"And did you give him one?" she asked. "I suppose not!"

"He went away with his teeth shut—" and Mr. Carlyon's smile deepened as he stroked his white beard.

Halcyone laughed. She seldom asked questions herself. If the Professor wished to tell her anything about the ladies he would do so—she was dying to hear! Presently a set of disjointed sentences flowed from her master's lips between his puffs of smoke.

"Girl—worth something—showy—honest—sure of herself—clever—pretty—on her own roots—not a graft."

"Girl"—who was the girl? Halcyone wondered. But Cheiron continued his laconic utterances.

"Woman—beautiful—determined—thick—roots of the commonest—grafting of the best—octopean, tenacious—dangerous—my poor devil of a John!"

"And did you give the apple to either, Cheiron?" Halcyone asked with a gleam of fine humor in her wise eyes. "Or, one of the trio being absent, did you feel yourself excused?"

Mr. Carlyon glanced at her sharply, and then broke into a smile.

"Young woman, I do not think I have ever allowed you to read the Judgment of Paris," he said. "Wherefore your question is ill-timed and irrelevant."

Then they laughed together. How well they knew one another!—not only over things Greek. And presently they began their reading. They were in the middle of Symonds' "Renaissance," and so forgot the outer world.

But after Halcyone had gone in the dusk through the park, the Professor sat in the firelight for a while, and did not ring for lights. He was musing deeply, and his thoughts ran something in this line:

"John must dree his weird. Nothing anyone could say has ever influenced him. If he marries this woman she will eat his soul; having only a sham one of her own, she will devour his. She'll do very well to adorn the London house and feed his friends. He'll find her out in less than a year—it will kill his inspirations. Well, Zeus and all the gods cannot help a man in his folly. But my business is to see that he does not ensnare the heart of my little girl. If he had waited he could have found her—the one woman with a soul."

* * * * *

Miss Roberta had, unfortunately, a bad attack of rheumatism on Easter Sunday, augmented by a cold, and Halcyone stayed at home to rub her poor knee with hot oil, so she did not see the Wendover party, several of whom came to church. Miss La Sarthe occupied the family pew alone, and was the source of much amusement and delight to the smart inhabitants of the outer world.

"Isn't she just too sweet, Cis?" whispered Miss Lutworth into Mrs. Cricklander's ear. "Can't we get Mr. Derringham to take us over there this afternoon?"

But when the subject was broached later at luncheon by his hostess, John Derringham threw cold water upon the idea. He had stayed behind for a few minutes to renew his acquaintance with the ancient lady, and had given her his arm down the short church path, and placed her with extreme deference in the Shetland pony shay, to the absolute enchantment of Miss Lutworth, who, with Lord Freynault, stood upon the mound of an old forgotten grave, the better to see. It was in the earlier days of motor-cars, and Mrs. Cricklander's fine open Charron created the greatest excitement as it waited by the lych-gate. The two Shetlands cocked their ears and showed various signs of nervous interest, and William had all he could do to hold the minute creatures. But Miss La Sarthe behaved with unimpaired dignity, never once glancing in the direction of the great green monster. She got in, assisted by the respectful churchwarden, and allowed John Derringham to wrap the rug round her knees, and then carefully adjusted the ring of her turquoise-studded whip handle.

"Good day, Goddard," she said with benign condescension to the churchwarden. "And see that Betsy Hodges' child with the whooping-cough gets some of Hester's syrup and is not brought to church again next Sunday." And she nodded a gracious dismissal. Then, turning to John Derringham, she gave him two fingers, while she said with some show of haughty friendliness: "My sister and I will be very pleased to see you if you are staying in this neighborhood, Mr. Derringham, and care to take tea with us one day."

"I shall be more than delighted," he replied, as he bowed with homage and stood aside, because William's face betrayed his anxiety over the fidgety ponies.

Miss La Sarthe turned her head with its pork-pie hat and floating veil, and said with superb tranquillity, "You may drive on now, William." And they rolled off between a lane of respectful, curtseying rustics.

Mrs. Cricklander and Lady Maulevrier had already entered the motor and were surveying the scene with amused interest, while Miss Lutworth and Lord Freynault, chaperoned by Arabella Clinker, were preparing to walk. It was not more than a mile across the park, and it was a glorious day. John Derringham joined them.

"I think I will come with you, too," he said. "You take my place, Sir Tedbury. It is only fair you should drive one way."

And so it was arranged, not altogether to the satisfaction of the hostess, who would have preferred to have walked also. However, there was nothing to be done, and so they were whizzed off, while with the tail of her eye Cecilia Cricklander perceived that Lord Freynault had been displaced from Cora's side and was now stalking behind the other pair, beside Arabella Clinker.

"What an extraordinary sight that was," she said to Sir Tedbury Delvine as they went along. "I thought no villagers curtsied any more now in England. That very funny-looking old lady might have been a royalty!"

"It is because she has never had a doubt but that she is—or something higher—complete owner of all these souls," he returned, "that they have not yet begun to doubt it either. They and their forebears have bobbed to the La Sarthe for hundreds of years, and they will go on doing it if this holder of the name lives to be ninety-nine. They would never do so to any new-comer, though, I expect."

"But I am told they have not a penny left, and have sold every acre of the land except the park. Is it not wonderful, Kitty?" Mrs. Cricklander went on, turning to Lady Maulevrier. "I am dying to know them. I hope they will call."

But Sir Tedbury had already chanced to have talked the matter over with John Derringham, because he himself was most anxious to see La Sarthe Chase, which was of deep historical interest, and had incidentally been made aware by that gentleman of the old ladies' views, so he hastily turned the conversation, rather awkwardly, to other things. And a wonder grew in Mrs. Cricklander's mind.

That anyone should not be enchanted to receive her beautiful and sought-after self could not enter her brain, but there was evidently some bar between the acquaintance of herself and her nearest neighbors, and Arabella should be set to find out of what it consisted.



CHAPTER XV

"Do let us go around by the boundary," Miss Lutworth said when they got through the Wendover gates. "I long to see even the park of that exquisite old lady; it must look quite different to anybody else's, and I feel I want an adventure!"

So they struck in towards the haw-haw—the four walking almost abreast.

When they came to beyond the copse, after it touched the Professor's garden, they paused and took in the view. It was unspeakably beautiful from there, rolling away towards the splendid old house, which could only just be distinguished through the giant trees, not yet in leaf. And suddenly, hardly twenty yards from them across the gulf, coming from the gap in Mr. Carlyon's hedge, they saw a tall and very slender mouse-colored figure, as Halcyone emerged on her homeward way—she had run down to see Cheiron when her duties with Miss Roberta were over, and was now going back to lunch.

"Good morning!" called John Derringham, and the four advanced to the very edge of their side, and Halcyone turned and also bordered hers, while she bowed serenely.

"Isn't it a day of the gods!" he continued. "And may I from across this Stygian lake (there was a little water collected in the haw-haw here from the recent rains) introduce Miss Lutworth to you—and Miss Clinker and Lord Freynault? Miss Halcyone La Sarthe."

Everyone bowed, and Halcyone smiled her sweet, grave smile.

"We would love to jump over—or you come to us," Cora Lutworth said with her frank, friendly charm. "Isn't there any way?"

"I am afraid not," responded Halcyone. "You are across in another world—we live in the shades, this side."

"Remember something about a fellow named Orpheus getting over to fetch his girl"—"gail" Lord Freynault pronounced it—"since old John will use Eton cribs in describing the horrid chasm. Can't we sop old Cerberus and somehow manage to swim, if there is no ferryman about?"

"You would certainly be drowned," said Halcyone. "In this place the lake is quite ten inches deep!"

Cora Lutworth was taking in every bit of her with her clever, kindly eyes.

"What a sweet, distinguished violet-under-the-mossy-bank pet of a girl!" she was saying to herself. "No wonder Mr. Derringham goes to see his Professor! How mad Cis would be! I shan't tell her." And aloud she said:

"You cannot imagine how I am longing to get a nearer peep of your beautiful old house. Do we get a chance further on?"

"No," said Halcyone. "I am so sorry. You branch further off once you have passed the closed gate. It was very stupid—the La Sarthe quarreled with the Wendovers a hundred years ago, and it was all closed up then, and these wicked spikes put."

"It is too tantalizing. But won't you walk with us to where we have to part?" Miss Lutworth said, while John Derringham had a sudden longing to turn back and carefully remove certain bits of iron and brick he wot of, and ask this nymph of the woods to take him on to their tree, and tell him more stories about Jason and Medea in that exquisitely refined voice of hers, as she had done once before, long ago. But even though he might not have this joy, he got rather a fine pleasure out of the fact of sharing the secret of the crossing with her, and he had the satisfaction of meeting her soft eyes in one lightning comprehending glance.

They chatted on about the view and the beauties of the neighborhood, and they all laughed often at some sally of Cora's—no one could resist her joyous, bubbling good-fellowship. She had all the sparkle of her clever nation, and the truest, kindest heart. Halcyone had never spoken to another young girl in her life, and felt like a yearling horse—a desire to whinny to a fellow colt and race up and down with him beside the dividing fence of their paddocks. A new light of youth and sweetness came into her pale face.

"I do wish I might ask you to come round by the road," she said, "and see it near, but, as Mr. Derringham knows, my aunts are very old, and one is almost an invalid now, so we never have any visitors at all."

"Of course, we quite understand," said Cora, quickly, touched at once by this simple speech. "But we should so love you to come over to us."

"Alas!" said Halcyone, "it is indeed the Styx."

And here they arrived at the boarded-up gate, where further view was impossible, and from which onwards the lands ceased to join.

"Good-by!" they called to one another, even Arabella Clinker joining in the chorus, while Cora Lutworth ran back to say:

"Some day we'll meet—outside the Styx. Let us get Mr. Derringham to manage it!"

And Halcyone cried a glad "Oh, yes!"

"What a darling! What a perfect darling!" Miss Lutworth said enthusiastically, taking Arabella's arm as they struck rapidly inward and up a knoll. "Did you ever see anything look so like a lady in that impossible old dress? Tell us about her, Mr. Derringham. Does she live with those prehistoric ladies all alone in that haunted house? Could anything be so mysterious and romantic? Please tell us all you know."

"Yes, she does, I believe," John Derringham said. "My old master tells me she never sees or speaks to anyone from one year's end to another. I have only met her very rarely myself."

"Does it not seem too awful?" returned Cora, aghast, thinking of her own merry, enjoyable life, with every whim gratified. "To be so young and attractive and actually buried alive! Don't you think she is a dream, Arabella?"

"I was greatly impressed with her distinction and charm," Miss Clinker said. "I wish we could do something for her to make things brighter."

"Let us ask Cis—" and then Miss Lutworth paused, returning to her first thought—she knew her hostess well. No, it could not bring any pleasure into the life of this slender, lithe English lady with the wonderful Greek name, to be made acquainted with Cecilia Cricklander, who would tear her to pieces without compunction the moment she understood in what direction John Derringham's eyes would probably be cast. He saw Cora's hesitation and understood, and was grateful.

"I believe this girl is trumps. I don't think she will even mention our meeting," he said to himself.

Now for a few steps Miss Lutworth drew Arabella Clinker on ahead.

"Arabella, you dear," she whispered, "I don't want to say a word against Cis—who, of course, is all right—but I have a feeling we won't tell her we've met this dryad of a Halcyone La Sarthe. Have you got that instinct, too?"

"Quite strongly," said Arabella, who never wasted words. "I was going to mention to you the same idea myself."

"Then that is understood!" and she laughed her happy laugh. "I'll see that Freynie doesn't peach!"

Thus it was that four demure and healthful-looking beings joined the party on the terrace of Wendover, and described their pleasant walk, without one word spoken of their rencontre with the youngest Miss La Sarthe. And once or twice Cora Lutworth's mischievous eyes met those of John Derringham, and they both laughed.



CHAPTER XVI

John Derringham made a point of slipping away on the Easter Tuesday afternoon; he determined to drink tea with the Misses La Sarthe. He went to his room with important letters to write, and then sneaked down again like a truant schoolboy, and when he got safely out of sight, struck obliquely across the park to the one vulnerable spot in the haw-haw, and after fumbling a good deal, from his side, managed to get the spikes out and to climb down, and repeat the operation upon the other side. There was no water here, it was on rather higher ground, and he was soon striding up the beech avenue towards the house.

"It would be an extremely awkward place to get over in the dark," he thought, and then he was conscious that Halcyone was far in the distance in front of him, almost entering the house.

So she would be in, then—that was good.

He had never permitted his mind to dwell upon her for an instant, after the Sunday walk. He made himself tell himself that she was a charming child whom he felt great pity for, on account of her lonely life. That he himself took a special interest in her he would not have admitted for a second to his innermost thought. He had now definitely made up his mind to propose to Cecilia Cricklander, and was only awaiting a suitable occasion to put this intention into effect.

Numbers of moments had come—and passed—but he was always able to find good and sufficient fault with them. And once or twice, when Fate itself seemed to arrange things for him, he had a sudden sensation as of a swimmer fighting with the tide, and he had battled to the shore again, and was still free!

But it must come, of course, and before he left for London at the end of the week. Private news had reached him that the Government must soon go out, and he felt this thing must be an accomplished fact before then, for the hand he meant to play.

But meanwhile it was only Tuesday, and he was nearing the battered and nail-bestudded front door of La Sarthe Chase. William said the ladies were at home, and he was shown into the Italian parlor forthwith.

It had not changed in the slightest degree in the seven years since he had seen it first, nor had the two ancient spinsters themselves. They were most graciously glad to receive him, and gave him tea out of the thinnest china cups, and at last Miss Roberta said:

"Our great-niece Halcyone will be coming down in a moment, Mr. Derringham. She has grown up into a very tall girl. You will hardly recognize her, I expect."

And at that instant Halcyone opened the door and said a quiet word of welcome. And if her heart beat rather faster than usual under her simple serge bodice, nothing of any emotion showed in her tranquil face.

She took her tea and sat down in a chair rather in the shadows and aloof.

Miss La Sarthe monopolized the conversation. She had no intention of relinquishing the pleasure of this rare guest, so while Miss Roberta got in a few sentences, Halcyone hardly spoke a word, and if she had really been a coquette, calculating her actions, she could not have piqued John Derringham more.

She looked so very sylph-like as she sat there, bending her graceful head. Her eyes were all in shadow and seemed to gleam as things of mystery from under her dark brows, while the pure lines of her temples and the plaiting of her soft thick hair made him think of some virgin goddess.

But she never spoke.

At last John Derringham began to grow exasperated, and plunged into temptation, which he did not admit that he ought to have avoided.

"I am so very much interested in this wonderful old house," he said, addressing Miss La Sarthe. "That row of bay windows is in a long gallery, I suppose? Would it be a great impertinence if I asked to see it?"

"We shall be pleased for you to do so," the old lady returned, without much warmth. "It is very cold and draughty, my sister and I have not entered it for many years, but Halcyone, I believe, goes there sometimes; she will show it to you if you wish."

Halcyone rose, ready at once to obey her aunts, and led the way towards the door.

"We had better go up the great staircase and along through Sir Timothy's rooms. The staircase which leads directly to it from the hall is not quite safe," she said. "Except for me," she added, when they were outside the door. "Then, I know exactly where to put my feet!"

"I would follow you blindly," said John Derringham, "but we will go which way you will. Only, you are such a strange, silent little old friend now—I am afraid of you!"

Halcyone was rather ahead, leading the way, and she turned and paused while he came up close beside her.

Her eyes were quite startled.

"You afraid of me!" she said.

"Yes—you seem so nymph-like and elusive. I do not know if I am really looking at an ordinary earth-maiden, or whether you will melt away."

"I am quite real," and she smiled, "but now you must notice these two rooms a little that we shall pass through. They are very ghostly I think; they were the Sir Timothy's who went to fetch James I from Scotland. I am glad they are not mine, but the long gallery I love; it is my sitting-room—my very own—and in it I keep something which matters to me more than anything else in the world." Then she went on, with a divine shyness which thrilled her companion: "And—I do not know why—but I think I will show it to you."

"Yes, please do that," he responded eagerly, "and do not let us stop to look at the ghostly apartments—where you sit interests me far more."

So they went rapidly through Sir Timothy's rooms, with the great state bed where had slept his royal master, so the tale ran, and on down some uneven steps, and through a small door, and there found themselves in the long, narrow room, with its bays along the southern side, and one splendid mullioned casement at the end with coats-of-arms emblazoned upon each division. And through this, which looked west, there poured the lowered afternoon sun with a broad shaft of glorious light.

The place was almost empty, but for a chest or two and a table near this window with writing materials and books. And upon a rough set of shelves close at hand many more volumes reposed.

"So it is here you live and work, you wise, lonely, little Pallas Athene," he said.

"You must not call me that—I am not at all like her," Halcyone answered softly. "She was very clever and very noble—but a little hard, I think. Wait until I have shown you my own goddess. I would rather have her soul than any other of the Olympian gods."

John Derringham took a step nearer to her.

"Do you remember the night at dinner here when you told me Pallas Athene's words to Perseus?" he said. "I have thought of them often, and they have helped me sometimes, I think."

"I am so glad," said Halcyone simply, while she moved towards her treasure chest.

He watched her with satisfied eyes—every action of hers was full of grace, and the interest he felt in her personally obscured any for the moment in what she was going to show him, but at last he became aware that she had unlocked a cupboard drawer, and was taking from it a bundle of blue silk.

His curiosity was aroused, and he went over as near as he could.

"Come!" whispered Halcyone, and walked to the high window-sill of the middle section, and then put down her burden upon the old faded velvet seat.

"See, I will take off her veil gradually," she said, "and you must tell me of what she makes you think."

John Derringham was growing interested by now, but had no idea in the world of the marvel he was going to see. He started more perceptibly than even Mr. Carlyon had done seven years before, when he had realized the superlative beauty of the Greek head.

Halcyone uncovered it reverently, and then took a step back, and waited silently for him to speak.

He looked long into the marvelous face, and then he said as though he were dreaming:

"Aphrodite herself!"

"Ah! I felt you would know and recognize her at once—Yes, that is her name. Oh, I am glad!" and Halcyone clapped her hands. "She is my mother, and so, you see, I am never alone here, for she speaks always to me of love."

John Derringham looked at her sharply as she said this, and in her eyes he saw two wells of purity, each with an evening star melted into its depths.

And he suddenly was conscious of something which his whole life had missed—for he knew he did not know what real love meant, not even that which his mother might have given him, if she had lived.

He did not speak for a moment; he gazed into Halcyone's face. It seemed as if a curtain had lifted for one instant and given him a momentary glimpse into some heaven, and then dropped again, leaving a haunting memory of sweetness, the more beautiful because indistinct.

"Love—" he said, still dreamily. "Surely there is yet another and a deeper kind of love."

Halcyone raised her head, while a strange look grew in her wide eyes, almost of fear. It was as though he had put into words some unspoken, unadmitted thought.

"Yes," she said very softly, "I feel there is—but that is not all peace; that must be gloriously terrible, because it would mean life."

He looked at her fully now; there was not an atom of coquetry or challenge; her face was pale and exquisite in its simple intentness. He turned to the goddess again, and almost chaunted:

"Oh! Aphrodite of the divine lips and soulful eyes, what mystery do you hold for us mortals? What do you promise us? What do you make us pay? Is the good worth the anguish? Is the fulfillment a cup worth draining—without counting the cost?"

"What does she answer you?" whispered Halcyone. "Does she say that to live and fulfill destiny as the beautiful year does is the only good? It is wiser not to question and weigh the worth, for even though we would not drink, perhaps we cannot escape—since there is Fate."

John Derringham pulled himself together with an effort. He felt he was drifting into wonderland, where the paths were too tenderly sweet and flowered for him to dare to linger, for there he might find and quaff of the poison cup. So he said in a voice which he strove to bring back to earth:

"Where did you get the beautiful thing? She is of untold value, of course you know?"

Halcyone took the marble into her hands lovingly.

"She came to me out of the night," she said. "Some day I might tell you how—but not to-day. I must put her back again. No one knows but Cheiron and me—and now—you—that she is in existence, and no one else must ever know."

He did not speak; he watched her while she wrapped the head in its folds of silk.

"Aphrodite never had so true a priestess, nor one so pure," he thought, and a strange feeling of sadness came over him, and he thanked her rather abruptly for showing him her treasure, and they went silently back through Sir Timothy's rooms, and down the stair; and in the Italian parlor he said good-by at once, and left.

The wind had got up and blew freshly in his face. There would be a gale before morning. It suited his mood. He struck across the park, but instead of making for the haw-haw, he turned into Cheiron's little gate. He wanted understanding company, he wanted to talk cynical philosophy, and he wanted the stimulus of his old master's biting wit.

But when he got there, he found Cheiron very taciturn—contributing little more than a growl now and then, while he smoked his long pipe and played with his beard. So at last he got up to go.

"I have made up my mind to marry Mrs. Cricklander, Master," he said.

"I supposed so," the Professor replied dryly. "A man always has to convince himself he is doing a fine thing when he gives himself up to be hanged."



CHAPTER XVII

John Derringham reached Wendover—by the road and the lodge gates—in an impossible temper. He had left the orchard house coming as near to a quarrel with his old master as such a thing could be. He absolutely refused to let himself dwell upon the anger he had felt; and if Fate had given him a distinct and pointed chance to ask the fair Cecilia for her lily hand, when he knocked at her sitting-room door before dinner, he would no doubt have left the next day—summoned again to London by his Chief—an engaged man. But this turn of events was not in the calculations of Destiny for the moment, and he found no less a person than Mr. Hanbury-Green already ensconced by his hostess's side. They were both smoking and looked very comfortable and at ease.

"I just came in to tell you I shall be obliged to tear myself away to-morrow," John Derringham said, "and cannot have the pleasure of staying to the end of the week in this delightful place."

Mrs. Cricklander got up from her reclining position among the cushions. This was a blow. She wished now she had not encouraged Mr. Hanbury-Green to come and sit with her; it might be a lost opportunity which it would be difficult to recapture again. But she had felt so very much annoyed at Mr. Derringham's capriciousness, displayed the whole of the Monday, and then at his absenting himself to-day, having gone to see the Professor, of course—since he was out of the house at tea-time when she had sent to his room to enquire—that she had determined to see what a little jealousy would do for him. But if he were off on the morrow this might not be a safe moment to try it.

Mr. Hanbury-Green, however, had not the slightest intention of giving up his place, in spite of several well-directed hints, and sat on like one belonging to the spot.

So they all had to go off to dress without any longed-for word having been spoken. And Mrs. Cricklander was far too circumspect a hostess to attempt to arrange a tete-a-tete after dinner under the eye of an important social leader like Lady Maulevrier, whom she had only just succeeded in enticing to stay in her country house. So, with the usual semi-political chaff, the evening passed, and good-nights and good-bys were said, and early next day John Derringham left for London.

He would write—he decided—and all the way up in the train he buried himself in the engrossing letters and papers he had received from his Chief by the morning's post.

And for the next six weeks he was in such a turmoil of hard work and deep and serious questions about a foreign State that he very seldom had time to go into society, and when at last he was a little more free, Mrs. Cricklander, he found, had not returned from Paris, whither she always went several times a year for her clothes.

But they had written to one another once or twice.

He had promised in the last letter that he would go down to Wendover again for Whitsuntide, and this time he firmly determined nothing should keep him from his obvious and delectable fate.

Mrs. Cricklander had no haunting fears now. She could discover no reason for John Derringham's change towards her. Arabella had been mute and had put it down to the stress of his life. This tension with the foreign State, it leaked out, had been known to the Ministers for a week before it had been made public—that, of course, was the cause of his preoccupation, and she would simply order some especially irresistible garments in Paris, and bide her time.

He wrote the most charming letters, though they were hardly long enough to be called anything but notes; but there was always the insinuation in them that she was the one person in the world who understood him, and they were expressed with his usual cultivated taste.

It was sheer force of will that kept John Derringham from ever thinking of Halcyone. He resolutely crushed the thought of her every time it presented itself, and systematically turned to his work and plunged into it, if even a mental vision of her came to his mind's eye.

He felt quite calm and safe when, two days before he was expected at Wendover, the idea came to him to propose himself to the Professor, so as not to have to go and see him and endure his cynical reflections after he should be engaged to his hostess.

Mr. Carlyon had wired back, "Come if you like," and on this evening in early June John Derringham arrived at the orchard house.

Cheiron made no allusion to the matter that had caused them to part with some breezy words upon his old pupil's side. Mrs. Cricklander or Wendover might not have existed; their talk was upon philosophy and politics, and contained not the shadow of a woman—even Halcyone was not mentioned at all.

Whitsuntide fell late that year, at the end of the first week in June, and the spring having been exceptionally mild, the foliage was all in full beauty of the freshest green.

It was astonishingly hot, and every divine scent of the night came to John Derringham as he went out into the garden before going to bed. A young setting half-moon still hung in the sky, and there were stars. One of those nights when all the mystery of life seems to be revealing itself in the one word—Love. The nightingale throbbed out its note in the copse amidst a perfect stillness, and the ground was soft without a drop of dew.

John Derringham, hatless, and with his hands plunged in the pockets of his dinner coat, wandered down the garden towards the apple tree, picking an early red rosebud as he passed a bush—its scent intoxicated him a little. Then he went to the gate, and, opening it, he strolled into the park. Here was a vaster and more perfect view. It was all clothed in the unknown of the half dark, and yet he could distinguish the outline of the giant trees. He went on as if in some delicious dream, which yet had some heart-break in it, and at last he came to the tree where he and Halcyone had sat those seven years ago, when she had told him of what consisted the true point of honor in a man. He remembered it all vividly, her very words and the cloud of her soft hair which had blown a little over his face. He sat down upon the fallen log that had been made into a rude bench; and there he gazed in front of him, unconscious now of any coherent thought.

Suddenly he was startled by a laugh so near him and so soft that he believed himself to be dreaming, but he looked round and quickly rose to his feet, and there at the other side of the tree he saw standing the ethereal figure of a girl, while her filmy gray garments seemed to melt into the night.

"Halcyone!" he gasped. "And from where?"

"Ah!" she said as she came towards him. "You have invaded my kingdom. Mortal, what right have you to the things of the night? They belong to me—who know them and love them."

"Then have compassion upon me, sweet dryad!" he pleaded, "who am but a pilgrim who cannot see his way. Let me shelter under your protection and be guided aright."

She laughed again—a ripple of silver that he had not guessed her voice possessed. Her whole bearing was changed from the reserved, demure and rather timid creature whom he knew. She was a sprite now, or a nymph, or even a goddess, for her brow was imperious and her mien one of assured command.

"This is my kingdom," she said, "and if you obey me, I will show you things of which you have never dreamed—" and then she came towards the tree and sat upon the high forked branch of the broken bough while she pointed with shadowy finger to the part which was a bench. "Sit there, Man of Day," she ordered, "for you cannot see beyond your hand. You cannot know how the living things are creeping about, unafraid now of your cruel power. You cannot discern the difference in the colors of the fresh young bracken and the undergrowth; you cannot perceive the birds asleep in the tree."

"No, indeed, Lady of Night," he said, "I admit I am but a mole, but you will let me perceive them with your eyes, will you not?"

She slipped from her perch suddenly, before he could put out a protesting hand to stop her, and glided out of his view into the dark of the copse, and from there he heard the intoxicating silver laughter which maddened his every sense.

"Halcyone! Witch!" he called. "Come back to me—I am afraid, all alone!"

So she came, appearing like a materializing wraith from the shadow, and with an undulating movement of incredible grace she was again seated upon her perch, the fallen forked branch of the tree.

John Derringham was experiencing the strongest emotion he had ever felt in his life.

A maddening desire to seize the elusive joy—to come nearer—to assure himself that she was real and not a spirit of night sent to torture and elude him—overcame all other thought. The startling change from her deportment of the day—the very way she glided about was as the movement of some other being.

And as those old worshipers of Dionysus had grown intoxicated with the night and the desire of communion with the beyond, so he—John Derringham—cool, calculating English statesman—felt himself being drawn into a current of emotion and enthrallment whose end could only be an ecstasy of which he did not yet dare to dream.

It was all so abnormal—to see her here, a shadow, a tantalizing soft shadow with a new personality—it was no wonder he rubbed his eyes and asked himself if he were awake.

"Come with me," she whispered, bending nearer to him, "and I will show you how the wild roses grow at night."

"I will follow you to Hades," he said, "but I warn you I cannot see a yard beyond my nose. You must lead me with your hand, if so ethereal a spirit possesses a hand."

Again the silver laugh, and he saw her not, but presently she appeared from behind the tree. She had let down her misty, mouse-colored hair, and it floated around her like a cloud.

Then she slipped a cool, soft set of fingers into his, and led him onward, with sure and certain steps, while he blundered, not knowing where to put his feet, and all the time she turned every few seconds and looked at him, and he could just distinguish the soft mystery of her eyes, while now and then, as she walked, a tendril of her floating hair flew out and caressed his face, as once before, long ago.

"There are fairy things all about us," she said. "Countless pink campions and buttercups, with an elf in each. They will feel your giant feet, but they will know you are a mortal and cannot help your ways, because, you poor, blind bat, you cannot see!"

"And you?" he asked. "Who gave you these eyes?"

"My mother," she answered softly, "the Goddess of the Night."

And then she drew him on rapidly and stealthily, and he saw at last, in the open space where the stars and the sinking moon gave more light, that they were approaching the broken gate, and were near the terraced garden, which now was better kept.

When they got to this barrier to their path, Halcyone paused and leaned upon it.

"Mortal," she said, "you are wandering in a maze. You have come thus far because I have led you, but you would have fallen if you had walked so fast alone. Now look, and I will show you the lily-of-the-valley cups—there are only a few there under the shelter of the gray stone arch. Come."

And she opened the gate, letting go of his hand as she glided beyond.

"I cannot and will not hazard a step if you leave me," he called, and she came back and gave him again her soft fingers to hold. So at last they reached the summer house at the end of the second terrace, where the archway was where old William kept his tools.

There were very few flowers out, but a mass of wild roses, and still some May tulips bloomed, while from the meadow beneath them came that indescribable freshness which young clover gives.

John Derringham knew now that he was dreaming—or drunk with some nectar which was not of earth. And still she led him on, and then pointed to the old bench which he could just see.

"We shall sit here," she said, "and Aphrodite shall tell us your future—for see, she, too, loves the night and comes here with me."

And to his intense astonishment, as he peered on to the table, he saw a misty mass of folds of silk, and there lay the goddess's head, that Halcyone had shown to him that day in the long gallery more than a month ago.

He was so petrified with surprise at the whole thing that he had ceased to reason. Everything came now as a matter of course, like the preposterous sequence of events in a dream. The Aphrodite lay, as a woman caressed, half buried in her silken folds, but Halcyone lifted her up and propped her against a stone vase which was near, letting the silk fall so that the broken neck did not show, and it seemed as if a living woman's face gazed down upon them.

John Derringham's eyes were growing more accustomed to the darkness, or Halcyone really had some magic power, for it seemed to him that he could see the divine features quite clearly.

"She is saying," the soft voice of his companion whispered in his ear, "that all the things you will grasp with your hands are but dreams—and the things that you now believe to be dreams are all real."

"And are you a dream, you sweet?" asked John Derringham. "Or are you tangible, and must I drink the poison cup, after all?"

"I would give you no noxious wine," she answered. "If you were strong and wise and true, only the fire which I have stolen from heaven could come to you."

"Long ago," he said, "you gave me an oak-leaf, dryad, and I have kept it still. What now will you grant to me?"

"Nothing, since you fear—" and she drew back.

"I do not fear," he answered wildly. "Halcyone!—sweetheart! I want you—here—next my heart. Give me—yourself!"

Then he stretched out his arms and drew her to him, all soft and loving and unresisting, and he pressed his lips to her pure and tender lips. And it seemed as if the heavens opened, and the Night poured down all that was divine of bliss.

But before he could be sure that indeed he held her safely in his arms, she started forward, releasing herself. Then, clasping Aphrodite and her silken folds, with a bound she was far beyond him, and had disappeared in the shadow of the archway, on whose curve the last rays of moonlight played, so that he saw it outlined and clear.

He strode forward to follow her, but to his amazement, when he reached the place, she seemed to vanish absolutely in front of his eyes, and although he lit a match and searched everywhere, not the slightest trace of her could he find, and there was no opening or possible corner into which she could have disappeared.

Absolutely dumbfounded, he groped his way back to the bench, and sitting down buried his head in his hands. Surely it was all a dream, then, and he had been drunk—with the Professor's Falernian wine—and had wandered here and slept. But, God of all the nights, what an exquisite dream!



CHAPTER XVIII

The half-moon set, and the night became much darker before John Derringham rose from his seat by the bench. A stupor had fallen upon him. He had ceased to reason. Then he got up and made his way back to the orchard house, under the myriads of pale stars, which shone with diminished brilliancy from the luminous, summer night sky.

Here he seemed to grow material again and to realize that he was indeed awake. But what had happened to him? Whether he had been dreaming or no, a spell had fallen upon him—he had drunk of the poison cup. And Halcyone filled his mind. He thrilled and thrilled again as he remembered the exquisite joy of their tender embrace—even though it had been no real thing, but a dream, it was still the divinest good his life had yet known.

But what could it lead to if it were real? Nothing but sorrow and parting and regret. For his career still mattered to him, he knew, now that he was in his sane senses again, more than anything else in the world. And he could not burden himself with a poor, uninfluential girl as a wife, even though the joy of it took them both to heaven.

The emotion he was experiencing was one quite new to him, and he almost resented it, because it was upsetting some of his beliefs.

The next day, at breakfast, the Professor remarked that he looked pale.

"You rather overwork, John," he said. "To lie about the garden here and not have to follow the caprices of fashionable ladies at Wendover, would do you a power of good."

There was no sight of Halcyone all the day. She was living in a paradise, but hers contained no doubts or uncertainties. She knew that indeed she had lived and breathed the night before, and found complete happiness in John Derringham's arms.

That, then, was what Aphrodite had always been telling her. She knew now the meaning of the love in her eyes. This glorious and divine thing had been given to her, too—out of the night.

It was fully perceived at last, not only half glanced at almost with fear. Love had come to her, and whatever might reck of sorrow, it meant her whole life and soul.

And this precious gift of the pure thing from God she had given in her turn to John Derringham as his lips had pressed her lips.

She spent the whole day in the garden, sitting in the summer house surveying the world. The blue hills in the far distance were surely the peaks of Olympus and she had been permitted to know what existence meant there.

Not a doubt of him entered her heart, or a fear. He certainly loved her as she loved him; they had been created for each other since the beginning of time. And it was only a question of arrangement when she should go away with him and never part any more.

Marriage, as a ceremony in church, meant nothing to her. Some such thing, of course, must take place, because of the stupid conventions of the world, but the sacrament, the real mating, was to be together—alone.

In her innocent and noble soul John Derringham now reigned as king. He had never had a rival, and never would have while breath stayed in her fair body.

By the evening of that day he had reasoned himself into believing that the whole thing was a dream—or, if not a dream, he had better consider it as such; but at the same time, as the dusk grew, a wild longing swelled in his heart for its recurrence, and when the night came he could not any longer control himself, and as he had done before he wandered to the tree.

The moon, one day beyond its first quarter, was growing brighter, and a strange and mysterious shimmer was over everything as though the heat of the day were rising to give welcome and fuse itself in the night.

He was alone with the bird who throbbed from the copse, and as he sat in the sublime stillness he fancied he saw some does peep forth. They were there, of course, with their new-born fawns.

But where was she, the nymph of the night?

His heart ached, the longing grew intense until it was a mighty force. He felt he could stride across the luminous park which separated them, and scale the wall to the casement window of the long gallery, to clasp her once more in his arms. And, as it is with all those beings who have scorned and denied his power, Love was punishing him now by a complete annihilation of his will. At last he buried his face in his hands; it was almost agony that he felt.

When he uncovered his eyes again he saw, far in the distance, a filmy shadow. It seemed to be now real, and now a wraith, as it flitted from tree to tree, but at last he knew it was real—it was she—Halcyone! He started to his feet, and there stood waiting for her.

She came with the gliding movement he now knew belonged in her dual personality to the night.

Her hair was all unbound, and her garment was white.

All reason, all resolution left him. He held out his arms.

"My love!" he cried. "I have waited for you—ah, so long!"

And Halcyone allowed herself to be clasped next his heart, and then drawn to the bench, where they sat down, blissfully content.

They had such a number of things to tell one another about love. He who had always scoffed at its existence was now eloquent in his explanation of the mystery. And Halcyone, who had never had any doubts, put her beautiful thoughts into words. Love meant everything—it was just he, John Derringham. She was no more herself, but had come to dwell in him.

She was tender and absolutely pure in her broad loyalty, concealing nothing of her fondness, letting him see that if she were Mistress of the Night, he was Master of her Soul.

And the complete subservience of herself, the sublime transparency without subterfuge of her surrender, appealed to everything of chivalry which his nature held.

"Since the beginning," she whispered, in that soft, sweet voice of hers which seemed to him to be of the angels, "ever since the beginning, John, when I was a little ignorant girl, it has always been you. You were Jason and Theseus and Perseus. You were Sir Bors and Sir Percival and Sir Lancelot. And I knew it was just waiting—Fate."

"My sweet, my sweet," he murmured, kissing her hair.

"And the time you came, when I was so ugly," she went on, "and so overgrown—I was sad then, because I knew you would not like me. But the winds and the night were good to me. I have grown, you see, so that I am now more as you would wish, but everything has been for you from that first day in the tree—our tree."

That between two lovers the thing could be a game never entered her brain. The thought that it might be wiser to watch moods and play on this one or that, and conceal her feelings and draw him on with mystery, could meet with no faintest understanding in her fond heart.

She just loved him, and belonged to him, and that was the whole meaning of heaven and earth. Any trick of calculation would have been a thousand miles beneath her feet. And while he was there with her, clasping her slender willowy form to his heart, John Derringham felt exalted. The importance of his career dwindled, the imperative necessity of possessing Halcyone for his very own augmented, until at last he whispered in her ear as her little head lay there upon his breast:

"Darling child, you must marry me at once—immediately—next week. We will go through whatever is necessary at the registry-office, and then you must come away with me and be my very own."

"Of course," was all she said.

"It is absolutely impossible that we could let anyone know about it at present—even Cheiron—" he went on, a little hurriedly. "The circumstances are such that I cannot publicly own you as my wife, although it would be my glory so to do. I should have to give up my whole career, because I have no money to keep a splendid home, which would be your due. But I dare say these things do not matter to you any more than they do to me. Is it so, sweet, darling child?"

"How could they matter?" Halcyone whispered from the shelter of his clasped arms. "Of what good would they be to me? I want to be with you when you have time; I want to caress you when you are tired, and comfort you, and inspire you, and love you, and bring you peace. How could the world—which I do not know—matter to me? Are you not foolish to ask me such questions, John!"

"Very foolish, my divine one," he said, and forgot what more he would have spoken in the delirium of a worshiping kiss.

But presently he brought himself back to facts again.

"Darling," he said, "I will find out exactly how everything can be managed, and then you will meet me here, under this tree, and we will go away together and be married, and for a week at least I will make the time to stay with you, as your lover, and you shall be absolutely and truly my sweetest wife."

"Yes," said Halcyone, perfectly content.

"And after that," he went on, "I will arrange that you stay somewhere near me, so that every moment that I am free I can come back to the loving glory of your arms."

"I cannot think of any other heaven," the tender creature murmured. And then she nestled closer, and her voice became dreamy.

"This is what God means in everything," she whispered. "In the Springtime, which is waiting for the Summer—in all the flowers and all the trees. This is the secret the night has taught me from the very beginning, when I first was able to spend the hours in her arms."

Then this mystery of her knowledge of the night he had to probe; and she told him, in old-world, romantic language, how she had discovered the stairs and Aphrodite, and even of the iron-bound box which she had never been able to move.

"It contains some papers of that Sir Timothy, I expect," she said. "We know by the date of the breastplate that it was when Cromwell sent his Ironsides to search La Sarthe that he must have escaped through the door and got to the coast; but he was drowned crossing to France, so no one guessed or ever knew how he had got away—and I expect the secret of the passage died with him, and I was the first one to find it."

"Then what do you make of the goddess's head?" asked John Derringham. "Was that his, too?"

"Yes, I suppose so," she answered. "He was a great, grand seigneur—we know of that—and had traveled much in Italy when a young man, and stayed at Florence especially. He married a relative of the Medici belonging to some female branch, and he is even said to have been to Greece; but in the court of the Grand Duke of Tuscany he would certainly have learned to appreciate the divine beauty of Aphrodite. He must have brought her from there as well as the Hebe and Artemis, which are not nearly so good. They stand in the hall—but they say nothing to me."

"It would be interesting to know what the papers are about," John Derringham went on. "We must look at them together some day when you are my wife."

"Yes," said Halcyone, and thrilled at the thought.

"So it was through the solid masonry you disappeared last night? No wonder, sprite, that I believed I was dreaming! Why did you fly from me? Why?"

"It was too great, too glorious to take all at once," she said, and with a sudden shyness she buried her face in his coat.

"My darling sweet one," he murmured, drawing her to him, passion flaming once more. "I could have cried madly"—and he quoted in Greek:

/$ "Wilt them fly me and deny me? By thine own joy I vow, By the grape upon the bough, Thou shalt seek me in the midnight, thou shalt love me even now." $/

Mr. Carlyon had not restricted Halcyone's reading: she knew it was from the "Bacchae" of Euripides, and answered:

"Ah, yes, and, you see, I have sought you in the midnight, and I am here, and I love you—even now!"

After that, for a while they both seemed to fall into a dream of bliss. They spoke not, they just sat close together, his arms encircling her, her head upon his breast; and thus they watched the first precursors of dawn streak the sky and, looking up, found the stars had faded.

Halcyone started to her feet.

"Ah! I must go, dear lover," she said, "though it will only be for some few hours."

But John Derringham held her two hands, detaining her.

"I will make all the arrangements in these next few days," he said. "I am going to Wendover for Whitsuntide. I will get away from there, though, and come across the park and meet you, darling, here at our tree, and we will settle exactly what to do and when to go."

Then, after a last fond, sweet embrace, he let her leave him, and watched her as she glided away among the giant trees, until she was out of sight, a wild glory in his heart.

For love, when he wins after stress, leaves no room but for gladness in his worshiper's soul.



CHAPTER XIX

It was John Derringham who was taciturn next morning, not the Professor!

The light of day has a most sobering effect, and while still exalted in a measure by all the strong forces of love, he was enabled to review worldly events with a clearer eye, and could realize very well that he was going to take a step which would not have a forwarding impetus upon his career, even if it proved to be not one of retrogression.

He must give up the thought of using a rich wife as an advancement; but then, on the other hand, he would gain a companion whose divine sweetness would be an ennobling inspiration.

How he could ever have deceived himself in regard to his feelings he wondered now, for he saw quite plainly that he had been drifting into loving her from the first moment he had seen her that Good Friday morning, the foundations having been laid years before, on the day in the tree.

He felt rather uncomfortable about his old master, who he knew would not approve of any secret union with Halcyone. Not that Cheiron would reck much of conventionalities, or care in the least if it were a marriage at a registry-office or not, but he would certainly resent any aspect of the case which would seem to put a slight upon his much-loved protegee or place her in a false position.

He would tell him nothing about it until it was an accomplished fact and Halcyone was his wife—then they would let him into the secret.

All the details of what she would have to say to her aunts in her letter of farewell on leaving them would have to be thought out, too, so that no pursuit or inopportune prying into the truth would be the consequence.

Of any possibility of her stepfather's ultimate interference he did not think, not knowing that she had even any further connection with him. To satisfy in some way the ancient aunts was all that appeared a necessity. And that was difficult enough. He had certainly undertaken no easy task, but he did not regret his decision. The first and only strong passion he had ever known was mastering him.

But there was yet one more unpleasant aspect to face—that was the situation regarding Mrs. Cricklander. He had assuredly not committed himself or even acted very unfairly to her. She had been playing a game as he had been. He did not flatter himself that she really loved him—now that he knew what love meant—and her ambition could be gratified elsewhere; but there remained the fact that he was engaged to stay with her for Whitsuntide, and whether to do so, and plainly show her that he had meant nothing and only intended to be a friend, or whether to throw the visit over, and go to London, returning just to fetch Halcyone about Wednesday, he could not quite decide.

Which would be the best thing to do? It worried him—but not for long, because indecision was not, as a rule, one of his characteristics, and he soon made up his mind to the former course.

He would go to Wendover on Saturday, as was arranged, take pains to disabuse his hostess's mind of any illusion upon the subject of his intentions, and, having run over to Bristol this afternoon to give notice to the registrar and procure the license, he would leave with the other guests on the Tuesday, after lunch, having sent his servant up to London in the morning to be out of the way.

Then he would sleep that night in Upminster, getting his servant to leave what luggage he required there—it was the junction for the main line to London, and so that would be easy. A motor could be hired, and in it, on the Wednesday, he would come to the oak avenue gate, as that was far at the other side of the park upon the western road; there he would arrange that Halcyone should be waiting for him with some small box, and they would go over to Bristol, be married, and then go on to a romantic spot he knew of in Wales, and there spend a week of bliss!

By the time he got thus far in his meditations he felt intoxicated again, and Mr. Carlyon, who was watching him as he sat there in his chair reading the Times opposite him, wondered what made him suddenly clasp his hands and draw in his breath and smile in that idiotic way while he gazed into space!

Then there would be the afterwards. Of course, that would be blissful, too. Oh! if he could only claim her before all the world how glorious it would be—but for the present that was hopeless, and at all events her life with him would not be more retired than the one of monotony which she led at La Sarthe Chase, and would have his tenderest love to brighten it. He would take a tiny house for her somewhere—one of those very old-fashioned ones shut in with a garden still left in Chelsea, near the Embankment—and there he would spend every moment of his spare time, and try to make up to her for her isolation. Well arranged, the world need not know of this—Halcyone would never be exigeante—or if it did develop a suspicion, ministers before his day had been known to have had—cheres amies.

But as this thought came he jumped from his chair. It was, when faced in a concrete fashion, hideously unpalatable as touching his pure, fair star.

"You are rather restless to-day, John," the Professor said, as his old pupil went hastily towards the open window and looked out.

"Yes," said John Derringham. "It is going to rain, and I must go to Bristol this afternoon. I have to see a man on business."

Cheiron's left penthouse went up into his forehead.

"Matters complicating?" was all he said.

"Yes, the very devil," responded John Derringham.

"Beginning to feel the noose already, poor lad?"

"Er—no, not exactly," and he turned round. "But I don't quite know what I ought to do about her—Mrs. Cricklander."

"A question of honor?"

"I suppose so."

The Professor grunted, and then chuckled.

"A man's honor towards a woman lasts as long as his love. When that goes, it goes with it—to the other woman."

"You cynic!" said John Derringham.

"It is the truth, my son. A man's point of view of such things shifts with his inclinations, and if other people are not likely to know, he does not experience any qualms in thinking of the woman's feelings—it is only of what the world will think of him if it finds him out. Complete cowards, all of us!"

John Derringham frowned. He hated to know this was true.

"Well, I am not going to marry Mrs. Cricklander, Master," he announced after a while.

"I am very glad to hear it," Cheiron said heartily. "I never like to see a fine ship going upon the rocks. All your vitality would have been drawn out of you by those octopus arms."

"I do not agree with you in the least about any of those points," John Derringham said stiffly. "I have the highest respect for Mrs. Cricklander—but I can't do it."

"Well, you can thank whichever of your stars has brought you to this conclusion," growled the Professor. "I suppose I'll pull through somehow financially," the restless visitor went on, pacing the floor—"anyway, for a few years; there may be something more to be squeezed out of Derringham. I must see."

"Well, if you are not marrying that need not distress you," Cheiron consoled him with. "Those things only matter if a man has a son."

John Derringham stopped abruptly in his walk and looked at his old master.

His words gave him a strange twinge, but he crushed it down, and went on again:

"It is a curse, this want of money," he said. "It makes a man do base things that his soul revolts against." And then, in his restless moving, he absently picked up a volume of Aristotle, and his eye caught this sentence: "The courageous man therefore faces danger and performs acts of courage for the sake of what is noble."

And what did an honorable man do? But this question he would not go further into.

"You were out very late last night, John," Mr. Carlyon said presently. "I left this window open for you on purpose. The garden does one good sometimes. You were not lonely, I hope?"

"No," said John Derringham; but he would not look at his old master, for he knew very well he should see a whimsical sparkle in his eyes.

Mr. Carlyon, of course, must be aware of Halcyone's night wandering proclivities. And if there had been nothing to conceal John Derringham would have liked to have sat down now and rhapsodized all about his darling to his old friend, who adored her, too, and knew and appreciated all her points. He felt bitterly that Fate had not been as kind to him as she might have been. However, there was nothing for it, so he turned the conversation and tried to make himself grow as interested in a question of foreign policy as he would have been able to be, say, a year ago. And then he went out for a walk.

And Cheiron sat musing in his chair, as was his habit.

"The magnet of her soul is drawing his," he said to himself. "Well, now that this has begun to work, we must leave things to Fate."

But he did not guess how passion on the one side and complete love and trust upon the other were precipitously forcing Fate's hand.

The possibility of John Derringham's sending a message to Halcyone was very slender. The post was out of the question—she probably never got any letters, and the arrival of one in a man's handwriting would no doubt be the cause of endless comment in the household. The foolishness had been not to make a definite appointment with her when they had parted before dawn. But they had been too overcome with love to think of anything practical in those last moments, and now the only thing would be for him to go again to-night to the tree, and hope that she would meet him there. But the sky was clouding over, and rain looked quite ready to fall. As a last resource he could send Demetrius—his own valet he would not have trusted a yard.

The rain kept off for his journey to Bristol, and his business was got through with rapidity. And if the registrar did connect the name of John Derringham, barrister-at-law, of the Temple, London, with John Derringham, the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, he was a man of discretion and said nothing about it.

It was quite late when Mr. Carlyon's guest returned to his roof—cross-country trains were so tiresome—and it had just begun to pour with rain, so there was no use expecting that Halcyone would be there by the tree. And bed, with a rather feverish sensation of disappointment, seemed John Derringham's portion.

Halcyone had passed a day of happy tranquillity. She was of that godlike calm which frets not, believing always that only good could come to her, and that, as she heard nothing from her lover, it was because—which was indeed the truth—he was arranging for their future. If it had been fine she had meant to go to the tree, but as it rained she went quietly to her room, and let her Priscilla brush her hair for an hour, while she stared in the old dark glass, seeing not her own pale and exquisite face, but all sorts of pictures of future happiness. That she must not tell her old nurse, for the moment, of her good fortune was her one crumpled rose-leaf, but she had arranged that when she went she would post a letter at once to her, and Priscilla would, of course, join her in London, or wherever it was John Derringham would decide that she should live. The thought of leaving her aunts did not so much trouble her. The ancient ladies had never made her their companion or encouraged her to have a single interest in common with them. She was even doubtful if they would really miss her, so little had they ever taken her into their lives. For them she was still the child to be kept in her place, however much she had tried to grow a little nearer. Then her thoughts turned back to ways and means.

She so often spent the whole day with Cheiron that her absence would not be remarked upon until bedtime. But then she suddenly remembered, with a feeling of consternation, that the Professor intended to leave on the Tuesday in Whitsun week for his annual fortnight in London. If the household knew of this, it might complicate matters, and was a pity. However, there was no use speculating about any of these things, since she did not yet know on which day she was to start—to start for Paradise—as the wife of her Beloved!

Next morning it was fine again, and she decided she would go towards their tree, and if John were not there, she would even go on to the orchard house, because she realized fully the difficulty he would find in sending her a message.

But he was there waiting for her, in the bright sunlight, and she thought him the perfection of what a man should look in his well-cut gray flannels.

John Derringham knew how to dress himself, and had even in his oldest clothes that nameless, indescribable distinction which seems often to be the birthright of Englishmen of his class.

The daylight made her timid again; she was no more the imperious goddess of the night. It was a shy and tender little maiden who nestled into the protecting strong arms of her lover.

He told her all his plans: how he had given notice for the license, and that it would be forthcoming. And he explained that he had chosen Bristol rather than Upminster because in this latter place everyone would know the name of La Sarthe—even the registrar's clerk and whoever else they would secure as a witness—but in Bristol it might pass unnoticed.

They discussed what should be done about Cheiron and the old ladies, and decided that when to apprise the former of their marriage must be left to John's discretion; and as Halcyone would not be missed until the evening, they would simply send two telegrams from Bristol in the late afternoon, one to Miss La Sarthe and one to Priscilla, the former briefly to announce that Halcyone was quite safe and was writing, and the latter asking her old nurse not to let the old ladies feel worried, and promising a letter to her, also.

"Then," John Derringham said, "you will be my wife by that time, sweetheart, and you will tell your aunts the truth, ask them to keep our secret, and say that you will return to them often, so that they shall not be lonely. We will write it between us, darling, and I do not think they will give us away."

"Never," returned Halcyone, while she looked rather wistfully towards the house. "They are too proud."

He dropped her hand for an instant; the unconscious inference of this speech made him wince. She understood, then, that she was going to do something which her old kinswomen would think was a hurt to their pride, and so would be silent over it in consequence. And yet she did not hesitate. She must indeed love him very much.

A tremendous wave of emotion surged through him, and he looked at her with reverence and worship. And for one second his own part of utter selfishness flashed into his understanding, so that he asked, with almost an anxious note in his deep, assured voice:

"You are not afraid, sweetheart, to come away—for all the rest of your life—alone with me?"

And often in the after days of anguish there would come back to him the memory of her eyes, to tear his heart with agony in the night-watches—her pure, true eyes, with all her fresh, untarnished soul looking out of them into his as they glistened with love and faith.

"Afraid?" she said. "How should I be afraid—since you are my lord and I am your love? Do we not belong to one another?"

"Oh, my dear," he said, as he folded her to his heart in wild, worshiping passion, "God keep you always safe, here in my arms."

And if she had known it, for the first time in his life there were tears in John Derringham's proud eyes. For he knew now he had found her—the one woman with a soul.

Then they parted, when every smallest detail was settled, for she had promised to help Miss Roberta with a new design for her embroidery, and he had promised to join Mrs. Cricklander's party for an early lunch. They intended to make an excursion to see the ruins of Graseworth Tower in the afternoon.

"And indeed we can bear the separation now, my darling," he said, "because we shall both know that we must go through only four more days before we are together—for always!"

But even so it seemed as if they could not tear themselves apart, and when he did let her go he strode after her again and pleaded for one more kiss.

"There!" she whispered, smiling while her eyes half filled with mist. "This tree is forever sacred to us. John, it is listening now when I tell you once more that I love you."

And then she fled.



CHAPTER XX

When once John Derringham had definitely made up his mind to any course in life, he continued in it with decision and skill, and carried off the situation with a high-handed assurance. Thus he felt no qualms of awkwardness in meeting Mrs. Cricklander and treating her with an enchanting ease and friendliness which was completely disconcerting. She had no casus belli; she could not find fault with his manner or his words, and yet she was left with the blank conviction that her hopes in regard to him were over. She despised men in her heart because, as a rule, she was able to calculate with certainty every move in her games with them. Feeling no slightest passion, her very mediocre intellect proved often more than a match for the cleverest. But her supreme belief in herself now received a heavy blow. She was never so near to loving John Derringham as during this Whitsuntide when she felt she had lost him. Cora Lutworth once said of her:

"Cis is one of the happiest women in the world, because when she looks in the glass in the morning she never sees anything but herself, and is perfectly content. Most of us find shadows peeping over our shoulders of what we would like to be."

Arabella found her employer extremely trying during the Saturday and Sunday, and was almost in tears when she wrote to her mother.

Mr. Derringham has plainly determined not to be ensnared yet. If this did not render M. E. so difficult to please, the situation would be very instructive to watch. And I am not even now certain whether he will escape eventually, because her whole pride in herself is roused and she will stick at nothing. I have a shrewd suspicion as to what has caused the change in his feelings and intentions towards M. E., but I have not imparted my ideas to her, since doing so might do no good, and would in some way certainly injure an innocent person. As yet I believe she is unaware of this person's existence. We have done everything we can for Mr. Derringham with the most erudite conversation. I have been up half of the night ascertaining facts upon all sorts of classical subjects, as that seems to be more than ever the bent of his mind in these last two visits. (I am given to understand from other sources that the person of whom I made mention above is a highly-trained Greek scholar and of exceptional refinement and cultivation, so that may be the reason.) The strain of preparing M. E. for these talks and then my anxiety when, at meals or after them, I hear her upon the brink of some fatal mistake, has caused me to have most unpleasant headaches, and really, if it were not so modern and silly a phrase, I should say the thing was getting on my nerves. However, all the interesting guests are leaving on Tuesday afternoon. Mr. Derringham, I understand from what he said to me, intends to go over to his old master, Professor Carlyon's, and catch a later train from there, but M. E. does not know this, and I have not felt it my duty to inform her of it, because it might involve some awkwardness connected with the person about whom I have already given you a hint. I must close now, as I have some facts to look up concerning the worship of Dionysus which M. E. is going to bring in to-night. It was only yesterday I told her who he was, and I had the greatest difficulty to get her to understand he was Bacchus as well, as she had learned of him when younger under that name as the God of Drunkards, and did not consider him a very nice person to mention. But Mr. Derringham held forth upon the rude Thracian Dionysus last night and the fundamental spirituality of his original cult, and so she felt it might seem rather bourgeois to be shocked, and has committed to memory as well as she can some facts to-day.

It will be seen from Miss Clinker's frank letter to her parent that Mrs. Cricklander was leaving no stone unturned to gain her object, and such praiseworthy toil deserves the highest commendation.

John Derringham, meanwhile, having successfully smoothed matters to his own satisfaction, felt at liberty to dream in his spare moments of his love. He already began to wonder how he had ever felt any emotion towards the fair Cecilia—she was perfectly charming, but left him as cold as ice!

And so at last the good-bys were said, and he got into the motor with some of the other guests, ostensibly for the station, but in reality to get out at the Lodge gates upon the pretense of going to see the Professor. He intended, instead of this, to cross the haw-haw and reconnoiter upon the hope of meeting his beloved, because there was no necessity for him to spend a dull afternoon in Upminster when perhaps some more agreeable hours could be snatched under the tree. He had attended to every point, he believed, even having written a letter to Cheiron which he had taken the precaution to give to his servant to post from London on the following morning, so that there would be no Bristol mark as a clew to their whereabouts. In this he merely stated that when his old master would receive it Halcyone would be his wife, and that for a time they had decided to keep the marriage secret, and he hoped his old master would understand and sympathize.

The only qualm of any sort he experienced during these three days was when he was composing this letter, so he finished it quickly and did not even read it over. And now, as he strode across the Wendover park, it was safe in his servant's pocket and would be despatched duly next day. He was unaware of the fact that Mr. Carlyon had left for London by a morning train.

As he came within view of the haw-haw, he saw in the far distance Halcyone just flitting towards the beech avenue gate, and in his intense haste to catch her up before she should get too near the house, he removed the bricks very carelessly, not even remarking that one, and the most important, was disposed of in such a manner that the spike left beneath would not bear his weight.

He had got thus far, his eyes fixed upon the slender white figure rapidly disappearing from his view, when with a tremendous crash his foothold gave way and he fell with fearful force into the ditch beneath, his head striking one of the fallen bricks. And after that, all things were blank and his soul wandered into shadowland and tasted of the pains of death.

* * * * *

From the first break of day on that Tuesday when Halcyone awoke she was conscious that some sorrow was near her. Every sense of hers, every instinct, so highly trained by her years of communion with Nature seemed always to warn her of coming events.

She was restless—a state of being quite at variance with her usual calm. The air was sultry and, though no rain fell, ominous clouds gathered and faint thunder pealed afar off.

"What is it? What is it, God?" she asked of the sky. But no answer came, and at last she went out into the park and towards the tree. She had made all her simple preparations—everything that she must take had been put into a small bag and was safely waiting in the secret passage, ready for her to fetch on the morrow.

Cheiron, she knew, had gone to London. Had they not said good-by on the evening before? And his last words had made her smile happily at the time.

"Things are changing, Halcyone," he had said, with the whimsical raising of his left penthouse brow. "Perhaps you will not want to learn Greek much longer with your crabbed old Cheiron in his cave."

And she had flung her arms round his neck and buried her face in his silver beard, and assured him she would always want to learn—all her life. But now she felt a twinge of sadness—she would indeed miss him, her dear old master, and he, too, would be lonely without her. Then she fought with herself. Feelings of depression were never permitted to stay for a moment, and she looked away into the trees for comfort—but only a deathly stillness and a sullen roll of distant thunder answered, and left her uncomforted.

And then some force stronger than her will seemed to drive her back to the house, and to the long gallery, and just at the very moment when she had passed beyond her lover's sight it was as if something chased her, so that she ran the last few yards, and paused not until she stood in front of Aphrodite's shrine.

It would be difficult to carry the marble head with the other few things she proposed to take, but none the less was the necessity imperative. She could not be married without the presence of her beloved mother to bless her.

As she lifted her goddess out, with her silken wrappings, the first flash of the nearing storm lit up the dark room with lurid flame.

Halcyone shivered. It was the one aspect of Nature with which she was out of harmony. When thunder rolled and lightning quivered, her vitality seemed to desert her and she experienced what in her came nearest to fear.

"Ah! someone has angered God greatly," she whispered aloud; and then she carried the head to the secret door, knowing full well she would be unwatched in her entry there—on such a day, with thunder pealing, not a servant would have ventured into the long gallery.

Another and louder rumble reached her with muffled sound, as she made her way in the dark underground, and as she came to the place where there was the contrived gleam of light and outer air, the lightning turned the narrow space into a green dusk.

Halcyone was trembling all over, and when she had put her precious bundle safely into the bag with the rest of her simple preparations, she laid it on the iron-bound box which had never been stirred, all ready for her to lift up and take with her in the morning. Then she ran back, cold and pale, and hastily sought Priscilla in her own room, and talked long to her of old days, glad indeed to hear a human voice, until presently the rain began to pour in torrents and the storm cried itself out.

But with each crash before this came her heart gave a bound, as if in pain. And a wild longing grew in her for the morrow and safety in her lover's arms.

And he—alas! that hapless lover!—was lying there in the haw-haw, with broken ankle and damaged head, half recovering consciousness in the pouring rain, but unable to stir or climb from his low bed, or even to cry aloud enough to make anyone hear him. And so at last the night came, and the pure moonlight, and when her usual evening duties were over with her aunts, Halcyone was free to go to bed.

She opened her window wide, but she did not seek to wander in the wet park. John would not be there, and she must rest, so as to be fair for him when tomorrow they should start on life's sweet journey—together.

But her heart was not quiet. All her prayers and pure thoughts seemed to bring no peace, and even when, after a while, she fell into a sleep, it was still troubled.

And thus the day dawned that was to have seen her wedding!

She told herself that the dull, sullen oppression she awoke with was the result of the storm in the night, and with firm determination she banished all she could of heaviness, and got through her usual avocations until the moment came for her to start for the oak avenue gate. She timed her arrival to be exactly at ten o'clock so that she need not wait, as this of the three outlets was the one where there might be a less remote chance of a passer-by. They had had to choose it because it was on the road to Bristol.

The sun was shining gorgeously again when she emerged from the secret door, carrying her heavy bundle, and except in the renewed freshness of all the green there seemed no trace of the storm. Yes—as she got near the gate she saw that one huge tree beyond that old friend who had played the part of the holder of the Golden Fleece was stricken and cleft through by the lightning. It had fallen in helpless fashion, blackened and yawning, its proud head in the dust.

This grieved her deeply, and she paused to pass a tender hand over the gaping wound. Then she went on to the gate, and there waited—waited first in calm belief, then in expectancy, and at last in a numb agony.

The sun seemed to scorch her, the light hurt her eyes, every sound made her tremble and start forward, and at last she cried aloud:

"O God, why do I feel so troubled? I who have always had peace in my heart!"

But no bird even answered her. There was a warm stillness, and just there, under these trees, there were no rabbits which could have comforted her with their living forms scuttling to and fro.

She tried to reason calmly. Motors were uncertain things—this one might have broken down, and that had delayed her lover. She must not stir, in case he should come and think his lateness had frightened her and that she had gone back to the house. Whatever befell, she must be brave and true.

But at last, when the afternoon shadows were lengthening, the agony became intense. Only the baker had passed with his cart, and a farm wagon or two, during the whole day. Gradually the conviction grew that it could not only be an accident to the motor—if so, John would have procured some other vehicle, or, indeed, he could have come to her on foot by now. Something had befallen him. There must have occurred some accident to himself; and in spite of all her calm fortitude, anguish clutched her soul.

She knew not what to do or which way to go. At last, as the sun began to sink, faint and weary, she decided the orchard house would be the best place. There, if there was any news of an accident, Sarah Porrit, the Professor's one female servant, would have heard it.

She started straight across the park, carrying her heavy bag, and crossed the beech avenue, and so on to the trysting tree. A cold feeling like some extra disquietude seemed to overcome her as she neared the haw-haw and the copse. It was as if she feared and yet longed to get there. But she resisted the temptation, and went straight on to the little gate and so up the garden to the house.

Mrs. Porrit received her with her usual kindly greeting. All was calm and peaceful, and while Halcyone controlled herself to talk in an ordinary voice, the postman's knock was heard. He passed the Professor's door on the road to Applewood and left the evening mail, when there chanced to be any.

Mrs. Porrit received the letters—three of them—and then she adjusted her spectacles, but took them off again.

"After all, since you are here, miss, perhaps as you write better than I you will be so good as to redirect them on to the master. You know his address, as usual." And she named an old-fashioned hotel in Jermyn Street.

Halcyone took them in her cold, trembling fingers, and then nearly dropped them on the floor, for the top envelope was addressed in the handwriting of her beloved! She knew it well. Had she not, during the past years, often seen such missives, from which the Professor had read her scraps of news?

She carried it to the light and scrutinized the postmark. It was "London," and posted that very morning early!

For a moment all was a blank, and she found herself grasping the back of Cheiron's big chair to prevent herself from falling.

John had been in London at the moment when she was waiting by the tree! What mystery was here?

At first the feeling was one of passionate relief. There had been no accident, then; he had been obliged to go—there would be some explanation forthcoming. Perhaps he had even written to her, too—and she gave a bound forward, as though to run back to La Sarthe Chase. But then she recollected the evening postman did not come to the house, and they got no letters as Cheiron did, who was on the road. Hers could not be there until the morning—she must wait patiently and see.

With consummate self-control she made her voice sound natural as she said, "Oh, I am so late, Mrs. Porrit. I must go," and, bidding the woman a gracious good evening, walked rapidly to the house. A telegram might have come for her, and she had been out all day. What if her aunts had opened it!

This thought made her quicken her pace so that at last she arrived at the terrace breathless with running; and having deposited her bag in safety, she came out again from the secret passage and got hastily to the house.

But there was no sign of a telegram in the hall, and she mounted to find Priscilla in her room, which she discovered to be in great disorder, her few clothes lying about on every available space.

"Oh, my lamb, where have you been?" the elderly woman exclaimed. "At four o'clock who should come in a fly from the Applewood station but your step-father's wife! She was staying at Upminster, and says she thought she would come over and see you—and now it's settled that we go back with her to London to-morrow. Think of it, my lamb! You and me to see the world!" Then she cried in fear: "My precious, what is it?"

For Halcyone, overwrought and overcome, had staggered to a chair and, falling into it, had buried her face in her hands.



CHAPTER XXI

Mrs. James Anderton was seated in the Italian parlor with the two ancient hostesses when Halcyone at last came into their midst. They had evidently exhausted all possible topics of conversation and were extremely glad of an interruption.

Miss La Sarthe had been growing more and more annoyed at her great-niece's lengthy absence, while Miss Roberta felt so nervous she would like to have sniffed at her vinaigrette, but, alas! the stern eye of her sister was upon her and she dared not.

Mrs. James Anderton—good, worthy woman—had not passed an agreeable afternoon either. She felt herself hopelessly out of tune with the two old ladies, whose exquisitely reserved polished manners disconcerted her.

She had been made to feel—most delicately, it is true, but still unmistakably—that she had committed a breach of taste in thus descending upon La Sarthe Chase unannounced. And instead of the sensation of complacent importance which she usually enjoyed when among her own friends and acquaintances, she was experiencing a depressed sense of being a very small personage indeed.

Her highly colored comely face was very hot and flushed and she rather restlessly played with her parasol handle. Miss La Sarthe's voice grew a little acid as she said:

"This is our great-niece, Halcyone La Sarthe, Mrs. Anderton"—and then—"It is unfortunate that you should have been so long absent, child."

"I am very sorry," Halcyone returned gently, and she shook hands. She made no excuse or explanation.

Mrs. Anderton plunged into important matters at once.

"Your father, Mr. Anderton"—how that word "father" jarred upon Halcyone's sensitive ears!—"wished me to come and see you, dear, and hopes you will return with me to-morrow to London, for a little visit to us, that you may make the acquaintance of your brother and sisters."

Halcyone had already made up her mind what to do, before she had left her room. She would agree to anything they suggested in order to have no obstacles put in her way—not admitting for a moment that these people had any authority over her. Then, if in the morning she received a letter from her Beloved, she would follow its instructions implicitly. Always having at hand her certain mode of disappearance, she could slip away, and if it seemed necessary, just leave them to think what they pleased. Priscilla would be warned to allay at once the anxiety of her aunts, and for the Andertons she was far too desperate to care what they might feel.

"Thank you; it is very good of you," she said as graciously as she could. "My old nurse has told me of your kind invitation, and is already beginning the preparations. I trust you left Mr. Anderton and my stepbrother and sisters well?"

"Hoity-toity!" thought Louisa Anderton. "Of the same sort as the old spinsters. This won't please James, I fear!" But aloud she answered that the family were all well, and that James Albert, who was thirteen now, would soon be going to Eton.

Over Halcyone, in spite of her numbness and the tension she was feeling, though controlled by her firm will, there came the memory of the red, crying baby, for whose life her own sweet mother had paid so dear a price. And Mabel and Ethel—noisy, merry little girls!—she had thought of them so seldom in these latter years—they seemed as far-off shadows now. But James Anderton and her mother stood out sharp and clear.

The strain and anguish of the day had left her very pale. Mrs. Anderton thought her plain and most uncomfortably aloof; she really regretted that she had put into her husband's head the idea of giving this invitation. He would gladly have left Halcyone alone, but for her kindly thought. Mabel was just seventeen, and such a handful that her father had decided she should stay in the schoolroom with her sister for another year, and Mrs. Anderton had felt it would be a good opportunity for Halcyone to rejoin the family circle at a time when her presence, if she proved good-looking, could not in any way interfere with her stepsister's debut.

And here, instead of being overcome with gratitude and excitement, this cold, quiet girl was taking it all as quite an ordinary circumstance. No wonder she, Louisa Anderton, felt aggrieved.

They had hardly time for any more words, for Mrs. Anderton had already put off her departure by the seven-twenty train from Applewood to Upminster on purpose to wait for Halcyone, and now proposed to catch the one at nine o'clock—her fly still waited in the courtyard—and they made rapid arrangements. Halcyone, accompanied by Priscilla, was to meet her the next day at the Upminster junction at eleven o'clock, and they would journey to London together.

And all the while Halcyone was agreeing to this she was thinking, if in the improbable circumstance that she should get no letter in the morning, it would be wiser to go to London. There was her Cheiron, who would help her to get news. But of course she would hear, and all would be well.

Thus she was enabled to unfreeze a little to her stepfather's wife, who, as they said good-by at the creaking fly's door, felt some of her soft charm.

"Perhaps she is shy," she said to herself as she rolled towards the station. "Anyway, it is restful, after Mabel's laying down the law."

That night Halcyone took her goddess to the little summer house upon the second terrace.

"If I start with John to-morrow, my sweet," she said, "you will come with me as I have promised you. But if I must go to that great, restless city, to find him, then you will wait for me here—safe in your secret home." And then she looked out over the misty clover-grown pleasance to the country beyond bathed in brilliant moonlight. And something in the beauty of it stilled the wild ache in her heart. She would not admit into her thoughts the least fear, but some unexplained, unconquerable apprehension stayed in her innermost soul. She knew, only she refused to face the fact, that all was not well.

Of doubt as to John Derringham's intentions towards her, or his love, she had none, but there were forces she knew which were strong and could injure people, and with all her fearlessness of them, they might have been capable of causing some trouble to her lover—her lover who was ignorant of such things.

She stayed some time looking at the beautiful moonlit country, and saying her prayers to that God Who was her eternal friend, and then she got up to steal noiselessly to bed.

But as she was opening the secret door, to have one more look at the sky, after she had replaced Aphrodite in the bag, it seemed as though her lover's voice called her in anguish through the night: "Halcyone!" and again, "Halcyone! My love!"

She stopped, petrified with emotion, and then rushed back onto the terrace. But all was silence; and, wild with some mad fear, she set off hurriedly, never stopping until she came to their trysting tree. But here there was silence also, only the nightingale throbbed from the copse, while the faint rustle of soft zephyrs disturbed the leaves.

And Jeb Hart and his comrade saw the tall white figure from their hiding-place in the low overgrown brushwood, and Gubbs crossed himself again, for whether she were living or some wraith they were never really sure.

At the moment when Halcyone opened the secret door, John Derringham was just recovering consciousness in a luxurious bed at Wendover Park, whither he had been carried when accidentally found by the keepers in their rounds about eight o'clock. It was several days since they had visited this part of the park, and they had lit upon him by a fortunate chance. He had lain there in the haw-haw, unconscious all that day, while his poor little lady-love waited for him at the oak gate, and was now in a sorry plight indeed, as Arabella Clinker bent over him, awaiting anxiously the verdict of the doctors who had been fetched by motor from Upminster. Would he live or die?

Her employer had had a bad attack of nerves upon hearing of the accident, and was now reclining upon her boudoir sofa, quite prostrated and in a high state of agitation until she should know the worst—or best.