After the paroxysm of self-scorn had partly exhausted itself, I stood staring in the woman's face.

'Well,' said she, 'I thought the shiny Quaker was a rum un, but blow me if you ain't a rummyer.

'Her name was Winifred, and the word "father" produced fits,' I said, not to the woman, but to my soul, in mocking answer to its own woe. 'What about my father's spiritualism now? Good God! Is there no other ancestral tomfoolery, no other of Superstition's patent Aylwinian soul-salves for the philosophical Nature-worshipper and apostle of rationalism to fly to? Her name was Winifred.

'Yis; don't I say 'er name wur Winifred?' said the woman, who thought I was addressing her. 'You're jist like a poll-parrit with your "Winifred, Winifred, Winifred." That was 'er name, an' she 'ad a shock, pore dear, an' it was all along of you at the studero a-talkin' about 'er father. You must a-talked about 'er father: so no lies. She 'ad fits arter that, in course she 'ad. Why, you'll make me die a-larfin' with your poll-parritin' ways, sayin' "a shock, a shock, a shock," arter me. In course she 'ad a shock; she 'ad it when she was a little gal o' six. My pore Bill (that's my 'usband as now lives in the fine 'Straley) was a'most killed a-fightin' a Irishman. They brought 'im 'um an' laid 'im afore her werry eyes, an' the sight throw'd 'er into high-strikes, an' arter that the name of "father" allus throwed her into high-strikes, an' that's why I told 'em at the studero never to say that word. An' I know you must 'a' said it, some o' your cussed lot must, or else why should my pore darter 'a' 'ad the high-strikes? Nothin' else never gev 'er no high-strikes only talkin' to 'er about 'er father. An' as to me a-sendin' 'er a-beggin', I tell you she liked beggin'. I gev her baskets to sell, an' flowers to sell, an' yet she would beg. I tell you she liked beggin'. Some gals does. She was touched in the 'ead, an' she used to say she must beg, an' there was nothink she used to like so much as to stan' with a box o' matches a-jabberin' a tex' out o' the Bible unless it was singin'. There you are, a-larfin' and a-gurnin' ag'in. If I wur on'y 'arf as drunk as you are the coppers 'ud 'a' run me in hours ago; cuss 'em, an' their favouritin' ways.'

At the truth flashing in upon me through these fantastic lies, I had passed into that mood when the grotesque wickedness of Fate's awards can draw from the victim no loud lamentations—when there are no frantic blows aimed at the sufferer's own poor eyeballs till the beard—like the self-mutilated Theban king's—is bedewed with a dark hail-shower of blood. More terrible because more inhuman than the agony imagined by the great tragic poet is that most awful condition of the soul into which I had passed—when the cruelty that seems to work at Nature's heart, and to vitalise a dark universe of pain, loses its mysterious aspect and becomes a mockery; when the whole vast and merciless scheme seems too monstrous to be confronted save by mad peals of derisive laughter—that dreadful laughter which bubbles lower than the fount of tears—that laughter which is the heart's last language; when no words can give it the relief of utterance—no words, nor wails, nor moans.

'Another quid,' bawled the woman after me, as I turned away, 'another quid, an' then I'll tell you somethink to your awantage. Out with it, and don't spile a good mind.'

What I did and said that morning as I wandered through the streets of London in that state of tearless despair and mad unnatural merriment, one hour of which will age a man more than a decade of any woe that can find a voice in lamentations, remains a blank in my memory.

I found myself at the corner of Essex Street, staring across the Strand, which, even yet, had scarcely awoke into life. Presently I felt my sleeve pulled, and heard the woman's voice.

'You didn't know as I was cluss behind you all the while, a-watchin' your tantrums. Never spile a good mind, my young swell. Out with t'other quid, an' then I'll tell you somethink about my pootty darter as is on my mind.'

I gave her money, but got nothing from her save more incoherent lies and self-contradictions about the time of the funeral.

'Point out the spot where she used to stand and beg. No, don't stand on it yourself, but point it out.'

'This is the werry spot. She used to hold out her matches like this 'ere,—my darter used,—an' say texes out o' the Bible. She loved beggin', pore dear!'

'Texts from the Bible?' I said, staggering under a new thought that seemed to strike through me like a bar of hot metal. 'Can you remember any one of them?'

'It was allus the same tex', an' I ought to remember it well enough, for I've 'eerd it times enough. She wur like you for poll-parritin' ways, and used to say the same thing over an' over ag'in. It wur allus, "Let his children be wagabones and beg their bread; let them seek it also out of desolate places." Why, you're at it ag'in—gurnin' ag'in. You must be drunk.'

Again there came upon me the involuntary laughter of heart-agony at its tensest. I cried aloud: 'Faith and Love! Faith and Love! That farce of the Raxton crypt with the great-grandmother's fool on his knees shall be repeated for the delight of Nin-ki-gal and the Danish skeletons and the ancestral ghosts from Hugh the Crusader down to the hero of the knee-caps and mittens; and there shall be a dance of death and a song, and the burden shall be—

As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods: They kill us for their sport.'

Misery had made me a maniac at last; my brain swam, and the head of the woman seemed to be growing before me—seemed once more to be transfigured before me into a monstrous mountainous representation of an awful mockery-goddess and columbine-queen, down whose merry wrinkles were flowing tears that were at once tears of Olympian laughter and tears of the oceanic misery of Man.

'Well, you are a rum un, and no mistake,' said the woman. 'But who the dickens are you? That's what licks me. Who the dickens are you? Howsomever, if you'll fork out another quid, the Queen of the Jokes'll tell you some'ink to your awantage, an' if you won't fork out the Queen o' the Jokes is mum.'

I stood and looked at her—looked till the street seemed to heave under my feet and the houses to rock. After this I seem to have wandered back to Wilderspin's studio, and there to have sunk down unconscious.



XII

THE REVOLVING CAGE OF CIRCUMSTANCE

I

I will not trouble the reader with details of the illness that came upon me as the result of my mental agony and physical exhaustion. At intervals I was aware of what was going on around me, but for the most part I was in a semi-comatose state. I realised at intervals that a medical man was sitting by my side, as I lay in bed. Then I had a sense of being moved from place to place; and then of being rocked by the waves. Slowly the periods of consciousness became more frequent and also more prolonged.

My first exclamation was—'Dead! Have I been ill?' and I tried to raise myself in vain.

'Yes, very ill,' said a voice, my mother's.

'Dangerously?'

'For several days you were in danger. Your recovery now entirely depends upon your keeping yourself calm.'

'I am out at sea?'

'Yes,' said my mother; 'in Lord Sleaford's yacht.'

'How did I come here?'

'Well, Henry, I was so anxious to wait for a day or two to learn the sequel of the dreadful tragedy, that I persuaded Lord Sleaford to delay sailing. Next day he called at Belgrave Square, and told us he had heard that you had been taken suddenly ill and were lying unconscious at the studio. I went at once and saw the medical man, Mr. Finch, whom Mr. Wilderspin had called in. This gentleman took a serious view of your case. When I asked him what could be done he said that nothing would benefit you so much as removal from London, and recommended a sea voyage. It occurred to me at once to ask Lord Sleaford if we might take you in his yacht, and he with his usual good-nature agreed, and agreed also that Mr. Finch should accompany us as your medical attendant.'

'You know all?' I said; 'you know that she is dead.'

'Alas! yes.'

At that moment the doctor came into the cabin, and my mother retired.

'When did you last see Wilderspin?' I asked Mr. Finch.

'Before leaving England to join a friend in Paris he went to Belgrave Square to get tidings of you, and I was there.'

'He told you—what had occurred to make me ill?'

'He told me that it was the death of some one in whom you took an interest, a model of his, but told it in such a wild and excited way that I lost patience with him. His addled brains are crammed with the wildest and most ignorant superstitions.'

'Did you ask him about her burial?'

'I did. I gathered from him that she was buried by the parish in the usual way. But I assure you the man's account of everything that occurred was so bewildered and so incoherent that I could really make nothing out of him. What is his creed? Is it Swedenborgianism? He seems to think that the model he has lost is a spirit (or spiritual body, to use his own jargon) sent to him by the artistic-minded spirits for entirely artistic purposes, but snatched from him now by the mean jealousy of the same spirit-world.' 'But what did he say about her burial?' 'Well, he seems not to have ignored so completely the mundane question of burying this spiritual body as his creed would have warranted, for he gave the mother money to bury it. The mother, however, seems to have spent the money in gin and to have left the duty of burying the spiritual body to the parish, who make short work of all bodies; and, of course, by the parish she was buried, you may rest assured of that, though the artist seems to think that she was simply translated to heaven like Elijah.'

'I must return to England at once,' I said. 'I shall apply to the Home Secretary to have the body disinterred.'

'Why, sir?'

'In order that she may be buried in a proper place, to be sure.'

'No use. You have no locus standi.'

'What do you mean?'

'You are not a relative, and to ask for a disinterment for such an unimportant reason as that you, a stranger, would prefer to see her buried elsewhere, would be idle.'

Sleaford now came into the cabin. I thanked him for his kindness, but told him I must return at once.

'Even if your health permitted,' he said, 'it is impossible for the yacht to go back. I have an appointment to meet a yachting friend. But in any case depend upon it, old fellow, the doctor won't hear of your returning for a long while yet. He told me not five minutes ago that nothing but sea air, and keeping your mind tranquil, you know, will restore you.'

The feeling of exhaustion that came upon me as he spoke convinced me that there was only too much truth in his words. I felt that I must yield to the inevitable; but as to tranquillity of mind, my entire being was now filled with a yearning to see the New North Cemetery—to see her grave. I seemed to long for the very pang which I knew the sight of the grave would give me.

It is of course impossible for me to linger over that cruise, or to record any of the incidents that took place at the ports at which we touched and landed. My recovery, or rather my partial recovery, was slower than the doctor had anticipated. Weeks and months passed, and still there seemed but little improvement in me.

The result was that I was obliged to yield to the importunities of my mother, and to the urgent advice of Dr. Finch, to remain on board Sleaford's yacht during the entire cruise, and afterwards to go with them to Italy.

Absence from England gave me not the smallest respite from the grief that was destroying me.

My parting with my mother was a very pathetic one. She was greatly changed, and I knew why. The furrows Time sets on the face can never be mistaken for those which are caused by the passions. The struggle between pride and remorse had been going on apace; her sufferings had been as great as my own.

It was in Rome we parted. We were sitting in the cool, perfumed atmosphere of St. Peter's, and for the moment a soothing wave seemed to pass over my soul. For some little time there had been silence between us. At length I said, 'Mother, it seems strange indeed for me to have to say to you that you blame yourself too much for the part you took in the tragedy of Winnie. When you sent her into Wales you didn't know that her aunt was dead; you did it, as you thought, for her good as well as for mine.'

She rose as if to embrace me, and then sank down again.

'But you don't know all, Henry; you don't know all. I knew her aunt was dead, though Shales did not, or he would never have taken her. All that concerned me was to get her away before your own recovery. I thought there might be relatives of hers or friends whom Shales might find. But I was possessed by a frenzied desire to get her away. For years my eyes had been fixed on the earldom. I had been told by your aunt that Cyril was consumptive, and also that he was very unlikely to marry.'

I could not suppress a little laugh. 'Ha, ha! Cyril consumptive! No man's stronger and sounder, I am glad to tell you; but if by ill-chance he should die and the title should come to me, then, mother, I'll wear the coronet, and it shall be made of the best gingerbread gilt and ornamented thus. I'll give public lectures on the British aristocracy and its origin, and its present relations to the community, and my audience shall consist of society—that society which is so much to aunt and the likes of her. Society shall be my audience, and then, after my course of lectures is over, I will join the Gypsies. But pray pardon me, mother. I had no idea I should thus lose my temper. I should not have lost it so entirely had I not witnessed how you are suffering from the tyranny of this blatant bugbear called "Society."'

'My suffering, Henry, has brought me nearer to your line of thought than you may suppose. It has taught me that when the affections are deeply touched everything which before had seemed so momentous stands out in a new light, that light in which the insignificance of the important stands revealed. In that terrible conflict between you and me on the night following the landslip, you spoke of my "cruel pride." Oh, Henry, if you only knew how that cruel pride had been wiped out of existence by remorse, I believe that even you would forgive me. I believe that even she would if she were here.'

'I told you that I had entirely forgiven you, mother, and that I was sure Winnie would forgive you if she were alive.'

'You did, Henry, but it did not satisfy me; I felt that you did not know all.'

'I fear you have been very unhappy,' I said.

'I have been constantly thinking of Winifred a beggar in the streets as described by Wilderspin. Oh, Henry, I used to think of her in the charge of that woman. And Miss Dalrymple, who educated her, tells me that in culture she was far above the girls of her own class; and this makes the degradation into which she was forced through me the more dreadful for me to think of. I used to think of her dying in the squalid den, and then the Italian sunshine has seemed darker than a London fog. Even the comfort that your kind words gave me was incomplete, for you did not know the worst features of my cruelty.'

'But have you had no respite, mother? Surely the intensity of this pain did not last, or it would have killed you.'

'The crisis did pass, for, as you say, had it lasted in its most intense form, it would have killed me or sent me mad. After a while, though remorse was always with me, I seemed to become in some degree numbed against its sting. I could bear at last to live, but that was all. Yet there was always one hour out of the twenty-four when I was overmastered by pathetic memories, such as nearly killed me with pity—one hour when, in a sudden and irresistible storm, grief would still come upon me with almost its old power. This was on awaking in the early morning. I learnt then that if there is trouble at the founts of life, there is nothing which stirs that trouble like the twitter of the birds at dawn. At Florence, I would, after spending the day in wandering with you through picture galleries or about those lovely spots near Fiesole, go to bed at night tolerably calm; I would sink into a sleep, haunted no longer by those dreams of the tragedy in which my part had been so cruel, and yet the very act of waking in the morning would bring upon me a whirlwind of anguish; and then would come the struggling light at the window, and the twitter of the birds that seemed to say, "Poor child, poor child!" and I would bury my face in my pillow and moan.'

When I looked in her face, I realised for the first time that not even such a passion of pity as that which had aged me is so cruel in its ravages as Remorse. To gaze at her was so painful that I turned my eyes away.

When I could speak I said,

'I have forgiven you from the bottom of my heart, mother, but, if that does not give you comfort, is there anything that will?'

'Nothing, Henry, nothing but what is impossible for me ever to get—the forgiveness of the wronged child herself. That I can never get in this world. I dare only hope that by prayers and tears I may get it in the end. Oh, Henry, if I were in heaven I could never rest until I had sought her out, and found her and thrown myself on her neck and said, "Forgive your persecutor, my dear, or this is no place for me."'

II

As soon as I reached London, thinking that Wilderspin was still on the Continent, I went first to D'Arcy's studio, but was there told that D'Arcy was away—that he had been in the country for a long time, busy painting, and would not return for some months. I then went to Wilderspin's studio, and found, to my surprise and relief, that he and Cyril had returned from Paris. I learnt from the servant that Wilderspin had just gone to call on Cyril; accordingly to Cyril's studio I went.

'He is engaged with the Gypsy-model, sir,' said Cyril's man, pointing to the studio door, which was ajar. 'He told me that if ever you should call you were to be admitted at once. Mr. Wilderspin is there too.'

'You need not announce me,' I said, as I pushed open the door.

Entering the studio, I found myself behind a tall easel where Cyril was at work. I was concealed from him, and also from Wilderspin and Sinfi. On my left stood Cyril's caricature of Wilderspin's 'Faith and Love,' upon which the light from a window was falling aslant!

Before I could pass round the easel into the open space I was arrested by overhearing a conversation between Cyril, Sinfi, and Wilderspin.

They were talking about her!

With my eyes fixed on Cyril's caricature on my left hand; I stood, every nerve in my body seeming to listen to the talk, while the veil of the goddess-queen in the caricature appeared to become illuminated; the tragedy of our love (from the spectacle of her father's dead body shining in the moonlight, with a cross on his breast, down to the hideous-grotesque scene of the woman at the corner of Essex Street) appeared to be represented on the veil of the mocking queen in little pictures of scorching flame. These are the words I heard:

'Keep your head in that position, Lady Sinfi,' said Cyril, 'and pray do not get so excited.'

'I thought I felt the Swimmin' Rei in the room,' said Sinfi.

'What do you mean?'

'I thought I felt the stir of him in my burk [bosom]. Howsomever, it must ha' bin all a fancy o' mine. But you see, Mr. Cyril, she wur once a friend o' mine. I want to know what skeared her? If it was her as set for the pictur, she'd never 'a' had the fit if she hadn't, 'a' bin skeared. I s'pose Mr. Wilderspin didn't go an' say the word "feyther" to her? I s'pose he didn't go an' ax her who her feyther was?'

I heard Wilderspin's voice say. 'No, indeed. I would never have asked who her father was. Ah, Mr. Cyril, I knew how mysteriously she had come to me; why should I ask who was her father? Her earthly parentage was not an illusion. But you will remember that I was not in the studio at the time of the fit. Mr. Ebury had called about a commission, and I had gone into the next room to speak to him. You came into the studio at the time, Mr. Cyril. When I returned, I found her in the fit, and you standing over her.'

'No, don't get up, Sinfi, my girl,' I heard Cyril say. 'Sit down quietly, and I will tell you what, passed. There is no doubt I did ask her about her father, poor thing; but I did it with the best intentions—did it for her good, as I thought—did it to learn whether she had been kidnapped, and certainly not from idle curiosity.'

'Scepticism, the curse of the age,' said Wilderspin.

I heard Cyril say, 'Who could have thought it would turn out so? But you yourself had told me, Wilderspin, of Mother Gudgeon's injunction not to ask the girl who her father was, and of course it had upon me the opposite effect the funny hag had intended it to have upon you. It was hard to believe that such a flower could have sprung from such a root. I thought it very likely that the woman had told you this to prevent your getting at the truth about their connection; so I decided to question the model myself, but determined to wait till you had had a good number of sittings, lest there should come a quarrel with the woman.'

'Well, an' so you asked her?' said Sinfi.

'I thought the moment had come for me to try to read the puzzle,' said Cyril. 'So, on that day when Ebury called, when you, Wilderspin, had left us together, I walked up to her and said, "Is your father alive?"'

'Ah!' cried Sinfi, 'it was as I thought. It was the word "feyther" as killed her! An' what'll become o' him?'

'The word "father" seemed to shoot into her like a bullet,' said Cyril. 'She shrieked "Father," and her face looked—'

'No, don't, tell me how she looked!' said Sinfi. 'Mr. Wilderspin's pictur' o' the witch and the lady shows how she looked—whoever she was. But if it was Winnie Wynne. what'll become o' him?'

Then I heard. Cyril address Wilderspin again. 'We had great difficulty, you remember, Wilderspin, in bringing her round, and afterwards I took her out of the house, put her into a cab, and you directed your servant whither to take her.'

'It was scepticism that ruined all.' I heard Wilderspin say.

'And yet,' said Sinfi, 'the Golden Hand on Snowdon told as he'd marry Winifred Wynne. Ah! surely the Swimmin' Rei is in the room! I thought I heard that choke come in his throat as comes when he frets about Winnie. Howsomever, I s'pose it must ha' bin all a fancy o' mine.'

'You make me laugh, Sinfi, about this golden hand of yours that is stronger than the hand of Death,' said Cyril; 'and yet I wish from my heart I could believe it.'

'My poor mammy used to say, "The Gorgios believes when they ought to disbelieve, and they disbelieve when they ought to believe, and that gives the Romanies a chance."'

'Sinfi Lovell,' said Wilderspin, 'that saying of your mother's touches at the very root of romantic art.'

'Well, if Gorgios don't believe enough, Sinfi,—if there is not enough superstition among certain Gorgio acquaintances of mine, it's a pity,' said Cyril.

'I don't know what you are a-talkin' about with your romantic art an' sich like, but I do know that nothink can't go ag'in the dukkeripen o' the clouds; but if I was on Snowdon with my crwth I could soon tell for sartin whether she's alive or dead,' said Sinfi.

'And how?' said Cyril.

'How? By playin' on the hills the old Welsh dukkerin' tune [Footnote 1] as she was so fond on. If she was dead, she wouldn't hear it, but if she was alive she would, and her livin' mullo [Footnote 2] 'ud come to it,' said Sinfi.

[Footnote 1: Incantation song.]

[Footnote 2: Wraith or fetch.]

'Do you believe that possible?' said Cyril, turning to Wilderspin.

'My friend,' said Wilderspin, 'I was at that moment repeating to myself certain wise and pregnant words quoted from an Oriental book by the great Philip Aylwin—words which tell us that he is too bold who dares say what he will believe, what disbelieve, not knowing in any wise the mind of God—not knowing in any wise his own heart and what it shall one day suffer.'

'But,' said Sinfi, 'about her as sat to Mr. Wilderspin; did she never talk at all, Mr. Cyril?'

'Never; but I saw her only three times,' said Cyril.

'Mr. Wilderspin,' said Sinfi, 'did she never talk?'

'Only once, and that was when the woman addressed her as Winifred. That name set me thinking about the famous Welsh saint and those wonderful miracles of hers, and I muttered "St. Winifred." The face of the model immediately grew bright with a new light, and she spoke the only words I ever heard her speak.'

'You never told me of this,' said Cyril.

'She stooped,' said Wilderspin, 'and went through a strange kind of movement, as though she were dipping water from a well, and said, "Please, good St. Winifred, bless the holy water and make it cure—"'

'Ah, for God's sake stop!' cried Sinfi. 'Look! the Swimmin' Rei! He's in the room! There he stan's, and he's a-hearin' every word, an' it'll kill him outright!'

I stared at Cyril's picture of Leaena for which Sinfi was sitting. I heard her say,

'There ain't nothink so cruel as seein' him take on like that; I've seed it afore, many's the time, in old Wales. You'll find her yit. The dukkeripen says you'll marry her yit, and you will. She can't be dead when the sun and the golden clouds say you'll marry her at last. Her as is dead must ha' been somebody else.'

'Sinfi, you know there is no hope.'

'It might not ha' bin your Winnie, arter all,' said she. 'It might ha' bin some poor innocent as her feyther used to beat. It's wonderful how cruel Gorgio feythers is to poor born naterals. And she might ha' heerd in London about St. Winifred's Well a-curin' people.'

'Sinfi,' I said, 'you know there is no hope. And I have no friend but you now—I am going back to the Romanies.'

'No, no, brother,' she said, 'never no more.'

She put on her shawl. I rose mechanically. When she bade Cyril and Wilderspin good-bye and passed out of the studio, I did so too. In the street she stood and looked wistfully at me, as though she saw me through a mist, and then bade me good-bye, saying that she must go to Kingston Vale where her people were encamped in a hired field. We separated, and I wandered I knew not whither.

III

I found myself inquiring for the New North Cemetery, and after a time I stood looking through the bars of tall iron gates at long lines of gravestones and dreary hillocks before me. Then I went in, walking straight over the grass towards a gravedigger digging in the sunshine. He looked at me, resting his foot on his spade.

'I want to find a grave.'

'What part was the party buried in?'

'The pauper part,' I said.

'Oh,' said he, losing suddenly his respectful tone. 'When was she buried? I suppose it was a she by the look o' you.'

'When? I don't know the date.'

'Rather a wide order that, but there's the pauper part.' And he pointed to a spot at some little distance, where there were no gravestones and no shrubs. I walked across to this Desert of Poverty, which seemed too cheerless for a place of rest. I stood and gazed at the mounds till the black coffins underneath grew upon my mental vision, and seemed to press upon my brain. Thoughts I had none, only a sense of being another person.

The man came slowly towards me, and then looked meditatively into my face. I shall never forget him. A tall, sallow, emaciated man he was, with cheek-bones high and sharp as an American Indian's, and straight black hair. He looked like a wooden image of Mephistopheles, carved with a jack-knife.

'Who are you?' The words seemed to come, not from the gravedigger's mouth, but from those piles of lamp-blacked coffins which were searing my eyes through four feet of graveyard earth. By the fever-fires in my brain I seemed to see the very faces of the corpses.

'Who am I?' I said to myself, as I thought, but evidently aloud; 'I am the Fool of Superstition. I am Fenella Stanley's Fool, and Sinfi Lovell's Fool, and Philip Aylwin's Fool, who went and averted a curse from one of the heads resting down here, averted a curse by burying a jewel in a dead man's tomb.'

'Not in this cemetery, so none o' your gammon,' said the gravedigger, who had overheard me. 'The on'y people as is fools enough to bury jewels with dead bodies is the Gypsies, and they take precious good care, as I know, to keep it mum where they bury 'em. There's bin as much diggin' for them thousand guineas as was buried with Jerry Chilcott in Foxleigh Parish, where I was born, as would more nor pay for emptying a gold mine; but I never heard o' Christian folk a-buryin' jewels. But who are you?'

I felt a hand upon my shoulder, and looking round, I found Sinfi by my side.

'Does he belong to you, my gal?'

'Yis,' said Sinfi, with a strange, deep ring in her rich contralto voice. 'Yis, he belongs to me now—leastways he's my pal now—whatever comes on it.'

'Then take him away, my wench. What's the matter with him? The old complaint, I s'pose,' he added, lifting his hand to his mouth as though drinking from a glass.

Sinfi gently put out her hand and brushed the man aside.

'I've bin a-followin' on you all the way, brother,' said Sinfi, as we moved out of the cemetery, 'for your looks skeared me a bit. Let's go away from this place.'

'But whither, Sinfi? I have no friend but you; I have no home.'

'No home, brother? The kairengros [Footnote] has got about everythink, 'cept the sky an' the wind, an' you're one o' the richest kairengros on 'em all—leastways so I wur told t'other day in Kingston Vale. It's the Romanies, brother, as 'ain't got no home 'cept the sky an' the wind. Howsumever, that's nuther here nor there; we'll jist go to the woman they told me on, an' if there's any truth to be torn out of her, out it'll ha' to come, if I ha' to tear out her windpipe with it.'

[Footnote: The house-dwellers.]

We took a cab and were soon in Primrose Court.

The front door was wide open—fastened back. Entering the narrow common passage, we rapped at a dingy inner door. It was opened by a pretty girl, whose thick chestnut hair and eyes to match contrasted richly with the dress she wore—a dirty black dress, with great patches of lining bursting through holes like a whity-brown froth.

'Meg Gudgeon?' said the girl in answer to our inquiries; and at first she looked at us rather suspiciously, 'upstairs, she's very bad—like to die—I'm a-seein' arter 'er. Better let 'er alone; she bites when she's in 'er tantrums.'

'We's friends o' hern,' said Sinfi, whose appearance and decisive voice seemed to reassure the girl.

'Oh, if you're friends that's different,' said she. 'Meg's gone off 'er 'ead; thinks the p'leace in plain clothes are after 'er.'

We went up the stairs. The girl followed us. When we reached a low door, Sinfi proposed that she should remain outside on the landing, but within ear-shot, as 'the sight o' both on us, all of a suddent, might make the poor body all of a dither if she was very ill.'

The girl then opened the door and went in. I heard the woman's voice say in answer to her,

'Friend? Who is it? Are you sure, Poll, it ain't a copper in plain clothes come about that gal?'

The girl came out, and signalling me to enter, went leisurely downstairs. Leaving Sinfi outside on the landing, I entered the room. There, on a sort of truckle-bed in one corner, I saw the woman. She slowly raised herself up on her elbows to stare at me. I took for granted that she would recognise me at once; but either because she was in drink when I saw her last, or because she had got the idea of a policeman in plain clothes, she did not seem to know me. Then a look of dire alarm broke over her face and she said,

'P'leaceman, I'm as hinicent about that air gal as a new-born babe.'

'Mrs. Gudgeon,' I said, 'I only want you to tell a friend of mine about your daughter.'

'Oh yis! a friend o' yourn! Another or two on ye in plain clothes behind the door, I dessay. An' pray who said the gal wur my darter? What for do you want to put words into the mouth of a hinicent dyin' woman? I comed by 'er 'onest enough. The pore half-starved thing came up to me in Llanbeblig churchyard.'

'Llanbeblig churchyard?' I exclaimed, drawing close up to the bed. 'How came you in Llanbeblig churchyard?' But then I remembered that, according to her own story, she had married a Welshman.

'How did I come in Llanbeblig churchyard?' said the woman in a tone in which irony and fear were strangely mingled. 'Well, p'leaceman, I don't mean to be sarcy: but seein' as all my pore dear 'usband's kith and kin o' the name o' Goodjohn was buried in Llanbeblig churchyard, p'raps you'll be kind enough to let me go there sometimes, an' p'raps be buried there when my time comes.'

'But what took you there?' I said.

'What took me to Llanbeblig churchyard?' exclaimed the woman, whose natural dogged courage seemed to be returning to her. 'What made me leave every fardin' I had in the world with Poll Onion, when we ommust wanted bread, an' go to Carnarvon on Shanks's pony? I sha'n't tell ye. I comed by the gal 'onest enough, an' she never comed to no 'arm through me, less mendin' 'er does for 'er, and bringin' 'er to London, and bein' a mother to 'er, an' givin' 'er a few baskets an' matches to sell is a-doin' 'er any 'arm. An' as to beggin' she would beg, she loved to beg an' say texes.'

'Old kidnapper!' I cried, maddened by the visions that came upon me. 'How do I know that she came to no harm with a wretch like you?'

The woman shrank back upon the pillows in a revival of her terror. 'She never comed to no 'arm, p'leaceman. No, no, she never comed to no 'arm through me. I'd a darter once o' my own, Jenny Gudgeon by name—p'raps you know'd 'er, most o' the coppers did—as was brought up by my sister by marriage at Carnarvon, an' I sent for 'er to London, I did, pl'eaceman—God forgi'e me—an' she went wrong all through me bein' a drinkin' woman an' not seein' arter 'er, just as my son Bob tookt to drink, through me bein' a drinkin' woman an' not seein' arter him. She tookt and went from bad to wuss, bad to wuss; it's my belief as it's allus starvation as drives 'em to it; an' when she wur a-dyin' gal, she sez to me, "Mother," sez she, "I've got the smell o' Welsh vi'lets on me ag'in: I wants to be buried in Llanbeblig churchyard, among the Welsh child'n an' maids, mother. I wants to feel the snowdrops, an' smell the vi'lets, an' the primroses, a-growin' over my 'ead," sez she; "but that can't never be, mother," sez she, a-sobbin' fit to bust; "never, never, for such as me," sez she. An' I know'd what she meant, though she never once blamed me, an' 'er words stuck in my gizzard like a thorn, p'leaceman.'

'But what has all this to do with the girl you kidnapped?'

'Ain't I a-tellin' on ye as fast as I can? When my pore gal dropped off to sleep, I sez to Polly Onion, "Poll," I sez, "to-morrow mornin' I'll pop every-think as ain't popped a'ready, an' I'll leave you the money to see arter 'er, an' I'll start for Carnarvon on Shanks's pony. I knows a good many on the road," sez I, "as won't let Jokin' Meg want for a crust and a sup, an' when I gits to Carnarvon I'll ax 'er aunt to bury 'er (she sells fish, 'er aunt does,"' sez I, "and she's got a pot o' money), an' then I'll see the parson or the sexton or somebody," sez I, "an' I'll tell 'em I've got a darter in London as is goin' to die, a Carnarvon gal by family, an' I'll tell 'im she ain't never bin married, an' then they'll bury 'er where she can smell the primroses and the vi'lets." That's what I sez to Poll Onion, an' then Poll she begins to pipe, an' sez, "Oh Meg, Meg, ain't I a Carnarvon gal too? The likes o' us ain't a-goin' to grow no vi'lets an' snowdrops in Llanbeblig churchyard." An' I sez to her, "What a d—d fool you are, Poll! You never 'adn't a gal as went wrong through you a-drinkin', else you'd never say that. If the parson sez to me, 'Is your darter a vargin-maid?' d'ye think I shall say, 'Oh no, parson'? I'll swear she is a vargin-maid on all the Bibles in all the churches in Wales." That's jis' what I sez to Polly Onion, God forgi'e me. An' Poll sez, "The parson'll be sure to send you to hell, Meg, if you do that air." An' I sez, "So he may, then, but I shall do it, no fear." That's what I sez to Poll Onion (she's downstairs at this werry moment a-warmin' me a drop o' beer); it was 'er as showed you upstairs, cuss 'er for a fool; an' she can tell you the same thing as I'm a-tellin' on you.'

'But what about her you kidnapped? Tell me all about it, or it will be worse for you.'

'Ain't I a-tellin' you as fast as I can? Off to Carnarvon I goes, an' every futt o' the way I walks—Lor' bless your soul, there worn't a better pair o' pins nowheres than Meg Gudgeon's then, afore the water got in 'em an' bust 'em; an' I got to Llanbeblig churchyard early one mornin', and there I seed the pore half-sharp gal. So you see I comed by 'er 'onest enough, p'leaceman, though she worn't ezzackly my own darter.'

'Well, well,' I said; 'go on.'

'Yes, it's all very well to say "go on," p'leaceman; but if you'd got as much water in your legs as I've got in mine, an' if you'd got no more wind in your bellows than I've got in mine, you'd find it none so easy to go on.'

'What was she doing in the churchyard?'

'Well, p'leaceman, I'm tellin' you the truth, s'elp me Bob! I was a-lookin' over the graves to see if I could find a nice comfortable place for my pore gal, an' all at once I heered a kind o' sobbin' as would a' made me die o' fright if it 'adn't a' bin broad daylight, an' then I see a gal a-layin' flat on a grave an' cryin', an' when I got up to her I seed as she wur covered with mud, an' I seed as she wur a-starvin'.'

'Good God, woman, you are lying! you are lying!'

'No, I ain't a-lyin'. She tookt to me the moment she clapped eyes on me; most people does, and them as don't ought, an' she got up an' put her arms round my neck, and she called me "Knocker."'

'Called you what?'

'Ain't I a-tellin' you? She called me "Knocker"; and that's the very name as she allus called me up to the day of 'er death, pore dear! I tried to make 'er come along o' me, an' she wouldn't stir, an' so I left 'er, meanin' to go back; but when I got to my sister's by marriage, there was a letter for me an' it wur from Polly Onion, a-sayin' as my pore Jenny died the same day as I left London, a-sayin', "Mother, vi'lets, vi'lets; mother, vi'lets, vi'lets!" an' was buried by the parish. An' that upset me, p'leaceman, an' made me swownd, an' when I comed to, I couldn't hear nothink only my pore Jenny's voice a-sobbin' on the wind, "Mother, vi'lets, vi'lets; mother, vi'lets, vi'lets!" an' that sent me off my 'ead a bit, an' I run out o' the 'ouse, an' there was Jenny's voice a-goin' on before me a-sobbin', "Mother, vi'lets, vi'lets; mother, vi'lets, vi'lets!" an' it seemed to lead me back to the churchyard; an' lo an' be'old! there was the pore half-starved creatur' a-settin' there jist as I'd left 'er, an' I sez, "God bless you, my gal, you're a-starvin'!" an' she jumped up, an' she comed an' throwed 'er arms round my waist, an' there we stood both on us a-cryin' togither, an' then I runned back into Carnarvon, an' fetched 'er some grub, an' she tucked into the grub.—But hullo! p'leaceman, what's up now? What the devil are you a-squeedgin' my 'and like that for? Are you a-goin' to kiss it? It ain't none so clean, p'leaceman. You're the rummest copper in plain clothes ever I seed in all my born days. Fust you seem as if you want to bite me, you looks so savage, an' then you looks as if you wants to kiss me; you'll make me laugh, I know you will, an' that'll make me cough.—Hi! Poll Onion, come 'ere. Bring my best lookin'-glass out o' my bowdore, an' let me look at my ole chops, for I'm blowed if there ain't a copper in plain clothes this time as is fell 'ead over ears in love with me, jist as the young swell did at the studero.'

'Go on, Mrs. Gudgeon,' I said; 'go on. She ate the food?'

'Oh, didn't she jist! And the pore half-sharp thing took to me, an' I took to she, an' I thinks to myself, "She's a purty gal, if she's ever so stupid, an' she'll get 'er livin' a-sellin' flowers o' fine days, an' a-doin' the rainy-night dodge with baskets when it's wet "; an' so I took 'er in, an' in the street she'd all of a suddent bust out a-singin' songs about Snowdon an' sich like, just as if she was a-singin' in a dream, and folk used to like to 'ear 'er an' gev 'er money; an' I was a good mother to 'er, I was, an' them as sez I worn't is cussed liars.'

'And she never came to any harm?' I said, holding the great muscular hands between my two palms, unwilling to let them go. 'She never came to any harm?'

'Ain't I said so more nor wunst? I swore on the Bible—there's the very Bible, under the match-box, agin the winder—on that very Bible I swore as my port Jenny brought from Wales, an' as I've never popped yit that this pore half-sharp gal should never go wrong through me; an' then, arter I swore that, my pore Jenny let me alone, an' I never 'eard 'er v'ice no more a-cryin'. "Mother, vi'lets, vi'lets; mother, vi'lets, vi'lets!" An' many's the chap as 'as come leerin' after 'er as I've sent away with a flea in 'is ear. Cuss 'em all; they's all bad alike about purty gals, men is. She's never comed to no wrong through me. Didn't I ammost kill a real sailor capting when I used to live in the East End 'cause he tried to meddle with 'er? An' worn't that the reason why I left my 'um close to Radcliffe 'Ighway an' comed 'ere? Them as killed 'er wur the cussed lot in the studeros. I'm a dyin' woman; I'm as hinicent as a new-born babe. An' there ain't nothink o' 'ern in this room on'y a pair o' ole shoes an' a few rags in that ole trunk under the winder.'

I went to the trunk and raised the lid. The tattered, stained remains of the very dress she wore when I last saw her in the mist on Snowdon! But what else? Pushed into an old worn shoe, which with its fellow lay tossed among the ragged clothes, was a brown stained letter. I took it out. It was addressed to 'Miss Winifred Wynne at Mrs. Davies's.' Part of the envelope was torn away. It bore the Graylingham post-mark, and its superscription was in a hand which I did not recognise, and yet it was a hand which seemed half-familiar to me. I opened it; I read a line or two before I fully realised what it was—the letter, full of childish prattle, which I had written to Winifred when I was a little boy—the first letter I wrote to her.

I forgot where I was, I forgot that Sinfi was standing outside the door, till I heard the woman's voice exclaiming, 'What do you want to set on my bed an' look at me like that for?—you ain't no p'leaceman in plain clothes, so none o' your larks. Git off o' my bed, will ye? You'll be a-settin' on my bad leg an' a-bustin' on it in a minit. Git off my bed, else look another way; them eyes o' yourn skear me.'

I was sitting on the side of her bed and looking into her face. 'Where did you get this?' I said, holding out the letter.

'You skears me, a-lookin' like that,' said she. 'I comed by it 'onest. One day when she was asleep, I was turnin' over 'er clothes to see how much longer they would hold together, when I feels a somethink 'ard sewed up in the breast; I rips it open, and it was that letter. I didn't put it back in the frock ag'in, 'cause I thought it might be useful some day in findin' out who she was. She never missed it. I don't think she'd 'ave missed anythink, she wur so oncommon silly. You ain't a-goin' to pocket it, air you?'

I had put the letter in my pocket, and had seized the shoes and was going out of the room; but I stopped, took a sovereign from my purse, placed it in an envelope bearing my own address which I chanced to find in my pocket, and, putting it into her hand, I said, 'Here is my address and here is a sovereign. I will tell your friend below to come for me or send whenever you need assistance.' The woman clutched at the money with greed, and I left the room, signalling to Sinfi (who stood on the landing, pale and deeply moved) to follow me downstairs. When we reached the wretched room on the ground-floor we found the girl hanging some wet rags on lines that were stretched from wall to wall.

'What is your name?' I said.

'Polly Unwin,' replied she, turning round with a piece of damp linen in her hand.

'And what are you?'

'What am I?'

'I mean what do you do for a living?'

'What do I do for a living?' she said. 'All kinds of things—help the men at the barrows in the New Cut sell flowers, do anything that comes in my way.'

'Never mind what she does for a livin', brother,' said Sinfi; 'give her a gold balanser or two, and tell her to see arter the woman.'

'Here is some money,' I said to the girl. 'See that Mrs. Gudgeon upstairs wants for nothing. Is that story of hers true about her daughter and Llanbeblig churchyard?'

'That's true enough, though she's a wunner at a lie: that's true enough.'

But as I spoke I heard a noise like the laugh or the shriek of a maniac. It seemed to come from upstairs.

'She's a-larfin' ag'in,' said the girl. 'It's a very wicked larf, sir, ain't it? But there's wuss uns nor Meg Gudgeon for all 'er wicked larf, as I knows. Many a time she's kep' me from starvin'. I mus' run up an' see 'er. She'll kill herself a-larfin' yit.'

The girl hurried upstairs and I followed her, leaving Sinfi below. I re-entered the bedroom. There was the woman, her face buried in the pillow, rocking and rolling her body half round with the regularity of a pendulum. Between the peals of half-smothered hysterical laughter that came from her, I could hear her say:

'Dear Lord Jesus, don't forget to love dear Henry who can't git up the gangways without me.'

The words seemed to fall upon my heart like a rain of molten metal dropping from the merciless and mocking skies. But I had ceased to wonder at the cruelty of Fate. The girl went to her and shook her angrily. This seemed to allay her hysterics, for she rolled round upon her back and stared at us. Then she looked at the envelope clutched in her hand, and read out the address,

'Henry, Henry, Henry Halywin, Eskeuer! An' I tookt 'im for a copper in plain clothes all the while! Henry, Henry, Henry Halywin, Eskeuer! I shall die a-larfin', I know I shall! I shall die a-larfin', I know I shall! Poll! don't you mind me a-tellin' you about my pore darter Winifred—for my darter she was, as I'll swear afore all the beaks in London—don't you mind me a-sayin' that if she wouldn't talk when she wur awake, she could mag away fast enough when she wur asleep; an' it were allus the same mag about dear little Henry, an' dear Henry Halywin as couldn't git up the gangways without 'er. Well, pore dear Henry was 'er sweet'airt, an' this is the chap, an' if my eyes ain't stun blind, the werry chap out o' the cussed studeros as killed 'er, pore dear, an' as is a-skearin' me away from my beautiful 'um in Primrose Court; an' 'ere wur I a-talkin' to 'im all of a muck sweat, thinkin' he wur a copper in plain clothes!'

At this moment Sinfi entered the room. She came up to me, and laying her hand upon my shoulder she said: 'Come away, brother, this is cruel hard for you to bear. It's our poor sister Winifred as is dead, and it ain't nobody else.'

The effect of Sinfi's appearance and of her words upon the woman was like that of an electric shock. She sat up in her bed open-mouthed, staring from Sinfi to me, and from me to Sinfi.

'So my darter Winifred's your sister now, is she?' (turning to me). 'A few minutes ago she was your sweet'airt: an' now she seems to ha' bin your sister. An' she was your sister, too, was she?' (turning to Sinfi). 'Well, all I know is, that she was my darter, Winifred Gudgeon, as is dead, an' buried in the New North Cemetery, pore dear; an' yet she was sister to both on ye!'

She then buried her face again in the pillows and resumed the rocking movement, shrieking between her peals of laughter: 'Well, if I'm the mother of a six-fut Gypsy gal an' a black-eyed chap as seems jest atween a Gypsy and a Christian, I never knowed that afore. No, I never knowed that afore! I allus said I should die a-larfin', an' so I shall; I'm a-dyin' now—ha! ha! ha!'

She fell back upon the pillow, exhausted by her own cruel merriment.

'She always said she'd die a-larfin', an' she will, too—more nor I shall ever do,' said the girl, after we had gone downstairs.

'Did you notice what she said about Winnie a-callin' her Knocker?' said Sinfi.

'Yes, and couldn't understand it.'

'I know what it meant. Winnie knowed all about the Knockers of Snowdon, the dwarfs o' the copper mine, and this woman, bein' so thick and short, must look ezackly like a Knocker, I should say, if you could see one.'

I said to the girl, 'Was she really kind to—to—'

'To her you were asking about,—the Essex Street Beauty? I should think she just was. She's a drinker, is poor Meg, and drinking in Primrose Court means starvation. Meg and the Beauty were often short enough of grub, but, drunk or sober, Meg would never touch a mouthful till the Beauty had had her fill. I noticed it many a time—not a mouthful. When Meg was obliged to send her into the streets to sell things she was always afraid that the Beauty might come to harm through the toffs and the chaps. The toffs were the worst looking after her—as they mostly are—so I was always watching her in the day-time, and at night Meg was always watching her, and that was what made me know your face, as soon as ever I clapt eyes on it.'

'Why, what do you mean?'

'Well, one rainy night when I was standing by the theatre door, I heard a toff ask a policeman about the Essex Street Beauty, and I thought I knew what that meant very well. So I ran off to find Meg. I had seen her watching the Beauty all the time. But lo and behold! Meg was gone and the Beauty too. So I run across here, and found Meg and the Beauty getting their supper as quiet as possible. Meg had heard the toff talking to the policeman—though I didn't know she was standing so near—and whisked her off and away as quick as lightning.'

'That was I,' I said. 'God! God! If I had only known!'

'There's the same look now on your face as there was then, and I should know it among ten thousand.'

'Polly Onion,' I said, 'there is my address, and if ever you want a friend, and if you are in trouble, you will know where to find assistance,' and I gave her another sovereign.

'You're a good sort,' said she, 'and no mistake.'

'Good-bye,' I said, shaking her hand. 'See well after Mrs. Gudgeon.'

'All right,' said she, and a smile broke over her face. 'I think I ought to tell you now,' she continued, 'that Meg's no more ill of dropsy than I am; she could walk twenty miles off the reel; there ain't a bullock in England half as strong as Meg; she's shamming.'

'Shamming, but why?'

'Well, she ain't drunk; ever since the Beauty died she's never touched a drop o' gin. But she's turned quite cranky. She's got it into her head that the relations of the Beauty are going to send her to prison for kidnapping; and she thinks that every one that comes near her is a policeman in plain clothes. She's just lying in bed to keep herself out of the way till she starts.'

'Where's she going, then?'

'She talks about going to see after her son Bob in the country; her husband is a Welshman. He's over the water.'

'Did you say she had given up drinking?' I asked.

'Yes; she seemed to dote on the Beauty, and when the Beauty died she said, "My darter went wrong through me drinkin', and my son Bob went wrong through me drinkin'; and I feel somehow that it was through my drinkin' that I lost the Beauty; and never will you find me touch another drop o' gin, Poll. Beer I ain't fond on, and it 'ud take a rare swill o' beer to get up as far as Meg Gudgeon's head."'

'There ain't much fault to be found with a woman like Meg Gudgeon,' said Sinfi. 'Was the Beauty fond o' her? She ought to ha' bin.'

'She used to call her Knocker,' said the girl. 'She seemed very fond of her when they were together, but seemed to forget her as soon as they were apart.'

Sinfi and I then left the house.

In Great Queen Street she took my hand as if to bid me good-bye. But she stood and gazed at me wistfully, and I gazed at her. At last she said,

'An' now, brother, we'll jist go across to Kingston Vale, an' see my daddy, an' set your livin'-waggin to rights.'

'Then, Sinfi,' I said, 'you and I are once more—'

I stopped and looked at her. The fearless young Amazon and seeress, who kept a large family of the Kaulo Camloes in awe, was supposed to have nearly conquered the feminine weakness of tears; but she had not. There was a chink in the Amazon's armour, and I had found it.

'Yis,' said she, nodding her head and smiling. 'You an' me's right pals ag'in.'

As we were going I told her how I had replaced the jewel in the tomb.

'I know'd you would do it. Yis, I heer'd you telling the gravedigger the same thing.'

'And yet,' said I bitterly, 'in spite of that and in spite of the Golden Hand, she is dead.'

Sinfi stood silently looking at me now. Even her prodigious faith seemed conquered.

IV

For a few days I paced with Sinfi over Wimbledon Common and Richmond Park, The weather was now unusually brilliant for the time of year. Sinfi would walk silently by my side.

But I could not rest with the Gypsies. I must be alone. Soon I left the camp and returned to London, where I took a suite of rooms in a house not far from Eaton Square—though to me London was a huge meaningless maze of houses clustered around Primrose Court—that horrid, fascinating, intolerable core of pain. Into my lungs poured the hateful atmosphere of the city where Winifred had perished; poured hot and stifling as sand-blasts of the desert. Impossible to stay there!—for the pavement seemed actually to scorch my feet, like the floor of a fiery furnace. To me the sun above was but the hideous eye of Circumstance which had stared down pitilessly on that bare head of hers, and blistered those feet.

The lamps at night seemed twinkling, blinking in a callous consciousness of my tragedy—my monstrous tragedy of real life, the like of which no poet dare imagine. But what aroused my wrath to an unbearable pitch—what determined me to leave London at once—was the sight of the unsympathetic faces in the streets. Though sympathy could have given me no comfort, the myriad unsympathetic eyes of London infuriated me.

'Died in beggar's rags—died in a hovel!' I muttered with rage as the equipages and coarse splendours of the West End rolled insolently by. 'Died in a hovel!—and this London, this vast, ridiculous, swarming human ant-hill, whose millions of paltry humdrum lives were not worth one breath from those lips—this London spurned her, left her to perish alone in her squalor and misery.'

Cyril and Wilderspin had returned to the Continent. D'Arcy was still away.

I made application to the Home Secretary to have the pauper grave opened. On the ground that I was 'not a relative of the deceased,' the officials refused to institute even preliminary inquiries.

During this time no news of Mrs. Gudgeon had come to me through Polly Onion, and I determined to go to Primrose Court and see what had become of her.

When I reached Primrose Court I found that the shutters of the house were up. Knocking and getting no response, I ascertained from a pot-boy who was passing the corner of the court that Mrs. Gudgeon had decamped. Neither the pot-boy nor any one in the court could tell me whither she was gone.

'But where is Polly Onion?' I asked anxiously; for I was beginning to blame myself bitterly for having neglected them.

'I can tell you where poor Polly is,' said the pot-boy. 'She's in the New North Cemetery. She fell downstairs and broke her neck.'

'Why, she lived downstairs,' I said.

'That's true; you seem to be well up in the family, sir. But Poll couldn't pay her rent, so old Meg took her in. And on the very morning when Meg and Poll were a-startin' off together into the country—it was quite early and dark—Poll stumbles over three young flower-gals as 'ad crep' in the front door in the night time and was makin' the stairs their bed. Gals as hadn't made enough to pay for their night's lodgin' often used to sleep on Meg's stairs. Poll was picked up as nigh dead as a toucher, and she died at the 'ospital.'

Toiling in the revolving cage of Circumstance, I strove in vain against that most appalling form of envy—the envy of one's fellow creatures that they should live and breathe while there is no breath of life for the one.

My uncle Cecil's death had made me a rich man; but what was wealth to me if it could not buy me respite from the vision haunting me day and night—the vision of the attic, the mattress, and the woman?

And as I thought of the powerlessness of wealth to give me one crumb of comfort, and remembered Winnie's sermon about wealth, I would look at myself in the mirror above my mantelpiece and smile bitterly at the sight of the hollow cheeks, furrowed brow, and melancholy eyes, and recall her words about her hovering near me after she was dead.

The thought of my wealth and the squalor in which she had died was, I think, the most maddening thought of all. I had now become the possessor of Wilderspin's picture 'Faith and Love,' having bought it of the Bond Street dealer to whom it belonged; and also of the 'Christabel' picture, and these I was constantly looking at as they hung up on the walls of my room. After a while, however, I destroyed the 'Christabel' picture, it was too painful. Though I would not see such friends as I had, I read their letters; indeed, it was these same letters which alone could draw from me a grim smile now and then.

Almost every letter ended by urging me, in order to flee from my sorrows, to travel! With the typical John Bull travelling seems to be always the panacea. In sorrow, John's herald of peace is Baedeker: the dispenser of John's true nepenthe is Mr. Murray. Pity and love for Winifred pursued me, tortured me nigh unto death, and therefore did these friends of mine seem to suppose that I wanted to flee from my pity and sorrow! Why, to flee from my sorrow, to get free of my pity, to flee from the agonies that went nigh to tearing soul from body, would have been to flee from all that I had left of life—memory.

Did I want to flee from Winnie? Why, memory was Winnie now; and did I want to flee from her? And yet it was memory that was goading me on to the verge of madness. No doubt the reader thinks me a weak creature for allowing the passion of pity to sap my manhood in this fashion. But it was not so much her death as the manner of her death that withered my heart and darkened my soul. The calamities which fell upon her, grievous beyond measure, unparalleled, not to be thought of save with a pallor of cheek and a shudder of the flesh, were ever before me, mocking me—maddening me.

'Died in a hovel!' As I gave voice to this impeachment of Heaven, night after night, wandering up and down the streets, my brain was being scorched and withered by those same thoughts of anger against destiny and most awful revolt which had appalled me when first I saw how the curse of Heaven or the whim of Circumstance had been fulfilled.

Then came that passionate yearning for death, which grief such as mine must needs bring. But if what Materialism teaches were true, suicide would rob me even of my memory of her. If, on the other hand, what I had been taught by the supernaturalism of my ancestors were true, to commit suicide might be but to play finally into the hands of that same unknown pitiless power with whom my love had all along been striving.

'Suicide might sever my soul from hers for ever.' I said, and then the tragedy would seem too monstrously unjust to be true, and I said: 'It cannot be—such things cannot be: it is a hideous dream. She is not dead! She is in Wales with friends at Carnarvon, and I shall awake and laugh at all this imaginary woe!'

And what were now my feelings towards the memory of my father? Can a man cherish in his heart at one and the same moment scorn of another man for believing in the efficacy of a curse, and bitter anger against him for having left a curse behind him? He can! On my return to London after my illness I had sent back to Wilderspin the copy of The Veiled Queen he had lent me. But from the library of Raxton Hall I brought my father's own copy, elaborately bound in the tooled black calf my father affected. The very sight of that black binding now irritated me; never did I pass it without experiencing a sensation that seemed a blending of scorn and fear: scorn of the ancestral superstitions the book gave voice to: fear of them.

One day I took the book from the shelves and then hurled it across the room. Stumbling over it some days after this, a spasm of ungovernable rage came upon me, for terribly was my blood struggling with Fenella Stanley and Philip Aylwin, and thousands of ancestors, Romany and Gorgio, who for ages upon ages had been shaping my destiny. I began to tear out the leaves and throw them on the fire. But suddenly I perceived the leaves to be covered with marginalia in my father's manuscript, and with references to Fenella Stanley's letters—letters which my father seemed to have studied as deeply as though they were the writings of a great philosopher instead of the scribblings of an ignorant Gypsy. My eye had caught certain written words which caused me to clutch at the sheets still burning on the fire. Too late!—I grasped nothing save a little paper-ash. Then I turned to the pages still left in my hand, and read these words of my father's:

'These marginalia are written for the eyes of my dear son, into whose hands this copy of my book will come. Until he gave me his promise to bury the amulet with me, I felt alone in the world. But even he failed to understand what he called "my superstition." He did not know that by perpetually feeling on my bosom the facets of the beloved jewel which had long lain warm upon hers—the cross which had received the last kiss from her lips—I had been able to focus all the scattered rays of thought—I had been able to vitalise memory till it became an actual presence. He did not know that out of my sorrow had been born at last a strange kind of happiness—the happiness that springs from loving a memory—living with a memory—till it becomes a presence—an objective reality. He did not know that, by holding her continually in my thoughts, by means of the amulet, I achieved at last the miracle described by the Hindoo poets—the miracle of reshaping from the undulations of "the three regions of the universe the remembered object by the all-creative magic of love!"'

Then followed some translations from the Kumara-sambhava and other Sanscrit poems, and then the well-known passage in Lucretius about dreams, and then a pathetic account of the visions called up within him by the sensation caused by the lacerations of the facets of the cherished amulet upon his bosom—visions something akin, as I imagine, to those experienced by convulsionnaires. And then after all this learning came references to poor ignorant Fenella Stanley's letters and extracts from them.

In one of these extracts I was startled to come upon the now familiar word 'crwth.'

'De Welch fok ses as de livin mullos only follow the crwth on Snowdon wen it is playde by a Welch Chavi, but dat is all a lie. Dey follows the crwth when a Romany Chi plays it as I nows very wel, but de chavi wot play on the crwth, shee must love the living mullo she want for to come, and de living mullo must love her.'

And then followed my father's comments on the extract.

'N.B.—To see and hear a crwth, if possible, and ascertain the true nature of the vibrations. But there are said to be only a few crwths in existence; and very likely there is no musician who could play upon them.'

Then followed a few sentences written at a later date.

'The crwth is now becoming obsolete; on inquiry I learn that it is a stringed instrument played with a bow like a violin; but as one of the feet of the bridge passes through one of the sound-holes and rests on the inside of the back, the vibrations must be quite unique, if we remember how important a part is played by the back in all instruments of the violin kind. It must be far more subtle than the vibrations of the Welsh harp, and even more subtle (if also more nasal) than those of the violin.

'The reason why music has in all ages been called in to aid in evoking the spirits, the reason why it is as potent now as ever it was in aiding the spirits to manifest themselves, is simple enough: the rhythmic vibrations of music set in active motion the magnetic waves through whose means alone the two worlds, spiritual and material, can hold communication. The quality and the value of these vibrations depend mainly, no doubt, upon the magnetic power, conscious or other, of the musician, but partly also upon the kind of instrument used. The vibrations awakened by stringed instruments have been long known to be more subtle than any others: instruments of the violin kind are of course the most subtle of all. Doubtless this is why among the Welsh hills the old saying used to be "The spirits follow the crwth."'

'Which folly is the more besotted,' I said, as I read and re-read the marginalia—'that of the scholar with his scientific nonsense about vibrations, or that of the ignorant Gypsy with her living mullos drawn through the air by music and love?'

But now my eyes fell upon a very different kind of marginal note which ran thus:—

'The one important fact of the twentieth century will be the growth and development of that great Renascence of Wonder which set in in Europe at the close of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth.

'The warring of the two impulses governing man (and probably not man only, but the entire world of conscious life)—the impulse of acceptance, the impulse to take unchallenged and for granted all the phenomena of the outer world as they are, and the impulse to confront these phenomena with eyes of inquiry and wonder—will occupy all the energies of the next century.

'The old impulse of wonder which came to the human race in its infancy has to come back—has to triumph—before the morning of the final emancipation of man can dawn.

'But the wonder will be exercised in very different fields from those in which it was exercised in the past. The materialism which at this moment seems to most thinkers inseparable from the idea of evolution will go. Against their own intentions certain scientists are showing that the spiritual force called life is the maker and not the creature of organism—is a something outside the material world, a something which uses the material world as a means of phenomenal expression.

'The materialist, with his primitive and confiding belief in the testimony of the senses, is beginning to be left out in the cold, when men like Sir W. R. Grove turn round on him and tell him that "the principle of all certitude" is not and cannot be the testimony of his own senses; that these senses, indeed, are no absolute tests of phenomena at all; that probably man is surrounded by beings he can neither see, feel, hear, nor smell; and that, notwithstanding the excellence of his own eyes, ears, and nose, the universe the materialist is mapping out so deftly is, and must be, monophysical, lightless, colourless, soundless—a phantasmagoric show—a deceptive series of undulations, which become colour, or sound, or what not, according to the organism upon which they fall.'

These words were followed by a sequence of mystical sonnets about "the Omnipotence of Love," which showed, beyond doubt, that if my father was not a scientific thinker, he was, at least, a very original poet. And this made me perplexed as to what could have drawn Wilderspin, who scorned the art of poetry, into the meshes of The Veiled Queen. Perhaps, however, it was because Wilderspin's ancestry was, notwithstanding his English name, largely, if not wholly, Welsh, as I learnt from Cyril. Welshmen, whether sensitive or not to the rhythmic expression of the English language, are almost all, I believe, of the poetic temperament.

But from this moment my mind began to run upon the picture of Fenella Stanley, surrounded by those Snowdonian spirits which her music was supposed to have evoked from the mountain air of the morning.



XIII

THE MAGIC OF SNOWDON

I

In a few days I left London and went to North Wales.

Opposite to me in the railway carriage sat an elderly lady, into whose face I occasionally felt myself to be staring in an unconscious way. But I was merely communing with myself: I was saying to myself, 'My love of North Wales, and especially of Snowdon, is certainly very strong; but it is easily accounted for—it is a matter of temperament. Even had Wales not been associated with Winnie, I still must have dearly loved it. Much has been said about the effect of scenery upon the minds and temperaments of those who are native to it. But temperament is a matter of ancestral conditions: the place of one's birth is an accident. As some, like my cousin Percy, for instance are born with a passion for the sea, and some with a passion for forests, some with a passion for mountains, and some with a passion for rolling plains. The landscape amid which I was born had, no doubt, a charm for me, and could bring to me that nature-ecstacy which I inherited from Fenella Stanley. But with Wales I actually fell in love the moment I set foot in the country. This is why I am hurrying there now.'

And I laughed at myself, and evidently frightened the old lady very much. She did not know that underneath the soul's direst struggle—the struggle of personality with the tyranny of the ancestral blood—there is an awful sense of humour—a laughter (unconquerable, and yet intolerable) at the deepest of all incongruities, the incongruity of Fate's game with man. I apologised to her, and told her that I had been absorbed in reading a droll story, in which a man believed that the Angel of Memory had refashioned for him his dead wife out of his own sorrow and unquenchable fountain of tears.

'What an extraordinary idea!' said the old lady, in the conciliatory tone she would have adopted towards a madman whom she found alone with her in a railway carriage. 'I mean he was very eccentric, wasn't he?'

'Who shall say, madam? "Bold is the donkey-driver and bold the ka'dee who dares say what he will believe, what disbelieve, not knowing in any wise the mind of Allah, not knowing in any wise his own heart and what it shall some day suffer."'

At the next station the old lady left the carriage and entered another, and I was left alone.

My intention was to take up my residence at the cottage where Winifred had lived with her aunt. Indeed, for a few days I did this, taking with me one of the Welsh peasants with whom I had previously made friends. But of course a lengthened stay in such a house was impossible. More than ever now I needed attendance, and good attendance, for I had passed into a strange state of irritability—I had no command over my nerves, which were jarred by the most trifling thing. I went to the hotel at Peri y Gwryd, but there tourists and visitors made life more intolerable still to a man in my condition.

At first I thought of building a house as near to the cottage as possible; but this would take time, and I could not rest out of Wales. I decided at last to have a wooden bungalow built. By telling the builders that time was the first consideration with me, the cost a secondary one, I got a bungalow built in a few weeks. By the tradesmen of Chester I got it fitted up and furnished to my taste with equal rapidity. Attending to this business gave real relief.

When the bungalow was finished I removed into it the picture 'Faith and Love.' I also got in as much painting material as I might want and began to make sketches in the neighbourhood.

Time went on, and there I remained. In a great degree, however, the habit of grieving was conquered by my application to work. My moroseness of temper gradually left me.

Beautiful memories began to take the place of hideous ones—the picture of the mattress and the squalor gave place to pictures of Winifred on the sands of Raxton or on Snowdon. Yet so much of habit is there in grief that even at this time I was subject to recurrent waves of the old pain—waves which were sometimes as overmastering as ever.

I did not neglect the cottage, which was now my property, but kept it in exactly the same state as that in which it had been put by Sinfi after Winnie had wandered back to Wales.

By isolating myself from all society, by surrounding myself with mementos of Winifred, memory really did at last seem to be working a miracle such as was worked for the widowed Ja'afar.

Yet not entirely had memory passed into an objective presence. I seemed to feel Winnie near me; but that was all. I felt that more necessary than anything else in perfecting the atmosphere of memory in which I would live was the society of her in whom alone I had found sympathy—Sinfi Lovell. Did I also remember the wild theories of my father and Fenella Stanley about the crwth? To obtain the company of Sinfi had now become very difficult—her attitude towards me had so changed. When she allowed me to rejoin the Lovells at Kingston Vale she did so under the compulsion of my distress. But my leaving the Gypsies of my own accord left her free from this compulsion. She felt that she had now at last bidden me farewell for ever.

Still, opportunities of seeing her occasionally would, I knew, present themselves, and I now determined to avail myself of these. Panuel Lovell and some of the Boswells were not unfrequently in the neighbourhood, and they were always accompanied by Sinfi and Videy.

II

On a certain occasion, when I learnt that the Lovells were in the neighbourhood, I sought them out. Sinfi at first was extremely shy, or distant, or proud, or scared, and it was not till after one or two interviews that she relaxed. She still was overshadowed by some mysterious feeling towards me that seemed at one moment anger, at another dread. However, I succeeded at last. I persuaded Panuel and his daughters to leave their friends at 'the Place,' and spend a few days with me at the bungalow. Great was the gaping and wide the grinning among the tourists to see me inarching along the Capel Curig road with three Gypsies. But to all human opinion I had become as indifferent as Wilderspin himself.

As we walked along the road, Sinfi slowly warmed into her old self, but Videy, as usual, was silent, preoccupied, and meditative. When we got within sight of the bungalow, however, the lights flashing from the windows made the long low building look very imposing. Pharaoh, the bantam cock which Sinfi was carrying, began to crow, but silence again fell upon Sinfi.

Panuel, when we entered the bungalow, said he was very tired and would like to go to bed. I had perceived by the glossy appearance of his skin (which was of the colour of beeswaxed mahogany) and the benevolent dimple in his check that, although far from being intoxicated, he was 'market-merry'; and as the two sisters also seemed tired, I took the party at once to their bedrooms.

'Dordi! what a gran' room,' said Sinfi, in a hushed voice, as I opened the door of the one allotted to her. 'Don't you mind, Videy, when you an' me fust slep' like two kairengros?' [Footnote]

[Footnote: House-dwellers.]

'No, I don't,' said Videy sharply.

'It was at Llangollen Fair,' continued Sinfi, her frank face beaming like a great child's; 'two little chavies we was then. An' don't you mind, Videy, how we both on us cried when they put us to bed, 'cause we was afeard the ceilin' would fall down on us?'

Videy made no answer, but tossed up her head and looked around to see whether there was a grinning servant within earshot.

'Good-night, Sinfi,' I said, shaking her hand; 'and now, Videy, I will show you your room.'

'Oh, but Videy an' me sleeps togither, don't we?'

'Certainly, if you wish it,' I replied.

'She's afeard o' the "mullos,"' said Videy scornfully, as she went and stood before an old engraved Venetian mirror I had picked up at Chester, admiring her own perfect little figure reflected therein. 'Ever since she's know'd you she's bin afeard o' mullos, and keeps Pharaoh with her o' nights; the mullos never come where there's a crowin' cock.'

I did not look at Sinfi, but bent my eyes upon the mirror, where, several inches above the reflex of Videy's sarcastic face, shone the features of Sinfi, perfectly cut as those of a Greek statue.

'It's the dukkerin' dook [Footnote] as she's afeard on,' said Videy, smiling in the glass till her face seemed one wicked glitter of scarlet lips and pearly teeth. 'An' yit there ain't no dukkerin' dook, an' there ain't no mullos.'

[Footnote: The prophesying ghost.]

Among the elaborately-engraved flowers and stars at the top of the mirror was the representation of an angel grasping a musical instrument.

'Look, look!' said Sinfi, 'I never know'd afore that angels played the crwth. I wonder whether they can draw a livin' mullo up to the clouds, same as my crwth can draw one to Snowdon?'

I bade them good-night, and joined Panuel at the door.

I was conducting him along the corridor to his room when the door was reopened and Sinfi's head appeared, as bright as ever, and then a beckoning hand.

'Reia,' said she, when I had returned to the door, 'I want to whisper a word in your ear'; and she pulled my head towards the door and whispered, 'Don't tell nobody about that 'ere jewelled trushul in the church vaults at Raxton. We shall be going down there at the fair time, so don't tell nobody.'

'But you surely are not afraid of your father,' I whispered in reply.

'No, no,' said she, bringing her lips so close to my face that I felt the breath steaming round my ear. 'Not daddy—Videy!—Daddy can't keep a secret for five minutes. It's her I'm afeared on.'

I had scarcely left the door two yards behind me when I heard the voices of the sisters in loud altercation. I heard Sinfi exclaim, 'I sha'n't tell you what I said to him, so now! It was somethin' atween him an' me.'

'There they are ag'in,' said Panuel, bending his head sagely round and pointing with his thumb over his shoulder to the door; 'at it ag'in! Them two chavies o' mine are allus a-quarrellin' now, an' it's allus about the same thing. 'Tain't the quarrellin' as I mind so much,—women an' sparrows, they say, must cherrup an' quarrel,—but they needn't allus keep a-nag-naggin' about the same thing.'

'What's their subject, Panuel?' I asked.

'Subjick? Why you, in course. That's what the subjick is. When women quarrels you may allus be sure there's a chap somewheres about.'

By this time we had entered his bedroom: he went and sat upon the bed, and without looking round him began unlacing his 'highlows.' I had often on previous occasions remarked that Panuel, who, when sober, was as silent as Videy, and looked like her in the face, became, the moment that he passed into 'market-merriness,' as frank and communicative as Sinfi, and (what was more inexplicable) looked as much like Sinfi as he had previously looked like Videy.

'How can I be the subject of their quarrels?' I said, listlessly enough, for I scarcely at first followed his words.

'How? Ain't you a chap?'

'Undoubtedly, Panuel, I am a chap.'

'When women quarrels there's allus a chap somewheres about, in course there is. But look ye here, Mr. Aylwin, the fault ain't Sinfi's, not a bit of it. It's Videy's, wi' her dog-in-the-manger ways. She's a back-bred un,' he said, giving me a knowing wink as he pulled off his calf-skin waistcoat and tossed it on to a chair at the further end of the room with a certainty of aim that would have been marvellous, even had he been entirely free from market-merriness.

I had before observed that Panuel when market-merry always designated Videy the 'back-bred un, that took a'ter Shuri's blazin' ole dad!' When sober his views of heredity changed; the 'back-bred un' was Sinfi.

After breakfast next morning it was agreed that Panuel and Videy should walk to the Place to see that everything was going on well, while Sinfi and I should remain in the bungalow. I observed from the distance that Videy had loitered behind her father on the Capel Curig road. I saw a dark shadow of anger pass over Sinfi's face, and I soon understood what was causing it. The daughter of the well-to-do Panuel Lovell and my guest was accosting a tourist with, 'Let me tell you your fortune, my pretty gentleman. Give the poor Gypsy a sixpence for luck, my gentleman.'

The bungalow delighted Sinfi. 'It's just like a great livin'-waggin, only more comfortable,' said she.

We spent the entire morning and afternoon there, and much of the next two days. It certainly seemed to me that her mere presence was an immense stimulus to memory in vitalising its one image.

'What's the use o' us a-keepin' a-talkin' about Winnie?' Sinfi said to me one day. 'It on'y makes you fret. You skears me sometimes; for your eyes are a-gettin' jis' as sad-lookin' as Mr. D'Arcy's eyes, an' it's all along o' fret-tin'.'

I persuaded her to stay with me while Panuel and Videy went on to Chester, for she could both soothe and amuse me.

III

Those who might suppose that Sinfi Lovell's lack of education would be a barrier against our sympathy, know little or nothing of real sorrow—little or nothing of the human heart—little or nothing of the stricken soul that looks out on man and his conventions through the light of an intolerable pain.

I now began to read and study as well as paint. But so absorbed was I in my struggle with Fenella Stanley and Romany superstitions, that the only subject which could distract me from memory was that of hereditary influence—prepotency of transmission in relation to races. Though Sinfi could neither read nor write, she loved to sit by my side and, caressing Pharaoh, to watch me as I read or wrote. To her there evidently seemed something mysterious and uncanny in writing, something like 'penning dukkering.' It seemed to her, I think, a much more remarkable accomplishment than that of painting. And as to reading, I am not sure that the satirical Videy was entirely wrong in saying that Sinfi believed that books 'could talk jis' like men and women.' Not a word would she speak, save when she now and then bent down her head to whisper to Pharaoh when that little warrior was inclined to give a disturbing chuckle, or to shake his wattles. And when at last she and Pharaoh got wearied by the prolonged silence, she would begin to murmur in a tone of playful satire to the restless bird, 'Mum, mum, Pharaoh. He's too hoot of a mush to rocker a choori chavi.' [Hush, hush, Pharaoh. He's too proud to speak to a poor child.]

Of course there was immense curiosity about my life at the bungalow, not only among the visitors at the Capel Curig Hotel, but among the Welsh residents; and rarely did the weekly papers come out without some paragraph about me. As a result of this, some of the London papers reproduced the paragraphs, and built upon their gossip columns of a positively offensive nature. In a paper which I will for convenience call the London Satirist appeared a paragraph which some one cut out of the columns of the paper and posted to me. It ran thus:

'THE ECCENTRIC AYLWINS.—The power of heredity, which has much exercised the mind of Balzac, has never been more strikingly exemplified than in the case of the great family of the Aylwins. It is matter of common knowledge that some generations ago one of the Aylwins married a Gypsy. This fact did not, however, prevent his branch from being respectable, and receiving the name of the proud Aylwins; and the Gypsy blood remained entirely in abeyance until the present generation. Mr. Percy Aylwin, it will be remembered, having been smitten by the charms of a certain Rhona Boswell, actually set up a tent with the Gypsies; and now Mr. Henry Aylwin, of Raxton Hall (who, by the bye, has never been seen in that neighbourhood since the great landslip), is said to be following a good example by living in Wales with a Gypsy wife, but whether the wedding took place at St. George's, Hanover Square, or in simpler fashion in an encampment of Little Egypt, we do not know.'

One day in the bungalow, when I was reading the copious marginalia with which my father had furnished his own copy of The Veiled Queen, I came upon a passage which so completely carried my mind back to the night of our betrothal that I heard as plainly as I had then heard Winnie's words at the door of her father's cottage:

'I should have to come in the winds and play around you in the woods. I should have to peep over the clouds and watch you. I should have to follow you about wherever you went. I should have to beset you till you said: "Bother Winnie, I wish she'd keep in heaven!"'

The written words of my father that had worked this magical effect upon me were these:

'But after months of these lonely wanderings in Graylingham Wood and along the sands, not even the reshaping power of memory would suffice to appease my longing; a new hope, wild as new, was breaking in upon my soul, dim and yet golden, like the sun struggling through a sea-fog. While wandering with me along the sands on the eve of that dreadful day when I lost her, she had declared that even in heaven she could not rest without me, nor did I understand how she could. For by this time my instincts had fully taught me that there is a kind of love so intense that no power in the universe—not death itself—is strong enough to sever it from its object. I knew that although true spiritual love, as thus understood, scarcely exists among Englishmen, and even among Englishwomen is so rare that the capacity for feeling it is a kind of genius, this genius was hers. Sooner or later I said to myself, "She will and must manifest herself!"'

I looked up from the book and saw both Sinfi and Pharaoh gazing at me.

'Sinfi,' I said, 'what were Winnie's favourite places among the hills? Where was she most in the habit of roaming when she stayed with your people?'

'If I ain't told you that often enough it's a pity, brother,' she said. 'What do you think, Pharaoh?'

Pharaoh expressed his acquiescence in the satire by clapping his wings and crowing at me contemptuously.

'The place I think she liked most of all wur that very pool where she and you breakfasted together on that morning.'

'Were there no other favourite places?'

'Yes, there wur the Fairy Glen; she wur very fond of that. And there wur the Swallow Falls; she wur very fond of them. And there wur a place on the Beddgelert pathway, up from the Carnarvon road, about two miles from Beddgelert. There is a great bit of rock there where she used to love to sit and look across towards Anglesey. And talking about that place reminds me, brother, that our people and the Boswells and a lot more are camped on the Carnarvon road just where the pathway up Snowdon begins. And I wur told yesterday by a 'quaintance of mine as I seed outside the bungalow that daddy and Videy had joined them. Shouldn't we go and see 'em?'

This exactly fitted in with the thoughts and projects that had suddenly come to me, and it was arranged that we should start for the encampment next morning.

As we were leaving the bungalow the next day, I said to Sinfi, 'You are not taking your crwth.'

'Crwth! we sha'n't want that.'

'Your people are very fond of music, you know. Your father is very fond of a musical tea.'

'So he is. I'll take it,' said Sinfi.

IV

When we reached the camping-place on the Carnarvon road we found a very jolly party. Panuel had had some very successful dealings, and he was slightly market-merry. He said to Videy, 'Make the tea, Vi, and let Sinfi hev' hern fust, so that she can play on the Welsh fiddle while the rest on us are getting ourn. It'll seem jist like Chester Fair with Jim Burton scrapin' in the dancin' booth to heel and toe.'

Sinfi soon finished her tea, and began to play some merry dancing airs, which set Rhona Boswell's limbs twittering till she spilt her tea in her lap. Then, laughing at the catastrophe, she sprang up saying, 'I'll dance myself dry,' and began dancing on the sward.

After tea was over the party got too boisterous for Sinfi's taste, and she said to me, 'Let's slip away, brother, and go up the pathway, and I'll show you Winnie's favourite place.'