"Oh!" she cried, "you are stupid! You don't see—you don't understand! Easy to say 'anywhere,' but where—where? I have no money. I have no friends—I—"

The knowledge of her plight and her outlook crowded upon her speech; broke her voice.

Her distracted George in a moment had her hands in his. "Oh, my dear," he cried, "what a fool I am! What a beast to storm like that! I was so wild. So mad. Of course you had to think before you moved. You were right, of course you were right. But, my darling, I'm right now. You see that, don't you? You can't stay a moment longer with those beasts."

And then he laughed grimly. "Especially," he added, "after what I'm going to do to Master Bob."

She too laughed. The thought of Bob learning manners beneath the tuition of those sinewy brown hands that were about hers was very pleasant to her. But it was a pleasure that must be denied—this she saw clearly as the result of weary tossings throughout the night; and now she set about the task of explaining it to George.

She said: "Oh, my dear, you're not right. Georgie, I can't go—if Mrs. Chater will let me stay I must stay."

He tried to be calm, to understand these women, to understand his Mary. "But why?" he asked. "Why?"

"Dearest, because I must bridge over the time until you are ready to take me. You see that?"

"Of course. But why there? You can easily get another place."

"Oh, easily! If you had been through it as I have been! The first thing they ask you for is a reference from your former situation. Think what a reference Mrs. Chater would give me!"

He would not agree. He plunged along in his blundering, man fashion: "In time you could get a place where they would not ask questions—or rather—yes, of course this is it. Tell them frankly all that happened. Who could see you and not believe you? Tell them everything. There must be some nice people in the world."

"There may be. But they don't want helps or governesses—in my experience." The little laugh she gave was sadly doleful.

He was still angry. "You can't generalise like that. There are thousands who would believe you and be glad to take you. Suppose you have to wait a bit—well, you have a little money that she must give you; and I—oh, curse my poverty!—I can borrow, and I can sell things."

The help that a man would give a woman so often has lack of sympathy; he is unkind while meaning to be kind. George's obdurateness, coming when she was most in need of kisses, hurt her. Trouble welled in her eyes.

"I wouldn't do that," she said. "For one thing, we want all our money. Why throw it away to get me out of a place in which I shall only be for a few weeks longer? Another thing—another thing—" She dragged a ridiculous handkerchief from her sleeve; dabbed her brimming eyes. "Another thing—I'm afraid to risk it. I'm afraid to be alone and looking for a place again. There—now you know. I'm a coward."

She fell to sniffing and sobbing; and her wretched George, cursing himself for the grief he had evoked, cursing Bob Chater, cursing Mrs. Chater, cursing his uncle Marrapit, put his arms about her and drew her to him. She quivered hysterically, and he frantically moaned that he was a beast, a brute, unworthy; implored forgiveness; entreated calm; by squeezing her with his left arm and with his right hand dabbing her eyes with her handkerchief, screwed to a pathetic little damp ball, strove to stem the flood that alarmingly welled from them.



VII.

It was an awful position for any young man; and just as my poor George, distinguished in nothing, inept, bewildered, was in a mood murderous to the whole world save this anguished fairy, a wretched old gentleman must needs come sunning himself down the path, making for this seat with hobbling limbs.

He collapsed upon it, and then, glancing to his right, was struck with palpitations by sight of the heaving back of a young woman over whose shoulder glared at him with hideous ferocity the face of a young man.

"Dear me, dear me," said he; "nothing wrong, sir, I trust?"

"Go away!" roared my distracted George.

"Eh?" inquired the old gentleman, horribly startled.

"Go away! Go away!"

The fire of those baleful eyes, of that bellowing voice, struck terror into the aged heart. He clutched his stick.

"Oh dear, oh dear," said he; hobbled away at a speed dangerous to his life and limbs to seek protection of a park-keeper.

The sobs grew longer, less hysterical: changed into long "ohs" of misery; died away.

"There, there," said George, patting, dabbing. "There, there."

With a final frantic sniff she recovered her self-possession.

"I'm a little f—fool," said she.

"I'm a brute," said George.

The bitter knowledge nerved each to better efforts. Calm reigned.

Mary said, "Now you must listen and believe, dear."

"Let me have your hand, then."

She gave it with a little confiding, snuggling movement, and she continued: "You must believe, because I have thought it all out, whereas to you it is new. If I were a proper-spirited girl"—she rebuked his negation with a gesture—"if I were a proper-spirited girl I know I should leave Mrs. Chater at once—walk out and not care what I might suffer rather than stay where I had been insulted. Girls in books would do it. Oh, Georgie, this isn't books. This is real. I have been through it, and I would die sooner than face it again. You know—I have told you—what it is like being alone in cheap lodgings in London. Afraid of people, dear. Afraid of men, afraid of women. I couldn't, could not go through it again. And after all-don't you see? —if Mrs. Chater will let me stay, what have I to mind? I shall be better off than before, if anything. Mrs. Chater has always been— well, sharp. She may be a little worse—there's nothing in that. But this Bob Chater, since he came, has been the worst part of it. And as things are now, his mother watchful and he—what shall I say? angry, ashamed—why, he will pay no further attention to me. Come, am I not right? Isn't it best?—if only she will let me stay."

"I don't like it," George said. "I don't like it."

"Dearest, nor I. But we can't, can't have what we like, and this will be the best of the nasty things. For so short a time, too. I'm quite bright about it. Am I not? Look at me."

George looked. Then he said, "All right, old girl."

She clapped her hands. "Only one thing more. You mustn't seek out—you mustn't touch the detestable Bob."

With the gloom of one relinquishing life's greatest prize George said, "I suppose I mustn't." He added, "I tell you what, though. You mustn't interfere with this. I'll save it up for him. The day I take you out and marry you I'll pull him out—and pay him."

They parted upon the promises that Mary would write that evening to tell him of the result of her interview with Mrs. Chater, and that, in the especial circumstances, he might come to see her in the Park for just two minutes on Monday morning.

And each went home, thinking, not of that portending interview with Mrs. Chater, but upon the love they had declared.



CHAPTER IV.

Events And Sentiment Mixed In A Letter.



I.

At ten o'clock that night Mary took up her pen.

"First, my dear, to tell you that it is all right. I may stay. I had lunch with the children in the nursery, and just as we had finished a maid came to say that Mrs. Chater would see me in the study. Down I crawled, wishing that I was the heroine of a novel who would have passed firmly down the stairs and into the room, 'pale, but calm and serene.' Oh! I was pale enough, I feel sure. But as to serene!—my heart was flapping about just like a tin ventilator in a wind, and I was jumpy all over. You see what a coward am I.

"Mrs. Chater had grown since last I saw her. Of that I am convinced. She sat, enormous, thunder-browed, bolt upright in a straight chair. I stood and quivered. Books are all wrong, dear. In books the consciousness of virtue gives one complete self-possession in the face of any accusation, however terrible. In books it is the accuser of the innocent who is ill at ease. Oh, don't believe it! Mrs. Chater had the self-possession, I had the jim-jams.

"'I have not seen you since last night,' she said.

"I gave a kind of terrified little squeak. I had no words.

"'Your version of what happened I do not wish to hear,' she went on.

"This relieved me, because for the life of me I could not have told her had she wished to hear it. So I gave another little mouse-squeak.

"'My son has told me.' Her voice was like a deep bell. 'How you can reconcile your conduct with the treatment that you have received at my hands, here beneath my roof'—she was very dramatic at this point—'I do not know.'

"Nor did I—but not in the way she meant. I was thinking how ignoble was my meek attitude in light of what had happened. But you don't know what it was like, facing that woman and dreading the worse fate of being turned out into this awful London again. Another wretched little squeak slipped out of me, and she went on.

"'My boy,' said she, 'has implored me to overlook this matter. My boy has declared there were faults on both sides' (!!!!). 'If I acted rightly as a mother, what would I do?'

"I didn't tell her, Georgie. Could I tell her that if she acted rightly as a mother she would box her boy's fat ears until his nose bled? I couldn't. I squeaked instead.

"'If I acted rightly as a mother,' said she, 'I would send you away. I am not going to.'

"I squeaked.

"'I choose to believe that your behaviour in this matter was a slip. I believe the episode will be a lesson to you. That is all. Go.' I goed."



II.

George, when he had read thus far, was broadly grinning. Obviously Mrs. Chater was not such a bad sort after all. If—as no doubt—she implicitly believed her son's version of the incident, then her attitude towards Mary was, on the whole, not so bad.

But his Mary, when she had written thus far, laid down her pen, put her pretty head upon the paper and wept.

"Oh, my dear!" she choked. "There, that will make you think it was all right. You shall never know—never—what really happened. Oh, Georgie, Georgie, come very quick and take me away! How can I go on living with these beasts? Oh, Georgie, be quick, be quick!"

Then this silly Mary with handkerchief, with india-rubber, and with pen-knife erased a stain of grief that had fallen upon her pretty story; sniffed back her tears; lifted again her pen.

Now she wrote in an eager scrawl; nib flying. Had her George not been so very ordinary a young man he must have perceived the difference between that first portion so neatly penned—parti-coloured words showing where the ink had dried while the poor little brain puzzled and planned at every syllable—and this where emotion sped the thoughts.



III.

"So that's all right" (she wrote), "and now we've only got to wait, a few, few weeks. Dearest, will they fly or will they drag? What does love do to time, I wonder—whip or brake?—speed or pull? Georgie mine, I feel I don't care. If the days fly I shall be riding in them— galloping to you, wind in the face; shouting them on; standing up all flushed with the swing and the rush of it; waving to the people we go thundering past and gazing along the road where soon I will see you— nearer and nearer and nearer.

"And if the days creep? Well, at first, after that picture, the thought seems melancholy, unbearable. But that is wrong. The realisation will not be unbearable. If they creep, why, then I shall lie in them, very comfortable, very happy; dreaming of you, seeing you, speaking with you, touching you. Yes, touching you. For, my dear, you are here in the room with me as I write. I look up just to my right, and there you are, Georgie mine; sitting on the end of my bed, smiling at me. You have not left me, my dear, since we parted on the seat this morning. Why, I cannot even write that it is only in imagination that I see you. For me it is not imagination. I do, do see you, Georgie mine. You are part of me, never to leave me.

"How new, how different, love makes life! Everything I do, everything I see, everything I hear has a new interest because it is something to share with you, something to save up and tell you. I am in trouble (you understand that I am not, shall never be again; this is only illustration—you must read it 'if I were in trouble'). I am in trouble, and you are sharing it with me, sympathising so that trouble is an unkind word for what is indeed but an opportunity acutely to feel the joy of loving and being loved. I am happy, and the happiness is a thousandfold increased because it comes to me warmed through you. I am amused, and it is something to tell you and to laugh at the more heartily by the compelling sound of your own laughter.

"Everything is new. Why, my very clothes are new. Look, here in my left hand is my handkerchief. Only a handkerchief this morning, and to other eyes still but a handkerchief. But to mine! Why, you have had it in your hand and indeed it speaks to me of you. Here you laid your arm, this was the side upon which you touched me as we sat together, here in my hair your fingers caressed me—each and all they are new— different from this morning.

"Are you thinking me silly when I write like this, or are you dreadfully bored with it? I can't help it, Georgie; love means so much more to us women than to you men. It is essentially different. When a man in love thinks of the woman he thinks of her as 'mine,' and that thrills him—possession. But when the woman thinks of him she thinks of herself as 'his,' and that moves every fibre of her, strikes every chord—capitulation. The man expresses love by saying 'You are mine'; the woman by 'I am yours.' That is how it is with me. I sing to myself that I am yours, yours, yours. I want you to have every bit of me. I want you to know every thought I have. If I had bad thoughts, I would tell them you. If I had desires, I would make them known and would not blush. I want you to see right into my very heart. I want to lay everything before you—to come to you bound and naked. That is what love is with women, dear. Some of us resist it, school it otherwise— but I do not think they are happy; not really happy. It is our nature to be as I have said, and to fight against nature is wearying work, leaving marks: it is to get tossed aside out of the sun.

"Are you thinking me unutterably tiresome and foolish?—but you will not think that; because you love me.

"Ah, let me write that again!-because you love me. And let me write this: I love you.

"My dear, is not that curious?—the precious joy of saying 'I love you,' and the constant yearning to hear it said. Not lovers alone have this joy and this desire. Mothers teach their babies to say 'I love you, mother,' and constantly and constantly they ask, 'Do you love me, baby? '—yes, and are not satisfied until they have the assurance. And babies, too, will get up suddenly from their toys to run to say, 'Mother, I do love you.'

"Why is it? Why is love so doubted that it must for ever be declared? So doubted that even those who do love must constantly be proclaiming the fact to the object of their affections, impelled either by the subconscious fear that that object mistrusts the devotion, or by the subconscious fear that they themselves are under delusion and must protest aloud—just as a child upon the brink of being frightened in the dark will say aloud, 'I'm not afraid!' Why is it?

"Actions are allowed to proclaim hate, deeds suffice to advertise sympathy, but love must be testified by bond. To what crimes must love have been twisted and contorted that it should come to such a pass? How often must it have been used as disguise to be now thus suspected?

"You never knew I thought of things like this, did you?

"My dear dear, I who am so frivolous think of yet deeper things. And I would speak of them to you tonight, for I would have you know my heart and mind as, dearest (how dear to think!), you know my face. Yes, of deeper things. I suppose clever people would laugh at the religion my mother and father lived in, taught me, died in, and now is mine. They believed—and I believe—in what I have heard called the Sunday School God! the God who lives, who listens, and to whom I pray. I have read books attempting to shatter this belief—yes, and I think succeeding because written with a cunning appeal only to the intelligence of man. Can such a Being as God exist? they ask. And since man's intelligence can only grasp proved facts, proofs are heaped upon proof that He cannot. The impossibilities are heaped until man must—of his limitations—cry that it is impossible. But in my belief God is above the possibilities—not to be judged by them, not to be reduced to them. I suppose such a belief is Faith—implicit Faith—the Faith that we are told makes all things possible. Well, fancy, for the sake of having a 'religion' that comes into line with 'reason,' abandoning the sense of comfort that comes after prayer! Fancy receiving a 'reasoned' belief and paying for it the solace of entreating help in the smallest trouble and in the largest!

"Do you know, my dear dear, that I pray for you every night?—for your health, your happiness, and your success?

"Now you know a little more of me. Is there more to learn, I wonder? Not if I can make it clear.

"The candle is in a most melancholy condition: in the last stage of collapse. I have prodded it out from its socket with my knife and set it flabbily on a penny—so it must work to its very last drop of life. That will not be long delayed. I shall suddenly be plunged into darkness and must undress in the dark. I shall be smiling all the time I am undressing, my thoughts with you.

"At eleven—ten minutes' time—I am to be leaning from the window gazing at Orion as you too—so we agreed—will be gazing. Each will know the other has his thoughts, and we will say 'good-night.' How utterly foolish! How contemptibly absurd, common!—and how mystically delightful! You and I with Orion for the apex of eye's sight and our thoughts flying from heart to heart the base!

"Georgie mine, if we had never met could we have ever been so happy? Impossible! Impossible! Before I pray for you to-night, I thank God for you.

"I have kissed the corner where I shall just be able to squeeze in— good-night."

Such was her letter-disloyal to women in its exposure of those truths of women's love which are theirs by the heritage of ages, by their daily training from childhood upward, and against which they should most desperately battle; simple in its ideas of religion; silly in its baby sentiment.

Such was my Mary.



CHAPTER V.

Beefsteak For 14 Palace Gardens.



I.

Friday was the night of the incident in the library between Bob Chater and Mary; Saturday the exchange of love in the Park between Mary and her George; Saturday evening the writing of Mary's letter; upon Monday George read it.

Now it was Monday morning, and precisely at ten o'clock three persons set out for the same seat in Regent's Park—the mind of each filled with one of the others, empty of all thought of the third.

Mary—accompanied by David and Angela—carried towards the seat the image of her George, but had no heed of Mr. Bob Chater's existence; she was the magnet that drew Bob, ignorant of George; George sped to his Mary and had no thought of Bob.

Our young men were handicapped in point of distance. Mary, with but a short half-mile to go, must easily be first to make the seat; Bob, coming to town from a week-end up the river, would occupy little short of an hour. George from Herons' Holt to that dear seat, allowed full seventy-five minutes.



II.

Upon the whole, Mr. Bob Chater had not enjoyed his week-end; ideally circumstanced, for once the attractions it offered had failed to allure.

Mr. Lemmy Moss, in the tiny riparian cottage he rented for the summer months, was the most excellent of hosts; Claude Avinger was widely known as a rattling good sort; the three young ladies who came down early on Sunday morning and had no foolish objections to staying indecorously late, were in face, figure and morals all that Bob, Lemmy, and Claude could desire. Yet throughout that day in the cushioned punt Bob won more pouts than smiles from the lady who fell to his guardianship.

Disgustedly she remarked to her friends on the home journey, "Fairly chucked myself at him, the deadhead "—wherein, I apprehend, lay her mistake. For whether a man's assault upon a woman be dictated by love or desire, its vehemence is damped by acquiescence, spurred by rebuff. Doubtless for our lusty forefathers one-half the fascination of obtaining to wife the naked ladies who caught their eye lay in the tremendous excitement of snatching them from their tribes; while for the ladies, the joy of capture comprised a great proportion of the amorous delights.

The characteristics remain. Maidens are more decorously won to-day; their tribes do not defend them; but they do the fighting for themselves. The sturdier the defence they are able to make, the greater the joy of at length being won; while, for the suitor, the more pains he hath endured in process of conquest the more keenly doth he relish his captive.

So with Bob. The young lady fairly chucking herself at him in the punt he could not forbear to contrast with the enticing reserve of Mary. The more playfully (or desperately, poor girl) she chucked herself at him, the more did her charms cloy as against those of that other prize who so stoutly kept him at arm's-length. Nay, the more strenuously did she seek to entice his good offices, the more troubled was he to imagine why another of her sex should so slightingly regard him.

Thus, as the day wore on, was Bob thrice impelled towards Mary—by initial attraction of her beauty; by natural instinct to show himself master where, till now, he had been bested; and by the stabbings of his wounded vanity.

On Monday morning, then, he caught the ten o'clock train to town, hot in the determination immediately to see her and instantly to press his suit. He would try, he told himself, a new strategy. Bold assault had been proved ill-advised; for frontal attack must be substituted an advance more crafty. Its plan required no seeking. He would play—and, to a certain extent, would sincerely play—the part of penitent. He would apologise for Friday's lapse; would explain it to have been the outcome of sheer despair of ever winning her good graces.

As to where he would find her he had no doubts. Dozing one day over a book, he had not driven David and Angela from the room until they had forced upon him a wearisome account of the secluded seat they had discovered in Regent's Park. His patience in listening was an example of the profit of casting one's bread upon the waters; for, making without hesitation for the seat, he discovered Mary.



III.

The children, as he approached, were standing before her. David had scratched his finger, and the three were breathlessly examining the wounded hand for traces of the disaster. Brightly Mary was explaining that the place of the wound was over the home of very big drops of "blug," which could not possibly squeeze out of so tiny a window; when Angela, turning at footsteps, exclaimed: "Oh, dear, oh, dear, what shall we do? Here's Bob!"

Alarm drummed in Mary's heart: fluttered upon her cheeks. She had felt, as she told her George, so certain that from Bob she had now not even acknowledgment to fear, that this deliberate intrusion set her mind bounding into disordered apprehensions—stumbling among them, terrified, out of breath.

When he had raised his hat, bade her good morning, she could but sit dumbly staring at him-questioning, incapable of speech.

It was Angela that answered his salutation: "Oh, why have you come here? You spoil everything."

"Hook!" said Bob.

David asked: "What's hook?"

"Run away."

"Why?"

"Because I tell you to."

"Why?"

Bob exclaimed: "Hasn't mother told you not to say 'Why' like that? Run away and play. I want to speak to Miss Humfray."

David swallowed the rising interrogation; substituted instead an observant poke: "Miss Humfray doesn't want to speak to you. She hates you."

The uncompromising directness of these brats, their gross ill- mannerliness, was a matter of which Bob made constant complaint to his mother. The belief that he observed a twitch at the corner of Mary's mouth served further to harden his tones.

He said: "Look here, you run away when I tell you, or I'll see you don't come out here any more."

"Why?"

Bob swallowed. It was necessary before he spoke to clear his tongue of the emotions that surged upon it.

Angela, in the pause, entreated David: "Oh, don't keep saying 'Why?', David," and before he could ask the reason she addressed Bob: "We won't go for you. If Miss Humf'ay tells us to go, then we will go."

Bob looked at Mary. "I only want to speak to you for a minute."

Amongst the slippery apprehensions in which she had taken flight Mary had struggled to the comfortable rock that Bob's appearance must have been chance, not deliberate—how should he have known where to seek them? Sure ground, too, was made by the belief that it were well to take the apology with which doubtless he had come—well to be on good terms.

Encouraged by these supports, "Shoo!" she cried to her charges. "Don't you hear what your brother asks?"

"Do you want us to go?"

"Oh, shoo! shoo!"

Laughing, they shoo'd.

Bob let them from earshot. "I want to say how sorry I am about Friday night."

"I have forgotten all that."

"I want to know that you have forgiven me."

"I tell you I have forgotten it."

"That is not enough. You can't have forgotten it." He took a seat beside her; repeated: "You can't have forgotten it. How can you have forgotten a thing that only happened three days ago?"

"In the sense that I have wiped it out—I do not choose to remember it."

"Well, I remember it. I cannot forget it. I behaved very badly. I want to know that you forgive me."

She told him: "Yes, then—oh yes, yes." His persistence alarmed her, set her again to flight among her apprehensions.

"Not when you say it like that."

Her breath came in jerks, responsive to the unsteady flutters of her heart. She made an effort for control; for the first time turned to him: "Mr. Chater, please go."

Her words pricked every force that had him there—desire, obstinacy, wounded vanity.

"Why do you say that?" he asked.

"You happened to be passing—"

"Nothing of the kind," he told her.

"You have come purposely?" One foothold that seemed safe was proving false.

"Of course. I tell you—why won't you believe me?—that I have been ashamed of myself ever since that night. At the first opportunity I have come straight to tell you so, I ought to be in the City. I could not rest until I had made my apology."

"Well, you have made it—I don't mean to say that sharply. I think—I think it is very nice of you to be so anxious, and I freely accept your apology. But don't you see that you are harming me by staying here? I beg you to go."

"How am I harming you? Am I so distasteful to you that you can't bear me near you?"

This was the personal note that of all her apprehensions had given Mary greatest alarm. "Surely you see that you are harming me—I mean hurting me—I mean, yes, getting me into trouble by staying like this with me. Mrs. Chater might have turned me off on Saturday—"

"I spoke for you."

"Yes." The words choked her, but she spoke them—"I am grateful to you for that. But if she found me talking to you again—especially if she knew you came here to see me, she would send me away at once. She told me so."

"How is she to know?"

"The children—"

"I'll take care of that."

"You can't prevent it. In any case—"

Bob said bitterly: "In any case! Yes, that's it. In any case you hate the sight of me."

She cried: "Oh, why will you speak like that? I mean that in any case it is not right. I promised."

Bob laughed. "If that's all, it is all right. You didn't promise for me."

"It makes no difference. You say you are sorry—I believe you are sorry. You can only show it one way. Mr. Chater, please leave me alone."

Her pretty appeal was fatal to her desire. It enhanced her graces. In both phrase and tone it was different from similar request in the petulant mouths of those ladies amongst whom Bob purchased his way. Dissatisfied, they would have said "Oh, chuck it! Do!" But "Mr. Chater, please leave me alone!"—that had the effect of moving Mr. Chater a degree closer along the seat.

He said: "You shan't have cause to blame me. Look here, you haven't asked me to explain my conduct on Friday."

"I don't wish you to."

"Don't you want to know?"

She shook her head.

"Aren't you curious?" His voice was low with a note of intensity. This was love-making, as he. knew the pursuit.

He went on: "I'm sure you're curious. Look here, I'm going to tell you."

"I'm going," she said; made to rise.

He caught her hand where it lay on her lap; pressed her down. "You're not. If you do I shall follow—but I won't let you," and he pressed again in advertisement.

Now she was alarmed—not for the result of this interview, but for its very present perils. Fear strangled her voice, but she said, "Let me go."

"You must hear me, then."

"I wish to go."

"You must stay to hear me." He believed a fierce assault would now win the heights. He released her hand; but she was still his prisoner, and he leant towards her averted head.

"I'm going to tell you why I behaved like that that night. It was because I could not contain myself any longer. You had always been so icy to me; kept me at arm's-length, barely let me speak to you; and all the time I was burning to tell you that I loved you—there, you know it now. On that night you were still cold when you might have been only barely civil and I could have contained myself. But you would not give me a word, and at last all that was in me for you burst out and I could not hold myself. It was unkind; it was frightening to you, perhaps; but was it a crime?—is it a crime to love?"

His flow checked, waiting an impulse from her.

She was but capable of a little "Oh!"—the crest of a gasp.

He misread her emotion. "Has it all been pretence, your keeping me from you like this? I believe it has. But now that you know you will be kind. Tell me. Speak."

Encouraged by her silence he took her hand.

That touch acted as a cold blast upon her fevered emotions. Now she was calm.

She shook off his hand. "Have you done?"

The tone more than the question warned him.

"Well?" he said; sullen wrath gathering.

"Well, never speak to me again."

"You won't be friends?"

"Friends! With you!"

Her meaning—that he had lost—stung him; her tone—that she despised him—was a finger in the wound.

He gripped her arm. "You little fool! How are you going to choose? If I want to be friends with you, how are you going to stop it? By God, if you want to be enemies it will be the worse for you. If I can't be friends with you at home, I'll get you turned out and I'll make you be friends outside."

She was trying to twist her arm from his grasp.

He gripped closer. "No, I don't mean that. I love you—that's why I talk so when you rebuff me. I'll not hurt you. We shall—I will be friends."

His right arm held her. He slipped his left around her, drew her to him, and with his lips had brushed her cheek before she was aware of his intention.

The insult swept her free of every thought but its memory. By a sudden motion she slipped from his grasp and to her feet; faced him.

"You beast!" she cried. "You beast!"

He half rose; made a half grab at her.

She stepped back a pace; something in her action reminded him of that stinging blow she had dealt him in the library; he dropped back to his seat and she turned and fled up the path whither Angela and David had toddled.



IV.

It was while Bob sat gazing after her, indeterminate, that he felt a hand from behind the seat upon his shoulder; looked up to see a tall young man, fresh faced, but fury-browed, regarding him.

"What's your name?" asked George.

"What the devil's that to do with you?"

The tone of the first question had been of passion restrained. The passion broke now from between George's clenched teeth, flamed in his eyes.

He tightened his grip upon the other's shoulder so that he pinched the flesh.

"A lot to do with me," he cried. "Is it Chater?"

"What if it is? Let me go, damn you!"

"Let you go! I've been itching for you for weeks! What have you been saying to Miss Humfray?"

"Damn you! Take off your hand! She's a friend of yours, is she?"

My furious George choked: "Engaged to me." Further bit upon his passion he could not brook. He brought his free hand down with a crash upon the face twisted up at him; relaxed his hold; ran round the seat- -those brown hands clenched.

If Bob Chater at no time had aching desire for a brawl, he was at least no coward: here the events he had suffered well sufficed to whip his blood to action. He sprang to his feet, was upon them as George, sideways to him, came round the arm of the seat; lunged furiously and landed a crack upon the cheekbone that spun George staggering up the path.

It was a good blow, a lusty blow—straight from the shoulder and with body and leg work behind it; a blow that, happier placed, might well have won the battle.

A ring upon Bob's finger cut the flesh he struck, and he gave a savage "Ha!" of triumph as he saw George go spinning and the red trickle come breaking down his cheek.

A great ridge in the gravel marked the thrust of foot with which George stayed his stagger, from which he impelled the savage spring that brought him within striking distance.

There was no science. This was no calmly prepared fight with cool brains directing attack, searching weak points, husbanding strength, deft in defence. Here was only the animal instinct to get close and wound; to grapple and wound again.

George it was that provoked this spirit. Till now he had not seen this flushed face before him. But he had for many days conjured it up in his fancy—sharpening upon it the edge of his wrath, bruising himself against the wall of wise conduct that kept him from meeting and visiting upon it the distress his Mary had endured.

Now that he saw it in the flesh (and it was not unlike his conception), he came at it with the impulse of one who, straining against a rope, rushes headlong forward when a knife parts the bond.

The impulse thus given more than countered the greater bulk and reach that should have told in Bob's scale. Bob felt his wits and his courage simultaneously deserting him before the pell-mell of blows that came raining against his guard. Whensoever he effected a savage smash that momentarily checked the fury, it served but to bring back this seemingly demented young man with a new rush and ardour.

Bob gave step by step, struck short-arm, felt the faint saltness of blood upon his lips, staggered back before a tremendous hit between the eyes, stumbled, tripped, fell.

"Get up!" George bellowed; waited till Bob came rushing, and sent him reeling again with a broken tooth that cut the brown knuckles.

Bob lacked not courage and had proved it, for he was sorely battered. But the pluck in him was whipped and now venom alone bade him make what hurt he could.

His heavy stick was leaning against the seat. He seized it; swung it high; crashed a blow that must have split the head it aimed.

George slipped aside; the blow missed. He poised himself as Bob, following the impulse, went staggering by; put all his weight behind a crashing hit and sent him spinning prone with a blow that was fittingly final to the exhibition of lusty knocks.

Bob propped himself on one arm, rose to his feet; glared; hesitated— then fell to brushing his knees.

It was a masterly white flag.

"Had enough?" George panted. "Had enough? Are you whipped, you swine?"

Bob assiduously brushed.

"When you're better, let me know," George cried; turned and hurried up the path whither Mary had disappeared.

The forced draught of fury, pain, and exertion sent Bob's breath roaring in and out in noisy blasts—now long and laboured, now spasmodic quick.

He examined his bill of health and damage. Face everywhere tender to the touch; clothes dust-covered and torn; both knees of trousers rent; silk hat stove in when in a backward rush he had set his foot upon it. His tongue discovered a broken tooth, his handkerchief a bleeding nose, his fingers blood upon his chin, trickling to his shirt front.

So well as might be he brushed his person; straightened his hat; clapped handkerchief to his mouth; past staring eyes, grinning faces, hurried out of the Park to bury himself in a cab.



V.

From a window Mrs. Chater saw the bruised figure of her darling boy alight; with palpitating heart rushed to greet him.

"Bob! My boy! My boy! What has happened?"

Her boy brushed past; bounded to his room. Laboriously, sick with fear, the devoted mother toiled in pursuit—found him in his room tearing off his coat.

"My boy! My boy!"

Her boy bellowed: "Hot water!"

Can a mother's tender care cease towards the child she bare?

Oh! needless to ask such a question, you for whom is pictured this devoted woman plunging at breakneck speed for the bathroom, screaming as she runs: "Susan! Kate! Jane! Jane! Kate! Susan!"

Doors slammed, cries echoed, stairs shook, as trembling servants rushed responsive.

Crashing of cans, rushing of water, called them to the bathroom.

"Oh, m'am! What is it?"

Water flew in sprays as the agonised mother tested its temperature with her hands; cans rattled as she kicked them from where, in dragging one from the shelf, the others had clattered about her feet.

Jane, Kate, and Susan clustered in alarm about the door: "Oh, m'am! M'am! Whatever is it?"

Mrs. Chater gave no reply. Her can full, she plunged through them. This way and that they dodged to give her passage; dodge for dodge, demented, hysterical, she gave them—slopping boiling water on to agonised toes; bursting through at last; thundering up the stairs.

The three plunged after her: "Oh, m'am! M'am! Whatever is it?"

The devoted woman paused at the head of the stairs; screamed down orders: "Sticking-plaster! Lint! Cotton-wool! Mr. Bob has had an accident! Hot-water bottles! Ice! Doctor! Go for the doctor, one of you!"

A figure with battered face above vest and pants bounded from its room. "No!" Bob roared. "No!"

"No!" Mrs. Chater echoed, not knowing to what the negative applied, but hysterically commanding it.

"No!" screamed the agitated servants, one to another.

"No! no doctor!" bellowed Bob; grabbed the can from his mother; shot back to his room.

"No doctor!" Mrs. Chater screamed to the white-faced pack upon the stairs; fled after him.

"My boy! Tell me!"

Her boy raised his dripping face from the basin. "For God's sake shut the door!" he roared.

She did. "Tell me!" she trembled.

"It's that damned girl."

"That girl?"

"Miss Humfray!"

"Miss Humfray! Done that to you! Oh, your poor face! Your poor face!"

"No!—no! Do be quiet, mother! Some infernal man she goes about with in the Park! I spoke to him and he set on me!"

"The infamous creature! The wicked, infamous girl! A bad girl, I knew it!—"

Agitated tapping at the door: "The cotton-wool m'am." "Sticking- plaster, m'am." "'Ot bottle, m'am."

"Go away!" roared Bob. "Go away! O-oo, my face!" He hopped in wrath and pain. "Send those damned women away!"

Mrs. Chater rushed to the door. Passing, she for the first time caught full sight of her son's face now that the hot water had exposed its wreck. "Oh, your eyes! Your poor eyes! They're closing up!"

Bob staggered to the mirror; discovered the full horror of his marred beauty. "Curse it!" he groaned and gave an order.

Mrs. Chater flew to the telephone.

In the office of Mr. Samuel Hock, purveyor of meat, by appointment, to the Prince of Wales, the telephone bell sharply rang. Mr. Hock stepped to the receiver, listened, then bellowed an order into the shop:

"One of beefsteak to 14 Palace Gardens, sharp!"



CHAPTER VI.

A Cab For 14 Palace Gardens.



I.

With tremendous strides, with emotion roaring in and out his nostrils in gusty blasts of fury, my passionate George encompassed the Park this way and that until he came at length upon his trembling Mary.

Save for that first blow where Bob's ring had marked his cheek he had suffered but little in the fight—sufficiently, notwithstanding, coupled with his colossal demeanour, for Mary's eyes to discover that something was amiss.

She came to him; cried at a little distance: "Oh, dearest, I—I could not meet you at the seat."

Then she saw more clearly. She asked: "What has happened?" and stood with quivering lip recording the flutters of her heart.

George took one hand; patted it between both his. For the moment his boiling anger cooled beneath grim relish of his news. "I've pretty well killed that Chater swine," he said.

"Mr. Chater?—you've met Mr. Chater?"

Now emotion boiled again in her turbulent George. He said: "I saw you run from him. I saw—what had he been doing?"

"Oh, Georgie!"

"Well, never mind. I'd rather not hear. I've paid him for it, whatever it was."

"You fought? Oh, and your face—and your hand bleeding too!"

Tears stood in this ridiculous Mary's eyes. Women so often cry at the wrong moment. They should more closely study their men in the tremendous mannish crises that come to some of us. This was no moment for tears; it was an hour to be Amazon. To be hard-eyed. To count the scalps brought home by the brave—in delight to squeal over them; in pride to clap the hands and jump for joy at such big behaviour.

My Mary erred in every way. Her moistening eyes annoyed George.

"Oh, don't make a fuss about that, Mary," he cried irritably. "It's nothing. Master Bob won't be able to see for a month."

"Oh, George, why did you do it?"

Then the tremendous young man flamed. "Why did I do it? 'Pon my soul, Mary, I simply don't understand you sometimes. You've made me stand by and see you insulted for a month, and then I see him catch hold of you, and you run, and I go and thrash him, and you say, 'Why did you do it?' Do it? Do it? Why, good Lord, what would you have had me do—apologise for you?"

She turned away, dropped his hand.

My unfortunate George groaned aloud: sprang to her. "Mary, darling, dearest, you know I didn't mean that."

She kept her face from him; her pretty shoulders heaved.

He cried in misery, striving to see her face: "What a brute I am! What a brute! Mary, Mary, you know I didn't mean that."

She gasped: "You ge-get angry so quick."

"I know, I know. I'm not fit—I couldn't help—Mary, do look up."

She swallowed a sob; gave him her little hand.

He squeezed it, squeezed it as it were between his love for her and the tremendous passion that was consuming him. Contrition at his sharp words to her hammered the upper plate, wrath at the manner of her reception of his news was anvil beneath. The poor fingers horribly suffered.

There are conditions of the male mind—and this George was in the very heart of one—when softness in a woman positively goads to fury. The mind is in an itching fever, and—like a bull against a gate-post— requires hard, sharp corners against which to rub and ease the irritation. Comes the lord and master home sulky or in fury, the wise wife will meet him with a demeanour so spiked that he may scratch his itching at every turn. To be soft and yielding is the most fatal conduct; it is to send the lumbering bull crashing through the gate- post into the lane to seek solace away from the home paddock.

Unversed in these homely recipes, this simple Mary had at least the wit not to cry "Oh!" in pain and move her hand. They found a seat, and for good five minutes this turbulent George sat and threshed in his wrath like a hooked shark—this little hand the rope that held him. Soon its influence was felt. His tuggings and boundings grew weaker. The venom oozed out of him.

He uncovered the crushed fingers; raising, pressed them to his lips.

He groaned. "Now you know me at last."

She patted those brown hands; did not speak.

"You know the awful temper I've got," he went on. "Uncontrollable— angry even with you—foul brute—"

"But I annoyed you, Georgie."

He flung out an accusatory hand against himself. "How? By being sweet and loving! Why, what a brute I must be!"

She told him: "You shan't call yourself names. In fact, you mustn't. Because that is calling me names too. We belong, Georgie."

The pretty sentiment tickled him. Gloom flew from his brow before sunshine that took its place. He laughed. "You're a dear, dear old thing."

She gave a whimsical look at him. "I ought to have said at once what I am going to say now: Did you hurt him much?"

"I bashed him!" George said, revelling in it. "I fairly bashed him!"

She snuggled against this tremendous fellow.



II.

It was a park-keeper who, from that opium drug of sweet silence with which lovers love to dull their senses, recalled them to the urgency for action.

The park-keeper led David by one hand, Angela by the other, whence he had found them wandering. Disappointment that their owner was a protected lady instead of a nicely-shaped nursemaid whom by this introduction he might add to his recreations, delivered him of stern reproof at the carelessness which had let these children go astray.

"I would very much like to know," he concluded, "what their ma would say."

"My plump gentleman," said George pleasantly, "meet me at this trysting-place at noon to-morrow, and your desire shall be gratified."

The park-keeper eyed him; thought better of the bitter words he had contemplated; contented himself with: "Funny, ain't yer?"

"Screaming," said George. "One long roar of mirth. Hundreds turned away nightly. Early doors threepence extra. Bring the wife."

The park-keeper withdrew with a morose air.



III.

And now my George and his Mary turned upon the immediate future. Conning the map of ways and means and roads of action, a desolate and almost horrifying country presented itself. No path that might be followed offered pleasant prospects. All led past that ogre's castle at 14 Palace Gardens; at the head of each stood the ogress shape of Mrs. Chater, gnashing for blood and bones over the disaster to her first-born. She must be faced.

George flared a torch to light the gloom: "But why should you go near her, dearest? Let me do it. I'll take the children back. I'll see her. I'll get your boxes."

Even the sweetest women trudge through life handicapped by the preposterous burden of wishing to do what their sad little minds hold right. It is a load which, too firmly strapped, makes them dull companions on the highway.

Mary said: "It wouldn't be right, dear. The children are in my charge; how could I send them back to their mother in the care of a strange man? And it wouldn't be right to myself, either. It would look as if I admitted myself in the wrong. No; I must, must face her."

George's torch guttered; gave gloom again. He tried a second: "Well, I'll come with you. That's a great idea. She won't dare say much while I'm there."

"Oh, it wouldn't be right, Georgie. You oughtn't to come to the house—to see her—after what you've done to the detestable Bob. No, I'll go alone and I'll go now. You shall come as far as the top of the road and there wait."

"And then?" George asked.

This was to research the map for rest-houses and for fortunes that might be won after the ogre castle had been passed.

Mary conned and peered until the strain squeezed a little moisture in her eyes. "I don't know," she said faintly.

Her bold George had to know. "It won't be for very long, dear old girl. You must find another situation. Till then a lodging. I know a place where a man I know used to have digs. A jolly old landlady. I'll raise some money—I'll borrow it."

Mary tried to brighten. "Yes, and I'll go to that agency again. I must, because I shall have no character, you see. I'll tell her everything quite truthfully, and I think she'll be nice."

"It's no good waiting," George said. His voice had the sound of a funeral bell.

Mary arose slowly, white. She said: "Come along."

With a tumbril rumble in their ears, the children dancing ahead, they started for Palace Gardens.



IV.

The groans and curses of her adored Bob, his bulgy mouth and shutting eyes, his tender nose and the encrimsoned water where he had layed his wounds—these had so acted upon Mrs. Chater's nerves, plunged her into such vortex of hysteria, that the manner of her reception of Mary was true reflection of her fears, nothing dissembled.

Withdrawing her agitated face from the dining-room window as Mary and the children approached, she bounded heavily to the door; flung it ajar; collapsed to her knees upon the mat; clasped David and Angela to that heaving bosom.

"Safe!" she wailed. "Safe! Thank God, my little lambs are safe!"

Distraught she swayed and hugged; kissed and moaned again.

David pressed away. "You smell like whisky, mummie," he said.

It was a dash of icy water on a fainting fit; wonderfully it strung the demented woman's senses. She pushed her little lambs from her; fixed Mary with awful eye.

"So you've come back—Miss?"

Mary quivered.

"I wonder you dared. I wonder you had the boldness to face me after your wicked behaviour. You've got nothing to say for yourself. I'm not surprised—"

Mary began: "Mrs. Chater, I—"

"Oh, how can you? How can you dare defend yourself? Never, never in all my born days have I met with such ingratitude; never have I been deceived like this. I took you in. I felt sorry for you. I fed you, clothed you, cared for you, treated you as one of my own family; and this is my reward. There you stand, unable to say a word—"

"If you think, Mrs. Chater—"

"Don't speak! I won't hear you. Here have I day after day been entrusting my beloved lambs to your care, and heaven alone knows what risks they have run. My boy—my Bob, who would die rather than get a living soul into trouble—sees you with this man you have been going about with. He does his duty to me, his mother, and to my precious lambs, his brother and sister, by reproving you, and you set this man —this low hired bully—upon him to murder him. I'll have the law on the coward. I'll punish him and I'll punish you, miss. No wonder you were frightened when my Bob caught you. No wonder."

"That is untrue, Mrs. Chater."

"Don't speak!"

"I will speak. I shall speak. It is untrue."

"You dare—"

"It is a lie. Yes, I don't mind what I say when you speak to me like that. It is a wicked lie."

"Girl—!"

"If your son told you he caught me with the man who thrashed him as he deserved, he told you a lie. He never saw me with him. He followed me into the Park this morning and tried to repeat what he did on Friday night. He is a coward and a cad. The man to whom I am engaged caught him at it and thrashed him as he deserved. There! Now you know the truth!"

Very white, my ridiculous Mary pressed her hand to her panting breast; stopped, choked by the wild words that came tumbling up into her mouth.

Very red, swelling and panting in turkey-cock fury, Mrs. Chater, towering, swallowed and gasped, breathless before this vixenish attack.

But she was the first to find speech; and incoherently she stormed as at a scratching do those persons whose true selves lie beneath a tissue film of polish.

She bubbled and panted: "Oh, you wicked girl!—oh, you wicked girl!— oh, you wicked girl!—bold as brass-calling me a liar—me—and my battered boy—engaged indeed!—I'll have the law and the police and the judges—my solicitors—libel and assault, and slander and attempted murder—boxes searched—my precious lambs to hear their mother spoken to like this—get out of the hat-rack, David, and go upstairs this instant—Angela, don't stand there—if I wasn't a lady I'd box your ears, miss—only a week ago didn't I give you a black silk skirt of mine?—and fed you like a princess, with a soft feather pillow too, because you said the bolster made your head ache—servants to wait on you hand and foot—and this is my reward—how I keep my hands off you heaven only knows—but you shall suffer, miss—oh, yes you shall—I'll give you in charge—I'll call a policeman."

She turned towards the kitchen stairs; screamed "Susan! Kate! Jane! Susan!"

Small need to bellow. Around the staircase corner three white-capped heads—Kate holding back Susan, Susan restraining Jane, Jane holding Kate—had been with delighted eyes and straining ears bathing in this rare scene. With glad unanimity they broke their restraint one upon the other; crushed pell-mell, hustling up the narrow stairs.

Mrs. Chater plumped back into a chair; with huge hands fanned her heated face. "Fetch a policeman!"

They plunged for the door.

Bob's swollen countenance came over the banisters. He roared "Stop!"

Kate, Jane and Susan swung between the conflicting authorities.

"Call a policeman! Summon a constable! Fetch an officer!" In gusty breaths from behind Mrs. Chater's hands, working like a red paddle- wheel, came the commands.

"Stop!" roared Bob; and to enforce pushed forward the battered face till it stuck out flat over the hall.

His alarmed mother screamed: "Bob, you'll fall over the banisters!"

The two kept up a battledore and shuttlecock of agitated conversation.

"Well, stop those women!" Bob cried; "for God's sake, stop them, mother! What on earth are you thinking of?"

"I'll give her in charge!"

"You can't, you can't. Oh, my God, what a house this is!"

"She called me a liar!"

"You can't charge her for that."

"She half murdered you!"

"She never touched me. Why don't you do as I told you? Why don't you send her away?"

"Mercy, Bob! you'll fall and kill yourself!"

"Do as I say, then! Do as I say!"

"Well, put back your head! Put back your head."

"Do as I say, then!"

Mrs. Chater stopped the paddle-wheel; rose to her feet. Bob's ghastly face drew in to safer limits. She addressed Mary: "Again my boy has interceded for you. Oh, how you must feel!" She addressed the maids: "Is her box packed?"

They chorused "Yes"; pointed, and Mary saw her tin box, corded, set against the wall.

"Call a cab," Mrs. Chater commanded; and as the whistle blew she turned again upon Mary.

"Now, miss, you may go. I pack you off as you deserve. But before you go—"

The battered face shot out again above the banisters: "Pay her her wages and send her away, mother. Do, for goodness' sake, send her away!"

"Wages! Certainly not! Mercy! Your head again! Go back, Bob!"

The maddened, pain-racked Bob bellowed: "Oh, stop it! stop it! I shall go mad in a minute. She is entitled to her wages. Pay her."

"I won't!"

"Well, I will. Susan! Susan, come up here and take this money. How much is it?"

"She is not to be paid," Mrs. Chater trumpeted.

"She is to be paid," bawled her son. "Do you want an action brought against you? Oh, my God, what a house this is!"

"My boy! You will fall! Very well, I'll pay her." Mrs. Chater turned to Mary. "Again and yet again my son intercedes for you, miss. Oh, how you must feel!" She grabbed around her dress for her pocket; found a purse; produced coins; banged them upon the table. "There!"

And now my Mary, who had stood upright breasting these successive surges, spoke her little fury.

With a hand she swept the table, sending the coins flying this way and that—with them a card salver, a vase, a pile of prayer-books. With her little foot she banged the floor.

"I would not touch your money—your beastly money. You are contemptible and vulgar, and I despise you. Mr. Chater, if you are a man you will tell your mother why you were thrashed. Do you dare to say you interfered because you found me with someone? Do you dare?"

With masterly strategy Bob drove home a flank attack. To have affirmed he did dare might lead to appalling outburst from this little vixen. He said very quietly, as though moved by pity: "Please do not make matters worse by blustering, Miss Humfray." He sighed: "I bear you no ill-will."

My poor Mary allowed herself to be denuded of self-possession. His words put her control to flight; left her exposed. Tears started in her eyes. She made a little rush for the stairs. "Oh, you coward!" she cried. "You coward! I will make you say the truth."

Would she have clutched the skirts of his dressing-gown, forgetting the proper modesty of a nice maiden, and dragged him down the stairs? Would she indelicately have pursued him to his very bedroom, and there, regardless of his scanty dress, have assaulted him?

Bob believed she would. It is so easy for the world's heroines to remain calm against attack. My Mary was made of commoner stuff—the wretched, baser clay of which not I, but my neighbours, not you, but your acquaintances, are made.

Bob believed she would. He cried, "Send her away! Why the devil don't you send her away?"; gathered his skirts; fled for the safety of a locked door.

Mrs. Chater believed she would. Mrs. Chater plunged across the hall; stood, an impassable and panting guardian, upon the lowermost step. Her outstretched arm stayed Mary; a voice announced, "The cab'm."

My Mary stood a moment; little fists clenched, flashing eyes; blinked against the premonition of a rush of tears; then, as they came, turned for the door.

"Go!" trumpeted Mrs. Chater. "Go!"

Mary was upon the mat when Angela and David made a little rush; caught her skirts. The alarming scenes had hurtled in sequence too rapid and too violent to be by the children understood. But a scrap here and a scrap there they had caught, retained, correctly interpreted; and the whole, though it supplied no reason, told clearly that their adored Mary was going from them.

"You're coming back soon, aren't you?" David cried.

"You're not going away, are you, Miss Humf'ay?" implored Angela.

Mrs. Chater shrilled: "Children, come away. Come here at once."

Mary dropped one knee upon the mat; caught her arms about the children. She pressed a cool face against each side her wet and burning countenance, gave kisses, and upon the added stress of this new emotion choked: "Good-bye, little ducklings!"

"Oh, darling, darling Miss Humf'ay, we will be good if you'll stay!" They felt this was the desperate threat that so often followed their misdemeanours put into action.

She held them, hugging them. "It isn't that. You have been good."

"Then you said you would stay for ever and ever if we were good."

"Not ever and ever; I said—I said perhaps a fairy prince would come to take me. Didn't I?"

This was the romance that forbade tears. But David had doubts. He regarded the hansom at the door: "That's a cab, not a carriage. Fairy princes don't come in cabs."

"The prince is waiting. Kiss me, darling Davie. Angie, dear, dear Angle, kiss me."

She rose. Mrs. Chater had come from the stairs, now laid hands upon the small people and dragged them back from the pretty figure about which they clung.

They screamed, "Let me go!"

David roared; dropped prone upon the mat to kick and howl: "Take away your hand, mother!"

Angela gasped: "Oh, comeback, comeback, darling Miss Humf'ay!"

With a glare of defiance into Mrs. Chater's stormy eyes, my Mary stooped over David.

"David!" The calm ring of the tones he had learned to obey checked his clamour, his plunging kicks. She stooped; kissed him. "Be good as gold," she commanded. "Promise."

"Good as gold—yes—p'omise," David choked.

Angela was given, and gave, the magic formula. Mary stepped back. Susan slammed the door.

With quivering lips my Mary walked to the cab.

"Drive down the street," she choked; lay back against the cushions; gave herself to shaking sobs.



V.

Her George met her a very few yards down the street. He gave an order to the cabman and sat beside her.

It was not long before her grief was hushed. She dried her eyes; nestled against this wonderful fellow who, as love had now constituted her world, was the solace against every trouble that could come to her, the shield against any power that might arise to do her hurt.

They debated the position and found it desperate; discussed the immediate future to discover it threatening. Yet the gloom was irradiated by the glowing light of the prospective future; the rumbling of present fears was lost in the tinkling music of their voices, striking notes from love.

The cab twisted this way and that; clattered over Battersea Bridge, down the Park, to the right past the Free Library, and so into Meath Street and to the clean little house of the landlady whom George knew.

To her, in the tiny sitting-room, the story was told.

It appeared that she had never yet taken a lady lodger. In her street ladies were regarded with suspicion; that no petticoats were ever to be fetched across the threshold was a rule to which each medical student who engaged her rooms must first subscribe.

None the less she was here acquiescent. She knew George well; had for him an affection above that which commonly she entertained for the noisy young men who were her means of livelihood. Mary should pay for the little back bedroom that Mr. Thornton had; and, free of charge, should have use of the sitting-room rented by Mr. Grainger. There would be no lodgers until the medical schools reopened in October.

So it was settled—and together in the sitting-room where Mrs. Pinking made them a little lunch again they debated the immediate future. It was three weeks before George's examination was due. Again he declared himself confident that, when actually he had passed, his uncle would not refuse the 400 pounds which meant the world to them—which meant the tight little practice at Runnygate. But the intervening weeks were meanwhile to be faced. Mary must have home. At the Agency she must pour forth her tale and seek new situation till they could be married. If the Agency failed them—They shuddered.

Revolving desperate schemes for the betterment of this position into which with such alarming suddenness they had been thrust, George took his leave. He would have tarried, but his Mary was insistent that his work must not be interfered with. Upon its successful exploitation everything now depended.

Brightly she kissed her George good-bye. He was not to worry about her. She was to be shut from his mind. To-morrow she would go to the Agency. He might lunch with her, and, depend upon it, she would greet him with great news.

So they parted.



BOOK IV.

In which this History begins to rattle.



CHAPTER I.

The Author Meanders Upon The Enduring Hills; And The Reader Will Lose Nothing By Not Accompanying Him.

In pursuit of our opinion that the novel should hark back to its origin and be as a story that is told by mouth to group of listeners, here we momentarily break the thread.

It is an occasion for advertisement.

As when the personal narrator, upon resumption of his history, will at a point declare, "Now we come to the exciting part," so now do I.

Heretofore we have somewhat dragged. We have been as host and visitor at tea in the drawing-room. Guests have arrived; to you I have introduced them, and after the shortest spell they have taken their leave.

My Mary and my George—favoured guests—have sat with us through our meal; but how fleeting our converse with those others—with Mr. William Wyvern, with Margaret, with Mrs. Major and with Mr. Marrapit! I grant you cause to grumble at their introduction, so purposeless has been their part. I grant you they have been as the guests at whose arrival, disturbing the intimate chatter, impatient glances are exchanged; at whose departure there is shuffle of relief.

Well, I promise you we shall now link our personages and set our history bounding to its conclusion. We have collected them; now to switch on the connection and set them acting one against the other until the sparks do fly; watching those sparks shall be your entertainment.

The switch which thus sets active the play of forces I shall call circumstance. If it has been long delayed, I have the precedent of all the story of human life as my excuse. For we are the children of circumstance. We move each in our little circle by a stout hedge encompassed. Circumstance suddenly will break the wall: some fellow man or woman is flung against us, and immediately the quiet ambulation of our little circle is for some conflict sharp exchanged. To-day we are at peace with the world, to-morrow warring with all mankind.

I say with all mankind, because so narrow and so selfish is our outlook upon life that one single man or woman—a dullard neighbour or a silly girl—who may interfere with us, throws into turmoil our whole existence. Walls of impenetrable blackness shut out. all life save only this intruder and ourself; that other person becomes our world— engaging our complete faculties.

Deeper misfortune cannot be conceived. It is through allowing such occurrences to crush us that brows are wrinkled before their time; nerves broken-edged while yet they should be firmly strung; death reached ere yet the proper span of life is lived.

For these unduly wrinkled brows, too early broken nerves, too soon encountered graves, civilised man has agreed upon an excuse. He names it the strain of life in modern conditions. There is no body in this plea. It is not the conditions that matter; it is our manner of receiving those conditions. Bend to them and they will crush; face them and they become of no avail; allow them to be the Whole of life, and immediately they are given so great a weight that to withstand them is impossible; regard them in their proper proportion to the scheme of things, and they become of airy nothingness.

For if we regulate each to its right importance all that surrounds us, not forgetting that since life is transient time is the only ultimate standard of value, how unutterably insignificant must small human troubles appear in their relation to the whole scheme of things, to the enduring hills, the immense seas, vast space.

Gain strength from strength. Compare vexations encompassed by the artifice of man with the tremendous life that is mothered by nature.

Gain strength from strength. Set troubles against the enduring hills, misfortunes against the immense seas, perplexities against vast space, torments against the stout trees. Learn to take tribute of strength from every object that is built of strength—the strength of solidity that a stout beam may give, the strength of beauty that from a picture or a statuary irradiates.

Gain strength from strength. It is a first principle of warfare to band undisciplined troops with tried regiments, to shoulder recruits with veterans. The horse-breaker will set the timid colt in harness with the steady mare. Thus is stiffening and a sense of security imparted to the weaker spirit; timidity oozes and is burned by the steady flame of courage that from the stronger emanates. In the heat of that flame latent strength warms and kindles in the weaker.

Gain strength from strength. Seek intercourse with the minds that are above you; if not to be encountered, they are to be purchased in books. Avoid communion with the small minds below you and of your level.

No man, nor book, nor thing can be touched without virtue passing thence into you. See to it that who or what you touch gives you strength, not weakness; uplifts, not debases. The aspiring athlete does not seek to match his strength against inferiors. These give him- -easy victory. Contact with them is for him effortless; they tend to draw him to their plane. Rather, being wise, he shuns them to pit his prowess against such as can give him best, from whom he may learn, out of whom he will take virtue, by whom he will be raised to all that is best in him. Gain strength from strength. The attributes strength and weakness are as infectious as the plague. Make your bed so that you may lie with strength and catch his affection.

I do not pretend that these are thoughts which influenced the persons of my history. My unthinking George and my simple Mary would care nothing for such things. Sight of the enduring hills would evoke in my George the uttered belief that they would be an infernal sweat to climb; sound of the immense seas if in anger would move my Mary to prayer for all those in peril on the wave, if in lapping tranquillity to sentimental thoughts of her George. But they had laughter and they had love. Adversity can make little fight against those lusty weapons.

And now we have an exquisite balcony scene and rare midnight alarms for your delectation.



CHAPTER II.

An Exquisite Balcony Scene; And Something About Sausages.



I.

On that day when George left his Mary at the little lodgings in Meath Street, Battersea, Bill Wyvern returned to Paitley Hill after absence from home for a week upon a visit.

His Margaret was his first thought upon his arrival. Letters between the pair were, by the sharpness of Mr. Marrapit's eye, compelled to be exchanged not through the post but by medium of a lovers' postal box situate in the hole of a tree in that shrubbery of Herons' Holt where they were wont by stealth to meet. Thus when Bill, upon this day of his return, scaled the tremendous wall and groped among the bushes, he saw the trysting bower innocent of his love—then searched and found a letter.

A sad little note for lover's heart. Mr. Marrapit, it said, abed of a chill, prevented Margaret meeting her Bill that afternoon. Her father must be constantly ministered; impossible to say when she would be released. She heard him calling, she must fly to him. With fondest love. No time for more.



II.

The lines chilled Bill's heart. His was a fidgety and nervous love that took fright at shadow of doubt. The week that had divided him from Margaret was the longest period they had not embraced since their discovery one of another. Was it not possible, he tortured himself, that loss of his presence had blurred his image in her heart? Countless heroes of his own stories who thus had suffered rose to assure him that possible indeed it was. The more he brooded upon it the more probable did it become.

Bedtime found him desolated. In apprehension he paced his room. The thought of sleep with this devil of doubt to thump his pillow was impossible. Leaning from his window he gazed upon the stars and groaned; dropped eyes to the lawn, silvered in moonlight, and started beneath the prick of a sudden thought. It was a night conceived for lovers' tryst. He would seek his Margaret's open window, whistle her from her bed, and bring this damned doubt of her to reality or knock the ghostly villain dead.

It was an inspiriting thought, and Bill started to whistle upon it until he remembered the demeanour in which he would have sent forth one of his own heroes upon such a mission. "Dark eyes gleaming strangely from a pale, set face," he would have written. Bill's eyes were of a clearest, childlike blue which interfered a little with the proper conception of the role he was to play; but blanketing his spirits in melancholy he stepped from his room and passed down the stairs.

That favoured bull-terrier Abiram, sleeping in the hall, drummed a tattoo of welcome upon the floor.

"Chuck it," said Bill morosely.

The "faithful hound" that gives solace to the wounded heart is a pretty enough thing in stories; Abiram had had no training for the part. This dog associated his master not with melancholy that needed caressing but with wild "rags" that gave and demanded tremendous spirits.

Intelligence, however, showed the wise creature that the tone of that command meant he was to be excluded from whatever wild rag might be now afoot. It was not to be borne. Therefore, to lull suspicion, Abiram ceased his drumming; rose when Bill had passed; behind him crept stealthily; and upon the door being opened bounded around his master's legs and into the moonlight with a joyous yelp.

Fearful of arousing Korah and Dathan in their kennels to tremendous din if he bellowed orders, Bill hissed commands advising Abiram to return indoors under threat of awful penalties.

Abiram frisked and skipped upon the lawn like a young lamb.

Bill changed commands for missiles.

Abiram, entering into the thing with rare spirit, caught, worried, and killed each clod of earth hurled at him, then bounded expectant forward for the next sacrifice that would be thrown for his delight in this entrancing game.

"Very well," spoke Bill between his teeth. "Very well. You jolly well come, my boy. Wait till you get near enough for me to catch you, that's all."

Beneath this understanding they moved forward across the lawn and down the road; Abiram sufficiently in the rear to harass rats that might be going about their business, without himself being in the zone of his master's strength.

Heaving a sigh burthened with fond memory as he passed the wall of Herons' Holt where it gave upon the secret meeting-place in the shrubbery, Bill skirted the grounds; for the second time in his life passed through the gate and up the drive.



III.

Well he knew his adored's window. From the shrubbery she had pointed it him. Now with a bang of the heart he observed that the bottom sash stood open so that night breezes, mingling freely with the perfumes of her apartment, unhindered could bear in to her his tremulous love- signals.

He set a low whistle upon the air. It was not louder, he felt, than the agitated banging of his heart that succeeded it.

Again he whistled, and once again. There was a rustling from within.

"Margaret!" he softly called. "Margaret!"

She appeared. The blessed damosel leaned out. About her yearning face the long dark hair abundantly fell; her pretty bed-gown, unbuttoned low, gave him glimpse of snowy bosom, beautifully rounded.

"Oh, Bill!" she cried, stretching her arms.

Then, glancing downwards at her person, she stepped back swiftly. Reappearing, the soft round of her twin breasts was not to view.

She had buttoned up her night-dress.

"Oh, Bill!"

"Oh, Margaret!"

"Wow!" spoke Abiram in nerve-shattering welcome. "Wow!"

The blessed damosel fled. Bill plunged a kick. Abiram took the skirt of it; waddled away across the lawn, his waving stern expressing pleasure at having at once shown his politeness by bidding a lady good evening, and at being, like true gentleman, well able to take a hint.

Bill put upon the breeze:

"It's all right. He's gone."

No answer. Shuddering with terror lest that hideous wow! had disturbed the house the blessed damosel lay trembling abed, the coverings pressed about her straining ears.

"He's gone," Bill strained again, his larynx torn with the rasp of whispers that must penetrate like shouts and yet speed soft-shod. "He's gone!"

Margaret put a white leg to the ground—listened; drew forth its companion—listened; glimpsed her white legs; shuddered at such immodesty with a man so close; veiled them to their toes with her bed- gown; listened; stepped again to the window.

"Oh, Bill!"

"Oh, Margaret!"

"Has anyone heard, do you think?"

"My darling, not a soul. It sounded loud to us. Oh, Margaret—"

"Hush! Yes?"

"Do you know why I am come?"

"Hush!—no."

"I thought—from your note—that you didn't care to see me again. I thought-being away like that—that you found you didn't-love me after all. Oh, I was tortured, Margaret. Oh—!"

"Hush! Listen!"

"Damn!" said Bill.

The blessed damosel poked her beautiful head again into the night. "It's all right. I thought I heard a sound. We must be careful."

"Oh, Margaret, I was tortured—racked. I had to come to you. Tell me I was wrong in thinking—"

"Oh, Bill, Bill, I—"

This girl was well-nigh in a swoon of delicious excitement. Emotion took her and must be gulped ere she found voice. She stretched her arms down towards him.

"Oh, Bill, I thought so, too."

A steely pang struck at his heart. "You thought you didn't love me after all?"

"No, no, no."

Emotion dragged her from the window to her waist. Her long hair cascaded down to him so that the delicious tips, kissing his face, might by his lips be kissed.

"No, no," she breathed; "I thought the same of you. I thought you might have found—"

"Yes?"

"Hush!"

"Damn!" said Bill.

She reappeared; again her tresses trickled to him. "It's all right. I thought you might have found you didn't love me after all. Dearest, not hearing from you—"

In sympathy of spirit Bill groaned: "What could I do?"

She clasped her hands in a delicious ecstasy. "I know, I know. But you know how foolish I am. I felt—oh, Bill, forgive me!—I felt that, if you had really cared, a way of sending me a message might have been found. Of course, it was impossible. And there was more than that. When we parted last week, I thought you seemed not to care very much—"

"Oh, Margaret!"

"I know, I know. I know now how foolish I was, but that is what I thought—and, Bill, it tortured me. I've not been able to sleep at nights. That is how I was awake just now."

"Margaret, I believe you're crying."

"I'm so—so happy now."

"Oh, so am I! Aren't you glad I came, Margaret?"

She murmured, "Oh, Bill!"; gave him a smile that pictured her answer.

Mutually they gazed for a space, drinking delight.

Her thirst quenched, Margaret said:

"Bill, those nights, those terrible nights when I have been doubtful of you, filled me with thoughts that shaped into a poem last night."

"A poem to me?"

"About us. Shall I read it?—now that the doubt is all over."

He begged her read.

She was a space from his sight; then, bending down to him, in her hand paper of palest heliotrope, whispered to him by light of the beautiful moon:

"Our meeting! Do you remember, dear, How Nature knew we met? Twilight soft with a gentle breeze Bearing scent of the slumbering seas; Music sweet—'twas a nightingale, Trilling and sobbing from laugh to wail— Golden sky that was flecked with red (Ribands of rose on a golden bed). Ah, love! when first we met!"

She paused. "It was raining as a matter of fact, dearest," she whispered, "and just after breakfast. But you know what I mean. That is the imagery of it—as it seemed to me."

Bill said: "And to me; a beautiful imagery."

She smiled in the modest pride of authorship: "Oh, it's nothing, really. You know how these things come. To you in prose, to me in song. One has to set them down."

"One is merely the instrument," Bill said.

"Yes, the instrument." She hugged the phrase. "The instrument. How cleverly you put things!"

Bill disavowed the gift. Margaret breathed, "Oh, you do; I have so often noticed it." Bill again denied.



IV.

Conventionality demanded this little exchange of them, and to-day the empress sway of conventionality is rarely rebelled. Even, as here, when treading the path of love, the journey must constantly be stopped while handfuls of the sweet-smelling stuff are tossed about our persons. Neglect the duty and you must walk alone. For to neglect conventionality is like going abroad without clothes; the naked man appears. Now, nothing can be more utterly horrid to our senses than a stark woman or stark man walking down the street. We should certainly pull aside the blind to have a peep, and the more we could see of the nakedness the further would we crane our heads (provided no one was by to watch); but to go out and chat, to be seen in company with the naked creature, is another matter. We would sooner chop off our legs. So with the conventions. The fewer of them you wear, the more naked (that is to say, real) do you become. Eyes will poke at you round the blinds, but you must walk quickly past the gate, please. If you will not go through the machine and come out a nice smooth sausage, well, you must remain original flesh and gristle; but you will smell horrid in nice noses.

Is it not warming, as you read this, to know perfectly well that you are not one of the sausages?



V.

When they had sufficiently daubed themselves, Margaret asked:

"Shall I read the next verse? That was the imagery of our meeting; this of our parting."

Bill gulped. This man was fondling the scented tresses that trickled about his face; speech was a little difficult.

She put her page beneath the moon; gave her voice to its rapture:

"Our parting! Do you remember, dear, How Nature our folly knew? Mournful swish of the sobbing rain; Distant surge of the Deep in pain; Whispering wail of the wandering wind, Seeking, sobbing, a rest to find; Fitful gleam from a troubled sky (Nature weeping to see love die). Ah, love, when last we met!

"It was a perfect day, really," she said. "Very hot, and just before lunch, do you remember? But there, again, it is the imagery of it as it seemed to our inner selves. It comes to one, and one is the instrument."

Bill's voice was hoarse. "Margaret, come down to me," he said.

"I dare not."

"You must. I must touch you—kiss you. You must come down!"

"Bill, I dare not; I should be heard."

He bitted his next words as they came galloping up. Dare he give them rein? And then again he bathed in the ecstasy of the scene. The black square of the open window; the scented roses that framed it; the silver night that lit its picture—her dusky face between her streaming hair, her white arms, bare to where the pushed-back sleeves gave them to the soft breeze to kiss, the soft outline of her breast where the press of her weight drew close her gown.

It was not to be borne. The bitted words lashed from his hold. He gasped:

"Then I am coming up!"

Was she aghast at him? he asked himself. He stood half-checked while her steady eyes left his face, roamed from him—contrasting, as ashamed he felt, the purity of the still night with the clamour of his turbulent passions—and settled on an adjacent flowerbed.

At last she spoke, very calmly.

"There is a potting-box just there," she said. "If you turned it on end you could reach the window, and then—"

The box gave him two feet of reach. He jumped for the ledge—caught it; pulled; fetched the curve of an arm over the sill.

Then between earth and paradise he hung limp; for a sudden horror was in his Margaret's eyes.

She put upon his brow a hand that pressed him back; gave words to her pictured alarm: "A step upon the gravel!"

'Twixt earth and window, with dangling legs and clutching arms, in muscle-racking pain he hung.

Truly a step, and then another step.

And then a very tornado of sound beat furiously upon the trembling night; with it a flash; from it the pattering of a hundred bullets.

Someone had discharged a gun.

As Satan was hurled, so, plumb out of the gates of Paradise, Bill fell. And now the still air was lashed into a fury of sound-waves, tearing this way and that in twenty keys; now the sleeping garden was torn by rushing figures, helter-skelter for life and honour.

Sounds!—the melancholy bellow of that gardener, Mr. Fletcher, as the recoil of the bell-mouthed blunderbuss he had fired hurled him prone upon the gravel; the dreadful imprecations of Bill striving to clear his leg of the potting-box through whose side it had plunged; piercing screams of Mrs. Major from a ground-floor room; shrills of alarm from Mr. Marrapit; gurr-r-ing yelps from Abiram in ecstasy of man-hunt.

Rushing figures!—Bill, freed from his box, at top speed towards the shrubbery; Mr. Fletcher, up from his fall, with tremendous springs bounding across the lawn; Abiram in hurtling pursuit.

More sounds!—panic screams from Mr. Fletcher, heavily labouring; the protest of a window roughly raised; from George's head, thrust into the night: "Yi! Yi! Yi! Hup, then! Good dog! Sock him! Sock him! Yi! Yi! Yi!"

We must seek the fuse that touched off this hideous turbulence.



CHAPTER III.

Alarums And Excursions By Night.



I.

We are going into a lady's bedroom, but I promise you the thing shall be nicely done: there shall not be a blush.

It was midnight when Bill Wyvern projected the scheme whose execution we have followed through sweetness to disaster. Two hours earlier the Marrapit household had sought its beds.

It was Mr. Marrapit's wise rule that each member of his establishment should pass before him as he or she sought their chambers. Night is the hour when the thoughts take on unbridled licence; and he would send his household to sleep each with some last admonition to curb fantastic wanderings of the mind.

Upon this night Mr. Marrapit was himself abed of the chill that Margaret had mentioned in her note to Bill. But the review was not therefore foregone. Upon his back, night-capped head on pillow propped, he lay as the minute-hand of his clock ticked towards ten.

His brow ruffled against a sound without his door. He called:

"Mrs. Armitage!"

"Sir?" spoke Mrs. Armitage through the oak.

"Breathe less stertorously."

Mrs. Armitage, his cook, waiting outside upon the mat, gulped wrath; respirated through open mouth.

The clock at Mr. Marrapit's elbow gave the first chime of ten. Instantly Mrs. Armitage tapped.

"Enter," said Mr. Marrapit.

She waddled her stout figure to him. Behind her Clara and Ada, those trim maids, took place.

Mr. Marrapit addressed her. "To-morrow, Mrs. Armitage, arouse your girls at six. Speed them at their toilet; set them to clean your flues." He glanced at a tablet taken from beneath his pillow. "At 4.6 this afternoon I smelt soot."

"The flues were cleaned this morning, sir."

"Untrue. Your girls were late. Prone in suffering upon my couch, my ears tell me all that is accomplished in every part of the house. Ten minutes after your girls descended I heard the kitchen fire roar. I suspect paraffin."

Mrs. Armitage wriggled to displace the blame. "I rose them at six, sir. They sleep that heavy and they take that long to dressing, it's a wonder to me they ever do get down."

Mr. Marrapit addressed the sluggards. "Shun the enervating couch. Spring to the call. Cleanliness satisfied, adorn not the figure; pursue the duties. Ponder this. Seek help to effect it. Contrive a special prayer. To your beds."

They left him; upon the mat encountered Frederick, and him, in abandon of relief, dug vitally with vulgar thumbs.



II.

Squirming, Frederick, the gardener's boy, advanced to the bedside.

Mr. Marrapit sternly regarded him: "Recite your misdeeds."

"I've done me jobs, sir."

"Prostrated, I cannot check your testimony. One awful eye above alone can tell. Upon your knees this night search stringently your heart. Bend."

Frederick inclined his neck until his forehead was upon the coverlet. Mr. Marrapit scanned the neck.

"Behind the ears are stale traces. Cleanse abundantly. To your bed."

Without the door Frederick encountered Mr. Fletcher. "You let me catch you reading abed to-night," Mr. Fletcher warned him.

"Cleanse yer blarsted ear-'oles," breathed Frederick, pushing past.



III.

Mr. Fletcher moved in to the presence.

"Is all securely barred, bolted and shuttered?" Mr. Marrapit asked.

"It's all right."

"I am apprehensive. This is the first night I have not accompanied you upon your round. Colossal responsibility lies upon you. Should thieves break through and steal, upon your head devolves the crime."

Wearily Mr. Fletcher repeated: "It's all right."

Mr. Marrapit frowned: "You do not inspire confidence. Sleep films your eye. I shudder for you. Women and children are in your care this night. The maids, Mrs. Armitage, Mrs. Major, my daughter, the young life of Frederick, are in your hands. What if rapine and murder, concealed in the garden, are loosed beneath my roof this night?"

Mr. Fletcher passed a fist across his brow; spoke wearily: "It's all right, Mr. Marrapit. I can't say more; I can't do more. I tell you again it's all right."

"Substantiate. Adduce evidence."

Mr. Fletcher raised an appealing hand: "How can I prove it? My word's a good word, ain't it? I tell you the doors are locked. I can't bring 'em up to show you, can I? I'm a gardener, I am."

"By zeal give proof. Set your alarum-clock so that twice in the night you may be roused. Gird then yourself and patrol. But lightly slumber. Should my bell sound in your room spring instantly to my bedside. To your couch."

Battling speech, Mr. Fletcher moved to the door. At the threshold protest overcame him. He gave it vent: "I should like to ast if I was engaged to work by night as well as day? Can't I even have me rest? 'Ow many nights am I to patrol the house? It's 'ard—damn 'ard. I'm a gardener, I am; not a watchdog."

"Away, insolence."

Insolence, upon the stairs, morosely descending, drew aside to give room to Margaret and George.

Margaret parted her lips at him in her appealing smile. "Oh, Mr. Fletcher," in her pretty way she said, "you locked me out. Indeed you did." She smiled again; tripped towards Mr. Marrapit's door.

Mr. Fletcher stayed George, following. "Mr. George, did you shut up secure behind Miss Margaret?"

George reassured him; questioned his earnestness.

Mr. Fletcher pointed through a window that gave upon the garden. "I've the 'orrors on me to-night," he said. "According to Master there's rapine lurking in them bushes. Mr. George, what'll I do if there's rapine beneath this roof to-night?"

"Catch it firmly by the back of the neck and hold its head in a bucket of water," George told him.

Mr. Fletcher passed, pondering the suggestion. "Only something to do with rats after all," he cogitated with wan smile of relief.



IV.

Margaret, at her father's bedside, luxuriously mouthed the fine phrases of the Book of Job which nightly she read him. Her chapter finished, she inquired: "Shall I read on?"

"Does Job continue?"

"No, father. The next begins, 'Then answered Bildad, the Shuite.'"

George coughed upon the threshold.

"Terminate," said Mr. Marrapit. "Bildad is without."

"Oh, father, George is not!"

"He torments me. He is Bildad. Terminate. To your bed."

She pressed a warm kiss upon Job's brow; took on her soft cheek the salute of his thin lips. "You have everything, dear father?"