Her mother's sisters had written after the funeral inviting her to come to them in England "while she looked about her." She could recall every sentence of that letter. It had burned. Each word, each comma was fresh before her eyes as the cab jolted on to Palace Gardens.

"It would have been our pleasure constantly to have entertained you during your mother's life-time," they had written, "but she wilfully flouted our desires at her marriage and thereafter utterly ignored us. The fault for the rift between us was of her making, not ours; we sent her an Easter card one year, and had no reply; though we have no doubt that your father, not that we would say a word against him now, influenced her against her better judgment. However...."

She had written back a hysterical letter.

"Your letter came just after I had returned from burying my dear, dear father, who worshipped my darling mother. If I were begging in the street, starving, dying, I would not touch a crumb or a penny of yours. You are wicked—yes, you are wicked to write to me as you have written...."



VI.

She could not stay in Ireland. Her only friends there lived about the dear home that was now no longer a home but a "desirable residence with some acres of garden and paddock." Her only friends there were friends who had been shared with Mother and Dad—whose presence now would be constant reminder of that happy participation now lost. One and all offered her hospitality, but she must refuse. "No, no silly idea of being a burden to you, dear, dear Mrs. Sullivan—only I can't, can't live anywhere near where we used to live."

Years before a great friend of hers had married an English clergyman; had written often to her from London of the numerous activities in which she was engaged—principal among them a kind of agency and home for gentlewomen. "Governesses, dear, and all that kind of thing ... poor girls, many of them, who have suddenly had to earn a living."

The correspondence had died, as do so many, from the effects of undue urgency at the outset; but she had the address, and was certain there of welcome and of aid. "Poor girls who have suddenly had to earn a living." The words took on a new meaning: she was of these.

From Euston she drove to the address. Her friend had gone. Yes, the present occupant remembered the name. The present occupant had been there two years; had taken over the lease from the former tenant because the lady was ill and had been ordered abroad. That was all the present occupant knew; saw her to the door; closed it behind her.

Alone in London. "Alone in London"—it had been one of Dad's jokes; he had written a burlesque on it, and they had played it one Christmas to roars of fun. O God! what a thing at which to laugh now that the realisation struck and one stood on the pavement in the dark with this great city roaring at one!

Cabmen, she had heard, were brutes; but the man who had brought her to the house must be appealed to.... Where could she get the cheapest lodging of some kind?

How did he know? What was she wanting to pay? ...

The great city roared at her. Her head swum a little. An idler or two took up a grinning stand: the thing looked like a cab-fare dispute.... What was she wanting to pay? ... Well, as little as possible. "I have never been in London before, and I don't know anybody. My friend here has gone. I have just arrived from Ireland." She began to cry.

He from his box in a moment. "From Ireland!"

Why, he was from Ireland! ... Not likely she was from Connemara? ... She was? ... From Kinsloe? ... Why, he knew it well; he was from Ballydag!

He rolled his tongue around other names of the district; she knew them all; could almost have laughed at the silly fellow's delight.

Why, the honour it would be if she would come and let his missus make her up a bed! "Don't ye cry, missie. Don't ye take on like that. It's all right ye are now." He put a huge, roughly great-coated arm about her—squeezed her, she believed; helped her into the cab.



VII.

Missus in the clean little rooms over the rattling mews was no less delighted. From Kinsloe? Why, missie saw that canary?—that was a present from Betty Murphy in Kinsloe, not three months before!

The canary, aroused by the attention paid it, trilled upward in a mounting ecstasy of shrillness that went up and up and up through her head ... louder and louder ... shriller and yet more shrill ... bird and cage became misty, swum around her.... Missus and Tim must have carried her to the bed in which she awoke.



VIII.

Friends in Ireland had given her the addresses of friends in London on whom she must call. She visited some houses; then in a sudden wild despair tore the list. Either these people were dense of comprehension or she clumsy of explanation. To make them realise her position she found impossible. They were warmly kind, sympathetic—cheery in that lugubrious fashion in which we are taught to be "bright" with the afflicted. But when she spoke of the necessity to find employment they would warmly cry, "Oh, but you must not think of that yet, Miss Humfray ... after all you have been through.... You must keep quiet for a little."

One and all gave her the same words. An impulse took her to kick over the tea-table—anything to arouse these people from their stereotyped mood of sympathy with a girl suddenly bereaved,—and to cry, "But don't you understand? I am living over a mews—over a mews with twelve pounds and a few shillings, and then nothing—nothing at all."

Wise, perhaps, had she indulged the outburst without the action; wiser had she written to some of the friends in Ireland, asked to go back to one of them for a while. But the dull grief beneath which she still lay benumbed prevented her from other course than tonelessly accepting the proffered sympathy; and the thought of returning to Ireland was impossible. She tore the list of London friends; appealed to Tim and Missus.

Tim was helpful. He had taken fares to an Agency in Norfolk Street—an Agency for "Disturbed Gentlewomen," he called it; there took her one morning.

"Distressed Gentlewomen," she found the brass plate to read—"The Norfolk Street Agency for Distressed Gentlewomen."

A lymphatic-looking young woman, assisting the growth of a singularly stout face by sucking a sweet, and wearing brown holland sleeve protectors hooked up with enormous safety-pins, received her in the room marked "Enquiries"; put her into that labelled "Waiting." Here were two copies of the Christian Herald, some emigration pamphlets, a carafe of water covered by an inverted tumbler dusty with disuse, and three elderly females—presumably gentlewomen, possibly distressed, but not advertising either condition.

In due time her turn for the room marked "Private"; interrogation by Miss Ram, a short, thin lady in black, who bowed more frequently than she spoke, possessing a range of inclinations of the head each of which had unmistakable meaning.

Position sought?—Oh, anything; governess, companion. Last situation? —None; she was inexperienced. Capabilities?—Equally lacking, as discovered by a probing cross-examination. Salary required?—Oh, anything; whatever was usual; a home—that was the chief object in view.

Miss Ram entered the details in a severe-looking book with a long thin pen—could hold out but faint hopes. The applicants whom she was accustomed to suit were "in nine and ninety cases out of one hundred cases" accomplished in the domestic or scholastic arts. However. Yes, Miss Humfray should call every morning. Better still, stay in the waiting-room. Be On the Spot—that was the first requisite for success, as Miss Humfray would find whether in a situation or awaiting a situation; be On the Spot.



IX.

On the Spot. A nightmare week in the dingy waiting-room ... thoughts probing the mind, stabbing the heart.... Nine till one, a cup of tea and a roll at an A.B.C. shop, an aimless walk in the park; two till six, good-night to the stout young woman named Miss Porter in "Enquiries," home to the rattling mews and to Missus.

On the Spot. Occasional interviews. "Miss Humfray, a lady will see you." ... "Oh, too young—far too young." ... "Thank you, that will do, Miss Humfray." ... "Oh, not my style at all." ... "Thank you, that will do, Miss Humfray."

On the Spot. Fortunately On the Spot one day—a Mrs. Eyton-Eyton, as nursery governess, Streatham.

For a week very much On the Spot with Mrs. Eyton-Eyton. Nursery governess was a comprehensive word in the Eyton-Eyton vocabulary; covered every duty that in a nursery must be performed. One must do the nursery fire, sweep the nursery floor, bring up and carry down the nursery meals—servants, you see, object to waiting upon one whom, as Mrs. Eyton-Eyton with a careless laugh pointed out, they regard as one of themselves. Quickly the lesson was appreciated that while a servant must never be "put upon," the same consideration need not be extended to a lady. Servants are rare in the market, young ladies cheap.



X.

The lesson of dependence, subserviency, Mary found harder in the learning; did not study it; therein reaped disaster.

She arrived on a Tuesday. Upon that day of the following week Mrs. Eyton-Eyton paid to the nursery one of her rare visits, beautifully gowned, the hired victoria waiting to take her a round of calls.

Lunch, delayed not to disturb the midday sleep of Masters Thomas and Richard Eyton-Eyton, was not cleared—Master Thomas still struggling with a plate of sago pudding.

Betwixt her children Mrs. Eyton-Eyton—beautifully gowned, hired victoria in waiting—took her seat; Mary hovered behind—and catastrophe swooped. Master Thomas grabbed for a glass of milk; Mary strove to restrain him. There was an awkward struggle, her elbow—or his—caught the plate of pudding, tipped the sticky mass into the silken lap of Mrs. Eyton-Eyton, beautifully gowned, hired victoria in waiting.

Infuriated, Mrs. Eyton-Eyton turned upon Mary. "Oh, you little fool!"

The rebuke that should have been taken with downcast eyes, murmured apologies, was otherwise received.

"Mrs. Eyton! How dare you call me a fool!"

Pause of blank amazement; sago-messed table-napkin in the scented hand; sago creeping down the silken skirt. That a nursery governess— not even a servant—should so presume!

"Miss Humfray! You forget yourself!"

"No!-No! It is you who forget yourself. How dare you speak to me like that!"

Another moment of utter bewilderment; small Eyton-Eytons gazing round- eyed; the girl white, heaving; the woman dully red. Then "Pack your boxes, Miss!"



XI.

She was upon the platform at Victoria Station, a porter asking commands for her box, before she realised what she had done. A few pounds in her purse, and infinitely worse off now than a week before. Then she had no "character"; now employment was to be sought with Mrs. Eyton-Eyton as her "last place." She would not go back to Missus and Tim. Though they had tried to conceal it, secretly, she had seen, they were relieved when she left. They had not accommodation for her; latterly she had dispossessed of his bed a sailor son on leave from his ship.

She left her box in the cloak-room; turned down Wilton Road from the station; penetrated the narrow thoroughfares between Lupus Street and the river; secured a bedroom with Mrs. Japes at six shillings a week.

Miss Ram at the Agency would have no more to do with her; had received a furious letter from Mrs. Eyton-Eyton; showed in the ledger a cruel line of red ink ruled through the page that began "Name: Mary Humfray," and ended "Salary:—"

"But I don't know a soul in London."

"You had a very comfortable place. You threw it away. I have a reputation for reliable employees which I cannot afford to risk."

A bow closed the interview.



XII.

It was her landlady's husband, an unshaven, shifty-looking horror, who dealt her, as it seemed to her then, the last furious blow.

Returning one evening after an aimless search for employment in shops that had earned her rude laughter for her utter inexperience and her presumption in supposing her services could be of any value, she found Mrs. Japes in convulsive tears, speechless.

What was the matter? Hysterical jerks of the head towards the stairs. Up to her room—the cause clear in her rifled box, its contents scattered across the floor, the little case in which with her pictures of Mother and Dad she kept her money gone.

A little raid by Mr. Japes, it appeared, in which Mrs. Japes's property had also suffered.... He had done it before ... a bad lot ... had done time ... the rent overdue and the brokers coming in ... she'd best go ... of course she could tell the police.

Of course she did not tell the police. The whole affair bewildered and frightened her.

To another lodging three streets away.... Initiation by the new landlady into the mysteries of pawnshops; gradual thinning of wardrobe.... Answering of advertisements found in the public library in Great Smith Street.... Long, feet-aching trudges to save omnibus fares.... Always the same outcome. ... Experience?—None. References? —None.... "Thank you; I'm afraid—I'm sure it's all right, but one has to be so careful nowadays. Good morning." ... Always the same outcome.... The idea of writing to Ireland was hardly conceived. ... That life, those friends, seemed of a period that was dead, done, gone—ages and ages ago....



XIII.

Again it was a man who dealt the deeper blow—a gentlemanly-looking person of whom in Wilton Road one evening she asked the way to an address copied from the Daily Telegraph. Why, by an extraordinary coincidence he was going that way himself, to that very house!—flat, rather. Yes, it was his mother who was advertising for a lady-help. Might he show her the way? ... It would be very kind of him.

Through a maze of streets, he chatting pleasantly enough, though putting now and then curious little questions which she could not understand.... Hadn't he seen her at the Oxford one night? ... Assuredly he had not; what was the Oxford?

He laughed, evidently pleased. "Gad, you do keep it up!" he cried.

So to a great pile of flats; up a circular stair.

"You understand why I can't use the lift?" he said. "They're beastly particular here."

She did not understand; supposed it was some question of expense. Thus to a door where he took out a latch-key.

It was then for the first moment that a sudden doubt, a horror, took her, trembling her limbs.

She looked up at the figures painted over the door.

"Why, it is the wrong number!" she cried.

He had turned the key. "Lord! you do keep it up!" he laughed, his hand suddenly about her arm.

Then she knew, and dragged back, sweating with the horror of the thing.

"Ah, let me go—let me go!"

"Oh, chuck it, you little ass!" His arm was about her waist now, dragging her; his face close.

With a sudden twist and thrust that took him by surprise she wrenched from his grasp; was a flight of stairs away before he had recovered his wits; across the hall and running—shaking, hysterical—down the street.



XIV.

Thereafter men were a constant horror to her—adding a new and most savage beast to the wolves of noise, of desolation and of despair that bayed about her in this grinding city. Unable longer to face them, she went again to Miss Ram at the Agency—almost upon her knees, crying, trembling, pitching her tale from the man with the dent in his hat to the man in Wilton Road.

Miss Ram was moved to the original depths that lay beneath her grim exterior; had never realised the actual circumstances; would do what she could; no need to be frightened.

Two days later Mary was unpacking her box at 14 Palace Gardens. No sharpness, no slight now could prick her spirit; she had learned too well; she would not face those streets again.

That was eighteen months, close upon two years ago. Wounds were healing now; old-time brightness was coming back to laugh at present discomforts. It was only now and again—as now—that she, driven by some sudden stress, allowed her mind backwards to wander—bruising itself in those dark passages.

The cab stopped. She with a start came to the present; gulped a sob; was herself.

Mrs. Chater said: "Run in quickly and mix me a brandy-and-soda."



CHAPTER II.

Excursions In Vulgarity.

A violent dispute with the cabman set that disturbed heart yet more wildly thumping in Mrs. Chater's bosom; the sight of her husband uneasily mooning in the dining-room heated her wrath to wilder bubblings.

Mr. Chater—a 'oly dam' terror in Mincing Lane, if his office-boy may be quoted—was an astonishingly mild man in his own house.

He said brightly, noting with a shiver the gusty stress of his wife's deportment: "You drove up, my dear?—And quite right, too," he hastily added, upon a sudden fear that his remark might be interpreted as reproach.

"How do you know?" Mrs. Chater's nose went into the brandy-and-soda.

"I saw you from the window," her husband beamed. He repeated, "The window," and nervously pointed at it. There was a strained atmosphere in the room, and he was a little frightened.

"Oh!" Out from the brandy-and-soda came the nose; down went the glass with an emphasising bang: "Oh!"

Mr. Chater gave a startled little jump. He saw, immediately he had spoken, the misfortune into which his admission had plunged him; the bang of the glass twanged his already apprehensive nerves, and he jerked out, "Certainly, my dear," without any clear grasp as to what he was affirming.

"If you had been a man," said Mrs. Chater, speaking with a slow and extraordinary bitterness—"if you had been a man, you would have come out and helped me."

"But you had got out when I came to the window, my dear."

"With the cabman, I mean." Mrs. Chater fired the word with alarming ferocity. "With the cabman. Did you not see that violent brute insulting me?"

It was precisely because he had observed the episode that Mr. Chater had kept well behind the curtain; but he did not adduce the fact.

"I certainly did not," he affirmed.

"Ah! I expect you took precious good care not to. You've done the same thing before. Never to my dying day shall I forget the figure you cut outside Swan and Edgar's last Christmas. Making me—"

Mr. Chater implored: "Oh, my dear, don't drag that up again!"

"But I do drag it up!" Mrs. Chater a little unnecessarily cried. "I do drag it up, and I shall always drag it up—making me a fool as you did! I was ashamed of you. I was—"

Mr. Chater nervously wiped his moist palms with his pocket handkerchief: "I've told you over and over again, my dear, that I never understood the circumstances. There was a great crowd, and I was very much pushed about. If I had known the circumstances—"

Mrs. Chater hurled back the word at him: "Circumstances!"

"My dear," the agitated man replied, ticking off the points on soft fingers, "my dear, I had gone to the window of Swan and Edgar's, leaving you, as you expressly desired, to pay the man yourself. When I came back to you, what I gathered was that the man was entitled to a further sixpence and that you had no change."

Mrs. Chater lashed herself with the recollection: "Nothing of the kind!" she burst. "Nothing of the kind! What did the man say to you when you asked what was the matter?"

"I quite forget."

"You do not forget."

"My dear, I really and truly do forget."

"For the hundredth time, then, let me tell you. He said that if you pushed your ugly mug into it he would knock off your blooming head."

"Did he say mug?" asked Mr. Chater, assuming the air of one who, knowing this at the time, would have committed a singularly ferocious murder.

"Well you know that he did say mug—ugly mug. Was that a thing for a man of spirit to take quietly? Was that a thing for a wife to hear bawled at her husband in the open street with the commissionaire grinning behind his hand? To my dying day I shall never forget my humiliation when you handed him sixpence."

The unhappy husband murmured: "I do so wish you could, my dear."

Mrs. Chater shook, handled her troops with the skill of a perfect tactician, and hurled in the attack upon another quarter.

She said: "Ah, now insult me! Insult me before Miss Humfray! That's right! That's right! That's what I'm accustomed to. We all have our cross to bear, as the vicar said last Sunday, and open insult from my husband is mine. I can't complain; I married you with my eyes open."

Mrs. Chater revealed this secret of her girlhood in a voice which implied that most young women go through the ceremony with their eyes tightly closed, mixed a second brandy-and-soda for her shattered nerves, swallowed it with the air of one draining a poison flask by way of happy release from martyrdom, banged down the glass, and, before her amazed husband could open his lips, hammered in the attack from a third quarter.

"Little you would have cared," cried she, "if a miracle had not saved my life this afternoon!"

Mr. Chater stood aghast. "My dearest! Saved you! From what?"

His dearest bitterly inquired: "What does it matter to you? You take no interest. If my battered corpse—" Swept to tremendous heights by the combined forces of her agitation, her imagination, and her two brandys-and-sodas, she rose, pointed though the window. "If my battered corpse had been carried up those steps by two policemen this very afternoon, what would you have done, I wonder?"

Mr. Chater, apprehension creeping among the roots of his hair, affirmed that he would have dropped dead in the precise spot at which he happened to be standing at the moment.

Mrs. Chater trumpeted "Never!"—dropped to her chair, and continued. "You would have been glad." Her voice shook. "Glad—and in all this wide world only my Bob and my blessed lambs in the nursery would have wept o'er my body."

Of so melancholy a character was the picture thus presented to her mind, augmenting her previous agitation, that the tumult within her welled damply through her eyes, with noisy distress through her lips.

Patting her distressed back, imploring her to calm, Mr. Chater begged some account of the catastrophe from which she had escaped.

Between convulsive sobs she told him, he bridging the hiatuses of emotion with "Oh-dear-oh-dears," in which alarm and sympathy were nicely mingled.

Painting details with a masterly hand, "And there was I alone," she concluded—"alone, at the mercy of a wild horse and a drunken cabman."

"But Miss Humfray was with you?"

"Miss Humfray managed to jump out and leave me."

Through all this scene—in one form or another a matter of daily occurrence, and therefore not to arouse interest—Mary had stood waiting its cessation and her orders. Mr. Chater turned upon her. Naturally disposed to be kind to the girl, he yet readily saw in his wife's statement a way of escape from the castigation he had been enduring. As the small boy who has been kicked by the bully will with delighted relief rush to the bully's aid when the kicks are at length turned to another, urging him on so that he may forget his first prey, so Mr. Chater, delighted at his fortune, eagerly joined in turning his wife's wrath to Mary's head. For self-preservation, at whatever cost to another, is the most compelling of instincts: its power great in proportion as we have allowed our fleshly impulses to master us. If, when they prompt, we coldly and impersonally regard them, find them unworthy and crush them back humiliated, they become in time disciplined—wither and die. In proportion as we permit them, upon the other hand, they come in time to drive us with a fierceness that cannot be checked.

Mr. Chater had disciplined no single impulse that came to him with his flesh.

In pious horror he turned upon the girl.

"Managed to jump out!" he exclaimed, speaking as one re-echoing a horror hardly to be believed.

"Managed to jump out! Miss Humfray, I would not have thought it of you!"

She cried: "Mr. Chater, I fell!"

Disregarding, and with a deeper note of pained reproach, he continued: "So many ties, I should have thought, would have bound you to my wife in such an emergency—the length of time you have been with us; the unremitting kindness she has shown you, treating you as one of ourselves, in sickness tending you, bountifully feeding and clothing you, going out of her way to make you happy. Oh, Miss Humfray!"

The strain on his invention paused him. Mrs. Chater, moved by this astonishing revelation of her love, assumed an air in keeping—an air of some pain but no surprise at such ingratitude. She warmed to this husband who, if no hero in the matter of ferocious cabmen, could at least champion her upon occasion.

Mary cried: "But I did not jump out! Indeed I did not, Mr. Chater; I fell."

Mrs. Chater said "Fell!" With sublime forbearance she added, "Never mind; the incident is past."

"Mrs. Chater, you must know that I fell out. I was leaning out—you had asked me to see the name of the street—when the horse stumbled."

"It is curious," said Mrs. Chater, with a pained little smile, "that you managed to 'fall out' before the horse could recover and bolt."

"Very, very curious," Mr. Chater echoed.

How hateful they were, the girl felt. She broke out: "I—"

"Miss Humfray, that is enough. Help me upstairs. I will lie down."

Mr. Chater jumped brightly to the bell. "My dear, do; I will send you a hot-water bottle."

His wife recalled the shortcomings for which she had been taking him to task. "Send a fiddlestick," she rapped; "on a boiling day like this!"

She took Mary's arm; leaning heavily, passed from the room.



CHAPTER III.

Excursions In The Mind Of A Heroine.

Her mistress disrobed, head among pillows, slippered, coverleted, eau- de-Cologne on temples, with closed eyes inviting sleep to lull the tumults of the day. Mary climbed to her room.

About her mouth there was a ridiculous twitching; and as she watched it in the mirror she strove to wrap herself in the armour in which she had learned to take buffetings.

To be dispassionate was the salve she had schooled herself to use upon a wounded spirit—to regard this Mary with the comically twitching face whom now she saw in the glass as a second person whose sufferings might be coldly regarded and dissected.

It is a most admirable accomplishment. Nothing is so easy as to be philosophic upon the cares of another—nothing so easy as to wax impatient with an acquaintance who allows himself to be overridden by troubles and pains which appear to us of trifling moment. If, then, we can school ourselves to regard the figure that bears our name as one person, and our ego as another, we have at least a chance of chiding that figure out of all the fancied sufferings it may undergo.

With some success Mary had studied the art; now gave that Mary-in-the- glass who stood before her a healthy reproof.

"The ridiculous thing you did," Mary-in-the-glass was told—"the ridiculous thing you did to make yourself miserable was to go thinking about—about Ireland."

The mouth of Mary-in-the-glass ominously twitched.

"There you go again. And it is so absolutely forbidden to think about that. Whatever's the use of it?"

Mary-in-the-glass could adduce no reason, and must be prodded.

"Does it do you any good? Does it do them any good, do you suppose, to know that you can never think of them without making yourself unhappy?"

Mary-in-the-glass attempted a weak quibble; was instantly snapped.

"I'm not saying you are never to think of them. Goodness knows what I should do if I did not. It's all right to think of them when you are happy and they can share the happiness with you; but, when you choose to be idiotically miserable, that's the time you are not to go whining anywhere near them—understand? You only make them unhappy and make your troubles worse. Troubles! if you can't see the fun of Mrs. Chater, you must be a wretched sort of person. Her face when the cab brought her back! And trying to feel her heart! And her rage with that little worm of a Mr. Chater! Can't you see the fun of it instead of crying over it?"

Mary-in-the-glass could. The successive recollections induced the prettiest dimples on her face. She was at once forgiven.

Indeed, to snuggle back into her and to merge into her again was just now very desirable to the censorious Mary-outside-the-glass. For, merged in her sentimental and romantic personality, a most delectable line of thought could be pursued—a delectable line, since along this trail was to be encountered that stranger who had caught her in her wild ejection from the cab.

Sinking in a chair, Mary adventured upon it; she was instantly met.

Mary-outside-the-glass essayed her best to prevent the interview. "Poof!" Mary-outside-the-glass, that cold young person, sneered. "Poof! You little idiot! A stranger with whom you spoke for five minutes, whom you will never again see, and from whose recollections you have most certainly passed unless to be recalled as a joke— perhaps to some other girl!" (A nasty dig that, but they are monsters these Marys-outside-the-glass.) "Why, you must be a donkey to think about him! For goodness' sake come away before you make yourself too utterly ridiculous! You won't. Well, perhaps you will try to recall the figure you must have cut in his eyes? Do you remember what you must have looked like as you shot out of the cab like a sack of straw? Pretty sight, eh? And can you imagine the expression on your face as you banged into his arms? Charming you must have looked, mustn't you? And can you by any means realise the idiot you must have looked when Mrs. Chater came up and swept you off like an escaped puppy, recaptured and in for a whipping? Striking figure you cut, didn't you? You didn't happen to peep back through the little window at the back of the cab and see him laughing, I suppose? Ah, you should have looked...."

And so on. This was the attitude of that cold, calculating, dispassionate Mary-outside-the-glass. But Mary smothered the voice— would not hear a word of it. Completely she became Mary-in-the-glass, that sentimental young woman, and in that personality tripped along the path of thought where stood her stranger.

Delectably she relived the encounter. Paced down the street, took again his arm; without a fault recalled his words, without a check gave her replies; recalled the pitch of his voice to the nicest note, struck again the light in his eyes.

Now why? She had met other men; in Ireland had thrice wounded her tender heart by negations that had caused three suitors most desperate anguish. None had awakened in her a deeper interest; and yet here was a stranger—suddenly encountered, as suddenly left—who in her mind had appropriated a track which she was eager to make a well-beaten path. Why?

But Mary-in-the-glass, that sentimental young woman, was no prober of emotions. They veiled the hard business of commonplace life; and amid them mistily she now floated afar into dim features where her stranger, stranger no more, walked with her hand in hand.

There was attempt at first to construct an actual re-encounter. Mary- in-the-glass, that romantic young woman, very speciously pointed out that in London when once you see a man you may reasonably suppose that you will again meet him. For in London one does not aimlessly wander; one has some set purpose and traverses a thousand times the same streets, crossing daily at the same points as though upon the pursuit of a chalked line. Mary-in-the-glass, therefore, constructing a re- encounter, happened to be strolling along the scene of the accident, and lo! there was he!

Unhappily this vision was transient. Mary-outside-the-glass, that cold young woman, got in a word here that erased the picture. The square where the cab crashed was too far afield to take the children for their walk; holiday was a boon rarely granted and never granted at the particular hour of the catastrophe—the only time of day at which, according to the chalked-line theory, she might reasonably expect to find the stranger in the same spot.

But Mary did not brood long upon this melancholy obstacle; drove away Mary-outside-the-glass; became again Mary-in-the-glass. And they are impossible creatures these Marys-in-the-glass. They will approach an unbridged chasm across which no Mary-out-side could by any means adventure, and, floating the gulf, will deliriously roam in the fields beyond.

So now. And in that dream-world of the musing brain Mary with her stranger sublimely wandered. With her form and his she peopled all the favourite spots she knew; contrived others and strolled in them; introduced other persons, and marked their comment on her dear companion.

It was he whom she made to do mighty deeds in those misty fields; of herself hers were merely a girl's gentle fancies, held modest by her sex's natural desire to be loved for itself alone—not for big behaviour.



CHAPTER IV.

Excursions In A Nursery.

The loud bang of a door was the gong that called Mary back from those pleasant fields. They whirled from her, leaving her in sudden realisation of the material.

She glanced at the clock.

"Goodness!" cried she, and fell to scattering her outdoor finery at a speed dangerous under any but the deftest fingers. Into a skirt of black and a simple blouse she slipped, and down, skimming the stairs, to where her charges bided their bedtime.

Opening the nursery door she paused upon the threshold with a little "Oh!" of surprise. There was a reek of cigar smoke; its origin between the lips of a burly young man who stood drumming a tune upon the window-pane.

Mr. Bob Chater turned at her entry. "I've been waiting for you a long time," he said.

She asked, "Whatever for?" and in her tone there was a chill.

"Didn't I tell you yesterday that I was coming to see the kids tubbed?"

"I didn't think you meant it."

Mr. Bob Chater laughed. "Well, now you see that I did. I've been looking forward to this all day."

Plainly she was perturbed. She said: "Mr. Chater, I really would rather you did not, if you don't mind."

"Well, but I do mind, d'you see? I mind very much indeed. It would be the bitterest disappointment."

His playfulness sat ill upon him. This was a stout young man, black- eyed, dark-moustached, with a thick and heavy look about him.

She would not catch his mood. "I am sure when I ask you—"

"Well, you're jolly well wrong, you know," he laughed; "'cause I ain't going."

Mary flushed slightly; moved to the hearthrug where sat David and Angela, her small charges, watching, from their toys, the scene.

It occurred to Mr. Bob Chater that she was annoyed.

"I say, be decent to a fellow, Miss Humfray," he said. "Look here, I hadn't seen the kids for two years when I came back yesterday. They hardly remember their kind big brother." He addressed the small girl whose round eyes, moving from speaker to speaker since Mary had entered, were now upon him. "Do you, Angela?" he asked.

"I—hate—you," Angela told him, in the slow utterance of one giving completest effect to a carefully weighed sentiment.

With equal impressiveness, David, seated beside her, lent his authority to the statement. "I—hate—you—too," he joined.

Mr. Bob Chater laughed a little stupidly.

Mary cried: "Oh, Angela! Oh, David! How can you speak like that!"

"He is perfectly abom'able," Angela said, unmoved. "He made Davie cry. He trod on Davie's beetle."

The cracked corpse of a mechanical beetle, joy of David's heart, was produced in evidence; its distressed owner reddening ominously at this renewed recollection of the calamity.

Mary took the sad pieces tenderly. "Silly children! He never meant to break it. Oh, such silly children!"

Angela protested, "He did! He did! He put his foot over it while it was running, and stopped it. He told David to get it away if he could, and David bit his leg, and he said 'Damn you!' and crushed it crack."

Mary whipped a glance at the murderer. She ignored the evidence. "To- morrow!" said she. "Why, what fun! To-morrow we'll play hospital like we did when Christabel broke her arm. We'll make Mr. Beetle just as well as ever he was before!"

"I'll be doctor!" cried David, transported into delight.

"Yes, and Angela nurse. Look, we'll put poor Mr. Beetle on the mantelpiece to-night, right out of the draughts. If he got a draught into that crack in his back, goodness knows what wouldn't happen. He must eat slops like Christabel did. What fun! Now, bed—bustle!"

Their adored Mary had restored confidence. They clung about her.

"It was a pure accident," explained Mr. Bob Chater, gloomily watching this scene. "I'll buy you another to-morrow."

"There!" Mary cried. "Think of that!"

David reflected upon it without emotion. He regarded his big brother sullenly; sullenly said, "I don't want another."

Mary cried brightly: "Rubbish! Come, kiss your brother good-night, and say 'thank you!' Both of you. Quick as lightning!"

They hung back.

Mary had obtained so complete a command of their affections that her word was the wise law which, ordinarily, they had come unquestioningly to accept. In their short lives David and Angela had experienced a procession of nurses, of nursery-governesses, of lady-helps, each one of whom received or gave her month's notice within a few weeks of arrival, and against whom they had conducted a sullen or a violent war. From the first it had been different with Miss Humfray. As was their custom (for this constant change tried tempers) upon the very day of her arrival they had met her with frank hostility, had declared mutiny at her first command. But her reception of this attitude they found a new and astonishing experience. She had not been shocked, had not been angry, had ventured no threat to tell their mother. Instead, at the outbreak of defiance, she went into the gayest and most infectious laughter, kissed them—and they had capitulated before they realised the event.

A second attempt at mutiny, made upon the following day, met with a reception equally novel. Again this pretty Miss Humfray had laughed, but this time had fully sympathised with their view of the point at issue and had made of the affair a most entrancing game. She, behold, was a pirate captain; they were the rebellious crew. In five minutes they had marooned her upon the desert island represented by the hearthrug; had rowed away with faces which, under her instructions, were properly stern; and only when she waved the white flag of truce had they taken her aboard again. Meanwhile the subject of the quarrel had been forgotten.

Never a dispute arose thereafter. They idolised this pretty Miss Humfray: whatsoever she said was clearly right.

Here, however, was a dangerous conflict of opinion. They hung back.

"Quickly," Mary repeated. "Kiss him, and say thank-you quickly, or there will be no story when you are in bed."

It was a terrific price to pay; their troubled faces mirrored the conflict of decision.

David found solution. In his slow, solemn voice, "You kiss him first," he said. Miss Humfray always took their medicine first, and David argued from the one evil necessity to this other.

Mr. Bob Chater laughed delightedly. "That's a brilliant idea!" he cried; came two strides towards Mary; put a hand upon her arm.

So sudden, so unexpected was his movement, that by the narrowest chance only did she escape his purpose. A jerk of her head, and he had mouthed at the air two inches from her face.

She shook her arm free. "Oh!" she cried; and in the exclamation there was that which would have given a nicer man pause.

Mr. Bob Chater was nothing abashed. A handsome face and a bold air had made conquests easy to him. It was an axiom of his that a girl who worked for her living by that fact proclaimed flirtation to be agreeable to her—at all events with such as he. Chance had so shaped affairs that this was the first time his theory had found disproof. He saw she was offended; so much the more tickling; conquest was thereby the more enticing.

He laughed; said he was only "rotting."

Mary did not reply. The command to kiss their brother went by default; she hurried her charges through the door to the adjoining night nursery.

When they were started upon undressing she came back.

"You're going to let me see you tub them?" Bob asked her.

Busy replacing toys in cupboards, she did not reply.

"You're not angry, are you?"

She gave him no answer.

Bob Chater discarded the laugh from his tone. "If you are angry, I'm very sorry. You must have known I was only fooling. It was only to make the kids laugh."

So far as was possible she kept her back to him.

The continued slight pricked him. His voice hardened. "When I have the grace to apologise, I think you might have the grace to accept it."

Mary said in low tones: "If you meant only to make them laugh, of course I believe you. It is all right."

"Good. Well, now, may I see them tubbed?"

"I have told you I would rather not."

"Dash it all, Miss Humfray, you're rather unkind, aren't, you? Here have I been away nearly two years—I've been travelling on the Continent for the firm-you know that, don't you?"

She said she had heard Mr. and Mrs. Chater talking of it.

"Well, and yet you won't let me come near my darling little sister and my sweet little brother to tell 'em all about it?"

"But I'm not keeping you from them, Mr. Chater. You have had plenty of time."

"Time! Why, I only got back yesterday!"

"You have been in here this afternoon."

"Ah, they were shy. They're better when you are here."

She had finished her task, and she turned to him. "Mr. Chater, you know I could not keep David and Angela from you even if I dreamed of doing such a thing. Only, I say I would rather you did not come in while I bath them, that is all."

"Yes, but why?"

"Mrs. Chater would not like it for one thing, I feel sure."

"Oh, that's all rot. Mother wouldn't mind—anyway, I do as I like in this house."

From all she had heard of Mrs. Chater's beloved Bob, Mary guessed this to be true. Long prior to his arrival she had been prejudiced against him; acquaintance emphasised the prophetic impression.

"Another night, then," she said.

He felt he was winning. No girl withstood him long.

"No, to-night. Another thing—I want to know you better. This arrangement is all new to me. There was a nurse here in your place when I went. I've hardly spoken to you. Have you ever been abroad?"

"No."

"Well, I'll tell you—and the kids—some of my adventures while you're tubbing 'em. Lead on."

She was at the night-nursery door. Evidently this man would not see her conventional reason for not wishing him at the tubbing. Angela had grown a biggish girl since he went away.

She said, "Please not to-night."

"I'm jolly well coming," he chuckled.

The lesson of dependence was wilfully forgotten. Mary agreed with Angela and David: she hated this Bob.

"No," she said sharply, "you are not."

He had thrown his cigar into the grate; taken out another; stooped to the hearth to scratch a match. His back was to her; to him all her tone conveyed was that a "rag" was on hand.

"We'll see," he laughed; struck the match.

She stepped swiftly within the door; closed it.

Bob Chater laughed again; ran across.

The lock clicked as she turned the key.

"Let me in!" he cried, rattling the handle. "Let me in!"

The splash of water answered him.

He thumped the panel. "Open the door!"

"Now, Angela," he heard her say, "quick as lightning with that chimmy."

Bob's face darkened; he damned beneath his breath. Then with a laugh he turned away. "I'm going to have some fun with that girl," he told himself; and on the way downstairs, her pretty face and figure in his mind, pleased himself with vicious anticipation.



CHAPTER V.

Excursions At A Dinner-Table.



I.

Two distressing reasons combined to compel Mrs. Chater to give Mary place at the evening meal. There was the aggravating fact that mothers'-helps, just as if they were ordinary people, must be fed; there was also the contingency that servants most strongly objected to serving a special meal—even "on a tray"—to one who was not of the family, yet who had airs above the kitchen.

Except, then, when there were guests Miss Humfray must be accommodated at late dinner. Mrs. Chater considered it annoying, yet found in it certain comfortable advantages—as sympathy from friends: "Mustn't it be rather awkward sometimes, Mrs. Chater?" A plaintive shrug would illustrate the answer: "Well, it is, of course, very awkward sometimes; but one must put up with it. That class of person takes offence so easily, you know; and I always try to treat my lady-helps as well as possible." "I'm sure you do, Mrs. Chater. How grateful they should be!" And this time a sad little laugh would illustrate: "Oh, one hardly expects gratitude nowadays, does one?"

Mary at dinner must observe certain rules, however. Certain dishes—a little out of season, perhaps, or classed as luxuries—were borne triumphantly past her by a glad parlour-maid acting upon a frown and a glance that Mrs. Chater signalled. Certain occasions, again, when private matters were to be discussed, were heralded by "Miss Humfray," in an inflexion of voice that set Mary to fold her napkin and from the room.

The girl greeted these early dismissals with considerable relief. Dinner was to her a nightly ordeal whose atmosphere swept appetite sky-high—took the savour from meats, dried the throat.



II.

Descending to the dining-room upon this evening, her normal shrinking from the meal was considerably augmented. On the previous night—the first upon which Mr. Bob Chater's legs had partnered hers beneath the table—his eyes (like some bold gallant popping out on modesty whenever it dared peep from the doorway) had captured her glance each time she ventured look up from her plate. The episode of the nursery was equivalent to having slapped the gallant's face, and the re- encounter was proportionately uncomfortable.

Taking her place she was by sheer nervousness impelled to meet his gaze—so heavily freighted it was as to raise a sudden flush to her cheek. Her eyes fled round to Mrs. Chater, received a look that questioned the blush, drove it duskier; through an uncomfortable half- hour she kept her face towards her plate.

It was illuminative of the relations between husband and wife that Mrs. Chater carved; her husband dealt the sweets. The carving knife is the domestic sceptre of authority: when it is wielded by the woman, the man, you will find, is consort rather than king.



III.

Upon the previous evening Mr. Bob Chater had led the conversation. To- night he was indisposed for the position—would not take it despite his mother's desperate attempts to board the train of his ideas and by it be carried to scenes of her son's adventures. A dozen times she presented her ticket; as often Bob turned her back at the barrier.

It was a rare event this refusal of his to carry passengers. So loudly did he whistle as a rule as to attract all in the vicinity, convinced that there was an important train by which it would be agreeable to travel.

For Mr. Bob Chater was a loud young man, emanating a swaggering air that the term "side" well fitted. To have some conceit of oneself is an excellent affair. The possession is a keel that gives to the craft a dignified balance upon the stream of life—prevents it from being sailed too close to mud; helps maintain stability in sudden gale. Other craft are keelless—they are canoes; bobbing, unsteady, likely to capsize in sudden emergency; prone to drift into muddy waters; liable to be swept anywhither by any current. Others, again—and Mr. Bob Chater was of these—are over-freighted upon one quarter or another: they sail with a list. Amongst well-trimmed boats these learn in time not to adventure, since here they are greeted with ridicule or with contempt; yet among the keelless fleets they have a position of some authority; holding it on the same principle as that by which among beggars he who has a coin—even though base—is accounted king.

Bob Chater's list was ego-wards. His mighty "I"—I am, I do, I say, I know, I think—bulged from him, hanging from his voice, his glance, his gesture, his walk. In it Mrs. Chater bathed; to be carried along in the train of his mighty "I" was delectable to her. But to-night she could not effect the passage.

A final effort she made to get aboard. "And in St. Petersburg!" she tempted. "I wonder if you ever saw the Tsar when you were in St. Petersburg?"

Bob drove her back: "St. Petersburg's a loathsome place."

Mrs. Chater tried to squeeze through. "So gay, they say."

Bob slammed the gate. "I wish you'd tell me something instead of expecting me to do all the talking. I want to hear all that's been going on here while I've been away, but I'm hanged if I can find out."

A little mortified, Mrs. Chater said: "I've hardly seen you, dear, except at meals"—then threw the onus for her son's lack of local gossip upon her husband. Addressing him, "You've been with Bob all the morning," she told him. "I wonder you haven't given him all the news. But, there! I suppose you've done nothing but question him about what business he's done!"

Mr. Chater, startled at the novelty of being drawn into table conversation while his son and his wife were present, dropped his spoon with a splash into his soup, wiped his coat, frowned at the parlour-maid, cleared his throat, and, to gain time to determine whether he had courage to say that which was burning within him, threw out an "Eh?" for his pursuing wife to Worry.

Mrs. Chater pounced upon it; shook it. "What I said was that I suppose you've been doing nothing but question poor Bob about what he has done for the firm while he's been away,"

Mr. Chater nerved himself to declare his mind. "There wasn't very much to question him about," he said.

His words—outcome of views forcibly expressed by his partners in Mincing Lane that morning—were the foolhardy action of one who pokes a tigress with a stick.

The tigress shook herself. "Now, I wonder what you mean by that?" she challenged.

Mr. Chater dropped the stick; precipitantly fled. "Of course it was all new to Bob," he granted, throwing a bone.

Very much to his alarm the tigress ignored the bone; rushed after him. "All you seem to think about," cried she, "is making the boy slave. He's never had a proper holiday since he left school, and yet the very first time he goes off to see the world you must be fidgeting yourself to death all the time that he's not pushing the firm sufficiently; and immediately he comes back you must start cross-examining just as if he was an office-boy—not a word about his health or his pleasure. Oh, no! of course not!"

Squirming in misery, Mr. Chater remarked that he had his partners to consider. "I'm only too glad that Bob should enjoy himself—only too glad. But you must remember, my dear, that part of his expenses for this trip was paid for by the firm—the firm. He was to call on foreign houses—"

The tigress opened her mouth for fresh assault. Mr. Chater hurriedly thrust in a bone. "I don't say he hasn't done a great deal for us—not at all; I'd be the last to say that. What I say is that in duty to my partners I must take the first opportunity to ask him a few questions about it. Bob sees that himself; don't you, Bob?"

"Oh, do let's keep shop off the table," Bob snarled. "Fair sickens me this never getting away from the office."

"There you are!" Mrs. Chater cried. "There you are! Always business, business, business—that's what I complain of."

With astounding recklessness Mr. Chater mildly said: "My dear, you started it."

Mrs. Chater quivered: "Ah, put it on me! Put it on me! Somehow you always manage to do that. Miss Humfray, when you've quite finished your soup then perhaps Clarence can take the plates."

Mary's thoughts, to the neglect of her duty, had crept away beneath cover of these exchanges. Now she endured the disaster of amid silence clearing her plate with four pairs of eyes fixed upon her. Clarence removed the course; Mr. Chater, leaping as far as possible from the scene of his ordeal, broke a new topic.

He enticed tentatively: "I saw a funny bit in the paper this morning."

The tigress paused in the projection of another spring; sniffed suspiciously. "Oh!"

"About that young Lord Comeragh," Mr. Chater hurried on, delighted with his success. "He was up at Marlborough Street police-court this morning—at least his butler was; of course his lordship wouldn't go himself—charged with furiously driving his motorcar; and who do you think was in the car with him at the time? Ah!"

Mrs. Chater, naming a young lady who nightly advertised a pretty leg from the chorus of a musical comedy, announced that she would not be surprised if that was the person. Being told that it was none other, and that Mr. Chater had heard in the City that morning that Lady Comeragh was taking proceedings and had named the nicely-legged young lady the cause of infidelity, became highly astonished and supremely diverted.

Conversation of a most delectable nature was by this means supplied. A pot of savoury gossip, flavoured with scandal, was upon the table; and Mary, lost to sight behind the cloud of steam that uprose as the three leaped about it, finished her dinner undisturbed.

A nod bade her leave before dessert. As she passed out the signaller spoke. "I want to see you," Mrs. Chater said. "Wait for me in the drawing-room."

The command was unusual, and Mary, waiting as bid, worried herself with surmises upon it. She prayed it did not mean she was to soothe Mr. Bob Chater's digestion with lullabies upon the piano; that it boded an unpleasant affair she was assured.

She did not err. Mrs. Chater came to her, dyspeptic-flushed, sternly browed.

"Miss Humfray, I have one thing to say to you, no more. No explanations, no excuses, please. I hear you have been trying to entertain my son in the nursery this evening. If that, or anything like it, occurs again—You understand?"

"Mrs. Chater—"

A massive hand signalled Stop. "I said 'not a word.' That is all. Good night."

And Mary, crimson, to her room.



BOOK III.

Of Glimpses at a Period of this History: of Love and of War.



CHAPTER I.

Notes On The Building Of Bridges.

Within the limits of this short section of our story we shall cram two months of history, taking but a furtive peep or two at our personages as they plod through it.

This is well within our power, since the position of the novelist in regard to his characters may be compared with that of the destiny which in the largest comedy moves to and fro mankind its actors. As destiny moves its puppets, so the novelist moves his—upraising, debasing; favouring, tormenting; creating, wiping from the page.

And of the pair the novelist is the more just. Has villainy in a novel ever gone unpunished? Has virtue ever failed of its reward? Your novelist is of all autocrats the most zealous of right and wrong. Villain may through two-thirds of his career enjoy his wicked pleasures, exceedingly prosper despite his baseness; but ever above him the cold eye of his judge keeps watch, and in the end he is apportioned the most horrible deserts that any could wish. Virtue may by the gods be hounded and harried till the reader's heart is wrung. But spare your tears; before Finis is written, down swoops the judge; the dogs are whipped off; Virtue is led to fair pastures and there left smiling.

Contrasted with this autocrat of the printed page, the destiny whose comedy began with the world and is indefinitely continued makes sorry show. Here the wicked exceedingly flourish and keep at it to the end of their chapter; here virtue, battling with tremendous waves of adversity, is at last engulfed and miserably drowned. Truly, their fit rewards are apportioned, we are instructed, after death. But there is something of a doubt; the novelist, in regard to his characters, takes no risks.

Upon another head, moreover, the novelist shows himself the more kindly autocrat. There is his power, so freely exercised, to bridge time. Whereas destiny makes us to watch those in whom we are interested plod every inch and step of their lives-over each rut, through each swamp, up each hill,-the novelist, upon his characters coming to places dull or too difficult, immediately veils from us their weary struggles. Destiny will never grant such a boon: we must watch our friends even when they bore us, even when they cause us pain. Yet this boon is the commonest indulgence of the novelist-as it now (to become personal) is mine.

I bridge two months.

And you must imagine this bridge as indeed a short and airy passage across a valley, down into which the persons of our story must carefully climb, across which they must plod, and up whose far side they must laboriously scramble to meet us upon the level ground. For we are much in the position, we novel readers, of village children curiously watching a caravan of gipsies passing through their district. The gipsies (who stand for our characters) plod wearily away along a bend of dusty road. The children cease following, play awhile; then by a short-cut through the fields overtake the travellers as again they come into the straight.

So now with you and me. We have no need to follow our gipsies down the valley that takes two months in the traversing: we skip across the bridge.

But, leaning over, we may take a shot or two at them as here and there they come into view.



CHAPTER II.

Excursions Beneath The Bridge.



I.

Thus we see the meeting again of George and Mary.

When the agitated young man on the day following the cab accident had alighted from the omnibus at the bottom of Palace Gardens he was opposite No. 14 by half-past ten; waiting till eleven; going, convinced she did not live there; returning, upon the desperate hope that indeed she did; waiting till twelve—and being most handsomely rewarded.

Her face signalled that she saw him, but her eyes gave no recognition —quickly were averted from him; the windows behind her had eyes, she knew.

My agitated George, who had made a hasty step at the red flag that fluttered on her cheeks, as hastily stepped away beneath the chill of her glance; in tremendous perturbation turned and fled; in tremendous perturbation turned and pursued. In Regent's Park he saw her produce a brilliant pair of scarlet worsted reins, gay with bells; heard her hiss like any proper groom as tandemwise she harnessed David and Angela, those restive steeds.

The equipage was about to start—she had cracked her whip, clicked her tongue—when with thumping heart, with face that matched the flaming reins, hat in hand he approached; spoke the driver.

Her steeds turned about; with wide, unblinking eyes, searched his face and hers.

"Your faces are very red," Angela said. "Are you angry?"

"You have got very red faces," David echoed. "Are you in a temper?"

Mary told them No; George said they were fine horses; felt legs; offered to buy them.

His words purchased their hearts, which were more valuable.

After the drive they would return to the stable, which was this seat, Mary told him; she could not stay to speak to him any longer. George declared he was the stable groom and would wait.

Away they dashed at handsome speed, right round the inner circle; returned more sedately, a little out of breath. There had been, moreover, an accident: leader, it appeared, had fallen and cut his knees.

"I shied at a motor," David explained, proud of the red blood now that the agony was past.

George unharnessed them; dressed the wounds; scolded the coachman because no feed had been brought for the horses; promised that to- morrow he would bring some corn—bun corn.

"Will you come to-morrow?" Angela asked.

George glanced at Mary. "Yes," he told them.

"Every to-morrow?"

"Every to-morrow."

Tremendous joy. Well delighted, they ran to a new game.

Every to-morrow ran but to three: George and Mary had by then exchanged their histories. The pending examination was discussed, and Mary simply would not speak to him if, wasting his time, he came daily to idle with the children (so she expressed it). She would abandon the Park, she told him—would take her charges to a Square gardens of which they had the entry, where George might not follow.

George did not press the point. As he wrestled out the matter in the hours between their meetings she was a fresh incentive to work. But once a week he must be allowed to come: here he was adamant, and she gladly agreeable. Saturday mornings was the time arranged.

Mary had been fearful at this first re-encounter that it would be the last. The children would certainly tell their mother; Mrs. Chater would certainly make an end to the acquaintance.

"Ask them not to tell," George had suggested.

Impossible to think of such a thing: it would be to teach them deceit.

"Well, I'll ask them."

"But that would be just as bad. No—if they tell, it cannot be helped. And after all—"

"Well, after all...?"

"After all—what would it matter?"

George said: "It would matter to me—a lot."

He glanced at her, but she was looking after Angela and David. He asked: "Wouldn't it matter to you?"

She flushed a little; answered, with her eyes still averted towards the children, "Why—why, of course I should mind. I mean—"

But there are meanings for which it is difficult to find clothes in which they may decently take the air; and here the wardrobe of Mary's mind stood wanting.

George enticed. "Do you mean you would be sorry not to—not to—"

He also found his wardrobe deficient.

Then Mary sent out her meaning, risking its decency. "Why, yes, I would be sorry not to see you again; why should I mind saying so? I have liked meeting you." And, becoming timid at its appearance, she hurried after it a cloak that would utterly disguise it. "I meet so few people," she said.

But George was satisfied; she had said she would mind—nay, even though she had not spoken it, her manner assured him that indeed she would regret not again meeting him. It was a thought to hug, a memory to spur his energies when they flagged over his studies; it was a brush to paint his world in lively colours.

Nor, as the future occurred, need either have had apprehension that the children would tell their mother and so set up an insurmountable barrier between them. A previous experience had warned Angela that it were wise to keep from her mother joys that were out of the ordinary run of events.

Returning homeward that day, a little in advance of Mary, she therefore addressed her brother upon the matter.

"Davie, I hope that man will come to-morrow."

"I hope it, too."

"We won't tell mother, Davie."

"Why?"

"Because mother'll say No."

"Why?"

"Because she always says No, stupid."

"Why?"

"Oh, Davie, you are stupid! I don't know why; I only know. Don't you remember that lady that used to talk to Miss Humf'ay and play with us? Well, when we told mother, mother said No, didn't she? and the lady played with those abom'able red-dress children that make faces instead."

"Will he play with the abom'able red-dress children that make faces if we tell mother?"

"Of course he will."

"Why?"

"They always do, stupid."

"Why?"

Angela ran back. "Oh, Miss Humf'ay, Davie is so irrating! He will say Why ...."

There is a lesson for parents in that conversation, I suspect.



II.

Leaning from our bridge we may content ourselves with a hurried shot at George, laboriously toiling at his books, sedulously attending his classes, with his Mary spending glorious Saturday mornings that, as they brought him nearer to knowledge of her, sent him from her yet more fevered; and, straining towards another point, we will focus for an instant upon Margaret his cousin, and Bill Wyvern, her adored.

Mr. William Wyvern had most vigorously whacked about among events since that evening when his Margaret had composed her verses for George. At that time a fellow-student with George at St. Peter's Hospital, he had now abandoned the profession and was started upon the literary career (as he named it) that long he had wished to follow. The change had been come by with little difficulty. Professor Wyvern— that eminent biologist whose fame was so tremendous that even now a normally forgetful Press yet continued to paragraph him while he spent in absent-minded seclusion the ebb of that life which at the flood had so mightily advanced knowledge—Professor Wyvern was too much attached to his son, too docile in the hands of his loving wife, to gainsay any wish that Bill might urge and that Mrs. Wyvern might support.

Bill achieved his end: the stories he had had printed in magazines, secretly shown to his proud mother, were now brought forth and chuckled over with glee by the Professor. The famous biologist struggled through one of the stories, vowed he had read them all, cheerily patted Bill's arm with his shaky old hand, and cheerfully abandoned the hope he had held of seeing his son a great surgeon.

It was Bill's burning ambition to obtain a post upon a paper. Not until later did he learn that it is the men outside the papers who must have a turn for stringing sentences; that those inside are machines, cutting and serving the material with no greater interest in it than has the cheesemonger in the cheese he weighs and deals. Meanwhile, the glimpse we may take of him shows Bill Wyvern urging along his pen until clean paper became magic manuscripts; living upon a billow of hope when the envelopes were sped, submerged beneath oceans of gloom when they were returned; trembling into Fleet Street deliciously to inhale the thick smell of printer's ink that came roaring up from a hundred basements; with goggle eyes venerating the men who with assured steps passed in and out the swing-doors of castles he burned to storm; snatching brief moments for the boisterous society of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, those rare bull-terriers; and finally, expending with his Margaret moments more protracted—stealthy meetings, for the most part—in Mr. Marrapit's shrubbery.



III.

But two more peeps from our bridge need we take, and then our characters will be ready to meet us upon the further side.

A glance from here will reveal to us Mrs. Major, that masterly woman, inscribing in her diary:

"Getting on with Mr. M. Should sue. Precip. fat."

Fill out the abbreviations to which Mrs. Major, in her diary, was prone, and we have:

"Getting on with Mr. Marrapit. Should succeed. Precipitancy fatal."

Succeed in what? To what would precipitancy of action be irreparable? Listen to a conversation that may enlighten us—spoken upon the lawn of Herons' Holt; Mr. Marrapit in his chair making a lap for the Rose of Sharon; Mrs. Major on a garden seat, crocheting.

A stealthy peep assuring her that his eyes were not closed, Mrs. Major nerved herself with a deep breath; with a long sigh let it escape in the form, "A year ago!"—dropped hands upon her lap and gazed wistfully at the setting sun. She had seen the trick very successfully performed upon the stage.

Mr. Marrapit turned his eyes upon her.

"You spoke, Mrs. Major?"

With an admirable start Mrs. Major appeared to gather in wandering fancies. "I fear I was thinking aloud, Mr. Marrapit. I beg pardon."

"Do not. There is no occasion. You said 'A year ago.'"

"Did I, Mr. Marrapit?"

"Certainly," said Mr. Marrapit.

A pause followed. The wistful woman felt that, were the thing to be done properly, the word lay with her companion. To her pleasure he continued:

"To-day, then, is an anniversary?"

"It is."

"Of a happy event, I trust?"

Mrs. Major clasped her hands; spoke with admirable ecstasy. "Oh, Mr. Marrapit, of a golden—golden page in my life."

"Elucidate," Mr. Marrapit commanded.

Mrs. Major put into a whisper:

"The day I came here."

Mr. Marrapit slowly moved his head towards her.

Her eyes were averted. "The time has passed swiftly," he said.

Mrs. Major breathed: "For me it has flown on—on—" She searched wildly for a metaphor. "On wings," she concluded.

Again there was a pause, and again Mrs. Major felt that for this passage to have fullest effect the word lay with Mr. Marrapit. But Mr. Marrapit, himself considerably perturbed, did not speak. The moments sped. Fearful lest they should distance beyond recovery the sentiments she felt she had aroused, Mrs. Major hastened to check them.

She said musingly: "I wonder if they are right?"—sighed as though doubtful.

"To whom do you refer?"

"Why, the people who say that time flies when it is spent in pleasant company."

"They are correct," Mr. Marrapit affirmed.

"Oh, I do not doubt it for my part, Mr. Marrapit. I never knew what happiness was until I come here—came here. But if—" The masterly woman paused.

"Continue" Mr. Marrapit commanded.

The hard word was softly spoken. Mrs. Major's heart gave two little thumps; her plan clear before her, pushed ahead. "But if to you also, Mr. Marrapit, the time has seemed to fly, then—then Mr. Marrapit, my company has—has been agreeable to you?"

Certainly there was a softness in Mr. Marrapit's tones as he made answer.

"It has, Mrs. Major," he said, "it has. Into my establishment you have brought an air of peace that had for some time been lacking. Prior to your arrival, I was often worried by household cares that should not fall upon a man."

Earnestly Mrs. Major replied: "Oh, I saw that. I strove to lift them."

"You have lifted them. You have attended not only my cats but my kitchen. I am now able often to enjoy such evenings as these. This peace around us illustrates the tranquillity you have brought—"

The tranquillity was at that moment disastrously shattered. A bed of shrubbery lay within a few feet of where they sat. What had appeared to be a gnarled stump in its midst now quivered, broadened, fell into a line with the straightening back of Mr. Fletcher.

Mr. Marrapit was startled and annoyed. "What are you doing there, sir?"

"Snailin'," said Mr. Fletcher gloomily; exhibited his snail.

"Snail elsewhere. Do not snail where I am."

"I snails where there's snails."

"Cease snailing. You must have been there hours."

"What if I have? This garden's fair planted with snails."

"Snail oftener. Depart."

Mr. Fletcher moved a few steps; then turned. "I should like to ast if this is to be part of my regular job. First you says 'cease snailin',' then you says 'snail oftener,' then you says 'snail elsewhere.' Snails take findin'. They don't come to me; I has to go to them. It's 'ard— damn 'ard. I'm a gardener, I am; not a lettuce-leaf."

He gloomily withdrew.

Mr. Marrapit's face was angrily twitching. The moment was not propitious for continuing her conversation, and with a little sigh Mrs. Major withdrew.

But it was upon that night that she inscribed in her diary:

"Getting on with Mr. M. Should suc. Precip. fat."



IV.

A last peep, ere we hurry across the bridge, will disclose to us Mr. Bob Chater still pressing upon Mary the attentions which her position, in relation to his, made it so difficult for her to escape. Piqued by her attitude towards him, he was the more inflamed than ordinarily he would have been by the fair face and neat figure that were hers. Yet he made no headway; within a month of the date of his return to Palace Gardens was as far from conquest as upon that night in the nursery.

To a City friend, Mr. Lemuel Moss, dining at 14 Palace Gardens with him one night, he explained affairs.

"Dam' pretty girl, that governess of yours, or whatever she is," said Mr. Moss, biting the end from a cigar in the smoking-room after dinner. "Lucky beggar you are, Bob. My mater won't have even a servant in the place that wouldn't look amiss in a monkey-house. Knows me too well, unfortunately," and Mr. Moss, taking a squint at himself in the overmantel, laughed—well enough pleased.

Bob pointed out that there was not so much luck about it as Mr. Moss appeared to think. "Never seen such a stand-offish little rip in all my life," he moodily concluded.

"What, isn't she—?"

Bob understood the unvoiced question. "Won't even let a chap have two minutes' talk with her," he said, "let alone anything else."

Mr. Moss stretched himself along the sofa; rejoined: "Oh, rats! Rats! You don't know how to manage 'em—that's what it is."

"I know as well as you, and a dashed sight better, I don't mind betting," Bob returned with heat. In some circles it is an aspersion upon a man's manliness to have it hinted that a petticoat presenting possibilities has not been ruffled.

"Well, it don't look much like it. I caught her eye in the passage when we were coming downstairs, and you don't tell me—not much!"

"Did you though?" Bob said. Himself he had never been so fortunate.

"No mistake about it. Why, d'you mean to say you've never got as far as that, even?"

"Tell you she won't look at me."

Mr. Moss laughed. Enjoyed the "score" over his host for a few moments, and then:

"Tell you what it is, old bird," said he, "you're going the wrong way about it. I know another case just the same. Chap out Wimbledon way. His people kept a girl—topper she was, too—dark. He was always messing round just like you are, and she was stand-offish as a nun. One night he came home early, a bit screwed—people out—girl in. Met her in the drawing-room. Almost been afraid to speak to her before. Had a bit of fizz on board him now—you know; didn't care a rip for anybody. Gave her a smacking great kiss, and, by Gad!—well, she was all right. Told him she'd always stood off up to then because she was never quite sure what he meant—afraid he didn't mean anything, and that she might get herself into no end of a row if she started playing around. Same with this little bit of goods, I'll lay."

Bob was interested. "Shouldn't be surprised if you're right," he said; and moodily cogitated upon the line of action prescribed.

Mr. Moss offered to bet that where girls were concerned he was never far wrong. "Slap-dash style is what they like," he remarked, and with a careless "It's all they understand" dismissed the subject.

It remained, however, in Bob's mind throughout the evening; sprang instantly when, after breakfast upon the following day, he caught a glimpse of Mary as he prepared for the City.

Standing for a moment in the hall, it occurred to him that this very evening offered the opportunity he sought. Mr. and Mrs. Chater were to dine at the house of a neighbour. The invitation had included Bob— fortunately he had refused it. Returning to the morning-room, "I shan't be in to-night," he told his mother.

"Then I needn't order any dinner for you?"

"No." He hung about irresolute, then lit a cigar, and between the puffs, "Shall you be late?" he asked carelessly.

"Sure to be," Mrs. Chater told him. "It's going to be a big bridge drive, you know. We shan't get back before midnight. Don't sit up for us, dear."

Bob inhaled a long breath from his cigar, exhaled it deliciously. The chance for the slap-dash style was at hand.

"Oh, I'll be later than you. Lemmy Moss has got a bachelors' party on. We're going to have a billiard match."

"That's capital then, dear. I shall let the servants go to Earl's Court—I've promised them a long time."

Bob whistled gaily as he mounted his 'bus for the City. The opportunity was surely exceptional.

At eight o'clock he returned; noiselessly let himself in.

The gas in the hall burned low. Beneath the library door gleamed a stronger light. Bob turned the handle.

Mary was curled in a big chair with a book. Certainly the opportunity was exceptional.

At the noise of his entry she sprang to her feet with a little cry. "Oh, dear!" she exclaimed: "what a fright you gave me!"

Bob pushed the door. He laughed. "Did I?"; came towards her. "Are you all alone? What a shame!"

"Minnie is in the kitchen, I think. Mrs. Chater said you wouldn't be in to-night."

"Why do you think I came?"

"I don't know."

"I came to see you."

She gave a nervous little laugh and made to pass him.

Bob fell back a pace, guarding the door. "Don't you think that was thoughtful of me?"

"I don't know what you mean. There was no need."

"What! No need! You all alone like this when all the rest are enjoying themselves!"

"So was I. A long evening with a book."

She had fallen back as he, speaking, had slowly advanced.

Now the great chair in which she had been seated was alone between them.

"Oh, books! Books are rot." He stepped around the chair.

She fell back; was cornered between the hearth and a low table.

Bob dropped into the chair; boldly regarded her; his eyes as expressive of his slap-dash intentions as he could make them: "Look here, I want you to enjoy yourself for once. I'm going to take you to a music-hall or somewhere."

He stretched a foot; touched her.

She drew back close against the mantelpiece, her agitation very evident.

"Well, don't that please you?"

"You know it is impossible."

Bob paid no regard. This was that same diffidence with which the chap near Wimbledon had had to contend.

"We'll come out of the show early and have a bit of supper and be back before half-past eleven. Who's to know? Now, then?"

"It's very kind of you. I know you mean it kindly—"

"Of course I do—"

"But I'd rather not."

"Are you afraid?"

She was desperately afraid. Her face, the shaking of her hand where it was pressed back against the wall, and the catch in her voice advertised her apprehension. She was afraid of this big young man confidently lolling before her.

She said weakly: "It would not be right."

Bob sat up. "Is that all?" he laughed. His hands were upon the arms of the chair, and he made to pull himself up towards her.

She saw her mistake. "No," she cried hurriedly—"no; I would not go with you in any case."

A shadow flickered upon Bob's face. "What do you mean?"

"I mean what I say. Please let me pass."

"I want to be friends with you. Why can't you let me?"

"Please let me pass. Mr. Chater."

Bob lay back. He said with a laugh, "Well, I'm not stopping you, am I?"

She hesitated a moment. The passage between the table and the long chair was narrow. But truly he was not stopping her—so far as one might judge.

She took her skirts about her with her left hand; stepped forward; was almost past the chair before he moved.

Then he flung out a hand and caught her wrist, drawing her.

"Now!" he cried, and his voice was thick.

She gave a half-sound of dismay—of fear; tried to twist free. Bob laughed; pulled sharply on her arm. She was standing sideways to him— against the sudden strain lost her balance and half toppled across the chair.

As Bob reflected, when afterwards feeding upon the incident, had he not been as unprepared as she for her sudden stumble, he would have made—as he put it—a better thing of it. As it was, her face falling against his, he was but able to give a half kiss when she had writhed herself free and made across the room.

But that embrace of her had warmed Bob's passions. Springing up, he caught her as she fumbled with the latch; twisted her to him.

For a moment they struggled, he grasping her wrists and pressing towards her.

With the intention of encircling her waist he slipped his hold. But panic made her the quicker. Her outstretched arms held him at bay for a breathing space; then as he broke them down she dealt him a swinging blow upon the face that staggered him back a step, his hand to his cheek.

Mrs. Chater opened the door.

"Oh, he kissed me! He kissed me!" Mary cried.

Bob said very slowly, "You—infernal—little—liar."

Mrs. Chater glowered upon Mary with cruel eyes. "It was a fortunate thing," she said coldly, "that a headache brought me home. Go to your room, miss."

We may hurry across the bridge.



CHAPTER III.

Excursions In Love.



I.

Saturday was the day immediately following this scene.

George, on a 'bus carrying him towards Regent's Park, was in spirit at one with the gay freshness that gave this September morning a spring- like air.

A week of torrid heat, in which London crawled, groaned, and panted, had been wiped from the memory by an over-night thunderstorm that burst the pent-up dams of heaven and loosed cool floods upon the staring streets. No misty drizzle nor gusty shower it had been, but a strong, straight, continuous downpour, seemingly impelled by tremendous pressure. Dusty roofs, dusty streets, dusty windows it had scoured and scrubbed and polished; torrents had poured down the gutters—whenever temporarily the pressure seemed to relax, the ears of wakeful Londoners were sung to by the gurgle and rush of frantic streams driving before them the collected debris of many days.

Upon this morning, in the result, a tempest might have swept the town and found never a speck of dust to drive before it. The very air had been washed and sweetened; and London's workers, scurrying to and from their hives, seemed also to have benefited by some attribute of the downpour that tinted cheeks, sparkled eyes, and, rejuvenating limbs, gave to them a new sprightliness of movement.

George, from his 'bus, caught many a bright eye under a jaunty little hat; gave each back its gleam from the depths of gay lightness that filled his heart. Nearing the Park he alighted; made two purchases. From a confectioner bun-corn for David and Angela, those ramping steeds; from a florist the reddest rose that an exhaustive search of stock could discover.

Mary had from him such a rose at their every meeting. She might not wear it back to Palace Gardens—it would not flourish beneath Mrs. Chater's curiosity; but while they were together she would tuck it in her bosom, and George tenderly would bear it home and set it in a vase before him to lend him inspiration as he worked.

It is almost certain that such a part is one for which flowers were especially designed.



II.

Those splendid steeds, David and Angela, having been duly exercised, groomed, and turned out to browse upon bun-corn, George rushed at once upon the matter that was singing within him.

Where he sat with his Mary they were sheltered from any but chance obtrusion. She had taken off her gloves, and George gave her hands, as they lay in her lap, a little confident pat. It was the tap of the baton with which the conductor calls together his orchestra—for this was a song that George was about to tune, very confident that the chords of both instruments that should give the notes were in a harmony complete.

He said: "Mary, do you know what I am going to talk about?"

She had been a little silent that morning, he had thought; did not answer now, but smiled.

He laid a hand upon both hers. "You must say 'yes.' You've got to say 'yes' about twenty times this morning, so start now. Do you know what I'm going to talk about?"

"Yes."

"No objections this time?"

"Yes."

He laughed; gave her hand a little smack of reproof. (You who have loved will excuse these lovers' absurdities.) "No, no; you are only to say 'yes' when I tell you. No objections to the subject this morning?"

His Mary told him "No."

"Couldn't have a better morning for it, could we?"

She took a little catch at her breath.

George dropped the banter in his tone. "Nothing wrong to-day, is there, dear? Nothing up?"

How sadly wrong everything in truth was she had determined not to tell him until she more certainly knew its extent. She shook her head; reassuringly smiled.

"Well, that's all right—there couldn't be on a morning like this. Now we've got to begin at the beginning. Mary, I planned it all out last night—all this conversation. We've got to begin at the beginning—Do you know I've never told you yet that I love you? You knew it, though, didn't you, from the first, the very first? Tell me from when?"

"George, this is awfully foolish, isn't it?"

"Never mind. It's jolly nice. It's necessary, too. I've read about it. It's always done. Tell me from when you knew I loved you."

"After last Saturday."

"Oh, Mary! Much earlier than that! You must have!"

"Well, I thought perhaps you—you cared after that first day when you came here."

"Not before that?"

She laughed. "Come, how could I? Why, I'd hardly seen you."

"Well, I did, anyway," George told her. "I loved you from the very minute you shot out of the cab that day. There! But even this isn't the proper thing. I've been promising myself all night to say four words to you—just four. Now I'm going to say them: Mary, I love you."

She looked in his eyes for a moment, answering the signal that shone thence; and then she laughed that clear pipe of mirth which was so uniquely her own possession.

"Oh, I say, you mustn't do that," George cried. He was really perturbed.

"I can't help it. You are so utterly foolish."

"I'm not. It's the proper thing. I tell you I've planned it all out. I love you. I've never said it to you before. Now it's your turn."

"But what on earth am I to say?"

"You've got to say that you love me."

"You're making a farce of it."

"No, I tell you I've planned it all out. I can't go on till you've said it."

"You can't expect me to say: 'George, I love you.' It's ridiculous. It's like a funny story."

"Oh, never mind what it's like. Do be serious, Mary. How can I be sure you love me if you won't tell me?"

For the first moment since its happening the thought of Bob Chater and of Mrs. Chater passed completely from Mary's mind. She looked around: there was no soul in sight. She listened: there was no sound. She clasped her fingers about his; leaned towards him, her face upturned....

He kissed her upon the lips....

"The plans," said George after a moment, "have all gone fut. I never thought of that way."

"It's much better," Mary said.

"The other's not a patch upon it," said George.



III.

You must conjecture of what lovers think when, following their first kiss, they sit silent. It is not a state that may be written down in such poor words as your author commands. For the touch of lips on lips is the key that turns the lock and gives admission to a world dimly conceived, yet found to have been wrongly conceived since conceived never to be so wonderful or so beautiful as it does prove. Nor, ever again, once the silence is broken and speech is found, has that world an aspect quite the same. For the door that divides this new world from the material world can never from the inside be closed. It is at first—for the space of that silence after the first kiss—pushed very close by those who have entered; but, soon after, the breath of every rushing moment blows it further and further ajar. Drab objects from the outer world drift across the threshold and obtrude their presence—vagabond tramps in a rose-garden, unpleasant, marring the surroundings, soiling the atmosphere. Cares drift in, worldly interests drift in; in drift smudgy, soiled, unpleasant objects brushing the door yet wider upon its hinges till it stands back to its furthest extent and the interior becomes at one with the outer world. The process is gradual, indiscernible. When completed the knowledge of what has been done dawns suddenly. One knocks against an intruder especially drab, starts into wakefulness to rub the bruise, and looking around exclaims, "And this is love!"

Well, it was love. But a rose-garden will not long remain beautiful if no care is taken of what may intrude.

If we but stand sentinel at the door, exercising a nice discretion, the garden may likely remain unsoiled, its air uncontaminated.



IV.

George said that though across the first portion of the scheme he had so laboriously planned he had been shot at lightning speed by the vehicle of Mary's action, its latter portion yet remained to be discussed. "We've got to marry, dearest—and as quick as quick. We can't go on like this—seeing each other once a week. No, not even if it were once a day. It's got to be always."

"Always and always, dear," Mary said softly.

Women are more intoxicated than men by the sudden atmosphere of that new world. The awe of it was still upon her. The light of love comes strongly to men, with the sensation of bright sunshine; to women as through stained glass windows, softly.

She continued: "Fancy saying 'always' and being glad to say it! I never thought I could. Do you know—will this frighten you?—I am one of those people who dread the idea of 'always.' I never could bear the idea of looking far, far ahead and not seeing any end. It frightened me. Ever since father died, I've been like that—even in little things, even in tangible things. When we go to the seaside in the summer I never can bear to look straight across the sea. That gives me the idea of always—of long, long miles and miles without a turn or a stop. I want to think every day, every hour, that what I am doing can't go on—mustchange. It suffocates me to think otherwise. I want to jump out, to scream."

Then she gave that laugh that seldom failed to come to her relief, and said: "It's a sort of claustrophobia—isn't that the word?—on a universal scale. But why is it? And why am I suddenly changed now? Why does the thought of always, always, endless always with you, bring a sort of—don't laugh, dear—a sort of bliss, peace?"

This poor George of mine, who was no deep thinker, nevertheless had the reason pat. He said:

"I think because the past has all been unhappy and because this, you know, means happiness."

She gave a little sigh; told him: "Yes, that's it—happiness."



V.

And now they fell to making plans as mating birds build nests. Here a bit of straw and there a tuft of moss; here a feather, there a shred of wool—George would do this and George would do that; here the house would be and thus would they do in the house. Probabilities were outraged, obstacles vaulted.

Castles that are builded in the air spring into being quicker than Aladdin's palace—bricks and mortar, beams and stones are featherweight when handled in the clouds; every piece is so dovetailed, marked and numbered that like magic there springs before the eye the shining whole—pinnacled, turreted, embattled.

Disaster arrives when the work is completed. "There!" we say, standing back, a little flushed and out of breath with the excitement of the thing. "There! There's a place in which to live! Could any existence be more glorious?" And then we advance a step and lean against the walls to survey the surrounding prospect. It is the fatal action. The material body touches the aerial structure and down with a crash the castle comes—back we pitch into the foundations, and thwack, bump, thwack, comes the masonry tumbling about us, bruising, wounding.



VI.

George had built the castle. Mary had sat by twittering and clapping her hands for glee as higher and higher it rose. He knew for a fact, he told her, that his uncle had not expended upon his education much more than half the money left him for the purpose. He was convinced that by hook or by crook he could obtain the 400 pounds that would buy him the practice at Runnygate of which the Dean had told him. They would have a little house there—the town would thrive—the practice would nourish—in a year—why, in a year they would likely enough have to be thinking of getting a partner! And it would begin almost immediately! In three weeks the examination would be held. He could not fail to pass—then for the 400 pounds and Runnygate!

And then, unhappily, George leaned against this castle wall; provoked the crash.

"Till then, dear," he said, "you will stay with these Chater people. I know you hate it; but it will be only a short time, a few weeks at most."

Instantly her gay twittering ceased. Trouble drove glee from her eyes. Memory chased dreams from her brain. Distress tore down the gay colours from her cheeks. She clasped her hands; from her seat half rose.

"Oh!" she cried; and again, "Oh! I had forgotten!"

"Forgotten? Forgotten what?"

"Dearest, I should have told you at the beginning, but I could not. I wanted to wait until I knew. I have not seen her yet this morning."

My startled George was becoming pale. "Knew what? Seen whom? What do you mean?"

She said, "No, I won't tell you. I won't spoil all this beautiful morning we have spent. I will wait till next week."

"Mary, what do you mean? Wait till next week? No. You must tell me now. How could I leave you like this, knowing you are in some trouble? What has happened? You must tell. You must. I insist."

"Ah, I will." Her agitation, as her mind cast back over the events of the previous night, was enhanced by the suddenness of the change from the sunshine in which she had been disporting to the darkness that now swept upon her. She was as a girl who, singing along a country lane, is suddenly confronted from the hedgeside by some ugly tramp.

She said, "You know that young Mr. Chater?"

Dark imaginings clouded upon George's brow. "Yes," he said. "Yes; well—?"

"Last night—" And then she gave him the history of events.

This simple George of mine writhed beneath it.

It was a poison torturing his system, twisting his brow, knotting his hands. Her presence, when she finished, did not stay his cry beneath his rackings: he was upon his feet. "By Gad," he cried, "I'll thrash the life out of him! The swine! By Gad, I'll kill him!"

She laid a hand upon his arm. "Georgie, dear," she pleaded. "Don't, don't take it like that. I haven't finished."

Roughly he turned upon her. "Well, what else? What else?"

"I haven't seen him since. He went away early this morning for the week-end. And I have not seen Mrs. Chater again either. I am to see her this afternoon. She sent me word to take the children as usual and that she would see me at three."

My poor George bitterly broke out: "Oh! Will she? That's kind of her! That's delightful of her! Are you going to see her?"

"Of course I shall see her."

"'Of course'! 'Of course'! I don't know what you mean by talking in that tone. You won't stay there another minute! That's what you'll tell her if you insist upon seeing her. If you had behaved properly you'd have walked out of the house there and then when it happened last night."

Spite of her trouble Mary could not forbear to laugh. "Dearest, how could I?"

But this furious young man could not see her point. His fine passion swept him above contingencies.

"Well, then, this morning," he laid down. "The first thing this morning you should have gone." He supplied detail: "Packed your box, and called a cab and gone."

His dictatory air drew from her another sad little laugh.

"Oh, George, dear," she cried, "gone where?"

It was a bucket of water dashed upon his flames, and for a moment they flickered beneath it—then roared again: "Where? Anywhere!"