CHAPTER XII

That evening the fitful and gusty wind increased to a gale which swept the land with devastating force, breaking down or uprooting great trees that had withstood the storms of centuries, and torrential rain fell, laying whole tracts of country under water. All round the coast the sea was lashed into a tossing tumult, the waves rolling in like great green walls of water streaked with angry white as though flashed with lightning, and the weather reports made the usual matter-of-fact statement that "Cross- Channel steamers made rough passages." Winds and waves, however, had no disturbing effect on the mental or physical balance of Amadis de Jocelyn, who, wrapped in a comfortable fur-lined overcoat, sat in a sheltered corner on the deck of the Calais boat, smoking a good cigar and congratulating himself on the ease with which he had slipped out of what threatened to have been a very unpleasant and embarrassing entanglement.

"If she were an ordinary sort of girl it wouldn't matter so much," he thought—"She would be practical, with sufficient vanity not to care,—she would see more comedy than tragedy in the whole thing. But with her romantic ideas about love, and her name in everybody's mouth, I might have got into the devil's own mess! I wonder where she went to when she left the studio? Straight home, I suppose, to Miss Leigh,—will she tell Miss Leigh? No—I think not!—she's not likely to tell anybody. She'll keep it all to herself. She's a silly little fool!—but she's—she's loyal!"

Yes, she was loyal! Of that there could be no manner of doubt. Callous and easy-going man of the world as he had ever been and ever would be, the steadfast truth and tender devotion of the poor child moved him to a faint sense of shamed admiration. On the inky blackness of the night he saw her face, floating like a vision,— her little uplifted, praying hands,—he heard her voice, piteously sweet, crying "Amadis! Amadis! Say you didn't mean it!—say it isn't true!—I thought you loved me, dear!—you told me so!"

The waves hissed round the rolling steamer, and every now and again white tongues of foam darted at him from the crests of the heaving waters, yet amid all the shattering roar and turbulence of the storm, he could not get the sound of that pleading voice out of his ears.

"Silly little fool!" he repeated over and over again with inward vexation—"Nothing could be more absurd than her way of looking at life as though it was only made for love! Yet—she suited her name!—she was really the most 'innocent' creature I have ever known! And—and—she loved me!"

The sea and the wind shrieked at him as the vessel plunged heavily on her difficult way—his nerves, cool as they were, seemed to himself on edge: and at certain moments during that Channel passage he felt a pang of remorse and pity for the young life on which he had cast an ineffaceable shadow,—a life instinct with truth, beauty, and brightness, just opening out as it were into the bloom of fulfilled promise. He had not "betrayed" her in the world's vulgar sense of betrayal,—he had not wronged her body— but he had done far worse,—he had robbed her of her peace of mind. Little by little he had stolen from the flower of her life its honey of sweet content,—he had checked the active impulses of her ambition, and as they soared upwards like bright birds to the sun, had brought them down, to the ground, slain with a mere word of light mockery,—he had led her to judge all things of no value save himself,—and when he had attained to this end he had destroyed her last dream of happiness by voluntarily proving his own insincerity and worthlessness.

"It has all been her own fault," he mused, trying to excuse and to console himself—"She fell into my arms as easily as a ripe peach falls at a touch—that childish fancy about 'Amadis de Jocelin' did the trick! Curious!—very curious that a sixteenth-century member of my own family tree should be mixed up in my affair with this girl! Of course she'll say nothing,—there's nothing to say! We've kept our secret very well, and except for a few playful suggestions and hints dropped here and there, nobody knows we were in love with each other. Then—she's got her work to do,—it isn't as if she were an idle woman without an occupation,—and she'll think it down and live it down. Of course she will! I'm worrying myself quite needlessly! It will be all right. And as she doesn't go to her Briar Farm now, I daresay she'll even forget her fetish of a knight, the 'Sieur Amadis de Jocelin'!"

He laughed idly, amused as he always had been at the romantic ideal she had made of the old French knight who had so strangely turned out to be the brother of his own far-away ancestor,—and then, on landing at Calais, was soon absorbed in numerous other thoughts and interests, and gradually dismissed the whole subject from his mind. After all, for him it was only one "little affair" out of at least a dozen or more, which from time to time had served to entertain him and provide a certain stimulus for his artistic emotions.

The storm had it all its own way in the fair English country,— sweeping in from the sea it tore over hill and dale with haste and fury, working terrible havoc among the luxuriant autumnal foliage and bringing down whirling wet showers of gold and crimson leaves. Round Briar Farm it raged all day long, tearing away from the walls one giant branch of the old "Glory" rose and snapping it off at its stem. Robin Clifford, coming home from the fields in the late afternoon, saw the fallen bough covered with a scented splendour of late roses, and lifting it tenderly carried it into the house, thinking somewhat sadly that in the old days Innocent would have been grieved had she seen such havoc made. Setting it in a big brown jar full of water, he put it in the entrance hall where its shoots reached nearly to the ceiling, and Priscilla Priday exclaimed at the sight of it—

"Eh, eh, is the old rose-tree broken, Mister Robin! That's never happened before in all the time I've been 'ere! I don't like the looks of it!—no, Mister Robin, I don't!"

"It's only one of the bigger branches," answered Robin soothingly. "The rose-tree itself is all right—I don't think any storm can hurt that—it's too deeply rooted. This was certainly a very fine branch, but it must have got loosened by the wind."

Even as he spoke a fierce gust swept over the old house with a sound like a scream of wrath and agony, and a furious torrent of rain emptied itself as though from a cloud-burst, half drowning the flower-beds and for the moment making a pool of the court- yard. Priscilla hurried to see that all the windows were shut and the doors well barred, and when evening closed in the picturesque gables of the roof were but a black blur in the almost incessant whirl of rain.

As the night deepened the storm grew worse, and the howling of the wind through the cracks and crannies of the ancient building was like the noise of wild animals clamouring for food. Priscilla and Robin Clifford sat together in the kitchen,—the most comfortable apartment to be in on such an unkind night of elemental uproar. It had become more or less their living-room since Innocent's departure, for Robin could not bear to sit in the "best parlour," as it was called, now that there was no one to share its old-world charm and comfort with him,—and when Priscilla's work was done, and everything was cleared and the other servants gone to their beds, he preferred to bring his book and pipe into the kitchen, and sit in an old cushioned arm-chair on one side of the fire- place, while Priscilla sat on the other, mending the house-linen, both of them talking at intervals of the past, and of the happy and unthinking days when Farmer Jocelyn had been alive and well, and when Innocent was like a fairy child flitting over the meadows with her light and joyous movements, her brown-gold hair flying loose like a trail of sunbeams on the wind, her face blossoming into rose-and-white loveliness as a flower blossoms on its slender stem,—her voice carrying sweet cadences through the air and making music wherever it rang. Latterly, however, they had not spoken so much of her,—the fame of her genius and the sudden leap she had made into a position of public note and brilliancy had somewhat scared the simple soul of Priscilla, who felt that the child she had reared from infancy had been taken by some strange and not to be contested fate away, far out of her reach,—while Robin—whose experiences at Oxford had taught him that persons of his own sex attaining to even a mild literary celebrity were apt to become somewhat "touch-me-not" characters—almost persuaded himself that perhaps Innocent, sweet and ideally simple of nature as he had ever known her to be, might, under the influence of her rapid success and prosperity, change a little (and such change, he thought, would be surely natural!)—if only just as much as would lessen by ever so slight a degree her former romantic passion for the home of her childhood. And,—lurking sometimes at the back of all his thoughts there crept the suggestive shadow of "Amadis de Jocelyn,"—not the French Knight of old, but the French painter, of whom she had told him and of whose very existence he had a strange and secret distrust.

On this turbulent night the old kitchen looked very peaceful and home-like,—the open fire burned brightly, flashing its flame- light against the ceiling's huge oak beams—everything was swept clean and polished to the utmost point of perfection,—and the table on which Robin rested the book he was reading was covered with a tapestried cloth, embroidered in many colours, dark and bright contrasted cunningly, with an effect that was soothing and restful to the eyes. In the centre there was placed a quaintly shaped jar of old brown lustre which held a full tall bunch of golden-rod and deep wine-coloured dahlias,—a posy expressing autumn with a greater sense of gain than loss. Robin was reading with exemplary patience and considerable difficulty one of the old French poetry books belonging to the "Sieur Amadis de Jocelin," and Priscilla's small glittering needle flew in and out the open- work stitchery of a linen pillow-slip she was mending as deftly as any embroideress of Tudor times. Over the old, crabbed yet delicately fine writing of the "Sieur" whose influence on Innocent's young mind had been so pronounced and absolute, and in Robin's opinion so malign, he pored studiously, slowly mastering the meaning of the verses, though written in a language he had never cared to study. He was conscious of a certain suave sweetness and melancholy in the swing of the lines, though they did not appeal to him very forcibly.

"En un cruel orage On me laisse perir; En courant au naufrage Je vois chacun me plaindre et mil me secourir, Felicite passee Qui ne peux revenir Tourment de ma pensee Que n'ai-je en te perdant perdu le souvenir! Le sort, plein d'injustice M'ayant enfin rendu Ce reste un pur supplice, Je serais plus heureux si j'avais tout perdu!"

A sudden swoop of the wind shook the very rafters of the house as though some great bird had grasped it with beak and talons, and Priscilla stopped her swift needle, drawing it out to its full length of linen thread and holding it there. A strange puzzled look was on her face—she seemed to be listening intently. Presently, taking off her spectacles, she laid them down, and spoke in a half whisper:

"Mister Robin! Robin, my dear!"

He looked up, surprised at the grave wistfulness and wonder of her old eyes.

"Yes, Priscilla?"

"I'm thinkin' my time is drawin' short, dear lad!" she said, slowly—"I've got a call, an' I'll not be much longer here! That's a warnin' for me—"

"A warning? Priscilla, what do you mean?"

Drawing in her needle and thread, she pricked it through the linen she held and looked full at him.

"Didn't ye hear it?" she asked.

A sudden chill crept through the young man's blood,—there was something so wan and mournful in her expression.

"Dear Priscilla, you are dreaming! Hear what?"

She lifted one brown wrinkled hand with a gesture of attention.

"The crying of the child!" she answered—"Crying, crying, crying! Crying for me!"

Robin held his breath and listened. The wind had for the moment lessened in violence, and its booming roar had dropped to a moaning sigh. Now and again there was a pause that was almost silence, and during one of these intervals he fancied—but surely it was only fancy!—that he actually did hear a faint human cry. He looked at Priscilla questioningly and in doubt,—she met his eyes with a fixed and solemn resignation in her own.

"It's as I tell you," she said—"My time has come! It's for me the child is calling—just as she used to call whenever she wanted anything."

Robin rose slowly and moved a step or two towards the door. The storm was gathering fresh force, and heavy rain pattered against the windows making a continuous steely sound like the clashing of swords. Straining his ears to close attention, he waited,—and all at once as he stood in suspense and something of fear, a plaintive sobbing wail crept thinly above the noise of the wind.

"Priscilla! ... Priscilla!" There was no mistaking the human voice this time—and Priscilla got up from where she sat, though trembling so much that she had to lean one hand on the table to steady herself.

"Ye heard THAT, surely!" she said.

Robin answered her by a look. His heart beat thickly,—an awful fear beset him, paralysing his energies. Was Innocent dead? Was that pitiful wail the voice of her departed spirit crying at the door of her childhood's home?

"Priscilla! ... Oh, Priscilla!"

The old woman straightened her bent figure and lifted her head.

"Mister Robin, I must answer that call!" she said—"Storm or rain, we've no right to sit here with the child's voice crying and the old house shut and barred against her! We must open the door!"

He could not speak—but he obeyed her gesture, and went quickly out of the kitchen into the adjacent hall,—there he unbarred and unlocked the massive old entrance door and threw it open. A sheet of rain flung itself in his face, and the wind was so furious that for a moment he could scarcely stand. Then, recovering himself, he peered into the darkness and could see nothing,—till all at once he became vaguely aware of a small dark object crouching in one corner of the deep porch like a frightened animal or a lost child. He stooped and touched it—it was wet and clammy—he grasped it more firmly, and it moved under his hand shudderingly and lifted itself, turning a white face up to the light that streamed out from the hall—a face wan and death-like, but still the face he had ever thought the sweetest in the world—the face of Innocent! With a loud cry of mingled terror and rapture, he caught her up and held her to his heart.

"Innocent!—My little love!—Innocent!"

She made no answer—no sort of resistance. Her little body hung heavily in his arms—her head drooped helplessly against his shoulder.

"Priscilla!" he called—"Priscilla!"

Priscilla was already beside him—she had hurried into the hall directly she heard his exclamation of fear and amazement, and now as she saw him carrying the forlorn little burden tenderly along she threw up her hands with a piteous, almost despairing gesture.

"God save us all!—It's the child herself!" she exclaimed—"Mercy on the poor lamb!—what can have happened to her?—she's half drowned with rain!"

As quickly as Robin's strong arms could bear her, she was carried gently into the kitchen and laid in Robin's own deep arm-chair by the fire. Roused to immediate practical service and with all her superstitious terrors at an end, old Priscilla took off a soaked little velvet hat and began to unfasten a wet mass of soft silk that clung round the fragile little figure.

"Go and bar the door fast, Mister Robin, my dear!" she said, looking up at the young man's pale, agonised face,—"We don't want any one comin' in here to see the child in trouble!—besides, the wind's enough to scare a body to death! Poor lamb, poor lamb!— where she can have come from the good Lord only knows! It's for all the world like the night when she was left here, long ago! Lock and bar the door, dearie, and get me some of that precious old wine out of the cupboard in the best parlour." Here her active fingers came upon the glittering diamond pendant in the shape of a dove that hung by its slender gold chain round Innocent's neck. She unclasped it, looking at it wonderingly—then she handed it to Robin who regarded it with sombre, grudging eyes. Was it a love- gift?—and from whom?

"And while you're about helping me," went on Priscilla—"you might go to the child's room and fetch me that old white woolly gown she used to wear—it's warm and soft, and we'll put it on her and wrap her in a blanket when she comes to herself. She'll be all right presently."

Like a man in a moving dream he obeyed, and while he went on his errands Priscilla managed to get off some of the dripping garments which clung to the girl's slight form as closely as the wrappings of a shroud. Chafing the small icy hands, she smoothed the drenched fair hair, loosening its pins and combs, and spreading it out to dry, murmuring fond words of motherly pity and tenderness while the tears trickled slowly down her furrowed cheeks.

"My poor baby!—my pretty child!" she murmured—"What has broken her like this?—The world's been too rough for her—I misdoubt me if her fancies about love an' the like o' that nonsense aren't in the mischief,—but praise the Lord that's brought her home again, an' if so be it pleases Him we'll keep her home!"

As she thought this, Innocent suddenly opened her eyes. Beautiful, wild eyes that stared at her wonderingly without recognition.

"Amadis!" The voice was thin and faint, but exquisitely tender. "Amadis! How kind you are! Ah, yes!—at last!—I was sure you did not mean to be cruel—I knew you would come back and be good to me again! My Amadis!—You ARE good!—you could not be anything else but good and true!" She laughed weakly and went on more rapidly— "It is raining—yes! Oh, yes—raining very much!—such a cold, sharp rain! I've walked quite a long way—but I felt I must come back to you, Amadis!—just to ask you once more to say a kind word-to kiss me..."

She closed her eyes again and her head fell back on the pillow of the chair in which she lay. Priscilla's heart sank.

"She doesn't know what she's talking about, poor lamb!" she thought,—"Just wandering and off her head!—and fancying things about that old French knight again!"

Here Robin entered, and stood a moment, lost in a maze of enchanted misery at the sight of the pitiful little half-disrobed figure in the chair, till Priscilla took the white garment he had been sent to fetch out of his passive hand.

"There, dear lad, don't look like that!" she said. "Go, and come back in a few minutes with the wine—we'll be ready for you then. Cheer up!—she's opened her pretty eyes once—she'll open them again directly and smile at you!"

He moved away slowly with an aching heart, and a tightness in his throat that impelled him to cry like a woman. Innocent!—little Innocent!—she who had once been all brightness and gaiety,—was this desolate, half-dying, stricken creature the same girl? Ah, no! Not the same! Never the same any more! Some numbing blow had smitten her,—some withering fire had swept over her, and she was no longer what she once had been. This he felt by a lover's intuition,—intuition keener and surer than all positive knowledge; and not the faintest hope stirred within him that she would ever shake off the trance of that death-in-life into which she had been plunged by some as yet unknown disaster—unknown to him, yet dimly guessed. Meanwhile Priscilla's loving task was soon done, and Innocent was clothed, warm and dry, in one of the old hand-woven woollen gowns she had been accustomed to wear in former days, and a thick blanket was wrapped cosily round her. She was still more or less unconscious, but the reviving heat gradually penetrated her body, and she began to sigh and move restlessly. She opened her eyes again and fixed them on the bright fire. Robin came in with the glass of wine, and Priscilla held it to her lips, forcing her to swallow a few drops.

The strong cordial started a little pulse of warmth in her failing blood, and she made an effort to sit up. She looked vaguely round her,—then her wandering gaze fixed itself on Priscilla's anxious old face, and a faint smile, more pitiful than tears, trembled on her lips.

"Priscilla!" she said—"I believe it is Priscilla I Oh, dear Priscilla! I called you but you would not hear or answer me!"

"Oh, my lamb, I heard ye right enough!"—and Priscilla fondled and warmed the girl's passive hands—"But I couldn't think it was yourself—I thought I was dreaming—"

"So did I!" she answered feebly—"I thought I was dreaming...yes! —I have been dreaming such a long, long time! All dreams! I have walked through the rain—it was very dark and the wind was cold and cruel—but I walked on and on—I don't know how I came—but I wanted to get home to Briar Farm—do you know Briar Farm?"

Stricken to the soul by the look of the wistful eyes expressing a mind in chaos, Priscilla answered gently—

"You're in Briar Farm now, dearie!—Surely you know you are! This is your own old home—don't you know it?—don't you remember the old kitchen?—of course you do! There, there!—look up and see!"

She lifted her head and gazed about her in a lost way.

"No!" she murmured—"I wish I could believe it, but I cannot. I believe nothing now. It is all strange to me—I have lost the way home, and I shall never find it—never—never!" Here she suddenly pointed to Robin standing aloof in utter misery.

"Who is that?" she asked.

Irresistibly impelled by love, fear, and pity, he came and knelt beside her.

"It's Robin!" he said—"Dear Innocent, don't you know me?"

She touched his hair with one little hand, smiling like a pleased child.

"Robin?" she queried—"Oh, no!—you cannot be Robin—he is ever so many miles away!" She looked at him curiously,—then laughed, a cold, mirthless little laugh. "I thought for a moment you might be Amadis—his hair is like yours, thick and soft—you know him, of course—he is the great painter, Amadis de Jocelyn—all the world has heard of him! He went out just now and shut the door and locked it—but he will come back—yes!—he will come back!"

Robin heard and understood—the whole explanation of her misery suddenly flashed on his mind, and inwardly he cursed the man who had wreaked such havoc on her trusting soul. All at once she sprang up with a wild cry.

"He will come back—he must come back! Amadis!—Amadis!—you will not leave me all alone?—No, no, you cannot be so cruel!" She stretched out her arms as though to embrace some invisible treasure in the air—"Priscilla! ... Priscilla!" Then as Priscilla took her gently round the waist and tried to calm her she began to laugh again. "The old motto!—you remember it?—the motto of the Sieur Amadis de Jocelin!—'Mon coeur me soutien!' You know what it means—'My heart sustains me.' Yes—and you know why his heart is so strong? Because it is made of stone! A stone heart can sustain anything!—it is hard and firm and cold—no rain, no tears can soften it!—no flowers ever grow on it—it does not beat—it feels nothing—nothing!"—and her hands dropped wearily at her sides. "It is not like MY heart! my heart burns and aches—it is a foolish heart, and my brain is a foolish brain—I cannot think with it—it is all dark and confused! And I have no one to help me—I am all alone in the world!"

"Innocent!" cried Robin passionately—"Oh, my love, my darling!— try to recall your dear wandering mind! You are here in the old home you used to love so well—you are not alone—you never shall be alone any more. I am with you to love you and take care of you —I have loved you always—I shall love you till I die!"

She looked at him with a sudden smile.

"Robin!—It is Robin!—you poor boy! You always talked like that! —but you must not love me,—I have no love to give you—I would make you happy if I could, but I cannot!"

A violent shudder as of icy cold shook her limbs—she stretched out her hands pitifully.

"Would you take me somewhere to sleep?" she murmured—"I am very tired! And when he comes you will wake me—I will not keep him a moment waiting! Tell him I am quite well—and that I knew he did not mean to be unkind—"

Her voice broke—she tottered and nearly fell. Robin caught her in his arms and laid her gently back in the chair, where she seemed to lapse into unconsciousness. He turned a white, desperate face on Priscilla.

"What is to be done?" he asked,—"Shall I go for the doctor?"

Priscilla shook her head.

"The doctor would be no use," she answered—"She's just fairly worn out and wants rest. Her little room is ready,—I've kept it aired, and the bed made warm and cosy ever since she went away— lest she should ever come back sudden like... could you carry her up, d'ye think? She'll be better in her bed—and she would come to herself quicker."

Gently and with infinite tenderness he lifted the girl as though she were a baby and carried her lightly up the broad oak staircase, Priscilla leading the way—and soon they brought her into her own room, unchanged since she had occupied it, and kept by Priscilla's loving and half superstitious care ready for her return at any moment. Laying her down on her little bed, Robin left her, though hardly able to tear himself away, and going downstairs again he flung himself into a chair and wept like a child for the ruin and wreck of the fair young life which might have been the joy and sunshine of his days!

"Amadis de Jocelyn!" he muttered—"A curse on him! Why should the founder of this house bring evil on us?—Rising up like a ghost to overshadow us and spoil our happiness?—Let the house perish and all its traditions if it must be so, rather than that she should suffer!—for she is innocent!"

Yes—she was quite innocent,—the little "base-born" intruder on the unbroken line and history of the Jocelyns!—and yet—it was with a kind of horror that the memory of that unbroken line and history recurred to him. Was there—could there be anything real in the long prevalent idea that if the direct line of the Jocelyns were broken, the peace and prosperity so long attendant on the old farm would be at an end? He put the thought away with a sense of anger.

"No, no! She could only bring joy wherever she went—no matter who her parents were, or how she was born, my poor little one!—she has suffered for no fault at all of her own!"

He listened to the dying clamour of the storm—the wind still careered round the house, making a noise like the beating wings of a great bird, but the rain was ceasing and there was a deeper sense of quiet. An approaching step startled him—he looked up and saw Priscilla. She smiled encouragingly.

"Cheer up, Mister Robin!" she said. ... "She is much better—she knows where she is now, bless her heart!—and she's glad to be at home. Let her alone—and if she 'as a good sleep she'll be a'most herself again in the morning. I'll leave my bedroom door open all night—an' I'll be lookin' in at 'er when she doesn't know it, watchin' her lovin' like for all I'm worth! ... so don't ye worry, my lad!—there's a good God in Heaven an' it'll all come right!"

Robin took her rough work-worn hands and clasped them in his own.

"Bless you, you dear woman!" he said, huskily. "Do you really think so? Will she be herself again?—our own dear little Innocent?"

"Of course she will!" and Priscilla blinked away the tears in her eyes—"An' you'll mebbe win 'er yet!—The Lord's ways are ever wonderful an' past findin' out—"

A clear voice calling from the staircase interrupted them.

"Priscilla! Robin!"

Running to answer the summons, they saw Innocent at the top of the stairs, a little vision of pale, smiling sweetness, in her white wool wrapper—her hair falling loose over her shoulders. She kissed her hands to them.

"Only to say good-night!" she said,—"I know just where I am now! —it was so foolish of me to forget! I am at home—and this is Briar Farm—and I feel almost well and—happy! Robin!"

He sprang up the stairs and, kneeling, took one of her hands and kissed it.

"That's my true knight!" she said. "Dear Robin! You deserve everything good—and if it will give you joy I will marry you!"

"Marry me!" he cried, scarcely believing his ears—"Innocent! You will?—Dearest little love, you will?"

She looked down upon him where he knelt, like some small compassionate angel.

"Yes—I will!—To please you and Dad!—Tomorrow if you like! But you must say good-night now and let me sleep!"

He kissed her hand again.

"Good-night, sweet!"

She started—and drew her hand away.

"He said that once,—and once—in a letter—he wrote it. It seemed to me beautiful!—'Good-night, sweet!'" She waited as if to think a moment, then—

"Good-night!" again she said—"Do not be anxious about me—I shall sleep well! Good-night!"

She waved her hand once more, and disappeared like a little white phantom in the dark corridor.

"Does she mean it, do you think?" asked Robin, turning eagerly to Priscilla—"Will she marry me, after all?"

"I shouldn't wonder!" and the old woman nodded sagaciously—"Let her sleep on it, lad!—an' you sleep on it, too!—The storm's nigh over—an' mebbe our dark cloud 'as a silver lining!"

Half-an-hour later on she went to her own bed—and on the way thought she would peep into Innocent's room and see how she fared —but the door was locked. Vexed at her own lack of foresight in not possessing herself of the key before the girl had been carried to her room, she left her own door open that she might be ready in case of any call—and for a long time she lay awake watchfully, thinking and wondering what the next day would bring forth—till at last anxiety and bewilderment of mind were overcome by sheer fatigue and she slept. Not so Robin Clifford. Excited and full of new hope which he hardly dared breathe to himself, he made no attempt to rest—but paced his room up and down, up and down, like a restless animal in a cage, waiting with hardly endurable impatience for the dawn. Thoughts chased each other in his brain too quickly to evolve any practical order out of them,—he tried to plan out what he would do with the coming day—how he would let the farm people know that Innocent had returned—how he would send a telegram to her friend Miss Leigh in London to say she was safe in her old home—and then the recollection of her literary success swept over his mind like a sort of cloud—her fame!—the celebrity she had won in that wider world outside Briar Farm—was it fair or honest to her that he should take advantage of her weak and half- distraught condition and allow her to become his wife?—she, whose genius was already acknowledged by a wide and discerning public, and who might be considered as only at the beginning of a brilliant and prosperous career?

"For, after all, I am only a farmer," he said—"And with the friends she has made for herself she might marry any one! The best way for me will be to give her time—time to recover from this— this terrible trouble she seems to have on her mind—this curse of that fancy for Amadis de Jocelyn!—by Heaven, I'd kill him without a minute's grace if I had him in my power!"

Still pacing to and fro and thinking, he wore the slow hours away, and at last the grey peep of a misty, silvery dawn peered through his window. He threw the lattice open and leaned out—the scent of the wet fields and trees after the night's storm was sweet and refreshing, and copied his heated blood. He reviewed the whole situation with greater calmness,—and decided that he must not be selfish enough to grasp at the proffered joy of marriage with the only woman he had ever loved unless he could be made sure that it would be for her own happiness.

"Just now she hardly knows what she is saying or doing," he mused, sadly—"Some great disappointment has broken her spirit and she is wounded and in pain,—but when she is quite herself and has mastered her grief, she will see things in a different light—she will realise the fame she has won,—the brilliant name she has made—yes!—she must think of all this—she must not wrong herself or injure her position by marrying me!"

The silver-grey dawn brightened steadily, and in the eastern sky long folds of silky mist began to shred away in thin strips of delicate vapour showing peeps of pale amber between,—fitful touches of faint rose-colour flitted here and there against the gold,—and with a sense of relief that the day was at last breaking and that the sky showed promise of the sun, he left his room, and stepping noiselessly into the outside corridor, listened. Priscilla's door was wide open—and as he passed he looked in,—she was fast asleep. He could not hear a sound,—and though he walked on cautious tip-toe along the little passage which led to the room where Innocent slept and waited there a minute or two, straining his ears for any little sigh, or sob, or whisper, none came;—all was silent. Quietly he went downstairs, and, opening the hall door, stepped out into the garden. Every shrub and plant was dripping with wet—many were beaten down and broken by the fury of the night's storm, and there was more desolation than beauty in the usually well-ordered and carefully- tended garden. The confusion of fallen flowers and trailing stems made a melancholy impression on his mind,—at another time he would scarcely have heeded what was, after all, only the natural havoc wrought by high winds and heavy rains,—but this morning there seemed to be more than the usual ruin. He walked slowly round to the front of the house—and there looked up at the projecting lattice window of Innocent's room. It was wide open. Surprised, he stopped underneath it and looked up, half expecting to see her,—but only a filmy white curtain moved gently with the first stirrings of the morning air. He stood a moment or two irresolute, recalling the night when he had climbed up by the natural ladder of the old wistaria and had heard her tell the plaintive little story of her "base-born" condition, with tears in her eyes, and the pale moonshine lighting up her face like the face of an angel in a dream.

"And she had written her first book already then!" he thought— "She had all that genius in her and I never knew!"

A deeper brightness in the sky began to glow, and a light spread itself over the land—the sun was rising. He looked towards the low hills in the east, and saw the golden rim lifting itself like the edge of a cup above the horizon,—and as it ascended higher and higher, some fleecy white clouds rolled softly away from its glittering splendour, showing glimpses of tenderest ethereal blue. A still and solemn beauty invested all the visible scene,—a sacred peace—the peace of an obedient and law-abiding nature wherein man alone creates strange discord. Robin looked long and lovingly at the fair prospect,-the wide meadows, the stately trees warmly tinted with autumnal glory, and thought—

"Could she be happier than here?—safe in the arms of love?—safe and sheltered from all trouble in the home she once idolised?"

He would not answer his own inward query—and suddenly the fancy seized him to call her by name, as he had called her on that moonlit night long ago, and persuade her to look out on the familiar fields shining in the sunlight of the morning.

"Innocent!"

There was no answer.

He called a little louder—

"Innocent!"

Still silence. A robin hopped out from the cover of wet leaves and peered at him questioningly with its bold bright eye. Acting on an irresistible impulse he set his foot on the gnarled root of the old wistaria and started to climb to the window-sill. Three minutes sufficed him to reach it—he looked into the little room, —the room which had formerly been the study of the "Sieur Amadis de Jocelin"—and there seated at the old oak table with her head bowed down upon her hands and her hair covering her as with a veil, was Innocent. The sunlight flashed brightly in upon her—and immediately above her the golden beams traced out as with a pencil of light the arms of the old French knight with the faded rose and blue of his shield and motto illumining with curiously marked distinctness the words he himself had carved beneath his own heraldic emblems:

"Who here seekynge Forgetfulness Did here fynde Peace!"

She was very strangely still,—and a cold fear suddenly caught at Robin's heart and half choked his breath.

"Innocent!" he cried. Then, leaping into the room like a man in sudden frenzy, he rushed towards that motionless little figure— threw his arms about it—lifted it—caressed it...

"Innocent! Look at me! Speak to me!"

The fair head fell passively back against his shoulder with all its wealth of rippling hair—the fragile form he clasped was helpless, lifeless, breathless!—and with a great shuddering sob of agony, he realised the full measure of his life's despair. Innocent was dead!—and for her, as for the "Sieur Amadis," the quaint words shining above her in the morning sunlight were aptly fitted—

"Who here seekynge Forgetfulness Did here fynde Peace!"

. . . . . . .

Many things in life come too late to be of rescue or service, and justice is always tardy in arrival. Too late was Pierce Armitage, after long years of absence, to give his innocent child the simple heritage of a father's acknowledgment; he could but look upon her dead face and lay flowers on her in her little coffin. The world heard of the sudden death of the young and brilliant writer with a faintly curious concern—but soon forgot that she had ever existed. No one knew, no one guessed the story of her love for the French painter, Amadis de Jocelyn—he was abroad at the time of her death, and only three persons secretly connected him with the sorrow of her end—and these were Lord Blythe, Miss Leigh and Robin Clifford. Yet even these said nothing, restrained by the thought of casting the smallest scandal on the sweet lustre of her name. And Amadis de Jocelyn himself?—had he no regret?—no pity? If the truth must be told, he was more relieved than pained,—more flattered than sorry! The girl had died for him,—well!—that was more or less a pleasing result of his power! She was a silly child—obsessed by a "fancy"—it was not his fault if he could not live up to that "fancy"—he liked "facts." His picture of her was the success of the Salon that year, and he was admired and congratulated,—this was enough for him.

"One of your victims, Amadis?" asked a vivacious society woman he knew, critically studying the portrait on the first day of its exhibition.

He nodded, smilingly.

"Really? And yet—Innocent?"

He nodded again.

"Very much so! She is dead!"

. . . . . . .

Sorrow and joy, strangely intermingled, divided the last years of life for good Miss Leigh. The shock of the loss and death of the girl to whom she had become profoundly attached, followed by the startling discovery that her old lover Pierce Armitage was alive, proved almost too much for her frail nerves—but her gratitude to God for the joy of seeing the beloved face once again, and hearing the beloved voice, was so touching and sincere that Armitage, smitten to the heart by the story of her long fidelity and her tenderness for his forsaken daughter, offered to marry her, earnestly praying her to let him share life with her to the end. This she gently refused,—but for the rest of her days she—with him and Lord Blythe—made a trio of friends,—a compact of affection and true devotion such as is seldom known in this work- a-day world. They were nearly always together,—and the memory of Innocent, with her young life's little struggle against fate ending so soon in disaster, was a link never to be broken save by death, which breaks all.



L'ENVOI

A few evenings since, I who have written this true story of a young girl's romantic fancy, passed by Briar Farm. The air was very still, and a red sun was sinking in a wintry sky. The old Tudor farmhouse looked beautiful in the clear half-frosty light— but the trees in the old bye road were leafless, and though the courtyard gate stood open there were no flowers to be seen beyond, and no doves flying to and fro among the picturesque gables. I knew, as I walked slowly along, that just a mile distant, in the small churchyard of the village, Innocent, the "base-born" child of sorrow, lay asleep by her "Dad," the last of the Jocelyns,—I knew also that not far off from their graves, the mortal remains of the faithful Priscilla were also resting in peace—and I felt, with a heavy sadness at my heart, that the fame of the old house was wearing out and that presently its tradition, like many legendary and romantic things, would soon be forgotten. But just at the turn of a path, where a low stile gives access to the road, I saw a man standing, his arms folded and leaning on the topmost bar of the stile—a man neither old nor young, with a strong quiet face, and almost snow-white hair—a man quite alone, whose attitude and bearing expressed the very spirit of solitude. I knew him for the master of the farm—a man greatly honoured throughout the neighbourhood for justice and kindness to all whom he employed, but also a man stricken by a great sorrow for which there can be no remedy.

"Will he never marry?" I thought,—but as I put the question to myself I dismissed it almost as a blasphemy. For Robin Clifford is one of those rarest souls among men who loves but once, and when love is lost finds it not again. Except,—perhaps?—in a purer world than ours, where our "fancies" may prove to have had a surer foundation than our "facts."

THE END