The cab rattled away, and Ralph proceeded up the red, silent streets towards the Wesleyan church, walking very slowly between his womankind.

'There's no doubt but that Mr. Lennox is a very nice man,' he said, after they had gone some twenty or thirty paces—'a very nice man indeed; you must admit, mother, that you were wrong.'

'He's polite, if you will,' replied Mrs. Ede, who for the last few minutes had been considering the ungodliness of travelling on a Sunday.

'Don't walk so fast,' Ralph cried.

'Well, then, we shall be late for church!'

'Which, then, is the most important in your eyes—Mr. Peppencott's sermon or my breath?'

'I'm not thinking of Mr. Peppencott's sermon.'

'Then of his voice in the prayer. Lennox may be no better than an actor,' he continued, 'but he's more fellow-feeling than you have. You saw yourself how interested he was in my complaint, and I shall try the cigarettes that used to give his mother relief.' He appealed to Kate, who answered him that it would be as well to try the cigarettes, and her thoughts floated away into a regret that Mr. Lennox had not been able to come to church with them, for she was reckoned to have a good voice. It may have been a memory of Dick that enabled her to pour her voice into the hymn, singing it more lustily than Mrs. Ede ever heard her sing it before. It seemed to Mrs. Ede that only God's grace could enable anyone to sing as Kate was singing, and when the minister began to preach and Kate sat down, her eyes fixed, Mrs. Ede rejoiced. 'The word of God has reached her at last,' she said. 'Never have I seen her listen so intently before to Mr. Peppencott.' Kate sat quite still, almost unconscious of the life around her, remembering that it was on her way from the potteries that she had learnt that there is a life within us deeper and more intense than the life without us. Dick's kisses had angered her at the moment, but in recollection they were inexpressibly dear to her. Her fear had been that time would dim her recollection of them, and her great joy was to discover that this was not so, and that she could recall the intonations of his voice and the colour of his eyes and the words he spoke to her, reliving them in imagination more intensely than while she was actually in his arms just before that terrible fall or in the shop and frightened lest Mrs. Ede or Ralph should come in and surprise them. But in imagination she was secure from interruption and hindrance, and could taste over and over again the words that he had spoken: 'I shall be back in three months, dear one.'

A great part of her happiness was in the fact that it was all within herself, that none knew of it; had she wished to communicate it, she could not have done so. It was a life within her life, a voice in her heart which she could hear at any moment, and it was a voice so sweet and intense that it could close her ears to her husband and her mother-in-law, who during dinner fell into one of their habitual quarrels.

Ralph, who had not forgotten his mother's lack of sympathy on their way to church, maintained the favourable opinion he had formed of Mr. Lennox. 'It's unchristian,' he said, 'to condemn a man because of the trade or profession he follows,' and somewhat abashed, his mother answered: 'I've always been taught to believe that people who don't go to church lead godless lives.'

Sunday was kept strictly in this family. Three services were attended regularly. Kate hoped to recover the sensations of the morning, and attended church in the afternoon. But the whole place seemed changed. The cold white walls chilled her; the people about her appeared to her in a very small and miserable light, and she was glad to get home. Her thoughts went back to the book she had fallen asleep over last Sunday night when she sat by her husband's bedside, and when the house was quiet she went upstairs and fetched it. But after reading a few pages the heat of the house seemed to her intolerable. There was no place to go to for a walk except St. John's Road, and there, turning listlessly over the pages of the old novel, the time passed imperceptibly. It was like sitting on the sea-shore; the hills extended like an horizon, and as the sea dreamer strives to pierce the long illimitable line of the wave and follows the path of the sailing ship, so did Kate gaze out of the sweeping green line that enclosed all she knew of the world, and strove to look beyond into the country to where her friend was going.

Northwood, with its hundreds of sharp roofs and windows, seemed to be dropping into a Sunday doze, under pale salmon-coloured tints, and the bells of its church sounded clearer and clearer at each peal. Warm airs passed over the red roofs of Southwark, and below in the vast hollow of the valley all was still, all seemed abandoned as a desert; no whiff of white steam was blown from the collieries; no black cloud of smoke rolled from the factory chimneys, and they raised their tall stems like a suddenly dismantled forest to a wan, an almost colourless sky. The hills alone maintained their unchangeable aspect.



VIII

By well-known ways the dog comes back to his kennel, the sheep to the fold the horse to the stable, and even so did Kate return to her sentimental self. One day she was turning over the local paper, and suddenly, as if obeying a long forgotten instinct, her eyes wandered to the poetry column, and again, just as in old time, she was caught by the same simple sentiments of sadness and longing. She found there the usual song, in which regret rhymes to forget. The same dear questions which used to enchant seven years ago were again asked in the same simple fashion; and they touched her now as they had before. She refound all her old dreams. It seemed as if not a day had passed over her. When she was a girl she used to collect every scrap of love poetry that appeared in the local paper, and paste them into a book, and now, the events of the week having roused her from the lethargy into which she had fallen, she turned for a poem to the Hanley Courier as instinctively as an awakened child turns to the breast.

The verses she happened to hit on were after her own heart, and just what were required to complete the transformation of her character:

'I love thee, I love thee, how fondly, how well Let the years that are coming my constancy tell; I think of thee daily, my night-thoughts are thine; In fairy-like vision thy hand presses mine; And even though absent you dwell in my heart; Of all that is dear to me, dearest, thou art.'

In reading these lines Kate's heart began to beat quickly, her eyes filled with tears, and wrapped in brightness, like a far distant coast-line, a vision of her girlhood arose. She recalled the emotions she once experienced, the books she had read, and the poetry that was lying upstairs in an old trunk pushed under the bed. It seemed to her wonderful that it had been forgotten so long; her memory skipped from one fragment to the other, picking up a word here, a phrase there, until a remembrance of her favourite novel seized her; she became the heroine of the absurd fiction, substituting herself for the lady who used to read Byron and Shelley to the gentleman who went to India in despair.

As the fitness of the comparison dawned upon her, she yielded to an ineffable sentiment of weakness: George was the husband's name in the book, she was Helene, and Dick was the lover to whom she could not, would not, give herself, and who on that account had gone away in despair. The coincidence appeared to her as something marvellous, something above nature, and she turned it over, examined it in her mind, as a child would a toy, till, forgetful of her desire to overlook these relics of old times, she went upstairs to the workroom.

The missed visit to the theatre was a favourite theme of conversation between the two women. Kate listened to what went on behind the scenes with greater indulgence, and she seemed to become more accustomed to the idea that Bill and Hender were something more than friends. She was conscious of disloyalty to her own upbringing and to her mother-in-law who loved her, and she often blamed herself and resolved never to allow Hender to speak ill again of Mrs. Ede. But the temptation to complain was insidious. It was not every woman who would consent, as she did, to live under the same roof as her mother-in-law, and Hender, who hated Mrs. Ede, who spoke of her as the 'hag,' never lost an opportunity of pointing out the fact that the house was Kate's house and not Mrs. Ede's. The first time Hender said, 'After all, the house is yours,' Kate was pleased, but the girl insisted too much, and Kate was often irritated against her assistant, and she often raged inwardly. It was abominable to have her thoughts interpreted by Hender. She loved her mother-in-law dearly, she didn't know what she'd do without her, but—So it went on; struggle as she would with herself, there still lay at the bottom of her mind the thought that Mrs. Ede had prevented her from going that evening to the theatre, and turn, twist, and wander away as she would, it invariably came back to her.

Frequently Miss Hender had to repeat her questions before she obtained an intelligible answer, and often, without even vouchsafing a reply, Kate would pitch her work aside nervously. Her thoughts were not in her work; she waited impatiently for an opportunity of turning out the old trunk, full of the trinkets, books, verses, remembrances of her youth, which lay under her bed, pushed up against the wall. But a free hour was only possible when Ralph was out. Then her mother-in-law had to mind the shop, and Kate would be sure of privacy at the top of the house.

There was no valid reason why she should dread being found out in so innocent an amusement as turning over a few old papers. Her fear was merely an unreasoned and nervous apprehension of ridicule. Ever since she could remember, her sentimentality was always a subject either of mourning or pity; in allowing it to die out of her heart she had learned to feel ashamed of it; the idea of being discovered going back to it revolted her, and she did not know which would annoy her the most, her husband's sneers or Mrs. Ede's blank alarm. Kate remembered how she used to be told that novels must be wicked and sinful because there was nothing in them that led the soul to God, and she resolved to avoid further lectures on this subject. She devoted herself to the task of persuading Ralph to leave his counter and to go out for a walk. This was not easy, but she arrived at last at the point of helping him on with his coat and handing him his hat; then, conducting him to the door, she bade him not to walk fast and to be sure to keep in the sun. She then went upstairs, her mind relaxed, determined to enjoy herself to the extent of allowing her thoughts for an hour or so to wander at their own sweet will.

The trunk was an oblong box covered with brown hair; to pull it out she had to get under the bed, and it was with trembling and eager fingers that she untied the old twisted cords. Remembrance with Kate was a cult, but her husband's indifference and her mother-in-law's hard, determined opposition had forced the past out of sight; but now on the first encouragement it gushed forth like a suppressed fountain that an incautious hand had suddenly liberated. And with what joy she turned over the old books! She examined the colour of the covers, she read a phrase here and there: they were all so dear to her that she did not know which she loved the best. Scenes, heroes, and heroines long forgotten came back to her, and in what minuteness, and how vividly! It appeared to her that she could not go on fast enough; her emotion gained upon her until she became quite hysterical; in turning feverishly over some papers a withered pansy floated into her lap. Tears started to her eyes, and she pressed the poor little flower, forgotten so long, to her lips. She could not remember when she gathered it, but it had come to her. Her lips quivered, the light seemed to be growing dark, and a sudden sense of misery eclipsed her happiness, and unable to restrain herself any longer, she burst into a tumultuous storm of sobs.

But after having cried for a few minutes her passion subsided, and she wiped the tears from her hands and face, and, smiling at herself, she continued her search. Everything belonging to that time interested her, verses and faded flowers; but her thoughts were especially centred on an old copybook in which she kept the fragments of poetry that used to strike her fancy at the moment. When she came upon it her heart beat quicker, and with mild sentiments of regret she read through the slips of newspaper; they were all the same, but as long as anyone was spoken of as being the nearest and the dearest Kate was satisfied. Even the bonbon mottoes, of which there were large numbers, drew from her the deepest sighs. The little Cupid firing at a target in the shape of a heart, with 'Tom Smith & Co., London,' printed in small letters underneath, did not prevent her from sharing the sentiment expressed in the lines:

'Let this cracker, torn asunder, Be an emblem of my heart; And as we have shared the plunder, Pray you of my love take part.'

Sitting on the floor, with one hand leaning on the open trunk, she read, letting her thoughts drift through past scenes and sensations. All was far away; and she turned over the relics that the past had thrown up on the shore of the present without seeing any connection between them and the needs of the moment until she lit on the following verses:

'Wearily I'm waiting for you, For your absence watched in vain Ask myself the hopeless question, Will he ever come again?

'All these years, am I forgotten? Or in absence are you true? Oh, my darling, 'tis so lonely, Watching, waiting here for you!

'Has your heart from its allegiance Turned to greet a fairer face? Have you welcomed in another Charms you missed in me, and grace?

'Long, long years I have been waiting, Bearing up against my pain; All my thoughts and vows have vanished, Will they ever come again?

'Yes, for woman's faith ne'er leaves her, And my trust outweighs my fears; And I still will wait his coming, Though it may not be for years.'

As the deer, when he believes he has eluded the hounds, leaves the burning plains and plunges into the cool woodland water, Kate bathed her tired soul, letting it drink its fill of this very simple poem. The sentiment came to her tenderly, through the weak words; and melting with joy, she repeated them over and over again.

At last her sad face lit up with a smile. It had occurred to her to send the poem that gave her so much pleasure to Dick. It would make him think of her when he was far away; it would tell him that she had not forgotten him. The idea pleased her so much that it did not occur to her to think if she would be doing wrong in sending these verses to her lodger, and with renewed ardour and happiness she continued her search among her books. There was no question in her mind as to which she would read, and she anticipated hours of delight in tracing resemblances between herself and the lady who used to read Byron and Shelley to her aristocratic lover. She feared at first she had lost this novel, but when it was discovered it was put aside for immediate use. The next that came under her hand was the story of a country doctor. In this instance the medical hero had poisoned one sister to whom he was secretly married in order that he might wed a second. Kate at first hesitated, but remembering that there was an elopement, with a carriage overturned in a muddy lane, she decided upon looking it through again. Another book related the love of a young lady who found herself in the awkward predicament of not being able to care for anyone but her groom, who was lucky enough to be the possessor of the most wonderful violet eyes. The fourth described the distressing position of a young clergyman who, when he told the lady of his choice that his means for the moment did not admit of his taking a wife, was answered that it did not matter, for in the meantime she was quite willing to be his mistress. This devotion and self-sacrifice touched Kate so deeply that she was forced to pause in her search to consider how those who have loved much are forgiven. But at this moment Mrs. Ede entered.

'Oh, Kate, what are you doing?'

Although the question was asked in an intonation of voice affecting to be one of astonishment only, there was nevertheless in it an accent of reproof that was especially irritating to Kate in her present mood. A deaf anger against her mother-in-law's interference oppressed her, but getting the better of it, she said quietly, though somewhat sullenly:

'You always want to know what I'm doing! I declare, one can't turn round but you're after me, just like a shadow.'

'What you say is unjust, Kate,' replied the old woman warmly. 'I'm sure I never pry after you.'

'Well, anyhow, there it is: I'm looking out for a book to read in the evenings, if you want to know.'

'I thought you'd given up reading those vain and sinful books; they can't do you any good.'

'What harm can they do me?'

'They turn your thoughts from Christ. I've looked into them to see that I may not be speaking wrongly, and I've found them nothing but vain accounts of the world and its worldliness. I didn't read far, but what I saw was a lot of excusing of women who couldn't love their husbands, and much sighing after riches and pleasure. I thanked God you'd given over such things. I believed your heart was turned towards Him. Now it grieves me bitterly to see I was mistaken.'

'I don't know what you mean. Ralph never said that there was any harm in my reading tales.'

'Ah! Ralph, I'm afraid, has never set a good example. I wouldn't blame him, for he's my own son, but I'd wish to see him not prizing so highly the things of the world.'

'We must live, though,' Kate answered, without quite understanding what she said.

'Live—of course we have to live; but it depends how we live and what we live for—whether it be to indulge the desires of the flesh, the desire of the eye, or to regain the image of God, to have the design of God again planted in our souls. This is what we should live for, and it is only thus that we shall find true happiness.'

Though these were memories of phrases heard in the pulpit, they were uttered by Mrs. Ede with a fervour, with a candour of belief, that took from them any appearance of artificiality; and Kate did not notice that her mother-in-law was using words that were not habitual to her.

'But what do you want me to do?' said Kate, who began to feel frightened.

'To go to Christ, to love Him. He is all we have to help us, and they who love Him truly are guided as to how to live righteously. Whether we eat or drink, or whatever we do, it springs from or leads to the love of God and man.'

These words stirred Kate to her very entrails; a sudden gush of feeling brought the tears to her eyes, and she was on the point of throwing herself into Mrs. Ede's arms.

The temptation to have a good cry was almost irresistible, and the burden of her pent-up emotions was more than she could bear. But communing the while rapidly within herself, she hesitated, until an unexpected turn of thought harshly put it before her that she was being made a fool of—that she had a perfect right to look through her books and poetry, and that Hender's sneers were no more than she deserved for allowing a mother-in-law to bully her. Then the tears of sorrow became those of anger, and striving to speak as rudely as she could, she said:

'I don't talk about Christ as much as you, but He judges us by our hearts and not by our words. You would do well to humble yourself before you come to preach to others.'

'Dear Kate, it's because I see you interested in things that have no concern with God's love that I speak to you so. A man who never knows a thought of God has been staying here, and I fear he has led you——'

At these words Kate threw the last papers into the trunk, pushed it away, and turned round fiercely.

'Led me into what? What do you mean? Mr. Lennox was here because Ralph wished him to be here. I think that you should know better than to say such things. I don't deserve it.'

On this Kate left the room, her face clouded and trembling with a passion that she did not quite feel. To just an appreciable extent she was conscious that it suited her convenience to quarrel with her mother-in-law. She was tired of the life she was leading; her whole heart was in her novels and poetry; and, determined to take in the London Reader or Journal, she called back to Mrs. Ede that she was going to consult Ralph on the matter.

He was in capital spirits. The affairs in the shop were going on more satisfactorily than usual, a fact which he did not fail to attribute to his superior commercial talents. 'A business like theirs went to the bad,' he declared, 'when there wasn't a man to look after it. Women liked being attended to by one of the other sex,' and beaming with artificial smiles, the little man measured out yards of ribbon, and suggested 'that they had a very superior thing in the way of petticoats just come from Manchester.' His health was also much improved, so much so that his asthmatic attack seemed to have done him good. A little colour flushed his cheeks around the edges of the thick beard. In the evenings after supper, when the shop was closed, an hour before they went up to prayers, he would talk of the sales he had made during the day, and speak authoritatively of the possibilities of enlarging the business. His ambition was to find someone in London who would forward them the latest fashions; somebody who would be clever enough to pick out and send them some stylish but simple dress that Kate could copy. He would work the advertisements, and if the articles were well set in the window he would answer for the rest. The great difficulty was, of course, the question of frontage, and Mr. Ede's face grew grave as he thought of his little windows. 'Nothing,' he said, 'can be done without plate-glass; five hundred pounds would buy out the fruit-seller, and throw the whole place into one'; and Kate, interested in all that was imaginative, would raise her eyes from the pages of her book and ask if there was no possibility of realizing this grand future.

She was reading a novel full of the most singular and exciting scenes. In it she discovered a character who reminded her of her husband, a courtier at the Court of Louis XIV., who said sharp things, and often made himself disagreeable, but there was something behind that pleased, and under the influence of this fancy she began to find new qualities in Ralph, the existence of which she had not before suspected. Sometimes the thought struck her that if he had been always like what he was now she would have loved him better, and listening to a dispute which had arisen between him and his mother regarding the purchase of the fruiterer's premises, her smile deepened, and then, the humour of the likeness continuing to tickle her, she burst out laughing.

'What are you laughing at, Kate?' said her husband, looking admiringly at her pretty face. Mrs. Ede sternly continued her knitting, but Ralph seemed so pleased, and begged so good-naturedly to be told what the matter was, that the temptation to do so grew irresistible.

'You won't be angry if I tell you?'

'Angry, no. Why should I be angry?'

'You promise?'

'Yes, I promise,' replied Ralph, extremely curious.

'Well then, there is a cha-cha-rac-ter so—so like——'

'Oh, if you want to tell me, don't laugh like that. I can't hear a word you're saying.'

'Oh it is so—so—so like——'

'Yes, but do stop laughing and tell me.'

At last Kate had to stop laughing for want of breath, and she said, her voice still trembling:

'Well, there's a fellow in this book—you promise not to be angry?'

'Oh yes, I promise.'

'Well, then, there's someone in this book that does remind me so much—of you—that is to say, when you're cross, not as you are now.'

At this announcement Mrs. Ede looked up in astonishment, and she seemed as hurt as if Kate had slapped her in the face, whereas Ralph's face lighted up, his smile revealing through the heavy moustache the gap between his front teeth which had been filled with some white substance. Kate always noticed it with aversion, but Ralph, who was not susceptible to feminine revulsions of feelings, begged her to read the passage, and with an eagerness that surprised his mother. Without giving it a second thought she began, but she had not read half a dozen words before Mrs. Ede had gathered up her knitting and was preparing to leave the room.

'Oh, mother, don't go! I assure you there's no harm.'

'Leave her alone. I'm sick of all this nonsense about religion. I should like to know what harm we're doing,' said Ralph.

Kate made a movement to rise, but he laid his hand upon her arm, and a moment after Mrs. Ede was gone.

'Oh, do let me go and fetch her,' exclaimed Kate. 'I shouldn't—I know I shouldn't read these books. It pains her so much to see me wasting my time. She must be right.'

'There's no right about it; she'd bully us all if she had her way. Do be quiet, Kate! Do as I tell you, and let's hear the story.'

Relinquishing another half-hearted expostulation which rose to her lips, Kate commenced to read. Ralph was enchanted, and, deliciously tickled at the idea that he was like someone in print, he chuckled under his breath. Soon they came to the part that had struck Kate as being so particularly appropriate to her husband. It concerned a scene between this ascetic courtier and a handsome, middle-aged widow who frequently gave him to understand that her feelings regarding him were of the tenderest kind; but on every occasion he pretended to misunderstand her. The humour of the whole thing consisted in the innocence of the lady, who fancied she had not explained herself sufficiently; and harassed with this idea, she pursued the courtier from the Court hall into the illuminated gardens, and there told him, and in language that admitted of no doubt, that she wished to marry him. The courtier was indignant, and answered her so tartly that Kate, even in reading it over a second time, could not refrain from fits of laughter.

'It is—is so—s-o like what you w-wo-uld say if a wo-wo-man were to fol-low you,' she said, with the tears rolling down her cheeks.

'Is it really?' asked Ralph, joining in the laugh, although in a way that did not seem to be very genuine. The fact was that he felt just a little piqued at being thought so indifferent to the charms of the other sex, and looked at his wife for a moment or two in a curious sort of way, trying to think how he should express himself. At last he said:

'I'm sure that if it was my own Kate who was there I shouldn't answer so crossly.'

Kate ceased laughing, and looked up at him so suddenly that she increased his embarrassment; but the remembrance that he was after all only speaking to his wife soon came to his aid, and confidentially he sat down beside her on the sofa. Her first impulse was to draw away from him—it was so long since he had spoken to her thus.

'Could you never love me again if I were very kind to you?'

'Of course I love you, Ralph.'

'It wasn't my fault if I was ill—one doesn't feel inclined to love anyone in illness. Give me a kiss, dear.'

A recollection of how she had kissed Dick flashed across her mind, but in an instant it was gone; and bending her head, she laid her lips to her husband's. It in no way disgusted her to do so; she was glad of the occasion, and was only surprised at the dull and obtuse anxiety she experienced. They then spoke of indifferent things, but the flow of conversation was often interrupted by complimentary phrases. While Ralph discoursed on his mother's nonsense in always dragging religion into everything, Kate congratulated him on looking so much better; and, as she told him of the work she would have to get through at all costs before Friday, he either squeezed her hand or said that her hair was getting thicker, longer, and more beautiful than ever.

* * * * *

Next morning Kate received a letter from Dick, saying he was coming to Hanley on his return visit, and hoped that he would be able to have his old rooms.



IX

She would have liked to talk to Hender first, but Hender would not arrive for another hour, and nothing had ever seemed to her so important as that Dick should lodge with them. It was therefore with bated breath that she waited for Ralph to speak. They could not hope, he said, to find a nicer lodger; the little he had seen of him made him desirous of renewing the acquaintance, and he continued all through breakfast to eulogize Mr. Lennox. His mother, whose opinions were attacked, sat munching her bread and butter with indifference. But it was not permitted to anyone to be indifferent to Ralph's wishes, and, determined to resent the impertinence, he derisively asked his mother if she had any objections.

'You've a right to do what you like with your rooms; but I should like to know why you so particularly want this actor here. One would think he was a dear friend of yours to hear you talk. Is it the ten shillings a week he pays for his room and the few pence you make out of his breakfast you're hankering after?'

'Of course I want to keep my rooms let. Perhaps you might like to have them yourself; you could have all the clergymen in the town to see you once a week, and a very nice tea-party you'd make in the sitting-room.' Nor was this all; he continued to badger his mother with the bitterest taunts he could select. Quite calmly Kate watched him work himself into a passion, until he declared that he had other reasons more important than the ten shillings a week for wishing to have Mr. Lennox staying in the house. This statement caused Kate just a pang of uneasiness, and she begged for an explanation. Partly to reward her for having backed him up in the discussion, and through a wish to parade his own far-seeing views, he declared that Mr. Lennox might be of great use to them in their little business if he were so inclined. Kate could not repress a look of triumph; she knew now that nothing would keep him from having Dick in the house.

'Shall I write to him to-day, then, and say that we can let him have the rooms from next Monday?'

'Of course,' Ralph replied, and Kate went upstairs with Hender, who had just come in. The little girls were told to move aside; there was a lot of cutting to be done; this was said preparatory to telling them a little later on that they were too much in the way, and would have to go down and work in the front kitchen under the superintendence of Mrs. Ede. Hender was at the machine, but Kate, who had a dressing-gown on order, unrolled the blue silk and fidgeted round the table as if she had not enough room for laying out her pattern-sheets. Hender noticed these manoeuvres with some surprise, and when Kate said, 'Now, my dear children, I'm afraid you're very much in my way; you'd better go downstairs,' she looked up with the expression of one who expects to be told a secret. This manifest certitude that something was coming troubled Kate, and she thought it would be better after all to say nothing about Mr. Lennox, but again changing her mind, she said, assuming an air of indifference:

'Mr. Lennox will be here on Monday. I've just got a letter from him.'

'Oh, I'm so glad; for perhaps this time it will be possible to have one spree on the strict q.t.'

Kate was thinking of exactly the same thing, but Miss Hender's crude expression took the desire out of her heart, and she remained silent.

'I'm sure it's for you he's coming,' said the assistant. 'I know he likes you; I could see it in his eyes. You can always see if a man likes you by his eyes.'

Although it afforded Kate a great deal of pleasure to think that Dick liked her, it was irritating to hear his feelings for her discussed; she could not forget she was a married woman, and she began to regret that she ever mentioned the subject at all, when Miss Hender said:

'But what's the use of his coming if you can't get out? A man always expects a girl to be able to go out with him. The "hag" is sure to be about, and even if you did manage to give her the slip, there's your husband. Lord! I hadn't thought of that before. What damned luck! Don't you wish he'd get ill again? Another fit of asthma would suit us down to the ground.'

The blood rushed to Kate's face, and snapping nervously with the scissors in the air, she said:

'I don't know how you can bring yourself to speak in that way. How can you think that I would have my husband ill so that I might go to the theatre with Mr. Lennox? What do you fancy there is between us that makes you say such a thing as that?'

'Oh, I really don't know,' Miss Hender answered with a toss of her head; 'if you're going to be hoighty-toighty I've done.'

Kate thought it very provoking that Hender could never speak except coarsely, and it would have given her satisfaction to have said something sharp, but she had let Hender into a good many of her secrets, and it would be most inconvenient to have her turn round on her. Not, indeed, that she supposed she'd be wicked enough to do anything of the kind, but still——

And influenced by these considerations, Kate determined not to quarrel with Hender, but to avoid speaking to her of Dick. Even with her own people she maintained an attitude of shy reserve until Dick arrived, declining on all occasions to discuss the subject, whether with her husband or mother-in-law. 'I don't care whether he comes or not; decide your quarrels as you like, I've had enough of them,' was her invariable answer. This air of indifference ended by annoying Ralph, but she was willing to do that if it saved her from being forced into expressing an opinion—that was the great point; for with a woman's instinct she had already divined that she would not be left out of the events of the coming week. But there was still another reason. She was a little ashamed of her own treachery. Otherwise her conscience did not trouble her; it was crushed beneath a weight of desire and expectancy, and for three or four days she moved about the house in a dream. When she met her husband on the stairs and he joked her about the roses in her cheeks, she smiled curiously, and begged him to let her pass. In the workroom she was happy, for the mechanical action of sewing allowed her to follow the train of her dreams, and drew the attention of those present away from her. She had tried her novels, but now the most exciting failed to fix her thoughts. The page swam before her eyes, a confusion of white and black dots, the book would fall upon her lap in a few minutes, and she would relapse again into thinking of what Dick would say to her, and of the hours that still separated them. On Sunday, without knowing why, she insisted on attending all the services. Ralph in no way cared for this excessive devotion, and he proposed to take her for a walk in the afternoon, but she preferred to accompany Mrs. Ede to church. It loosened the tension of her thoughts to raise her voice in the hymns, and the old woman's gabble was pleasant to listen to on their way home—a sort of meaningless murmur in her ears while she was thinking of Dick, whom she might meet on the doorstep. It was, however, his portmanteau that they caught sight of in the passage when they opened the door. Ralph had taken it in; Lennox said that he had a lot of business to do with the acting manager, and would not return before they went up to prayers. Still Kate did not lose hope, and on the off chance that he might feel tired after his journey, and come home earlier than he expected, she endeavoured to prolong the conversation after supper. By turns she spoke to Mrs. Ede of the sermons of the day, and to Ralph of the possibilities of enlarging the shop-front. But when she was forced to hear how the actor was to send them the new fashions from London, the old lady grew restive, as did Ralph when the conversation turned on the relative merits of the morning and afternoon sermon. It was the old story of the goat and the cabbage—each is uneasy in the other's company; and even before the usual time mother and son agreed that it would be better to say prayers and get to bed.

Kate would have given anything to see Dick that night, and she lay awake for hours listening for the sound of the well-known heavy footstep. At last it came, tramp, tramp, a dull, heavy, noisy flapping through the silence of the house. She trembled, fearing that he would mistake the door and come into their room; if he did, she felt she would die of shame. The footsteps approached nearer, nearer; her husband was snoring loudly, and, casting a glance at him, she wondered if she should have time to push the bolt to. But immediately after, Dick stumbled up the stairs into his room, and, hugging the thought that he was again under her roof, she fell to dreaming of their meeting in the morning, wondering if it would befall her to meet him on the stairs or in the shop face to face, or if she would catch sight of him darting out of the door hurrying to keep an appointment which he had already missed. Mrs. Ede usually took in the lodger's hot water, it not being considered quite right for Kate to go into a gentleman's room when he was in bed. But the next morning Mrs. Ede was out and Ralph was asleep, so there was nothing for it but to fill the jug.

Dick heard the door open, but didn't trouble to look round, thinking it was Mrs. Ede, and Kate glided to the washhandstand and put down the jug in the basin. But the clink of the delf caused him to look round.

'Oh, is that you, Kate?' he said, brushing aside with a wave of his bare arm his frizzly hair. 'I didn't expect to see so pretty a sight first thing in the morning. And how have you been?'

'I'm very well, thank you, sir,' Kate replied, retreating.

'Well, I don't see why you should run away like that. What have I done to offend you? You know,' he said, lowering his voice to a confidential whisper, 'I didn't write to you about the poetry you sent me (at least, I suppose it was from you, it had the Hanley post-mark; if it wasn't, I'll burn it), because I was afraid that your old mother or your husband might get hold of my letter.'

'I must go away now, sir; your hot water is there,' she said, looking towards the door, which was ajar.

'But tell me, wasn't it you who sent me the verses? I have them here, and I brought you a little something—I won't tell you what—in return.'

'I can't talk to you now,' said Kate, casting on him one swift glance of mingled admiration and love. Although somewhat inclined to corpulence, he was a fine man, and looked a tower of strength as he lay tossed back on the pillows, his big arms and thick brown throat bare. A flush rose to her cheeks when he said that he had brought her a little something; all the same, it was impossible to stop talking to him now, and hoping to make him understand her position, raising her voice, she said:

'And what can I get you for breakfast, sir? Would you like an omelette?'

'Oh, I shan't be able to wait for breakfast; I have to be up at our acting manager's by nine o'clock. What time is it now?'

'I think it's just going the half-hour, sir.'

'Oh, then, I've lots of time yet,' replied Dick, settling himself in a way that relieved Kate of all apprehension that he was going to spring out before her on the floor.

'Then shall I get you breakfast, sir?'

'No, thanks, I shan't have time for that; I shall have something to eat up at Hayes'. But tell me, is there anyone listening?' he said, lowering his voice again. 'I want to speak to you now particularly, for I'm afraid I shall be out all day.'

Afraid that her husband might overhear her, Kate made a sign in the negative, and whispered, 'Tomorrow at breakfast.'

Although the thought that he had a present for her delighted her all day, Kate was not satisfied; for there had been something pretty, something coquettish associated in her mind with carrying in his breakfast tray (doubtless a remembrance of the ribbon-bedecked chambermaids she had read of in novels), which was absent in the more menial office of taking in his hot water. Besides, had he not told her that he was going to be out all day? Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday she had dotted over with little plans; Thursday and Friday she knew nothing of. Saturday? Well, there was just a possibility that he might kiss her before going away. She felt irritated with herself for this thought, but could not rid herself of it; a bitter sense of voluptuousness burnt at the bottom of her heart, and she railed against life sullenly. She had missed him on Sunday; Monday had ended as abruptly as an empty nut, and Hender's questions vexed and wearied her; she despaired of being able to go to the theatre. Nothing seemed to be going right. Even the little gold earrings which Dick took out of a velvet case and wanted to put into her ears only added a bitterer drop to her cup. All she could do was to hide them away where no one could find them. It tortured her to have to tell him that she could not wear them, and the kiss that he would ask for, and she could not refuse, seemed only a mockery. He was going away on Sunday, and this time she did not know when he would return. In addition to all these disappointments, she found herself obliged to go for a long walk on Tuesday afternoon to see a lady who had written to her about a dress. She did not get home until after six, and then it was only to learn that Mr. Lennox had been about the house all day, idling and talking to Ralph in the shop, and that they had gone off to the theatre together. Mrs. Ede was more than indignant, and when the little man was brought home at night, speaking painfully in little short gasps, she declared that it was a judgment upon him.

Next day he was unable to leave his room. When Dick was told what had happened he manifested much concern, and insisted on seeing the patient. Indeed, the sympathy he showed was so marked that Kate at first was tempted to doubt its sincerity. But she was wrong. Dick was truly sorry for poor Ralph, and he sat a long time with him, thinking what could be done to relieve him. He laid all the blame at his own door. He ought never to have kept a person liable to such a disease out so late at night. There was a particular chair in which Ralph always sat when he was affected with his asthma. It had a rail on which he could place his feet, and thus lift one knee almost on to a level with his chest; and in this position, his head on his hand, he would remain for hours groaning and wheezing. Dick watched him with an expression of genuine sorrow on his big face; and it was so clear that he regretted what he had done that for a moment even Mrs. Ede's heart softened towards him. But the thaw was only momentary; she froze again into stone when he remarked that it was a pity that Mr. Ede was ill, for they were going to play Madame Angot on Thursday night, and he would like them all to come. The invitation flattered Ralph's vanity, and, resolved not to be behindhand in civility, he declared between his gasps that no one should be disappointed on his account; he would feel highly complimented by Mr. Lennox's taking Mrs. Ede to the play; and on the spot it was arranged that Kate and Miss Hender should go together on Thursday night to see Madame Angot.

Kate murmured that she would be very pleased, and alluding to some work which had to be finished, she returned to the workroom to tell Hender the news.

'That's the best bit of news I've heard in this house for some time,' Hender said.

Kate felt she could not endure another disappointment. All that was required of her now was to assume an air of indifference, and take care not to betray herself to Mrs. Ede, whom she suspected of watching her. But her excitement rendered her nervous, and she found the calm exterior she was so desirous of imposing on herself difficult to maintain. The uncertainty of her husband's temper terrified her. It was liable at any moment to change, and on the night in question he might order her not to leave the house. If so, she asked herself if she would have the courage to disobey him. The answer slipped from her: it was impossible for her to fix her attention on anything; and although she had a press of work on her hands, she availed herself of every occasion to escape to the kitchen, where she might talk to Lizzie and Annie about the play, and explain to them the meaning of the poster, that she now understood thoroughly. Their childish looks and questions soothed the emotions that were burning within her.

Thursday morning especially seemed interminable, but at last the long-watched clock on their staircase struck the wished-for hour, and still settling their bonnet-strings, Kate and Hender strolled in the direction of the theatre. The evening was dry and clear, and over an embrasure of the hills beyond Stoke the sun was setting in a red and yellow mist. The streets were full of people; and where Piccadilly opens into the market-place, groups and couples of factory girls were eagerly talking, some stretching forward in a pose that showed the nape of the neck and an ear; others, graver of face, walking straight as reeds with their hands on their hips, the palms flat, and the fingers half encircling the narrow waists.

'You must be glad to get out.' Hender said. 'To be cooped up in the way you are! I couldn't stand it.'

'Well, you see, I can enjoy myself all the more when I do get out.'

Kate would have liked to answer more tartly, but on second thoughts she decided it was not worth while. It bored her to be reminded of the humdrum life she led, and she had come to feel ashamed that she had been to the theatre only twice in her life, especially when it was mentioned in Dick's presence.

'We're too soon,' said Hender, breaking in jauntily on Kate's reflections; 'the doors aren't open yet.'

'I can see that.'

'But what are you so cross about?' asked Hender, who was not aware of what was passing in her employer's mind.

'I'm not cross. But how long shall we have to wait? Mr. Lennox said he'd meet us here, didn't he?'

'Oh, he can't be long now, for here comes Wentworth with the keys to open the doors.'

The street they were in branched to the right and left rectangularly; opposite were large flat walls, red in colour, and roofed like a barn, and before one black doorway some fifty or sixty people had collected. The manager pushed his way through the crowd, and soon after, like a snake into a hole, the line began to disappear. Hender explained that this was the way to the pit, and what Kate took for a cellar was the stage entrance. A young man with a big nose, whom she recognized as Mr. Montgomery, stared at them as he passed; then came two ladies—Miss Leslie and Miss Beaumont. Dick did not appear for some time after, but at last the big hat was seen coming along. Although, as usual, in a great hurry, he was apparently much pleased to see them, and he offered Kate his arm and conducted her across the street into the theatre.

'You're a bit early, you know. The curtain doesn't go up for half an hour yet,' he said, as they ascended a high flight of steps, at the top of which sat a woman with tickets in her hand.

'We were afraid of being too late.'

'It was very good of you to come. I hope you'll have a pleasant evening; it would be quite a treat to act when you were in the house.'

'But aren't you going to act, sir?'

'You mustn't call me sir; everybody calls me Dick, and I don't know anyone who has a better right to do so than you.'

'But aren't you going to act, Di—? I can't say it.'

'I don't call it acting. I come on in the first act. I just do that to save the salary, for you know I have an interest in the tour.'

Kate had no idea as to what was meant by having 'an interest in the tour,' and she did not ask, fearing to waste her present happiness in questions. Her attention was so concentrated on the big man by her side that she scarcely knew she was in a theatre, and had as yet perceived neither the star-light nor the drop-curtain. Dick spoke to her of herself and of himself, but he said nothing that recalled any of the realities of her life, and when he suddenly lifted his hand from hers and whispered, 'Here comes Miss Hender: we mustn't appear too intimate before her,' she experienced the sensation of one awaking out of a most delicious dream.

Hender cast a last retort at the two men with whom she was chaffing, and, descending through the chairs, said:

'Mr. Lennox, you're wanted behind.'

Dick promised to see them again when the act was over, and hastened away, and Hender, settling herself in her chair, looked at Kate in a way which said as distinctly as words, 'Well, my young woman, you do go it when you're out on the loose.' But she refrained from putting her thoughts into words, possibly because she feared to turn her mistress from what she considered, too obviously, indeed, to be the right path.

They were sitting in the middle division of a gallery divided into three parts, where the twilight was broken by the yellow-painted backs of the chairs, and where a series of mirrors, framed in black wood, decorated the walls, reflecting monotonously different small corners of the house.

Only a dozen or fifteen people had as yet come in, and they moved about like melancholy shades; or, when sitting still, seemed like ink-spots on a dark background.

The two women looked down into the great pit, through which the crowd was rolling in one direction, a sort of human tide, a vague tumult in which little was distinguishable; a bald head or a bunch of yellow flowers in a woman's bonnet flashed through the darkness for an instant like the crest of a wave. A dozen pale jets of a miserable iron gas-fitting hanging out of the shadows of the roof struggled in the gloom, leaving the outlines of the Muses above the proscenium as undefinable as the silhouettes of the shopkeepers in the pit. Over against the shopkeepers was the drop-curtain, the centre of which contained a romantic picture intended to prepare the spectators for the play soon to begin. Kate admired the lake, and during the long interval it seemed to her bluer and more beautiful than any she had ever seen. Along the shores there were boats with sailors hoisting sails, and she began to wonder what was the destination of these boats, if the sailors were leaving their sweethearts or setting forth to regain them.

It seemed to Kate that the play was never going to begin, so long had she been kept waiting. She did not consult Hender, but possessed her soul in patience till a thin young man came up from under the stage, pushing his glasses higher on his beak-like nose. He took his place on the high stool; he squared his shoulders; looked around; waved his stick. The sparkling marriage chorus, with the fanciful peasants and the still more fanciful bridegroom in silk, the bright appearance of Clairette at the window, and the sympathy awakened by her love for the devil-may-care revolutionary poet seduced Kate like a sensual dream; and in all she saw and felt there was a mingled sense of nearness and remoteness, an extraordinary concentration, and an absence of her own proper individuality. Never had she heard such music. How suave it was compared with the austere and regular rhythm of the hymns she sang in church! The gay tripping measure of the market-woman's song filled her with visions and laughter. There was an accent of insincerity in the serenade that troubled her as a sudden cloud might the dreams of the most indolent of lazzaroni, but the beseeching passion of the duet revealed to her sympathies for parting lovers that even her favourite poetry had been unable to do. All her musical sensibilities rushed to her head like wine; it was only by a violent effort, full of acute pain, that she saved herself from raising her voice with those of the singers, and dreading a giddiness that might precipitate her into the pit, she remained staring blindly at the stage.

Her happiness would have been complete, if such violent emotions can be called happiness, had it not been for Hender. This young person, actuated probably by a desire of displaying her knowledge, could not be prevented from talking. As each actor or actress entered she explained their position in the company, and all she knew of their habits in private life. Mr. Mortimer's dispute the other night with Bill, the scene-shifter, necessitated quite a little tirade against drunkenness, and as it was necessary to tell of what had been said in the ladies' dressing-room, a description of Miss Beaumont's underclothing was introduced; it was very elegant—silk stockings and lace-trimmed chemises; whereas Miss Leslie's was declared to be much plainer. Once or twice Hender was asked to keep quiet, but Kate did not much mind. The thunder of applause which rose from a pit filled with noisy factory boys and girls was accepted in good faith, and it floated through her mind, elevating and exciting her emotions as the roar of the breakers on the shore does the dreams of a dreamer. But the star she was expecting had not yet appeared. She had seen Miss Leslie, Miss Beaumont, Joe Mortimer, and Frank Bret, and numberless other people, who had appeared in all sorts of dresses and had sung all kinds of enchanting songs, but Dick was nowhere to be found. She had searched vainly for him in the maze of colour that was being flashed before her eyes. Would he appear as a king, a monk, a shepherd, or would he wear a cocked hat? She did not know, and was too bewildered to think. She had a dim notion that he would do something wonderful, set everything to rights, that they would all bow down before him when he entered, and she watched every motion of the crowd, expecting it every moment to make way for him. But he did not appear, and at last they all went away singing. Her heart sank within her, but just when she had begun to lose hope, two men rushed across the stage and commenced to spy about and make plans. At first Kate did not recognize her lover, so completely was he disguised, but soon the dreadful truth commenced to dawn upon her. Oh, misery! Oh, horror! How could this be? And she closed her eyes to shut out her dreadful disappointment. Why had he done this thing? She had expected a king, and had found a policeman.

'There he is, there he is!' whispered Hender. 'Don't you see, 'tis he who does the policeman? A French policeman! He drags the bride away at the end of the act, you know.'

Poor Kate felt very unhappy indeed. Her fanciful house of cards had fallen down and crushed her under the ruins. She felt she could no longer take an interest in anything. The rest of the act was torture to her. What pleasure could it be to her to see her lover, looking hideous, drag a bride away from her intended?

Kate wished that her lover had not chosen to act such a part, and she felt, dimly, perhaps, but intensely, that it was incongruous of him to exhibit himself to her as a policeman who at the end of the act dragged the bride away from her intended. And she could not understand why he should have chosen, if he loved her, to dress himself in such very unbecoming clothes. She thought she would like to run out of the theatre, but that was impossible. But when Dick came to her at the fall of the curtain and sat down by her side she forgot all about the foreign policeman; he was Dick again.

'How did you like the piece, dear?'

'Very much.' It was on her tongue to ask him why he had chosen to play the policeman, but all that was over; why should she trouble him with questions? Yet the question in her mind betrayed itself, for, laying his hand affectionately on hers, he said that he felt that something had happened. Hender, who had seen Dick take Kate's hand, thought that this was a moment for her to escape, but Kate begged of her to stay. Hender, however, feeling that her absence would be preferable to her company, mentioned that she must go; she had to speak to the manager on some business which she had forgotten till now.

'Why did you want her to stay?' said Dick, 'don't you like being alone with me?' Kate answered him with a look, wondering all the while what could have induced him to play the part of that ugly policeman. 'I'm sure you didn't like the piece,' he continued, 'and yet I must say from behind it seemed to go very well; but then, there are so many things you miss from the wings.'

Kate understood nothing of what he said, but seeing that he was terribly sincere, and fearing to pain him, she hastened to give the piece her unqualified approbation.

'I assure you I couldn't have liked anything more—the music was so pretty.'

'And how did you think I looked? It's only a small part, you know, but at the same time it requires to be played. If there isn't some go put into it the finale all goes to pot.'

Now Kate felt sure he was quizzing her, and at length she said, the desire to speak her mind triumphing over her shyness, 'But why did you make yourself look like that? It wasn't a nice part, was it?'

'It's only a trumpery bit of a thing, but it is better for me to take it than have another salary on the list. In the next act, you know, I come on as the Captain of the Guard.'

'And will that be nice?' Kate asked, her face flushing at the idea of seeing her lover in a red coat.

'Oh yes, it looks well enough, but it isn't an acting part. I'm only on for a few minutes. I'm only supposed to come on in search of the conspirators. I take a turn or two of the waltz with Miss Beaumont, who plays Lange, and it's all over. Have you ever heard the waltz?' Kate never had; so, drawing her close to him, he sang the soft flowing melody in her ear. In her nervousness she squeezed his hand passionately, and this encouraged him to say, 'How I wish it were you that I had to dance with! How nice it would be to hold you in my arms! Would you like to be in my arms?'

Kate looked at him appealingly; but nothing more was said, and soon after Dick remembered he had to get the stage ready for the second act. As he hurried away, Hender appeared. She had been round to the 'pub.' to have a drink with Bill, and had been behind talking to her ladies, who, as she said, 'were all full of Dick's new mash.'

'They've seen you, and are as jealous as a lot of cats.'

'It's very wicked of them to say there's anything between Mr. Lennox and me,' replied Kate angrily. 'I suppose they think everybody is like themselves—a lot of actresses!'

Hender made no answer, but she turned up her nose at what she considered to be damned insulting to the profession.

However, in a few minutes her indignation evaporated, and she called Kate's attention to what a splendid house it was.

'I can tell you what; with a shilling pit, a sixpenny gallery, and the centre and side circles pretty well full, it soon runs up. There must be nigh on seventy pounds in—and that for Thursday night!'

They were now well on in the second act. The brilliancy of the 'Choeur des Merveilleuses,' the pleading pity of 'She is such a simple little thing,' the quaint drollery of the conspirators, made Kate forget the aspersions cast on Clairette's character. The light music foamed in her head like champagne, and in a whirling sense of intoxication a vision of Dick in a red coat passed and repassed before her. For this she had to wait a long time, but at last the sounds of trumpets were heard, and those on the stage cried that the soldiers were coming. Kate's heart throbbed, a mist swam before her eyes, and immediately after came a sense of bright calm; for, in all the splendour of uniform, Dick entered, big and stately, at the head of a regiment of girls in red tights. The close-fitting jacket had reduced his size, the top-boots gave a dignity to his legs. He was doubtless a fine man; to Kate he was more than divine. Then the sweet undulating tune he had sung in her ears began, and casting a glance of explanation in the direction of the gallery, he put his arm round Miss Beaumont's waist. The action caused Kate a heart-pang, but the strangeness of the scene she was witnessing distracted her thoughts. For immediately the other actors and actresses in their startling dresses selected partners, and the stage seemed transformed into a wonderful garden of colour swinging to the music of a fountain that, under the inspiration of the moonlight, broke from its monotonous chant into rhythmical variations. Dick, like a great tulip in his red uniform, turned in the middle, and Miss Beaumont, in her long yellow dress, sprawled upon him. Her dress was open at both sides, and each time she passed in front, Kate, filled with disgust, strove not to see the thick pink legs, which were visible to the knees. Miss Leslie in her bride's dress bloomed a lily white, as she danced with a man whose red calves and thighs seemed prolonged into his very chest. La Rivodiere cast despairing glances at Lange, poor Pomponet strove to get to his bride, and all the blonde wigs and black collars of the conspirators were mixed amid the strange poke bonnets of the ladies, and the long swallow-tailed coats, reaching almost to the ground, flapped in and out of the legs of the female soldiers. Kate smiled feebly and drank in the music of the waltz. It was played over again; like a caged canary's song it haunted Clairette's orange-blossoms; like the voluptuous thrill of a nightingale singing in a rose-garden it flowed about Lange's heavy draperies and glistening bosom; like the varied chant of the mocking bird it came from under Ange Pitou's cocked hat. It was sung separately and in unison, and winding and unwinding itself, it penetrated into the deepest recesses of Kate's mind. It seduced like a deep slow perfume; it caressed with the long undulations of a beautiful snake and the mystery of a graceful cat; it whispered of fair pleasure places, where scent, music, and love are one, where lovers never grow weary, and where kisses endure for ever. She was conscious of deep self-contentment, of dreamy idleness, of sad languor, and the charm to which she abandoned herself resembled the enervations of a beautiful climate, the softness of a church; she yearned for her lover and the fanciful life of which he was the centre, as one might for some ideal fatherland. The current of the music carried her far away, far beyond the great hills into a land of sleep, dream, and haze, and a wonderful tenderness swam within her as loose and as dim as the green sea depths, that a wave never stirs. She struggled, but it was only as one in a dream strives to lift himself out of the power that holds; and when the conductor waved his stick for the last time, and the curtain came down amid deafening applause, irritated and enervated, she shrank from Hender, as if anxious not to be wholly awakened.

The third act passed she scarcely knew how. She was overborne and over-tempted; all her blood seemed to be in her head and heart, and from time to time she was shaken with quick shudderings.

When Dick came to see her she scarcely understood what he said to her, and it annoyed her not to be able to answer him. When the word 'love' was pronounced she smiled, but her smile was one of pain, and she could not rouse herself from a sort of sad ecstasy. Gay as the tunes were, there was in every one a sort of inherent sadness which she felt but could not explain to Dick, who began to think that she was disappointed in the piece.

'Disappointed! Oh no,' she said, and they stood for a long while staring at a large golden moon, lighting up the street like a bull's-eye.

'How nice it is to be here out of that hot stuffy theatre!' said Dick, putting his arm round her.

'Oh, do you think so? I could listen to that music for ever.'

'It is pretty, isn't it? I'm so glad you liked it. I told you the waltz was lovely.'

'Lovely! I should think so. I shall never forget it.'

She lost her habitual shyness in her enthusiasm, and sang the first bars with her face raised towards her lover's; then, gaining courage from his look of astonishment and pleasure, she gave all the modulations with her full voice.

'By Jove! you've a deuced nice soprano, and a devilish good ear too. 'Pon my soul, you sing that waltz as well as Beaumont.'

'Oh, Dick, you mustn't laugh at me.'

'I swear I'm not laughing. Sing it again; nobody's listening.'

They were standing in the shade of a large warehouse; the line of slates making a crescent of the full moon, and amid the reverberating yards and brickways Kate's voice sounded as penetrating and direct as a flute. The exquisite accuracy of her ear enabled her to give each note its just value. Dick was astonished, and he said when she had finished:

'I really don't want to flatter you, but with a little teaching you would sing far better than Beaumont. Your ear is perfect; it's the production of the voice that wants looking to;' and he talked to her of the different tunes, listening to what she had to say, and encouraging her to recall the music she had heard. He would beg her to repeat a phrase after him; he taught her how to emphasize the rhythm, and was anxious that she should learn the legend of Madame Angot.

'Now,' said Dick, 'I'll sing the symphony, and we'll go through it with all the effects—one, two, three, four, ta ra ta ta ta ta ta.'

But as Kate attacked the first bar it was taken up by three or four male voices, the owners of which, judging by the sound, could not be more than forty or fifty yards away.

'Here's Montgomery, Joe Mortimer, and all that lot. I wouldn't be caught here with you for anything.'

'By going up this passage we can get home in two minutes.'

'Can we? Well, let's cut; but no, they're too close on us. Do you go, dear; I'll remain and tell them it was a lady singing out of that window. Here, take my latchkey. Off you go.'

Without another word Kate fled down the alley, and Dick was left to explain whatever he pleased concerning the mythical lady whom he declared he had been serenading.

When Kate arrived home that night she lay awake for hours, tossing restlessly, her brain whirling with tunes and parts of tunes. The conspirators' chorus, the waltz song, the legend, and a dozen disconnected fragments of the opera all sang together in her ears, and in her insomnia she continued to take singing lessons from Dick. She was certain that he loved her, and the enchantment of her belief murmured in her ears all night long; and when she met Hender next morning, the desire to speak of Dick burnt her like a great thirst, and it was not until Hender left her to go to the theatre that she began to realize in all its direct brutality the fact that on the morrow she would have to bid him goodbye, perhaps for ever.

Her husband wheezed on the sofa, her mother-in-law read the Bible, sitting bolt upright in the armchair, and the shaded lamp covered the table with light, and fearing she might be provoked into shrieks or some violent manifestation of temper, she went to bed as early as she could. But there her torments became still more intolerable. All sorts of ideas and hallucinations, magnified and distorted, filled her brain, rendered astonishingly clear by the effects of insomnia. She saw over again the murders she had read of in her novels, and her imagination supplied details the author had not dreamed of. The elopements, with all their paraphernalia of moonlight and roses, came back to her.... But if she were never to see him again—if it were her fate to lie beside her husband always, to the end of her life! She buried her head in the pillows in the hopes of shutting out the sound of his snores.

At last she felt him moving, and a moment afterwards she heard him say, 'There's Mr. Lennox at the door; he can't get in. Do go down and open it for him.'

'Why don't you go yourself?' she answered, starting up into a sitting position.

'How am I to go? You don't want me to catch my death at the front door?' Ralph replied angrily.

Kate did not answer, but quickly tying a petticoat about her, and wrapping herself in her dressing-gown, she went downstairs. It was quite dark, and she had to feel her way along the passage. But at last she found and pulled back the latch, and when the white gleam of moonlight entered she retreated timidly behind the door.

'I'm so sorry,' said Dick, trying to see who the concealed figure was, 'but I forgot my latchkey.'

'It doesn't matter,' said Kate.

'Oh, it's you, dear. I've been trying to get home all day to see you, but couldn't. Why didn't you come down to the theatre?'

'You know that I can't do as I like.'

'Well, never mind; don't be cross; give me a kiss.'

Kate shrunk back, but Dick took her in his arms. 'You were in bed, then?' he said, chuckling.

'Yes, but you must let me go.'

'I should like never to let you go again.'

'But you're leaving to-morrow.'

'Not unless you wish me to, dear.'

Kate did not stop to consider the impossibility of his fulfilling his promise, and, her heart beating, she went upstairs. On the first landing he stopped her, and laying his hand on her arm, said, 'And would you really be very glad if I were to stay with you?'

'You know I would, Dick.'

They could not see each other, and after a long silence she said, 'We mustn't stop here talking. Mrs. Ede sleeps, you know, in the room at the back of the workroom, and she might hear us.'

'Then come into the sitting-room,' said Dick, taking her hands and drawing her towards him.

'I cannot.'

'I love you better than anyone in the world.'

'No, no; why should you love me?'

'Let us prove our love one to the other,' he murmured, and frightened, but at the same time delighted by the words, she allowed him to draw her into his room.

'My husband will miss me,' she said as the door closed, but she could think no more of him; he was forgotten in a sudden delirium of the senses; and for what seemed to him like half an hour Ralph waited, asking himself what his wife could be doing all that time, thinking that perhaps it was not Lennox after all, but some rambling vagrant who had knocked at the door, and that he had better go down and rescue his wife. He would have done so had he not been afraid of a sudden draught, and while wondering what was happening he dozed away, to be awakened a few minutes afterwards by voices on the landing.

'Let me go, Dick, let me go; my husband will miss me.' She passed away from him and entered her husband's room, and Ralph said: 'Well, who was it?'

'Mr. Lennox,' she answered.

'Our lodger,' Ralph murmured, and fell asleep again.



X

'Is this the stage entrance?'

'Yes, ma'am; you see, during the performance the real stage-door is used as a pit entrance, and we pass under the stage.'

This explanation was given after a swaggering attitude had been assumed, and a knowing wink, the countersign for 'Now I'm going to do something for your amusement,' had been bestowed on his pals. The speaker, a rough man with a beard and a fez cap, became the prominent figure of a group loitering before a square hole with an earthward descent, cut in the wall of the Hanley Theatre.

Kate was too occupied with her own thoughts to notice that she was being laughed at, and she said instantly, 'I want to see Mr. Lennox; will you tell him I'm here?'

'Mr. Lennox is on the stage; unless yer on in the piece I don't see 'ow it's to be done.'

At this rebuff Kate looked round the grinning faces, but at that moment a rough-looking fellow of the same class as the speaker ascended from the cellar-like opening, and after nudging his 'pal,' touched his cap, and said with the politeness of one who had been tipped, 'This way, marm. Mr. Lennox is on the stage, but if you'll wait a minute I'll tell 'im yer 'ere. Take care, marm, or yer'll slip; very arkerd place to get down, with all 'em baskets in the way. This company do travel with a deal of luggage. That's Mr. Lennox's—the one as yer 'and is on.'

'Oh, indeed!' Kate said, stopping on her way to read Mr. Lennox's name on the basket.

'We piles 'em 'gainst that 'ere door so as to 'ave 'em 'andy for sending down to the station ter-morrow morning. But if you will remain here a moment, marm, I'll run up on the stage and see if I can see 'im.'

The mention made by the scene-shifter of the approaching removal of Dick's basket frightened her, and she remembered that she had scarcely spoken to him since last night. He had been obliged to go out in the morning before breakfast; and though he had tried hard to meet her during the course of the day, fate seemed to be against them.

She was in a large, low-roofed storeroom with an earthen floor. The wooden ceiling was supported by an endless number of upright posts that gave the place the appearance of a ship. At the farther end there were two stone staircases leading to opposite sides of the stage. In front of her were a drum and barrel, and the semi-darkness at the back was speckled over with the sparkling of the gilt tinsel stuff used in pantomimes; a pair of lattice-windows, a bundle of rapiers, a cradle and a breastplate, formed a group in the centre; a broken trombone lay at her feet. The odour of size that the scenery exhaled reminded her of Ralph's room; and she wondered if the swords were real, what different uses the tinsel paper might be put to; until she would awake from her dream, asking herself bitterly why he did not come down to see her. In the pause that followed the question, she was startled by a prolonged shout from the chorus. The orchestra seemed to be going mad; the drum was thumped, the cymbals were clashed, and back and forward rushed the noisy feet, first one way, then the other; a soprano voice was heard for a moment clear and distinct, and was drowned immediately after in a general scream. What could it mean? Had the place taken fire? Kate asked herself wildly.

'The finale of the act 'as begun, marm; Mr. Lennox will be hoff the stage directly.'

'Has nothing happened? Is the—?'

The scene-shifter's look of astonishment showed Kate that she was mistaken, but before they had time to exchange many words, the trampling and singing overhead suddenly ceased, and the muffled sound of clapping and applause was heard in the distance.

'There's the act.' said Bill; 'he'll be down now immediately; he'll take no call for the perliceman,' and a moment after a man attired in knee-breeches, with a huge cravat wound several times round his throat, came running down the stone staircase. 'Oh, 'ere he is,' said Bill. 'I'll leave yer now, marm.'

'And so you found your way, dear?' said Dick, putting out his arm to draw Kate towards him.

But he looked so very strange with the great patches of coarse red on his cheeks, and the deep black lines drawn about his eyes, that she could not conceal her repulsion, and guessing the cause of her embarrassment, he said, laughing:

'Ah! I see you don't know me! A good makeup, isn't it? I took a lot of trouble with it.'

Kate made no answer; but the sound of his voice soothed her, and she leaned upon his arm.

'Give me a kiss, dear, before we go up,' he said coaxingly.

Kate looked at him curiously, and then, laughing at her own foolishness, said, 'Wait until you have the soldier's dress on.'

At the top of the staircase the piled-up side-scenes made so many ways and angles that Kate had to keep close to Dick for fear of getting lost. However, at last they arrived in the wings, where gaslights were burning blankly on the whitewashed walls. A crowd of loud-voiced, perspiring girls in short fancy petticoats and with bare necks and arms, pushed their way towards the mysterious and ladder-like staircases and scrambled up them. Ange Pitou had taken off his cocked hat and was sharing a pint of beer with Clairette. It being her turn to drink, she said:

'Noe, hold my skirts in, there's a dear; this beer plays the devil with white satin.'

'It isn't on your skirts it will go if you spill it,' Ange replied, 'but into your bosom. Stop a second, and I'll give the bottom of the pot a wipe, then you'll be all right.'

In the meanwhile Pomponet and La Rivodiere were engaged in a violent quarrel.

'Just you understand,' shouted Mortimer: 'if you want to do any clowning you'd better fill your wig with sawdust. It had better be stuffed with something.'

This sally was received with smacks of approbation from a circle of supers, who were waiting in the hopes of hearing some spirited dialogue.

'Clowning! And what can you do? I suppose your line is the legitimate. Go and play Don John again, and you'll read us the notices in the morning.'

'Notices ... talking of notices, you never had one, except one to quit from your landlady, poor woman!' replied Mortimer in his most nasal intonation of voice.

Enchanted at this witticism, the supers laughed, and poor Dubois would have been utterly done for if Dick had not interposed.

'What do you think, dear?' he said, drawing her aside; 'shall I go and make my change now? I don't come on till the end of the act, and we'll be able to talk without interruption till then.'

She had expected him to explain the rights and wrongs of that terrible quarrel that so providentially had passed off without bloodshed, and he seemed to have forgotten all about it.

'But those two gentlemen—the actors—what will happen? Are they going to go away?'

'Lord, no! of course it is riling to have a fellow mugging behind you with his wig when you're speaking, but one must go in for a bit of extra clowning on Saturday night.'

All this was Greek to her, and before she could ask Dick to explain he had darted down a passage. When he was with her it was well enough, but the moment his protection was withdrawn all her old fears returned to her. She did not know where to stand. The scene-shifters had come to carry away the scenes that were piled up in her corner, and one of the huge slips had nearly fallen on her. A troop of girls in single coloured gowns and poke bonnets had stopped to stare at her. She remembered their appearance from Thursday, but she had not seen their vulgar, everyday eyes, nor heard until now their coarse, everyday laughs and jokes. Amid this group Lange, fat and lumpy, perorated.

'The most beastly place I ever was in, my dear. I always dread the week here. Just look round the house. I don't believe there's a man in front who has a quid in his pocket. Now at Liverpool there are lots of nice men. You should have seen the things I had sent me when I was there with Harrington's company—and the bouquets! There were flowers left for me every day.'

What all this meant Kate did not know, and she did not care to guess. For a moment the strange world she found herself in had distracted her thoughts, but it could do so no longer; no, not if it were ten times as strange. What did she care for these actresses? What was it to her what they said or what they thought of her? She had come to look after her lover; that was her business, and that only. He was going away to-morrow, and they had arranged nothing! She did not know whether he was going to remain, or if he expected her to follow him. She hated the people around her; she hated them for their laughter, for their fine clothes; she hated them above all because they were all calling for him. It was Mr. Lennox here and Dick there. What did they want with him? Could they do nothing without him? It seemed to her that they were all mocking her, and she hated them for it.

The stage was now full of women. The men stood in the wings or ran to the ends of distant passages and called, 'Dick, Dick, Dick!'

The orchestra had ceased playing, and the noise in front of the curtain was growing every moment angrier and louder.

At last Dick appeared, looking splendid in red tights and Hessian boots. He caught hold of two or three girls, changed their places, peeped to see if Montgomery was all right, and gave the signal to ring up.

But once the curtain was raised, he was surrounded by half a dozen persons all wanting to speak to him. Ridding himself of them he contrived to get to Kate's side, but they had not exchanged half a dozen words before the proprietor asked if he could 'have a moment.' Then Hender turned up, and begged of Kate to come and see the dressing-rooms, but fearing to miss him, she declared she preferred to stay where she was. Nevertheless, it was difficult not to listen to her friend's explanations as to what was passing on the stage, and in one of these unguarded moments Dick disappeared. It was heart-breaking, but she could do nothing but wait until he came back. Like an iron, the idea that she was about to lose her lover forced itself deeper into her heart. The fate of her life was hanging in the balance, and the few words that were to decide it were being delayed time after time, by things of no importance. Dick had now returned, and was talking with the gas-man, who wanted to know if the extra 'hand' he had engaged was to be paid by the company or the management. Every now and again an actress or an actor would rush through the wings and stare at her; sometimes it was the whole chorus, headed by Miss Beaumont, whose rude remarks reached her ears frequently.

She tried to retreat, but the rude eyes and words followed her. Occasionally the voice of the prompter was heard: 'Now then, ladies, silence if you please; I can't hear what's being said on the stage.' No one listened to him, and, like animals in a fair, they continued to crush and to crowd in the passage between the wings and the whitewashed wall. A tall, fat girl stood close by; her hand was on her sword, which she slapped slowly against her thighs. The odour of hair, cheap scent, necks, bosoms and arms was overpowering, and to Kate's sense of modesty there was something revolting in this loud display of body. A bugle call was soon sounded in the orchestra, and this was the signal for much noise and bustle. The conspirators rushed off the stage, threw aside their cloaks, and immediately after the soft curling strains of the waltz were heard; then the bugle was sounded again, and the girls began to tramp.

'Cue for soldiers' entrance,' shouted the prompter.

'Now then, ladies, are you ready?' cried Dick, as he put himself at the head of the army.

'Yes,' was murmured all along the line, and seeing her hero marching away at the head of so many women, any one of whom he could have had for the asking, it crossed her mind that it was unnatural for him to stoop to her, a poor little dressmaker of Hanley, who did not know anything except, perhaps, how to stitch the seams of a skirt. But after what had befallen her last night, it did not seem possible that her fate was to be left behind, stitching beside Hender and the two little girls, Annie and Lizzie; stitching bodice after bodice, skirt after skirt, till the end of her days, remembering always something that had come into her life suddenly and had gone out of it suddenly. 'It cannot be,' she cried out to herself—'it cannot be!' And she remembered that he had said that her ear was true, and her voice as pure as Leslie's. 'A little throaty,' he had said, 'but that can be improved.' What he meant by throaty she did not know, but no matter; and to convince herself that he had spoken truly she sang the refrain of the waltz till the gas-man pulled a rope and brought the curtain down. She was about to rush on the stage to speak to Dick, but the gas-man stopped her.

'You must wait a moment, there's a call,' he said. Up went the curtain; the house burst into loud applause. Down went the curtain; up it went again. This time only the principals came on, and while they were bowing and smiling to the audience a great herd of females poured through the wings, and Kate found herself again among courtesans, conspirators, seducers, and wandering minstrels.

'Who is she?' they asked as they went by. And Kate heard somebody answer, 'A spoon of Dick's,' and unable to endure the coarse jeering faces, which the strange costumes seemed to accentuate, she took advantage of a sudden break in the ranks and ran through the wings towards the back of the stage.

'What's the matter, dear?' he said, drawing her to him.

'Oh, Dick, you shouldn't neglect me as you do! I've been waiting here among those horrid girls nearly an hour for you, and you're talking to everybody but me.'

'It wasn't my fault, dear; I was on in the last act. They couldn't have finished it without me.'

'I don't know, I don't know; but you're going away to-morrow, and I shall never see you again. It's very hard on me that this last night—night— that——'

'Now, don't cry like that, dear. I tell you what. It's impossible to talk here; everybody's after me. I'll take off these things and we'll go for a walk through the town—will that do? I know we've a lot of things to speak about.'

The serious way in which he spoke this last phrase brought courage to Kate, and she strove to calm herself, but she was sobbing so heavily that she could not answer.

'Well, you'll wait here, dear; no one will disturb you, and I shan't be above two minutes.'

Kate nodded her head in reply, and five minutes after they were walking up the street together.

'How did you get out, dear? Did they see you?'

'No; Ralph is bad with his asthma, and mother is sitting upstairs with him. I said I had some sewing to do.... Oh, Dick, I cannot bear to think that you're going away, and that I shall never see you again.'

'Yes, you will, dear,' he answered cheerfully. 'Now I wonder if your husband would consent to your going on the stage?'

'Who would do the dressmaking for him?' she asked. 'He talks about the business, but we would be starving if we relied upon what we sell.' And stopping from time to time as their talk grew more earnest, they strolled through the crowded streets, Kate hanging on Dick's arm, her face inspiring the jeers of the factory girls.

'I wouldn't kiss her if I were you,' said the most impudent.

'Wouldn't you really?' cried two youths, stealing up from behind and seizing two of the girls by the waist, and kissing them despite blows and laughter.

The combats that followed forced Kate and Dick into the roadway. 'We cannot talk here,' Dick said; 'isn't there a quiet street near by?'

'There's Market Street; don't you remember, Dick, where you met me the day you took me to the potteries?'

'Yes,' he said, 'I do remember that day. What a crash! and all because you wouldn't let me kiss you; just like those boys and girls. You were more determined than those girls were, for methinks, as we say in Shakespeare, they wished to be kissed; but you didn't then.'

'That was the day,' she answered, 'that I took round Mrs. Barnes's dress after having stayed up all night to finish it. Here's Market Street,' and they walked towards the square of sky enframed in the end of the street, talking of the luck that had brought them together just at the moment when they thought that chance had divided them for ever.

'It was a crash!' Dick repeated, and they walked about the grass-grown mounds of cinders.

'But, Dick, you won't desert me,' she said. 'Tell me that you'll take me away from Hanley. I couldn't bear it when you were gone—I would sooner die.'

'Of course I'll take you away, my dear,' said Dick, with a distinct vision of the Divorce Court in his mind; 'but you know that will mean giving up everything and travelling about the country with me; I don't know that you'll like it.'

'You mean that you don't love me enough to take me away.'

'I'll take you away, dear, if you'll come. I never liked a woman as I do you. The train call is for ten o'clock. We must contrive something. How are you to meet me at the station?'

It was Kate's turn then to hesitate. She had never been out of the Potteries in her life; she had been born, reared and married here. And now she was going away without hope of ever being able to return, she was going into an unknown region to roam she did not know whither—adrift, and as helpless as a tame bird freed and delivered to the enmities of an unknown land. Half the truth dawned upon her in that moment, and lifting her eyes, she said:

'Dick! You're asking a great deal of me. What shall I do? Never, never, never to see Hanley again!'

'I didn't know that you cared so much about Hanley. And you accused me just now of not loving you enough to take you away. I think it's you who don't love me.'

'Dick, you know that I love you better than anything in the world! But to give up everything, never to see what you have seen all your life.'

'I don't think you'll regret it, dear; we'll be very happy. We're going from here to Derby, and from there to Blackpool, a very jolly place by the sea.' And he talked to her about boating and picnicking, becoming all the while more convinced of her pretty face, and his memory of her pretty voice was active in him when he took her in his arms and said: 'You mustn't think any more about it, dear; I couldn't leave this place without you. You'll like Blackpool if you're fond of boating.'

'I don't know,' she said; 'I've never seen the sea.'

'Well, you can see it now,' he answered. 'Look out there; the valley between us and the hills filled with mist is more like the ocean than anything I've ever seen.'

'The ocean,' Kate repeated. 'Have you been to America?'

'Yes,' he answered, 'I have lived there for several years. I may take the company out there—probably next year, if all goes well.'

'And will you take me with you?'

'Yes,' he said, 'but you must come away to-morrow morning. Why do you hesitate?'

'I'm not hesitating,' she answered, 'but those hills beyond the valley have always seemed to me very wonderful; ever since I was a little child I've asked myself what lies beyond those hills.'

For answer Dick kissed her, and they relapsed into contemplation.

The tall stems of the factory chimneys, the bottle-shaped pottery ovens, the intricate shafts of the collieries were hidden in the mist, and the furnace fires flashing through the mist enhanced the likeness of the Hanley Valley to a sea of stars; like stars these furnaces flamed, now here, now there, over the lower slopes of the hills, till at last one blazed into existence high amid the hills, so high that it must have been on the very lowest verge. It seemed to Kate like a hearth of pleasure and comfort awaiting her in some distant country, and all her fancies were centred in this distant light, till another light breaking suddenly higher up in the hills attracted her, and she deemed that it would be in or about this light that she would find happiness. She must ascend from one light to the next, but the light on which her eyes were fixed was not a furnace light, but a star. Would she never find happiness, then, in this world? she asked. Was Dick going to desert her? And without telling him that she had mistaken an earthly for a heavenly light, she threw her arms about him.