He himself—unconsciously—enabled her to hold him at bay. Naturally, he connected some of the haunting anxiety he perceived with Monk Lawrence, and with Gertrude Marvell's outrageous speech in Latchford market-place. But he himself, on the other hand, was not greatly concerned for Monk Lawrence. Not only he—-the whole neighbourhood was on the alert, in defence of the famous treasure-house. The outside of the building and the gardens were patrolled at night by two detectives; and according to Daunt's own emphatic assurance to Winnington, the house was never left without either the Keeper himself or his niece in it, to mount guard. They had set up a dog, with a bark which was alone worth a policeman. And finally, Sir Wilfrid himself had been down to see the precautions taken, had especially ordered the strengthening of the side door, and the provision of iron bars for all the ground floor windows. As to the niece, Eliza Daunt, she had not made herself popular with the neighbours or in the village; but she seemed an efficient and managing woman, and that she "kept herself to herself" was far best for the safety of Monk Lawrence.

Whenever during these days Winnington's business took him in the Latchford direction, so that going or coming he passed Monk Lawrence, he would walk up to the Abbey in the evening, and in the course of the gossip of the day, all the reassuring news he had to give would be sure to drop out; while Delia sat listening, her eyes fixed on him. And then, for a time, the shadow almost lifted, and she would be her young and natural self.

In this way, without knowing it, he helped her to keep her secret, and, intermittently, to fight down her fears.

On one of these afternoons, in the February twilight, he had been talking to both the ladies, describing inter alia a brief call at Monk Lawrence and a chat with Daunt, when Madeleine Tonbridge went away to change her walking dress, and he and Delia were left alone. Winnington was standing in the favourite male attitude—his hands in his pockets, and his back to the fire; Delia was on a sofa near. The firelight flickered on the black and white of her dress, and on the face which in losing something of its dark bloom had gained infinitely in other magic for the eyes of the man looking down upon her.

Suddenly she said—

"Do you remember when you wanted me to say—I was sorry for Gertrude's speech—and I wouldn't?"

He started.

"Perfectly."

"Well, I am sorry now. I see—I know—it has been all a mistake."

She lifted her eyes to his, very quietly—but the hands on her lap shook.

His passionate impulse was to throw himself at her feet, and silence any further humbleness with kisses. But he controlled himself.

"You mean—that violence—has been a mistake?"

"Yes—just that. Oh, of course!"—she flushed again—"I am just as much for women—I am just as rebellious against their wrongs—as I ever was. I shall be a Suffragist always. But I see now—what we've stirred up in England. I see now—that we can't win that way—and that we oughtn't to win that way."

He was silent a moment, and then said in a rather muffled voice—

"I don't know who else would have confessed it—so bravely!" His emotion seemed to quiet her. She smiled radiantly.

"Does it make you feel triumphant?"

"Not in the least!"

She held out both hands, and he grasped them, smiling back—understanding that she wished him to take it lightly.

Her eyes indeed now were full of gaiety—light swimming on depths.

"You won't be always saying 'I told you so?'"

"Is it my way?"

"No. But perhaps it's cunning on your part. You know it pays better to be generous."

They both laughed, and she drew her hands away. In another minute, she had asked him to go on with some reading aloud while she worked. He took up the book. The blood raced in his veins. "Soon, soon!"—he said to himself, only to be checked by the divining instinct which added—"but not yet!"

* * * * *

Only a few more days now, to the Commons debate. Every morning the newspapers contained a crop of "militant" news of the kind foreshadowed by Gertrude Marvell—meetings disturbed, private parties raided, Ministers waylaid, windows smashed, and the like, though in none of the reports did Gertrude's own name appear. Only two days before the debate, a glorious Reynolds in the National Gallery was all but hopelessly defaced by a girl of eighteen. Feeling throughout the country surged at a white-heat. Delia said little or nothing, but the hollows under her eyes grew steadily darker, and her cheeks whiter. Nor could Winnington, for all his increasing anxiety, devote himself to soothing or distracting her. An ugly strike in the Latchford brickfields against nonunion labour was giving the magistrates of the country a good deal of anxiety. Some bad outrages had already occurred, and Winnington was endeavouring to get a Board of Trade arbitration,—all of which meant his being a good deal away from home.

Meanwhile Delia was making a new friend. Easily and simply, though no one knew exactly how, Susy Amberley had found her way to the heart of the young woman so much talked about and so widely condemned by the county. Her own departure for London had been once more delayed by the illness of her mother. But the worst of her own struggle was over now; and no one had guessed it. She was a little older, though it was hardly perceptible to any eye but her mother's; a little graver; in some ways sweeter, in others perhaps a trifle harder, like the dipped sword. Her dress had become less of a care to her; she minded the fashions less than her mother. And there had opened before her more and more alluringly that world of social service, which is to so many beautiful souls outside Catholicism the equivalent of the vowed and dedicated life.

But just as of old, she guessed Mark Winnington's thoughts, and by some instinct divined his troubles. He loved Delia Blanchflower; that she knew by a hundred signs; and there were rough places in his road,—that too she knew. They were clearly not engaged; but their relation was clearly, also, one of no ordinary friendship. Delia's dependence on him, her new gentleness and docility were full of meaning—for Susy. As to the causes of Delia's depression, why, she had lost her friend, or at any rate, to judge from the fact that Delia was at Maumsey, while Miss Marvell remained, so report said, in London—had ceased to agree or act with her. Susy divined and felt for the possible tragedy involved. Delia indeed never spoke of the militant propaganda; but she often produced on Susy a strange impression as of someone listening—through darkness.

The net result of all these guessings was that the tender Susy fell suddenly in love with Delia—first for Mark's sake, then for her own; and became in a few days of frequent meetings, Delia's small worshipper and ministering spirit. Delia surrendered, wondering; and it was soon very evident that, on her side, the splendid creature, in her unrevealed distress, pined after all to be loved, and by her own sex. She told Susy no secrets, either as to Winnington, or Gertrude; but very soon, just as Susy was certain about her, so she—very pitifully and tenderly—became certain about Susy. Susy loved—or had once loved—Winnington. And Delia knew very well, whom Winnington loved. The double knowledge softened all her pride—all her incipient jealousy away. She took Susy into her heart, though not wholly into her confidence; and soon the two began to walk the lonely country roads together hand in hand. Susy's natural tasks took her often among the poor. But Delia would not go with her. She shrank during these days, with a sick distaste from the human world around her,—its possible claims upon her. Her mind was pre-engaged; and she would not pretend what she could not feel.

This applied especially to the folk on her father's estate. As to the neighbours of her own class, they apparently shrank from her. She was left coldly alone. No one called, but Susy, France and his wife, and Captain Andrews. Mrs. Andrews indeed was loud in her denunciation of Delia and all her crew. Her daughter Marion had abominably deserted all her family duties, without any notice to her family, and was now—according to a note left behind—brazenly living in town with some one or other of the "criminals" to whom Miss Blanchflower of course, had introduced her. But as she had given no address she was safe from pursuit. Mrs. Andrews' life had never been so uncomfortable. She had to maid herself, and do her own housekeeping, and the thing was Scandalous and intolerable. She filled the local air with wailing and abuse.

But her son, the gallant Captain, would not allow any abuse of Delia Blanchflower in his presence. He had begun, indeed, immediately after Delia's return, to haunt the Abbey so persistently that Madeleine Tonbridge had to make an opportunity for a few quiet words in his ear, after which he disappeared disconsolate.

But he was a good fellow at heart, and the impression Delia had made upon him, together with some plain speaking on the subject from Lady Tonbridge, in the course of a chance meeting in the village, roused a remorseful discomfort in him about his sister. He tried honestly to find out where she was, but quite in vain. Then he turned upon his Mother, and told her bluntly she was herself to blame for her daughter's flight. "Between us, we've led her a dog's life, Mother, there, that's the truth! All the same, I'm damned sorry she's taken up with this business."

However, it mattered nothing to anybody whether the Captain was "damned sorry" or not. The hours were almost numbered. The Sunday before the Tuesday fixed for the Second Reading came and went. It was a foggy February day, in which the hills faded from sight, and all the world went grey. Winnington spent the afternoon at Maumsey. But neither he nor Madeleine seemed to be able to rouse Delia during that day from a kind of waking dream—which he interpreted as a brooding sense of some catastrophe to come.

He was certain that her mind was fixed on the division ahead—the scene in the House of Commons—and on the terror of what the "Daughters"—Gertrude perhaps in the van—might be planning and plotting in revenge for it. His own feeling was one of vast relief that the strain would be so soon over, and his own tongue loosed. Monk Lawrence was safe enough! And as for any other attempt at vengeance, he dismissed the notion with impatient scorn.

But meanwhile he said not a word that could have jarred on any conviction or grief of Delia's. Sometimes indeed they touched the great subject itself—the "movement" in its broad and arguable aspects; though it seemed to him that Delia could not bear it for long. Mind and heart were too sore; and her weary reasonableness made him long for the prophetic furies of the autumn. But always she felt herself enwrapped by a tenderness, a chivalry that never failed. Only between her and it—between her and him—as she lay awake through broken nights, some barrier rose—dark and impassable. She knew it for the barrier of her own unconquered fear.



Chapter XIX

On this same Sunday night before the date fixed for the Suffrage debate, a slender woman, in a veil and a waterproof, opened the gate of a small house in the Brixton Road. It was about nine o'clock in the evening. The pavements were wet with rain, and a gusty wind was shrieking through the smutty almond and alder trees along the road which had ventured to put out their poor blossoms and leaves in the teeth of this February gale.

The woman stood and looked at the house after shutting the gate, as though uncertain whether she had found what she was looking for. But the number 453, on the dingy door, could be still made out by the light of the street opposite, and she mounted the steps.

A slatternly maid opened the door, and on being asked whether Mrs. Marvell was at home, pointed curtly to a dimly lighted staircase, and disappeared.

Gertrude Marvell groped her way upstairs. The house smelt repulsively of stale food, and gas mingled, and the wailing wind from outside seemed to pursue the visitor with its voice as she mounted. On the second floor landing, she knocked at the door of the front room.

After an interval, some shuffling steps came to the door, and it was cautiously opened.

"What's your business, please?"

"It's me—Gertrude. Are you alone?"

A sound of astonishment. The door was opened, and a woman appeared. Her untidy, brown hair, touched with grey, fell back from a handsome peevish face of an aquiline type. A delicate mouth, relaxed and bloodless, seemed to make a fretful appeal to the spectator, and the dark circles under the eyes shewed violet on a smooth and pallid skin. She was dressed in a faded tea-gown much betrimmed, covered up with a dingy white shawl.

"Well, Gertrude—so you've come—at last!"—she said, after a moment, in a tone of resentment.

"If you can put me up for the night—I can stay. I've brought no luggage."

"That doesn't matter. There's a stretcher bed. Come in." Gertrude Marvell entered, and her mother closed the door.

"Well, mother—how are you?"

The daughter offered her cheek, which the elder woman kissed. Then Mrs. Marvell said bitterly—

"Well, I don't suppose, Gertrude, it much matters to you how I am."

Gertrude took off her wet waterproof, and hat, and sitting down by the fire, looked round her mother's bed-sitting-room. There was a tray on the table with the remains of a meal. There were also a large number of women's hats, some trimmed, some untrimmed, some in process of trimming, lying about the room, on the different articles of furniture. There was a tiny dog in a basket, which barked shrilly and feebly as Gertrude approached the fire, and there were various cheap illustrated papers and a couple of sixpenny novels to be seen emerging from the litter here and there. For the rest, the furniture was of a squalid lodging-house type. On the chimney-piece however was a bunch of daffodils, the only fresh and pleasing object in the room.

To Gertrude it was as though she had seen it all before. Behind the room, there stretched a succession of its ghostly fellows—the rooms of her childhood. In those rooms she could remember her mother as a young and comely woman, but always with the same slovenly dress, and the same untidy—though then abundant and beautiful—hair. And as she half shut her eyes she seemed also to see her younger sister coming in and out—malicious, secretive—with her small turn-up nose, pouting lips, and under-hung chin.

She made no reply to her mother's complaining remark. But while she held her cold hands to the blaze that Mrs. Marvell stirred up, her eyes took careful note of her mother's aspect. "Much as usual," was her inward comment. "Whatever happens, she'll outlive me."

"You've been going on with the millinery?" She pointed to the hats. "I hope you've been making it pay."

"It provides me with a few shillings now and then," said Mrs. Marvell, sitting heavily down on the other side of the fire—"which Winnie generally gets out of me!" she said sharply. "I am a miserable pauper now, as I always have been."

Gertrude's look was unmoved. Her mother had, she knew, all that her father had left behind him—no great sum, but enough for a solitary woman to live on.

"Well, anyway, you must be glad of it as an occupation. I wish I could help you. But I haven't really a farthing of my own, beyond the interest on my L1000. I handle a great deal of money, but it all goes to the League, and I never let them pay me more than my bare expenses. Now then, tell me all about everybody!" And she lay back in the dilapidated basket-chair that had been offered her, and prepared herself to listen.

The family chronicle was done. It was as depressing as usual, and Gertrude made but little comment upon it. When it was finished, Mrs. Marvell rose, and put the kettle on the fire, and got out a couple of fresh cups and saucers from a cupboard. As she did so, she looked round at her visitor.

"And you're as deep in that militant business as ever."

Gertrude made a negligent sign of assent.

"Well, you'll never get any good of it." The mother's pale cheek flushed. It excited her to have this chance of speaking her mind to her clever and notorious daughter, whom in many ways she secretly envied, while heartily disapproving her acts and opinions.

Gertrude shrugged her shoulders.

"What's the good of arguing?"

"Well, it's true"—said the mother, persisting. "Every new thing you do, turns more people against you. Winnie's a Suffragist—but she says you've spoilt all their game!"

Gertrude's eyes shone; she despised her mother's opinion, and her sister's still more, and yet once again in their neighbourhood, once again in the old environment, she could not help treating them in the old defiant brow-beating way.

"And you think, I suppose, that Winnie knows a good deal about it?"

"Well, she knows what everybody's saying—in the trams—and the trains everywhere. Hundreds of them that used to be for you have turned over."

"Let them!"

The contemptuous tone irritated Mrs. Marvell. But at the same time she could not help admiring her eldest daughter, as she sat there in the fire-light, her quiet well-cut dress, her delicate hands and feet. It was true indeed, she was a scarce-crow for thinness, and looked years older—"somehow gone to pieces"—thought the mother, vaguely, and with a queer, sudden pang.

"And you're going on with it?"

"What? Militancy? Of course we are—more than ever!"

"Why, the men laugh at you, Gertrude!"

"They won't laugh—by the time we've done," said Gertrude, with apparent indifference. Her mother had not sufficient subtlety of perception to see that the indifference was now assumed, to hide the quiver of nerves, irreparably injured by excitement and overstrain.

"Well, all I know is, it's against nature to suppose that women can fight men." Mrs. Marvell's remarks were rather like the emergence of scattered spars from a choppy sea.

"We shall fight them," said Gertrude, sourly—"And what's more, we shall beat them."

"All the same we've got to live with them!" cried her mother, suddenly flushing, as old memories swept across her.

"Yes,—on our terms—not theirs!"

"I do believe, Gertrude, you hate the very sight of a man!" Gertrude smiled again; then suddenly shivered, as though the cold wind outside had swept through the room.

"And so would you—if you knew what I do!"

"Well I do know a good bit!" protested Mrs. Marvell. "And I'm a married woman,—worse luck! and you're not. But you'll never see it any other way than your own, Gertie. You got a kink in you when you were quite a girl. Last week I was talking about you to a woman I know—and I said—'It's the girls ruined by the bad men that make Gertrude so mad'—and she said—'She don't ever think of the boys that are ruined by the bad women!—Has she ever had a son—not she!' And she just cried and cried. I suppose she was thinking of something."

Gertrude rose.

"Look here, mother. Can I go to bed? I'm awfully tired."

"Wait a bit. I'll make the bed."

Gertrude sat down by the fire again. Her exhaustion was evident, and she made no attempt to help her mother. Mrs. Marvell let down the chair-bed, drew it near the fire, and found some bed-clothes. Then she produced night-things of her own, and helped Gertrude undress. When her daughter was in bed, she made some tea, and dry toast, and Gertrude let them be forced on her. When she had finished, the mother suddenly stooped and kissed her.

"Where are you going to now, Gertrude? Are you staying on with that lady in Hamptonshire?"

"Can't tell you my plans just yet," said Gertrude sleepily—"but you'll know next week."

The lights were put out. Both women tried to sleep, and Gertrude was soon heavily asleep.

But as soon as it was light, Mrs. Marvell heard her moving, the splash of water, and the lighting of the fire. Presently Gertrude came to her side fully dressed—

"There, mother, I've made you a cup of tea! And now in a few minutes I shall be off."

Mrs. Marvell sat up and drank the tea.

"I didn't think you'd go in such a hurry," she said, fretfully.

"I must. My day's so full. Well, now look here, Mother, I want you to know if anything were to happen to me, my thousand pounds would come to you first, and then to Winnie and her children. And it's my wish, that neither my brother nor Henry shall touch a farthing of it. I've made a will, and that's the address of my solicitors, who're keeping it." She handed her mother an envelope.

Mrs. Marvell put down her tea, and put her handkerchief to her eyes.

"I believe you're up to something dreadful, Gertrude,—which you won't tell me."

"Nonsense," said Gertrude, not however unkindly. "But we mayn't see each other for a good while. There!—I'll open the windows—that'll make you feel more cheerful." And she drew up the blinds to the dull February day, and opened a window.

"I'll telephone to Winnie as I go past the Post Office to come and spend the day with you—and I'll send up the servant to do your room. Now don't fret."

"I'm a lonely old woman, Gertrude:—and I wish I was dead."

Gertrude frowned.

"You should try and read something, Mother—better than these trashy novels. When I've time, I'll send you a parcel of books—I've got a good many. And don't you let your work go—it's good for you. Now good-bye."

The two women kissed—Mrs. Marvell embracing her daughter with a sudden fierceness of emotion to which Gertrude submitted, almost for the first time in her life. Then her mother pushed her away.

"Good-bye, Gertrude—you'd better go!"

Gertrude went out noiselessly, closing the door behind her with a lingering movement, unlike her. In the tiny hall below, she found the "general" at work, and sent her up to Mrs. Marvell. Then she went out into the grey February morning, and the little girl of the landlady standing on the steps saw her enter one of the eastward-bound trams.

Monday afternoon came. Winnington had been called away to Wanchester by urgent County business; against his will, for there had been some bad rioting the day before at Latchford, and he would rather have gone to help his brother magistrates. But there was no help for it. Lady Tonbridge was at the little Georgian house, shutting it up for six months. Delia was left alone in the Abbey, consumed with a restless excitement she had done her best to hide from her companions. She suddenly made up her mind that she would go and see for herself, and by herself, what was happening at Monk Lawrence. She set out unobserved and on foot, and had soon climbed the hill and reached the wood walk along its crest where she had once met Lathrop. Half way through, she came on two persons whom she at once recognised as the science-mistress, Miss Jackson, and Miss Toogood. They were waiting slowly, and, as it seemed to Delia, sadly; the little dressmaker limping painfully, with her head thrown back and a face of fixed and tragic distress.

When they saw Delia, they stopped in agitation.

"Oh, Miss Blanchflower!—"

Delia who knew that Miss Jackson had been in town hoping for work at the Central Office of the League of Revolt, divined at once that she had been disappointed.

"They couldn't find you anything?"

The teacher shook her head.

"And the Governors have given me a month's salary here in lieu of notice. I've left the school, Miss Blanchflower! I was in the Square you know, that day—and at the Police Court afterwards. That was what did it. And I have my old mother to keep."

A pair of haggard eyes met Delia's.

"Oh, but I'll help!" cried Delia.—"You must let me help!—won't you?"

"Thank you—but I've got a few savings," said the teacher quietly. "It isn't that so much. It's—well, Miss Toogood feels it too. She was in town—she saw everything. And she knows what I mean. We're disheartened—that's what it is!"

"With the movement?" said Delia, after a moment.

"It seemed so splendid when we talked of it down here—and—it was—so horrible!" Her voice dropped.

"So horrible!" echoed Miss Toogood drearily. "It wasn't what we meant, somehow. And yet we'd read about it. But to see those young women beating men's faces—well, it did for me!"

"The police were rough too!" cried Miss Jackson. "But you couldn't wonder at it, Miss Blanchflower, could you?"

Delia looked into the speaker's frank, troubled face. "You and I felt the same," she said in a choked voice. "It was ugly—and it was absurd."

She walked back with them a little way, comforting them, as best she could. And her sympathy, her sweetness did—strangely—comfort them. When she left them, they walked on, talking tenderly of her, counting on her good fortune, if there was none for them.

At the end of the walk, towards Monk Lawrence, another figure emerged from the distance. Delia started, then gathered all her wits; for it was Lathrop.

He hurried towards her, breathless, cutting all preliminaries—

"I was coming to find you. I arrived this morning. There is something wrong! I have just been to the house, and there is no one there."

"What do you mean?"

"No one. I went to Daunt's rooms. Everything locked. The house absolutely dark—everywhere. And I know that he has had the strictest orders!"

Without a word, she began to run, and he beside her. When she slackened, he told her that while in London he had made the most skilful enquiries he could devise as to the plot he believed to be on foot. But—like Delia's own—they had been quite fruitless. Those persons who had shared suspicion with him in December were now convinced that the thing was dropped. All that he had ascertained was that Miss Marvell was in town, apparently recovered, and Miss Andrews with her.

"Well—and were you pleased with your raid?" he asked her, half mockingly, as he opened the gate of Monk Lawrence for her.

She resented the question, and the tone of it, remembering his first grandiloquent letter to her.

"You ought to be," she said, drily. "It was the kind of thing you recommended."

"In that letter I wrote you! I ought to have apologised to you for that letter long ago. I am afraid it was an exercise. Oh, I felt it, I suppose, when I wrote it."

There was a touch of something insolent in his voice.

She made no reply. If it had not been for the necessity which yoked them, she would not have spent another minute in his company, so repellent to her had he become—both in the inner and the outer man. She tried only to think of him as an ally in a desperate campaign.

They hastened up the Monk Lawrence drive. The house stood still and peaceful in the February afternoon. The rooks from the rookery behind were swirling about and over the roofs, filling the air with monotonous sound which only emphasized the silence below. A sheet of snowdrops lay white in the courtyard, where a child's go-cart upset, held the very middle of the stately approach to the house.

Delia went to the front door, and rang the bell—repeatedly. Not a sound, except the dim echoes of the bell itself from some region far inside.

"No good!" said Lathrop. "Now come to the back." They went round to the low addition at the back of the house, where Daunt and his family had now lived for many months. Here also there was nobody. The door was locked. The blinds were drawn down. Impossible to see into the rooms, and neither calling nor knocking produced any response.

Lathrop stood thinking.

"Absolutely against orders! I know—for Daunt himself told me—that he had promised Lang never to leave the house without putting some deputy he could trust in charge. He has gone and left no deputy—or the deputy he did leave has deserted."

"What's the nearest house—or cottage?"

"The Gardeners' cottages, beyond the kitchen garden. Only one of them occupied now, I believe. Daunt used to live there before he moved into the house. Let's go there!"

They ran on. The walled kitchen garden was locked, but they found a way round it to where three creeper-grown cottages stood in a pleasant lonely space girdled by beech-woods. One only was inhabited, but from that the smoke was going up, and a babble of children's voices emerged.

Lathrop knocked. There was a sudden sound, and then a silence within. In a minute however the door was opened, and a strapping black-eyed young woman stood on the threshold looking both sulky and astonished.

"Are you Daunt's niece?" said Lathrop.

"I am, Sir. What do you want with him?"

"Why isn't he at Monk Lawrence?" asked Lathrop roughly. "He told me himself he was not to leave the house unguarded."

"Well, Sir, I don't know I'm sure what business it is of yours!" said the woman, flushing with anger. "He got bad news of his son, whose ship arrived at Portsmouth yesterday, and the young man said to be dying, on board. So he went off this afternoon. I've only left it for ten minutes and I'm going back directly. Mrs. Cresson here had asked the children to tea, and I brought them over. And I'll thank you, Sir, not to go spying on honest people!"

And she would have slammed the door in his face, but that Delia came forward.

"We had no intention of spying upon you, Miss Daunt—indeed we hadn't. But I am Miss Blanchflower, who came here before Christmas, with Mr. Winnington, and I should have been glad to see Mr. Daunt and the children. Lily!—don't you remember me?"—and she smiled at the crippled child—a delicate blue-eyed creature—whom she saw in the background.

But the child, who seemed to have been crying violently, did not come forward. And the other two, who had their fingers in their mouths, were equally silent and shrinking. In the distance an old woman sat motionless in her chair by the fire, taking no notice apparently of what was going on.

The young woman appeared for a moment confused or excited.

"Well, I'm sorry, Miss, but my Uncle won't be back till after dark. And I wouldn't advise you to come in, Miss,"—she hurriedly drew the door close behind her—"the doctor thinks two of the children have got whooping-cough—and I didn't send them to school today."

"Well, just understand, Miss Daunt, if that's your name," said Lathrop, with emphasis—"that till you return to the house, we shall stay there. We shall walk up and down there, till you come back. You know well enough there are people about, who would gladly do an injury to the house, and that it's not safe to leave it. Monk Lawrence is not Sir Wilfrid Lang's property only. It belongs to the whole nation, and there are plenty of people that'll know the reason why, if any harm comes to it."

"Oh, very well. Have it your own way, Sir! I'll come—I'll come—fast enough," and the speaker, with a curious half-mocking look at Lathrop, flounced back into the cottage, and shut the door. They waited. There were sounds of lowered voices, and crying children. Then Miss Daunt emerged defiantly, and they all three walked back to Monk Lawrence.

The keeper's niece unlocked the door leading to Daunt's rooms. But she stood sulkily in the entry.

"Now I hope you're satisfied, Sir. I don't know, I'm sure, why you should come meddling in other people's affairs. And I daresay you'll say something against me to my uncle!"

"Well, anyway, you keep watch!" was the stern reply. "I take my rounds often this way, as your Uncle knows. I daresay I shall be by here again tonight. Can the children find their way home alone?"

"Well, they're not idiots, Sir! Good-night to you. I've got to get supper." And brusquely shutting the door in their faces, she went inside. They perceived immediately afterwards that she had lit a light in the kitchen.

"Well, so far, all right," said Lathrop, as he and Delia withdrew. "But the whole thing's rather—queer. You know that old woman, Mrs. Cresson, is not all there, and quite helpless?"

He pondered it as they walked back through the wood, his eyes on the ground. Delia shared his undefined anxiety. She suggested that he should go back to the house in an hour or so, to see if Daunt had returned, and complain of his niece's breach of rules. Lathrop agreed.

"How do we know who or what that girl is?"—he said slowly—"that she mayn't have been got hold of?"

The same terror grew in Delia. She walked on beside him absorbed in speculation and discussion, till, without noticing, she had reached the farther gate of the wood-walk. Outside the gate, ran the Wanchester road, climbing the down, amid the woods. To reach the field path leading to the Abbey, Delia must cross it.

She and Lathrop emerged from the wood still talking in low voices, and stood beside the gate. A small car, with one man driving it, was descending the long hill. But Delia had her back to it.

It came nearer. She turned, and saw Winnington approaching her—saw the look on his face. For a moment she wavered. Then with a bow and a hasty "Good Evening," she left Lathrop, and stepped into the road, holding up her hand to stop the car.

"How lucky!" she said, clearly, and gaily,—"just as it's going to rain! Will you take me home?"

Winnington, without a word, made room for her beside him. The two men exchanged a slight greeting—and the car passed.

Lathrop walked quickly back in the direction of Monk Lawrence. His vanity was hugely pleased.

"By George!—that was one to me! It's quite evident she hasn't taken him into her confidence—doesn't want magistrates interfering—no doubt. And meanwhile she appeals to me—she depends on me. Whatever happens—she'll have to be grateful to me. That fellow with his wry face can't stop it. What a vision she made just now under the wood—'belle dame sans merci!'—hating my company—and yet compelled to it. It would make a sonnet I think—I'll try it tonight."

* * * * *

Meanwhile in the dark corridors of Monk Lawrence a woman groping, met another woman. The two dim figures exchanged some whispered words. Then one of them returned to the back regions.

Lathrop, passing by, noticed smoke rising from the Daunts' chimney, and was reassured. But in an hour or so he would return to look for Daunt himself.

He had no sooner descended the hill to his own cottage, in the fast gathering dusk, than Eliza Daunt emerged. She left the light burning in the keeper's kitchen, and some cold supper on the table. Then with a laugh which was half a sob of excitement she ran down the path leading to the garden cottages.

She was met by a clamour of rebellious children, as she opened Mrs. Cresson's door. "Where's Daddy, Liza?—where's Daddy! Why can't we go home! We want our Daddy!"

"Hold your noise!" said Eliza roughly—"or it'll be the worse for you—Daddy won't be home for a couple of hours yet, and I promised Fred Cresson, I'd get Mrs. Cresson's tea for her. Lily, stop crying—and get the tray!"

The crippled child, red-eyed, unwillingly obeyed. Neither she nor her sisters could understand why they had been brought over to tea with Mrs. Cresson of whose queer half-imbecile ways they were all terrified. Their father had gone off in a great hurry—because of the telegram which had come. And Fred had bicycled down to Latchford to see somebody about a gardener's place. And now there was no one left but Liza and Mrs. Cresson—of whom, for different reasons, the three little girls were equally afraid. And Lily's heart especially was sore for her father. She knew very well they were all doing what was forbidden. But she dared not complain. They had found Cousin 'Liza a hard woman.

After Eliza Daunt had left Daunt's kitchen, for the space of half an hour, a deep and brooding quiet settled on Monk Lawrence. The old house held that in its womb, which must soon crash to light; but for this last brief space, all was peace. The twilight of a clear February evening mellowed the grey walls, and the moss-grown roofs; the house spoke its last message—its murmured story, as the long yoke-fellow of human life—to the tranquil air; and the pigeons crooned about it, little knowing.

Presently from the same door which had seen Eliza Daunt depart, a woman cautiously emerged. She was in dark clothes, closely veiled. With noiseless step, she passed round the back of the house, pausing a moment to look at the side door on the north side which had been lately strengthened by Sir Wilfrid's orders. Then she gained the shelter of the close-grown shrubbery, and turning round she stood a few seconds motionless, gazing at the house. In spite of her quiet movements, she was trembling from head to foot—with excitement, not fear.

"It's beautiful," she was saying to herself—"and precious—and I've destroyed it." Then—with a fierce leap in the blood—"Beauty! And what about the beauty that men destroy? Let them pay!"

But as she stood there a sudden disabling storm of thought—misgiving—argument—swept through her brain. She seemed to hear on all sides voices in the air—the voices of friends and foes, of applause and execration—Delia's voice among them! And at the mere imagination of it, a shiver of anger ran through her. She thought of Delia now, only as of one who had deserted and disobeyed.

But with the illusion of the ear, there came also an illusion of vision. The months of her recent life rose before her, in one hurrying spectacle of scenes and faces, and the spectacle aroused in her but one idea—one sickening impression—of crushing and superhuman effort. What labour!—what toil! She shuddered under it. Then, suddenly, her mind ran back to the early years before, beyond, the days of "war"—sordid, unceasing war—when there had been time to love, to weep, to pity, to enjoy; before wrath breeding wrath, and violence begetting violence, had driven out the Spirits of Tenderness and Hope. She seemed to see, to feel them—the sad Exiles!—fleeing along desert ways; and her bitter heart cried out to them—for the only—the last time. For in the great names of Love and Justice, she had let Hate loose within her, and like the lion-cub nurtured in the house, it had grown to be the soul's master and gaoler; a "doom" holding the citadels of life, and working itself out to the appointed end.

But the tumult in which she stood began to unnerve her. By a last exercise of will she was able to pull herself together.

Rapidly, as one well used to them, she made her way through the shrubbery paths; round the walled garden, and behind the gardeners' cottages. She heard the children in Mrs. Cresson's cottage as she passed, Lily still fretfully crying, and the old woman's voice scolding. Poor children!—they would be horribly frightened—but nothing worse.

The thick overgrown wood of fir and beech behind the cottages received her, swallowed up the slight insignificant form. In the wood there was still light enough to let her grope her way along the path, till at the end, against an opening to the sky, she saw the outlines of a keeper's hut. Then she knew that she was worn out, and must rest. She pushed the door ajar, and sat crouching on the threshold, while the schemes and plottings of the preceding weeks ran disjointedly through memory.

Marion was safe by now—she had had an hour's start. And Eliza too had gone. Nothing could be better than the arrangements made for those two.

But she herself was not going—not yet. Her limbs failed her; and beyond the sheltering woods, she seemed to become electrically aware of hostile persons, of nets drawn round her, cutting off escape. As to that, she felt the most supreme indifference to what might happen to her. The indifference, indeed, passed presently into a strange and stinging temptation to go back—back to the dark house—to see with her own eyes what her hands had done. She resisted it with difficulty.... Suddenly, a sound from the distance—beyond the cottages—as of a slight explosion. She started, and throwing back her veil, she sat motionless in the doorway of the hut, her face making a dim white patch upon the darkness.



Chapter XX

"Take me home!—take me home quick! I want to talk to you. Not now—not here!"

The car flew along. Mark barely looked at Delia. His face was set and pale. As for her, while they ran through the village and along the country road between it and Maumsey, her mind had time to adjust itself to that flashing resolution which had broken down a hundred scruples and swept away a hundred fears, in that moment on the hill when she had met his eyes, and the look in them. What must he think of her? An assignation with that man, on the very first afternoon when his tender watchfulness left her for an hour! No, it could not be borne that he should read her so! She must clear herself! And thought, leaping beacon-like from point to point told her, at last, that for Gertrude too, she had chosen wrongly. Thank Heaven, there was still time! What could a girl do, all alone—groping in such a darkness? Better after all lay the case before Mark's judgment, Mark's tenderness, and trust him with it all. Trust her own power too—see what a girl could do with the man who loved her!

The car stopped at the Abbey door, and Winnington, still absolutely silent, helped her to alight. She led the way, past the drawing-room where Lady Tonbridge sat rather anxiously expecting her, to that bare room on the ground floor, the little gun-room, which Gertrude Marvell had made her office, and where many signs of her occupation still remained—a calendar on the wall marking the "glorious" dates of the League—a flashlight photograph of the first raid on Parliament some years before—a faded badge, and scattered piles of newspapers. A couple of deal tables and two chairs were all the furniture the room contained, in addition to the cupboards, painted in stone-colour, which covered the walls.

Delia closed the door, and threw off her furs. Then, with a gesture of complete abandonment, she went up to Winnington, holding out her hands—

"Oh, Mark, Mark, I want you to help me!"

He took her hands, but without pressing them. His face, frowning and flushed, with a little quivering of the nostrils, began to terrify her—

"Oh, Mark,—dear Mr. Mark—I went to see Mr. Lathrop—because—because I was in great trouble—and I thought he could help me."

He dropped the hands.

"You went to him—instead of to me? How long have you been with him? Did you write to him to arrange it?"

"No, no—we met by accident. Mark, it's not myself—it's a fear I have—a dreadful, dreadful fear!"

She came close to him, piteously, just murmuring—

"It's Monk Lawrence!—and Gertrude!"

He started, and looked at her keenly—

"You know something I don't know?"

"Oh yes, I do, I do!" she said, wringing her hands. "I ought to have told you long ago. But I've been afraid of what you might do—I've been afraid for Gertrude. Can't you see, Mark? I've been trying to make Mr. Lathrop keep watch—enquire—so that they wouldn't dare. I've told Gertrude that I know—I've written to people—I've done all I could. And this afternoon I felt I must go there and see for myself, what precautions had been taken—and I met Mr. Lathrop—"

She gave a rapid account of their visit to the house,—of its complete desertion—of the strange behaviour of the niece—and of the growing alarm in her own mind.

"There's something—there's some plot. Perhaps that woman's in it. Perhaps Gertrude's got hold of her—or Miss Andrews. Anyway, if that house can be left quite alone—ever—they'll get at it—that I'm sure of. Why did she take the children away? Wasn't that strange?"

Then she put her hands on the heart that fluttered so—and tried to smile—

"But of course till the Bill's thrown out, there can be no danger, can there? There can't be any!" she repeated, as though appealing to him to reassure her.

"I don't understand yet," he said gravely. "Why do you suspect Miss Marvell, or a plot at all? There was no such idea in your mind when we went over the house together?"

"No, none!—or at least not seriously—there was nothing, really, to go on"—she assured him eagerly. "But just after—you remember Mr. Lathrop's coming—that day—?—when you scolded me?"

He could not help smiling a little—rather bitterly.

"I remember you said you couldn't explain. Of course I thought it was something connected with Miss Marvell, or your Society—but—"

"I'm going to explain"—she said, trying hard for composure. "I'm going to tell it all in order."

And sitting down, her head resting on her hand, with Winnington standing before her, she told the whole story of the preceding weeks—the alternations of fear and relief—Lathrop's suspicions—Gertrude's denials—the last interview between them.

As for the man looking down upon her beautiful bowed head, his heart melted within him as he listened. The sting remained that she should have asked anyone else than he to help her—above all that she should have humbled herself to ask it of such a man as Lathrop. Anxiety remained, for Monk Lawrence itself, and still more for what might be said of her complicity. But all that was further implied in her confession, her drooping sweetness, her passionate appeal to him—the beauty of her true character, its innocence, its faith, its loyalty—began to flood him with a feeling that presently burst its bounds.

She wound up with most touching entreaties to him, to save and shield her friend—to go himself to Gertrude and warn her—to go to the police—without disclosing names, of course—and insist that the house should be constantly patrolled.

He scarcely heard a word of this. When she paused—there was silence a moment. Then she heard her name—very low—

"Delia!"

She looked up, and with a long breath she rose, as though drawn invisibly. He held out his arms, and she threw hers round his neck, hiding her face against the life that beat for her.

"Oh, forgive me!"—she murmured, after a little, childishly pressing her lips to his—"forgive me—for everything!"

The tears were in his eyes.

"You've gone through all this!—alone!" he said to her, as he bent over her. "But never again, Delia—never again!"

She was the first to release herself—putting tears away.

"Now then—what can we do?"

He resumed at once his ordinary manner and voice.

"We can do a great deal. I have the car here. I shall go straight back to Monk Lawrence, and see Daunt to-night. That woman's behaviour must be reported—and explained. An hour—an hour and a half?—since you were there?"—he took out his watch—"He's probably home by now—it's quite dark—he'd scarcely risk being away after dark. Dearest, go and rest!—I shall come back later—after dinner. Put it out of your mind."

She went towards the hall with him hand in hand. Suddenly there was a confused sound of shouting outside. Lady Tonbridge opened the drawing-room door with a scared face—

"What is it? There are people running up the drive. They're shouting something!"

Winnington rushed to the front door, Delia with him. With his first glance at the hill-side, he understood the meaning of the cries—of the crowd approaching.

"My God!—too late!"

For high on that wooded slope, a blaze was spreading to the skies—a blaze that grew with every second—illuminating with its flare the woods around it, the chimneys of the old house, the quiet stretches of the hill.

"Monk Lawrence is afire, Muster Winnington!" panted one of Winnington's own labourers who had outstripped the rest. "They're asking for you to come! They've telephoned to Latchford for the engines, and to Brownmouth and Wanchester too. They say it's burning like tow—there must be petrol in it, or summat. It's the women they say!—spite of Mr. Daunt and the perlice!"

Then he noticed Delia standing beside Winnington on the steps, and held his tongue, scowling.

Winnington's car was still standing at the steps. He set it going in a moment.

"My cloak!" said Delia, looking round her—"And tell them to bring the car!"

"Delia, you're not going?" cried Madeleine, throwing a restraining arm about her.

"But of course I am!" said the girl amazed. "Not with him—because I should be in his way."

Various persons ran to do her bidding. Winnington already in his place, with a labourer beside him, and two more in the seat behind him, beckoned to her.

"Why should you come, dearest! It will only break your heart. We'll do all that can be done, and I'll send back messages."

She shook her head.

"I shall come! But don't think of me. I won't run any risks."

There was no time to argue with her. The little car sped away, and with it the miscellaneous crowd who had rushed to find Winnington, as the natural head of the Maumsey community, and the only magistrate within reach.

Delia and Madeleine were left standing on the steps, amid a group of frightened and chattering servants—gazing in despairing rage at the ever-spreading horror on the slope of the down, at the sudden leaps of flame, the vast showers of sparks drifting over the woods, the red glare on the low hanging clouds. The garnered beauty of four centuries, one of England's noblest heirlooms, was going down in ruin, at the bidding of a handful of women, hurling themselves in disappointed fury on a community that would not give them their way.

Sharp-toothed remorse had hold on Delia. If she had only gone to Wilmington earlier! "My fault!—my fault!"

When the car came quickly round, she and Lady Tonbridge got into it. As they rushed through the roads, lit on their way by that blaze in the heart of the hills, of which the roaring began to reach their ears, Delia sat speechless, and death-like, reconstructing the past days and hours. Not yet two hours since she had left the house—left it untouched. At that very moment, Gertrude or Gertrude's agents must have been within it. The whole thing had been a plot—the children taken away—the house left deserted. Very likely Daunt's summons to his dying son had been also part of it. And as to the niece—what more probable than that Gertrude had laid hands on her months before, guided perhaps by the local knowledge of Marion Andrews,—and had placed her as spy and agent in the doomed house till the time should be ripe? The blind and fanatical devotions which Gertrude was able to excite when she set herself to it, was only too well known to Delia.

Where was Gertrude herself? For Delia was certain that she had not merely done this act by deputy.

In the village, every person who had not gone rushing up the hill was standing at the doors, pale and terror-stricken, watching the glare overhead. The blinds of Miss Toogood's little house were drawn close. And as Delia passed, angry looks and mutterings pursued her.

The car mounted the hill. Suddenly a huge noise and hooting behind them. They drew into the hedge, to let the Latchford fire-engine thunder past, a fine new motor engine, just purchased and equipped.

"There'll be three or four more directly, Miss"—shouted one of her own garden lads, mounting on the step of the car. "But they say there's no hope. It was fired in three places, and there was petrol used."

At the gate, the police—looking askance especially at Miss Blanchflower—would have turned them back. But Delia asked for Winnington, and they were at last admitted into the circle outside the courtyard, where beyond reach of the sparks, and falling fragments, the crowd of spectators was gathered. People made way for her, but Lady Tonbridge noticed that nobody spoke to her, though as soon as she appeared all the angry or excited attention that the crowd could spare from the fire was given to her. Delia was not aware of it. She stood a little in front of the crowd, with her veil thrown back, her hands clasped in front of her, an image of rapt despair. Her face, like all the faces in the crowd, was made lurid—fantastic—by the glare of the flames; and every now and then, as though unconsciously, she brushed away the mist of tears from her eyes.

"Aye she's sorry now!"—said a stout farmer, bitterly, to his neighbour—"now that she's led them as is even younger than herself into trouble. My girl's in prison all along of her—and that woman as they do say is at the bottom of this business."

The speaker was Kitty Foster's father. Kitty had just been sentenced to six months' imprisonment for the burning of a cricket pavilion in the Midlands, and her relations were sitting in shame and grief for her.

"Whoever 'tis as did it 'ull have a job to get away"—said the man he addressed. "They've got a lot o' police out. Where's 'Liza Daunt, I say? They're searching for her everywhere. Daunt's just come upon the engine from Latchford—saw the fire from the train. He says he's been tricked—a put-up job he says. There wasn't nothing wrong with his son, he says, when he got to Portsmouth. If they do catch 'em, the police will have to guard 'em safe. It won't do to let the crowd get at 'em. They're fair mad. Oh, Lord!—it's caught another roof!"

And a groan rose from the fast-thickening multitude, as another wall fell amid a shower of sparks and ashes, and the flames, licking up and up, caught the high-pitched roof of the great hall, and ran along the stone letters of the parapet, which spelt out the motto—"Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it." The fantastic letters themselves, which had been lifted to their places before the death of Shakespeare, seemed to dance in the flame like living and tormented things.

Meanwhile in the courtyard, and on the side lawns, scores of persons were busy removing furniture, pictures and tapestries. Winnington was leading and organising the rescue parties, now inside, now outside the house. And near him, under his orders, worked Paul Lathrop, in his shirt sleeves, superhumanly active, and superhumanly strong—grinding his teeth with rage sometimes, as the fire defeated one effort after another to check it. Daunt, also was there, pouring out incoherent confidences to the police, and distracted by the growing certainty that his niece had been one of the chief authors of the plot. His children naturally had been his first thought. But the Rector, who had just been round to enquire for them at Mrs. Cresson's cottage, came back breathless, shouting "all safe!"—and Daunt rushed off to help the firemen; while Amberley reported to Susy the pitiable misery of Lily, the little cripple, who had been shrieking for her father in wild outbursts of crying, refusing to believe that he was not in the fire. Susy, who loved the child, would have gladly gone to find her, and take her home to the Rectory for the night. But, impossible to leave her post at Delia's side, and this blazing spectacle that held the darkness! Two village women, said the Rector, were in charge of the children.

"No chance!" said Lathrop, bitterly, pausing for a moment beside Winnington, while they both took breath—the sweat pouring from their smoke-blackened faces.

"If one could get to the top of that window with the big hose—one could reach the roof better"—panted Winnington, pointing to the still intact double oriel which ran up through two stories of the building, to the east of the doorway.

"I see!" Lathrop dashed away. And in a few seconds he and a fireman could be seen climbing from a ladder upon a ledge, a carved string-course, which connected the eastern and western oriels above the main doorway. They crawled along the ledge like flies, clinging to every projection, every stem of ivy, the fireman dragging the hose.

The crowd watched, all eyes. Winnington, after a rapid look or two, turned away with the thought—"That fellow's done some rock-climbing in his day!"

But against such a doom as had now gripped Monk Lawrence, nothing availed. Lathrop and his companion had barely scaled the parapet of the window when a huge central crash sent its resounding din circling round the leafless woods, and the two climbing figures disappeared from view amid a fresh rush of smoke and flame.

The great western chimney-stack had fallen. When the cloud of smoke drifted away, a gaping cavity of fire was seen just behind the two men; it could only be a matter of minutes before the wall and roof immediately behind them came down upon them. The firemen shouted to them from below. A long ladder was brought and run up to within twenty feet of them. Lathrop climbed down to it over the scorched face of the oriel, his life in jeopardy at every step. Then steadying himself on the ladder,—and grasping a projection in the wall, he called to the man above, to drop upon his shoulders. It was done, by a miracle—and both holding on, the man above by the projections of the wall and Lathrop by the ladder, descended, till the two were within reach of safety.

A thin roar of cheers rose from the environing throng, scarcely audible amid the greater roar of the flames. Lathrop, wearied, depressed, with bleeding hands, came back to Winnington's side. Winnington looked round. For the first time Lathrop saw through Mark's grey eyes the generous heart within—unveiled.

"Splendid! Are you hurt?"

"Only scorched and scratched. Give me another job!"

"Come along then."

And thenceforward the two worked side by side, like brothers, in the desperate attempt to save at least the Great Hall, and the beautiful rooms adjoining; the Porch Room, with its Chatham memorials; the library too, with its stores of seventeenth-century books, its busts, and its portraits. But the flames rushed on and on, with a fiendish and astounding rapidity. Fragments of news ran back to the onlookers. The main staircase had been steeped in petrol—and sacks full of shavings had been stored in the panelled spaces underneath it. Fire-lighters heaped together had been found in the Red Parlour—to be dragged out by the firemen—but again too late!—for the fire was already gnawing at the room, like a wild prowling beast. A back staircase too had been kindled with paraffin—the smell of it was everywhere. And thus urged, a very demon of fire seemed to have seized on the beautiful place. There was a will and a passion of destruction in the flames that nothing could withstand. As the diamond-paned windows fell into nothing-ness, the rooms behind shewed for a brief space; carved roofs, stately fireplaces, gleaming for a last moment, before Time knew them no more, and all that remained of them was the last vision of their antique beauty, stamped on the aching memories of those who watched.

"Why did you let her come!" said France vehemently in Lady Tonbridge's ear, with his eyes on Delia. "It's enough to kill her. She must know who's done it!"

Lady Tonbridge shook her head despairingly, and both gazed, without daring to speak to her, on the girl beside them. Madeleine had taken one cold hand. France was torn with pity for her—but what comfort was there to give! Her tears had dried. But there was something now in her uncontrollable restlessness as she moved ghost-like along the front of the spectators, pressing as near to the house as the police would permit, scanning every patch of light or shadow, which suggested to those who followed her, possession by some torturing fear—some terror of worse still to come.

Meanwhile the police were thinking not only of the house, but still more of its destroyers. They had a large number of men on the spot, and a quick-witted inspector in charge. It was evident from many traces that the incendiaries had only left the place a very short time before the outbreak of the fire; they could not be far away. Scouts were flung out on all the roads; search parties were in all the woods; every railway station had been warned.

On the northern side, the famous Loggia, built by an Italianate owner of the house, in the first half of the sixteenth century—a series of open arches, with twisted marble pillars—ran along the house from front to rear. It was approached on the south by a beautiful staircase, of which the terra-cotta balustrading had been copied from a famous villa on Como, and a similar staircase gave access to it from the garden to the north. The fight for the Great Hall which the Loggia adjoined, was being followed with agonised anxiety by the crowds. The Red Parlour, with all its carvings and mouldings had gone, the porch room was a furnace of fire, with black spars and beams hanging in ragged ruin across it. The Great Hall seemed already tottering, and in its fall, the Loggia too must go.

Then, as every eye hung upon the work of the firemen and the play of the water, into the still empty space of the Loggia, and illumined by the glare of the flames, there emerged with quiet step, the figure of a woman. She came forward: she stood with crossed arms looking at the crowd. And at the same moment, behind her, there appeared the form of a child, a little fair-haired girl, hobbling on a crutch, in desperate haste, and wailing—"Father!"

Delia saw them, and with one wild movement she was through the cordon of police, and running for the house.

Winnington, at the head of his salvage corps, perceived her, and ran too.

"Delia!—go back!—go back!"

"Gertrude!" she said, gasping—and pointed to the Loggia. And he had hardly looked where all the world was looking, when a part of the roof of the Hall at the back, fell suddenly outwards and northwards, in a blaze of flame. Charred rafters stood out, hanging in mid air, and the flames leapt on triumphant. At the same moment, evidently startled by some sound behind her, the woman turned, and saw what the crowd saw—the child, limping on its crutch, coming towards her, calling incoherently.

Her own cry rang out, as she ran towards the cripple, waving her back. And as she did so, came another thundering fall, another upward rush of flame, as a fresh portion of the roof fell eastwards, covering the Loggia and blotting out the figures of both woman and child.

With difficulty the police kept back the mad rush of the crowd. The firemen swarmed to the spot.

But the child was buried deep under flaming ruin, where her father, Daunt, who had rushed to save her, was only restrained by main force from plunging after her, to his death. The woman they brought out—alive. France, Delia and Winnington were beside her.

"Stand back!" shouted the mild old Rector—transformed into a prophet-figure, his white hair streaming—as the multitude swayed against the cordon of police. "Stand back! all of you—and pray—for this woman!"

In a dead silence, men, shivering, took off their hats, and women sobbed.

"Gertrude!" Delia called, in her anguish, as she knelt beside the charred frame, over which France who was kneeling on the other side had thrown his coat.

The dark eyes opened in the blackened face, the scorched lips unlocked. A shudder ran through the dying frame.

"The child!—the child!"

And with that cry to heaven,—that protesting cry of an amazed and conquered soul—Gertrude Marvell passed away.

* * * * *

Thus ended the First Act of Delia's life. When three weeks later, after a marriage at which no one was present except the persons to be married, Lady Tonbridge, and Dr. France, Winnington took his wife far from these scenes to lands of summer and of rest, he carried with him a Delia ineffaceably marked by this tragedy of her youth. Children, as they come, will sometime re-kindle the natural joy in a face so lovely. And till that time arrives Winnington's tenderness will be the master-light of all her day. But there are sounds once heard that live for ever in the mind. And in Delia's there will reverberate till death that wail of a fierce and childless woman—that last cry of nature in one who had defied nature—of womanhood in one who had renounced the ways of womanhood: "the child—the child!"

Not long after the destruction of Monk Lawrence and the marriage of Delia, Paul Lathrop left the Maumsey neighbourhood. His debts had been paid by some unknown friend or friends, and he fell back into London literary life, where he maintained a precarious but—to himself—not unpleasant existence.

Miss Jackson, the science-mistress, went to Vancouver, married the owner of a lumber camp, and so tamed her soul. Miss Toogood lived on, rarely employed, and seldom going outside the tiny back parlour, with its pictures of Winchester and Mr. Keble. But Lady Tonbridge and Delia do their best to lighten the mild melancholy which grows upon her with age; and a little red-haired niece who came to live with her, keeps her old aunt's nerves alive and alert by various harmless vices—among them an incorrigible interest in the Maumsey and Latchford youth. Marion Andrews and Eliza Daunt disappeared together. They were not captured on that terrible night when Gertrude Marvell, convinced that she could not escape, and perhaps not much caring to escape, came back to look on the ruin she had so long and carefully prepared, and perished in the heart of it—not alone.

But such desperate happenings as the destruction of Monk Lawrence, to whatever particular calamities they may lead, are but a backward ripple on the vast and ceaseless tide of human efforts towards a new and nobler order. Delia must still wrestle all her life with the meaning of that imperious call to women which this century has sounded; and of those further stages, upwards and onwards, to which the human spirit, in Man or Woman, is perennially urged by the revealing forces that breathe through human destiny. Two days after the death of Gertrude Marvell, the immediate cause on which she and her fellows had wrought such havoc, went down in Parliament to long and bitter eclipse. But the end is not yet. And for that riddle of the Sphinx to which Gertrude and her fellows gave the answer of a futile violence, generations more patient and more wise, will yet find the fitting key.

THE END