Wilbraham recognized his state as one in which the ordinary dictates of reticence would be considerably relaxed.

His own glass was nearly as full as before. He could quite easily have gone away and left it there. He felt that the small amount he had already drunk had done him a vast amount of good, enlightened his brain and stimulated his body. He had an impulse of pity towards Bastian, who was under the influence of the desire from which he had emancipated himself, and of self-congratulation at his own freedom. Thank God that he could drink what was good for him, and stop there. He was inclined to like Bastian exceedingly. It might be possible, if he got to know him better, to help him out of the morass into which he had fallen. It seemed probable that the state of poverty to which he had come was owing to habits of intemperance. A man who had had the same inclinations and might have been brought under by them, but had overcome them instead, would be the right man to help another, if he could gain his confidence. And Bastian seemed to be in the mood to give confidence.

"I'm afraid I don't know your name as an artist," said Wilbraham with a glance at the picture on the mantelpiece. "But it's years since I went to an exhibition. I'm interested in art, though, and have read a good deal about the modern movements."

"Art!" echoed Bastian. "There's nothing like it, is there? The older I get the more I love it. Poetry, music, painting—everything. To tell you the truth, art has been my downfall."

Wilbraham felt some surprise. He had thought that if Bastian had been through any experience that might be described as a downfall, it had been from other causes. "Well, if you've followed it when you might have been doing something else that would have brought you more money," he said, "I don't know that you're so much to be pitied. If I had the gift for painting, which I haven't at all, I'd rather do what you're doing now, than get rich."

Bastian laughed. "I'm afraid I haven't much gift either," he said. "I'm a rotten artist, and I'm a rotten musician, and I'm a rotten poet. I've tried to make my living out of all three; but perhaps you might say that I haven't tried very hard. I love 'em all too much. It's rotten to have to make your living out of what you love. You want to enjoy it, not to practise it, unless you've got a turn that way. You don't have to be a singer yourself to enjoy other people's singing; it doesn't follow that you can paint good pictures because you know a bad one when you see it. There ought to be scholarships at the Universities for people with a genius for contemplation, and life fellowships to follow them up."

"The holders of life fellowships have sometimes been known to practise contemplation to an excessive extent," said Wilbraham.

Bastian laughed heartily. "That's rather good," he said. "But what a pleasant life, eh? These jolly places—and plenty of good company, and good wine! Why should that happy lot be reserved for people who happened to interest themselves in one or two subjects, out of all that there are to interest one, in their extreme youth? I suppose you were at Oxford or Cambridge in those happy days of long ago?"

"Cambridge," said Wilbraham. "I was at Christ's."

"We must have been there about the same time. I was at Magdalene—a nice snug little college, and becoming quite an intelligent one, from what I've heard. But I haven't been there since I came down. They wouldn't be very proud of me now, I'm afraid. One or two touts or stablemen might recognize me perhaps. They had plenty of money out of me when I had it. I don't belong to that life any more."

He had a sudden mournful droop, and drank what was left in his glass. Wilbraham had lost the impression that he was much affected by what he had drunk, but it returned now. That drop into self-pitying depression immediately after smiling excitement told its tale. His own sobriety was indicated by his glass, still two-thirds full. He had half a mind to remark upon Bastian's helping himself to another stiff peg, which he did with a perfectly steady hand. But he did not know him well enough yet; the time for that sort of sympathy had not yet come.

But he was more than ever interested in him. His fall must have been from a higher social plane than he had suspected. Undergraduates whose money had been spent in connection with horse-flesh usually had more than the average to begin with, and Magdalene had been a super-sporting college in his day and Bastian's day.