"Come along, my boy," he went on, turning to Vane. "Pool or billiards, and let's see if the old man can't show you a thing or two."

With an inward groan Vane professed himself delighted. "Perhaps Miss Devereux will come and score for us," he murmured.

"Do, my love," said Mrs. Sutton. "And then I'll go to bed."

If Vane remembered little of dinner that evening, he remembered still less about the game of billiards except that he was soundly beaten, to Mr. Sutton's great delight, and that he laughed quite a lot over silly little jokes. Every now and then he stood beside Joan at the scoring board, and touched her arm or her hand; and once, when his host, intent on some shot, had his back towards them, he bent very quickly and kissed her on the lips. And he felt her quiver, and then grow rigid at his touch.

He played execrably, and when he tried to pull himself together to get the game done quicker, he played worse. If only the old man would go to bed, or something, and leave them. . . . If only he could get a few moments alone with Joan, just to kiss her, and take her in his arms. But the old man showed no signs of doing anything of the sort. He did not often get a game of billiards; he still less often beat anybody, and he fully intended to make the most of it. Then at last, when the game was finally over, he played half of his shots over again for practice. And Vane, with his cue grasped in both hands, contemplated braining him with the butt. . . .

But worse was still to come. Mr. Sutton prided himself on being old fashioned. Early to bed and early to rise, a proverb which Vane had always considered the most detestable in the English language, was one of his host's favourite texts. Especially when applied to other people. . . .

"Now, my dear," he said to Joan after he had missed an easy cannon three times, and felt he required a little justification, "off you go to bed. Can't have you missing your beauty sleep so close to your marriage, or I'll have Baxter down on me like a ton of bricks."

Vane turned abruptly to the fire, and it is to be feared that his thoughts were not all they might have been. In fact, he registered a mental vow that if ever he was privileged to meet a murderer, he would shake him warmly by the hand.

"Good night, Captain Vane." Joan was standing beside him, holding out her hand. "I don't think you were playing very well to-night, were you?"

The next moment the door had closed behind her, and Vane turned slowly to answer some question of his host's. And as he turned he laughed softly under his breath. For Joan had not even looked at him as she said "Good night," and though the room was warm, almost to stuffiness, her hand had been as cold as ice.

Vane closed the door of his room, and went thoughtfully over to the fire. He was feeling more or less dazed, like a man who has been through a great strain, and finds for the moment some temporary respite.

He did not profess to account for it; he did not even try to. There had been other days that he had spent with Joan—days when he had been far more physically close to her than he had been that evening. Save for that one brief kiss in the billiard-room he had barely touched her. And yet he felt more vividly alive to her presence than he had ever been before.

Vane was no psychologist, and any way the psychology of sex follows no rules. It makes its own as it goes along. And the one thought which stood out from the jumbled chaos in his brain was a fierce pleasure at having beaten Baxter. The primitive Cave man was very much alive in him that night. . . .

Joan was his; he knew it, and she knew it—and there was no more to be said. And with a short, exultant laugh Vane drew up an easy chair to the fire and lit a cigarette. He heard Mr. Sutton pass along the passage and go to his own room; and then gradually the house grew still. Outside the night was silent, and once he rose and went to the window. He stood there for a time staring out into the darkness, with his hands thrust deep in his pockets; then he returned to his chair again. He felt no wish to go to bed; he just wanted to sit and think of his girl.

Three days is a long time when one is at the beginning of it; and in all probability they would give him an extension. Three days with Joan—three whole complete days. . . .

They would go for a few long glorious tramps over the Downs, where the turf is springy to the foot, and the wind comes straight from the grey Atlantic, and the salt tang of it makes it good to be alive. And then one afternoon when they got home Joan would find a telegram awaiting her to say that coal had been discovered at Blandford, and did she think it would matter having the main shaft opening into the dining-room?

Something like that was bound to happen, and even if it didn't things would be no worse off than they were now. And in the meantime—three days. . . . For Vane had passed beyond the thinking stage; he was incapable of arguing things out or calling a halt even if he wanted to. It seemed to him that everything was so immeasurably little compared with the one great fact that Joan loved him.

He whistled softly under his breath, and started to unlace his shoes. "We'll cheat 'em yet," he muttered, "some old how." And even as he spoke he stiffened suddenly and stared at the door. On it had come two low faltering knocks. . . .

For a moment he remained where he was, incapable of movement, while his cigarette, bent in two and torn, fell unheeded in the grate. Every drop of blood in his body seemed to stand still, and then to pound madly on again, as the certainty of who was outside came to him. Then with two great strides he crossed to the door, and opened it. . . .

"Joan," he whispered, "my dear. . . ."

She was in a silk dressing-gown, and he could see the lace of her nightdress through the opening at her neck. Without a word she passed by him into the room, and crouched over the fire; while Vane, with his back to the door, stood, watching her with dilated eyes.

"Lock the door." He heard her words come faintly through the roaring in his ears, and mechanically he did as she asked.

Slowly, with short, hesitating steps he came towards the fire, and stood beside her, while his nails cut into the palms of his hands. Then she rose and stood facing him.

"You've won," she said simply. "I've come to you." She swayed into his arms, and so for a long while did they stand, while the man twisted the great masses of hair that hung over her shoulders round and round his fingers. He touched her forehead and her cheeks with hands that shook a little, and suddenly he kissed her fiercely on the lips—so that she gasped, and began to tremble. He could feel her body against him through the thin silk wrap, and he clasped her tighter in his arms as if to warm her.

"My darling," he whispered, "you're cold . . . so cold. . . . Take my dressing gown. . . ."

But the girl only clung to him the more, and the man, being just a man, felt his senses beginning to swim with the wonder of it.

And then of a sudden she pushed him away, and with her hands on the mantelpiece stared into the fire.

Vane's breath came quickly. She looked so utterly desirable with the red glow of the fire lighting up her face, and her hair falling about her. He stretched out his hand and put it on her arm, as if to make sure that it was not a dream, and with the touch of his fingers something seemed to snap. A great wave of colour flooded her face, spreading down to her neck, and she began to shake uncontrollably. He bent over her, whispering in her ear, and suddenly she put both her arms round his neck. And then like a little child who goes to its mother for comfort she laid her head on his shoulder, and the tears came.

He soothed her gently, stroking her hair with his hand, and gradually, as the minutes went by, the raging storm in his mind died down, and gave place to a wonderful peace. All that was best in his nature was called forth by the girl crying so gently in his arms, and with a little flickering smile on his lips he stared at the flames over her head.

The passion had left him; a great sense of protection—man's divine heritage through the ages—had taken its place.

And so after a while he picked her up in his arms and laid her on his bed. He pulled the clothes around her, and taking her hand in his, sat down on a chair by her side.

All through the night he watched beside her, and as he listened to the hall clock striking the hours, gradually the realisation of what he must do came to him.

For he had not beaten Baxter; he had only beaten the girl. Baxter still stood where he was. Baxter still represented the way out for Joan. As a rival—man to man—he failed to count; he might just as well have been Jones or Smith. But as a weapon against the order of things Baxter remained where he was—the winner.

And even as he cursed that order of things, it struck him with a sort of amazed surprise that here he himself was actually up against one of Ramage's vested interests. . . . If Blandford had been nationalised, the problem would have been so easy. . . .

He moved irritably in his chair. What a muddle the whole thing was—what a muddle. And then with the touch of a woman he bent over the sleeping girl, and wiped away two tears that were glistening on her eyelashes. Poor little girl—poor little Joan. . . .

A sense of overwhelming pity and love for her drowned every other thought. Right or wrong, she was doing what she believed to be her job; and now he had come and made things a thousand times harder for her.

Very gently he withdrew his hand from hers and rose from his chair. He made up the fire again, and then started to pace slowly up and down the room. The drifting period was over; the matter had to be settled now.

He was no fool, and incidentally he knew as much about women as a man may know. He realised exactly why she had come to him that night; as clearly as if she had told him he understood the wild seething thoughts in her mind, the chaos, the sense of futility. And then the sudden irresistible longing to get things settled—to give up fighting—to take hold of happiness or what seemed to her to be happiness at the moment.

And supposing the mood had not broken—supposing the tears had not come. . . . He stopped in his slow walk, and stared at the sleeping girl thoughtfully. . . . What would have been the state of affairs by now?

"Sex—sex—sex. The most powerful thing in the world, and the most transitory." Her words before dinner, as they had stood in the hall came back to him, and he took a deep breath. That was the weapon he was using against her; he made no attempt to deceive himself on that score. After all—why not? It was the weapon that had been used since the beginning of things; it was the weapon which would continue to be used till the end. It was Nature's weapon . . . and yet. . . .

Once again he resumed his walk—six steps one way, turn, six steps back. He moved slowly, his chin sunk on his chest, and his hands twisting restlessly behind his back. Supposing she was right, supposing in a year, or in five, she should turn on him, and say: "Against my better judgment you overruled me. Even though I loved you, even though I still love you—you have made me buy my happiness at too great a price?"

Supposing she should say that—what then? Had he any right to make her run such a risk? Was it fair? Again and again he turned question and answer over in his brain. Of course it was fair—they loved one another; and love is the biggest thing in the universe. But was it only love in his case—was it not overmastering passion as well? Well—what if it was; there are cases where the two cannot be separated—and those cases are more precious than rubies. Against such it were laughable to put the fate of Blandford. . . . Quite—but whose point of view was that—his or hers?

Vane was essentially a fair man. The average Englishman is made that way—it being the peculiar nature of the brute. If anything—as a referee or a judge—he will give the decision against his own side, which is the reason why England has spread to the ends of the earth, and remained there at the express wish of the Little Peoples. Bias or favouritism are abhorrent to him; as far as in him lies the Englishman weighs the pros and the cons of the case and gives his decision without partiality or prejudice. He may blunder at times, but the blunder is honest and is recognised as such.

And so as Vane walked restlessly up and down his room, every instinct in him revolted at the idea of taking advantage of an emotional crisis such as he knew had been stirred in Joan that evening. It seemed to him to be unfair.

"It's her you've got to consider," he said to himself over and over again. "Only her. . . . It's she who stands to lose—much more than you."

He felt that he would go right away, clean out of her life—if, by doing so, it would help her. But would it? That was the crux. Was he justified in letting her make this sacrifice? As clearly as if he had seen it written in letters of fire upon the wall, he knew that the issue lay in his hands.

Once again he went to the window and looked out. In the east the first streaks of dawn were showing in the sky, and for a long while he stood staring at them, motionless. How often in France had he watched that same birth of a new day, and wondered what it held in store for him. But over there a man is a fatalist—his part is allotted to him, and he can but tread the beaten path blindly. Whereas here, however much one is the sport of the gods that play, there comes a time when one must play oneself. Incidentally that is the part of the performance which amuses the gods. They plot their fantastic jig-saws; but one of the rules is that the pieces must move themselves. And of their kindness they let the pieces think they control the movement. . . .

Suddenly Vane turned round, and crossed to the girl. He picked her up in his arms, and having silently opened the door he carried her to her room.

Utterly exhausted and worn out, she barely woke up even when he placed her in her own cold bed. Her eyes opened drowsily once, and he bent over and kissed her gently.

"Little Joan," he whispered. "Dear little grey girl."

But she did not hear him. With a tired sigh she had drifted on to sleep again.



CHAPTER XVI

When Joan woke the next morning it was with the consciousness that something had happened. And then the events of the last night flashed over her mind, and for a while she lay very still. The details seemed all hazy and blurred; only the main fact stood out clear and dominant, the fact that she had gone to his room.

After that things got a bit confused. She had a recollection of being carried in his arms, of his bending over her and whispering "Little Joan," of his kissing her—but it all seemed merged in an exquisite dream.

"Oh! my dear," she whispered, while the love-light shone in her grey eyes; "but what a dear you are. . . ."

By the very nature of things she was incapable of realising the tremendous strain to which she had subjected him; it only seemed to her that there was a new and wonderful secret to share with him. And to the girl, still under the influence of her mood of the night before, the secret forged the final link in the chain. She wondered how she could ever have hesitated; it all seemed so very easy and obvious now.

Baxter, Blandford—what did anything matter? She had gone to Derek; the matter was decided. . . .

Her maid came into the room, and advanced cautiously to the bed.

"Ah! but Mam'selle es awake," she said. "And ze tea, mon Dieu, but it es quite cold."

"What time is it, Celeste?" asked Joan.

"Nine o'clock, Mam'selle. I have ze dejeuner outside. And a note from M'sieur le Capitaine." She held out an envelope to Joan, and busied herself about the room. "Ah! but he is gentil—M'sieur le Capitaine; young and of a great air." Celeste, it may be stated, viewed Baxter rather like a noisome insect.

"Bring me my breakfast, please."

Joan waited till the maid had left the room before opening the envelope. There was just a line inside, and her eyes grew very tender as she read the words.

"I've got something to say to you, little Joan, which has got to be said in the big spaces. Will you come out with me this morning on to the Downs?"

She read it through half a dozen times and then she turned to Celeste.

"Tell Captain Vane that I will be ready in an hour," she said.

* * * * * *

Vane was standing in the hall when Joan appeared. A faintly tremulous smile was on her lips, but she came steadily up to him and held out both her hands.

"Good morning, my lady," he said gently. "Would you to be liking to know how wonderful you look?"

"Oh! Derek," she whispered. "My dear!"

"Ostensibly you are going into Lewes to shop," he remarked with a grin. "I am dealing with Boche prisoners. . . . At least that's what I told our worthy host over the kidneys at breakfast. . . ."

She gave a little happy laugh. "And in reality?"

"We're both going to be dropped somewhere, and we're going to tell the car to run away and play, while we walk home over the Downs."

"And my shopping?"

"You couldn't find anything you wanted."

"And your prisoners?"

"Well the only thing about my prisoners that is likely to give the show away is if I turn up at the prison," smiled Vane. "Let us hope Mr. Sutton doesn't know the governor."

And suddenly he added irrelevantly. "Our host was a little surprised that you failed to appear at breakfast, seeing how early he packed you off to bed." He watched the slight quickening of her breath, the faint colour dyeing her cheeks, and suddenly the resolution he had made seemed singularly futile. Then with a big effort he took hold of himself, and for greater safety put both his hands in his pockets. "I think," he remarked quietly, "you'd better go and get ready. The car will be round in a moment. . . ."

Without a word she left him and went upstairs to her room, while Vane strolled to the front door. The car was just coming out of the garage, and he nodded to the chauffeur.

"Glorious day, isn't it?"

"Pity you've got to waste it, sir, over them prisoners," said the man.

"Yes," agreed Vane thoughtfully. "I'll want you to drop me in the town, and then I'll walk back over the Downs. . . . Splendid day for a walk. . . ." He turned and found Joan beside him. "And lightning performance," he smiled at her. "I won't be a moment."

He slipped on his coat and handed her into the car. "Drop me in the High Street, will you—opposite to the Post Office?" he said to the chauffeur. "I'm expecting a letter."

"I'm afraid," she said, as the car rolled down the drive, "that like most men you're rather prone to overact." With a little, happy laugh she snuggled up to him and slid her hand into his under the rug.

"I shall be walking home, thank you, Thomas," said Joan as she got out of the car, and the man stood waiting for orders.

He touched his cap, and they stood watching the car go down the High Street. Then she turned to Vane.

"You'd better see about your letters," she said demurely. "And then we might go over the Castle. There is a most wonderful collection of oleographic paleographs brought over by the Americans when they discovered England. . . ."

"In one second," threatened Vane, "I shall kiss you. And I don't know that they'd understand it here. . . ."

"They'd think we were movie actors," she gurgled, falling into step beside him. "Do you know the way?"

"In the days of my unregenerate youth I went to the races here," he answered. "One passes a prison or something. Anyway, does it matter?"

She gave a sigh of utter contentment. "Nothing matters, my man—nothing at all—except that I'm with you. Only I want to get out into the open, with the fresh wind blowing on my face—and I want to sing for the joy of it. . . . Do you think if we sang up the town here they'd give me pennies?"

"More probably lock us up as undesirable vagrants," laughed Vane. "It's a county town and they're rather particular. I'm not certain that happiness isn't an offence under the Defence of the Realm Act. Incidentally, I don't think there would be many convictions these days. . . ."

She stopped for a moment and faced him. "That's not allowed, Derek; it's simply not allowed."

"Your servant craves pardon," he answered gravely, and for a while they walked on in silence.

They passed two ragged children who had collected on their faces more dirt than seemed humanly possible, and nothing would content Joan but that she should present each with a sixpence.

"Poor little devils," and her voice was very soft. "What a life to look forward to, Derek—what a hideous existence. . . ."

"It's all they've ever been brought up to." He put sixpence into each little grubby paw, and smiled down at the awestruck faces. "Go and spend it all on sweets," he told them, "and be really, wonderfully, happily sick for once in your lives. . . ."

And then at last they turned a corner, and in front of them stretched the Downs. On their left the grim, frowning prison stood sombre and apparently lifeless, and as Joan passed it she gave a little shudder.

"Oh! Boy," she cried, "isn't it impossible to get away from the suffering and the rottenness—even for a moment?" She shook herself as if to cast off the mood, and stretched out her arms to the open hills. "I'm sorry," she said briefly. "Come into the big spaces and tell me what you want to say. . . ."

For a while they walked on over the clean-cut turf and the wind from the sea swept through the gorse and the rustling grasses, and kissed them, and passed on.

"There is a hayrick, I see, girl o' mine," said Vane. "Let's go and sit under it. And in defiance of all laws and regulations we will there smoke a cigarette."

They reached the sheltered side of it, and Vane threw down his coat on the ground for her to sit on.

"Aren't you forgetting something?" she whispered, and he drew her into his arms and kissed her. Then he made her sit down, and arranged the coat around her shoulders.

"You come in too," she ordered. "There's plenty of room for both. . . ."

And so with his arm around her waist, and his cheek touching hers they sat for awhile in silence.

Then suddenly Vane spoke. "Grey girl—I'm going away to-day."

"Going away?" She echoed the words and stared at him incredulously. "But . . . but . . . I thought. . . ."

"So did I," he returned quietly. "When I came down here yesterday I had only one thought in my mind—and that was to make you give up Baxter. I wanted it from purely selfish reasons; I wanted it because I wanted you myself. . . ."

"And don't you now?" Her voice was wondering.

"More—infinitely more—than I did before. But there's one thing I want even more than that—your happiness." He was staring steadily over the great stretch of open country to where Crowborough lay in the purple distance. "When you came to me last night, little Joan, I thought I should suffocate with the happiness of it. It seemed so gloriously trustful of you . . . though, I must admit that idea did not come at first. You see I'm only a man; and you're a lovely girl. . . ." He laughed a little shortly. "I'd made up my mind to drift these next two or three days, and then when you came it seemed to be a direct answer to the problem. I didn't realise just to begin with that you weren't quite capable of thinking things out for yourself. . . . I didn't care, either. It was you and I—a woman and a man; it was the answer. And then you started to cry—in my arms. The strain had been too much. Gradually as you cried and clung to me, all the tearing overmastering passion went—and just a much bigger love for you came instead of it. . . . You see, it seemed to me that you, in your weakness last night, had placed the settlement on my shoulders. . . ."

"It's there now, dear man," she whispered. "I'd just got tired, tired, tired of fighting—— And last night it all seemed so clear." With her breast rising and falling quickly she stared over the hills, and Vane watched her with eyes full of love.

"I know it did—last night," he answered.

"Don't you understand," she went on after a moment, "that a woman wants to have her mind made up for her? She doesn't want arguments and points of view—she wants to be taken into a man's arms, and kissed, and beaten if necessary. . . . I don't know what was the matter with me last night; I only know that I was lying in bed feeling all dazed and bruised—and then suddenly I saw the way out. To come to you—and get things settled." She turned on him and her face was very tense. "You weren't—you weren't shocked," her voice was very low. "Not disgusted with me."

Vane threw back his head and laughed. "My lady," he said after a moment, "forgive my laughing. But if you could even, in your wildest dreams, imagine the absurdity of such an idea, you'd laugh too. . . ." Then he grew serious again, and stabbed at the ground with the point of his stick. "Do you suppose, dear, that I wouldn't sooner have taken that way out myself? Do you suppose that the temptation to take that way out isn't beating and hammering at me now? . . . That's why I've got to go. . . ."

"What do you mean?" Her face was half-averted.

"I mean," he answered grimly, "that if I stopped at Melton to-night, I should come to your room. As I think I said before, I'm just a man, and you're a lovely girl—and I adore you. But I adore you sufficiently to run away from a temptation that I know would defeat me. . . ."

She turned and faced him. "And supposing I want it to defeat you?"

"Ah! don't—don't. . . . For the love of God—don't!" he cried, getting up and striding away. He stood with his back towards her, while a large variety of separate imps in his brain assured him that he was an unmitigated fool.

"For Heaven's sake!—take what the gods offer you," they sang. "Here in the cold light of day, where there's no question of her being overwrought, she's asking you to settle things for her. Take it, you fool, take it. . . ."

And the god who concerned himself with that particular jig-saw among a hundred others paused for a moment and gave no heed to the ninety-nine. Then he turned over two or three pages to see what was coming, and forthwith lost interest. It is a bad thing to skip—even for a god.

Suddenly Vane felt Joan's hand on his arm, and looking down he found her at his side.

"Don't you understand, dear man?" she said. "I'm frightened of being left to decide . . . just frightened to death."

"And don't you understand, dear girl," he answered, "that I'm frightened of deciding for you? If one decides wrong for oneself—well, it's one's own funeral. But if it's for somebody else—and it's their funeral. . .."

"Even if the other person begs you to do it?"

"Even if the other person begs one to do it," he repeated gravely. "Except that the sexes are reversed, little Joan—something much like this happened not long ago. And the woman told the man to go and make sure. . . . I guess she was frightened of staking everything on a sudden rush of sex. She was right." He turned to her and caught both her hands in his with a groan. "Oh! my dear—you know what you said to me last night before dinner. Sex—sex—sex; the most powerful weapon in the world—and the most transitory. And I daren't use it—I just daren't any more."

He caught her in his arms and kissed her. "I can't forget that when you decided before—you decided against me. Something has happened since then, Joan. . . . Last night. . . . It's another factor in the situation, and I don't quite know how powerful it will prove. It's too near, just at present. . . . It's out of focus. But clear through everything I know it wouldn't be playing the game to rush you with another—last night. . . ."

He stared over her head, and the wind blew the tendrils of her hair against his cheek. "We've got to get last night into its proper place, grey girl," he went on after a while. "And only you can do it. . . . As far as I'm concerned—why there's never been any doubt. . . . It's just for you to decide. . . ."

"But I don't want to decide." Her voice, a little muffled, came from his shoulder. "I want you to decide for me." Then, leaning away from him, she put both her hands on his shoulders. "Take me away, Derek—take me away with you now. Let's go and get married—just you and I and Binks—and go right away from everyone, and be alone." Once again the imps knocked tauntingly, but Vane only smiled gravely and shook his head.

"Where would the difference be, darling?" he asked. "Where would the difference be? I guess it's not a question of with or without benefit of clergy between you and me."

Her hands fell to her side wearily, and she turned away. "I suppose you're doing what you think is right, dear," she said at length. "And I can't take you and drag you to the altar, can I?"

"I'll want no dragging, little Joan, if you're of the same mind in a fortnight's time." Then suddenly he caught both her hands in his. "My dear, my dear!" he cried hoarsely; "don't you see I must give you time to make sure? I must. . . ."

She shook her head. "I've had too much time already, Derek. I'm frightened of time; I don't want to think. . . . Oh! boy, boy, don't let me think; just take me, and think for me. . . ."

But once again Vane smiled gravely, and shook his head. "We can't dodge it like that, my darling—we just can't. . . ." He bent down to pick up his coat, and the god in charge sent a casual glance in their direction, to see that matters were progressing favourably. And when he saw the little hopeless smile on the girl's face he turned to one of his pals.

"It's too easy," he remarked in a bored voice, and turned his attention to a struggling curate with four children who had married for love. . . .

And so that afternoon Vane acted according to his lights. Maybe it was wisdom, maybe it was folly, but the point is immaterial, for it was written in the Book of the Things that Happen.

He went, telling his host that he had found fresh orders at the Post Office that morning: and the girl waved her handkerchief at him from her bedroom window as the car went down the drive.

For one brief moment after lunch they had been alone—but she had made no further attempt to keep him. She had just kissed him once, and listened to his words of passionate love with a grave little smile. "Only a fortnight, my darling," he had told her. "But we must give it that. You must be sure." And he had been too much taken up with his own thoughts to notice the weariness in her eyes.

She said nothing to him of the unread letter lying on her dressing-table upstairs, and not till long after he had gone did she pick up the envelope and turn it over and over in her fingers. Then, at last, she opened it.

It was just in the same vein as all the letters her father was writing her at this period. Brimming over with hope and confidence and joy and pleasure; planning fresh beauties for their beloved Blandford—he always associated Joan with himself in the possession of it; scheming how she was to come and stay with him for long visits each year after she was married. It was the letter of a man who had come out of the darkness of worry into the light of safety; and as in all the others, there was the inevitable reference to the black times that were over.

Slowly the dusk came down, the shadows deepened in the great trees outside. The Downs faded into a misty blur, and at length she turned from the window. In the flickering light of the fire she threw herself face downwards on her bed. For an hour she lay there motionless, while the shadows danced merrily around her, and darkness came down outside. Just every now and then a little pitiful moan came from her lips, muffled and inarticulate from the depths of the pillow; and once a great storm of sobs shook her—sobs which drenched the old scented linen with tears. But for the most part she lay in silence with her hands clenched and rigid, and thus did she pass along the way of Pain to her Calvary. . . .

At six o'clock she rose and bathed her face, and powdered her nose as all normal women must do before facing an unsympathetic world, even if the torments of Hell have got them on the rack. Then with firm steps she went downstairs to the drawing-room, and found it empty. Without faltering she crossed to the piano, and took from the top of a pile of music "The Garden of Kama." She turned to the seventh song of the cycle—

"Ah! when Love comes, his wings are swift, His ways are full of quick surprise; 'Tis well for those who have the gift To seize him even as he flies. . . ."

Her eyes ran over the well-known lines, and she sat down at the piano and sang it through. She sang it as she had never sung before; she sang it as she would never sing it again. For the last note had barely died away, throbbing into silence, when Joan took the score in her hands and tore it across. She tore the pages again, and then she carried the pieces across and threw them into the fire. It was while she was pressing down the remnants with a poker that Mrs. Sutton came into the room and glanced at her in mild surprise.

"It's an old song," said Joan with a clear, ringing laugh. "One I shall never sing again. I'm tired of it. . . ."

And the god in charge paused for a moment, and wondered if it was worth while. . . .



CHAPTER XVII

"My hat!" remarked the Adjutant as Vane reported his return to the depot. "Can this thing be true? Giving up leave. . . ."

Vane grinned, and seated himself on the edge of the table.

"'There are more things, Horatio,'" he quoted genially.

"For the love of Pete—not that hoary motto," groaned the other. "Want a job of work?"

"My hat!" laughed Vane. "Can this thing be true? Work at the depot?"

"Try my job," grunted Vallance. "Of all the bandy-legged crowd of C3 perishers I've ever seen, this crowd fills the bill. . . . Why one damn fellow who's helping in the cook-house—peeling potatoes—says it gives him pains in the stummick. . . . Work too hard. . . . And in civil life he was outside porter in a goods yard." He relapsed into gloomy silence.

"What about this job?" prompted Vane.

The Adjutant lit a cigarette. "I can easily send over a subaltern, if you like," he said; "but you might find it a good trip. It's a draft for the sixth battalion in Ireland; you'll have to cross and hand 'em over in Dublin."

Vane thought for a moment and then nodded.

"I'd like it," he said. "I rather want something to do at the moment. . . ."

"Right, old boy. Start to-morrow. Come round about ten, and I'll give you the papers."

Vane saluted and left the orderly room. The prospect of the trip pleased him; as he had said, at the moment he wanted something to do. Though it was only the day before that he had left her, the temptation to go back to Joan—or at any rate write to her—was growing in strength. Already he was cursing himself as a fool for having acted as he had; and yet he knew that he had done right. It had to be left for her to decide. . . .

And if. . . . Vane shrugged his shoulders at the thought.

Three days later he had safely shepherded his flock across the water, and handed it over to his relief. The trip had been uneventful, save for the extraordinary feat of two of the men who had managed to become incapably drunk on Government beer; and Vane having spent a night in Dublin, and inspected the scene of the Sackville Street fighting with a sort of amazed surprise, prepared to board the S.S. "Connaught" for the return crossing.

Was it not all written in the Book of the Words?

He might have stopped for a day's cubbing—but he did not; he might have crossed the preceding evening—but he had not. He merely went on board the "Connaught," and had an early lunch, which, in all conscience, was a very normal proceeding. There were a few soldiers on board, but for the most part the passengers consisted of civilians, with a heavy percentage of women and children. There were a few expensive-looking gentlemen in fur coats, who retired early to their cabins, and whom Vane decided must be Members of Parliament. The smoking-room was occupied by a party of six young Irishmen, all of them of military age, who announced freely for the benefit of anyone who cared to listen—and it was not easy to avoid doing so—that they were Sinn Feiners. For a while Vane studied them, more to distract his own thoughts than for any interest in their opinions. It struck him that they were the exact counterpart of the new clique of humanity which has sprung up recently on this side of the Irish Sea; advanced thinkers without thought—the products of a little education without the ballast of a brain. Wild, enthusiastic in their desire for change, they know not what they want as the result of the change. Destructive without being constructive, they bemuse themselves with long words, and scorn simplicity. No scheme is too wild or lunatic for them, provided they themselves are in the limelight. . . . And as for the others—qu'importe? . . . Self is their God; the ill-digested, half-understood schemes of great thinkers their food; talk their recreation. And they play overtime. . . .

He opened the smoking-room door and stepped out on to the deck. For a few moments he stood still watching the water slip by, and drawing in great mouthfuls of fresh air. He felt he wanted to purge himself of the rotten atmosphere he had just left. Then with slow, measured steps he began to pace up and down the deck. The majority of the passengers were sitting muffled up in deck chairs, but, unlike the Boulogne boat, there was plenty of room to walk; and Vane was of the particular brand who always think more easily when they move.

And he wanted to think of Joan. He had not thought of much else since he had left her—but the subject never tired. He could feel her now as she had lain in his arms; he could still smell the soft fragrance of her hair. The wind was singing through the rigging, and suddenly the wonder of her came over him in a great wave and he stared over the grey sea with shining eyes.

After a while he tapped out his pipe, and prepared to fill it again. It was as he stood, with his tobacco pouch open in his hand, that something in the sea attracted his attention. He grew rigid, and stared at it—and at the same moment a frantic ringing of the engine-room bell showed that the officer on the bridge had seen it too. Simultaneously everyone seemed to become aware that something was wrong—and for a brief second almost a panic occurred. The ship was swinging to port, but Vane realised that it was hopeless: the torpedo must get them. And the sea-gulls circling round the boat shrieked discordantly at him. . . . He took a grip of the rail, and braced himself to meet the shock. Involuntarily he closed his eyes—the devil . . . it was worse than a crump—you could hear that coming—and this. . . .

"Quick—get it over." He did not know he had spoken . . . and then it came. . . . There was a great rending explosion—curiously muffled, Vane thought, compared with a shell. But it seemed so infinitely more powerful and destructive; like the upheaval of some great monster, slow and almost dignified compared with the snapping fury of a smaller beast. It seemed as if the very bowels of the earth had shaken themselves and irrupted.

The ship staggered and shook like a stricken thing, and Vane opened his eyes. Already she was beginning to list a little, and he saw the gaping hole in her side, around which floated an indescribable litter of small objects and bits of wood. The torpedo had hit her forward, but with the headway she still had the vessel drifted on, and the litter of debris came directly underneath Vane. With a sudden narrowing of his eyes, he saw what was left of a girl turning slowly over and over in the still seething water.

Then he turned round and looked at the scene on deck. The crew were going about their job in perfect silence, and amongst the passengers a sort of stunned apathy prevailed. The thing had been so sudden, that most of them as yet hardly realised what had happened.

He saw one man—a funny little, pimply man with spectacles, of the type he would have expected to wring his hands and wail—take off his boots with the utmost composure, and place them neatly side by side on the deck.

Then a large, healthy individual in a fur coat came past him demanding to see the Captain, and protesting angrily when he was told to go to hell.

"It's preposterous, sir," he said to Vane; "absolutely preposterous. I insist on seeing the Captain. . .."

"Don't be more of a fool than you can help," answered Vane rudely. "It's not the Captain's 'At home' day. . . ."

And once again it struck him as it had so often struck him in France, what an impossible thing it is to guess beforehand how danger will affect different men. A woman beside him was crying quietly, and endeavouring to soothe a little boy who clung to her with wide-open, frightened eyes. . . .

"Do you think there's any danger, sir?" She turned to Vane and looked at him imploringly.

"I hope not," he answered reassuringly. "There should be enough boats to go round. . . . Ah! look—there is the swine."

Rolling a little, and just awash, the conning tower of the submarine showed up out of the sea about half a mile away, and suddenly Vane heard a voice beside him cursing it bitterly and childishly. He turned, to find one of the smoking-room patriots shaking his fist at it, while the weak tears of rage poured down his face. Afterwards, on thinking the experience over, Vane decided that that one spectacle had made it almost worth while. . . .

Two boats were pulling away from the ship, which had already begun to settle by the bows, and two more were in the process of being launched, when the Hun lived up to his rightful reputation. There are times when one is nauseated and sickened by the revolting cant of a repentant Germany; by the hypocritical humbug that, at heart, the German is a peace-loving, gentle being who has been led away by those above him. And as Vane watched grimly the path of the second, and so unnecessary torpedo, he felt an overmastering longing that some of the up-holders of the doctrine could be on board.

The "Connaught" was done for; that much was obvious to the veriest land-lubber. And the second torpedo could have but one purpose—the wanton destruction of so many more helpless women. Besides, it revolted his sense of sport; it was like blowing a sitting bird to pieces with a shot gun. . . .

He saw it strike amidships; he had a fleeting vision of a screaming, struggling boat load—of curses and shouts, and then he knew no more. There was a roaring in his ears, and he seemed to be travelling through great spaces. Lights danced and flashed before his brain, and suddenly he felt very cold. The noise had ceased, and everything was very still and silent. . . . The cold grew more intense, till it seemed to eat into him, and his head grew curiously light. Almost as if it was bursting with some unaccustomed pressure. Then, just as it seemed as if it was the end, and that his skull would literally fly to pieces, relief came with a great rush, and Vane found himself gasping and blowing on the surface of the water. Around him was a mass of debris, and instinctively he struck out for a deck chair that was floating close by. He reached it, and for a long time he clutched it, with only his head out of the water—content to draw great gulps of the air into his panting lungs. Then after a while he raised himself in the water and looked round.

About fifty yards away the "Connaught" was sinking rapidly, and Vane wondered feebly how he had got where he was. People were still struggling and scrambling over her slanting decks, and he watched a man slashing with a knife at the falls of a partially filled boat.

He heard a voice cursing the man for a fool, and wondered who it was who spoke. Then the boat crashed downwards stern first, shooting its load into the water, and the same voice croaked, "I told you so, you bloody fool. I told you so." It was then he realised that the voice was his own. . . .

Vane closed his eyes, and tried to think. Presumably the wireless messenger had sent out an S.O.S.; presumably, in time, someone would arrive on the scene. Until that happened he must concentrate on saving himself. His head was still swimming from the force of the explosion, and for a long while he lay supporting himself mechanically on the half-submerged chair. Then he felt that he was moving, and opening his eyes he realised that the ship had disappeared. Very soon the suction stopped, and he found himself alone on the grey, sullen water. In the distance, bobbing up and down on the short swell, he could see half a dozen boats; but close at hand there was nothing save the flotsam and wreckage from the ship. The submarine, as far as he could tell, had disappeared; at any rate, he was too low in the water to see her. After a while the ship's boats, too, pulled out of sight, and for the first time Vane began to feel afraid. What if the S.O.S. was not answered? What if only the boats were picked up, and he was never found? . . .

An overwhelming panic seized him and he commenced to shout—a puny little noise lost in the vastness around him, and drowned by the shrieking of a countless swarm of gulls, that fought over the prize that had come to them. Then with a great effort he pulled himself together. He must keep his head and save his strength—he must. . . . Any boat coming up would be attracted to the scene of the disaster by the gulls, he repeated to himself over and over again—and then they would see him.

He took a fresh grip of the chair and swam a few strokes to keep warm. That was the next point that came into his mind—how long could he last before, numbed with the cold, his grip on the chair would relax and he would only have his life-belt to rely on? He must not get cold, he must swim steadily and quietly to keep up his circulation—always keeping near the gulls. He argued it out carefully in his mind, unconsciously talking aloud, and when he had decided what he was going to do he nodded his head in complete agreement. And then he laughed—a strange, croaking laugh and apostrophised a gull which was circling above his head. "How damn funny, old bird," he said still chuckling; "how damn funny. . . ." The humour of the situation had struck him suddenly. After the long years in France to be drowned like a bally hen inside a coop! . . .

Undoubtedly a man clinging to a deck chair did look rather like a hen in a coop—a bedraggled hen, most certainly, very bedraggled. Not at all the sort of hen that should be dished up at the Carlton or the Savoy for dinner. A cheap and nasty hen, Vane decided. . . .

A splash of water hit him in the mouth and made him splutter and cough. "Pull yourself together, man," he cried fiercely; "for God's sake, pull yourself together!" He realised that his mind had been wandering; he realised that that way lay Death. He started to swim steadily, keeping near the main mass of wreckage, and pushing the chair in front of him. Several times they bumped into things, and once Vane found himself looking through the bars of the back of the chair at something which rolled and sogged in the water. And then it half turned, and he saw it was a woman. Some of her hair, sodden and matted, came through the openings of his chair, and he watched the floating tendrils uncomprehendingly for a while. Dead . . . of course, she was dead . . . with the water splashing ceaselessly over her face. . . . At peace; she had chucked her hand in—given up the useless struggle.

What chance was there anyway of a boat coming in time? What a fool he was to go on, when he felt so tired and so cold? . . . That woman did not mind—the one lying there in the water so close to him. She was perfectly happy . . . while he was numb and exhausted. Why not just lie on the water and go to sleep? . . . He would keep the woman company, and he would be happy just like her, instead of having to force his frozen hands to hold that cursed slippery wood. . . .

And Joan would be happy, because she would have saved Blandford; and Baxter, damn him, he would be happy; and the whole blessed outfit would be happy as well as him when he had just dropped on to sleep. . . .

He would never have done as a husband for Margaret; the idea was ridiculous. Imagine sitting down and writing a book, while she took the pennies at the door—or did he have to take the pennies? Anyway, this settled the matter, and saved him the trouble of explanation. He loathed explanations; all he wanted was peace and quiet and rest. . . .

What a farce it all was; man thinking he could struggle against science. Science ruled the universe—aeroplanes, gas, torpedoes. And it served men right for inventing them; they should have been more careful. The smile on the dead German airman's face, as he lay on the ground near Poperinghe, floated before him, and he nodded his head portentously.

"You're right, old bean," he croaked. "The man I want to meet is the fool who doesn't think it's funny . . . ."

And then Vane crossed the Valley of the Shadow, as far as a man may cross and yet return. Strange figures crowded around him hemming him in on every side. The Boche whose brains he had blown out near Arras was there with his shattered skull, holding out a hand of greeting—and Baxter, grinning sardonically. Margaret—with a wealth of pity and love shining on her face, and Joan with her grey eyes faintly mocking . . . . And his tailor with the wart on his nose, and Mrs. Green, and Binks. . . . They were all there, and then gradually they faded into the great darkness. . . . Everything was growing still, and peaceful—the rest he wanted had come.

Then suddenly they came back again—the Boche and Baxter and the rest of them—and started pulling him about. He cursed and swore at them, but they paid no heed; and soon the agony he was suffering became almost unbearable. In God's name, why could not they leave him alone? . . . He raved at them, and sobbed, but it was of no avail. They went on inexorably and the creaking of the oars in the rowlocks of the boat that had picked him up seemed to him to be the creaking of his arms and legs. . . .



CHAPTER XVIII

When Vane opened his eyes on reality again, he found himself in a strange room. For a few moments he lay very still, groping back into a half-world of grey shadows. He remembered the first torpedo, and then the second one; but after that things seemed confused. A man opened the door, and came over to his bed.

"Feeling better?" he remarked with a smile.

"As far as I can make out at the moment," said Vane, "I'm feeling perfectly well. Where am I, and what happened? . . ."

"You're in a private hospital not far from Liverpool," answered the man. "You were very nearly drowned in the 'Connaught,' and you've had a nasty knock on the head as well. . . . Feel at all muzzy now?"

"Not a bit," said Vane, raising himself on his elbow. "I hope they caught the swine."

"There was a rumour three or four days ago that they had."

Vane stared at the speaker. "What did you say?" he remarked at length.

"There was a rumour three or four days ago that the submarine was sunk," repeated the other.

"May I ask how long I've been here?"

"Ten days," answered the doctor. "But I wired to your depot that you were safe, so you needn't worry."

"With regard to the depot," remarked Vane grimly, "you may take it from me that I don't. . . . Ten days . . . twelve—fourteen." He was counting on his fingers. "Oh! Hell. . . ."

"They forwarded some letters for you," said the doctor. "I'll get them for you. . . ."

"Thanks," said Vane. "When is the next train to London?"

"In about four days' time as far as you're concerned," laughed the other.

He went out of the room, and Vane lay very still. Fourteen days. . . . Fourteen days. . . .

The doctor returned and handed him about a dozen letters.

"They've been coming at intervals," he remarked. "I'm going to send you up a cup of bovril in a minute. . . ."

Vane turned them over rapidly in his hand, and found that there were only two that counted. He looked at the postmarks to get them in the right sequence, and eagerly pulled out the contents of the first. It had been written four days after he left Melton.

"Dear lad, I'm leaving here to-morrow, and am going back to Blandford; but before I go I want to tell you something. A man is not a very good judge of a woman's actions at any time; he's so apt to see them through his own eyes. He reasons, and becomes logical, . . . and perhaps he's right. But a woman doesn't want reasons or logic—not if she's in love. She wants to be whirled up breathlessly and carried away, and made to do things; and it doesn't matter whether they're right or wrong—not if she's in love. Maybe you were right, Derek, to go away; but oh! my dear, I would to God you hadn't."

A nurse came in with a cup of bovril, and put it on the table by his bed, and Vane turned to her abruptly.

"Where are my clothes, Nurse?"

"You'll not be wanting clothes yet awhile," she answered with a smile. "I'm coming back shortly to tidy you up," and Vane cursed under his breath as she left the room.

Then he picked up the second letter and opened it. At first he thought it was a blank sheet of paper, and then he saw that there were a few words in the centre of the page. For a moment they danced before his eyes; then he pulled himself together and read them.

"''Tis well for those who have the gift To seize him even as he flies. . . .'

"Oh! you fool—you fool! Why didn't you?"

That was all, and for a long while he lay and stared at the bare wall opposite.

"Why didn't you?" The words mocked him, dancing in great red letters on the pale green distemper, and he shook his feet at them childishly.

"It's not fair," he raved. "It's simply not fair."

And the god in charge took a glance into the room, though to the man in bed it was merely a ray from a watery sun with the little specks of dust dancing and floating in it.

"Of no more account than a bit of dirt," he muttered cynically. "It wasn't my fault. . . . I never asked to be torpedoed. I only did what I thought was right." He buried his head in his hands with a groan.

The nurse came once more into the room, and eyed him reproachfully. "The bovril is quite cold," she said picking it up. "That's very naughty of you. . . ."

He looked at her and started to laugh. "I'm a very naughty man, Nurse. But for all that you've got to do something for me. No—take away that awful basin and sponge. . . . I don't mind if I am dirty. . . . You've got to go and bring the doctor here, and you've got to get my clothes. And between us, Nurse, we'll cheat 'em yet."

"Cheat whom?" she asked soothingly.

"The blind, malignant imps that control us wretched humans," he answered. "For Heaven's sake! my dear woman, do what I say. I'm not light-headed, believe me."

And the nurse being a stoical and unimaginative lady, it was just as well that, at that moment, the doctor entered the room. For had she murmured in her best bedside manner. . . . "That's quite all right. Just a nice wash, and then we'll go to sleep," there is but little doubt that a cup of cold bovril would have deluged her ample form. As it was the catastrophe was averted, and Vane turned to the doctor with a sigh of relief.

"May I have a word with you alone, Doctor?" he said. "And, Nurse, would you get my clothes for me?"

"Doctor," he went on as the door closed behind her. "I've got to go—at once."

"My dear fellow," began the other, but Vane silenced him with a wave of his hand.

"I may have had concussion; I may have been nearly drowned. I may be the fool emperor for wanting to get up," he continued quietly. "But it's got to be done. You see, I'm having a bit of a tussle with . . ." he paused for a moment as if at a loss for a word, and then added whimsically, "with the Powers that run things. And," savagely, "I'll be damned if they're going to have a walk over. . . ."

The doctor eyed him gravely for a few moments without replying.

"You oughtn't to get up yet," he said at length.

"But you'll let me," cried Vane.

"There's a good train in two hours," replied the other briefly. "And the result be upon your own head. . . ."

Vane opened the remainder of his letters on the way up to London. He felt a little dazed and weak, though otherwise perfectly fit, and when he had glanced through them, he stared out of the window at the landscape flashing past. They were passing through the Black Country, and it seemed to him to be in keeping with his thoughts—dour, relentless, grim. The smouldering blast-furnaces, the tall, blackened chimneys, the miles of dingy, squalid houses, all mocked the efforts of their makers to escape.

"You fashioned us," they jeered; "out of your brains we were born, and now you shall serve us evermore. . . . You cannot—you shall not escape. . . ."

To Vane it was all the voice of Fate. "You cannot—you shall not escape. What is to be—is to be; and your puny efforts will not alter a single letter in the book. . . ."

And yet of his own free will he had left Joan; he had brought it on himself.

"What if I had done as she wished?" he demanded aloud. "What would you have done then, you swine?"

But there is no answer in this world to the Might-have-been; only silence and imagination, which, at times, is very merciless.

He stepped out of the train at Euston and drove straight to his rooms. For the first time in his life he took no notice of Binks, and that worthy, knowing that something was wrong, just sat in his basket and waited. Perhaps later he'd be able to help somehow. . . .

"The young lady who came to tea was round here four or five days ago, Mr. Vane," said Mrs. Green, when she had set a match to the fire.

Vane sat very still. "And what did she want, Mrs. Green?"

"To see you, sir. She said that she had rung up the depot, and the man who answered said you were on leave. . . ."

"He would," said Vane, grimly.

"So she came here," Mrs. Green paused, and watched him with a motherly eye; then she busied herself needlessly over the fire. "I found her with Binks in her arms—and she seemed just miserable. 'Oh! can't you tell me where he is, Mrs. Green?' she said. 'I can't, my dear,' said I, 'for I don't know myself . . . .' And then she picked up a piece of paper and wrote a few words on it, and sealed it up, and addressed it to you at Murchester. . . ."

"Ah!" said Vane quietly. "She wrote it here, did she?" He laughed a short, bitter laugh. "She was right, Mrs. Green. I had the game in my hands, and I chucked it away." He rose and stared grimly at the houses opposite. "Did she say by any chance where she was staying?"

"Ashley Gardens, she said; and if you came in, I was to let you know."

"Thank you, Mrs. Green." He turned round at length, and took up the telephone book. "You might let me have some tea. . . ."

The worthy woman bustled out of the room, shaking her head. Like Binks, she knew that something was very wrong; but the consolation of sitting in a basket and waiting for the clouds to roll by was denied her. For the Humans have to plot and contrive and worry, whatever happens. . . .

"Is that Lady Auldfearn's?" Vane took the telephone off the table. "Oh! Lady Auldfearn speaking? I'm Captain Vane. . . . Is Miss Devereux stopping with you? Just left yesterday, you say. . . . Yes—I rather wanted to see her. Going to be where? At the Mainwarings' dance to-night. Thank you. But you don't know where she is at present. . . ."

He hung up the receiver, and sat back in his chair, with a frown. Then suddenly a thought struck him, and he pulled the letters he had received that morning out of his pocket. He extracted one in Nancy Smallwood's sprawling handwriting, and glanced through it again to make sure.

"Dine 8 o'clock—and go on to Mainwarings' dance afterwards. . . . Do come, if you can. . . ."

Vane, placing it on the table in front of him, bowed to it profoundly. "We might," he remarked to Binks, "almost have it framed."

And Binks' quivering tail assented, with a series of thumps against his basket.

"I hope you won't find your dinner partner too dreadful." Nancy Smallwood was shooting little bird-like glances round the room as she greeted Vane that evening. "She has a mission . . . or two. Keeps soldiers from drinking too much and getting into bad hands. Personally, anything—anything would be better than getting into hers."

"I seem," murmured Vane, "to have fallen on my feet. She isn't that gargantuan woman in purple, is she?"

"My dear boy! That's George's mother. You know my husband. No, there she is—the wizened up one in black. . . . And she's going on to the Mainwarings' too—so you'll have to dance with her."

At any other time Vane might have extracted some humour from his neighbour, but to-night, in the mood he was, she seemed typical of all that was utterly futile. She jarred his nerves till it was all he could do to reply politely to her ceaseless "We are doing this, and we decided that." To her the war had given an opportunity for self-expression which she had hitherto been denied. Dreadful as she undoubtedly thought it with one side of her nature, with another it made her almost happy. It had enabled her to force herself into the scheme of things; from being a nonentity, she had made herself a person with a mission. . . .

True, the doings and the decisions on which she harped continually were for the benefit of the men he had led. But to this woman it was not the men that counted most. They had to fit into the decisions; not the decisions into them. . . .

They were inexorable, even as the laws of the Medes and Persians. And who was this wretched woman, to lay down the law? What did she know; what did she understand?

"And so we decided that we must really stop it. People were beginning to complain; and we had one or two—er—regrettable scandals."

With a start Vane woke up from his reverie and realised he had no idea what she was talking about.

"Indeed," he murmured. "Have a salted almond?"

"Don't you think we were right, Captain Vane?" she pursued inexorably. "The men are exposed to so many temptations that the least we can do is to remove those we can."

"But are they exposed to any more now than they were before?" he remarked wearily. "Why not let 'em alone, dear lady, let 'em alone? They deserve it."

At length the ladies rose, and with a sigh of relief Vane sat down next a lawyer whom he knew well.

"You're looking pretty rotten, Derek," he said, looking at Vane critically.

"I've been dining next a woman with a mission," he answered. "And I was nearly drowned in the 'Connaught.'"

The lawyer looked at him keenly. "And the two combined have finished you off."

"Oh! no. I'm reserving my final effort for the third. I'll get that at the Mainwarings'." He lifted his glass and let the ruby light glint through his port. "Why do we struggle, Jimmy? Why, in Heaven's name, does anybody ever do anything but drift? Look at that damned foolishness over the water. . . . The most titanic struggle of the world. And look at the result. . . . Anarchy, rebellion, strife. What's the use; tell me that, my friend, what's the use? And the little struggles—the personal human struggles—are just as futile. . . ."

The lawyer thoughtfully lit a cigarette. "It's not only you fellows out there, Derek," he said, "who are feeling that way. We're all of us on the jump, and we're all of us bottling it up. The result is a trial such as we had the other day, with witnesses and judge screaming at each other, and dignity trampled in the mud. Every soul in England read the case—generally twice—before anything else. You could see 'em all in the train—coming up to business—with the sheet on which it was reported carefully taken out of its proper place and put in the centre of the paper so that they could pretend they were reading the war news."

Vane laughed. "We were better than that. We took it, naked and unashamed, in order of seniority. And no one was allowed to read any tit-bit out loud for fear of spoiling it for the next man."

Jimmy Charters laughed shortly. "We're just nervy, and sensationalism helps. It takes one out of one's self for a moment; one forgets."

"And the result is mud flung at someone, some class. No matter whether it's true; no matter whether it's advisable—it's mud. And it sticks alike to the just and the unjust; while the world looks on and sneers; and over the water, the men look on and—die."

George Smallwood was pushing back his chair. "Come on, you fellows. The Cuthberts will advance from their funk-holes." . . . He led the way towards the door, and Vane rose.

"Don't pay any attention to what I've been saying, Jimmy." The lawyer was strolling beside him. "It's liver; I'll take a dose of salts in the morning."

Jimmy Charters looked at him in silence for a moment.

"I don't know what the particular worry is at the moment, old man," he said at length, "but don't let go. I'm no sky pilot, but I guess that somewhere up topsides there's a Big Controller Who understands. . . . Only at times the pattern is a bit hard to follow. . . ."

Vane laughed hardly. "It's likely to be when the fret-saw slips."

Vane strolled into the ballroom and glanced round, but there was no sign of Joan; and then he saw that there was another, smaller, room leading off the principal one where dancing seemed to be in progress also. He walked towards it, and as he came to the door he stopped abruptly and his eyes narrowed. In the middle of it Joan was giving an exhibition dance, supported by a youth in the Flying Corps.

The audience seated round the sides of the room was applauding vociferously, and urging the dancers on to greater efforts. And then suddenly Joan broke away from her partner and danced alone, while Vane leaned against the door with his jaw set in a straight, hard line. Once his eyes travelled round the faces of the men who were looking on, and his fists clenched at his sides. There was one elderly man in particular, with protruding eyes, who roused in him a perfect fury of rage. . . .

It was a wild, daring exhibition—a mass of swirling draperies and grey silk stockings. More, it was a wonderful exhibition. She was dancing with a reckless abandon which gradually turned to sheer devilry, and she began to circle the room close to the guests who lined the walls. There were two men in front of Vane, and as she came near the door he pushed forward a little so that he came in full view. For the moment he thought she was going to pass without seeing him, and then their eyes met. She paused and faltered, and then swinging round sank gracefully to the floor in the approved style of curtsey to show she had finished.

The spectators clamoured wildly for an encore, but she rose and came straight up to Vane.

"Where have you been?" she said.

"Unconscious in hospital for ten days," he answered grimly. "I went down in the 'Connaught.' . . . May I congratulate you on your delightful performance?"

For a second or two he thought she was going to faint, and instinctively he put out his arm to hold her. Then the colour came back to her face again, and she put her arm through his.

"I want something to eat. Take me, please. . . . No, no, my dear people, no more," as a throng of guests came round her. "I require food."

Her hand on his arm pushed Vane forward and obediently he led her across the ballroom.

"If there's any champagne get me a glass," she said, sitting down at a table. "And a sandwich. . . ."

Obediently Vane fetched what she desired; then he sat down opposite her.

"The fortnight is up," he said quietly. "I have come for my answer."

"Did you get my letters?" she asked slowly.

"Both. When I came to this morning. And I wasn't going to be called a fool for nothing, my lady—so I got up and came to look for you. What of the excellent Baxter? Is the date for your wedding fixed?"

She looked at him in silence for a moment, and then she began to laugh. "The ceremony in church takes place on his return from France in a week's time."

"Oh! no, it doesn't," said Vane grimly. "However, we will let that pass. May I ask if your entertainment to-night was indicative of the joy you feel at the prospect?"

She started to laugh again, and there was an ugly sound in it. A woman at the next table was looking at her curiously.

"Stop that, Joan," he said in a low, insistent voice. "For God's sake, pull yourself together. . . ."

She stopped at once, and only the ceaseless twisting of her handkerchief between her fingers betrayed her.

"I suppose it wouldn't do to go into a fit of high strikes," she said in a voice she strove vainly to keep steady. "The Mainwarings might think it was their champagne—or the early symptoms of 'flu—or unrequited love. . . . And they are so very respectable aren't they?—the Mainwarings, I mean?"

Vane looked at her gravely. "Don't speak for a bit. I'll get you another glass of champagne. . . ."

But Joan rose. "I don't want it," she said. "Take me somewhere where we can talk." She laid the tips of her fingers on his arm. "Talk, my friend, for the last time. . . ."

"I'm damned if it is," he muttered between his clenched teeth.

She made no answer; and in silence he found two chairs in a secluded corner behind a screen.

"So you went down in the 'Connaught,' did you?" Her voice was quite calm.

"I did. Hence my silence."

"And would you have answered my first letter, had you received it?"

Vane thought for a moment before answering. "Perhaps," he said at length. "I wanted you to decide. . . . But," grimly, "I'd have answered the second before now if I'd had it. . . ."

"I wrote that in your rooms after I'd come up from Blandford," she remarked, with her eyes still fixed on him.

"So I gathered from Mrs. Green. . . . My dear, surely you must have known something had happened." He took one of her hands in his, and it lay there lifeless and inert.

"I thought you were being quixotic," she said. "Trying to do the right thing—And I was tired . . . my God! but I was tired." She swayed towards him, and in her eyes there was despair. "Why did you let me go, my man—why did you let me go?"

"But I haven't, my lady," he answered in a wondering voice. "To-morrow. . . ." She put her hand over his mouth with a little half-stifled groan. "Just take me in your arms and kiss me," she whispered.

And it seemed to Vane that his whole soul went out of him as he felt her lips on his.

Then she leaned back in her chair and looked at him gravely. "I wonder if you'll understand. I wonder still more if you'll forgive. Since you wouldn't settle things for me I had to settle them for myself. . . ."

Vane felt himself growing rigid.

"I settled them for myself," she continued steadily, "or rather they settled me for themselves. I tried to make you see I was afraid, you know . . . and you wouldn't."

"What are you driving at?" he said hoarsely.

"I am marrying Henry Baxter in church in about a week; I married him in a registry office the day he left for France."



EPILOGUE

A grey mist was blowing up the valley from Cromarty Firth. It hid the low hills that flanked the little branch railway line, slowly and imperceptibly drifting and eddying through the brown trees on their slopes. Down in London a world had gone mad—but the mist took no heed of such foolishness. Lines of men and women, linked arm-in-arm, were promenading Piccadilly to celebrate the End of the Madness; shrieking parties were driving to Wimbledon, or Limehouse, or up and down Bond Street in overweighted taxis, but the mist rolled on silently and inexorably. It took account of none of these things.

Since the beginning a mist such as this one had drifted up the valley from the open sea; until the end it would continue. . . . It was part of the Laws of Nature, and the man who watched it coming turned with a little shudder.

In front of him, the moors stretched brown and rugged till they lost themselves in the snow-capped hills. Here and there the bogland showed a darker tint, and at his feet, cupped out in the smooth greystone, lay a sheet of water. It was dark and evil-looking, and every now and then a puff of wind eddied down from the hills and ruffled the smooth surface.

The colours of the moors were sombre and dark; and below the snows far away in the heart of Ross-shire it seemed to the man who watched with brooding eyes that it was as the blackness of night. A deserted dead world, with a cold grey shroud, to hide its nakedness.

He shivered again, and wiped the moisture from his face, while a terrier beside him crept nearer for comfort.

And then came the change. Swiftly, triumphantly, the sun caught the mist and rolled it away. One by one the rugged lines of hills came into being again—one by one they shouted, "We are free, behold us. . . ."

The first was a delicate brown, and just behind it a little peak of violet loomed up. Away still further the browns grew darker, more rich—the violets became a wondrous purple. And the black underneath the snows seemed to be of the richest velvet.

The pond at the man's feet glinted a turquoise blue; the bogland shone silver in the sunlight. And then, to crown it all, the smooth snow slopes in the distance glowed pink and orange, where before they had been white and cold.

For Life had come to a Land of Death.

Gradually the brooding look on the man's face faded, a gleam of whimsical humour shone in his eyes. He took an old briar out of his pocket and commenced to fill it; and soon the blue smoke was curling lazily upwards into the still air. But he still stood motionless, staring over the moors, his hands deep in the pockets of the old shooting coat he wore.

Suddenly he threw back his head and laughed; then almost unconsciously he stretched out his arms to the setting sun.

"Thank you," he cried, and with a swift whirring of wings two grouse rose near by and shot like brown streaks over the silver tarn. "Sooner or later the mist always goes. . . ."

He tapped out the ashes of his pipe, and put it back in his pocket. And as he straightened himself up, of a sudden it seemed to the man that the mountains and the moors, the tarn and the bogland approved of the change in him, and, finding him worthy, told him their message.

"The Sun will always triumph," they cried in a mighty chorus. "Sooner or later the mist will always go."

For a space the man stood there, while the sun, sinking lower and lower, bathed the world in glory. Then, he whistled. . . .

"Your last walk on the moors, Binks, old man, so come on. To-morrow we go back."

And with a terrier scurrying madly through the heather around him, the man strode forward.

THE END