"What it was, apparently, was that the old gentleman had some sort of funny old notion that he was put into life for a definite purpose and when Sabre saw him he could just whisper to Sabre that he was agonised because he was dying before he'd done anything that could possibly be it. Poor old Sabre said it was too terrible for him, because what could he say with that pack of grim daughters standing over him to see he didn't contaminate their papa on his death bed? He said he could only hold his old pal's hand, and had the tears running down his face, and couldn't say a word, and they hustled him out, sort of holding their noses again, and sort of disinfecting the place as they went along. He said to me, brokenly, 'Hapgood, I felt I'd touched bottom. My old friend, you know.' He said he went again next morning, like a tradesman, just to beg for news. They told him, 'Papa has passed away.' He asked them, 'Did he say anything at the last? Do please tell me just that.' They said he suddenly almost sat up and called out something they couldn't understand about, 'Ay, ready!' Sabre said he understood and thanked God for it. He didn't tell me what it meant; it broke him right up even talking about it. There was another thing he mentioned but wouldn't go into. Some other great friend, a woman, whom he said he'd cut right off out of his acquaintance—wouldn't answer her letters: realised how the world was regarding him and felt he couldn't impose himself on any one. He seemed to suffer over that, too."

II

"Well, that was the morning, old man. That was the first part, and you see how it went. He was pretty badly in the depths but he was holding on. He'd got this great discovery of his, and the idea of writing about it after his History, he said. 'If I'm ever able to take up my History again,' he said. Badly down as he was, at least he'd got that and he'd also got to help him the extraordinary, reasonable, reasoning view he took of the whole business: no bitterness against any one, just understanding their point of view as he always has understood the other point of view, just that and puzzling over it all. On the whole, and considering all things, not too bad. Not too bad. Bad, desperately pathetic, I thought, but not too bad. That was the morning. He wouldn't come to lunch with us. He hadn't liked meeting my wife as it was. And of course I could understand how he felt, poor chap. So I left him.

"I left him. When I saw him again was about three o'clock, and I walked right into the middle of the development that, as I told you, has pretty well let the roof down on him.

"I strolled round to his hotel, a one-horse sort of place off the front. He was in the lobby. No one else there. Only a man who'd just been speaking to him and who left him and went out as I came in.

"Sabre had two papers in his hands. He was staring at them and you'd ha' thought from his face he was staring at a ghost. What d'you think they were? Guess. Man alive, the chap I'd seen going out had just served them on him. They were divorce papers. The citation and petition papers that have to be served personally. Divorce papers. His wife had instituted divorce proceedings against him. Naming the girl, Effie.

"Yes, you can whistle....

"You can whistle. I couldn't. I had too much to do. He was knocked out. Right out. I got him up to his room. Tried to stuff a drink into him. Couldn't. Stuffed it into myself. Two. Wanted them pretty badly.

"Well—I tell you. It was pretty awful. He sat on the bed with the papers in his hand, gibbering. Just gibbering. No other word for it. Was his wife mad? Was she crazy? Had she gone out of her mind? He to be guilty of a thing like that? He capable of a beastly thing like that? She to believe, she to believe he was that? His wife? Mabel? Was it possible? A vile, hideous, sordid intrigue with a girl employed in his own house? Effie! His wife to believe that? An unspeakable, beastly thing like that? He tried to show me with his finger the words on the paper. His finger shaking all over the thing. 'Hapgood, Hapgood, do you see this vile, obscene word here? I guilty of that? My wife, Mabel, think me capable of that? Do you see what they call me, Hapgood? What they call me by implication, what my wife, Mabel, thinks I am, what I am to be pointed at and called? Adulterer! Adulterer! My God, my God, adulterer! The word makes me sick. The very word is like poison in my mouth. And I am to swallow it. It is to be me, me, my name, my title, my brand. Adulterer! Adulterer!'

"I tell you, old man ... I tell you....

"I managed to get him talking about the practical side of it. That is I managed to make him listen while I talked. I told him the shop of the business. Told him that these papers had to be served on him personally, as they had been, and on the girl, too. I said I guessed that the solicitor's clerk I'd seen going out had been down to Penny Green the previous day or the day before and served them on Effie and got his address from her. I told him the first step was that within eight days he had to put in an appearance at the Probate and Divorce Registry and enter a defence—just intimate that he intended to defend the action, d'you see? And that the girl would have to too. After that no doubt he'd instruct solicitors, and that of course I'd be glad to take on the job for him.

"Well, of all this jargon—me being mighty glad to have anything to keep talking about, you understand—of all this jargon there were only two bits he froze on to, and froze on hard, I can tell you. I thought he was going mad the way he went on. I still think he may. That's why I'm frightened about him. He just sat there on the bed while I talked and kept saying to himself, 'Adulterer! Adulterer! Me. Adulterer!' It was awful.

"What he caught on to was what I told him about appearing at the Divorce Registry within eight days and about instructing a solicitor afterwards. He said he'd go to the Registry at once—at once, at once, at once! and he said, very impolitely, poor chap, that he'd instruct no infernal solicitors; he'd do the whole thing himself. He had the feeling, I could see, that he must be spurning this horrible thing, and spurning it at once, and spurning it himself. He was like a chap with his clothes on fire, crazy only to rush into water and get rid of it. The stigma of the thing was so intolerable to him that his feeling was that he couldn't sit by and let other people defend him and do the business for him; he must do it himself, hurl it back with his own hands, shout it back with his own throat. He'll calm down and get more reasonable in time, no doubt, and then I'll have another go at him about running the case for him; but anyway, there was the one thing he could do pretty well there and then, and that was enter his defence at the registry. So I took charge of him to help him ease his mind that much.

"I took charge of him. He wasn't capable of thinking of anything for himself. I packed his bag and paid his bill and took him round to our hotel and it wasn't far off then to the train my wife and I had fixed to get back on. I told my wife what had happened and she played the brick. You see, the chap was like as if he was dazed. Like as if he was walking in a trance. Just did what he was told and said nothing. So we played it up on that, my missus and I; we just sort of took him along without consulting him or seeming to take any notice of him. It was too late to do anything that night when we got up to town. He made a bit of a fuss, lost his temper and swore I was trying to hinder him; but my wife managed him a treat; by Jove, she was marvellous with him, and we got him round to our flat and put him up for the night. I pushed him off to bed early, but I heard him walking up and down his room hours after and talking to himself—talking in tones of horror—'Me! Me! Adulterer!'

"It was rather dreadful, hearing the poor chap. You see, what was the matter with him was, being the frightfully clean, intensely refined sort of chap he is, appalling horror at being thought, by his wife who knew him so well, capable of what was so repulsive to his mind. He loathed the very sound of the word that was used against him. Obscene, he kept on calling it. He was like a man fallen in a mire and plucking at the filthy stuff all over him and reeking of it and not able to eat or sleep or think or do anything but go mad with it. That was how it got him. Like that.

"Next morning—that's this morning, you understand—he was a little more normal, able to realise things a bit, I mean: thanked my wife for putting him up and hoped he hadn't been horribly rude or anything last night. More normal, you see: still in a panic fever to be off and state at the Registrar's that he was going to defend the action; but normal enough for me to see it was all right for him to go straight on home immediately after and tell the girl what she had to do and all that. I told him, by the way, that it would pretty well have to come out now, ultimately, who the child's father was: the girl would practically have to give that up in the end to clear him. You know, I told him that in the cab going along down. He ground his teeth over it. It was horrible to hear him. He said he'd kill the chap if he could ever discover him; ground his teeth and said he'd kill him, now—after this.

"Well, he got through his business about twelve—just a formality, you know, declaring his intention to defend. Then a thing happened. Can't think now what it meant. We were waiting for a cab near the Law Courts. I had his bag. He was going straight on to the station. A cab was just pulling in when a man came up, an ordinary enough looking cove, tall chap, and touched Sabre and said, 'Mr. Sabre?' Sabre said, 'Yes' and the chap said very civilly, 'Might I speak to you a minute, sir?'

"They went aside. I wasn't looking at them. I was watching a chap on a bike tumble off in front of a motor bus, near as a toucher run over. Suddenly some one shoved past me and there was old Sabre getting into the cab with this chap who had come up to him. I said, 'Hullo! Hullo, are you off?'

"We'd arranged, d'you see, to part there. I had to get back to my chambers. He turned round on me a face grey as ashes, absolutely dead grey. I'd never seen such a colour in a man's face. He said, 'Yes, I'm off,' and sort of fell over his stick into the cab. The man, who was already in, righted him on to the seat and said, 'Paddington' to the driver who was at the door, shutting it. I said, through the window, 'Sabre! Old man, are you ill? What's up? Shall I come with you?'

"He put his head towards me and said in the most extraordinary voice, speaking between his clenched teeth as though he was keeping himself from yelling out, he said, 'If you love me, Hapgood, get right away out of it from me and let me alone. This man happens to live at Tidborough. I know him. We're going down together.'

"I said, 'Sabre—'

"He clenched his teeth so they were all bare with his lips contracting. He said, 'Let me alone. Let me alone. Let me alone.'

"And they pushed off.

"I tell you what I'm going to do. I'm going down there to-morrow. I'm frightened about him."



CHAPTER IV

I

Hapgood had said to his friend of the effect on Sabre of Mabel's action against him: "He's crashed. The roof's fallen in on him." And that had been Sabre's own belief. But it was not so. There are degrees of calamity. Dumfounded, stunned, aghast, Sabre would not have believed that conspiracy against him of all the powers of darkness could conceivably worsen his plight. They had shot their bolt. He was stricken amain. He was in the crucible of disaster and in its heart where the furnace is white.

But they had not shot their bolt. The roof had not yet fallen on him. They had discharged but a petard, but a mine to effect a breach. The timbers of the superstructure had but bent and cracked and groaned.

Their bolt was shot, the roof crashed in, the four sides of his world tottered and collapsed upon him, with the words spoken to Sabre by that man who approached and took him aside while he stood to take leave of Hapgood.

The man said, "I daresay you know me by sight, Mr. Sabre. I've seen you about the town. I'm the coroner's officer at Tidborough. You're rather wanted down there. I've been to Brighton after you and followed here and just took a lucky chance on finding you about this part. You're rather wanted down there. The fact is that young woman that's been living with you's been found dead."

Sabre's face took then the strange and awful hue that Hapgood had marked upon it.

"Found dead? Found dead? Where?"

"In your house, Mr. Sabre. And her baby, dead with her."

"Found dead? Found dead? Effie? And her baby? Found dead? Oh, dear God.... Catch hold of my arm a minute. All right, let me go. Let me go, I say. Can't you? Found dead? What d'you mean, found dead?"

"Well, sir, that's rather for the coroner to say, sir. There's to be an inquest to-morrow. That's what you're wanted for."

"Inquest? Inquest?" Sabre's speech was thick. He knew it was thick. His tongue felt enormously too big for his mouth. He could not control it properly. He felt that all his limbs and members were swollen and ponderous and out of his control. "Inquest? Found dead? Inquest? Found dead? Goo' God, can't you tell me something? You come up to me in the street, and all the place going round and round, and you say to me, 'Found dead.' Can't you say anything except 'Found dead'? Can't you tell me what you mean, found dead? Eh? Can't you?"

The man said, "Now look here, sir. I say that's for the coroner. Least said best. And least you say best, sir, if you understand me. Looks as if the young woman took poison. That's all I can say. Looks as if she took poison. Oxalic acid."

"Oxalic acid!"

"Now, see here, sir. You've no call to say anything to me and I've no call to say more to you than I've told you. Is that your cab, sir? Because if so—"

They went to the cab.

II

One of two questions is commonly the first words articulated by one knocked senseless in a disaster. Recovering consciousness, or recovering his scattered wits, "What's happened?" he asks; or "Where am I?" In the first shock he has not known he was hurt. He recovers his senses. He then is aware of himself mangled, maimed, delivered to the torturers.

In that day and through the night Sabre was numb to coherent thought, numb to any realisation of the meaning to himself of this that had befallen him. The roof had crashed in upon him; but he lay stunned. As one pinned beneath scaffolding knows not his agony till the beams are being lifted from him, so stupefaction inhibited his senses until, on the morrow, he was dug down to in the coroner's court and there awakened.

He could not think. Through the day and through the night his mind groped with outstretched arms as one groping in a dark room, or as a blind man tapping with a stick. He could not think. He could attend to things; he could notice things; he could perform necessary actions; but "Effie is dead." "Effie has killed herself." "Effie has killed herself and her child—now what?" In pursuit of these his mind could only grope with outstretched hands; these, in the dark room of his calamity, eluded his mind. He groped and stumbled after them. They stole and slipped away.

In the train going down to Tidborough the man who had accosted him permitted himself to be more communicative. A policeman, observing lights burning in the house at midday on Sunday, had knocked, and getting no answer had gone in. He had found the young woman dead on her bed, the baby dead beside her. A tumbler was on a small table and a bottle of oxalic acid, "salts of lemon, as they call it," said the man.

Sabre stared out of the window. "Effie has killed herself. Effie has killed herself and her baby." No, he could not fasten upon it. "Effie has killed herself." That was what this man was telling him. It circled and spun away from him as from the rushing train the fields circled and spun before his vision.

He was able to attend to things and to do things. At Tidborough he took a cab and drove home, and dismissing it at the gate was able to give normal attention to the requirements of the morrow and instruct the man to come out for him at half-past eleven; the inquest was at twelve.

He was able to notice things. For years turning the handle and entering this house had been like entering an empty habitation. It struck cold now. It was like entering a tomb. He went into the morning room. No one was there. He went into the kitchen. No one was there. He stood still and tried to think. Of course no one was here. Effie had killed herself. He climbed to his room, still awkward on stairs with his leg and stick, and went in and stood before his books and stared at them. He was still staring when it occurred to him that it had grown dusk since he first entered and stared. Effie had killed herself.... He went out and along the passage to her room and entered and stared upon the bed. Effie had been found dead. This was where they had found her—dead. No, it was gone; he could not get hold of it. He turned and stared about the room. Things seemed to have been taken out of the room. The man had said something about a glass and a bottle. But there was no glass or bottle here. They had taken things out of the room. And they had taken Effie out of the room—picked up Effie and carried her out like a—an orgasm of terrible emotion surged enormously within him; a bursting thing was in his throat—No, it was gone. What phenomenon had suddenly possessed him? What was the matter? Effie had killed herself. No, he could not get hold of it. He turned away and began to wander from room to room. In some he lit lights because you naturally lit lights when it was dark. All night he wandered from room to room, rarely sitting down. All night his mind groped with outstretched hands for that which all night eluded it.

III

In the morning, in the mortuary adjoining the coroner's court, his mind suddenly and with shock most terrible made contact with the calamity it had pursued.

In the mortuary....

When he arrived and alighted from his cab he found a small crowd of persons assembled about the yard of the court. Some one said, "There he is!" Some one said, "That's him!" A kind of threatening murmur went up from the people. A general movement was made towards him. What was the matter? What were they looking at? They stood in his way. He seemed to be wedged among a mass of dark and rather beastly faces breathing close to his own. He could not get on. He was being pushed. He was caused to stagger. He said, "Look out, I've got a game leg." That threatening sort of murmur arose more loudly in answer to his words. Some one somewhere threw a piece of orange peel at some one. It almost hit his face. What was up? What were they all doing?

A policeman and the coroner's officer came shouldering through the press and helped him towards the court. He thought it was rather decent of them.

The policeman said, "You'd better get inside. They're a bit rough."

At the door of the court Sabre looked across to where on the other side of the yard some men were shuffling out of a detached building. The coroner's officer said, "Jury. They've been viewing the corpse."

"Corpse!" The rough word stabbed through his numbness. He thought, "Corpse! Viewing the corpse! Obscene and horrible phrase! Corpse! Effie!" He made a movement in that direction.

The man said, "Yes, perhaps you'd better."

They took him across and into the detached building.

He was against a glass screen, misty with breaths of those who had stared and peered through it. The policeman wiped his sleeve across the glass. "There you are."

Ah, ...! Now, suddenly and with shock most terrible, his mind made contact with that which it had pursued. It had groped as in a dark room with outstretched hands. Now, suddenly and with shock most terrible, it was as if those groping hands had touched in the darkness a face.

Ah, insupportable! This was Effie. This was Bright Effie. This was that jolly little Effie of the old, million-year-old days. This! This!

She lay on a slab inclined towards the glass. She was swathed about in cerements. Only her face was visible. Within the hollow of her arm reposed a little shape, all swathed. She had brought it into the world. She had removed it from the world that would have nothing of it. She had brought a thousand smiles into the world, but she had given offence to the world and the offended world had thrown back her smiles and she now had expressed her contrition to the world. This was her contrition that she lay here for men to breathe upon the glass, and stare, and rub away the dimness with their sleeves, and breathe, and stare again.

Oh, insupportable calamity! Oh, tragedy beyond support! He thought of her as oft and again he had seen her,—those laughing lips, those shining eyes. He thought of her alone when he had left her, planning and preparing this frightful dissolution of her body and her soul. He thought of her in the stupendous moment while the glass paused at her lips. He thought of her in torment of inward fire by that which had blistered her poor lips.

A very terrible groan was broken out of him.

They took him along.

IV

The court was crammed. In two thirds of its space were crowded benches. At the upper end of the room was a dais, a schoolmaster's desk. Flanking it on one hand were forms occupied by the men Sabre had seen shuffling out of the mortuary. On the other hand a second dais stood. Facing the central dais was a long table at which men were seated on the side looking towards the dais. Two men sat also at the head of this table, facing the jury. As Sabre entered they were in deep conversation with a stunted, hunchbacked man who sat next them at the corner.

Every face in the room turned towards the door as Sabre entered. They might have belonged to a single body and they appeared to have a single expression and a single thought: a dark and forbidding expression and a thought dark and hostile. There was again that murmur that had greeted him when he stepped from the cab. At the sight of him one of the two men at the head of the table started to his feet. A very big man, and with a very big and massive face and terrific eyes who started up and raised clenched fists and had his jaws working. Old Bright. His companion at the head of the table restrained him and drew him down again. A tall, spare, dark man with a thin mouth in a deeply lined face,—Twyning. The hunchbacked man beside them twisted about in his chair and stared long and narrowly at Sabre, a very faint smile playing about his mouth; a rather hungry sort of smile, as though he anticipated a bit of a game out of Sabre.

They led Sabre to a seat on the front of the benches.

V

From a door behind the central dais a large, stout man entered and took his seat. Whispers about the court said, "Coroner." Some one bawled "Silence."

The coroner fiddled with some papers, put pince-nez on his nose and stared about the court. He had a big, flat face. He stared about. "Is the witness Sabre in attendance?"

The coroner's officer said, "Yes, sir."

Some one jogged Sabre. He stood up.

The coroner looked at him. "Are you legally represented?"

Sabre's mind played him the trick of an astoundingly clear recollection of the officer at the recruiting station who had asked him, and at whom he had wondered, "Any complaints?" He wondered now. He said, "Represented? No. Why should I be represented?"

The coroner turned to examine some papers. "That you may perhaps discover," he remarked drily.

The court tittered. The hunchbacked man, little more than whose huge head appeared above the table, laughed out loud and rubbed his hands between his knees and made a remark to Twyning. He seemed pleased that Sabre was not legally represented.

A man seated not far from the hunchback rose and bowed and said, "I am watching the interests of Mrs. Sabre."

Sabre started. Mrs. Sabre! Mabel!

The hunchback sprang to his feet and jerked a bow. "I represent Mr. Bright, the father of the deceased."

The coroner bowed to each. The hunchback and the solicitor representing the interests of Mrs. Sabre leaned back in their chairs and exchanged whispers behind the men seated between them.

The jury shuffled up from their seats and were sworn in and shuffled back again.... The coroner was speaking. "... and you will hear the evidence of the witnesses who will be brought before you ... and I propose to take first the case of the deceased child ... two deaths ... and it will be found more convenient to dispose first of the case of the child.... First witness!"



CHAPTER V

I

Hapgood said:

"Did I say to you last time, after that Brighton business, that the man had crashed, that the roof had fallen in on him? Did I say that? May I never again use superlatives till I've turned over the page to make sure they weren't comparatives. Eh, man, sitting on his bed there at Brighton and gibbering at me, Sabre was a whole man, a sane man; he was a fortunate and happy man, compared with this that I saw come at him down at Tidborough yesterday.

"I've told you that chap that came up to him outside the Law Courts evidently told him the girl had killed herself and that he was wanted for the inquest. Next day I went down, knowing nothing about it, of course. I hit up Tidborough about twelve. No train out to Penny Green for an hour, so I went to take a fly. Old chap I went to charter, when he heard it was Sabre's place I was looking for, told me Sabre was at this inquest; said he'd driven him in to it. And told me what inquest. Inquest! You can guess how I felt. It was the first I'd heard about it. Hopped into the cab and drove down to it.

"By Jove, old man.... By Jove, old man, how I'm ever going to tell you. That poor chap in there baited by those fiends.... By Jove.... By Jove.... You know, old man, I've told you before, I'm not the sort of chap that weeps, he knows not why; I never nursed a tame gazelle and all that sort of thing. I can sit through a play thinking about my supper while my wife ruins her dress and my trousers crying over them—but this business, old Sabre up in that witness box with his face in a knot and stammering out 'Look here—. Look here—'; that was absolutely all he ever said; he never could get any farther—old Sabre going through that, and the solicitor tearing the inside out of him and throwing it in his face, and that treble-dyed Iscariot Twyning prompting the solicitor and egging him on, with his beastly spittle running like venom out of the corners of his mouth—I tell you my eyes felt like two boiled gooseberries in my head: boiled red hot; and a red-hot potato stuck in my throat, stuck tight. I tell you....

"When I crept into that infernal court, that infernal torture chamber, they were just finishing the case of the child. This solicitor chap—chap with a humped back and a head as big as a house—was just finishing fawning round a doctor man in the box, putting it up to him that there was nothing to suggest deliberate suffocation of the baby. Oxalic acid poisoning—was it not the case that the girl would have died in great agony? Writhed on the bed? Might easily have overlaid the child? The doctor had seen the position in which she was found lying in regard to the child—would he not tell the jury that she almost certainly rolled on to the child while it slept—that sort of rather painful stuff. Doctor chap rather jibbed a bit at being rushed, but humpback kept him to it devilish cleverly and the verdict was as good as given. The doc. was just going out of the box when Humpo called him back. 'One moment more, Doctor, if you please. Can you tell me, if you please, approximately the age of the child—approximately, but as near as you possibly can, Doctor?'

"The doctor said about five months—four to five months.

"'Five months,' says Humpo, mouthing it. 'Five months.' He turned deliberately round and looked directly at Sabre, sitting sort of huddled up on the front bench. 'Five months. We may take it, then, the child was born in December last. In December last.' Still with his back to the witness and staring at Sabre, you understand, and the jury all staring with him and people standing up in the court to see what the devil he was looking at. 'We may take that, may we, Doctor?' He was watching Sabre with a sort of half smile. The doctor said he might take it. The chap snapped up his face with a jerk and turned round. 'Thank you, Doctor. That will do.' And he sat down. If ever I saw a chap playing a fish and suddenly strike and hook it, I saw it then, when he smiled towards Sabre and then snapped up his face and plumped down. And the jury saw it. He'd got 'em fixed from that moment. Fixed. Oh, he was clever—clever, my word!

"That ended that. The coroner rumbled out a bit of a summary, practically told the jury what to say, reminded them, if they had any lingering doubts, that the quality of mercy was not strained—him showing before the morning was out that he knew about as much about mercy as I know about Arabic—and the jury without leaving the box brought in that the child had died of suffocation due to misadventure.

"The court drew a long breath; you could hear it. Everybody settled himself down nice and comfortably. The curtain-raiser was over, and very nice too; now for the drama.

"They got it."

II

"Look here, get the hang of the thing. Get a bearing on some of these people. There was the coroner getting off his preamble—flavouring it with plenty of 'distressings' and 'painfuls' and 'father of the deceased well known to and respected by many of us-es.' Great big pudding of a chap, the coroner. Sat there impassive like a flabby old Buddha. Face like a three-parts deflated football. Looked as if he'd been poured on to his seat out of a jug and jellified there. There was old Bright, the girl's father, smouldering like inside the door of a banked-up furnace; smouldering like if you touched him he'd burst out into roaring flame and sparks. There was Mr. Iscariot Twyning with his face like a stab—in the back—and his mouth on his face like a scar. There was this solicitor chap next him, with his hump, with his hair like a mane, and a head like a house, and a mouth like a cave. He'd a great big red tongue, about a yard long, like a retriever's, and a great long forefinger with about five joints in it that he waggled when he was cross-examining and shot out when he was incriminating like the front nine inches of a snake.

"That chap! When he was in the full cry and ecstasy of his hunt after Sabre, the perspiration streamed down his face like running oil, and he'd flap his great red tongue around his jaws and mop his streaming face and chuck away his streaming mane; and all the time he'd be stooping down to Twyning, and while he was stooping and Twyning prompting him with the venom pricking and bursting in the corners of his mouth, all the time he was stooping this chap would leave that great forefinger waggling away at Sabre, and Sabre clutching the box, and his face in a knot, and his throat in a lump and choking out, 'Look here—. Look here—'

"I tell you, old man ... I tell you....

"Sabre, when they started to get at it, was sitting on the front bench braced up forwards and staring towards what he was hearing like a man watching his brother balancing across a narrow plank stretched over a crater. He had his hands on the crook of his old stick and he was working at the crook as if he was trying to tear it off. I wonder he didn't, the way he was straining at it. And every now and then while Humpo was leading on the witnesses, and when Sabre saw what they were putting up against him, he'd half start to his feet and open his mouth and once or twice let fly that frightful 'Look here—' of his; and old Buddha would give him, 'Be silent, sir!' and he'd drop back like a man with a hit in the face and sit there swallowing and press his throat.

"I tell you....

"I was standing right across the court at right angles to him. I was wedged tight. Scarcely breathe, let alone move. I wrote on a bit of paper to Sabre that I was here and let him get up and ask for me; and I wrapped it round half-a-crown and pushed it across the heads of the mob to a police sergeant. He gave it to Sabre. Sabre snatched the thing as if he was mad at it, and read it, and buzzed it on the floor and ground his heel on it. Just to show me, I suppose. Nice! Poor devil, my gooseberry eyes went up about ten degrees. Bit later I had another shot. I—well, I'll come to that in a minute."

III

"They pushed off the case with the obvious witnesses—police, doctor, and so on. Then the thing hardened down. Then Sabre saw what was coming at him—saw it at a clap and never had remotely dreamt of it; saw it like a tiger coming down the street to devour him; saw it like the lid of hell slowly slipping away before his eyes. Saw it! I was watching him. He saw it; and things—age, greyness, lasting and immovable calamity—I don't know what—frightful things—came down on his face like the dust of ashes settling on a polished surface.

"You see, what this Humpo fiend was laying out for was, first that Sabre was the father of the girl's child, second that he'd deliberately put the poison in her way, and brutally told her he was done with her, and gone off and left her so that she should do what she had done and he be rid of her. Yes. Yes, old man. And he'd got a case! By the living Jingo, he'd got such a case as a Crown prosecutor only dreams about after a good dinner and three parts of a bottle of port. There wasn't a thing, there wasn't an action or a deed or a thought that Sabre had done for months and months past but bricked him in like bricking a man into a wall, but tied him down like tying a man in a chair with four fathoms of rope. By the living Jingo, there wasn't a thing.

"Listen. Just listen and see for yourself. Worked off the police evidence and the doctor, d'you see? Then—'Mr. Bright!' Old man comes up into the box. Stands there massive, bowed with grief, chest heaving, voice coming out of it like an organ in the Dead March. Stands there like Lear over the body of Cordelia. Stands there like the father of Virginia thinking of Appius Claudius.

"Like this, his evidence went: Was father of the deceased woman (as they called her). Was employed as foreman at Fortune, East and Sabre's. Had seen the body and identified it. So on, so on.

"Then Humpo gets on to him. Was his daughter the sort of girl to meditate taking her life?—'Never! Never!' Great rending cry that went down to your marrow.

"Touching the trouble that befell her, the birth of her child—had she ever betrayed signs of loose character while living beneath his roof?—'Never! Never!'

"How came she first to leave his house? Was any particular individual instrumental in obtaining for her work which first took her from beneath his roof?—'There! There!' Clenched fist and half his body over the box towards Sabre.

"'Look here!' bursts out old Sabre. 'Look here—!'

"They shut him up.

"'Answer the question, please, Mr. Bright.'—'Mr. Sabre led to her first going from me. Mr. Sabre!'

"Had this Mr. Sabre first approached him in the matter or had he solicited Mr. Sabre's help?—'He came to me! He came to me! Without rhyme, or reason, or cause, or need, or hint, or suggestion he came to me!'

"Was the situation thus obtained for the girl nearer her father's house or nearer Mr. Sabre's?—'Not a quarter of an hour, not ten minutes, from Mr. Sabre's house.'

"Had the witness any knowledge as to whether this man Sabre was a frequent visitor at the place of the girl's situation?—'Constantly, constantly, night after night he was there!'

"'Was he, indeed?' says Humpo, mightily interested. 'Was he, indeed? There were perhaps great friends of his own standing there, one or two men chums, no doubt?'—'No one! No one!' cries the old man. 'No one but an old invalid lady, nigh bedridden, past seventy, and my daughter, my daughter, my Effie.'

"That was all very well, all very well, says Humpo. Mr. Bright's word was of course accepted, but had the witness any outside proof of the frequency of these visits to this bedridden old lady old enough to be the man Sabre's grandmother? Had the witness recently been shown a diary kept by Mr. Twyning at that period?—'Yes! Yes!'

"And it contained frequent reference to Sabre's mention in the office of these visits?—'Yes! Yes!'

"Did one entry reveal the fact that on one occasion this Sabre spent an entire night there?

"'Look here—' bursts out old Sabre. 'Look here—'

"Can't get any farther. Buddha on the throne shuts him up if he could have got any farther. 'Yes,' groans old Bright out of his heaving chest. 'Yes. A night there.'

"And on the very next day, the very next day, did this man Sabre rush off and enlist?—'Yes. Yes.'

"Viewed in light of the subsequent events, did that sudden burst of patriotism bear any particular interpretation?—'Running away from it,' heaves the old man. 'Running away from it.'

"'Look here—' from Sabre again. 'Look here—' Same result.

"So this Humpo chap went on, piling it up from old Bright like that, old man; and all the time getting deeper and getting worse, of course. Sabre getting the girl into his own house after the old lady's death removes the girl from the neighbourhood; curious suddenness of the girl's dismissal during Sabre's leave; girl going straight to Sabre immediately able to walk after birth of child, and so on. Blacker and blacker, worse and worse.

"And then Humpo ends, 'A final question, Mr. Bright, and I can release you from the painful, the pitiable ordeal it has been my sad duty to inflict upon you. A final question: 'Have you in your own mind suspicions of the identity of this unhappy woman's betrayer?' Old man cannot speak for emotion. Only nods, hands at his breast like a prophet about to tear his raiment. Only nods.

"'Do you see him in this court?'

"Old man hurls out his arms towards Sabre. Shouts, 'There! There!'

"Warm-hearted and excellent Iscariot leaps up and leads him tottering from the box; court seethes and groans with emotion; Humpo wipes his streaming face, Sabre stammers out, 'Look here—Look here—' Case goes on."

IV

"Next witness. Chemist. Funny little chap with two pairs of spectacles, one on his forehead and one on his nose. From Alton. Remembers distinctly sale of oxalic acid (produced) on Friday before the Saturday of the girl's death. Remembers distinctly the purchaser, could identify him. Does he see him in court? Yes, there he is. Points at Sabre. Anything odd about purchaser's manner? Couldn't say exactly odd. Remembered he sat down while making the purchase. Ah, sat down, did he? Was it usual for customers to sit down when making a trifling purchase? No, not in his shop it wasn't usual. Ah, it struck him then as peculiar, this sitting down? As if perhaps the purchaser was under a strain? No, not for that reason—customers didn't as a rule sit in his shop, because he didn't as a rule have a chair in front of the counter for them to sit on. Court howls with laughter in relief from tension. Humpo says sternly, 'This is no laughing matter, sir. Stand down, sir.' Glares after him as he goes to his seat. Jury glares. Buddha glares. General impression that little chemist has been trying to shield Sabre.

"Next witness. Chap I'd seen serve the divorce papers on Sabre at Brighton. Solicitor's clerk. Humpo handles him very impressively—also very carefully. Informs him no need to tell the court on what business he went down to Sabre's house on the fatal Saturday. 'Sufficient,' says Humpo, 'that it was legal business of a deeply grave nature implicating the deceased and the man Sabre?' Witness agrees. Court nearly chokes itself whispering conjectures. 'And you saw the deceased but not the man Sabre?' Witness agrees again. Goes on, led by Humpo, to state that he served certain papers on the deceased. That she looked noticeably unhappy, frightened, lonely, deserted, when she opened the door to him. Had great difficulty in obtaining from her the whereabouts of the man Sabre. At first refused to tell. No, didn't actually say she had been told not to tell; but, yes, certainly gave that impression. Extracted from her at last that he was probably at Brighton. Couldn't get anything more definite out of her.

"'Look here—', cries Sabre. 'Look here—look here, she didn't know!'

"'I am not surprised,' says Humpo, 'I am not at all surprised.' Court laughs cynically. 'You have interrupted us a great deal,' says Humpo. 'It is time we saw if you will be equally informative in the witness box.'

"Some one bawls, 'Next witness. Mark Sabre.'

"Court draws an enormous breath and gets itself ready for butchery to make a Tidborough holiday."



CHAPTER VI

I

Hapgood went on:

"I'm telling you, old man, that after the coroner had done with him, and after this Humpo, with his viprous forefinger, and his retriever tongue, and his perspiration streaming down his face, and Twyning tugging him down by the coat and putting him on the trail afresh—after the coroner, and after this Humpo like that, had been on to him for a bit, Sabre absolutely couldn't speak. He was like he had a constriction in his throat. There was nothing he could say but begin all his sentences with, 'Look here—Look here—'; and nine times out of ten incapable of anything to follow it up with.

"He was distraught. He was speechless. He was clean crazed.

"At the very beginning, with the coroner, he wouldn't use the word 'the deceased.' Insisted on keeping calling her Effie. Coroner kept pulling him up over it, and about the twentieth time pulled him up hard.

"Poor chap threw out his arms like he was throwing the word away and then hammered on the ledge. 'I won't say deceased. I won't call her the deceased. Vile word. Horrible word. Obscene, beastly, hateful word. I won't call her it. Why should I call her the deceased?'

"'Control yourself,' says Buddha. 'Control yourself.'

"He only waved and thumped again. 'I won't. I won't. Why should I call her the deceased? I knew the girl. I was fond of the girl. She was my friend. She was fond of me. I did more for her than any one in this court—her father or any one. When she was in trouble she came to me and I succoured her. She lived in my house. She cooked my meals for me. We went through it together. I've known her for years. I've liked her for years. And now she's dead and you turn around and tell me to call her the deceased. Effie. Effie! Do you hear?—Effie!'

"They couldn't stop him. He was like a sick wolf then, cornered, and Buddha like a big, wary boarhound going in at him and jumping up on the wall out of the way when he made his dashes and then coming down and going in at him again. But they stopped him when Humpo got at him! They wore him down then! He was like that wolf then with a rope round his neck, tied to a post, and every time he'd fly out with, 'Look here—Look here—' the rope would catch him and throttle him and over he'd go and Humpo in worrying him again.

"Like this. Link on link of the chain against him and brick by brick of the wall around him. Like this.

"'What date did the deceased leave your wife's employment?'

"'In March. In March last year. Look here—'

"'Did she leave of her own wish or was she dismissed?'

"'Look here—'

"'Was she dismissed because your wife suspected you of relations with her?'

"'Look here—'

"'Answer the question.'

"'Well, but look here—'

"'Answer the question, sir.'

"'Look here—'

"'Very well, sir. Very well. Answer me this question then. Is it the fact that your wife has instituted divorce proceedings against you?'

"'Look here—'

"Court surging with sensation at this dramatic disclosure. Humpo mopping his face, keeping the great forefinger going. Sabre clutching the desk like a man in asthma, Twyning tugging at Humpo's coat. 'Yes, yes,' says Humpo, bending down, then launches at Sabre again.

"'Is it the fact that in these proceedings the deceased woman is named as corespondent?'

"'Look here—'

"'You keep asking me to look here, sir, but you tell me nothing. I ask you plain questions. Have you nothing better than, "Look here"? Is it the fact that these papers were served on you at Brighton on the occasion of your flight?'

"'Flight—flight—Look here—'

"'Is it the fact?'

"'Yes. Brighton, yes. But, look here—flight! flight! Holiday, I tell you. Holiday.'

"'Holiday!' cries Humpo. 'Do you tell me holiday, sir? Holiday! I thank you for that word. We will examine it in a moment. This was at Brighton, then. The business of the witness whom we have recently seen in the box was to serve the papers on you and on the deceased. Now come back a little. Let me ask you to carry back your mind to the summer of 1915—, and with his wagging forefinger, and his sloshing tongue, and his mopping at his face, and his throwing back of his mane as though it were a cloak from under which he kept rushing in to stab home another knife, he takes the unhappy man through all the stuff he had got out of old Bright—Sabre's apparently uncalled-for interest in the girl, first getting her from her father's house to the neighbourhood of his own, then under his own roof, and all the rest of the unholy chain of it. Then he has a chat with Twyning, then mops himself dry, and then hurls in again.

"'Now, sir, this holiday. This pleasant holiday by the sea! Did you make any preparations for it, any little purchases?'

"'No. Purchases? No. Look here—'

"'Never mind about "Look here," sir. No purchases? Did you hear the evidence of the witness—the Alton chemist who declared on oath that you made a purchase in his shop on the very day before you started, a purchase you have admitted? Remembering that, do you still say you made no purchases for your—holiday?'

"'Nothing to do with it. Nothing—'

"'Nothing to do with it? Well, sir, we will accept that for a moment. Do you often go shopping in Alton?'

"The poor beggar shook his head. No voice in his throat.

"'Do you shop there once in a month, once in six months?'

"Shook again.

"'Are there chemists in the Garden House, in Tidborough, in Chovensbury?'

"Nods.

"'Are you known in all these places I have mentioned?'

"Nods.

"'Are you known in Alton?'

"Shakes.

"'Are all these places nearer to you than Alton?'

"Nods.

"Humpo's finger shoots out about two yards long; dashes back his mane with his other hand; rushes in from under it. 'Then, sir, will you tell the jury why, to make this purchase of oxalic acid on the day before you leave home, why you go to a place in which you are unknown and to a place farther away from you than three other centres, one at your very door?'

"Sabre sees like a hit in the face this new thing that's coming to him. Gasps. Puts up his hand to that choked throat of his. Strangles out, 'Look here—'

"'Answer the question, sir.'

"Stammers out like a chap croaking. 'Walk. Walk. Wanted a walk. Wanted to get out. Wanted to get away from it.'

"Back goes the mane and in again like a flash: 'Ah, you wanted to get out of it? The house with its inmates was becoming insupportable to you?'

"'Look here—'

"'I am giving you your own words, sir. Do you tell us that, although you were leaving—for a holiday—on the very next day still, even on the afternoon before, you felt you must get out of it? Is that right, sir?'

"'Look here-'

"'Very well. Let us leave that, sir. We seem to be compelled to leave a great deal, but the jury will acquit me of fault in the matter. Let us come to the purpose of this oxalic acid purchase. Nothing to do with your holiday, you say. With what then? For what purpose?'

"Long pause. Frightful pause. Hours. Whole court holding its breath. Pause like a chunk of eternity. Silent as that. Empty as that. What the devil was he thinking of? Had he forgotten? Was he awake now to the frightful places he kept getting into and wondering if this was another and where exactly it lay? Appalling pause. Dashed woman somewhere in the court goes off into hysterics and dragged out. He didn't hear a scream of it, that poor baited chap in the box. Just stood there. Grey as a raked-out fire. Face twitching. Awful. I tell you, awful. Nearly went into hysterics myself. Humpo slopping his tongue round his jaws, watching him like a dog watching its dinner being cut up. After about two years, slaps in his tongue and demands, 'Come, sir, for what purpose did you buy this oxalic acid?'

"Sabre gives his first clear, calculated words since he had got up there. I guess he had been pulling himself together to look for a trap. He said very slowly, trying each word, like a chap feeling along on thin ice; he said, 'Effie—asked—me—to—get—it—to—clean—my —straw—hat—for—me—for—Brighton.'

"That Humpo! Very gently, very quietly, like a rescuer pushing out a ladder to the man on the ice, 'The deceased asked you to get it to clean your straw hat for you for Brighton.' And then like a trap being sprung he snapped and threw Sabre clean off the balance he was getting. 'Then it was obtained for the purpose of your holiday?'

"'Look here—' All at sea again, d'you see? And the end was quicker than nothing. Twyning pulls Humpo's coat and points at Sabre's hat, soft hat, on the ledge before him. Humpo nods, delighted.

"'And did she carry out her intention, sir? Did she clean your straw hat for you?'

"Nods.

"'You don't appear to be wearing it?'

"Shakes.

"'Pray, where, then, is this straw hat to clean which you obtained the oxalic acid? Is it at your house?'

"Shakes.

"'Not at your house! Odd. Where, then?'

"'Look here—'

"'Where then?'

"'Look here—'

"'Answer the question, sir. Where is this straw hat?'

"'Look here—' Gulps. 'Look here—' Gulps again. 'Look here. I lost it in the sea at Brighton.'

"Humpo draws in his breath. Stares at him for two solid minutes without speaking. Then say, like one speaking to a ghost, 'You lost it in the sea at Brighton! You lost it in the sea at Brighton!' Has an inspiration. Inspired in hell. Turns like a flash to the coroner. 'I have done with this witness, sir.' Sits down. Plump. Court lets go its breath like the four winds round a chimney. Sabre staggers out of the box. Falls across into his seat.

"Too much for me, old man. I bawled out, people in front of me nearly jumping out of their skins with the start, I bawled out, 'Mr. Coroner, I saw the witness at Brighton, and he told me he'd lost his hat in the sea.'

"Buddha, like a talking idol discovering an infidel in his temple, 'Who are you, sir?'

"'I'm a solicitor. I'm Mr. Sabre's solicitor.'

"Buddha to Sabre: 'Have you a solicitor in the court, Sabre?'

"'No! No! Get away! Get out of it! Get away from me!'

"'You have no standing in this court, sir,' says Buddha.

"Awful. Nothing to be done. Sorry I'd spoken. After all, telling me about his hat, what did it prove? Nothing. If anything, easily could be twisted into cunning preparation of his plan beforehand. Useless. Futile.

"Case went on. Presently Twyning in the box. Last witness—put up to screw down the lid on Sabre's coffin, to polish up the argument before it went to the jury. Stood there with the venom frothing at the corners of his mouth, stood there a man straight out of the loins of Judas Iscariot, stood there making his testimony more damning a thousand times by pretending it was being dragged out of him, reluctant to give away his business companion. Told a positively damning story about meeting Sabre at the station on his departure from leave a day after the girl was sacked. Noticed how strange his manner was; noticed he didn't like being asked about circumstances of her dismissal; noticed his wife hadn't come to see him off. Yes, thought it odd. Sabre had explained wife had a cold, but saw Mrs. Sabre in Tidborough very next day. Yes, thought the whole thing funny because had frequently seen Sabre and the girl together during Sabre's leave. Any particular occasion? Well, did it really matter? Must he really answer? Yes, notably in the Cloister tea rooms late one evening. Well, yes, had thought their behavior odd, secretive. Sabre's position in the office? Well, was it really necessary to go into that? Well, had to admit Sabre was no longer a member of the firm. Had been suspended during intimacy with the deceased, now dismissed consequent upon this grave development. Had he ever had occasion in the past, in earlier days, to remonstrate with Sabre concerning attitude towards girl? Well, scarcely liked to say so, hated to say so, but certainly there had been such occasions. Yes, had spoken seriously to Sabre about it.

"There ripped across the court as he said that, old man, a woman's voice from the back. 'It's a lie. It's an abominable lie. And you know it's a lie!'

"By Jove, I tell you! I nearly swallowed my back teeth with the effect of the thing. Give you my word I thought for a minute it was the girl come to life and walked in out of her coffin. That voice! High and clear and fine and true as an Angelus bell across a harvest field. 'It's a lie. It's an abominable lie; and you know it's a lie!'

"Eh? Terrific? I tell you terrific isn't the word. It was the Fairfax business at the trial of King Charles over again. It absolutely was. Buddha nearly had a fit: 'Silence! How dare you, madam! Turn out that woman! Who is that?'

"Commotion. A woman pressed out from the mob behind and walked up the court like a goddess, like Portia, by Jove, like Euphrosyne. 'Let no one dare to touch me,' she said. 'I am Lady Tybar. Every one knows me here. I've just come in. Just heard. This shameful business. All of you killing him between you.' She pointed a hand at Twyning. 'And you. I tell you before all this court, and you may take what steps you like, I tell you that you are a liar, an experienced and calculating liar.' And she went with that to old Sabre and stooped over him and touched him with both her hands and said, 'Marko, Marko.'

"You know she'd got that blooming court stiff and cold. The suddenness and the decision and the—the arrogance of the thing took 'em all ends up and had 'em speechless. She was there by Sabre and stooping over him, mothering him, before Buddha or any of 'em could have found the wits to say what his own name was. Let alone the Iscariot.

"Matter of fact Sabre was the first one to speak. He threw up his arm from where he'd been covering his face, just as he'd thrown it up when I called out, and swung her hands aside and called out, 'Don't touch me. Let me alone. Leave me alone.'

"She motioned to the man beside him, and the chap got up as if her motion had been Circe's and disappeared. Through the roof or somewhere. I don't know. Anyway, he vanished. And she took his place and sat down beside Sabre and poor old Sabre crouched away from her as if he was stung, and old Buddha, reaching out for his dignity, said, 'You may remain there, madam, if you do not interrupt the court.'

"There wasn't much more to interrupt. Twyning had had about as much as he wanted; he'd done what he was out to do, anyway. The case finished. The coroner had a go at the jury. They went out. I suppose they were gone ten minutes. Shuffled in again. Gave their verdict. I was watching Sabre. He took down his hands from his face and stared with all the world's agony in his face, straining himself forward to hear. Verdict. They found suicide while temporarily insane and added their most severe censure of the conduct of the witness Sabre. He jumped up and flung out his hands. 'Look here—Look here—Censure! Censure! Cens—!'

"Dropped back on his seat like he was shot. Twisted himself up. Sat rocking.

"Court cleared in less than no time. Me left in my corner. This Lady Tybar. Sabre, twisted up. Bobby or two. I began to come forward. Sabre looks up. Looks round. Gets his hat. Collects his old stick. Starts to hobble out.

"This Lady Tybar gets in front of him, me alongside of her by then. 'Marko, Marko.' (That was what she called him.) He sort of pushes at her and at me: 'Let me alone. Let me alone. Get right away from me.' Hobbles away down the room.

"A bobby stops him. 'Better go this way, sir. Rough lot of people out there.' Leads him to a side door.

"We followed him up, she and I. Door gave on to a lane running up into the Penny Green road. She tried at him again, gently, very tenderly, 'Marko, Marko, dear.' Would have made your heart squirm. I tried at him: 'Now then, old man.' Swung round on us. 'Let me alone. Get away. Get right away from me!'

"Followed him, the pair of us, up to the main road. She tried again. I tried. He swung round and faced us. 'Let me alone. Won't any one let me alone? Get right away from me. Look here—Look here. If you want to do anything for me, get right away from me and leave me alone. Leave me alone. Do you hear? Leave me alone.'

"Hobbled away out towards Penny Green, bobbing along on his stick fast as he could go.

"She said to me, 'Oh, Oh—' and began to cry. I said I thought the best thing was to leave him for a bit and that I'd go over, or she could, or both of us, a bit later. Clear we were only driving him mad by following him now. There was a cab came prowling by. I gave the chap a pound note and told him to follow Sabre.—'Get up just alongside and keep there,' I said. 'He'll likely get in. Get him in and take him up to Crawshaws, Penny Green, and come back to me at the Royal Hotel and there's another quid for you.'

"Old man, I went along to the Royal with this Lady Tybar. Told her who I was and what I knew. Ordered some tea there (which we didn't touch) and she began to talk to me. Talk to me ... I tell you what I thought about that woman while she talked. I thought, leaving out limelight beauty, and classic beauty and all the beauty you can see in a frame presented as such; leaving out that, because it wasn't there, I thought she was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. Yes, and I told my wife so. That shows you! You couldn't say where it was or how it was. You could only say that beauty abode in her face as the scent in the rose. It's there and it's exquisite: that's all you can say. If she'd been talking to me in the dark I could have felt that she was beautiful.

"What did she tell me? She talked about herself and Sabre. What did she say? No, you'll have to let that go, old man. It was more what I read into what she said. I'll keep it—for a bit, anyway.

"There's else to tell than that. That cabman I'd got hold of sent in awhile after to see me. Said he'd picked up Sabre a mile along and taken him home. Stopped a bit to patch up some harness or something and 'All of a heap' (as he expressed it) Sabre had come flying out of the house again into the cab and told him to drive like hell and all to the office—to Fortune, East and Sabre's. Said Sabre behaved all the way like as if he was mad—shouting to him to hurry and carrying on inside the cab so the old man was terrified.

"I said, 'To the office! What the devil now?' I ran in to Lady Tybar and we hurried round. We were scared for him, I tell you. And we'd reason to be—when we got there and found him."



CHAPTER VII

I

When that cab which Hapgood had despatched after Sabre from the coroner's court overtook its quest, the driver put himself abreast of the distracted figure furiously hobbling along the road and, his second pound note in view, began, in a fat and comfortable voice, a beguiling monologue of "Keb, sir? Keb? Keb? Keb, sir?"

Sabre at first gave no attention. Farther along he once angrily waved his stick in signal of dismissal. About a mile along his disabled knee, and all his much overwrought body refused longer to be the flogged slave of his tumultuous mind. He stopped in physical exhaustion and rested upon his stick. The cabman also stopped and tuned afresh his enticing and restful rhythm: "Keb, sir? Keb? Keb? Keb, sir?"

He got in.

He did not think to give a direction, but the driver had his directions; nor, when he was set down at his house, to make payment; but payment had been made. The driver assisted him from the cab and into his door—and he needed assistance—and being off his box set himself to the adjustment of a buckle, repair of which he had deferred through the day until (being a man economical of effort) some other circumstance should necessitate his coming to earth.

Sabre stumbled into his house and pushed the door behind him with a resolution expressive of his desire to shut away from himself all creatures of the world and be alone,—be left entirely alone. By habit he climbed the stairs to his room. He collapsed into a chair.

His head was not aching; but there throbbed within his head, ceaselessly and enormously, a pulse that seemed to shake him at its every beat. It was going knock, knock, knock! He began to have the feeling that if this frightful knocking continued it would beat its way out. Something would give way. Amidst the purposeful reverberations, his mind, like one squeezed back in the dark corner of a lair of beasts, crouched shaking and appalled. He was the father of Effie's child; he was the murderer of Effie and of her child! He was neither; but the crimes were fastened upon him as ineradicable pigment upon his skin. His skin was white but it was annealed black; there was not a glass of the mirrors of his past actions but showed it black and reflected upon it hue that was blacker yet. He was a betrayer and a murderer, and every refutation that he could produce turned to a brand in his hands and branded him yet more deeply. He writhed in torment. For ever, in every hour of every day and night, he would carry the memory of that fierce and sweating face pressing towards him across the table in that court. No! It was another face that passed before that passionate countenance and stood like flame before his eyes. Twyning! Twyning, Twyning, Twyning! The prompter, the goader of that passionate man's passion, the instigater and instrument of this his utter and appalling destruction. Twyning, Twyning, Twyning! He ground his teeth upon the name. He twisted in his chair upon the thought. Twyning, Twyning, Twyning! Knock, knock, knock! Ah, that knocking, that knocking! Something was going to give way in a minute. It must be abated. It must. Something would give way else. A feverish desire to smoke came upon him. He felt in his pockets for his cigarette case. He had not got it. He thought after it. He remembered that he had started for Brighton without it, discovered there that he had left it behind. He started to hunt for it. It must be in this room. It was not to be seen in the room. Where? He remembered a previous occasion of searching for it like this. When? Ah, when Effie had told him she had found it lying about and had put it—of all absurd places for a cigarette case—in the back of the clock. Ten to one she had put it there again now. The very last thing she had done for him! Effie! He went quickly to the clock and opened it. Good! It was there. He snatched it up. Something else there. A folded paper. His name pencilled on it: Mr. Sabre.

She had left a message for him!

She had left a message for him! That cigarette case business had been deliberately done!

He fumbled the paper open. He could not control his fingers. He fumbled it open. He began to read. Tears stood in his eyes. Pitiful, oh, pitiful. He turned the page,—knock, knock, knock! The knocking suddenly ceased. He threw up his hand. He gave a very loud cry. A single note. A note of extraordinary exultation: "Ha!"

He crushed the paper between his hands. He cried aloud: "Into my hands! Into my hands thou hast delivered him!"

He opened the paper and read again, his hand shaking, and now a most terrible trembling upon him.

Dear Mr. Sabre,

I wanted you to go to Brighton so I could be alone to do what I am just going to do. I see now it is all impossible, and I ought to have seen it before, but I was so very fond of my little baby and I never dreamt it would be like this. But you see they won't let me keep my little baby and now I have made things too terrible for you. So I see the only thing to do is to take myself out of it all and take my little baby with me. Soon I shall explain things to God and then I think it will be quite all right. Dear Mr. Sabre, when I explain things to God, I shall tell him how wonderful you have been to me. My heart is filled with gratitude to you. I cannot express it; but I shall tell God when I explain everything to him; and my one hope is that after I have been punished I shall be allowed to meet you again, and thank you—there, where everything will be understood.

He turned over.

I feel I ought to tell you now, before I leave this world, what I never was able to tell you or any one. The father of my little baby was Harold Twyning who used to be in your office. We had been secretly engaged a very, very long time and then he was in an officers' training camp at Bournemouth where I was, and I don't think I quite understood. We were going to be married and then he had to go suddenly, and then he was afraid to tell his father and then this happened and he was more afraid. So that was how it all was. I do want you, please, to tell Harold that I quite I forgive him, only I can't quite write to him. And dear Mr. Sabre, I do trust you to be with Harold what you have always been with me and with everybody—gentle, and understanding things. And I shall tell the Perches, too, about you, and Mr. Fargus. Good-by and may God bless and reward you for ever and ever,

Effie.

II

He shouted again, "Ha!" He cried again, "Into my hands! Into my hands!"

He abandoned himself to a rather horrible ecstasy of hate and passion. His face became rather horrible to see. His face became purple and black and knotted, and the veins on his forehead black. He cried aloud, "Harold! Harold! Twyning! Twyning!" He rather horribly mimicked Twyning. "Harold's such a good boy! Harold's such a good, Christian, model boy! Harold's never said a bad word or had a bad thought. Harold's such a good boy." He cried out: "Harold's such a blackguard! Harold's such a blackguard! A blackguard and the son of a vile, infamous, lying, perjured blackguard."

His passion and his hate surmounted his voice. He choked. He picked up his stick and went with frantic striding hops to the door. He cried aloud, gritting his teeth upon it, "I'll cram the letter down his throat. I'll cram the letter down his throat. I'll take him by the neck. I'll bash him across the face. And I'll cram the letter down his throat."

The cab driver, his labour upon the buckle finished, was resting on his box with the purposeful and luxurious rest of a man who has borne the heat and burden of the day. Sabre waved his stick at him, and shouted to him, "Fortune's office in Tidborough. Hard as you can. Hard as you can." He wrenched open the door and got in. In a moment, the startled horse scarcely put into motion by its startled driver, he put his head and arm from the window and was out on the step. "Stop! Stop! Let me out. I've something to get."

He ran again into the house and bundled himself up the stairs and into his room. At his bureau he took a drawer and wrenched it open so that it came out in his hand, swung on the sockets of its handle, and scattered its contents upon the floor. One article fell heavily. His service revolver. He grabbed it up and dropped on his hands and knees, padding eagerly about after scattered cartridges. As he searched his voice went harshly, "He's hounded me to hell. At the very gates of hell I've got him, got him, and I'll have him by the throat and hurl him in!" He broke open the breech and jammed the cartridges in, counting them, "One, two, three, four, five, six!" He sapped up the breech and jammed the revolver in his jacket pocket. He went scrambling again down the stairs, and as he scrambled down he cried, "I'll cram the letter down his throat. I'll take him by the neck. I'll bash him across the face. And I'll cram the letter down his throat. When he's sprawling, when he's looking, perhaps I'll out with my gun and drill him, drill him for the dog, the dog that he is."

All the way down as the cab proceeded, he alternated between shouted behests to the driver to hurry and repetition of his ferocious intention. Over and over again; gritting his teeth upon it; picturing it; in vision acting it so that the perspiration streamed upon his body. "I'll cram the letter down his throat. I'll take him by the neck. I'll bash him across the face, and I'll cram the letter down his throat." Over and over again; visioning it; in his mind, and with all his muscles working, ferociously performing it. He felt immensely well. He felt enormously fit. The knocking was done in his brain. His mind was tingling clear. "I'll cram ... I'll take ... I'll bash ... I'll cram the letter down his throat."

He was arrived! He was here! "Into my hands! Into my hands." He passed into the office and swiftly as he could go up the stairs. He encountered no one. He came to Twyning's door and put his hand upon the latch. Immediately, and enormously, so that for a moment he was forced to pause, the pulse broke out anew in his head. Knock, knock, knock. Knock, knock, knock. Curse the thing! Never mind. In! In! At him! At him!

He went in.

III

On his right, as he entered, a fire was burning in the grate and it struck him, with the inconsequent insistence of trifles in enormous issues, how chilly for the time of year the day had been and how icily cold his own house. On the left, at the far end of the room, Twyning sat at his desk. He was crouched at his desk. His head was buried in his hands. At his elbows, vivid upon the black expanse of the table, lay a torn envelope, dull red.

Sabre shut the door and leant his stick against the wall by the fire. He took the letter from his pocket and walked across and stood over Twyning. Twyning had not heard him. He stood over him and looked down upon him. Knock, knock, knock. Curse the thing. There was Twyning's neck, that brown strip between his collar and his head, that in a minute he would catch him by.... No, seated thus he would catch his hair and wrench him back and cram his meal upon him. Knock, knock, knock. Curse the thing!

He said heavily, "Twyning. Twyning, I've come to speak to you about your son."

Twyning slightly twisted his face in his hands so as to glance up at Sabre. His face was red. He said in an odd, thick voice, "Oh, Sabre, Sabre, have you heard?"

Sabre said, "Heard?"

"He's killed. My Harold. My boy. My boy, Harold. Oh, Sabre, Sabre, my boy, my boy, my Harold!"

He began to sob; his shoulders heaving.

Sabre gave a sound that was just a whimper. Oh, irony of fate! Oh, cynicism incredible in its malignancy! Oh, cumulative touch! To deliver him this his enemy to strike, and to present him for the knife thus already stricken!

No sound in all the range of sounds whereby man can express emotion was possible to express this emotion that now surcharged him. This was no pain of man's devising. This was a special and a private agony of the gods reserved for victims approved for very nice and exquisite experiment. He felt himself squeezed right down beneath a pressure squeezing to his vitals; and there was squeezed out of him just a whimper.

He walked across to the fireplace; and on the high mantle-shelf laid his arms and bowed his forehead to the marble.

Twyning was brokenly saying, "It's good of you to come, Sabre. I feel it. After that business. I'm sorry about it, Sabre. I feel your goodness coming to me like this. But you know, you always knew, what my boy was to me. My Harold. My Harold. Such a good boy, Sabre. Such a good, Christian boy. And now he's gone, he's gone. Never to see him again. My boy. My son. My son!"

Oh, dreadful!

And he went on, distraught and pitiable. "My boy. My Harold. Such a good boy, Sabre. Such a perfect boy. My Harold!"

The letter was crumpled in Sabre's right hand. He was constricting it in his hand and knocking his clenched knuckles on the marble.

"My boy. My dear, good boy. Oh, Sabre, Sabre!"

He dropped his right arm and swung it by his side; to and fro; over the fender—over the fire; over the hearth—over the flames.

"My Harold. Never to see his face again! My Harold."

He stopped his swinging arm, holding his hand above the flames. "He that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God and God in him; for God is love." He opened his fingers, and the crumpled letter fell and was consumed. He pushed himself up from the mantlepiece and turned and went over to Twyning and stood over him again. He patted Twyning's heaving shoulders. "There, there, Twyning. Bad luck. Bad luck. Hard. Hard. Bear up, Twyning. Soldier's death.... Finest death.... Died for his country.... Fine boy.... Soldier's death.... Bad luck. Bad luck, Twyning...."

Twyning, inarticulate, pushed up his hand and felt for Sabre's hand and clutched it and squeezed it convulsively.

Sabre said again, "There, there, Twyning. Hard. Hard. Fine death.... Brave boy...." He disengaged his hand and turned and walked very slowly from the room.

He went along the passage, past Mr. Fortune's door towards that which had been his own, still walking very slowly and with his hand against the wall to steady himself. He felt deathly ill....

He went into his own room, unentered by him for many months, now his own room no more, and dropped heavily into the familiar chair at the familiar desk. He put his arms out along the desk and laid his head upon them. Oh, cumulative touch! He began to be shaken with onsets of emotion, as with sobs. Oh, cumulative touch!

The communicating door opened and Mr. Fortune appeared. He stared at Sabre in astounded indignation. "Sabre! You here! I must say—I must admit—"

Sabre clutched up his dry and terrible sobbing. He turned swiftly to Mr. Fortune and put his hands on the arms of the chair to rise.

A curious look came upon his face. He said, "I say, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I—I can't get up."

Mr. Fortune boomed, "Can't get up!"

"I say—No. I say, I think something's happened to me. I can't get up."

The door opened. Hapgood came in, and Nona.

Sabre said, "I say, Hapgood—Nona—Nona! I say, Nona, I think something's happened to me. I can't get up."

A change came over his face. He collapsed back in the chair.

"Marko! Marko!"

She who thus cried ran forward and threw herself on her knees beside him, her hands stretched up to him. Hapgood turned furiously on Mr. Fortune. "Go for a doctor! Go like hell! Sabre! Sabre, old man!"

* * * * *

"Hemorrhage on the brain," said the doctor. "...Well, if there's no more effusion of blood. You quite understand me. I say if there isn't.... Has he been through any trouble, any kind of strain?

"Trouble," said Hapgood. "Strain. He's been in hell—right in."

* * * * *

When he was removed and they had left him, Nona said to Hapgood as they came down the steps of the County Hospital, "There was a thing he was so fond of, Mr. Hapgood:

"...O Wind, If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?

"It comes to me now. There must be a turning now. If he dies ... still, a turning."



CHAPTER VIII

I

Hapgood across the coffee cups, the liqueur glasses and the cigarettes, wagged a solemn head at that friend of his, newly returned from a long visit to America. He wagged a solemn head:

"She's got her divorce, that wife of his....

"Eh?... Well, man alive, where do you expect me to begin? You insinuate yourself into a Government commission to go to America to lecture with your 'Sketchbook on the Western Front', and I write you about six letters to every one I get out of you, and you come back and expect me to give you a complete social and political and military record of everything that's happened in your absence. Can't you read?...

"Well, have it your own way. I've told you in my letters how he went on after that collapse, that brain hemorrhage. I told you we got Ormond Clive on to him. I told you we got him up here eventually to Clive's own nursing home in Welbeck Place. Clive was a friend of that Lady Tybar. She was with Sabre all the time he was in Queer Street—and it was queer, I give you my word. Pretty well every day I'd look in. Every day she'd be there. Every day Ormond Clive would come. Time and again we'd stand around the bed, we three,—watching. Impenetrable and extraordinary business! There was his body, alive, breathing. His mind, his consciousness, his ego, his self, his whatever you like to call it—not there. Away. Absent. Not in that place. Departed into, and occupied in that mysterious valley where those cases go. What was he doing there? What was he seeing there? What was he thinking there? Was he in touch with this that belonged to him here? Was he sitting in some fastness, dark and infinitely remote, and trying to rid himself of this that belonged to him here? Was he trying to get back to it, to resume habitation and possession and command? It was rummy. It was eerie. It was creepy. It was like staring down into a dark pit and hearing little tinkling sounds of some one moving there, and wondering what the devil he was up to. Yes, it was creepy....

"Process of time he began to come back. He'd struck a light down there, as you might say, and you could see the dim, mysterious glimmer of it, moving about, imperceptibly coming up the side. Now brighter, now fainter; now here, now there. Rummy, I can tell you. But he was coming up. He was climbing up out of that place where he had been. What would he remember? Yes, and what was he coming up to?

"What was he coming up to? That was what began to worry me. This divorce suit of his wife's was climbing up its place in the list. He was climbing up out of the place where he had been and this case was climbing up towards hearing. Do you get me? Do you get my trouble? Soon as his head emerged up out of the pit, was he going to be bludgeoned down into it again by going through in the Divorce Court precisely that which had bludgeoned him down at the inquest? Was I going to get the case held up so as to keep him for that? Or what was I going to do? I hadn't been instructed to prepare his defence. At Brighton, when I'd suggested it, he'd told me, politely, to go to hell. I hadn't been instructed; no one had been instructed. And there was no defence to prepare. There was only his bare word, only his flat denial—denial flat, unprofitable, and totally unsupported. The only person who could support it was the girl, and she was dead: she was much worse than dead: she had died in atrocious circumstances, his part in which had earned him the severe censure of the coroner's jury. His defence couldn't have been worse. He'd tied himself in damning knots ever since he'd first set eyes on the girl, and all he could bring to untie them was simply to say, 'It wasn't so.' His defence was as bad as if he were to stand up before the Divorce Court and say, 'Before she died the girl wrote and signed a statement exonerating me and fixing the paternity on so-and-so. He's dead, too, that so-and-so, and as for her signed statement, I'm sorry to say I destroyed it, forgetting I should need it in this suit. I was worried about something else at the time, and I quite forgot this and I destroyed it.'

"I don't say his defence would be quite so crudely insulting to the intelligence of the court as that; but I say the whole unsupported twisting and turning and writhing and wriggling of it was not far short of it.

"Well, that was how I figured it out to myself in those days, as the case came along for hearing; and I said to myself: Was I going to put in affidavits for a stay of hearing for the pleasure of seeing him nursed back to life to go through that agony and ordeal of the inquest again and come out with the same result as if he hadn't been there at all? And I decided—no; no, thanks; not me. It was too much like patching up a dying man in a civilised country for the pleasure of hanging him, or like fatting up a starving man in a cannibal country for the satisfaction of eating him.

"And I had this. In further support of my position I had this. My friend, the Divorce Court is a cynical institution. If a respondent and a corespondent have been in places and in circumstances where they might have incriminated themselves, the Divorce Court cynically assumes that, being human, they would have incriminated themselves. 'But,' it says to the petitioner, 'I want proof, definite and satisfactory proof of those places and of those circumstances. That's what I want. That's what you've got to give me.'

"Very well. Listen to me attentively. Lend me your ears. The onus of that proof rests on the petitioner. Because a case is undefended, it doesn't for one single shadow of a chance follow that the petitioner's plea is therefore going to be granted. No. The Divorce Court may be cynical, but it's a stickler for proof. The Divorce Court says to the petitioner, 'It's up to you. Prove it. Never mind what the other side isn't here to deny. What you've got to do is to satisfy me, to prove to me that these places and these circumstances were so. Go ahead. Satisfy me if you can.'

"So I said to myself: now the places and the circumstances of this petition unquestionably were so. All the Sabres in the world couldn't deny that. Let his wife go ahead and prove them to the satisfaction of the Court, if she can. If she can't; good; no harm done that he wasn't there to be bludgeoned anew. If she can satisfy the court, well, I say to you, my friend, as I said then to myself, and I say it deliberately: 'If she can satisfy the court—good again, better, excellent. He's free: he's free from a bond intolerable to both of them.'

"Right. The hearing came on and his wife did satisfy the Court. She got her decree. He's free.... That's that....

"Yesterday I took my courage in both hands and told him. Yesterday Ormond Clive said Sabre might be cautiously approached about things. For three weeks past Clive's not let us—me or that Lady Tybar—see him. Yesterday we were permitted again; and I took steps to be there first. I told him. There was one thing I'd rather prayed for to help me in the telling, and it came off—he didn't remember! He'd come out of that place where he had been with only a confused recollection of all that had happened to him before he went in. Like a fearful nightmare that in the morning one remembers only vaguely and in bits. Vaguely and in bits he remembered the inquest horror, and vaguely and in bits he remembered the divorce matter—and he thought the one was as much over as the other. He thought he had been divorced. I said to him, taking it as the easiest way of breaking my news, I said to him, 'You know your wife's divorced you, old man?' He said painfully, 'Yes, I know. I remember that.'

"I could have stood on my head and waved my heels with relief and joy. Of course it will come back to him in time that the business hadn't happened before his illness. In time he'll begin to grope after detailed recollection, and he'll begin to realise that he never did go through it and that it must have happened while he was ill. Well, I don't funk that. That won't happen yet awhile; and when it does happen I'm confident enough that something else will have happened meanwhile and that he'll see, and thank God for it, that what is is best. There'll be another thing too. He'll find his wife has married again. Yes, fact! I heard in a roundabout way that she's going to marry an old neighbour of theirs, chap called Major Millett, Hopscotch Millett, old Sabre used to call him. However, that's not the thing—though it would be a complication—that I mean will have happened and will make him see, and thank God for, that what is is best. What do I mean? What will have happened meanwhile? Well, that's telling; and I don't feel it's quite mine to tell. Tell you what, you come around and have a look at the old chap to-morrow. I dare bet he'll be on the road towards it by then and perhaps tell us himself. As I was coming away yesterday I passed that Lady Tybar going in, and I told her what I'd been saying to him and what he remembered and what he didn't remember.... What's that got to do with it? Well, you wait and see, my boy. You wait and see. I'll tell you this—come on, let's be getting off to this play or we'll be late—I tell you this, it's my belief of old Sabre that, after all he's been through,

"Home is the sailor, home from the sea And the hunter home from the hill.

Or jolly soon will be. And good luck to him. He's won out."

II

Sabre, after Hapgood on the visit on which he had begun "to tell him things", had left him, was sitting propped up in bed awaiting who next might come. The nurse had told him he was to have visitors that morning. He sat as a man might sit at daybreak, brooding down upon a valley whence slowly the veiling mists dissolved. These many days they had been lifting; there were becoming apparent to him familiar features about the landscape. He was as one returned after long absence to his native village and wondering to find forgotten things again, paths he had walked, scenes he had viewed, places and people left long ago and still enduring here. More than that: he was to go down among them.

The door opened and one came in. Nona.

She said to him, "Marko!"

He had no reply that he could make.

She slipped off a fur that she was wearing and came and sat down beside him. She wore what he would have thought of as a kind of waistcoat thing, cut like his own waistcoats but short; and opened above like a waistcoat but turned back in a white rolled edging, revealing all her throat. She had a little closefitting hat banded with flowers and a loose veil depended from it. She put back the veil. Beauty abode in her face as the scent within the rose, Hapgood had said; and, as perfume deeply inhaled, her serene and tender beauty penetrated Sabre's senses, propped up, watching her. He had something to say to her.

"How long is it since I have seen you, Nona?"

"It's a month since I was here, Marko."

"I don't remember it."

"You've been very ill; oh, so ill."

He said slowly, "Yes, I think I've been down in a pretty deep place."

"You're going to be splendid now, Marko."

He did not respond to her tone. He said, "I've come on a lot in the last few weeks. I'd an idea you'd been about me before that. I'd an idea you'd be coming again. There's a thing I've been thinking out to tell you."

She breathed, "Yes, tell me, Marko."

But he did not answer.

She said, "Have you been thinking, in these weeks, while you've been coming on, what you are going to do?"

His hands, that had been crumpling up the sheet, were now laid flat before him. His eyes, that had been regarding her, were now averted from her, fixed ahead. "There is nothing I can do, in the way you mean."

She was silent a little time.

"Marko, we've not talked at all about the greatest thing—of course they've told you?—the Armistice, the war won. England, your England that you loved so, at peace, victorious; those dark years done. England her own again. Your dear England, Marko."

He said, "It's no more to do with me. Frightful things have happened to me. Frightful things."

She stretched a hand to his. He moved his hands away. "Marko, they're done. I would not have spoken of them. But shall I.... Your dear England in those years suffered frightful things. She suffered lies, calumnies, hateful and terrible things—not in one little place but across the world. Those who loved her trusted her and she has come through those dark years; and those who know you have trusted you always, and you are coming through those days to show to all. Time, Marko; time heals all things, forgets all things, and proves all things. There's that for you."

He shook his head with a quick, decisive motion.

She went on. "There's your book—your 'England.' You have that to go to now. And all your plans—do you remember telling me all your plans? Such splendid plans. And first of all your 'England' that you loved writing so."

He said, "It can't be. It can't be."

She began again to speak. He said, "I don't want to hear those things. They're done. I don't want to be told those things. They have nothing to do with me."

She tried to present to him indifferent subjects for his entertainment. She could not get him to talk any more. Presently she said, with a movement, "I am not to stay with you very long."

He then aroused himself and spoke and had a firmness in his voice. "And I'll tell you this," he said. "This was what I said I had to tell you. When you go, you are not to return. I don't want to see you again."

She drew a breath, steadying herself, "Why not, Marko?"

"Because what's been has been. Done. I've been through frightful things. They're on me still. They always will be on me. But from everything that belongs to them I want to get right away. And I'm going to."

"What are you going to do?"

"I don't know. Only get right away."

She got up. "Very well. I understand." She turned away. "It grieves me, Marko. But I understand. I've always understood you." She turned again and came close to him. "That's what you're going to do. Do you know what I'm going to do?"

He shook his head. He was breathing deeply.

"I'm going to do what I ought to have done the minute I came into the room. I hadn't quite the courage. This."

She suddenly stooped over him. She encircled him with her arms and slightly raised him to her. She put her lips to his and kissed him and held him so.

"You are never going to leave me, Marko. Never, never, never, till death."

He cried, "Beloved, Beloved," and clung to her. "Beloved, Beloved!" and clung to her....

* * * * *

Postscript.... This went through the mail bearing postmark, September, 1919:

"And seeing in the picture newspaper photograph with printing called 'Lady Tybar, widow of the late Lord Tybar, V.C., who is marrying Mr. Mark Sabre (inset)' and never having been in comfortable situation since leaving Penny Green, have expected you might be wishing for cook and house parlourmaid as before and would be most pleased and obliged to come to you, which if you did not remember us at first were always called by you hi! Jinks and lo! Jinks, and no offence ever taken, as knowing it was only your way and friendly. And so will end now and hoping you may take us and oblige, your obedient servants

"Sarah Jinks (hi!) "Rebecca Jinks (lo!)"



The End