CHAPTER VIII

Matravers began to find himself, for the first time in his life, seriously attracted by a woman. He realized it in some measure as he walked homeward in the early morning, after this last interview with Berenice; he knew it for an absolute fact on the following evening as he walked through the crowded streets back to his rooms with the manuscript of the play which he had been reading to her in his pocket. He felt himself moving in what was to some extent an unreal atmosphere. His senses were tingling with the excitement of the last few hours—for the first time he knew the full fascination of a woman's intellectual sympathy. He had gone to his task wholly devoid of any pleasurable anticipation. It spoke much for the woman's tact that before he had read half a dozen pages he was not only completely at his ease, but was experiencing a new and very pleasurable sensation. The memory of it was with him now—he had no mind to disturb it by any vague alarm as to the future of their relationship.

In Piccadilly he met Fergusson, who turned and walked with him.

"I have been to your rooms, Matravers," the actor said. "I want to know whether you have arranged with your friend?"

"I have just left her," Matravers replied. "She appears to like the play, and has consented to play Bathilde."

The actor smiled. Was Matravers really so simple, or did he imagine that an actress whose name was as yet unknown would hesitate to play with him at the Pall Mall Theatre. Yet he himself had been hoping that there might be some difficulty,—he had a "Bathilde" of his own who would take a great deal of pacifying. The thing was settled now however.

"I should like," he said, "to make her acquaintance at once."

"I have thought of that," Matravers said. "Will you lunch with me at my rooms on Sunday and meet her? that is, of course, if she is able to come."

"I shall be delighted," Fergusson answered. "About two, I suppose?"

Matravers assented, and the two men parted. The actor, with a little shrug of his shoulders and the air of a man who has an unpleasant task before him, turned southwards to interview the lady who certainly had the first claim to play "Bathilde." He found her at home and anxiously expecting him.

"If you had not come to-day," she remarked, "I should have sent for you. I want you to contradict that rubbish."

She threw the theatrical paper across at him, and watched him, whilst he read the paragraph to which she had pointed. He laid the paper down.

"I cannot altogether contradict it," he said. "There is some truth in what the man writes."

The lady was getting angry. She came over to Fergusson and stood by his side.

"You mean to tell me," she exclaimed, "that you have accepted a play for immediate production which I have not even seen, and in which the principal part is to be given to one of those crackpots down at the New Theatre, an amateur, an outsider—a woman no one ever heard of before."

"You can't exactly say that," he interposed calmly. "I see you have her novel on your table there, and she is a woman who has been talked about a good deal lately. But the facts of the case are these. Matravers brought me a play a few days ago which almost took my breath away. It is by far the best thing of the sort I ever read. It is bound to be a great success. I can't tell you any more now,—you shall read it yourself in a day or two. He was very easy to deal with as to terms, but he made one condition: that a certain part in it,—the principal one, I admit,—should be offered to this woman. I tried all I could to talk him out of it, but absolutely without effect. I was forced to consent. There is not a manager in London who would not jump at the play on any conditions. You know our position. 'Her Majesty' is a failure, and I haven't a single decent thing to put on. I simply dared not let such a chance as this go by."

"I never heard anything so ridiculous in my life," the lady exclaimed. "No, I'm not blaming you, Reggie! I don't suppose you could have done anything else. But this woman, what a nerve she must have to imagine that she can do it! I see her horrid Norwegian play has come to utter grief at the New Theatre."

"She is a clever woman," Fergusson remarked. "One can only hope for the best."

She flashed a quiet glance at him.

"You know her, then,—you have been to see her."

"Not yet," Fergusson answered. "I am going to meet her to-morrow. Matravers has asked me to lunch."

"Tell me about Matravers," she said.

"I am afraid I do not know much. He is a very distinguished literary man, but his work has generally been critical or philosophical,—every one will be surprised to hear that he has written a play. You will find that there will be quite a stir about it. The reason why we have no plays nowadays which can possibly be classed as literature, is because the wrong class of man is writing for the stage. Smith and Francis and all these men have fine dramatic instincts, but they are not scholars. Their dialogue is mostly beneath contempt; there is a dash of conventionality in their best work. Now, Matravers is a writer of an altogether different type."

"Thanks," she interrupted, "but I don't want a homily. I am only curious about the man himself."

Fergusson pulled himself up a little annoyed. He had begun to talk about a subject of peculiar interest to him.

"Oh, the man himself is rather an interesting personality," he declared. "He is a recluse, a dilettante, and a very brilliant man of letters."

"I want to know," the lady said impatiently, "whether he is married."

"Married! certainly not," Fergusson assured her.

"Very well, then, I am going there to luncheon with you to-morrow."

Fergusson looked blank.

"But, my dear girl," he protested, "how on earth——"

"Don't be foolish, Reggie," she said calmly. "It is perfectly natural for me to go! I have been your principal actress for several seasons. I suppose if there is a second woman's part in the piece, it will be mine, if I choose to take it. You must write and ask Matravers for permission to bring me. You can mention my desire to meet the new actress if you like."

Fergusson took up his hat.

"Matravers is not the sort of man one feels like taking a liberty with," he said. "But I'll try him."

"You can let me know to-night at the theatre," she directed.



CHAPTER IX

Nothing short of a miracle could have made Matravers' luncheon party a complete success; yet, so far as Berenice was concerned, it could scarcely be looked upon in any other light. Her demeanour towards Adelaide Robinson and Fergusson was such as to give absolutely no opportunity for anything disagreeable! She frankly admitted both her inexperience and her ignorance. Yet, before they left, both Fergusson and his companion began to understand Matravers' confidence in her. There was something almost magnetically attractive about her personality.

The luncheon was very much what one who knew him would have expected from Matravers—simple, yet served with exceeding elegance. The fruit, the flowers, and the wine had been his own care; and the table had very much the appearance of having been bodily transported from the palace of a noble of some southern land. After the meal was over, they sat out upon the shaded balcony and sipped their coffee and liqueurs,—Fergusson and Berenice wrapt in the discussion of many details of the work which lay before them, whilst Matravers, with an effort which he carefully concealed, talked continually with Adelaide Robinson.

"Is it true," she asked him, "that you did not intend your play for the stage—that you wrote it from a literary point of view only?"

"In a sense, that is quite true," he admitted. "I wrote it without any definite idea of offering it to any London manager. My doing so was really only an impulse."



"If Mr. Fergusson is right—and he is a pretty good judge—you won't regret having done so," she remarked. "He thinks it is going to have a big run."

"He may be right," Matravers answered. "For all our sakes, I hope so!"

"It will be a magnificent opportunity for your friend."

Matravers looked over towards Berenice. She was talking eagerly to Fergusson, whose dark, handsome head was very close to hers, and in whose eyes was already evident his growing admiration. Matravers was suddenly conscious of an odd sense of disturbance. He was grateful to Adelaide Robinson for her intervention. She had risen to her feet, and glanced downwards at the little brougham drawn up below.

"I am so sorry to go," she said; "but I positively must make some calls this afternoon."

Fergusson rose also, with obvious regret, and they left together.

"Don't forget," he called back from the door; "we read our parts to-morrow, and rehearsals begin on Thursday."

"I have it all down," Berenice answered. "I will do my best to be ready for Thursday."

Berenice remained standing, looking thoughtfully after the little brougham, which was being driven down Piccadilly.

Matravers came back to her, and laid his hand gently upon her arm.

"You must not think of going yet," he said. "I want you to stay and have tea with me."

"I should like to," she answered. "I seem to have so much to say to you."

He piled her chair with cushions and drew it back into the shade. Then he lit a cigarette, and sat down by her side.

"I suppose you must think that I am very ungrateful," she said. "I have scarcely said 'thank you' yet, have I?"

"You will please me best by never saying it," he answered. "I only hope that it will be a step you will never regret."

"How could I?"

He looked at her steadily, a certain grave concentration of thought manifest in his dark eyes. Berenice was looking her best that afternoon. She was certainly a very beautiful and a very distinguished-looking woman. Her eyes met his frankly; her lips were curved in a faintly tender smile.

"Well, I hardly know," he said. "You are going to be a popular actress. Henceforth the stage will have claims upon you! It will become your career."

"You have plenty of confidence."

"I have absolute confidence in you," he declared, "and Fergusson is equally confident about the play; chance has given you this opportunity—the result is beyond question! Yet I confess that I have a presentiment. If the manuscript of 'The Heart of the People' were in my hands at this moment, I think that I would tear it into little pieces, and watch them flutter down on to the pavement there."

"I do not understand you," she said softly. "You say that you have no doubt——"

"It is because I have no doubt—it is because I know that it will make you a popular and a famous actress. You will gain this. I wonder what you will lose."

She moved restlessly on her chair.

"Why should I lose anything?"

"It is only a presentiment," he reminded her. "I pray that you may not lose anything. Yet you are coming under a very fascinating influence. It is your personality I am afraid of. You are going to belong definitely to a profession which is at once the most catholic and the most narrowing in the world. I believe that you are strong enough to stand alone, to remain yourself. I pray that it may be so, and yet, there is just the shadow of the presentiment. Perhaps it is foolish."

Their chairs were close together; he suddenly felt the perfume of her hair and the touch of her fingers upon his hand. Her face was quite close to his.

"At least," she murmured, "I pray that I may never lose your friendship."

"If only I could ensure you as confidently the fulfilment of all your desires," he answered, "you would be a very happy woman. I am too lonely a man, Berenice, to part with any of my few joys. Whether you change or no, you must never change towards me."

She was silent. There were no signs left of the brilliant levity which had made their little luncheon pass off so successfully. She sat with her head resting upon her elbow, gazing steadily up at the little white clouds which floated over the housetops. A tea equipage was brought out and deftly arranged between them.

"To-day," Matravers said, "I am going to have the luxury of having my tea made for me. Please come back from dreamland and realize the Englishman's idyll of domesticity."

She turned in her chair, and smiled upon him.

"I can do it," she assured him. "I believe you doubt my ability, but you need not."

They talked lightly for some time—an art which Matravers found himself to be acquiring with wonderful facility. Then there was a pause. When she spoke again, it was in an altogether different tone.



"I want you to answer me," she said, "it is not too late. Shall I give up Bathilde—and the stage? Listen! You do not know anything of my circumstances. I am not dependent upon either the stage or my writing for a living. I ask you for your honest advice. Shall I give it up?"

"You are placing a very heavy responsibility upon my shoulders," he answered her thoughtfully. "Yet I will try to answer you honestly. I should be happier if I could advise you to give it up! But I cannot! You have the gift—you must use it. The obligation of self-development is heaviest upon the shoulders of those whose foreheads Nature's twin-sister has touched with fire! I would it were any other gift, Berenice; but that is only a personal feeling. No! you must follow out your destiny. You have an opportunity of occupying a unique and marvellous position. You can create a new ideal. Only be true always to yourself. Be very jealous indeed of absorbing any of the modes of thought and life which will spring up everywhere around you in the new world. Remember it is the old ideals which are the sweetest and the truest.... Forgive me, please! I am talking like a pedagogue."

"You are talking as I like to be talked to," she answered. "Yet you need not fear that my head will be turned, even if the success should come. You forget that I am almost an old woman. The religion of my life has long been conceived and fashioned."

He looked at her with a curious smile. If thirty seemed old to her, what must she think of him?

"I wonder," he said simply, "if you would think me impertinent if I were to ask you to tell me more about yourself. How is it that you are altogether alone in the world?"

The words had scarcely left his lips before he would have given much to have recalled them. He saw her start, flinch back as though she had been struck, and a grey pallor spread itself over her face, almost to the lips. She looked at him fixedly for several moments without speaking.

"One day," she said, "I will tell you all that. You shall know everything. But not now; not yet."

"Whenever you will," he answered, ignoring her evident agitation. "Come! what do you say to a walk down through the Park? To-day is a holiday for me—a day to be marked with a white stone. I have registered an oath that I will not even look at a pen. Will you not help me to keep it?"

"By all means," she answered blithely. "I will take you home with me, and keep you there till the hour of temptation has passed. To-day is to be my last day of idleness! I too have need of a white stone."

"We will place them," he said, "side by side."



CHAPTER X

Matravers' luncheon party marked the termination for some time of any confidential intercourse between Berenice and himself. Every moment of her time was claimed by Fergusson, who, in his anxiety to produce a play from which he hoped so much before the wane of the season, gave no one any rest, and worked himself almost into a fever. There were two full rehearsals a day, and many private ones at her rooms. Matravers calling there now and then found Fergusson always in possession, and by degrees gave it up in despair. He had a horror of interfering in any way, even of being asked for his advice concerning the practical reproduction of his work. Fergusson's invitations to the rehearsals at the theatre he rejected absolutely. As the time grew shorter, Berenice became pale and almost haggard with the unceasing work which Fergusson's anxiety imposed upon her. One night she sent for Matravers, and hastening to her rooms, he found her for the first time alone.



"I have sent Mr. Fergusson home," she exclaimed, welcoming him with outstretched hands, but making no effort to rise from her easy chair. "Do you know that man is driving me slowly mad? I want you to interfere."

"What can I do?" he said.

"Anything to bring him to reason! He is over-rehearsing! Every line, every sentence, every gesture, he makes the subject of the most exhaustive deliberation. He will have nothing spontaneous; it is positively stifling. A few more days of it and my reason will go! He is a great actor, but he does not seem to understand that to reduce everything to mathematical proportions is to court failure."

"I will go and see him," Matravers said. "You wish for no more rehearsals, then?"

"I do not want to see his face again before the night of the performance," she declared vehemently. "I am perfect in my part. I have thought about it—dreamed about it. I have lived more as 'Bathilde' than as myself for the last three weeks. Perhaps," she continued more slowly, "you will not be satisfied. I scarcely dare to hope that you will be. Yet I have reached my limitations. The more I am made to rehearse now, the less natural I shall become."

"I will speak to Fergusson," Matravers promised. "I will go and see him to-night. But so far as you are concerned, I have no fear; you will be the 'Bathilde' of my heart and my brain. You cannot fail!"

She rose to her feet. "It is," she said, "The desire of my life to make your 'Bathilde' a creature of flesh and blood. If I fail, I will never act again."

"If you fail," he said, "the fault will be in my conception, not in your execution. But indeed we will not consider anything so improbable. Let us put the play behind us for a time and talk of something else! You must be weary of it."

She shook her head. "Not that! never that! Just now it is my life, only it is the details which weary me, the eternal harping upon the mechanical side of it. Will you read to me for a little? and I will make you some coffee. You are not in a hurry, are you?"

"I have come," he said, "to stay with you until you send me away! I will read to you with pleasure. What will you have?"

She handed him a little volume of poems; he glanced at the title and made a faint grimace. They were his own.

Nevertheless, he read for an hour, till the streets below grew silent, and his own voice, unaccustomed to such exercise, lost something of its usual clearness. Then he laid the volume down, and there was silence between them.

"I have been thinking," he said at last, "of a singular incident in connection with your performance at the New Theatre; it was brought into my mind just then. I meant to have mentioned it before."

She looked up with only a slight show of interest. Those days at the theatre seemed to her now to be very far behind. There was nothing in connection with them which she cared to remember.

"It was the night of my first visit there," he continued. "There is a terrible scene at the end of the second act between Herdrine and her husband—you recollect it, of course. Just as you finished your denunciation, I distinctly heard a curious cry from the back of the house. It was a greater tribute to your acting than the applause, for it was genuine."

"The piece was gloomy enough," she remarked, "to have dissolved the house in tears."

"At least," he said, "it wrung the heart of one man. For I have not told you all. I was interested enough to climb up into the amphitheatre. The man sat there alone amongst a wilderness of empty seats. He was the picture of abject misery. I could scarcely see his face, but his attitude was convincing. It was not a thing of chance either. I made some remark about him to an attendant, and he told me that night after night that man had occupied the same seat, always following every line of the play with the same mournful concentration, never speaking to any one, never moving from his seat from the beginning of the play to the end."

"He must have been," she declared, "a person of singularly morbid taste. When I think of it now I shiver. I would not play Herdrine again for worlds."

"I am very glad to hear you say so," he said, smiling. "Do you know that to me the most interesting feature of the play was its obvious effect upon this man. Its extreme pessimism is too much paraded, is laid on altogether with too thick a hand to ring true. The thing is an involved nightmare. One feels that as a work of art it is never convincing, yet underneath it all there must be something human, for it found its way into the heart of one man."

"It is possible," she remarked, "that he was mad. The man who found it sufficiently amusing to come to the theatre night after night could scarcely have been in full possession of his senses."

"That is possible," he admitted; "but I do not believe it. The man's face was sad enough, but it was not the face of a madman."

"You did see his face, then?"

"On the last night of the play," he continued. "You remember you were going on to Lady Truton's, so I did not come behind. But I had a fancy to see you for a moment, and I came round into Pitt Street just as you were driving off. On the other side of the way this man was standing watching you!"

She looked at him with a suddenly kindled interest—or was it fear?—in her dark eyes. The colour had left her cheeks; she was white to the lips.

"Watching me?"

"Yes. As your carriage drove off he stood watching it. I don't know what prompted me, but I crossed the street to speak to him. He seemed such a lone, mournful figure standing there half dazed, shabby, muttering softly to himself. But when he saw me coming, he gave one half-frightened look at me and ran, literally ran down the street on to the Strand. I could not follow,—the police would have stopped him. So he disappeared."

"You saw his face. What was he like?"

Berenice had leaned right back amongst the yielding cushions of her divan, and he could scarcely see her face. Yet her voice sounded to him strange and forced. He looked at her in some surprise.

"I had a glimpse of it. It was an ordinary face enough; in fact, it disappointed me a little. But the odd part of it was that it seemed vaguely familiar to me. I have seen it before, often. Yet, try as I will, I cannot recollect where, or under what circumstances."

"At Oxford," she suggested. "By the bye, what was your college?"

"St. John's. No, I do not think,—I hope that it was not at Oxford. Some day I shall think of it quite suddenly."

Berenice rose from her chair with a sudden, tempestuous movement and stood before him.

"Listen!" she exclaimed. "Supposing I were to tell you that I knew or could guess who that man was—why he came! Oh, if I were to tell you that I were a fraud, that——"

Matravers stopped her.

"I beg," he said, "that you will tell me nothing!"

There was a short silence. Berenice seemed on the point of breaking down. She was nervously lacing and interlacing her fingers. Her breath was coming spasmodically.

"Berenice," he said softly, "you are over-wrought; you are not quite yourself to-night. Do not tell me anything. Indeed, there is no need for me to know; just as you are I am content with you, and proud to be your friend."

"Ah!"

She sat down again. He could not see her face, but he fancied that she was weeping. He himself found his customary serenity seriously disturbed. Perhaps for the first time in his life he found himself not wholly the master of his emotions. The atmosphere of the little room, the perfume of the flowers, the soft beauty of the woman herself, whose breath fell almost upon his cheek, affected him as nothing of the sort had ever done before. He rose abruptly to his feet.

"You will be so much better alone," he said, taking her fingers and smoothing them softly in his for a moment. "I am going away now."

"Yes. Good-by!"

At the threshold he paused. She had not looked up at him. She was still sitting there with bowed head and hidden face. He closed the door softly, and went out.



CHAPTER XI

The enthusiasm with which Matravers' play had been received on the night of its first appearance was, if anything, exceeded on the night before the temporary closing of the theatre for the usual summer vacation. The success of the play itself had never been for a moment doubtful. For once the critics, the general press, and the public, were in entire and happy agreement. The first night had witnessed an extraordinary scene. An audience as brilliant as any which could have been brought together in the first city in the world, had flatly refused to leave the theatre until Matravers himself, reluctant and ill-pleased, had joined Fergusson and Berenice before the footlights; and now on the eve of its temporary withdrawal something of the same sort was threatened again, and Matravers only escaped by standing up in the front of his box, and bowing his acknowledgments to the delighted audience.

It was a well-deserved success, for certainly as a play it was a brilliant exception to anything which had lately been produced upon the English stage. The worn-out methods and motives of most living playwrights were rigorously avoided; everything about it was fresh and spontaneous. Its sentiment was relieved by the most delicate vein of humour. It was everywhere tender and human. The dialogue, to which Matravers had devoted his usual fastidious care, was polished and sprightly; there was not anywhere a single dull or unmusical line. It was a classic, the critics declared,—the first literary play by a living author which London had witnessed for many years. The bookings for months ahead were altogether phenomenal. Fergusson saw a certain fortune within his hands, and Matravers, sharing also in the golden harvest, found another and a still greater cause for satisfaction.

For Berenice had justified his selection. The same night, as the greatest of critics, speaking through the columns of the principal daily paper, had said, which had presented to them a new writer for the stage, had given them also a new actress. She had surprised Matravers, she had amazed Fergusson, who found himself compelled to look closely to his own laurels. In short, she was a success, descended, if not from the clouds, at least from the mists of Isteinism, but accorded, without demur or hesitation, a foremost place amongst the few accepted actresses. Her future and his position were absolutely secured, and her reputation, as Matravers was happy to think, was made, not as the portrayer of a sickly and unnatural type of diseased womanhood, but as the woman of his own creation, a very sweet and pure English lady.

The house emptied at last, and Matravers made his way behind, where many of Fergusson's friends had gathered together, and where congratulations were the order of the day. A species of informal reception was going on, champagne cup and sandwiches were being handed around and a general air of extreme good humour pervaded the place. Berenice was the centre of a group of men amongst whom Matravers was annoyed to see Thorndyke. If he could have withdrawn unseen, he would have done so; but already he was surrounded. A little stir at the entrance attracted his attention. He turned round and found Fergusson presenting him to a royal personage, who was graciously pleased, however, to remember a former meeting, and waved away the words of introduction.

It chanced, without any design on his part, that Berenice and he left almost at the same time, and met near the stage door. She dropped Fergusson's arm—he had left his guests to see her to her carriage—and motioned to Matravers.

"Won't you see me home?" she asked quietly. "I have sent my maid on, she was so tired, and I am all alone."

"I shall be very pleased," Matravers answered. "May I come in with you?" Fergusson lingered for a moment or two at the carriage door, and then they drove off. Berenice, with a little sigh, leaned back amongst the cushions.

"You are very tired, I am afraid," he said gently. "The last few weeks must have been a terrible strain upon you."

"They have been in many ways," she said, "the happiest of my life."

"I am glad of that; yet it is quite time that you had a rest."

She did not answer him,—she did not speak again until the carriage drew up before her house. He handed her out, and opened the door with the latch-key which she passed over to him.

"Good night," he said, holding out his hand.

"You must please come in for a little time," she begged. "I have seen you scarcely at all lately. You have not even told me about your travels."

He hesitated for a moment, then seeing the shade upon her face, he stepped forward briskly.

"I should like to come very much," he said, "only you must be sure to send me away if I stay too long. You are tired already."

"I am tired," she admitted, leading the way upstairs, "only it will rest me much more to have you talk to me than to go to bed. Mine is scarcely a physical fatigue. My nerves are all quivering. I could not sleep! Tell me where you have been."

Matravers took the seat to which she motioned him, and obeyed her, watching, whilst she stooped down over the fire and poured water into a brazen coffee-pot, and took another cup and saucer from a quaint little cupboard. She made the coffee carefully and well, and Matravers, as he lit his cigarette, found himself wondering at this new and very natural note of domesticity in her.



All the time he was talking, telling her in a few chosen sentences of the little tour for which she really was responsible—of the pink-and-white apple-blossoms of Brittany, of the peasants in their quaint and picturesque garb, and of the old time-worn churches, the exploration of which had constituted his chief interest. She listened eagerly; every word of his description, so vivid and picturesque, was interesting. When he had finished, he looked at her thoughtfully.

"You too," he said, "need a change! You have worked very hard, and you will need all your strength for the autumn season."

"I am going away," she said, "very soon. Perhaps to-morrow."

He looked at her surprised.

"So soon!"

"Why not? What is there to keep me? The theatre is closed. London is positively stifling. I am longing for some fresh air."

He was silent for a moment or two. It was so natural that she should go, and yet in a sense it was so unexpected. Looking steadily across at her as she leaned back amongst the cushions of her chair, her dark eyes watching his face, her attitude and expression alike convincing him in some subtle way of her satisfaction at his presence, he became suddenly conscious that the time which he had dimly anticipated with mingled fear and pleasure was now close at hand. His heart was beating with a quickened throb! He was aghast as he realized with quick, unerring truth the full effect of her words upon him. He drew a sharp little breath and walked to the open window, taking in a long draught of the fresh night air, sweetly scented with the perfume of the flowers in her boxes. Her voice came to him low and sweet from the interior of the room.

"There is a little farmhouse in Devonshire which belongs to me. It is nothing but a tumbledown, grey stone place; but there are hills, and meadows, and country lanes, and the sea. I want to go there."

"Away from me!" he cried hoarsely.

"Will you come too?" she murmured.



He turned back into the room and looked at her. She was standing up, coming towards him; a faint tinge of pink colour had stained her cheek—her bosom was heaving—her eyes were challenging his with a light which needed no borrowed brilliancy. Go with her! The man's birthright, his passion, which through the long days of his austere life had lain dormant and undreamt of swept up from his heart. He held out his arms, and she came across the room to him with a sweet effort of self-yielding which yet waited for while it invited his embrace.

"You mean it?" he murmured, "you are sure?"

She did not answer him. But indeed there was no need.



CHAPTER XII

Matravers never altogether forgot the sensations with which he awoke on the following morning. Notwithstanding a sleepless night, he rose and made a deliberate toilet with a wonderful buoyancy of spirits. The change which had come into his life was a thing so wonderful that he could scarcely realize it. Yet it was true! He had found the one experience in life which had hitherto been denied him, and he was amazed at the full extent of its power and sweetness. He felt himself to be many years younger! Old dreams and enthusiasms were suddenly revived. Once more his foot seemed to be poised upon the threshold of life! After all, he had not yet reached middle age! He was surprised to find himself so young. Marriage, although so far as regarded himself he had never imagined it a possible part of his life, was a condition against which he held no vows. Instinctively he felt that with Berenice, existence must inevitably become a fuller and a richer thing. The old days of philosophic quietude, of self-contained and cultured ease, had been in themselves very pleasant, but his was altogether too large a nature to become in any way the slave of habit. He looked forward to their abandonment without regret,—what was to come would be a continuation of the best part of them set to the sweetest music. He was conscious of holding himself differently as he entered his breakfast-room! Was it his fancy, or was the perfume of his little bowl of roses indeed more sweet this morning, the sunshine mellower and warmer, the flavour of his grapes more delicate? At any rate, he ate with a rare appetite, and then whilst he smoked a cigarette afterwards, an idea came to him! The colour rose in his cheeks,—he felt like a boy. In a few minutes he was walking through the streets, smiling softly to himself as he thought of his strange errand.

He found his way to a jeweller's shop in Bond Street, and asked for pearls! They were the only jewels she cared for, and he made a deliberate and careful choice, wondering more than once, with a curious sort of shyness, whether the man who served him so gravely had any idea for what purpose he was buying the ring which had been the object of his first inquiry. He walked home with a little square box in his hand, and a much smaller one in his waistcoat pocket. On the pavement he had hesitated for a moment, but a glance at his watch had decided him. It was too early to go and see her yet. He walked back to his rooms! There was a little work which he must finish during the day. He had better attempt it at once.

On his desk a letter was waiting for him. With a little tremor of pleasure he recognized her handwriting. He took it over to the tall sunny window, with a smile of anticipation upon his lips. He broke the seal and read:

"My love, the daylight has come, and I am here where you left me, a very happy and yet a very unhappy woman! Is it indeed only a few hours since we parted? It all seems so different. The starlight and the night wind and the deep, sweet silence have gone! There is a great shaft of yellow light in the sky, and a bank of purple clouds where the sun has risen. Only the perfume of your roses lying crushed in my lap remains to prove to me that it has not all been a very sweet dream. Dearest, I have a secret to tell you,—the sorrow of my life. The time has come when you must, alas! know it. Last night it was enough for me to hear you tell me of your love! Nothing else in the world seemed worthy of a moment's thought. But as you were leaving, you whispered something about our marriage. How sweetly it sounded,—and yet how bitterly! For, dear, I can never marry you. I am already married! I can see you start when you read this. You will blame me for having kept this secret from you. Very likely you will be angry with me. Only for the love of God pity me a little!

"My story is so commonplace. I can tell it you in a few sentences. I married when I was seventeen at my father's command, to save him from ruin. My husband, like my father, was a city merchant. I did not love him, but then I did not know what love was. My girlhood was a miserable one. My father belonged to the sect of Calvinists. Our home was hideous, and we were poor. Any release from it was welcome. John Drage, the man whom I married, had one good quality. He was generous. He bought me pictures, and books—things which I always craved. When my father's command came, it did not seem a hardship. I married him. He was not so much a bad man, perhaps, as a weak one. We lived together for four years. I had one child, a little boy. Then I made a horrible discovery. My husband, whom I knew to be a drunkard, was hideously, debasingly false to me. The bald facts are these. I myself saw him drunk and helped into his carriage by one of those women whose trade it is to prey upon such creatures. This was not an exceptional occurrence. It was a habit.

"There, I have told you. It would have hurt me less to have cut off my right hand. But there shall be no misunderstanding, nor any concealment between us. I left John Drage's house that night. I took little Freddy with me; but when I refused to return, he stole the child away from me. Then I drew a sharp line at that point in my life. I had neither friend nor relation, but there was some money which had been left me soon after my marriage. I lived alone, and I began to write. That is my story. That is why I cannot marry you.

"Dear, I want you, now that you know my very ugly history, to consider this. Whilst I was married, I was faithful to my husband; since then I have been faithful to my self-respect. But I have told myself always that if ever the time came when I should love, I would give myself to that man without hesitation and without shame. And that time has come, dear. You know that I love you! Your coming has been the great awakening joy of my life. Nothing that has gone before, nothing that the future may hold, can ever trouble me if we are together—you and I. I have suffered more than most women. But you will help me to forget it.

"I sit here with my face to the morning, and I seem to see a new life stretching out before me. Is not love a beautiful thing! I am not ambitious any more. I do not want any other object in life than to make you happy, and to be made happy by you. I began this letter with a heavy heart and with trembling fingers. But now I am quite calm and quite happy. I know that you will come to me. You see I have great faith in your love. Thank God for it!

"BERENICE."

The letter fluttered from Matravers' fingers on to the floor. For several minutes he stood quite still, with his hand pressed to his heart. Then he calmly seated himself in a little easy chair which stood by his side, with its back to the window. He had a curious sense of being suddenly removed from his own personality,—his own self. He was another man gazing for the last time upon a very familiar scene.

He sat there with his head resting upon the palm of his hand, looking with lingering eyes around his little room, even the simplest objects of which were in a sense typical of the life which he was abandoning. He knew that that life, if even its influence had not been wide, had been a studiously well-ordered and a seemly thing. A touch of that ultra aestheticism, which had given to all his writings a peculiar tone and individuality, had permeated also his ideas as to the simplest events of living. All that was commonplace and ugly and vicious had ever repelled him. He had lived not only a clean life, but a sweet one. His intense love for pure beauty, combined with a strong dash of epicureanism, had given a certain colour to its outward form as well as to its inward workings. Even the simplest objects by which he was surrounded were the best of their kind,—carefully and faithfully chosen. The smallest details of his daily life had always been governed by a love of comely and kindly order. Both in his conversation and in his writings he had studiously avoided all excess, all shadow of evil or unkindness. His opinions, well chosen and deliberate though they were, were flavoured with a delicate temperateness so distinctive of the man and of his habits. And now, it was all to come to an end! He was about to sever the cords, to cut himself adrift from all that had seemed precious, and dear, and beautiful to him. He, to whom even the women of the streets had been as sacred things, was about to become the established and the open lover of a woman whom he could never marry. To a certain extent it was like moral shipwreck to him. Yet he loved her! He was sure of that. He had called himself in the past, as indeed he had every right to, something of a philosopher; but he had never tried to harden within himself the human leaven which had kept him, in sympathy and kindliness, always in close touch with his fellows. And this was its fruit! To him of all men there had come this....

Soon he found himself in the street, on his way to her. Such a letter as this called for no delay. It was barely twelve o'clock when he rang the bell at her house. The girl who answered it handed him a note. He asked quickly for her mistress.

She left an hour ago by the early train, he was told. She has gone into the country.

She had made up her mind quite suddenly, and had not even taken her maid. The address would probably be in the letter.

Still standing on the doorstep, he tore open the note and read it. There were only a few lines.

"Dearest, can you take a short holiday? I have a fancy to have you come to me at my little house in Devonshire. London is stifling me, and I want to taste the full sweetness of my happiness. You see I do not doubt you! I know that you will come. Shall you mind a tiresome railway journey? The address is Bossington Old Manor House, Devonshire, and the station is Minehead. Wire what train you are coming by, and I will send something to meet you.

"BERENICE."



CHAPTER XIII

Matravers walked back to his rooms and ordered his portmanteau to be packed. Then he went out, and after making all his arrangements for an absence from town, bought a Bradshaw. There were two trains, he found, by which he could travel, one at three, the other at half-past four. He arranged to catch the earlier one, and drove to his club for lunch. Afterwards he strolled towards the smoking-room, but finding it unusually full, was on the point of withdrawing. As he lingered on the threshold, a woman's name fell upon his ears. The speaker was Mr. Thorndyke. He became rigid.

"Why, yes, I gave her the victoria," he was saying. "We called it a birthday present, or something of that sort. I supposed every one knew about that. Those little arrangements generally are known somehow!"

The innuendo was unmistakable. Matravers advanced with his usual leisurely walk to the little group of men.

"I beg your pardon," he said quietly. "I understood Mr. Thorndyke to say, I believe, that he had given a carriage to a certain lady. Am I correct?"

Thorndyke turned upon him sharply. There was a sudden silence in the crowded room. Matravers' clear, cold voice, although scarcely raised above the pitch of ordinary conversation, had penetrated to its furthest corner.

"And if I did, sir! What——"

"These gentlemen will bear me witness that you did say so?" Matravers interrupted calmly. "I regret to have to use unpleasant language, Mr. Thorndyke, but I am compelled to tell you, and these gentlemen, that your statement is a lie!"

Thorndyke was a florid and a puffy man. The veins upon his temples stood out like whipcord. He was not a pleasant sight to look upon.

"What do you mean, sir?" he spluttered. "The carriage was mine before she had it. Everybody recognizes it."



"Exactly. The carriage was yours. You intended every one to recognize it. But you have omitted to state, both here and in other places, that the lady bought that carriage from you for two hundred and sixty guineas—a good deal more than its worth, I should imagine. You heard her say that she was thinking of buying a victoria, and you offered her yours—pressed her to buy it. It was too small for your horses, you said, and you were hard up. You even had it sent round to her stables without her consent. I have heard this story before, sir, and I have furnished myself with proofs of its falsehood. This, gentlemen," he added, drawing some papers from his pocket, "is Mr. Thorndyke's receipt for the two hundred and sixty guineas for a victoria, signed, as you will see, in his own handwriting, and here is the lady's cheque with Mr. Thorndyke's endorsement, cancelled and paid."

The papers were handed round. Thorndyke picked up his hat, but Matravers barred his egress.

"With regard to the insinuation which you coupled with your falsehood," he continued, "both are equally and absolutely false. I know her to be a pure and upright woman. A short time ago you took advantage of your position to make certain cowardly and disgraceful propositions to her, since when her doors have been closed upon you! I would have you know, sir, and remember, that the honour of that lady, whom last night I asked to be my wife, is as dear to me as my own, and if you dare now, or at any future time, to slander her, I shall treat you as you deserve. You can go."

"And be very careful, sir," thundered the old Earl of Ellesmere, veteran member of the club, "that you never show your face inside these doors again, or, egad, I'm an old man, but I'll kick you out myself."

Thorndyke left the room amidst a chilling and unsympathetic silence. As soon as he could get away, Matravers followed him. There was a strange pain at his heart, a sense of intolerable depression had settled down upon him. After all, what good had he done? Only a few more days and her name, which for the moment he had cleared, would be besmirched in earnest. His impeachment of Thorndyke would sound to these men then like mock heroics. There would be no one to defend her any more. There would be no defence. For ever in the eyes of all these people she was doomed to become one of the Magdalens of the world.

It seemed a very unreal London through which Matravers was whirled on his way from the club to Paddington. But before a third of the distance was accomplished, there was a sudden check. A little boy, who had wandered from his nurse in crossing the road, narrowly escaped being run over by a carriage and pair, only to find himself knocked down by the shaft of Matravers' hansom. There was a cry, and the driver pulled his horse on to her haunches, but apparently just a second too late. With a sickening sense of horror, Matravers saw the little fellow literally under the horse's feet, and heard his shrill cry of terror.

He leaped out, and was the first to pick the child up, immeasurably relieved to find that after all he was not seriously hurt. His clothes were torn, and his hands were scratched, and there, apparently, the mischief ended. Matravers lifted him into the cab, and turned to the frightened nurse-girl for the address.

"Nine, Greenfield Gardens, West Kensington, sir," she told him; "and please tell the master it wasn't my fault. He is so venturesome, I can't control him nohow. His name is Drage—Freddy Drage, sir."

And then once more Matravers felt that strange dizziness which had come to him earlier in the day. Again he had that curious sense of moving in a dream, as though he had, indeed, become part of an unreal and shadowy world. The renewed motion of the cab as they drove back again along Pall Mall, recalled him to himself. He leaned back and looked at the boy steadily.

Yes, they were her eyes. There was no doubt about it. The little fellow, not in the least shy, and, in fact, now become rather proud of his adventure, commenced to prattle very soon. Matravers interrupted him with a question,—

"Won't your mother be frightened to see you like this?" The child stared at him with wide-open eyes.

"Why, mammy ain't there," he exclaimed. "Mammy went away ever so long ago. I don't think she's dead, though, 'cos daddy wouldn't let me talk about her, only just lately, since he was ill. You see," he went on with an explanatory wave of the hand, "daddy's been a very bad man. He's better now—leastways, he ain't so bad as he was; but I 'spect that's why mammy went away. Don't you?"

"I daresay, Freddy," Matravers answered softly.

"We're getting very near now," Freddy remarked, looking over the apron of the cab. "My! won't dada be surprised to see me drive up in a cab with you! I hope he's at the window!"

"Will your father be at home now?" Matravers asked.

Freddy stared at him.

"Why, of course! Dad's always at home! Is my face very buggy? Don't rub it any more, please. That's Jack Mason over there! I play with him. I want him to see me. Hullo! Jack," he shouted, leaning out of the cab, "I've been run over, right over, face all buggy. Look at it! Hands too," spreading them out. "He's a nice boy," Freddy continued as the cab turned a corner, "but he can't run near so fast as me, and he's lots older. Hullo! here we are!" kicking vigorously at the apron.

Matravers looked up in surprise. They had stopped short before a long row of shabby-genteel houses in the outskirts of Kensington. He took the boy's outstretched hand and pushed open the gate. The door was open, and Freddy dragged him into a room on the ground floor.

A man was lying on a sofa before the window, wrapped in an untidy dressing-gown, and with the lower part of his body covered up with a rug. His face, fair and florid, with more than a suggestion of coarseness in the heavy jaw and thick lips, was drawn and wrinkled as though with pain. His lips wore an habitually peevish expression. He did not offer to rise when they came in. Matravers was thankful that Freddy spared him the necessity of immediate speech. He had recognized in a moment the man who had sat alone night after night in the back seats of the New Theatre, whose slow drawn-out cry of agony had so curiously affected him on that night of her performance. He recognized, too, the undergraduate of his college sent down for flagrant misbehaviour, the leader of a set whom he himself had denounced as a disgrace to the University. And this man was her husband!

"Daddy," the boy cried, dropping Matravers' hand and running over to the couch, "I've been run over by a hansom cab, and I'm all buggy, but I ain't hurt, and this gentleman brought me home. Daddy can't get up, you know," Freddy explained; "his legs is bad."

"Run over, eh!" exclaimed the man on the couch. "It's like that girl's damned carelessness."

He patted the boy's head, not unkindly, and Matravers found words.

"My cab unfortunately knocked your little boy down near Trafalgar Square, but I am thankful to say that he was not hurt. I thought that I had better bring him straight home, though, as he has had a roll in the dust."

At the sound of Matravers' voice, the man started and looked at him earnestly. A dull red flush stained his cheeks. He looked away.

"It was very good of you, Mr. Matravers," he said. "I can't think what the girl could have been about."

"I did not see her until after the accident. I am glad that it was no worse," Matravers answered. "You have not forgotten me, then?"

John Drage shook his head.

"No, sir," he said. "I have not forgotten you. I should have known your voice anywhere. Besides, I knew that you were in London. I saw you at the New Theatre."

There was a short silence. Matravers glanced around the room with an inward shiver. The usual horrors of a suburban parlour were augmented by a general slovenliness, and an obvious disregard for any sort of order.

"I am afraid, Drage," he said gently, "that things have not gone well with you."

"You are quite right," the man answered bitterly. "They have not! They have gone very wrong indeed; and I have no one to blame but myself."

"I am sorry," Matravers said. "You are an invalid, too, are you not?"

"I am worse than an invalid," the man on the couch groaned. "I am a prisoner on my back, most likely for ever; curse it! I have had a paralytic stroke. I can't think why I couldn't die! It's hard lines!—damned hard lines! I wish I were dead twenty times a day! I am alone here from morning to night, and not a soul to speak to. If it wasn't for Freddy I should jolly soon end it!"

"The little boy's mother?" Matravers ventured, with bowed head.

"She left me—years ago. I don't know that I blame her, particularly. Sit down, if you will, for a bit. I never have a visitor, and it does me good to talk."

Matravers took the only unoccupied chair, and drew it back a little into the darker part of the room.

"You remember me then, Drage," he remarked. "Yet it is a long time since our college days."

"I knew you directly I heard your voice, sir," the man answered. "It seemed to take me back to a night many years ago—I want you to let me remind you of it. I should like you to know that I never forgot it. We were at St. John's then; you were right above me—in a different world altogether. You were a leader amongst the best of them, and I was a hanger-on amongst the worst. You were in with the gentlemen set and the reading set. Neither of them would have anything to do with me—and they were quite right. I was what they thought me—a cad. I'd no head for work, and no taste for anything worth doing, and I wasn't a gentleman, and hadn't sense to behave like one. I'd no right to have been at the University at all, but my poor old dad would have me go. He had an idea that he could make a gentleman of me. It was a mistake!"

Matravers moved slightly in his chair,—he was suffering tortures.

"Is it worth while recalling all these things?" he asked quietly. "Life cannot be a success for all of us; yet it is the future, and not the past."

"I have no future," the man interrupted doggedly; "no future here, or in any other place. I have got my deserts. I wanted to remind you of that night when you came to see me in my rooms, after I'd been sent down for being drunk. I suppose you were the first gentleman who had ever crossed my threshold, and I remember wondering what on earth you'd come for! You didn't lecture me, and you didn't preach. You came and sat down and smoked one of my cigars, and talked just as though we were friends, and tried to make me see what a fool I was. It didn't do much good in the end—but I never forgot it. You shook hands with me when you left, and for once in my life I was ashamed of myself."

"I am sorry," Matravers said with an effort, "that I did not go to see you oftener."

Drage shook his head.

"It was too late then! I was done for,—done for as far as Oxford was concerned. But that was only the beginning. I might easily have picked up if I'd had the pluck! The dad forgave me, and made me a partner in the business before he died. I was a rich man, and I might have been a millionaire; instead of that I was a damned fool! I can't help swearing! you mustn't mind, sir! Remember what I am! I don't swear when Freddy's in the room, if I can help it. I went the pace, drank, kept women, and all the rest of it. My wife found me out and went away. I ain't saying a word against her. She was a good woman, and I was a bad man, and she left me! She was right enough! I wasn't fit for a decent woman to live with. All the same, I missed her; and it was another kick down Hellward for me when she went. I got desperate then; I took to drink worse than ever, and I began to let my business go and speculate. You wouldn't know anything of the city, sir; but I can tell you this, when a cool chap with all his wits about him starts speculating outside his business, it's touch and go with him; when a chap in the state I was in goes for it, you can spell the result in four letters! It's RUIN, ruin! That's what it meant for me. I lost two hundred thousand pounds in three years, and my business went to pot too. Then I had this cursed stroke, and here I am! I may stick on for years, but I shall never be able to earn a penny again. Where Freddy's schooling is to come from, or how we are to live, I don't know!"

"I am very sorry," Matravers said gently. "Have you no friends then, or relations who will help you?"

"Not a damned one," growled the man on the couch. "I had plenty of pals once, only too glad to count themselves John Drage's friends; but where they are now I don't know. They seem to have melted away. There's never a one comes near me. I could do without their money or their help, somehow, but it's damned hard to lie here for ever and have not one of 'em drop in just now and then for a bit of a talk and a cheering word. That's what gives me the blues! I always was fond of company; I hated being alone, and it's like hell to lie here day after day and see no one but a cross landlady and a miserable servant girl. Lately, I can't bear to be alone with Freddy. He's so damned like his mother, you know. It brings a lump in my throat. I wouldn't mind so much if it were only myself. I've had my cake! But it's rough on the boy!"

"It is rough on the boy, and it is rough on you," Matravers said kindly. "I wonder you have never thought of sending him to his mother! She would surely like to have him!"

The man's face grew black.

"Not till I'm dead," he said doggedly. "I don't want him set against me! He's all I've got! I'm going to keep him for a bit. It ought not to be so difficult for us to live. If only I could get down to the city for a few hours!"

"Could not a friend there do some good for you?" Matravers asked.

"Of course he could," Mr. Drage answered eagerly; "but I haven't got a friend. See here!"

He took a little account book from under his pillow, and with trembling fingers thrust it before his visitor.

"You see all these amounts. They are all owing to me from those people—money lent, and one thing and another. There is an envelope with bills and I O U's. They belong to me, you understand," he said, with a sudden touch of dignity. "I never failed! My business was stopped when I was taken ill, but there was enough to pay everybody. Now some of these amounts have never been collected. If I could see these people myself, they would pay, or if I could get a friend whom I could trust! But there isn't a man comes near me!"

"I—am not a business man," Matravers said slowly; "but if you cared to explain things to me, I would go into the city and see what I could do."

The man raised himself on his elbow and gazed at his visitor open-mouthed.

"You mean this!" he cried thickly. "Say it again,—quick! You mean it!"

"Certainly," Matravers answered. "I will do what I can."

John Drage did not doubt his good fortune for a moment. No one ever looked into Matravers' face and failed to believe him.

"I—I'll thank you some day," he murmured. "You've done me up! Will you—shake hands?"

He held out a thin white hand. Matravers took it between his own.

In a few moments they were absorbed in figures and explanations. Finally the book was passed over to Matravers' keeping.

"I will see what I can do," he said quietly. "Some of these accounts should certainly be recovered. I will come down and let you know how I have got on."



"If you would! If you don't mind! And, I wonder,—do you take a morning paper? If so, will you bring it when you've done with it, or an old one will do? I can't read anything but newspapers; and lately I haven't dared to spend a penny,—because of Freddy, you know! It's so cursed lonely!"

"I will come, and I will bring you something to read," Matravers promised. "I must go now!"

John Drage held out his hand wistfully.

"Good-by," he said. "You're a good man! I wish I'd been like you. It's an odd thing for me to say, but—God bless you, sir."

Matravers stood on the doorstep with his watch in his hand. It was half-past three. There was just time to catch the four-thirty from Waterloo! For a moment the little street faded away from before his eyes! He saw himself at his journey's end! Berenice was there to meet him! A breath of the country came to him on the breeze—a breath of sweet-smelling flowers, and fresh moorland air, and the low murmur of the blue sea. Yes, there was Berenice, with her dark hair blowing in the wind, and that look of passionate peace in her pale, tired face! Her arms were open, wide open! She had been weary so long! The struggle had been so hard! and he, too, was weary——

He started! He was still on the doorstep! Freddy was drumming on the pane, and behind, there was a man lying on the couch, with his face buried in his hands. He waved his hand and descended the steps firmly.

"Back to my rooms, 147, Piccadilly," he told the cabman. "I shall not be going away to-day."



CHAPTER XIV

A man wrote it, from his little room in the heart of London, whilst night faded into morning. He wrote it with leaden heart and unwilling mechanical effort—wrote it as a man might write his own doom. Every fresh sentence, which stared up at him from the closely written sheets seemed like another landmark in his sad descent from the pinnacles of his late wonderful happiness down into the black waters of despair. When he had finished, and the pen slipped from his stiff, nerveless fingers, there were lines and marks in his face which had never been there before, and which could never altogether pass away.

* * * * *

... A woman read it, seated on a shelving slant of moorland with the blue sky overhead, and the soft murmur of the sea in her ears, and the sunlight streaming around her. When she had finished, and the letter had fallen to her side, crushed into a shapeless mass, the light had died out of the sky and the air, and the song of the birds had changed into a wail. And this was what the man had said to the woman:—

"Berenice, I have had a dream! I dreamed that I was coming to you, that you and I were together somewhere in a new world, where the men were gods and the women were saints, where the sun always shone, and nothing that was not pure and beautiful had any place! And now I am awake, and I know that there is no such world.

"You and I are standing on opposite sides of a deep, dark precipice. I may not come to you! You must not come to me.

"I have thought over this matter with all the seriousness which befits it. You will never know how great and how fierce the struggle has been. I am feeling an older and a tired man. But now that is all over! I have crossed the Rubicon! The mists have rolled away, and the truth is very clear indeed to me! I shudder when I think to what misery I might have brought you, if I had yielded to that sweetest and most fascinating impulse of my life, which bade me accept your sacrifice and come to you. Berenice, you are very young yet, and you have woven some new and very beautiful fancies which you have put into a book, and which the world has found amusing! To you alone they have become the essence of your life: they have become by constant contemplation a part of yourself. Out of the greatness of your heart you do not fear to put them into practice! But, dear, you must find a new world to fit your fancies, for the one in which we are forced to dwell, the world which, in theory, finds them delightful, would find another and an uglier world if we should venture upon their embodiment! After all we are creatures of this world, and by this world's laws we shall be judged. The things which are right are right, and the things which are pure are pure. Love is the greatest power in the world, but it cannot alter things which are unalterable.

"Once when I was climbing with a friend of mine in the Engadine, we saw a white flower growing virtually out of a cleft in the rocks, high above our heads. My friend was a botanist, and he would have that flower! I lay on my back and watched him struggle to reach it, watched him often slipping backwards, but gradually crawling nearer and nearer, until at last, breathless, with torn clothes and bleeding hands, he grasped the tiny blossom, and held it out to me in triumph! Together we admired it ceaselessly as we retraced our steps. But as we left the high altitudes and descended into the valley, a change took place in the flower. Its petals drooped, its leaves shrank and faded. White became grey, the freshness which had been its chief beauty faded away with every step we took. My friend kept it, but he kept it with sorrow! It was no longer a beautiful flower.

"Berenice, you are that flower! You are beautiful, and pure, and strong! You think that you are strong enough to live in the lowlands, but you are not! No love of mine, changeless and whole as it must ever be, could keep your soul from withering in the nether land of sin! For it would be sin! In these days when you are young, when the fires of your enthusiasm are newly kindled, and the wings of your imagination have not been shorn, you may say to yourself that it is not sin! You may say that love is the only true and sweet shrine before which we need keep our lives holy and pure, and that the time for regrets would never come!

"Illusion! I, too, have tried to reason with myself in this manner! I have tried passionately, earnestly, feverishly. I have failed! I cannot! No one can! I know that to you I seem to be writing like a Philistine, like a man of a generation gone by! You have filled your little world with new ideals, you have lit it with the lamp of love, and it all seems very real and beautiful to you! But some day, though the lamp may burn still as brightly as ever, a great white daylight will break in through the walls. You will see things that you have never seen before, and the light of that lamp will seem cold and dim and ghostly. Nothing, nothing can ever alter the fact that your husband lives, and that your little boy is growing up with a great void in his heart. Some day he will ask for his mother; even now he may be asking for her! Berenice, would he ever look with large, indulgent eyes upon that little world of yours! Alas!

* * * * *

"I have read my letter over to myself, Berenice, and I fear that it must sound to you very commonplace, even perhaps cold! Yet, believe me when I tell you that I have passed through a very fire of suffering, and if I am calm now it is with the calm of an ineffable despair! In my life at Oxford, and later, here in London, women have never borne any share. Part of my scheme of living has been to regard them as something outside my little cycle, an influence great indeed, but one which had passed me by.

"Yet I am now one of the world's great sufferers, one of those who have found at once their greatest joy linked with an unutterable despair. For I love you, Berenice! Never doubt it! Though I should never look upon your face again—which God in His mercy forbid—my love for you must be for ever a part and the greatest part of my life! Always remember that, I pray you!

"It seems strange to talk of one's plans with such a great, black cloud of sorrow filling the air! But the outward form of life does not change, even when the light has gone out and one's heart is broken! I have some work before me which I must finish; when it is over I shall go abroad! But that can wait! When you are back in London, send for me! I am schooling myself to meet a new Berenice—my friend! And I have something still more to say to you!

"MATRAVERS."



CHAPTER XV

The week that followed the sending of his letter was, to Matravers, with his love for equable times and emotions, like a week in hell! He had set himself a task not easy even to an ordinary man of business, but to him trebly difficult and harassing. Day after day he spent in the city—a somewhat strange visitor there, with his grave, dignified manner and studied fastidiousness of dress and deportment. He was unversed in the ways of the men with whom he had to deal, and he had no commercial aptitude whatever. But in a quiet way he was wonderfully persistent, and he succeeded better, perhaps, than any other emissary whom John Drage could have employed. The sum of money which he eventually collected amounted to nearly fifteen hundred pounds, and late one evening he started for Kensington with a bundle of papers under his arm and a cheque-book in his pocket.

It was his last visit,—at any rate, for the present,—he told himself with a sense of wonderful relief, as he walked through the Park in the gathering twilight. For of late, something in connection with his day's efforts had taken him every evening to the shabby little house at Kensington, where his coming was eagerly welcomed by the tired, sick man and the lonely boy. He had esteemed himself a man well schooled in all manner of self-control, and little to be influenced in a matter of duty by his personal likes and dislikes. But these visits were a torture to him! To sit and talk for hours with a man, grateful enough, but peevish and commonplace, and with a curious lack of virility or self-reliance in his untoward circumstances, was trial enough to Matravers, who had been used to select his associates and associations with delicate and close care. But to remember that this man had been, and indeed was, the husband of Berenice, was madness! It was this man, whom at the best he could only regard with a kindly and gentle contempt, who stood between him and such surprising happiness, this man and the boy with his pale, serious face and dark eyes. And the bitterness of fate—for he never realized that it would have been possible for him to have acted otherwise—had made him their benefactor!

Just as he was leaving the Park he glanced up at the sound of a carriage passing him rapidly, and as he looked up he stood still! It seemed to him that life itself was standing still in his veins. Berenice had been silent. There had come no word from her! But nothing so tragic, so horrible as this, had ever occurred to him! His heart had been full of black despair, and his days had been days of misery; but even the possibility of seeking for himself solace, by means not altogether worthy, had never dawned upon him. Nor had he dreamed it of her! Yet the man who waved his hand from the box-seat of the phaeton with a courtesy seemingly real, but, under the circumstances, brutally ironical, was Thorndyke, and the woman who sat by his side was Berenice!

The carriage passed on down the broad drive, and Matravers stood looking after it. Was it his fancy, or was that, indeed, a faint cry which came travelling through the dim light to his ears as he stood there under the trees—a figure turned to stone. A faint cry, or the wailing of a lost spirit! A sudden dizziness came over him, and he sat down on one of the seats close at hand. There was a singing in his ears, and a pain at his heart. He sat there with half-closed eyes, battling with his weakness.

Presently he got up, and continued his journey. He found himself on the doorstep of the shabby little house, and mechanically he passed in and told the story of his day's efforts to the man who welcomed him so eagerly. With his pocket-book in his hand he successfully underwent a searching cross-examination, faithfully recording what one man had said and what another, their excuses and their protestations. He made no mistakes, and his memory served him amply. But when he had come to the end of the list, and had placed the cheque-book in John Drage's fingers, he felt that he must get away. Even his stoical endurance had a measurable depth. But it was hard to escape from the man's most unwelcome gratitude. John Drage had not the tact to recognize in his benefactor the man to whom thanks are hateful.

"And I had no claim upon you whatever!" the sick man wound up, half-breathless. "If you had cut me dead, after my Oxford disgrace, it would only have been exactly what I deserved. That's what makes it so odd, your doing all this for me. I can't understand it, I'm damned if I can!"

Matravers stood over him, a silent, unresponsive figure, seeking only to make his escape. With difficulty he broke in upon the torrent of words.

"Will you do me the favour, Mr. Drage," he begged earnestly, "of saying no more about it. Any man of leisure would have done for you what I have done. If you really wish to afford me a considerable happiness, you can do so."

"Anything in this world!" John Drage declared vehemently.

Matravers thought for a moment. The proposition which he was about to make had been in his mind from the first. The time had come now to put it into words.

"You must not be offended at what I am going to say," he began gently. "I am a rich man, and I have taken a great fancy to your boy. I have no children of my own; in fact, I am quite alone in the world. If you will allow me, I should like to undertake Freddy's education."

A light broke across the man's coarse face, momentarily transfiguring it. He raised himself on his elbow, and gazed at his visitor with eager scrutiny. Then he drew a deep sigh, and there were tears in his eyes. He did not say a word. Matravers continued.

"It will be a great pleasure for me," he said quietly. "What I propose is to invest a thousand pounds for that purpose in Freddy's name. In fact, I have taken the liberty of already doing it. The papers are here."

Matravers laid an envelope on the little table between them. Then he rose up.

"Will you forgive me now," he said, "if I hurry away? I will come and see you again, and we will talk this over more thoroughly."

And still John Drage said nothing, but he held out his hand. Matravers pressed the thin fingers between his own.

"You must see Freddy," he said eagerly. "I promised him that he should come in before you went."

But Matravers shook his head. There was a pain at his heart like the cutting of a knife.

"I cannot stay another instant," he declared. "Send Freddy over to my rooms any time. Let him come and have tea with me!"

Then they parted, and Matravers walked through a world of strange shadows to Berenice's house. Her maid, recognizing him, took him up to her room without ceremony. The door was softly opened and shut. He stood upon the threshold. For a moment everything seemed dark before him.



CHAPTER XVI

Berenice seemed to dwell always in the twilight. At first Matravers thought that the room was empty, and he advanced slowly towards the window. And then he stopped short. Berenice was lying in a crumpled heap on the low couch, almost within touch of his hands. She was lying on her side, her supple figure all doubled up, and the folds of her loose gown flowing around her in wild disorder. Her face was half hidden in her clasped hands.

"Berenice," he cried softly.



She did not answer. She was asleep. He stood looking down upon her, his heart full of an infinite tenderness. She, too, had suffered, then. Her hair was in wild confusion, and there were marks of recent tears upon her pale cheeks. A little lace handkerchief had slipped from her fingers down on to the floor. He picked it up. It was wet! The glow of the heavily-shaded lamp was upon her clasped white fingers and her bowed head. He watched the rising and falling of her bosom as she slept. To him, so great a stranger to women and their ways, there was a curious fascination in all the trifling details of her toilette and person, the innate daintiness of which appealed to him with a very potent and insidious sweetness. Whilst she slept, he felt as one far removed from her. It was like a beautiful picture upon which he was gazing. The passion which had been raging within him like an autumn storm was suddenly stilled. Only the purely aesthetic pleasure of her presence and his contemplation of it remained. It seemed to him then that he would have had her stay thus for ever! Before his fixed eyes there floated a sort of mystic dream. There was another world—was it the world of sleep or of death?—where they might join hands and dwell together in beautiful places, and there was no one, not even their consciences, to say them nay. The dust of earthly passion and sin, and all the commonplace miseries of life, had faded for ever from their knowledge. It was their souls which had come together ... and there was a wonderful peace.

Then she opened her eyes and looked up at him. There was no more dreaming! The old, miserable passion flooded his heart and senses. His feet were upon the earth again! The whole world of those strange, poignant sensations, stronger because of their late coming, welled up within him.

"Berenice!"

She was only half awake, and she held up her soft, white arms to him, gleaming like marble through the lace of her wide sleeves. She looked up at him with the faint smile of a child.

"My love!"

He stooped down, and her arms closed around him like a soft yoke. But he kissed her forehead so lightly that she scarcely realized that this was almost his first caress.

"Berenice, you have been angry with me!"

She sat up, and the lamplight fell upon his face.

"You have been ill," she cried in a shocked tone.

"It is nothing. I am well. But to-night—I had a shock; I saw you with—Mr. Thorndyke!"

Her eyes met his. The hideous phantom which had been dogging his steps was slain. He was ashamed of that awful but nameless fear.

"It is true. Mr. Thorndyke has offered me an apology, which I am forced to believe sincere. He has asked me to be his wife! I was sorry for him."

"He is a bad man! He has spoken ill of you! He has already a wife!"

"I am glad of it. I can obey my instincts now, and see him no more. Personally he is distasteful to me! I had an idea he was honest! It is nothing!"

She dismissed the subject with a wave of the hand. To her it was altogether a minor matter. Then she looked at him.

"Well!"

"You never answered my letter."

"No, there was no answer. I came back."

"You did not let me know."

"You will find a message at your rooms when you get back."

He walked up and down the room. He knew at once that all he had done hitherto had been in vain. The battle was still before him. She sat and watched him with an inscrutable smile. Once as he passed her, she laid her hand upon his arm. He stopped at once.

"Your white flower was born to die and to wither," she said. "A night's frost would have killed it as surely as the lowland air. It is like these violets." She took a bunch from her bosom. "This morning they were fresh and beautiful. Now they are crushed and faded! Yet they have lived their life."

She threw them down upon the floor.

"Do you think a woman is like that?" she said softly. "You are very, very ignorant! She has a soul."

He held out his hand.

"A soul to keep white and pure. A soul to give back—to God!"

Again she smiled at him slowly, and shook her dark head. "You are like a child in some things! You have lived so long amongst the dry bones of scholarship, that you have lost your touch upon humanity. And of us women, you know—so very little. You have tried to understand us from books. How foolish! You must be my disciple, and I will teach you."

"It is not teaching," he cried; "it is temptation."

She turned upon him with a gleam of passion in her eyes.

"Temptation!" she cried. "There spoke the whole selfishness of the philosopher, the dilettante in morals! What is it that you fear? It is the besmirchment of your own ideals, your own little code framed and moulded with your own hands. What do you know of sin or of purity, you, who have held yourself aloof from the world with a sort of delicate care, as though you, forsooth, were too precious a thing to be soiled with the dust of human passion and human love! That is where you are all wrong. That is where you make your great mistake. You have judged without experience. You speak of a soul which may be stained with sin; you have no more knowledge than the Pharisees of old what constitutes sin. Love can never stain anything! Love that is constant and true and pure is above the marriage laws of men; it is above your little self-constructed ideals; it is a thing of Heaven and of God! You wrote to me like a child,—and you are a child, for until you have learnt what love is, you are without understanding."

Suddenly her outstretched hands dropped to her side. Her voice became soft and low; her dark eyes were dimmed.

"Come to me, and you shall know. I will show you in what narrow paths you have been wandering. I will show you how beautiful a woman's love can make your life!"

"If we can love and be pure," he said hoarsely, "what is sin? What is that?"

He was standing by the window, and he pointed westwards with shaking finger. The roar of Piccadilly and Regent Street came faintly into the little room. She understood him.

"You have a great deal to learn, dear," she whispered softly. "Remember this first, and before all, Love can sanctify everything."

"But they too loved in the beginning!"

She shook her head.

"That they never could have done. Love is eternal. If it fades or dies, then it never was love. Then it was sin."

"But those poor creatures! How are they to tell between the true love and the false?"

She stamped her foot, and a quiver of passion shook her frame.

"We are not talking about them. We are talking about ourselves! Do you doubt your love or mine?"

"I cannot," he answered. "Berenice!"

"Yes!"

"Did you ever tell—your husband that you loved him?"

"Never!"

"Did he love you?"

"I believe, so far as he knew how to love anything,—he did."

"And now?"

She waved her hand impatiently.

"He has forgotten. He was shallow, and he was fond of life. He has found consolation long ago. Do not talk of him. Do not dare to speak of him again! Oh, why do you make me humble myself so?"

"He may not have forgotten. He may have repented. He may be longing for you now,—and suffering. Should we be sinless then?"

She swept from her place, and stood before him with flashing eyes.

"I forbid you to remind me of my shame. I forbid you to remind me that I, too, like those poor women on the street, have been bought and sold for money! I have worked out my own emancipation. I am free. It was while I was living with him as his wife that I sinned,—for I hated him! Speak to me no more of that time! If you cannot forget it, you had better go!"

He stretched out his hands and held hers tightly.

"Berenice, if you were alone in the world, and there was some great barrier to our marriage, I would not hesitate any longer. I would take you to myself. Don't think too hardly of me. I am like a man who is denying himself heaven. But your husband lives. You belong to him. You do not know whether he is in prosperity, or whether he has forgotten. You do not know whether he has repented, or whether his life is still such as to justify your taking the law into your own hands, and forsaking him for ever. Listen to me, dear! If you will find out these things, if you can say to yourself and to me, and to your conscience, 'he has found happiness without me, he has ignored and forgotten the tie between us, he does not need my sympathy, or my care, or my companionship,' then I will have no more scruples. Only let us be sure that you are morally free from that man."

She wrenched her hands away from his. There was a bright, red spot of colour flaring on her cheeks. Her eyes were on fire.

"You are mad!" she cried; "you do not love me! No man can know what love is who talks about doubts and scruples like you do! You are too cold and too selfish to realize what love can be! And to think that I have stopped to reason, to reason with you! Oh! my God! What have I done to be humbled like this?"

"Berenice!"

"Leave me! Don't come near me any more! I shall thrust you out of my life! You never loved me! I could not have loved you! Go away! It has been a hideous mistake!"

"Berenice!"

"My God! Will you leave me?" she moaned. "You are driving me mad! I hate you!"

Her white hand flashed out into the darkness, as though she would have struck him! He bowed his head and went.



CHAPTER XVII

Matravers knew after that night that his was a broken life. Any future such as he had planned for himself of active, intellectual toil had now, he felt, become impossible. His ideals were all broken down. A woman had found her way in between the joints of an armour which he had grown to believe impenetrable, and henceforth life was a wreck. The old, quiet stoicism, which had been the inner stimulus of his career, was a thing altogether overthrown and impotent. He was too old to reconstruct life anew; the fragments were too many, and the wreck too complete. Only his philosophy showed him very plainly what the end must be. Across the sky of his vision it seemed to be written in letters of fire.

Early in the morning, having made his toilette as usual with a care almost fastidious, he went out into the sunlit streets, moving like a man in a deep dream amongst scenes which had become familiar to him day by day. At his lawyer's he made his will, and signed it, thankful for once for his great loneliness, insomuch as there was no one who could call the disposal of his property to a stranger an injustice—for he had left all to little Freddy; left it to him because of his mother's eyes, as he thought with a faint smile. Then he called at his publisher's and at the office of a leading review to which he was a regular contributor, telling them to expect no more work from him for a while; he was going abroad to take a long-earned holiday. He lunched at his club, speaking in a more than usually friendly manner to the few men with whom at times he had found it a pleasure to associate, and finally, with that sense of unreality growing stronger and stronger, he found himself once more in the Park, in his usual chair, looking out with the same keen sympathy upon the intensely joyous, beautiful phase of life which floated around him. The afternoon breeze rustled pleasantly among the cool green leaves above his head, and the sunlight slanted full across the shaded walk. On every hand were genial voices, cordial greetings, and light farewells. With a sense almost of awe, he thought of the days when he had sat there waiting for her carriage, that he might look for a few moments upon that pale-faced woman, whose influence over him seemed already to have commenced before even any words had passed between them. He sat there, gravely acknowledging the salutes of those with whom he was acquainted, wearing always the same faint and impenetrable smile—wonderful mask of a broken heart. And still the memories came surging into his brain. He thought of that grey morning when he had sat there alone, oppressed by some dim premonitions of the tragedy amongst whose shadows he was already passing, so that even the wind which had followed the dawn, and shaken the rain-drops down upon him, had seemed to carry upon its bosom wailing cries and sad human voices. As the slow moments passed along, he found himself watching for her carriage with some remnant of the old wistfulness. But it never came, and for that he was thankful.

At last he rose, and walked leisurely back to his rooms. He gave orders to his servant to pack all his things for a journey; then, for the last time, he stood up in the midst of his possessions, looking around him with a vague sorrowfulness at the little familiar objects which had become dear to him, both by association and by reason of a certain sense of companionship which he had always been able to feel for beautiful things, however inanimate. It was here that he had come when he had first left Oxford, full of certain definite ambitions, and with a mind fixed at least upon living a serene and well-ordered life. He had woven many dreams within these four walls. How far away those days now seemed to be from him! He would never dream any more; for him the world's great dream was very close at hand.

He poured himself out a glass of wine from a quaintly cut decanter, and set it down on his writing-desk, emptying into it with scrupulous care the contents of a little packet which he had been carrying all day in his waistcoat pocket. He paused for a moment before taking up his pen, to move a little on one side the deep blue china bowl of flowers which, summer and winter alike, stood always fresh upon his writing-table. To-day it chanced, by some irony of fate, that they were roses, and a swift flood of memories rushed into his tingling senses as the perfume of the creamy blossoms floated up to him.

He set his teeth, and, taking out some paper, began to write.

"Berenice, farewell! To-night I am going on a very long journey, to a very far land. You and I may never meet again, and so, farewell! Farewell to you, Berenice, whom I have loved, and whom I dearly love. You are the only woman who has ever wandered into my little life to teach me the great depths of human passion—and you came too late. But that was not your fault.

"For what I am doing, do you, at least, not blame me. If there were a single person in the world dependent upon me, or to whom my death would be a real loss, I would remain. But there is no one. And, whereas alive I can do you no good, dead I may! Berenice, your husband lives—in suffering and in poverty; your husband and your little boy. Freddy has looked at me out of your dark eyes, my love, and whilst I live I can never forget it. I hold his little hands, and I look into his pure, childish face, and the great love which I bear for his mother seems like an unholy thing. Leave your husband out of the question—put every other consideration on one side, Freddy's eyes must have kept us apart for ever.

"And, dear, it is your boy's future, and the care of your stricken husband, which must bring you into closer and more intimate touch with the vast world of human sorrows. Love is a sacrifice, and life is a sacrifice. I know, and that knowledge is the comfort of my last sad night on earth, that you will find your rightful place amongst her toiling daughters. And it is because there is no fitting place for me by your side that I am very well content to die. For myself, I have well counted the cost. Death is an infinite compulsion. Our little lives are but the veriest trifle in the scale of eternity. Whether we go into everlasting sleep, or into some other mystic state, a few short years here more or less are no great matter, Berenice."

Again there came that curious pain at his heartstrings, and the singing in his ears. The pen slipped from his fingers; his head drooped.

"Berenice!" he whispered. "Berenice!"

* * * * *

And as though by a miracle she heard him, for she was close at hand. Whilst he had been writing, the door was softly opened and closed, a tall, grey-mantled figure stood upon the threshold. It was Berenice!

"May I come in?" she cried softly. Her face was flushed, and her cheeks were wet, but a smile was quivering upon her lips.

He did not answer. She came into the room, close to his side. Her fingers clasped the hand which was hanging over the side of his chair. The lamp had burnt very low; she could scarcely see his face.

"Dear, I have come to you," she murmured. "I am sorry. I want you to forgive me. I do love you! you know that I love you!"

The pressure of her fingers upon his hand was surely returned. She stood up, and her cloak slipped from her shoulders on to the floor.

"Why don't you speak to me? Don't you hear? Don't you understand? I have come to you! I will not be sent away! It is too late! My carriage brought me here. I have told my people that I shall not be returning! Come away with me to-night! Let us start now! Listen! it is too late to draw back! Every one knows that I have come to you! We shall be so happy! Tell me that you are glad!"

There was no answer. He did not move. She came close to him, so that her cheek almost touched his.

"Tell me that you are glad," she begged. "Don't argue with me any more. If you do, I shall stop your mouth with kisses. I am not like you, dear! I must have love! I cannot live alone any longer! I have touched the utmost limits of my endurance! I will stay with you! You shall love me! Listen! If you do not, I swear—but no! You will save me from that! Oh, I know that you will! But don't argue with me! Words are so cold, and I am a woman—and I must love and be loved, or I shall die.... Ah!"

She started round with a little scream. Her eyes, frightened and dilated, were fixed upon the door. On the threshold a little boy was standing in his night-shirt, looking at her with dark, inquiring eyes.

"I want Mr. Matravers, if you please," he said deliberately. "Will you tell him? He don't know that I'm here yet! He will be so surprised! Charlie Dunlop—that's where I live—has the fever, and dad sent me here with a letter, but Mr. Matravers was out when we came, and nurse put me to bed. Now she's gone away, and I'm so lonely. Is he asleep? Please wake him, and tell him."

She turned up the lamp without moving her eyes from the little white-clad figure. A great trembling was upon her! It was like a voice from the shadows of another world. And Matravers, why did he not speak?

Slowly the lamp burned up. She leaned forward. He was sitting with his head resting upon his hand, and the old, faint smile parting his lips. But he did not look up! He did not speak to her! He was sitting like a carved image!

"For God's sake speak to me!" she cried.

Then a certain rigidity in his posture struck her for the first time, and she threw herself on the ground beside him with a cry of fear. She pressed her lips to his, chafed his cold hand, and whispered frantically in his ear! But there was no answer—there never could be any answer. Matravers was dead, and the wine-glass at his side was untasted.



* * * * *

Berenice did not faint! She did not even lose consciousness for a moment. Moaning softly to herself, but dry-eyed, she leaned over his shoulder and read the words which he had written to her, of which, indeed, the ink was scarcely dry. When she had finished, she took up the wine-glass in her own fingers, holding it so steadily that not a drop was spilt.

Here was the panacea she craved! The problem of her troubled life was so easily to be solved. Rest with the man she loved!

Her arms would fold around him as she sank to the ground. Perhaps he was already waiting for her somewhere—in one of those mystic worlds where the soul might shake itself free from this weary burden of human passions and sorrows. Her lips parted in a wonderful smile. She raised the glass!

There was a soft patter across the carpet, and a gentle tug at her dress.

"I am very cold," Freddy cried piteously, holding out a little blue foot from underneath his night-shirt. "If you don't want to wake Mr. Matravers, will you take me up to bed, please?"

Through a mist of sudden tears, she looked down into her boy's face. She drew a deep, quick breath—her fingers were suddenly nerveless. There was a great dull stain on the front of her dress, the wine-glass, shattered into many pieces, lay at her feet. She fell on her knees, and with a little burst of passionate sobs took him into her arms.

* * * * *

There were grey hairs in the woman's head, although she was still quite young. A few yards ahead, the bath chair, wheeled by an attendant, was disappearing in the shroud of white mist, which had suddenly rolled in from the sea. But the woman lingered for a moment with her eyes fixed upon that dim, distant line, where the twilight fell softly upon the grey ocean. It was the single hour in the long day which she claimed always for her own—for it seemed to her in that mysterious stillness, when the shadows were gathering and the winds had dropped, that she could sometimes hear his voice. Perhaps, somewhere, he too longed for that hour—a dweller, it might be, in that wonderful spirit world of the unknown, of which he had spoken sometimes with a curiously grave solemnity. Her hands clasped the iron railing, a light shone for a moment in the pale-lined face turned so wistfully seawards!

Was it the low, sweet music of the sea, or was it indeed his voice in her ears, languorous and soft, long-travelled yet very clear. Somewhere at least he must know that hers had become at his bidding the real sacrifice! A smile transfigured her face! It was for this she had lived!

Then there came her summons. A querulous little cry reached her from the bath chair, drawn up on the promenade. She waved her hand cheerfully.

"I am coming," she cried; "wait for me!"

But her face was turned towards that dim, grey line of silvery light, and the wind caught hold of her words and carried them away over the bosom of the sea—upwards!

THE END.



E. PHILLIPS OPPENHEIM'S NOVELS

ILLUSTRATED. CLOTH. $1.50 EACH

The Lost Ambassador

A straightforward mystery story, the plot of which hinges on the sale of two battleships.

The Illustrious Prince

The tale of a world-startling international intrigue.

Mr. Oppenheim is a past master of the art of constructing ingenious plots and weaving them around attractive characters.—London Morning Mail

Jeanne of the Marshes

An engrossing tale of love and adventure.

A real Oppenheim tale, abundantly satisfying to the reader.—New York World

The Governors

A romance of the intrigues of American finance.

The ever welcome Oppenheim.—Boston Transcript

The Missioner

Strongly depicts the love of an earnest missioner and a worldly heroine with a past.

An entrancingly interesting romance.—Pittsburg Post

The Long Arm of Mannister

A distinctly different story that deals with a wronged man's ingenious plan of revenge.

Mannister is a powerfully drawn character.—Philadelphia Press

As a Man Lives, or the Mystery of the Yellow House

Tells of an English curate and his mysterious neighbor.

Every page in it suggests a mystery.—Literary World, London

LITTLE, BROWN, & COMPANY, Publishers, BOSTON



E. PHILLIPS OPPENHEIM'S NOVELS

ILLUSTRATED. CLOTH. $1.50 EACH

A Maker of History

A capital story that "explains" the Russian Baltic fleet's attack on the North Sea fishing fleet.

An enthralling tale, with a surprisingly well-sustained mystery, and a series of plots, counterplots, and well-managed climaxes.—Brooklyn Times

The Malefactor

An amazing story of the strange revenge of Sir Wingrave Seton, who suffered imprisonment for a crime he did not commit.

THE END