Front matter (continued 5)

Yet all these fears, with an effort, she put away from her. A generous sense of justice told her that she might judge when she had seen, so she sent out Claudina when everything was ready, to buy some cakes at Lavena's and, stealing into her bedroom, knelt down before the little altar at her bedside.

There, some ten minutes later, her husband found her. It was not her custom to pray at that time of the afternoon, unless for some special request and, for a moment, he stood in silence, watching the white head buried in the pathetically twisted hands, the faint rays of the little coloured lamp before the image shining through the silken silver of her hair.

When at last, she raised her head and found him standing there, a smile crept into her eyes. She beckoned to him silently to come to her, and when he reached her side, she pulled him gently to his knees.

"What is it?" he whispered.

"I'm praying for John," she whispered back, for when you kneel before an altar, even if it is only rough-made out of an old box, as was this, you are in a chapel; you are in a cathedral; you are at the very feet of God Himself and you must speak low.

"What about him?" he whispered again.

She put her dear lips close to his ear with its tuft of white hair growing stiffly on the lobe, and she whispered:

"The lady of St. Joseph is in Venice. She's coming to tea this afternoon."

And then, looking round over his shoulder, to see that he had closed the door--because old gentlemen are sensitive about these things--his arm slipped round her neck and both their heads bent together. It was, after all, their own lives they were praying for. Every prayer that is offered, every prayer that is granted, is really for the benefit of the whole world.

What they prayed for--how they prayed; what quaint little sentences shaped themselves in her mind, what fine phrases rolled in his, it is beyond power to say. Certain it is that a woman comes before her God in all the simplest garments of her faith, while a man still carries his dignity well hung upon the shoulder.

Presently, they rose together and went into the other room. Everything was in readiness. The blue and white cups were smiling in their saucers; the brass kettle was beginning its tempting song upon the spirit stove.

"Do you like my cap?" asked the little old white-haired lady and, looking down to see if his waistcoat was not too creased, the old gentleman said that it was the daintiest cap that he had ever seen.

"Poor John will be very shy," she continued, as she sat down and tried to fold her hands in her lap as though she were at ease.

"John! shy!"

The old gentleman laughed at the idea of it and kissed her wrinkled cheek to hide his excitement. John, shy! He remembered the days of his own love-making. He had never been shy. It was like an accusation against himself. Besides, what woman worth her salt would have anything to do with the love-making of a man who was shy? John, shy! He straightened his waistcoat for the second time, because it was getting near the moment of their arrival, the kettle was nearly boiling, and he was beginning to feel just a little bit embarrassed.

"Did John say when they were going to be married?" he asked presently.

"Oh, but you mustn't say that to him!" she cried out quickly. "Why, he told me that he would never see her again. He said that they were friends--just friends. But d'you think I can't guess! Why has she come to Venice? She must have known he was here. Oh, he'll tell nothing about it. We must just treat her as if she were a friend. But----" She shook her head knowingly, not caring to finish her sentence.

Of course, she guessed it all--their meeting in the chapel--their meeting in Kensington Gardens! A young man and a young woman do not meet like that, unless it be that there is some good reason for it. Besides--that last candle! What woman could fail to fall in love with a man, who had thought of such a gentle consideration as that, even letting alone the fact that that man was her son? There are some things in this world which a woman knows and it is not the faintest use trying to contradict her. To begin with, she is bound to be right, and secondly, if it were possible to prove her wrong, it would only convince her the more firmly of her opinion.

The old lady knew quite well what she was talking about. These two were as fondly in love with each other as it was possible for them to be. Their meeting here in Venice, after John had assured her that they were never going to see each other again, was all the proof that she needed of it. And with this knowledge held firmly in the heart of her, she was already pre-disposed to see those signs by which, in spite of all their cleverness, two people are bound in this predicament to show their hands.

At last the bell clanged loudly. Its jangling hammered like echoes beating to and fro against the walls of their hearts. The old lady set straight her cap for the twentieth time; for the twentieth time, the old gentleman pulled down his waistcoat, then he crept to the door and looked out into the big room.

"Claudina's going!" he whispered back over his shoulder. "She's opened the door. Yes--it's John!"

He came back quickly to his seat and there, when the two visitors entered, they were sitting opposite to each other, quite placidly, quite calmly, as though there were nothing left to happen in the world. Yet I doubt if four hearts ever beat so quickly beneath such quiet exteriors as these.

"This is Miss Dealtry," said John--in much the same tone of voice as when he had told the cabman to drive to the opera.

The old gentleman had risen from his chair and, coming forward, with that air--it is the air of courtesy--which makes a woman feel a queen, if she is only a washerwoman, he took her hand, bowed low as he gently shook it and then, drawing her further into the room, he bowed solemnly again.

"My wife," said he, just catching the last note from the tone of John's voice.

The little old white-haired lady held out her hands and, as Jill saw the tortured, twisted fingers, her heart shuddered in pity. But before that shudder could be seen, she had bent down and kissed the wrinkled face that was lifted up to hers and from that moment, these two loved each other.

With women, these things are spontaneous. A woman will go through the play of pretending to kiss another; she will put forward her cheek, mutter an affectionate word and kiss the air with her lips. No one is deceived by it. The lookers-on know quite well that these two must hate each other. The actors know it perfectly well themselves. But once the lips of two women meet, their hearts go with the touching.

From the instant that the lips of the little old lady touched Jill's, there was sealed a bond. They both loved John, and in that kiss they both admitted it. The mother wanted no further proof than this. Then all jealousy vanished. With that kiss, she made the mother's sacrifice, the sacrifice which is the last that the incessant demands of nature makes upon her sex. She gave up the love of her son into the keeping of another woman. And when Jill stood up again, the old lady's heart had died down to a quiet, faint measure, fainter perhaps a little than it had been before. Her life was finished. There was only left the waiting and her eyes, still bright, sought John's, but found them fixed on Jill.

CHAPTER XXXII

THE DEPARTURE--VENICE

Before that little tea party was over, these two old people had won the heart of Jill. For all the world, they were like two children, making believe with the most serious things in life. Like children, they looked at each other in surprise when anything happened, or when anything was said. Like children, they laughed or were intensely earnest over their game. Like children, it seemed as if they were playing at being old, he, with his nodding of the head, she, with her crumpled figure and withered hands.

Sometimes at a thing that John would say, they would look at each other and smile. It had reminded them of something far back in the years of which neither John nor Jill knew anything. And in this again, they were like children, upon whose faces one may sometimes trace a distant look of memory--a look that is very marvellous and very wise--as though they were gazing back into the heart of Time from which the hand of destiny has brought them.

Yet it was not only this--this charm of wonderful simplicity--but that whenever Jill looked up, she found their eyes resting tenderly on her. It seemed--she did not understand why just then--as though they were trying mutely to tell her how fond of her they were.

Then, when the old gentleman handed her her cup of tea, she recognised from the description, the china of blue and white and turned with a smile to John.

"Aren't these the cups?" she asked gently.

He nodded his head and tried to smile, too. The old lady watched those smiles. Her eyes never left them for a moment.

"I've been told about these cups," Jill explained to the others. "Your son told me one day when--when he was giving me a description of where you lived."

"That's the real Chinese cobalt," said the old gentleman. "John told you that of course."

"Well--no--they were not described in detail--at least----" suddenly she found the blood mounting to her cheeks. "I--I knew that they had no handles."

Why did she blush? The little old lady had not failed to see that sudden flame of colour. Why did she blush? Something she had remembered? Something that John had said? She looked quickly at her son. His eyes were bent on Jill.

Oh, yes, they loved. There was no fear of her mistaking that. There was a secret between them; a secret that had set free a flood of colour to Jill's cheeks, that had brought a look of fixed intent into John's eyes. What other could such secret be between a boy and girl, than love? No one can keep it; but it is the greatest secret in the world.

Before the tea was over, they had betrayed it in a thousand different ways to the sharp, bright eyes of the little old white-haired lady. When vying with John to do honour to their guest, the old gentleman persuaded Jill to take from the plate he proffered, then she bent her head and smiled to see her husband's pride and poor John's discomfiture.

"She loves him! She loves him!" she whispered in her heart. "She is the very woman for my John!"

"A charming little girl," whispered the old man's vanity, as he proudly bore the plate back to the table. "Exactly the woman I would have chosen for John myself."

And John was disconsolately wondering why, if she loved him, Jill had so patently refused his offering.

Why had she refused? The little old white-haired lady knew that. She wanted to please his father, because she loved John. That was their secret. How it affected the blue and white china, she could not guess; but that was their secret--they loved.

Only by exercising the greatest control over herself, could she refrain from drawing her aside and telling Jill all she had seen, all she had guessed, and all she hoped.

Presently, without seeking for it, the opportunity presented itself. They had been eating little jam sandwiches--jam sandwiches, which Claudina knew how to cut so thin, that the bread was almost threadbare, and looked as if it wanted darning. They melted in your mouth, but then, they made your fingers sticky. Jill looked ruefully at hers when the tea was over. Holding them away from her at arm's length, she made a little grimace. When one was young, one's mouth was the best, the quickest, the most approved-of remedy for these matters. She might have wished she were a child then, but wishing was all. She asked to be allowed to wash them.

"You will come into my room, dear," said the little old lady eagerly, and away she led her, where John could not hope to follow.

Ah, then she was cunning, when once she had her alone! What subtle little compliments she paid! You would scarcely believe how cunning she could be.

"That is your little altar?" said Jill, when she had dried her hands. As she walked across to it, the old lady took her arm. It needed but little manipulation from there to slip her hand into Jill's. It needed but little management to show her in a hundred tender ways as she clung to her for support, that she found her very dear, very loveable.

The hearts of women are responsive things. When there is sympathy between them, they touch and answer, as though some current united them, as well indeed it may.

So gentle, so expressive were those simple signs that passed between Jill and the little old white-haired lady, that Jill was stricken in conscience, realising all that they meant and wondering, almost guiltily, what they would think of her if they knew. They must never know. She could not bear the thought that these two old people, far away in Venice as they might be, should hold in their hearts anything but the affection which they were showing to her then.

"I was praying here just before you came," said the little old lady in a whisper.

Jill pressed the withered hand.

"Do you know what I was praying for?"

A sudden fear seized Jill. She felt her forehead cold.

"No----" she tried to smile--"How could I know?"

"I was praying for John." She looked up simply into Jill's face. "He's such a dear boy, you don't know. Look at the way he comes every year to see us--all the way from London. I wonder would any other son do as much. Do you think they would?"

She asked the question as naïvely as if, were there any doubt about it, she really would like to know. You might have known there was no doubt in her mind.

Before that little altar then, was a dangerous place to discuss such subjects. Jill drew her gently away towards the door.

"Do you think there are any other sons have such a mother?" she said. "Why don't you ask yourself that question?"

The little old lady looked up with a twinkle in her eyes. "I thought perhaps you'd understand it better that way," she answered. "Besides--it's easy to be a mother. You have only to have a son. It's not so easy to be a son, because you need more than a mother for that."

Jill looked at her tenderly, then bent and kissed her cheek.

"I think John's very like you," she whispered. She could not keep it back. And that was as much as the little old white-haired lady wanted; that was all she had been playing for. With her head high in triumph, she walked back with Jill to join the others.

Soon afterwards Jill declared she must go; that her friends would be waiting for her.

"But when----" the old people began in a breath, then stopped together.

"You say, my dear," said the old gentleman--"I can wait."

Oh, no--she would not hear of it. He began first. Let him say what he wanted to. He shook his head and bowed. John caught Jill's eye and they held their laughter.

"Then when----" they both began again together and this time, they finished out their sentence--"are we going to see you again?"

We share the same thoughts when we know each other well. But life runs along in its separate channels with most people. They may be many years beneath the shadow of one roof, yet for all they know of each other, they might live at opposite ends of the earth, so little is it given to human beings to understand humanity; so little do people study it except in the desires which are in themselves.

In these two old people, it was quite charming to see one standing out of the way to let the other pass on, as if they both were going in vastly different directions, and then, to find that one was but speaking the other's thoughts.

They all laughed, but their laughter died away again when Jill announced that in two days she was leaving Venice for Milan, passing through the Italian lakes on her way back to England.

"You only stay three days!" exclaimed the little old lady, and she looked quickly at John. But John had known of it. There was no surprise in his face. He breathed deeply; looked away out of the window over the old Italian garden--that was all.

They made her promise to come the next day to lunch--to tea again if she would--to stay with them the whole day. John looked to her appealingly for her answer.

"But I can't leave my friends all that time," she said reluctantly. "I'll come to lunch--I'll try and stay to tea. I can't do more than that."

Then John took her down to her gondola. In the archway, before they stepped on to the fondamenta, he took her arm and held her near him.

"You're sure it's too late?" he said hoarsely, below his breath. "You're sure that there is nothing I could do to make things different--to make them possible?"

She clung to him quietly. In the darkness, her eyes searched impenetrable depths; stared to the furthest horizons of chance, yet saw nothing beyond the track of many another woman's life before her.

"It is too late," she whispered--"Oh, I should never have come! I should never have seen these two wonderful old people of yours. Now I know all that the City of Beautiful Nonsense meant. You very nearly made them real to me that day in Fetter Lane; but now I know them. Oh, I don't wonder that you love them! I don't wonder that you would come every year--year after year to see them! If only my mother and father were like that, how different all of it would be then."

"You haven't the courage to break away from it all?" asked John quietly--"to make these old people of mine--to make them yours. If I couldn't support you over in London, you could live with them here, and I would do as much of my work here as possible."

Jill looked steadily into his eyes.

"Do you think I should be happy?" she asked. "Would you be happy if, to marry me, you had to give up them? Wouldn't their faces haunt you in the most perfect moments of your happiness? Wouldn't his eyes follow you in everything you did? Wouldn't those poor withered hands of hers be always pulling feebly at your heart? And if you thought that they were poor----?"

"They are," said John. He thought of the Treasure Shop; of that pathetic figure, hiding in the shadows of it, who would not sell his goods, because he loved them too well.

"Could you leave them to poverty then?" said Jill.

"So it's too late?" he repeated.

"I've given my word," she replied.

He lifted her hand generously to his lips and kissed it.

"Then you mustn't come to-morrow," he said quietly.

"Not see them again?" she echoed.

"No. You must send some excuse. Write to my mother. Say your friends have decided to stop at Bologna on their way to Milan and that they are going to start at once. She loves you too well--she counts on you too much already. It'll be a long time before I can drive out of her head the thought that you are going to be my wife. And I don't want to do it by telling her that you are going to be married to someone else. She wouldn't understand that. She belongs to an old-fashioned school, where ringlets and bonnets and prim little black shoes over dainty white stockings, make a wonderful difference to one's behaviour. She probably couldn't understand your wanting to see them under such a circumstance as that. She could scarcely believe that you cared for me and, if she did, would think that we shouldn't see each other, as perhaps, after this, we shan't. No, I shall have quite enough difficulty in driving you out of her mind as it is. You mustn't come and see them to-morrow. She'll nearly break her heart when she hears it, but nearly is not quite."

"Shan't I ever see them again then?" she asked below her breath.

He shook his head.

"This is the last time you'll see any of us."

She put her hands on his shoulders. For a moment, she clung to him, her face closely looking into his as though she must store him in her memory for the rest of time. He shut his eyes. He dared not kiss her. When the lips touch, they break a barrier through which floods a torrent there is no quenching. John shut his eyes and held back his head, lest the touching of her hair or the warmth of her breath should weaken his resolve.

"How am I to do it?" she whispered. "I feel as though I must stay now; as though I never wanted to go back home again."

He said nothing. The very tone of his voice would have been persuasion to her then. Slowly, she unclasped her fingers; as slowly she drew herself away. That was the last moment when he could have won her. Then she was his as the blood was rushing through him, as her pulses were throbbing wildly in time to his. But in love--it may be different in war--these things may not be taken so. Some vague, some mystical notion of the good does not permit of it.

"You must be going," said John gently. "We can't stay here."

She let him lead her to the door. As it came open to his hand and the greater light flooded in, he knew that it was all finished.

She stepped down into her gondola that was waiting, and the gondolier pushed off from the steps. Until it swayed out of sight, John stood motionless on the fondamenta, watching its passing. Sometimes Jill looked back over her shoulder and waved a little handkerchief. John bent his head acknowledging it.

But neither of them saw the two white heads that, close together in a window up above, were whispering to each other in happy ignorance of all the misery which that little white handkerchief conveyed.

"You see how long they took to get down the steps," whispered the old lady.

"Oh, I don't know that you can judge anything by that," replied her husband. "Those steps are very dark to anyone not accustomed to them."

She took his arm. She looked up into his face. Her brown eyes twinkled.

"They are," she whispered back--"very dark--nearly as dark as that little avenue up to the house where I lived when you first met me."

CHAPTER XXXIII

THE SIXTEENTH OF FEBRUARY--LONDON

The abhorrence of Nature for a vacuum, is nothing to her abomination of unfinished work. In the great Tapestry which Time sits eternally weaving with the coloured threads of circumstance, there are no loose ends allowed. Every little picture which finds its way into the mighty subject of that vast material, must be complete in its symbol of accomplished Destiny. No ragged edges must there be; no lines unfinished, no shadow left out. And even, in so inconsequent a matter as a story of Beautiful Nonsense, some definite completion must be shown to round the whole, to leave no hanging thread by which the picture might be unravelled.

When John said good-bye to Jill on the steps of the fondamenta, when the last wave of her little white handkerchief had fluttered into a curling light upon the water, he had turned back into the house, believing that the story was irretrievably ended. The last word had been written. So far as Jill was concerned, he might well close the book and thank the pen of Chance that it had shown him an ideal as high above the common conception of life as it is good for the eyes of a man to lift.

But he had not, in this calculation, counted the presence of those two white heads in the window up above. For him, so far as his eye could see, Destiny had had its fill, had drained the cup of possibility to its utmost dregs. But this was not so for them. They had yet to be appeased. For them, the matter had only just begun. To them, it was the last shuttle, whose speeding to and fro, would weave in the past with the present and so fulfil their final justification.

From that day, the little old white-haired lady looked forward to John's marriage with Jill as to the consummation of her whole life's desire. She lived--she thought--she ordered her existence for nothing else. Her disappointment was pathetic to witness when she received Jill's little note telling her departure the next day. But her beliefs were not shaken; her hopes were not thwarted. She still saw the last burning of her romance before the flame should flicker and become a light no more.

She spoke to John about it of course. Sitting in the window one day, the window that looked down on to the old gentleman's garden, she told him what she knew; what was not the slightest use his contradicting. They loved each other. Oh, not a doubt of it! She spoke authoritatively, as women will on these subjects. Who better able to than they?

"You really think she loves me, mother?" he asked in a quick moment of hopefulness.

She took his hand. She lifted one tired arm about his neck.

"Why do you think she came like that to Venice?" she asked. "There's not a thing she wouldn't do for you--not a place she wouldn't go to in order to see you. Don't you realise that?"

It was unfortunate she should have chosen that phrase. There were things, Jill would not do for him. It had needed every effort from him to find the full value of unselfishness in what she was about to do; but he could not think that she loved him as his mother would have him believe. It was unfortunate, her choosing of that phrase. From that moment, John shrank into himself. He could not bring himself to tell her the whole truth of it; therefore, it was no good talking any more.

"Her people are too well off," he said, rising with a gesture of despair from the seat in the window. "They're in a different position altogether. I've no right to tell her. I've no right to try and win her affection. It would only be a hopeless business all through."

From that moment, he avoided the subject; from that moment, he became impregnable whenever the little old white-haired lady tried to assail him with the weapons of her worldly knowledge.

"I can get John to say nothing," she said one night to her husband. "He won't speak about it at all."

He put his arms round her in the darkness.

"You're worrying yourself, little woman," he said, sleepily. "I woke up once last night and you were wide awake. Did you sleep at all?"

"Very little," she admitted.

"Well--you mustn't worry. Leave it to Nature. John will tell her everything about it one of these days. Young men are always getting on the high horse and trying to tilt against Nature, and women are forever offering to assist Nature, thinking she must come off the worst. It's waste of time either way, my dearest. Nature's a windmill. It'll grind the flour out of everyone of us when the wind blows. It's no good tilting at it on a windy day; and it's no good trying to turn the sails round when it's calm. The wind'll blow,"--he yawned and turned over on his side--"soon enough." And he was asleep.

She believed so much in what her husband said, did the little old white-haired lady. It is not often, that after twenty odd years of married life, a man keeps still alive that ideal of unquestionable reliability which his wife first found in everything he said. Usually there comes a time--sad enough in its way, since ideals are almost everything--when those which once were words of wisdom, fall tainted with the odour of self-interest. It becomes a difficult thing to believe in then, that aphorism of your philosopher, which brings him the warmest seat in the chimney corner, or the softest place in the bed. And that is the wisdom of a lot of people--a philosophy of self, translated into a language for others.

By some kink of chance perhaps--though rather it would be kinder to think, by some quality of mutual affection--the old gentleman had avoided this tragedy. It is a tragedy; for no man likes a mean motive to be attributed to his philosophy--especially when it is true. And so, the old lady still believed in the infallibility of her husband's wisdom which in its way was quite good. That night at least then, she worried no more. She turned over her white head in his direction and she fell asleep. And whenever he turned through the night, she turned as well. After twenty years or so, these things become mechanical. Life is easier after twenty years, if you can bear with it till then.

But before John had left, her worries began again and, not daring to speak to him any more, she was driven to bear her trouble in silence.

She hoped up to the last that he would mention it once more, and a thousand different times in a thousand different ways, decoyed their conversations into topics which would suggest it to his mind. Yet always with the caution of some wary animal pursued, John avoided it--sheered off and chose another path.

Even on the day of his departure, she yet thought that he would speak and, clinging gently to him, with her arms about his neck, she whispered:

"Have you nothing to say to me, John?"

"Nothing--nothing, dearest," he replied, adding the term of endearment as he saw the bitter look of disappointment in her eyes.

Then he was gone. For another year that vast chamber with its high windows, and that tiny room which peeped out into it, would be silent of the sound of his voice. For another year, night after night, these two old people would continue to look up in surprise when Claudina entered for the ceremony; they would continue to exclaim: "You don't mean to say it's ten o'clock, Claudina!" And perhaps, as the days wore on and the year drew itself out to the thin grey thread, the surprise would get fainter, the note of exclamation not so emphatic as it used to be. She took her breath in fear as she thought of it. Supposing the year were to pass and John had not married Jill? She went into the little altar in her bedroom and commenced a novena--one of the many that she began and dutifully finished, before that year had gone.

So, it may be seen, in these two old people, who have woven themselves so inextricably into this whole story of Nonsense, how Time has by no means finished with the picture it set itself the weaving on that mysterious 18th of March, whereof the calendar still keeps its secret.

John went back to his labours in London, but he left behind him, forces at work of which he knew nothing. The old gentleman was quite right. Nature has no need of the meddling hand. The seed had been transplanted into the mind of the little old white-haired lady and, in her, will the completion of Destiny be found.

For the first few weeks, she wrote her usual letters to John, avoiding the subject with a rigid perseverance which, she might have known, which certainly her husband knew, she could never hope to maintain. This perseverance did not break down all at once. She began with inconsequent allusions to Jill; then at last, when they called forth no word of a reply from John, she gave way to the passionate desire that was consuming her, commencing a long series of letters of counsel and advice such as an old lady will give, who believes that the world is the same place that it was when she was a girl.

"Have you ever spoken to her, John?" she asked in one of her letters. "With your eyes you have. I saw you do it that afternoon at tea. But the language of the eyes is not enough for a woman, who has never heard the sound of the spoken word in her ears."

"Tell her you love her--ask her to marry you, and if she says no--don't believe her. She doesn't mean it. It's more or less impossible for a woman to say yes the first time. It's over so soon."

"You say her people are wealthy; that they are in a very different position to you. Of course, I know blood is thicker than water, but love is stronger than them both. And, after all, their position is one of luxury--that is of the body. Your's is a position of the mind. There is no comparison."

"I lie awake sometimes at night, thinking of all the trials and troubles your father and I had to go through before we found our corner in the world, and then I know how much more worth than youth or luxury, pleasure or ease, is love."

"I believe in that short time she was here, she became very fond of me, and in one of those moments when one woman shows her heart to another--they are very seldom--it was when she came to wash her hands after eating the jam sandwiches--she said she thought you were very like me. Now comparisons, with women, are not always odious; it is generally the only way they have of describing anything."

"I am sending you a bracelet of jade to give to her. It is very old. I will send you the history of it another time. I have it all written out somewhere. Anyhow, it belonged to one of the great Venetian ladies when Leonardo Loredano was Doge. Give it to her as coming from you. It does come from you. I give it you. A gift, however small, however poor, means a great deal to a woman. She reads a meaning into it--the very meaning I send with this."

"Oh, my dear boy, will you tell me nothing. Don't you know how my heart must be aching to hear some news of your happiness. It is the last happiness I shall know myself. Don't delay it too long."

These extracts from the letters written by the little old white-haired lady to her son, John, over that period of the first three months after her meeting with Jill, could occupy the space of many a page in this history. But these few which, with John's permission, I have quoted here, are sufficient to show how close her heart was wrapt up in the fortunes of his love-making.

Hoping, that, in his reticence on the subject, she might in time grow to lose interest, finally even forgetting Jill's existence altogether, John procrastinated, putting off, putting off the day when he must tell her all the truth. There was, too, he has admitted it, some fanciful sense of satisfaction intricately woven in with the pain he felt when he read those letters of hers every week. It was nonsense again, perhaps, but it kept the idea a living reality in his mind. He came to look forward to them as to the expression of a life that was too wonderful, except to dream of. And so, as an Eastern takes his opium and, retiring into the gloomy shadows of his den, is transported into the glorious heavens of a phantom creation, John read these letters of his mother's in his room in Fetter Lane. There, the passings to and fro of Mrs. Rowse, the hawker's cries and the screams of the parrot on the other side of the road, had no power to waken him from his sleep, so long as it lasted.

For nearly three months--week after week--he received these letters, dreamed his dreams and, in writing back to the little old white-haired lady, tried to allay the expectancy of her mind.

At last it could be done no longer. You may put back the hands of a clock to your heart's content, but there is no warding off of the inevitable. There came a letter saying she would write of it no more. It was not impatient, it was not in anger, but in the spirit, as when an old lady lays down her sewing in her lap as the sun sets and, gently tells you, she can see the stitches no longer.

It was then, that John, knowing what he had lost, conceived another felonious means of transport--this time the transport of the mind.

Jill was only known to his people as Miss Dealtry. They did not know where she lived. They knew nothing of her relations. They could not communicate with her in any way.

For a long while he sat looking at that last letter of his mother's, where she had said she would write no more of Jill.

"She wants a love story--bless her heart," he said musingly--and Mrs. Morrell's sandy cat coming at that moment into the room, he repeated it for the cat's benefit--"She wants a love story," he said. The cat blinked its eyes, curled a rough red tongue lovingly about its whiskers, and sat down as though, having half an hour to spare and the tortoiseshell not being in the way, it was quite ready to listen to it then.

"And, by Jove!" exclaimed John--"She shall have it!"

Miss Morrell curled her tail comfortably round her in the most perfect attitude of attention.

"I'll write her a story," said John to Miss Morrell--"a story of beautiful nonsense--some of it true and some of it made up as I go along."

And, therewith, he sat himself down to answer her letter.

It was necessary, if he were to re-create the interest of the little old white-haired lady, for him to meet Jill again. Accordingly, with some ingenious preamble, in which he explained his silence of the preceding months, he began with the description of his second meeting with Jill in Kensington Gardens--that time when she came and spent the entire morning in telling him that she could not come and meet him that day.

"Undoubtedly God could have made a place more fitted for Romance than Kensington Gardens," he began--"but unquestionably He never did."

And this was how the last tissue of nonsense came to be woven.

Of course, he told her, that it was all a secret. Jill had to keep it a secret from her people. He had to do that. Well--surely it was true? He put the question boldly for his conscience to answer, and a look of the real thing came into his eyes. It was as well, however, that he thought of doing it, for the old lady was nearly landing him in an awkward predicament. She enclosed a letter to Jill and asked him to forward it, as, of course, she did not know the address.

He made a grimace at Miss Morrell when he received it, as though asking her what she would do under the circumstances. Miss Morrell yawned. It was so simple. So far, she had taken an interest in the case, had come in every day since the writing of the first letter to get her saucer of milk and hear the latest. But if he was going to put questions to her like this, there was all probability that she would be bored. Of course there was only one thing to be done. Miss Morrell could see that. And John did it. He answered the letter himself--wrote in a woman's hand; which is to say, he wrote every letter slanting backwards--said all that was important when the letter was finished, and scribbled it in and out between the date and the address, then, with a last effort at realism, spelt two words wrong on every page.

By this means, he was getting two letters every week, answering them both himself with as much industry and regularity as he ever put into his work.

This was all very well--all very simple so long as it lasted. But even Miss Morrell, whose eye to the main chance was unerring when it concerned a saucer of milk, warned him of what would follow. One morning, he received a letter from the little old white-haired lady, asking him when they were going to be married.

Quite placidly, he sat down and wrote----

"We're to be married on the 16th of February. I've taken a small cottage down in the country. It costs forty pounds a year. I thought it wise to begin on economical lines. There's a little rustic porch to the front door, with William Allan Richardson roses climbing all over it. In the front, there are ten feet of garden, protected from the road by a wooden railing about two foot and a brick high with a tiny gate that's always locked to prevent burglars getting in. Three pink chestnuts combine to give it the appearance of an ambrosial park. At the back, there's a little lawn, just large enough for pitch and toss--I've measured it myself, it takes thirty-nine and a half of the longest steps I can take. And in the middle there's an apple tree,--that's likely to have a crop of three this year."

Miss Morrell closed her eyes in silent acquiescence when he read it out to her. It is possible that she may have considered him extravagant and, having that eye to the main chance, wondered whether he would be able to afford her her basin of milk with all this expenditure on two establishments. She did not say it, however, and listened patiently when he told her of other arrangements he had made.

"I forgot to tell you," he said, taking Miss Morrell on his knee--"that Lizzie Rowse is going to give up sticking labels on the jam-jars at Crosse and Blackwell's and is coming to do housemaid, cook, and general help for seven and sixpence a week--including beer money as she doesn't drink. I wanted to pay her more, but she wouldn't take it. I asked her why and she said, because she mightn't get it; that it was better to be certain of things in this world, rather than spending your life in hoping for what was too good to be true. It was no good my telling her that the whole business was only going to be transacted on paper, and that black and white would be the colour of everything she'd ever make out of it. But no! Seven and six was what she stuck at. As it was, it was a rise of sixpence to what she was getting at the jam-jars, and she wouldn't take a penny more. She said I'd been too kind to her as it was."

Miss Morrell listened to all this with contempt. Mrs. Rowse was not in good repute just then. They thought very nasty things about her on the third and second floors--what is more, they said them, and in tones quite loud enough for Miss Morrell and her tortoiseshell companion to hear.

Mrs. Rowse, it appeared, had spilt some water on the landing mid-way between the first and second floor where was the water cock common to the entire uses of the whole establishment. Five drops would convey an idea of about the amount she had spilled. At a first glance, this may seem very slight, but when it is explained that the stairs from the first to the second floor were covered with linoleum specially purchased by Mrs. Brown to make the approach to her residence the more ornate, it will be easily understood what a heinous offence this was.

Mrs. Brown had spoken about it and the untidy habits of the people on the first floor generally, in tones so opprobrious and so loud that not only the first floor, but indeed the whole house had heard her. Following this, there had appeared, stuck upon the wall so that all who approached the fountain must read, the accompanying notice--"If persons spill the water, will they have the kindness to slop it up."

It may be imagined how, in the effort to compose so reserved a notice as this, the feelings of Mrs. Brown, aided and abetted by Mrs. Morrell, must have overflowed in speech, all of which, of course, Miss Morrell would undoubtedly have heard. Hence her contempt.

When John had finished his dissertation upon the generosity and good qualities of Lizzie Rowse, Miss Morrell climbed down quietly from his knee. She was too dignified to say what she thought about it and so, with tail erect, stiffened a little perhaps for fear he might not perceive the full value of her dignity, she walked from the room.

The time passed by. It grew perilously near to that 16th of February. But John took it all very placidly; probably that is the way, when one does these things on paper. He invented all day long, and took as much pride in the ingenuity and construction of those letters as ever he took over his work.

"We went last night to the pit of a theatre," he said one morning to Miss Morrell. "Took Mrs. Rowse and Lizzie and Maud. The two girls persisted in eating oranges till Maud put a piece of a bad one in her mouth; then they both stopped. I was rather glad, Maud got hold of a bad one, because I was just racking my brains to know how I could stop them without giving offence."

Miss Morrell looked quietly up into his face.

"You shouldn't take those sort of people to a theatre," said she.

John took no notice of her grammar. "It was Jill's idea," he replied.

On the 16th of February, right enough, they were married. Miss Morrell came that morning to drink her saucer of milk in honour of the event.

She walked in without knocking. It was her privilege. John was seated at his table, with his head buried in his hands, his shoulders shaking like a woman's with sobs that had no tears in them. And there, before him, with their paper wrappings all scattered about the place, were a pair of Dresden china shepherds, playing gaily on their lutes. Hanging about the neck of one of them was a card, on which was written: "To John on his wedding day--from his loving father."

CHAPTER XXXIV

THE DISSOLUBLE BONDAGE

If only it were that these things could continue--but alas! they cannot! We make our bubbles with all the colours of heaven in them, but cannot abide to see them only floating in the air. The greens and purples, the golds and scarlets, they seem so real upon the face of that diaphanous, crystal disc, that to touch them, to find their glorious stain upon the fingers, becomes the desire of every one of us. Out stretches the hand, the fingers tighten! The bubble is gone!

That was much the way with John's beautiful bubble of Nonsense. So long as Jill knew nothing of it; so long as he played with the fairy thing by himself, it was enough; but the every-day business of life, in which death is one of the unavoidable duties, intervened. One cannot play at these wonderful games for long. You cannot be married on paper--more perhaps is the pity. There would be fewer separations, fewer misunderstandings if you could. Life unfortunately does not permit of it. The law of Gravity is universal. You come down to earth.

When John had been living a married life of unbroken happiness for two months, there came two letters on the same day to Fetter Lane. He looked at one with no greater bewilderment than he did at the other. The first was from Venice in a strange handwriting; the second, from Jill. He opened it apprehensively. It could not be an invitation to her wedding? She could not have done that? Then what?

"Is there any reason why we should not see each other again? I shall be in Kensington Gardens to-morrow at 11.30."

He laid it down upon the table. For the moment, he forgot the existence of the other letter. In the midst of all his make-believe, this message from Jill was hard to realise; no easy matter to reconcile with all the phantoms in whose company he had been living.

What strange and unexpected things were women! Did ever they know what they wanted? or, knowing, and having found it, did any of them believe it to be what they had thought it at first?

Was she married? Since he had come back from Venice, the world might have been dead of her. He had heard nothing--seen nothing--and now this letter. Like the falling of some bolt of destruction from a heaven of blue, it had dropped into his garden, crushing the tenderest flowers he had planted there, in its swift rush of reality.

She wanted to see him again. The mere wish was a command; the mere statement that she would be in Kensington Gardens, a summons. All his sacrifice, his putting her away from him that day of her departure in Venice, was in one moment gone for nought. All this dream in which he had been living, became the bubble broken in the hand of such circumstance as this. While it had lasted, while he had continued to hear nothing of her, it had been real enough. Up till that moment, he had been happily married, quietly living down at Harefield in the county of Middlesex, in his cottage with its William Allan Richardson roses and its insurmountable wooden railing, two foot and a brick high. Every day, he had been coming up to London to work in Fetter Lane and to get his letters. Some very good reason, he had given to the old people why they should write to him there. And now, because he must obey this summons to go to Kensington Gardens and talk of things, perhaps, that little mattered, for fear they might embark upon the sea of those things that did, all his dream had vanished. The only reality left him, was that he was alone.

With a deep breath of resignation, he turned to the other letter and opened it.

"Dear Mr. Grey--I am writing this for your mother, to tell you the unfortunate news that your father is very ill. He has had a heart seizure, and, I fear, cannot live more than a few days. I am told by Mrs. Grey to ask you and your wife to come here as soon as possible. He knows the worst, and is asking to see you before he dies."

The paper hung limply in John's fingers. He stared blindly at the wall in front of him. One hand of ice seemed laid upon his forehead; the cold fingers of another gripped his heart.

Death--the end of everything--the irrevocable passing into an impenetrable darkness. It was well enough to believe in things hereafter; but to put it into practice wanted a power greater than belief. The old gentleman was going to die. The little old white-haired lady was to be left alone. How could he believe it? Would she believe it? Old people must die. He had said that often enough to himself while they had been well, while there had been no fear of it. He had said it, as the philosopher says that everything that is, is for the best. Now, as the philosopher so frequently has to do, he had to put it to the test.

His father was going to die. In a few days, he would see the last of him. Then pictures--scenes in his father's life--rode processionally through his mind. Last of all, he saw him, hands trembling, eyes alight and expression eager, placing back the Dresden Shepherd in the window of the Treasure Shop--that same gay figure in china which, with its fellow, he had sent to John on his imaginary wedding day.

With that picture, came the tears tumbling from his eyes. The wall opposite became a blurred vision in shadow as he stared at it. And all the time, the two Dresden Shepherds, perched upon his mantel-piece, played gaily on their lutes.

In the light-heartedness of his imagination, he had not conceived of this aspect of his deception. His father had asked to see his wife before he died. Now, he would give the world that the description had never been. Already, he could see the look of pain in the old gentleman's eyes, when he should say--as say he must--that he had had to leave her behind. Already, he could feel the sting of his own conscience when, by that bedside in the little room, he invented the last messages which Jill had sent to make his passing the easier.

It had been simple matter enough to conceive a thousand of these messages and write them upon paper; it had been simple matter enough to write those letters, which they were to suppose had come from Jill's own hand. But to act--to become the mummer in mask and tinsel, beside his father's death-bed, hurt every sensibility he possessed. It was beyond him. He knew he could not do it. Jill must know. Jill must be told everything, the whole story of this flight of his imagination. He trusted the gentle heart of her, at least, to give him some message of her own; something he could repeat for his father to hear, without the deriding knowledge in his heart that it was all a lie, all a fabrication, which, if the old gentleman did but know, he would reproach him with in his last moments.

There, then, with the tears still falling down his cheeks, he wrote to Jill, telling her everything; enclosing the last letter which he had just received.

"Give me something to say," he begged--"something which comes from the kindness of your heart and not from the fiendishness of my imagination. In those few moments you saw him, he must have shown you some of the gentleness of his nature; must have shown you something which, putting aside the blame which I deserve at your hands for all I have said, expects this generosity from you. I have become a beggar, an importunate beggar, scarcely to be denied; but I become so with all humility. Just write me a line. You can see now, that I dare not meet you to-morrow, now that you know. But send me a line as soon as you receive this, which I may learn by heart and repeat to him with a conscience made clear, in so much as I shall know that such words have actually been said by you."

When he had posted this, John began the packing of those things which he would require for the journey. Into the chapel of unredemption he marched and made an indiscriminate offering of everything he possessed on his list of sacrificial objects. The high priest swept them all into his keeping and winked at his acolytes.

The next morning came Jill's reply. John tore it open, and read and re-read and re-read again.

"Meet me on Friday morning on the Piazetta at 12 o'clock."

CHAPTER XXXV

THE WONDER OF BELIEF

To believe, is the greater part of reality.

Despite all argument that flung itself at his credulity, John believed that Jill would be true to her word. Reasons in multitude there were, why it should be impossible for her to take such a journey and at such short notice. He admitted them all, as his mind presented them before him; yet still he believed. Though his faith trembled a thousand times in the balance; though common sense warned him insistently that hope was fruitless; nevertheless, he believed. Even when the little men on the Plaza began the striking of their twelve strokes on that Friday morning and, searching the gondolas as they rode in sight, searching them with eyes burning and pupils dilated in nervous expectancy, yet finding no sight of Jill, he still had faith that triumphed above all reason and overcame all doubt.

The vibrations of the last stroke from the great clock in the Square had died down to the faint trembling in his ear; the single bell in all the churches was tolling for the Angelus; hope was just beginning to flicker in John's heart as a candle trembles that feels its approaching end and then, round the corner of the Rio San Luca, shooting quickly into the Grand Canal, came the twentieth gondola John had espied, in which one solitary lady was seated. Something about the haste with which this gondolier plied his oar, something in the attitude of the lady as she half leant forward, half reclined upon the cushion at her back, something even in the crisp, swift hiss of the water as it shot away from the bows, brought him the conviction at last that it was Jill. When instinct is once awake, it finds a thousand little proofs to give it assurance.

As the gondola came nearer, the lady moved her position. She had observed John waiting. He strained his eyes to see through the glare of light that sparkled up from the dancing water. Then a little white handkerchief darted out, and fluttering, shook the beating of his heart with realisation. It was Jill.

In another moment, he was holding her hands and saying the most common-place words of greeting, but in a voice that held in it all the joy of his heart. The gondolier stood by smiling, waiting to be paid. The signora had wanted to be taken quickly to the Piazetta, and he had travelled as fast as if they were going to a funeral. It was almost payment enough to see her meeting with the signor. Not quite enough, however, for when they walked away, forgetting, in the embarrassement of their happiness, what he was owed, he stepped forward and, very politely, touched John's arm.

"Doue lire, signor," he said and showed some wonderful teeth in a brilliant smile. John thought of a London cabby under similar circumstances, giving him three and a smile as well.

Then he turned back to Jill.

"Well--are you going to explain it all?" he asked.

"There's nothing to explain," she said, half laughing. "I'm here--isn't that enough?"

"But your husband?"

"We're not married yet. I pleaded for a long engagement."

"Then your people?"

"Aren't you satisfied that I'm here?" she said gently. "Does it matter how I got here? You might just as well be curious to know whether I came by the St. Gothard or the Simplon. But you don't ask that. I'm here--you don't worry about that. Then why worry about the other?" and her eyes twinkled with mystery.

"Is it Mrs. Crossthwaite again?"

She nodded her head with a laugh.

"She's with you?"

"No--she's at her cottage in Devonshire."

"But you'll be found out."

"Not if I go back to-morrow."

"And you are going back?"

"Yes."

"And you came all this way----?"

"Yes--here I am--in the City of Beautiful Nonsense again."

"The little old white-haired lady was right then!" he exclaimed.

"How right?"

"She said that you would come anywhere, that you would do anything for me."

Jill tried to meet his eyes.

"When did she say that?" she asked.

"Last year--after you had gone."

He watched her as he waited for her to reply, but she kept silent. It was not a moment in which she dared to speak; moreover, other matters were waiting.

In St. Mark's, beneath the image of St. Anthony, where they had met the year before, they chose to go and make their arrangements. There is everything that is conservative about Romance. Places become dear for themselves, for the spirit of the Romance which, like a lingering perfume, still hangs about their corners. The times alter perhaps, sometimes even the woman herself is different; but the spirit, the Romance and with them often the place, remain the same.

"You understand all it means, your coming to see them?" he asked when they were seated. "You understood my letter? You realise what I've been saying?"

"Yes, every word."

"Then why did you come?"

"I couldn't bear to think of his dying without----" she hesitated, or did she hang upon the words--"without seeing your--your wife as he wanted to. Oh, John! Why did you say it? It wasn't right of you! You ought not to have done it!"

She was angry! His beautiful nonsense had offended her! Might he not have known that? What woman in the world was there who could have understood so well as to sympathise with the trick which he had played.

"If it has annoyed you," said he, "why did you come? Of course, I know it was unpardonable; but then, I thought you'd never know. I didn't understand how much a fabrication, an invention it was, until I heard that he was dying and wanted to see you before the end. It had been so easy to make up till then. I'd become infatuated with my own success. Then, when I got the letter from the doctor, I realised that I was done. I couldn't go to his death-bed, making up lies, giving him messages that had never passed your lips, never entered into your thoughts. I was done. And I hoped you'd understand. I hoped--like a fool, I suppose--that you wouldn't be offended."

"But I'm not offended."

He stared at her. Even St. Anthony stared, because St. Anthony does not know so much about women as you would expect. He knows full well their extraordinary valuation of trifles, but on serious matters such as these, he is as ignorant of them as the rest of us.

"You're not offended!" echoed John.

"No."

"Then why did you say I was wrong? Why did you say I ought not to have done it?"

"Because it was not fair to them. They might have found out. The little old white-haired lady may find out even now."

"Then you don't think it was unfair to you?"

"You thought I should?"

He nodded emphatically two or three times.

"That, I believe, is the way you judge women. That is why their actions are so incomprehensible to you. You form an opinion of them and then, naturally, everything they do seems a mystery, because you won't change your opinion. They're not the mystery. I assure you women are very simple. The mystery is that their actions don't conform with your pre-conceived opinion." She stumbled over those last big words. She was not quite sure of them. They sounded very large, moreover, they sounded as if they expressed what she felt. What they really meant was another matter. She could have told you nothing about that. That is not the way women choose their words.

"Well now," he said--"we must be going. Of course I haven't been, though I arrived last night. I counted on your coming."

"Yes," she whispered, "that's the wonderful part about you--you believe."

She thought of her father--she thought of the man with the brown beard like St. Joseph. They believed nothing until it was before their eyes. But a woman likes to be trusted, because at least, she means to do what she says; sometimes--God knows--she does it.

CHAPTER XXXVI

THE PASSING

It was a greater ordeal than they knew of, for Death, though he is for ever in our midst, always covers his face, and you may never recognise the features until that last moment when, with the sweeping gesture of the arm, he throws aside the folds that enshroud him, and in his quiet voice, so low, yet so distinct, announces "It is finished."

At the opening of the little door, they beheld the dear old white-haired lady. Her arms fell about them both and, in her feeble way, she clasped them to her. It was not hysterical, not that cry of the witless woman who is faced with the stern matters of life and will lean upon any shoulder to support her weight. She was losing that which was hers alone, and these two, though she thought they belonged irrevocably to each other, belonged also in their way to her. They were all now that was left her.

"How is he?" asked John, as she led them down that vast chamber to the deep-set door which opened to the tiny bedroom.

"You're only just in time," she replied. "The priest is with him. It's just the end."

There was a true, a steady note of reconciliation in her voice. She knew and had accepted the inevitable with that silent courage which brave women have. You knew that there would be no sudden passionate outburst of cries and tears when at last it actually was all over. His time of departure had come. She recognised it; had faced it bravely for the last few days. On Claudina's ample bosom, the first wild torrent of weeping had been made; for your servant, your meanest slave is a woman when she understands in such moments as these. When her agony had passed, she had raised her head, brushed away the tears. With warm water, Claudina had bathed her eyes and then, bravely setting a smile upon her trembling lips, she had gone to watch by his bedside.

Gently, now, she opened the door and admitted them, then silently closed it behind her. The jalousies were closed. In faint bars of light, the sunshine stole into the room and lit it faintly as though stained through the amber-coloured glass of church windows. In a deep shadow, burnt the tiny flame of red upon their bedroom altar. Bowed humbly down before it, knelt the priest, whose even, muttered tones just stirred in a gentle vibration of sound as of some hive of bees muffled with a heavy cloth and, only with the sibilant lisping of the breath between his lips as he pronounced certain letters, did it seem that a man was speaking at all. It was all so quiet, so even, so monotonous, a gentle noise to waft a spirit to its last sleep.

In a dark corner of the room, away from the rest, almost lost in the shadow, knelt Claudina, her head bent low upon her breast, her shoulders gently lifting and falling in sobs that were tuned low to the silence. She did not look up as they entered. The priest did not move his head. It all continued, just as if nothing had happened and, lying still, inert upon the pillow, almost lost in the big bed, was that silent figure of the old white-haired gentleman, who never stirred, nor uttered any sound, as though the chanting of the priest had already lulled him to his infinite sleep.

They all knelt down by the bedside, buried their faces in their hands, and the chanting continued.

What thoughts passed through the minds of those two who knelt there, playing their part, acting the life which both of them knew could never be real, it would be impossible to say. In the face of death, the mind has such simple thoughts, that words can scarcely touch their expression. Remorse may have scourged them; it may have been that, in seeing the peaceful passing of his spirit, they were satisfied that what they did was for the best; or, in the deepest secrets of their hearts they may have been longing that it all were true. Yet, there they both knelt, with the little old white-haired lady by their side. For all the world you might have thought, as did all the others in the room, that they were husband and wife on the very threshold of that journey through the years of which this death-bed meeting was the gate where all must pass out into the land that is in the blue haze beyond.

Presently, the voice of the priest became silent. The heads of all sank lower in their hands as the Extreme Unction was given. God visits the earth in great silences. It was a wonderful silence then. The wine gurgling softly into the cup, the unfolding of the little napkin, the patten lying on the tongue, the last brave effort as the old gentleman swallowed the sacred bread, were all noises that thrilled and quivered in that silence.

Then it was all passed, all finished, the spirit cleansed, the last gentle confession made of such sins of thought and deed as a brave and generous gentleman is capable of. The priest rose to his feet and, taking his little vessels with him in their case, stole quietly from the room. A moment or so passed in still deeper silence. At last Claudina rose. She crossed herself as she passed the little altar, crept also to the door and went away.

Now the silence was still deeper than before, as though, in the mere functions of their living, these two had taken with them their disturbing elements of full-blooded life from this place where life was so fainting and so weak. When they had gone, the very vibrations of air seemed more still and a greater quietness fell with their absence.

And the three who remained, continued there motionless on their knees--motionless, until, in the midst of the silence, came the whispering of a tired voice--a voice, pronouncing with infinite difficulty, one, single word,

"John--John."

John knelt quickly upright. He stretched out his hand and found a hand to meet it, a hand that could not hold, that only lay in tender submission upon his own.

"Father," he said; and that, after all, is the only word that a son can say--father or mother--they are the last words left in the deepest heart of a man. He utters them, incoherently almost, when emotion is choking speech.

"Where is Jill?" the voice whispered again.

Jill crept round on her knees to his side. With one hand below in the darkness, John held hers. They clasped them and unclasped them as the sobs rose and broke silently in their throats.

The old gentleman's eyes took a light into them, as he saw their heads together by his bedside. With a great effort, he strained himself to rise upon one elbow in the bed and, laying the other hand upon their heads, he whispered that blessing which it has been in the power of the father to give from time immemorial.

"God bless you," he whispered. "Make your lives out of love, as I have made mine. Make your children out of love, as I have made mine. Make your work out of love--as I have made mine."

His voice burnt low, but yet it burnt. The flame of it was there. It seared into the very hearts of them. Jill's fingers lay in John's as a bird that is starved and cold, lies limply in the hand that succours it. Her cheeks were ashen white. Her eyes stared wildly before her at the pattern on the counter-pane and tears rolled from them without heed or stay.

The moments passed then, as the old gentleman leant back upon his pillows. Without moving, they stayed there with heads bowed down before him. At last, he moved again. His hand stretched out once more and felt for John's.

"God bless you my boy," he said, as his son bent over him. "You've made us very happy. You've set your life just as we could wish. Now do your work. I expect I shall hear how you get on. They won't keep that from me. They'll let me see your first happy ending. It's the only way to end--like this. Now kiss me--you don't mind--this time--do you?"

John kissed him, as pilgrims kiss the feet of God.

"And tell me----" the old gentleman whispered. He paused to breathe as the thought came swiftly on him. "Tell me--why did you kiss me--on the forehead--that night--a year ago?"

"I'd seen you in the Treasure Shop, sir--and I----" the words wrestled in his throat--"I thought you were the finest man I'd ever known."

The old gentleman lay back again upon his pillows. The light of a great pride was flashing in his eyes. His son had called him--sir. That was all. Yet in that moment, he felt like a Viking being borne out upon his burning ship into the sea of noble burial. His son had called him, sir. He lay still, listening to the great sound of it, as it trumpeted triumphantly in his ears. His son, who was going to be far greater than he had ever been, whose work was above and beyond all work that he had ever done--his son had called him--sir.

Then, for some time, everything was still once more. They bent their heads again within their hands. At last, the little old white-haired lady, like

CHAPTER XXXVII

THE CIRCULAR TOUR

The evening, with her quiet feet, had stolen across the sky; night was fast riding in the wake of her, when at last they left the little old white-haired lady alone.

Repeatedly John had offered to stay and keep her company.

"You may not sleep, dearest," he said gently. "Someone had better be with you."

"I shall have Claudina," she replied with a smile of gratitude. "And I think I shall sleep. I've scarcely been to bed since he was ill. I think I shall sleep." And her eyes closed involuntarily.

Jill offered to stay, to help her to bed, to sit by her side until she slept. But, patiently and persistently, she shook her tired, white head and smiled.

"Claudina understands my little fidgety ways," she said--"and perhaps I shall be better with her."

Down the vast chamber, she walked with them again to the little door. Her head was high and brave, but the heart within her beat so faintly and so still, that sometimes, unseen by them, she put her hand upon her bodice to assure herself that it beat at all.

Before they pulled the heavy curtain, she stopped and took both their hands in hers.

"My dear--dear children," she whispered, and for the first time her voice quivered. A sob answered it in Jill's throat. She tried to face the old lady's eyes, bright with a strange and almost unnatural brilliance, but a thousand reproaches cried at her courage and beat it back.

"My dear--dear children," said the old lady once more, and this time her voice took a new power into itself. Her figure seemed to straighten, her eyes to steady with resolve.

"I have something I want to say; something your father would have said as well, had there been time. I thought of waiting till to-morrow, perhaps till he was buried. But I'm going to say it now; before you can tell me what I know you mean to. I discussed it all with your father before you came, and he quite agreed with me." She paused. A great, deep breath she drew, as does a painter when he nerves his hand. And in the gathering darkness in that great room, they waited with all attention expectant.

"When your father is buried," she began slowly, drawing with reserve from that long deep breath, "I am going to live on here." Quickly she raised her hand before John could answer. She thought she knew what he was going to say. "No!" she said, "you must let me finish. I'm going to live on here. For the next ten years, these rooms belong to us--and ten years----" she smiled--"are more than I shall need. I could not leave here. I know it so well. You want me to come and live with you--but no----" the white head shook, and a curl fell out of place upon her cheek. She did not notice it. "No--I know what is best," she went on. "Your father and I decided what was right. Old people have their place. They should never get in the way of the ones who are just beginning. I shall be contented waiting here for the year to come round to bring you both to see me. Don't think I shall be discontented. Claudina will take care of me, and I shall not be in your way. You'll like me all the better in the summer. I get tiresome in the winter. I know I do. He used not to say so, but Claudina has to admit it. I get colds. I have to be looked after. Sometimes I'm in bed for days together and have to be nursed. All of which things," she added, turning with a bright smile to Jill, "Claudina can do so much more easily than you. She's more accustomed to them."

And look at my poor hands, she might have said, how much would you not have to do for me? You would have to dress me, to undress me, to get me up, to put me to bed. But she hid her hands. Those withered hands had their pathos even for her. She would not press them upon their notice.

"Think over what I've said, dear," she concluded, looking up to John. "Tell me what you've thought about it to-morrow, or the next day. I know all this evening, it has been in your mind to tell me of the arrangements you have thought of making for me in your little cottage; but think over it again, from my point of view. Understand it as I do, and I'm sure you'll find I'm right."

And they could say nothing. In silence, they had listened to all this indomitable courage, to this little old white-haired lady preparing to face the great loneliness after death. In silence, Jill had bent down and kissed her. The last lash had fallen upon her then. She could not speak. By the bedside of the old gentleman, the utmost tears had tumbled from her eyes. And now this, from the little old lady, had been more than she could bear. That sensation which they call the breaking of the heart, was almost stifling the breath within her. The whole army of her emotions had been thundering all this time at the gates of her heart. When she had heard his blessing, she had flung the gates open wide. Now, they were trampling her beneath their feet. She could not rise above them. She could not even cry out loud the remorse and pain she felt.

With John, this silence that was forced upon him was more cruel still. On a scaffold, set before the crowd, he stood, listening to the loathing and reproach that groaned in every throat. The little old lady was making this sacrifice, and yet, he knew a thousand times that he should not let it be. To stand there then and, in that derisive silence, to quietly give consent, was the utmost penalty that he could pay. Then, in the teeth of all reproach, as though to shut out from his ears the moaning of that cruel, relentless crowd, he caught her slender figure in his arms and strained her to him.

"My little mother," he said wildly in his breath, "it can't be like that--it can't be! Something must be done. I'll think it out, but something must be done."

Then, kissing her again and again, he put her down from him, as you put back a little doll into its cradle--a little doll which some thoughtless hand has treated ill.

They said no word to each other as they passed through the archway this time. In silence, they stepped into the gondola which had been waiting for them at the steps for an hour and more.

John told him the hotel at which Jill was staying, and the gondolier pushed out into the black water. Another moment, and they were swaying into the soft velvet darkness, rent here and there with little points of orange light, where a lamp burnt warmly in some tiny window.

"And to-morrow," said John presently, "you must go back? Perhaps that's the hardest part of it."

"I shall not go for a few days," Jill replied quietly.

He looked quickly at her white face. Impulsively his hand stretched out to hers. She stared before her as he took it. She was like a figure of ivory, set strangely in black marble, as black as the water itself. There was no movement from her, no stir, scarcely a sign of life.

"That's good of you," he said in honest thankfulness. "You're being wonderfully good to me." He repeated it, ruminating, with his eyes looking out into the distance where hers were set. "But, I might have known you'd be that."

She shuddered. Praise from him, then, hurt more than all. She shuddered as if a wind had chilled her.

After a long pause, he moved and spoke again.

"How are you going to manage?" he asked. "What are you going to do?"

"I shall write."

"Home?"

"No--to Mrs. Crossthwaite."

"Is it safe?"

"I think so."

"But you mustn't be discovered," he said quickly. Conscience pulled him first one way, then another. Every instinct prompted him to accept her generosity without question. "You must not take too great a risk. Why, indeed, should you take any?"

The words came slowly. He felt both glad and sorry when once they were spoken. The tragedy of life is indecision. They bury suicides at the crossroads, for that is where lurks all tragedy--the indecision of which way to choose.

At last, she turned her head and looked at him. The hand he held quickened with feeling. It became alive. He felt the fingers tighten on his own.

"You are thinking of me?" she said.

"I must," he replied.

"You feel it your duty because I'm here alone?"

He shook his head.

"I don't feel duty," he answered. "There is no such thing. People do what they do. When it is a disagreeable thing to do, they make it worth the doing by calling it duty. That is the satisfaction they get out of it. But everything that is done, is done for love--love of self or love of other people. Duty is the name that enhances the value of disagreeable things. But it's only a name. There's nothing behind it--nothing human, nothing real. I don't feel duty as some do, and so I never attempt anything that's disagreeable. A thing that is weighed is repugnant to me. Just now things are very hard--just now I scarcely know which way to turn. The little old white-haired lady puts her arms round me and I feel I can't let her go. You hold my hand and I feel that I would move heaven and earth to save you from a moment's unhappiness." Reluctantly, he let go her hand and sat upright. "Here we are; I say good-night here. You must think before you write that letter."

She put out a detaining hand.

"Tell him to go back to your rooms," she said--"I'll take you back there before I go in. I've got a lot to say."

John smiled incredulously. He could have asked heaven for no greater gift. His heart was sick. There was nothing but disillusionment to which he could look forward. His own disillusionment had come already; but that of the little old white-haired lady was harder to bear than his own. Stretching before him, an ugly shadow, he saw the unswerving promise of that day when he must tell her all the truth; that day, a year perhaps to come, when, arriving in Venice without Jill, he must explain her absence, either by another fabrication or the naked fact.

To hide his face from it all a little longer; to have Jill's presence closing his eyes to it, even though it were only for a speck of time in the eternity that was to follow, was a reprieve for which he had not dared to hope.

"You mean that?" he said eagerly.

"Yes."

John gave the order. The gondolier did not smile. Perhaps the motion of his oar as he swung them round was a gentle comment. Every man has his different medium of expression. There was once a ballet dancer who, whenever she became excited and was driven to gesticulation, always caught her skirt just below the knee and lifted it to show her instep. It meant more than any words she could ever have uttered.

John sat back again by Jill's side.

"Oh! it's good," he said, half aloud, half to himself.

"What is good?" she whispered.

"To be just a little while longer with you. I dread to-night, I dread the next few nights to come. I shall see his eyes. I shall hear that sound in his voice when he called to her. I shall see that brave look in her face, and hear that whole speech of her sacrifice as we stood by the door. My God! What wonderful things women can be when they love."

"She's so gentle and yet so brave," said Jill.

"Brave!" he echoed it, but it had not the force of all he felt. "Great Heavens! Think of her there now, alone. Everything but us gone out of her life; a sudden rent in the clouds--just a flash, and but for us, in that moment she's made destitute. And then, with a smile in her eyes, to give up what little she has. And I, to have to accept it. Lord! what a fool I've been. I remember that day when Mrs. Morrell's sandy cat came slouching into the room and I'd just received the letter saying she would write no more of you. I took that confounded cat into my confidence--'The little old lady wants a love story,' I said. And the cat seemed to wink as though it had no objection to hearing one, too. Then I began. Lord! what a child I am. Not the faintest idea of the future! No conception of consequence! Just a blind idea of doing things as they come, without the smallest consideration of results! I never foresaw that it was going to lead to this. What a child! My heavens! What a child! He was a child! She's a child! I'm a child, too! We're a family of children, not fit for one of the responsibilities of life."

"Do you think you're any the worse for that?" she asked softly.

"I don't know," he shrugged his shoulders. "Upon my soul, it seems now the greatest crime a man can commit. In a world of grown-up men and women who can pay their rents and taxes, meet their bills and save their money, to be a child is a monstrous, a heinous crime."

"Only to those who don't understand," she answered.

"Well--and who does?"

"I do."

"You do? Yes, I know that--but how can you help? You've done more than a thousand women would have done. You helped me to make his passing a happy one; you can't do more than that. You're even going to stay on a few days longer to help this fool of a child still more. That proves you understand. I know you understand--God bless you."

He shrank into himself despairingly. His whole body seemed to contract in the pain of self-condemnation, and he pressed his hands violently over his eyes. Suddenly, he felt her move. He took his hands away and found her kneeling at his feet, that white face of ivory turned up to his, her eyes dimmed with tears.

"Do you call it understanding if I leave you now--little child?" she whispered, and her voice was like the sound in a long-dreamt dream which, on the morning, he had forgotten and striven to remember ever since.

Slowly, he took away his hands. Now he recalled the voice. The whole dream came back. It was summer--summer in England. They were in a field where cattle grazed under the warm shadows of high elm trees. Cowslips grew there, standing up through the grass with their thin, white, velvet stems; here and there an orchid with spotted leaves, a group of scabii bending their feathered heads in the heat of the day. Jill sat sewing little garments, and he lay idle, stretched upon his back, gazing up into the endless blue where the white clouds sailed like little ships, making for distant harbours. And as she sewed, she talked of things more wonderful than God had made the day; of things that women, in the most sacred moments of their life, sometimes reveal to men.

This was the dream he had forgotten. In his sleep, he had known that it was a dream; had known that he must remember it all his life; yet in the morning, but faintly recollected he had dreamt at all. Now, those two words of hers--little child--and the summer day, the browsing cattle, the white flutter of the tiny garments, the scent of the fields and the sound of her voice had all returned in one swift rush of memory.

"What do you mean?" he asked slowly--"if you leave me now, what do you mean? What do you mean by--little child?"

Both hands, she put out; both hands to clasp on his. The tears ceased gathering in her eyes. Before God and in great moments, the eyes forget their tears; there is no trembling of the lips; the voice is clear and true.

"Don't you remember what he said?" she asked. "'Make your lives out of love, as I have made mine. Make your children out of love as I have made mine.' Did you think I could hear that from him without knowing what you yourself have said just now, that there is no such thing as Duty?"

John stared at her. He dared not interpose. He dared not even answer the question she had asked, for fear his voice should break the linking of her thoughts.

"Can you hear him saying--'Make your lives out of duty, as I have made mine. Make your children out of duty as I have made mine?' Can you imagine him saying that? Can you feel how it would have grated on your ears? Yet that's just what I'm going to do; but I didn't realise it till then."

"What is it you're going to say?" he asked below his breath. "What is it you're leading to? All this is leading to something. What is it?"

"That I'm not going to leave you, little child. That if, after all, there is such a thing as Duty, he has shown me what it is."

The gondola bumped against the steps. The voice of the gondolier called out that their destination was reached. John rose quickly to his feet.

"Go back," he said. "Go back to the hotel."

Away they started again and as he plied his oar, the gondolier gazed up at the stars, and hummed a muffled tune.

For a few moments, John remained standing. She was not going to leave him. She was never going to leave him. That was the big thought, triumphant in his mind. But a thousand little thoughts, like grains of dust in a great sunbeam, danced and whirled about it. He thought of those rooms of his in Fetter Lane; of his own improvidence, of the disreputable appearance of Mrs. Morrell on Saturday mornings when she cleaned the stairs of the house, and conversed, in language none too refined, with Miss Morrell. He thought of the impudence of Mrs. Brown, when she appeared in curling papers and made remarks about her neighbours with a choice of words that can only be said to go with that particular adornment of the hair.

But these were only cavilling considerations, which made the big thought real. He could change his address. Now, indeed, he could go down to Harefield. He could work twice as hard; he could make twice as much money. All these things, ambition will easily overcome in the face of so big a thought as this. She was never going to leave him.

He took her hands as he sat down.

"Do you think you realise everything?" he said; for the first instinct of the grateful recipient is to return the gift. He does not mean to give it back; but neither does he quite know how to take it.

She nodded her head.

"All my circumstances? How poor I am?"

"Everything."

"And still----?"

"And still," she replied. "Nothing but your asking could change me."

He sat gazing at her, just holding her hands. Only in real stories do people at such a moment fall into each other's arms. When the matter is really nonsense, then people act differently--perhaps they are more reserved--possibly the wonder of it all is greater then.

John sat silently beside her and tried to understand. It was so unexpected. He had scarcely even wished that it might be so.

"When did you think this?" he asked presently.

"Just--before he died."

"When he blessed us?"

"Yes."

"Why haven't you said so before?"

"I couldn't. I haven't been able to speak. I've suddenly seen things real----"

"In the midst of all this nonsense----"

"Yes--and it's taken my breath away. All in a few hours, I've seen death and love, and I don't know what the change is in me, but I'm different. I've grown up. I understand. You say I have understood before; but I've understood nothing. I should never have come here last year, if I had understood. I should never have continued meeting you in Kensington Gardens, if I had understood. Women don't understand as a rule; no girl understands. She would never play with love, if she did. I know, suddenly, that I belong to you; that I have no right to marry anyone else. In these last few hours, I've felt that a force outside me determines the giving of my life, and it has frightened me. I couldn't say anything. When you said you were a child, then I suddenly found my tongue. I wasn't afraid any more. I knew you were a child, my child--my little child--not my master. There's no mastery in it; you're just my child."