Curiosity as to what was going on at the great house kept him in a feverish state during these days before the funeral. Breakspeare, whom he saw frequently, supposed him to be in constant communication with Rivenoak, and at times hinted a desire for news, but Lashmar's cue was a dignified silence, which seemed to conceal things of high moment. Sir William and Lady Amys he knew to be still in the house of mourning; he presumed that May Tomalin had not gone away, and it taxed his imagination to picture the terms on which she lived with Constance. At the funeral, no doubt, he would see them both; probably would have to exchange words with them—an embarrassing necessity.

Hollingford, of course, was full of gossip about the dead woman. The old, old scandal occupied tongues malicious or charitable. Rivenoak domestics had spread the news of the marble bust, to which some of them attached a superstitious significance; Breakspeare heard, and credited, a rumour that the bust dated from the time when its original led a brilliant, abandoned life in the artist world of London; but naturally he could not speak of this with Lashmar. Highly imaginative stories, too, went about concerning Miss Tomalin, whom everyone assumed to be the heiress of Lady Ogram's wealth. By some undercurrent, no doubt of servant's-hall origin, the name of Lord Dymchurch had come into circulation, and the editor of the Express ventured to inquire of Lashmar whether it was true that Miss Tomalin had rejected an offer of marriage from this peer. Perfectly true, answered Dyce, in his discreet way; and he smiled as one who, if he would, could expatiate on the interesting topic.

He saw Mrs. Gallantry, and from her learnt—without betraying his own ignorance—that callers at Rivenoak were received by Lady Amys, from whom only the barest information concerning Lady Ogram's illness was obtainable. Neither Miss Tomalin nor Miss Bride had been seen by anyone.

The day of the funeral arrived; the hour appointed was half-past two. All the morning rain fell, and about mid-day began a violent thunder storm, which lasted for an hour. Then the sky began to clear, and as Lashmar started for Rivenoak be saw a fine rainbow across great sullen clouds, slowly breaking upon depths of azure. The gates of the park stood wide open, and many carriages were moving up the drive. Afterwards, it became known that no member of the Ogram family had been present on this occasion. Half-a-dozen friends of the deceased came down from London, but the majority of the funeral guests belonged to Hollingford and the immediate neighbourhood. In no sense was it a distinguished gathering; mere curiosity accounted for the presence of nearly all who came.

Lashmar had paid his respects to Lady Amys, who received him frigidly, and was looking about for faces that he knew, when a familiar voice spoke at his shoulder; he turned, and saw Mrs. Toplady.

"Have you come down this morning?" he asked, as they shook hands.

"Yesterday. I want to see you, and we had better arrange the meeting now. Where are you staying in Hollingford? An hotel, isn't it?"

She spoke in a low voice. Notwithstanding her decorous gravity, Lashmar saw a ghost of the familiar smile hovering about her lips. He gave his address, and asked at what hour Mrs. Toplady thought of coming.

"Let us say half-past five. There's an up train just before eight, which I must catch."

She nodded, and moved away. Again Lashmar looked about him, and he met the eye of Mr. Kerchever, who came forward with friendly aspect.

"Dreadfully sudden, the end, Mr. Lashmar!"

"Dreadfully so, indeed," Dyce responded, in mortuary tones.

"You were present at the seizure, I understand?"

"I was."

"A good age," remarked the athletic lawyer, with obvious difficulty subduing his wonted breeziness. "The doctor tells me that it was marvellous she lived so long. Wonderful woman! Wonderful!"

And he too moved away, Lashmar gazing after him, and wishing he knew all that was in the legal mind at this moment. But that secret must very soon become common property. Perhaps the contents of Lady Ogram's will would be known at Hollingford this evening.

He searched vainly for Constance and for May. The former he did not see until she crossed the hall to enter one of the carriages; the latter appeared not at all. Had she, then, really left Rivenoak? Sitting in his hired brougham, in dignified solitude, he puzzled anxiously over this question. Happily, he would learn everything from Lady Toplady.

In the little church of Shawe, his eyes wandered as much as his thoughts. Surveying the faces, most of them unknown to him, he noticed that scarcely a person present was paying any attention to the ceremony, or made any attempt to conceal his or her indifference. At one moment it vexed him that no look turned with interest in his direction; was he not far and away the most notable of all the people gathered here? A lady and a gentleman sat near him, frequently exchanged audible whispers, and he found that they were debating a trivial domestic matter, with some acerbity of mutual contradiction. He gazed now and then at the black-palled coffin, and found it impossible to realise that there lay the strange, imperious old woman who for several months had been the centre of his thoughts, and to whom he owed so vast a change in his circumstances. He felt no sorrow, yet thought of her with a certain respect, even with a slight sensation of gratitude, which was chiefly due, however, to the fact that she had been so good as to die. Live as long as he might, the countenance and the voice of Lady Ogram would never be less distinct in his memory than they were to-day. He, at all events, had understood and appreciated her. If he became master of Rivenoak, the marble bust should always have an honoured place under that roof.

Dyce saw himself master of Rivenoak. He fell into a delightful dream, and, when the congregation suddenly stirred, he realised with alarm that he had a broad smile on his face.

Rather before the hour she had named, Mrs. Toplady presented herself at the Saracen's Head. Lashmar was impatiently expectant; he did his best to appear gravely thoughtful, and behaved with the ceremonious courtesy which, in his quality of parliamentary candidate, he had of late been cultivating. His visitor, as soon as the door was closed, became quite at her ease.

"Nice little place," she remarked, glancing about the room. "You make this your head-quarters, of course?"

"Yes; I am very comfortable here," Dyce answered, in melodious undertone.

"And all goes well? Your committee at work, and all that?"

"Everything satisfactory, so far. The date is not fixed yet."

"But it'll be all over, no doubt, in time for the partridges," said Mrs. Toplady, scrutinising him with an amused look. "Do you shoot?"

"Why no, Mrs. Toplady. I care very little for sport."

"Like all sensible men. I wanted to hear what you think about Lady Ogram's will."

Lashmar was disconcerted. He had to confess that he knew nothing whatever about the will.

"Indeed? Then I bring you news."

They were interrupted by a waiter who appeared with tea. The visitor graciously accepted a cup.

"Funerals exhaust one so, don't they?" she remarked. "I don't know your opinion, but I think people should be married and buried far more quietly. For my own part, I grieve sincerely for the death of Lady Ogram. It's a great loss to me. I liked her, and I owed her gratitude for very much kindness. But I certainly shouldn't have gone to her funeral, if it hadn't been a social duty. I should have liked to sit quietly at home, thinking about her."

"I thoroughly agree with you," replied Dyce, absently. "You came down yesterday?"

"In the evening.—You know that Miss Tomalin is at my house?"

"I had no idea of it."

"Yes. She arrived the day before yesterday. She left Rivenoak as soon as she knew about Lady Ogram's will. I'm very glad indeed that she came to me; it was a great mark of confidence. Under the circumstances, she could hardly remain here."

"The circumstances—?"

"Lady Ogram's will does not mention her."

Lashmar felt a spasm in his breast. The expression of his features was so very significant that Mrs. Toplady's smile threatened to become a laugh.

"It's rather startling, isn't it?" she continued. "The will was made t year ago. Lady Ogram didn't mean it to stand. When she was in town, she talked over her affairs with her solicitor; a new will was to be made, by which Miss Tomalin would have come into possession of Rivenoak, and of a great deal of money. You can probably guess why she put off executing it. She hoped her niece's marriage-settlement would come first. But the old will remains, and is valid."

"Will you tell me its provisions?" asked Lashmar, deliberately.

"In confidence. It won't be made public till the executors—Sir William Amys and Mr. Kerchever—have proved it. I never knew a more public-spirited will. Hollingford gets a hospital, to be called the Lady Ogram; very generously endowed. Rivenoak is to be sold, and the proceeds to form a fund for a lot of Lady Ogram Scholarships. A working-girl's home is to be founded in Camden Town (it seems she was born there), and to be called Lady Ogram House. A lady named Mrs. Gallantry, here at Hollingford, becomes trustee for a considerable sum to be used in founding a training school for domestic servants—to be named the Lady Ogram. Then there's a long list of minor charitable bequests. All the servants are most liberally treated, and a few friends in humble circumstances receive annuities. There is not much fear of Lady Ogram being forgotten just yet, is there?"

"No, indeed," said Lashmar, with studious control of his voice. "And"—he paused a moment—"is that all?"

"Let me see—Oh, I was forgetting. Some money is left to Miss Bride; not to her absolutely, but in trust for certain purposes not specified."

Mrs. Toplady's smile had never been more eloquent of mischievous pleasure. She was watching Lashmar as one watches a comedian on the stage, without the least disguise of her amusement.

"I had heard something of that," said Dyce, the tension of whose feelings began to show itself in a flush under the eyes. "Can you tell me—"

"Oh," broke in the other, "I've forgotten a detail that will interest you. In the entrance hall of the Lady Ogram Hospital is to be preserved that beautiful bust which you have seen at the Rivenoak. By the bye, there are odd stories about it. I hear that it was brought out of concealment only the day before her death."

"Yes. I know nothing more about it. With regard to Miss Bride's trusteeship—"

"Oh, and I forgot that Hollingford is to have a fine market-hall, on condition that the street leading to it is called Arabella Street—her name, you know."

"Oh, indeed!" murmured Dyce, and became mute.

Mrs. Toplady amused herself for a moment with observation of the play of his muscles. She finished her tea.

"I'll have another cup, if you please.—Oh yes, we were speaking of Miss Bride. Naturally, that interests you. An odd bequest, isn't it? She is spoken of as a trustee, but evidently the disposal of the money is quite at her own discretion. If I remember, there are words to the effect that Lady Ogram wishes Miss Bride to use this money just as she herself would have done, for the purposes in which they were both particularly interested. By the bye, it isn't money only; Miss Bride becomes owner of the paper-mill at the village by Rivenoak."

"I had heard of this," said Lashmar, with a brusque movement as though he felt cramp in his leg. He had begun to look cheerful. "I knew all about Lady Ogram's intentions. You don't remember," he added carelessly, "the amount of the bequest?"

"Mr. Kerchever tells me it represents about seventy thousand pounds."

Lashmar involuntarily heaved a sigh. Mrs. Toplady watched him over the rim of her teacup, the hand which held it shaking a little with subdued mirth.

"As you say," he observed, "it's a most remarkable will. But it seems rather too bad that the poor lady's real wishes should be totally neglected."

"Indeed it does. I have been wondering what Miss Bride will think about it. Of course I couldn't speak to her on the subject. One almost feels as if she ought at all events to give half that money to Miss Tomalin, considering the terms on which she receives it."

"But," objected Dyce, "that wouldn't be fulfilling the conditions of the bequest, which, I happen to know, were very specific. Really, it's a most unfortunate thing that Lady Ogram died so suddenly, most unfortunate. What a serious injustice is done to that poor girl!"

"After all, Mr. Lashmar," fell sweetly from the other's lips, "her position might be worse."

"How? Has she an income of her own?"

"Oh, a trifling annuity, not worth mentioning. But I didn't speak of that. I meant that, happily, her future is in the hands of an honourable man. It would have been sad indeed if she had owed this calamity to the intrigues of a mere fortune-hunter. As it is, a girl of her spirit and intelligence will very soon forget the disappointment. Indeed, it is much more on another's account than on her own that she grieves over what has happened."

Lashmar was perusing the floor. Slowly he raised his eyes, until they met Mrs. Toplady's. The two looked steadily at each other.

"Are you speaking of me?" Dyce inquired, in a low voice.

"Of whom else could I be speaking, Mr. Lashmar?"

"Then Miss Tomalin has taken you entirely into her confidence?"

"Entirely, I am happy to say. I am sure you won't be displeased. It goes without saying that she does not know I am having this conversation with you."

"I think, Mrs. Toplady," said Dyce, with deliberation, "that you had better tell me, if you will, exactly what you have heard from Miss Tomalin. We shall be more sure of understanding each other."

"That's easily done. She told me of your railway journey together, of your subsequent meetings, of what happened with Lord Dymchurch, and, last of all, what happened with Lady Ogram."

"Probably," said Dyce, "not all that happened with Lady Ogram. Did she mention that, instead of remaining loyal to me, as I was all through to her, she did her best to injure me with Lady Ogram by betraying a secret I had entrusted to her?"

"I know what you refer to. Yes, she told me, of that unfortunate incident, and spoke of it with deep regret. The poor girl simply lost her head; for a moment she could think of nothing but self-preservation. Put yourself in her place. She saw utter ruin before her, and was driven almost crazy. I can assure you that she was not responsible for that piece of disloyalty. I am afraid not many girls would have been more heroic in such a terrible situation. You, a philosopher, must take account of human weakness."

"I hope I can do that," said Lashmar, with a liberal air. "Under other circumstances, I should hardly have mentioned the thing. But it convinced me at the time that Miss Tomalin had deceived herself as to her feeling for me, and now that everything is necessarily at an end between us, I prefer to see it still in the same light, for it assures me that she has suffered no injury at my hands."

"But, pray, why should everything be necessarily at an end?"

"For two or three reasons, Mrs. Toplady. One will suffice. After Miss Tomalin had left the room, Lady Ogram insisted on my making offer of immediate marriage to Miss Bride. Being plainly released from the other obligation, I did so—and Miss Bride gave her consent."

Mrs. Toplady arched her eyebrows, and rippled a pleasant laugh.

"Ah! That, of course, May could not know. I may presume that, this time, the engagement is serious?"

"Undoubtedly," Lashmar replied, grave yet bland.

"Then I can only ask you to pardon my interference."

"Not at all. You have shown great kindness, and, under other circumstances, we should not have differed for a moment as to the course it behooved me to follow."

Dyce had never heard himself speak so magnanimously; he smiled with pleasure, and continued in a peculiarly suave voice.

"I am sure Miss Tomalin will find in you a steadfast friend."

"I shall do what I can for her, of course," was the rather dry answer. "At the same time, I hold to my view of Miss Bride's responsibility. The girl has really nothing to live upon; a miserable hundred a year; all very well when she belonged to the family at Northampton, but useless now she is adrift. To tell you the truth, I shall wait with no little curiosity for Miss Bride's—and your—decision."

"Need I say that Miss Bride will be absolutely free to take any step she likes?"

"How could I doubt it?" exclaimed the lady, with her most expressive smile. "Do you allow me to make known the—the renewal of your engagement?"

"Certainly," Dyce answered, beaming upon her.

Mrs. Toplady rose.

"I am so happy to have been the first to bring you the news. But it a little surprises me that you had not learnt it already from Miss Bride, who knew all about the will two days ago."

"Why should it surprise you?" said Lashmar, gently, as he took her hand. "Naturally I have kept away from Rivenoak, supposing Miss Tomalin to be still there; and Miss Bride was not likely to be in haste to communicate a piece of news which, strictly speaking, hardly concerns me at all."

"Be sure you come to see me when you are in town," were Mrs. Toplady's last words.

And her eyes twinkled with appreciation of Lashmar's demeanour.



CHAPTER XXVI

Dyce walked about the room. Without knowing it, he sang softly to himself. His countenance was radiant.

So, after all, Constance would be his wife. One moment's glimpse of a dread possibility that neither she nor May Tomalin benefited by Lady Ogram's will had sufficed to make him more than contented with the actual issue of his late complications. He had seen himself overwhelmed with disaster, reduced to the alternative of withdrawing into ignominious obscurity or of again seeking aid from Mrs. Woolstan, aid which might or not be granted, and in any case would only enable him to go through with the contest at Hollingford, a useless effort if he had nothing henceforth to live upon. As it was, he saw Constance and seventy thousand pounds, with the prosperous little paper-mill to boot. He did not love Constance, but the feeling of dislike with which he had recently come to regard her had quite passed away. He did not love Constance, but what a capable woman she was!—and what a help she would be to him in his career! Her having detected his philosophic plagiarism seemed to him now rather a good thing than otherwise; it spared him the annoyance of intellectual dishonesty in his domestic life, and put them in a position to discuss freely the political and social views by which he was to stand. After all, Constance was the only woman he knew whose intelligence he really respected. After all, remembering their intimacy long ago at Alverholme, he felt a fitness in this fated sequel. It gave him the pleasant sense of honourable conduct.

He smiled at the thought that he had fancied himself in love with May Tomalin. The girl was a half-educated simpleton, who would only have made him ridiculous. Her anonymous letter pointed to a grave fault of breeding; it would always have been suggestive of disagreeable possibilities. May was thoroughly plebeian in origin, and her resemblance to Lady Ogram might develop in a way it made him shudder to think of. Constance Bride came of gentlefolk, and needed only the favour of circumstances to show herself perfectly at ease in whatever social surroundings. She had a natural dignity, which, now he came to reflect upon it, he had always observed with pleasure. What could have been more difficult than her relations with Lady Ogram? Yet she had always borne herself with graceful independence.

Poor girl! She had gone through a hard time these last four weeks, and no wonder if she broke down under the strain of a situation such as that which ended in Lady Ogram's death. He would make up to her for it all. She should understand him, and rest in perfect confidence. Yes, he would reveal to her his whole heart and mind, so that no doubt of him, no slightest distrust, could ever disturb her peace. Not only did he owe her this complete sincerity; to him it would be no less delightful, no less tranquillising.

He sat down to write a note.

"Dear Constance—" yes, that sufficed. "When can I see you? Let it be as soon as possible. Of course you have understood my silence. Do you stay at Rivenoak a little longer? Let me come to-morrow, if possible."

After a little reflection, he signed himself, "Ever yours, D. L."

Having despatched this by private messenger, he went out and took a walk, choosing the direction away from Rivenoak. As he rambled along an uninteresting road, it occurred to him that he ought to write to Mrs. Woolstan. No need, of course, to say anything about the results of Lady Ogram's decease, but he really owed Iris a letter, just to show that he was not unmindful of her kindness. The foolish little woman had done her best for him; indeed, without her help, where would he have been now? He must pay his debt to her as soon as possible, and it would of course be necessary to speak of the matter to Constance. Not, perhaps, till after their marriage. Well, he would see; he might possibly have an impulse. Happily this was the very last of the unpleasant details he would have to dismiss. The luxury of living without concealment, unembarrassed, and unafraid!

By the bye, how would Constance understand the duties of her trusteeship? What portion of her income would she feel at liberty to set apart for personal uses? In all likelihood, she had spoken of that with Lady Ogram; at their coming interview, she would fully explain her position.

He returned to the hotel, and dined alone. To his disappointment, there came no answer from Rivenoak. Was it possible that Constance had already gone away? Very unlikely, so soon after the funeral. She would reply, no doubt, by post; indeed, there was no hurry, and a little reserve on her part would be quite natural.

Morning brought him the expected letter. "Dear Mr. Lashmar—" Oh, that was nothing; merely the reserve he had anticipated: he liked her the better for it. "I shall be at home all to-morrow, busy with many things. Could you come about three o'clock? Sincerely yours, Constance Bride." What could be in better taste? How else could she write, under the circumstances? His real wooing had not yet begun, and she merely reminded him of that, with all gentleness.

So, in the afternoon he once more presented himself at Rivenoak, and once more followed the servant into the drawing-room; Constance sat there; she rose as he approached, and silently gave her hand. He thought she looked rather pale; that might be the effect of black attire, which made a noticeable change in her appearance. But a certain dignity of which the visitor was very sensible, a grace of movement and of bearing which seemed new to her, could not be attributed to the dress she wore. In a saddened voice, he hoped that she was well, that she had not suffered from the agitations of the past week; and, with courtesy such as she might have used to anyone, Constance replied that she felt a little tired, not quite herself. They talked for some minutes in this way. Lashmar learnt that the Amyses had returned to London.

"For the present, you stay here?" he said, the interrogative accent only just perceptible.

"For a day or two. My secretaryship goes on, of course. I have a good deal of correspondence to see to."

On his way hither, Lashmar had imagined quite a different meeting; he anticipated an emotional scene, beginning with forced calm on Constance's side, leading OR to reproaches, explanations, and masculine triumph. But Constance was strangely self-possessed, and her mind seemed to be not at all occupied with agitating subjects. Lashmar was puzzled; he felt it wise to imitate her example, to behave as quietly and naturally as possible, taking for granted that she viewed the situation even as he did.

He turned his eyes to the marble bust on its pedestal behind Constance. The note of scorn in its fixed smile caught his attention.

"So that is to stand in the Hospital," he murmured.

"Yes, I believe so," replied Constance, absently, with a glance towards the white face.

"What strange stories it will give rise to, in days to come! She will become a legendary figure. I can hardly believe that I saw and talked with her only a few days ago. Have you the same feeling at all? Doesn't she seem to you more like someone you have read of, than a person you really knew?"

"I understand what you mean," said Constance, smiling thoughtfully. "It's certain one will never again know anyone like her."

"Are all the provisions of her will practicable?"

"Perfectly, I think. She took great trouble to make them so. By the bye, from whom did you get your information?"

It was asked in a disinterested voice, the speaker's look resting for a moment on Lashmar with unembarrassed directness.

"Mrs. Toplady told me about the will."

Dyce paused for a moment, then continued, with an obvious effort indeed, but in an even voice.

"She came to see me, after the funeral. Mrs. Toplady has a persevering curiosity; she wanted to know what had happened, and, I have no doubt, had recourse to me after finding that you were not disposed to talk as freely as she wished. I was able to enlighten her on one point."

"May I ask what point?"

"She began by telling me that Miss Tomalin was at her house. She had heard Miss Tomalin's story, with the result that she supposed me in honour bound to marry that young lady. I explained that this was by no means the case."

"How did you explain it?" asked Constance, still in her disinterested tone.

"By telling the simple truth, that Miss Tomalin had herself cancelled the engagement existing between us."

"I see."

Constance leaned back in her chair. She looked like one who is sitting alone, occupied with tranquil reflection. Dyce allowed a moment to elapse before he again spoke; he was smiling to himself.

"How strange it all is!" he at length resumed, as though starting from a reverie. "This past fortnight seems already as dim and vague to me as the recollection of something that happened long years ago. I never believed myself capable of such follies. Tell me frankly." He leaned towards Constance, gazing at her in an amused, confidential way. "Could you have imagined that I should ever lose my head like that, and run off into such vagaries?"

Constance also smiled, but very faintly. Her eyebrows rose, ever so little. Her lips just moved, but uttered no sound.

"You know me better than anyone else ever did or ever will," he went on. "It is quite possible that you know me better than I know myself. Did you ever foresee such a possibility?"

"I can't say that it astonished me," was the deliberate reply, without any ironic note.

"Well, I am glad of that," said Dyce, with a little sign of relief. "It's much better so. I like to think that you read me with so clear an eye. For years I have studied myself, and I thought I knew how I should act in any given circumstances; yet it was mere illusion. What I regret is that I hadn't talked more to you about such things; you would very likely have put me on my guard. I always felt your power of reading character, it seemed to me that I concealed nothing from you. We were always so frank with each other—yet not frank enough, after all."

"I'm afraid not," assented the listener, absently.

"Well, it's an experience; though, as I say, more like a bit of delirium than actual life. Happily, you know all about it; I shall never have to tell you the absurd story. But I mustn't forget that other thing which really did surprise and vex you—my bit of foolish plagiarism. I have so wanted to talk to you about it. You have read the whole book?"

"Very carefully."

"And what do you think of it?" he asked, with an air of keen interest.

"Just what I thought of the large quotations I had heard from you. The theory seems plausible; I should think there is a good deal of truth in it. In any case, it helps one to direct one's life."

"Oh, you feel that? Now there," exclaimed Lashmar, his eye brightening, "is the explanation of what seemed to you very dishonourable behaviour in me. You know me, and you will understand as soon as I hint at the psychology of the thing. When that book fell into my hands, I was seeking eagerly for a theory of the world by which to live. I have had many glimpses of the truth about life—glimpses gained by my own honest thought. This book completed the theory I had been shaping for myself; it brought me mental rest, and a sense of fixed purpose such as I had never known. Its reconciliation of the aristocratic principle with a true socialism was exactly what I had been striving for; it put me at harmony with myself, for you know that I am at the same time Aristocrat and Socialist. Well now, I spoke of the book to my father, and begged him to read it. It was when we met at Alverholme, in the spring, you remember? How long ago does that seem to you? To me, several years. Yes, I had the volume with me, and showed it to my father; sufficient proof that I had no intention of using it dishonestly. But—follow me, I beg—I had so absorbed the theory, so thoroughly made it the directing principle of my mind, that I very soon ceased to think of it as somebody else's work. I completed it with all sorts of new illustrations, confirmations, which had been hanging loose in my memory, and the result was that I one day found myself talking about it as if it had originated with me. If I'm not mistaken, I was talking with Dymchurch—yes, it was Dymchurch. When I had time to reflect, I saw what I had unconsciously done quite unconsciously, believe me. I thought it over, Ought I to let Dymchurch know where I had got my central idea? And I decided at length that I would say nothing."

Constance, leaning back in her chair, listened attentively, with impartial countenance.

"You see why, don't you?" His voice thrilled with earnestness; his eyes shone as if with the very light of truth. "To say calmly: By the bye, I came across that bio-sociological theory in such and such a book, would have been a flagrant injustice to myself. I couldn't ask Dymchurch to listen whilst I elaborately expounded my mental and spiritual history during the past year or two, yet short of that there was no way of making him understand the situation. The thing had become mine; I thought by it, and lived by it; I couldn't bear to speak of it as merely an interesting hypothesis discovered in the course of my reading. At once it would have seemed to me to carry less weight; I should have been thrown back again into uncertainty. This, too, just at the moment when a principle, a conviction, had become no less a practical than a subjective need to me; for—thanks to you—I saw a new hope in life, the possibility of an active career which would give scope to all my energies. Do you follow me? Do I make myself clear?"

"Perfectly," replied Constance, with a slight inclination of her head. She seemed both to listen and to be absorbed in thought.

"From that moment, I ceased to think of the book. I had as good as forgotten its existence. Though, on the whole, it had done me so great a service, there were many things in it I didn't like, and these would now have annoyed me much more than at the first reading. I should have felt as if the man had got hold of my philosophy, and presented it imperfectly. You will understand now why I was so astonished at your charge of plagiarism. I really didn't know what to say; I couldn't perceive your point of view: I don't remember how I replied, I'm afraid my behaviour seemed only to confirm your suspicion. In very truth, it was the result of genuine surprise. Of course I had only to reflect to see how this discovery must have come upon you, but then it was too late. We were in the thick of extraordinary complications: no hope of quiet and reasonable talk. Since the tragic end, I have worried constantly about that misunderstanding. Is it quite cleared up? We must be frank with each other now or never. Speak your thought as honestly as I have spoken mine."

"I completely understand you," was the meditative reply.

"I was sure you would! To some people, such an explanation would be useless; Mrs. Toplady, for instance. I should be sorry to have to justify myself by psychological reasoning to Mrs. Toplady. And, remember, Mrs. Toplady represents the world. A wise man does not try to explain himself to the world; enough if, by exceptional good luck, there is one person to whom he can confidently talk of his struggles and his purposes. Don't suppose, however, that I lay claim to any great wisdom; after the last fortnight, that would be rather laughable. But I am capable of benefiting by experience, and very few men can truly say as much. It is on the practical side that I have hitherto been most deficient. I see my way to correcting that fault. Nothing could be better for me, just now, than electioneering work. It will take me out of myself, and give a rest to the speculative side of my mind. Don't you agree with me?"

"Quite."

"There's another thing I must make clear to you," Dyce pursued, now swimming delightedly on the flood of his own eloquence. "For a long time I seriously doubted whether I was fit for a political career. My ambition always tended that way, but my conscience went against it. I used to regard politics with a good deal of contempt. You remember our old talks, at Alverholme?"

Constance nodded.

"In one respect, I am still of the same opinion. Most men who go in for a parliamentary career regard it either as a business by which they and their friends are to profit, or as an easy way of gratifying their personal vanity, and social ambitions. That, of course, is why we are so far from ideal government. I used to think that the man in earnest should hold aloof from Parliament, and work in more hopeful ways—by literature, for instance. But I see now that the fact of the degradation of Parliament is the very reason why a man thinking as I do should try to get into the House of Commons. If all serious minds hold aloof, what will the government of the country sink to? The House of Commons is becoming in the worst sense democratic; it represents, above all, newly acquired wealth, and wealth which has no sense of its responsibilities. The representative system can only be restored to dignity and usefulness by the growth of a new Liberalism. What I understand by that, you already know. One of its principles—that which for the present must be most insisted upon—is the right use of money. Irresponsible riches threaten to ruin our civilisation. What we have first of all to do is to form the nucleus of a party which represents money as a civilising, instead of a corrupting, power."

He looked into Constance's eyes, and she, smiling as if at a distant object, met his look steadily.

"I have been working out this thought," he continued, with vigorous accent. "I see it now as my guiding principle in the narrower sense—the line along which I must pursue the greater ends. The possession of money commonly says very little for a man's moral and intellectual worth, but there is the minority of well-to-do people who have the will to use their means rightly, if only they knew how. This minority must be organised. It must attract intellect and moral force from every social rank. Money must be used against money, and in this struggle it is not the big battalions which will prevail. Personally I care very little for wealth, as I think you know. I have no expensive tastes; I can live without luxuries. Oh, I like to be comfortable, and to be free from anxiety; who doesn't? But I never felt the impulse to strive to enrich myself. On the other hand, money as a civilising force has great value in my eyes. Without it, one can work indeed, but with what slow results? It is time to be up and doing. We must organise our party, get our new Liberalism to work.—In this also, do you agree with me?"

"It is certain," Constance replied, "that the right use of money is one of the great questions of our day."

"I know how much you have thought of it," said Dyce. Then, after a short pause, he added in his frankest tone, "And it concerns you especially."

"It does."

"Do you feel," he softened his voice to respectful intimacy, "that, in devoting yourself to this cause, you will be faithful to the trusts you have accepted?"

Constance answered deliberately.

"It depends upon what you understand by devoting myself. Beyond a doubt, Lady Ogram would have approved the idea as you put it."

"And would she not have given me her confidence as its representative?" asked Dyce, smiling.

"Up to a certain point. Lady Ogram desired, for instance, to bear the expenses of your contest at Hollingford, and I should like to carry out her wish in the matter."

A misgiving began to trouble Lashmar's sanguine mood. He searched his companion's face; it seemed to him to have grown more emphatic in expression; there was a certain hardness about the lips which he had not yet observed. Still, Constance looked friendly, and her eyes supported his glance.

"Thank you," he murmured, with some feeling. "And, if, by chance, I should be beaten? You wouldn't lose courage? We must remember—"

"You have asked me many questions," Constance interrupted quietly. "Let me use the privilege of frankness which we grant each other, and ask you one in turn. Your private means are sufficient for the career upon which you are entering?"

"My private means?"

He gazed at her as if he did not understand, the smile fading from his lips.

"Forgive me if you think I am going too far—"

"Not at all!" Dyce exclaimed, eagerly. "It is a question you have a perfect right to ask. But I thought you knew I had no private means."

"No, I wasn't aware of that," Constance replied, in a voice of studious civility. "Then how do you propose—?"

Their eyes encountered. Constance did not for an instant lose her self-command; Lashmar's efforts to be calm only made his embarrassment more obvious.

"I had a small allowance from my father till lately," he said. "But that has come to an end. It never occurred to me that you misunderstood my position. Surely I have more than once hinted to you how poor I was? I had no intention of misleading you. Lady Ogram certainly knew——"

"She knew you were not wealthy, but she thought you had a competence. I told her so, when she questioned me. It was a mistake, I see, but a very natural one."

"Does it matter, now?" asked Dyce, his lips again curling amiably.

"I should suppose it mattered much. How shall you live?"

"Let us understand each other. Do you withdraw your consent to Lady Ogram's last wish?"

"That wish, as you see, was founded on a misunderstanding."

"But," exclaimed Lashmar, "you are not speaking seriously?"

"Quite. Lady Ogram certainly never intended the money she had left in trust to me to be used for your private needs. Reflect a moment, and you will see how impossible it would be for me to apply the money in such a way."

"Reflection," said Dyce, with unnatural quietness, "would only increase my astonishment at your ingenuity. It would have been much simpler and better to say at once that you had changed your mind. Can you for a moment expect me to believe that this argument really justifies you in breaking your promise?"

"I assure you," replied Constance, also in a soft undertone, "it is much sounder reasoning than that by which you excuse your philosophical plagiarism."

Lashmar's eyes wandered. They fell upon the marble bust; its disdainful smile seemed to him more pronounced than ever.

"Then," he cried, on an impulse of desperation, "you really mean to take Lady Ogram's money, and to disregard the very condition on which she left it to you?"

"You forget that her will was made before she had heard your name."

He sat in silence, a gloomy resentment lowering on his features. After a glance at him, Constance began to speak in a calm, reasonable voice.

"It is my turn to confess. I, too, seem to myself to have been living in a sort of dream, and my awaking is no less decisive than yours. At your instigation, I behaved dishonestly; I am very much ashamed of the recollection. Happily, I see my way to atone for the follies, and worse, that I committed. I can carry out Lady Ogram's wishes—the wishes she formed while still in her sound mind—and to that I shall devote my life."

"Do you intend, then, to apply none of this money to your personal use? Do you mean to earn your own living still?"

"That would defeat Lady Ogram's purpose," was the calm answer. "I shall live where and how it seems good to me, guided always by the intention which I know was in her mind."

Dyce sat with his head bent forward, his hands grasping his knees. After what seemed to be profound reflection, he said gravely:

"This is how you think to-day. I won't be so unjust to you as to take it for your final reply."

"Yet that's what it is," answered Constance.

"You think so. The sudden possession of wealth has disturbed your mind. If I took you at your word," he spoke with measured accent, "I should be guilty of behaviour much more dishonourable than that of which you accuse me. I can wait." He smiled with a certain severity. "It is my duty to wait until you have recovered your natural way of thinking."

Constance was looking at him, her eyes full of wonder and amusement.

"Thank you," she said. "You are very kind, very considerate. But suppose you reflect for a moment on your theory of the equality of man and woman. Doesn't it suggest an explanation of what you call my disordered state of mind?—Let us use plain words. You want money for your career, and, as the need is pressing, you are willing to take the encumbrance of a wife. I am to feel myself honoured by your acceptance of me, to subject myself entirely to your purposes, to think it a glorious reward if I can aid your ambition. Is there much equality in this arrangement?"

"You put things in the meanest light," protested Lashmar. "What I offer you is a share in all my thoughts, a companionship in whatever I do or become. I have no exaggerated sense of my own powers, but this I know, that, with fair opportunity, I can attain distinction. If I thought of you as in any sense an encumbrance, I shouldn't dream of asking you to marry me; it would defeat the object of my life. I have always seen in you just the kind of woman who would understand me and help me."

"My vanity will grant you that," replied Constance. "But for the moment I want you to inquire whether you are the kind of man who would understand and help me.—You are surprised. That's quite a new way of putting the matter, isn't it? You never saw that as a result of your theory?"

"Stay!" Dyce raised his hand. "I know perfectly well that you are ambitious. If you were not, we should never have become friends. But you must remember that, from my point of view, I am offering you such a chance of gratifying your ambition as you will hardly find again."

"That is to say, the reflection of your glory. As a woman, what more can I ask? You can't think how this amuses me, now that I have come to my senses. Putting aside the question of whether you are likely to win glory at all, have you no suspicion of your delightful arrogance? I should like to know how far your contempt of women really goes. It went far enough, at all events, to make you think that I believed your talk about equality of the sexes. But really, I am not quite such a simpleton. I always knew that you despised women, that you looked upon them as creatures to be made use of. If you ask: why, then, did I endure you for a moment? the answer must be, that I am a woman. You see, Mr. Lashmar, we females of the human species are complex. Some of us think and act very foolishly, and all the time, somewhere in our curious minds, are dolefully aware of our foolishness. You knew that of men; let me assure you that women share the unhappy privilege."

Lashmar was listening with knitted brows. No word came to his lips.

"You interest me," pursued Constance. "I think you are rather a typical man of our time, and it isn't at all impossible that you may become, as you say, distinguished. But, clothed and in my right mind, I don't feel disposed to pay the needful price for the honour of helping you on. You mustn't lose heart; I have little doubt that some other woman will grasp at the opportunity you so kindly wish to reserve for me. But may I venture a word of counsel? Don't let it be a woman who holds the equality theory. I say this in the interest of your peace and happiness. There are plenty of women, still, who like to be despised, and some of them are very nice indeed. They are the only good wives; I feel sure of it. We others—women cursed with brains—are not meant for marriage. We grow in numbers, unfortunately. What will be the end of it, I don't know. Some day you will thank your stars that you did not marry a woman capable of understanding you."

Dyce stood up and took a few steps about the floor, his eyes fixed on the marble bust.

"When can I see you again?" he asked abruptly.

"I shall be going to London in a day or two; I don't think we will meet again—until your circumstances are better. Can you give me any idea of what the election expenses will be?"

"Not yet," Dyce answered, in an undertone. "You are going to London? Will you tell me what you mean to do?"

"To pursue my career."

"Your career?"

"That surprises you, of course. It never occurred to you that I also might have a career in view. Yet I have. Let us enter upon a friendly competition. Five years hence, which of us will be better known?"

"I see," remarked Dyce, his lip curling. "You will use your money to make yourself talked about?"

"Not primarily; but it is very likely that that will result from my work. It offends your sense of what is becoming in a woman?"

"It throws light upon what you have been saying."

"So I meant. You will see, when you think about it, that I am acting strangely like a male creature. We females with minds have a way of doing that. I'll say more, for I really want you to understand me. 'The sudden possession of wealth' has not, as you suppose, turned my head, but it has given my thoughts a most salutary shaking, and made me feel twice the woman that I was. At this moment, I should as soon think of taking a place as kitchen-maid as of becoming any man's wife. I am free, and have power to assert myself—the first desire, let me assure you, of modern woman no less than of modern man. That I shall assert myself for the good of others is a peculiarity of mine, a result of my special abilities; I take no credit for it. Some day we shall meet again, and talk over our experiences; for the present, let us be content with corresponding now and then. You shall have my address as soon as I am settled."

She rose, and Lashmar gazed at her. He saw that she was as little to be moved by an appeal, by an argument, as the marble bust behind her.

"I suppose," he said, "you will appear on platforms?"

"Oh dear no!" Constance replied, with a laugh. "My ambition doesn't take that form. I leave that to you, who are much more eloquent."

"How you have altered!" He kept gazing at her, with a certain awe. "I hardly know you."

"I doubt whether you know me at all. Never mind." She held out her hand. "We may be friends yet when you have come to understand that you are not so very, very much my superior."



CHAPTER XXVII

Lashmar walked hack to Hollingford, and reached the hotel without any consciousness of the road by which he had come. He felt as tired as if he had been walking all day. When he had dropped into an easy chair, he let his arms hang, and, with head drooping forward, stared at his feet stretched out before him: the posture suggested a man half overcome with drink.

He had a private meeting to attend to-night. Should he attend it or not? His situation had become farcical. Was it not his plain duty to withdraw at once from the political contest, that a serious candidate might as soon as possible take his place? Where could he discern even the glimmer of a hope in this sudden darkness? His heart was heavy and cold.

He went through the business of the evening, talking automatically, seeing and hearing as in a dream. He had no longer the slightest faith in his electioneering prospects, and wondered how he could ever have been sanguine about them. Of course the Conservative would win. Breakspeare knew it; every member of the committee knew it; they pretended to hope because the contest amused and occupied them. No Liberal had a chance at Hollingford. To-morrow he would throw the thing up, and disappear. Never in his life had he passed such a miserable night. At each waking from hag-ridden slumbers, the blackest despondency beset him; once or twice his tortured brain even glanced towards suicide; temptation lurking in the assurance that, by destroying himself, he would become, for a few days at all events, the subject of universal interest. He found no encouragement even in the thought of Iris Woolstan. Not only had he deeply offended her by his engagement to Constance Bride, but almost certainly she would hear from her friend Mrs. Toplady the whole truth of his disaster, which put him beyond hope of pardon. He owed her money; with what face, even if she did not know the worst, could he go to her and ask for another loan? In vain did he remember the many proofs he had received of Mrs. Woolstan's devotion; since the interview with Constance, all belief in himself was at an end. He had thought his eloquence, his personal magnetism, irresistible; Constance had shown him the extent of his delusion. If he saw Iris, the result would be the same.

At moments, so profound was his feeling of insignificance that he hid his face even from the darkness, and groaned.

Not only had he lost faith in himself; there remained to him no conviction, no trust, no hope of any kind. Intellectually, morally, he had no support; shams, insincerities, downright dishonesties, had clothed him about, and these were now all stripped away, leaving the thing he called his soul to quiver in shamed nakedness. He knew nothing; he believed nothing. But death still made him fearful.

With the first gleam of daylight, he flung himself out of his hot, uncomfortable bed, and hastened to be a clothed mortal once more. He felt better as soon as he had dressed himself and opened the window. The night with its terrible hauntings was a thing gone by.

At breakfast he thought fixedly of Iris Woolstan. Perhaps Iris had not seen Mrs. Toplady yet. Perhaps, at heart, she was not so utterly estranged from him as he feared; something of his old power over her might even now be recovered. It was the resource of desperation; he must try it.

The waiter's usual respect seemed, this morning, covert mockery. The viands had no savour; only the draught of coffee that soothed his throat was good. He had a headache, and a tremor of the nerves. In any case, it would have been impossible to get through the day in the usual manner, and his relief when he found himself at the railway station was almost a return of good spirits.

On reaching London, he made straight for West Hampstead. As he approached Mrs. Woolstan's house, his heart beat violently. Without even a glance at the windows, he rang the visitor's bell. It sounded distinctly, but there came no response. He rang again, and again listened to the far-off tinkling. Only then did he perceive that the blinds at the lower windows were drawn. The house was vacant.

Paralysed for a moment, he stared about, as if in search of someone who could give him information. Then, with sweat on his forehead, he stepped up to the next door, and asked if anything was known of Mrs. Woolstan; he learnt only that she had been absent for about ten days; where she was, the servant with whom he spoke could not tell him. Were the other neighbours likely to know?—he asked. Encouraged by a bare possibility, he inquired at the house beyond; but in vain.

Fate was against him. He might as well go home and write a letter to his committee at Hollingford.

Stay, could he not remember the school to which Leonard Woolstan had been sent? Yes it was noted in his pocket-book; for he had promised to write to the boy.

He sought the nearest post-office, and dispatched a telegram to Leonard; "Please let me know immediately your mother's present address." The reply was to be sent to his rooms in Devonshire Street, and thither he straightway betook himself, hoping that in an hour or so he would have news. An extempore lunch was put before him; never had he satisfied his hunger with less gusto. Time went on; the afternoon brought him no telegram. At seven o'clock he lay on his sofa, exhausted by nervous strain, anticipating a hideous night. Again his thoughts had turned to suicide. It would be easier to obtain poison here than at Hollingford. Laudanum? Death under laudanum must be very easy, mere falling asleep in a sort of intoxication. But he must leave behind him something in writing, something which would excite attention when it appeared in all the newspapers. Addressed to the coroner? No; to his committee. He would hint to them of a tragic story, of noble powers and ambitions frustrated by the sordid difficulties of life. The very truth, let malice say what it would. At his age, with his brain and heart, to perish thus for want of a little money! As he dwelt on the infinite pathos of the thing, tears welled to his eyes, trickled over his cheek—

Of a sudden, he started up, and shouted "Come in!" Yes, it was a telegram; he took it from the servant's hand with an exclamation of joy. Leonard informed him that Mrs. Woolstan was staying at Gorleston, near Yarmouth, her address "Sunrise Terrace." He clutched at a railway guide. Too late to get to Yarmouth to-night, but that did not matter. "Sunrise Terrace!" In his sorry state of mind, a name of such good omen brought him infinite comfort. He rushed out of the house, and walked at a great rate, impelled by the joy of feeling himself alive once more. Sunrise! Iris Woolstan would save him. Already he warmed with gratitude to her: he thought of her with a tender kindness. She might be richer than he supposed; at all events, she was in circumstances which would allow him to live independently. And was she not just the kind of woman Constance Bride had advised him to marry? Advice given in scorn, but, his conscience told him, thoroughly sound. A nice, gentle, sufficiently intelligent little woman. Pity that there was the boy; but he would always be at school. Suppose she had only four or five hundred a year? Oh, probably more than that, seeing that she could economise such substantial sums. He was saved; the sun would rise for him, literally and in metaphor.

A rainy morning saw him at Liverpool Street. The squalid roofs of north-east London dripped miserably under a leaden sky. Not till the train reached the borders of Suffolk did a glint of sun fall upon meadow and stream; thence onwards the heavens brightened; the risen clouds gleamed above a shining shore. Lashmar did not love this part of England, and he wondered why Mrs. Woolstan had chosen such a retreat, but in the lightness of his heart he saw only pleasant things. Arrived at Yarmouth, he jumped into a cab, and was driven along the dull, flat road which leads to Gorleston. Odour of the brine made amends for miles of lodgings, for breaks laden with boisterous trippers, for tram cars and piano-organs. Here at length was Sunrise Terrace, a little row of plain houses on the top of the cliff, with sea-horizon vast before it, and soft green meadow-land far as one could see behind. Bidding his driver wait, Lashmar knocked at the door, and stood tremulous. It was half-past twelve; Iris might or might not have returned from her morning walk; he prepared for a brief disappointment. But worse awaited him. Mrs. Woolstan, he learnt, would not be at home for the mid-day meal; she was with friends who had a house at Gorleston.

"Where is the house?" he asked, impatiently, stamping as if his feet were cold.

The woman pointed his way.

"Who are the people? What is their name?"

He heard it, but it conveyed nothing to him. After a moment's reflection, he decided to go to the hotel, and there write a note. Whilst he was having lunch, the reply came, a dry missive, saying that, if he would call at three o'clock, Mrs. Woolstan would have much pleasure in presenting him to her friends the Barkers, with whom she was spending the day.

Lashmar fumed, but obeyed the invitation. In a garden on the edge of the cliff, he found half a dozen persons; an elderly man who looked like a retired tradesman, his wife, of suitable appearance, their son, their two daughters, and Iris Woolstan. Loud and mirthful talk was going on; his arrival interrupted it only for a moment.

"So glad to see you!" was Mrs. Woolstan's friendly, but not cordial, greeting. "I didn't know you ever came to the east coast."

Introductions were carelessly made; he seated himself on a camp-stool by one of the young ladies, and dropped a few insignificant remarks. No one paid much attention to him.

"Seventy-five runs!" exclaimed Mrs. Woolstan, addressing herself as though with keen interest to the son of the family, a high-coloured, large-limbed young man of about Lashmar's age. "That was splendid! But you did better still against East Croydon, didn't you?"

"Made my century, there," answered Mr. Barker, jerking out a leg in self-satisfaction.

"How conceited you're making him, Mrs. Woolstan!" cried one of his sisters, with a shrill laugh. "It's a rule in this house to put the stopper on Jim when he begins to talk about cricket. If we didn't, there'd be no living with him."

"Are you a cricketer, Mr.—Mr. Lasher?" asked materfamilias, eyeing the visitor curiously.

"It's a long time since I played," was the reply, uttered with scarcely veiled contempt.

Mrs. Woolstan talked on in the highest spirits, exhibiting her intimacy with the Barker household, and her sympathy with their concerns. Lashmar waited for her to question him about Hollingford, to give him an opportunity of revealing his importance; but her thoughts seemed never to turn in that direction. As soon as a movement in the company enabled him to rise, he stepped up to her, and said in a voice audible to those standing by:

"I want to speak to you about Leonard. Shall you be at home this evening?"

Iris gave him a startled look.

"You haven't bad news of Len?"

"Oh no; nothing of the kind."

"Can you call at six o'clock?"

He looked into her eyes, and nodded.

"What do you say to a boat, Mrs. Woolstan?" shouted Barker the son.

This suggestion was acclaimed, and Lashmar was urged to join the party, but he gladly seized this chance of escape. Wandering along the grassy edge of the cliffs, he presently descried the Barkers and their friend putting forth in two little boats. The sight exasperated him. He strode gloomily on, ever and again turning his head to watch the boats, and struggling against the fears that once more assailed him.

In a hollow of dry sand, where the cliffs broke, he flung himself down, and lay still for an hour or two. Below him, on the edge of the tide, children were playing; he watched them sullenly. Lashmar disliked children; the sound of their voices was disagreeable to him. He wondered whether he would ever have children of his own, and heartily hoped not.

Six o'clock seemed very long in coming. But at length he found himself at Sunrise Terrace again, and was admitted to an ordinary lodging-house parlour, where, with tea on the table, Mrs. Woolstan awaited him. The sea air had evidently done her good; she looked younger and prettier than when Dyce last saw her, and the tea-gown she wore became her well.

"How did you know where I was?" she began by asking, rather distantly.

Lashmar told her in detail.

"But why were you so anxious to see me?—Sugar, I think?"

"It's a long story," he replied, looking t her from under his eyebrows, "and I don't much care or telling it in a place like' this, where all we say can be heard by anyone on the other side of the door."

Iris was watching his countenance. The cold politeness with which she had received him had become a very transparent mask; beneath it showed eager curiosity and trembling hope.

"We can go out, if you like," she said.

"And most likely meet those singular friends of yours. Who on earth are they?"

"Very nice people," replied Mrs. Woolstan, holding up her head.

"They are intolerably vulgar, and you must be aware of it. I felt ashamed to see you among them. What are you doing at a place like this? Why have you shut up your house?"

"Really," exclaimed Iris, with a flutter, "that is my business."

Lashmar's nervous irritation was at once subdued. He looked timidly at the indignant face, let his eyes fall, and murmured an apology.

"I've been going through strange things, and I'm not quite master of myself. The night before last"—his voice sunk to a hollow note—"I very nearly took poison."

"What do you mean? Poison?"

Mrs. Woolstan's eyes widened in horror. Lashmar regarded her with a smile of intense melancholy.

"One thing only kept me from it. I remembered that I was in your debt, and I felt it would be too cowardly."

"What has happened?—Come and sit near the window; no one could hear us talking here. I have been expecting to read of your election. Is it something to do with Lady Ogram's death? I have wanted so much to know about that, and how it affected you."

A few questions gave Dyce the comfortable assurance that Iris had not seen Mrs. Toplady for a long time. Trouble with servants, she said, coming after a slight illness, had decided her to quit her house for the rest of the summer, and the Barkers persuaded her to come to Gorleston. When Leonard left school for his holidays, she meant to go with him to some nice place.

"But do tell me what you mean by those dreadful words? And why have you come to see me?"

She was her old self, the Iris Woolstan on whom first of all Lashmar had tried his "method," who had so devoutly believed in him and given such substantial proof of her faith. The man felt his power, and began to recover self-respect.

"Tell me one thing," he said, bending towards her. "May I remain your debtor for a little longer? Will it put you to inconvenience?"

"Not at all!" was the impulsive reply. "I told you I didn't want the money. I have more than six hundred pounds a year, and never spend quite all of it."

Lashmar durst not raise his eyes lest a gleam of joy should betray him. He knew now what he had so long desired to know. Six hundred a year; it was enough.

"You are very kind. That relieves me. For two or three days I have been in despair. Yes, you shall hear all about it. I owe you the whole truth, for no one ever understood me as you did, and no one ever gave me such help—of every kind. First of all, about my engagement to Miss Bride. It's at an end. But more than that it wasn't a real engagement at all. We tried to play a comedy, and the end has been tragic."

Iris drew a deep breath of wonder. Her little lips were parted, her little eyebrows made a high arch; she had the face of a child who listens to a strange and half terrifying story.

"Don't you see how it was?" he exclaimed, in a subdued voice of melodious sadness. "Lady Ogram discovered that her niece—you remember May Tomalin? thought rather too well of me. This did not suit her views; she had planned a marriage between May and Lord Dymchurch. You know what her temper was. One day she gave me the choice: either I married Constance Bride, or I never entered her house again. Imagine my position. Think of me, with my ambitions, my pride, and the debt I had incurred to you. Can you blame me much if, seeing that Lady Ogram's life might end any day, I met her tyranny by stratagem. How I longed to tell you the truth! But I felt bound in honour to silence. Constance Bride, my friend and never anything more, agreed to the pretence of an engagement. Wasn't it brave of her? And so things went on, until the day when Dymchurch came down to Rivenoak, and proposed to May. The silly girl refused him. There was a terrible scene, such as I hope never to behold again. May was driven forth from the house, and Lady Ogram, just as she was bidding me take steps for my immediate marriage, fell to the ground unconscious—dying."

He paused impressively. The listener was panting as if she had run a race.

"And the will?" she asked.

"It dates from a year ago. May Tomalin is not mentioned in it. I, of course, have nothing."

Iris gazed at the floor. A little sound as of consternation had passed her lips, but she made no attempt to console the victim of destiny who sat with bowed head before her. After a brief silence, Lashmar told of the will as it concerned Constance Bride, insisting on the fact that she was a mere trustee of the wealth bequeathed to her. With a humorously doleful smile, he spoke of Lady Ogram's promise to defray his election expenses, and added that Miss Bride, in virtue of her trusteeship, would carry out this wish. Another exclamation sounded from the listener, this time one of joy.

"Well, that's something! I suppose the expenses are heavy, aren't they?"

"Oh, not very. But what's the use? Of course I withdraw."

He let his hand fall despondently. Again there was silence.

"And that is why you thought of taking poison?" asked Iris, with a quick glance at his lowering visage.

"Isn't it a good reason? All is over with me. If Lady Ogram had lived to make her new will, I should have been provided for. Now I am penniless and hopeless."

"But, if she had lived, you would have had to marry Miss Bride."

Dyce made a sorrowful gesture.

"No. She would never have consented, even if I could have brought myself to such a sacrifice. In any case, I was doomed."

"But—"

Iris paused, biting her lip.

"You were going to say?"

"Only—that I suppose you would have been willing to marry that girl, the niece."

"I will answer you frankly." He spoke in the softest tone and his look had a touching candour. "You, better than anyone, know the nature of my ambition. You know it is not merely personal. One doesn't like to talk grandiloquently, but, alone with you, there is no harm in saying that I have a message for our time. We have reached a point in social and political evolution where all the advance of modern life seems to be imperilled by the growing preponderance of the multitude. Our need is of men who are born to guide and rule, and I feel myself one of these. But what can I do as long as I am penniless? And so I answer you frankly: yes, if May Tomalin had inherited Lady Ogram's wealth, I should have felt it my duly to marry her."

Iris listened without a smile. Lashmar had never spoken with a more convincing show of earnestness.

"What is she going to do?" asked the troubled little woman, her eyes cast down.

Dyce told all that he knew of May's position. He was then questioned as to the state of things political at Hollingford: his replies were at once sanguine and disconsolate.

"Well," he said at length, "I have done my best, but fortune is against me. In coming to see you, I discharged what I felt to be a duty. Let me again thank you for your generous kindness. Now I must work, work—"

He stood an image of noble sadness, of magnanimity at issue with cruel fate. Iris glanced timidly at him; her panting showed that she wished to speak, but could not. He offered his hand; Iris took it, but only for an instant.

"I want you to tell me something else," broke from her lips.

"I will tell you anything."

"Are you in love with that girl—Miss Tomalin?"

With sorrowful dignity, he shook his head; with proud self-consciousness, he smiled.

"Nor with Miss Bride?"

"I think of her exactly as if she were a man."

"If I told you that I very much wished you to do something, would you care to do it?"

"Your wish is for me a command," Dyce answered gently. "If it were not, I should be grossly ungrateful."

"Then promise to go through with the election. Your expenses are provided for. If you win, I am sure some way can be found of providing you with an income—I am sure it can!"

"It shall be as you wish," said Lashmar, seeming to speak with a resolute cheerfulness. "I will return to Hollingford by the first train to-morrow."

They talked for a few minutes more. Lashmar mentioned where he was going to pass the night. He promised to resume their long-interrupted correspondence, and to let his friend have frequent reports from Hollingford. Then they shook hands, and parted silently.

After dinner, Dyce strayed shorewards. He walked down to the little harbour, and out on to the jetty. A clouded sky had brought night fast upon sunset; green and red lamps shone from the lighthouse at the jetty head, and the wash of the rising tide sounded in darkness on either hand. Not many people had chosen this spot for their evening walk, but, as he drew near to the lighthouse, he saw the figure of a woman against the grey obscurity; she was watching a steamboat slowly making its way through the harbour mouth. He advanced, and at the sound of his nearing step the figure faced to him. There was just light enough to enable him to recognise Iris.

"You oughtn't to be here alone," he said.

"Oh, why not?" she replied with a laugh. "I'm old enough to take care of myself."

The wind had begun to moan; waves tide-borne against the jetty made a hollow booming, and at moments scattered spray.

"How black it is to-night!" Iris added. "It will rain. There! I felt a spot."

"Only a splash of sea-water, I think," replied Lashmar, standing close beside her.

Both gazed at the dark vast of sea and sky. A pair of ramblers approached them; a young man and a girl, talking loudly the tongue of lower London.

"I know a young lady," sounded in the feminine voice, "as 'as a keeper set with a di'mond and a hamethys—lovely!"

"Come away," said Dyce. "What a hateful place this is! How can you bear to be among such brutes?"

Iris moved on by him, but said nothing.

"I felt ashamed," he added, "to find you with people like the Barkers. Do you mean to say they don't disgust you?"

"They are not so bad as that," Iris weakly protested. "But you mustn't think I regard them as intimate friends. It's only that—I've been rather lonely lately. Len away at school—and several things—"

"Yes, yes, I understand. But they're no company for you. Do get away as soon as possible."

Another couple went by them talking loudly the same vernacular.

"If I put a book down for a day," said the young woman, "I forget all I've read. I've a hawful bad memory for readin'."

"How I loathe that class!" Lashmar exclaimed. "I never came to this part of the coast, because I knew it was defiled by them. For heaven's sake, get away t Go to some place where your ears won't be perpetually outraged. I can't bear to think of leaving you here."

"I'll go as soon as ever I can—I promise you," murmured Iris. "There! It really is beginning to rain. We must walk quickly."

"Will you take my arm?"

She did so, and they hurried on.

"That's the democracy," said Lashmar. "Those are the people for whom we are told that the world exists. They get money, and it gives them power. Meanwhile, the true leaders of mankind, as often as not, struggle through their lives in poverty and neglect."

Iris's voice sounded timidly.

"You would feel it of no use to have just enough for independence?"

"For the present," he replied, "it would be all I ask. But I might just as well ask for ten thousand a year."

The rain was beating upon them. During the ascent to Sunrise Terrace, neither spoke a word. At the door of her lodgings, Iris looked into her companion's face, and said in a tremulous voice:

"I am sure you will be elected! I'm certain of it!"

Dyce laughed, pressed her hand, and, as the door opened, walked away through the storm.



CHAPTER XXVIII

Lord Dymchurch went down into Somerset. His younger sister was in a worse state of health than he had been led to suppose; there could be no thought of removing her from home. A day or two later, her malady took a hopeless turn, and by the end of the week she was dead.

A month after this, the surviving daughter of the house, seeking solace in the ancient faith to which she had long inclined, joined a religious community. Dymchurch was left alone.

Since his abrupt departure from Rivenoak, he had lived a silent life, spending the greater part of every day in solitude. Grief was not sufficient to account for the heaviness and muteness which had fallen upon him, or for the sudden change by which his youthful-looking countenance had become that of a middle-aged man. He seemed to shrink before eyes that regarded him, however kind their expression; one might have thought that some secret shame was harassing his mind. He himself, indeed, would have used no other word to describe the ill under which he suffered. Looking back on that strange episode of his life which began with his introduction to Mrs. Toplady and ended in the park at Rivenoak, he was stung almost beyond endurance by a sense of ignominious folly. On his lonely walks, and in the silence of sleepless nights, he often gesticulated and groaned like a man in pain. His nerves became so shaken that at times he could hardly raise a glass or cup to his lips without spilling the contents. Poverty and loneliness he had known, and had learnt to bear them with equanimity; for the first time he was tasting humiliation.

Incessantly be reviewed the stages of his foolishness and, as he deemed it, of his dishonour. But he had lost the power to understand that phantasm of himself which pranked so grotesquely in the retrospect. Was it true that he had reasoned and taken deliberate step after step in the wooing of Lady Ogram's niece? Might he not urge in his excuse, to cloak him from his own and the world's contempt, some unsuspected calenture, for which, had he known, he ought to have taken medical advice? When, in self-chastisement, he tried to summon before his mind's eye the image of May Tomalin, he found it quite impossible; the face no longer existed for him; the voice was as utterly forgotten as any he might have chanced to hear for a few minutes on that fatal evening in Pont Street. And this was what he had seen as an object of romantic tenderness—this vaporous nothing, this glimmer in a dazed eye!

Calm moments brought a saner self-reproach. "I simply yielded to the common man's common temptation. I am poor, and it was wealth that dazzled and lured me. Pride would explain more subtly; that is but a new ground of shame. I felt a prey to the vulgarest and basest passion; better to burn that truth into my mind, and to make the brand a lifelong warning. I shall the sooner lift up my head again."

He seemed to palliate his act by remembering that he wished to benefit his sisters. Neither of them—the poor dead girl, and she who lived only for self-forgetfulness—would have been happier at the cost of his disgrace. How well it was, indeed, that he had been saved from that debasement in their eyes.

He lived on in the silent house, quite alone and desiring no companionship. Few letters came for him, and he rarely saw a newspaper. After a while he was able to forget himself in the reading of books which tranquillised his thought, and held him far from the noises of the passing world. So sequestered was the grey old house that he could go forth when he chose into lanes and meadows without fear of encountering anyone who would disturb his meditation and his enjoyment of nature's beauty. Through the mellow days of the declining summer, he lived amid trees and flowers, slowly recovering health and peace in places where a bird's note, or the ripple of a stream, or the sighing of the wind, were the only sounds under the ever-changing sky.

His thoughts were often of death, but not on that account gloomy. Reading in his Marcus Aurelius, he said to himself that the Stoic Emperor must, after all, have regarded death with some fear: else, why speak of it so persistently, and with such marshalling of arguments to prove it no matter for dread? Dymchurch never wished to shorten his life, yet, without other logic than that of a quiet heart, came to think more than resignedly of the end towards which he moved. He was the last of his family, and no child would ever bear his name. Without bitterness, he approved this extinction of a line which seemed to have outlived its natural energies. He, at all events, would bear no responsibility for suffering or wrongdoing in the days to come.

The things which had so much occupied him during the last year or two, the state of the time, its perils and its needs, were now but seldom in his mind: he felt himself ripening to that "wise passiveness," which, through all his intellectual disquiet, he had regarded as the unattainable ideal. When, as a very young man, he exercised himself in versifying, the model he more or less consciously kept in view was Matthew Arnold; it amused him now to recall certain of the compositions he had once been rather proud of, and to recognise how closely he had trodden in Arnold's footprints; at the same time, he felt glad that the aspiration of his youth seemed likely to become the settled principle of his maturity. Nowadays he gave much of his thought to Wordsworth, content to study without the desire of imitating. Whether he could do anything, whether he could bear witness in any open way to what he held the truth, must still remain uncertain; sure it was that a profound distrust of himself in every practical direction, a very humble sense of follies committed and dangers barely escaped, would for a long time make him a silent and solitary man. He hoped that some way might be shown him, some modest yet clear way, by following which he would live not wholly to himself; but he had done for ever with schemes of social regeneration, with political theories, with all high-sounding words and phrases. It might well prove that the work appointed him was simply to live as an honest man. Was that so easy, or such a little thing?

Walking one day a mile or two from home, in one of those high-bowered Somerset lanes which are unsurpassed for rural loveliness, he came within sight of a little cottage, which stood apart from a hamlet hidden beyond a near turning of the road. Before it moved a man, white-headed, back-bent, so crippled by some ailment that he tottered slowly and painfully with the aid of two sticks. Just as Dymchurch drew near, the old fellow accidentally let fall his pipe, which he had been smoking as he hobbled along. For him this incident was a disaster; he stared down helplessly at the pipe and the little curl of smoke which rose from it, utterly unable to stoop for its recovery. Dymchurch, seeing the state of things, at once stepped to his assistance.

"I thank you, sir, I thank you," said the hobbler, with pleasant frankness. "A man isn't much use when he can't even keep his pipe in his mouth, to say nothing of picking it up when it drops; what do you think, sir?"

Dymchurch talked with him. The man had spent his life as a gardener, and now for a couple of years, invalided by age and rheumatism, had lived in this cottage on a pension. His daughter, a widow, dwelt with him, but was away working nearly the whole of the day. He got along very well, but one thing there was that grieved him, the state of his little garden. Through the early summer he had been able to look after it as usual, pottering among the flowers and the vegetables for an hour or two each day; but there came rainy weather, and with it one of his attacks, and the garden was now so overgrown with weeds that it "hurt his eyes," it really did, to look that way. The daughter dug potatoes and gathered beans as they were wanted, but she had neither time nor strength to do more.

Interested in a difficulty such as he had never imagined, Dymchurch went up to the garden-wall, and viewed the state of things. Indeed, it was deplorable. Thistles, docks, nettles, wild growths innumerable, were choking the flowers in which the old man so delighted. But the garden was such a small one that little trouble and time would be needed to put it in order.

"Will you let me do it for you?" he asked, good-naturedly. "It's just the kind of job I should like."

"You, sir!" cried the old fellow, all but again losing his pipe in astonishment. "Ho, ho! That's a joke indeed!"

Without another word, Dymchurch opened the wicket, flung off his coat, and got to work. He laboured for more than an hour, the old man leaning on the wall and regarding him with half-ashamed, half-amused countenance. They did not talk much, but, when he had begun to perspire freely, Dymchurch looked at his companion, and said:

"Now here's a thing I never thought of. Neglect your garden for a few weeks, and it becomes a wilderness; nature conquers it back again. Think what that means; how all the cultivated places of the earth are kept for men only by ceaseless fighting with nature, year in, year out."

"And that's true, sir, that's true. I've thought of it sometimes, but then I'm a gardener, you see, and it's my business, as you may say, to have such thoughts."

"It's every man's business," returned Dymchurch, supporting himself on his hoe, and viewing the uprooted weeds. "I never realised as in this half-hour at the cost of what incessant labour the earth is kept at man's service. If I have done you a good turn, you have done me a better."

And he hoed vigorously at a root of dandelion.

Not for years had he felt so well in body and mind as during his walk home. There, there was the thought for which he had been obscurely groping! What were volumes of metaphysics and of sociology to the man who had heard this one little truth whispered from the upturned mould? Henceforth he knew why he was living, and how it behooved him to live. Let theories and poesies follow if they would: for him, the prime duty was that nearest to him, to strive his best that the little corner of earth which he called his own should yield food for man. At this moment there lay upon his table letters informing him of the unsatisfactory state of his Kentish farm; the tenant was doing badly in every sense of the word, and would willingly escape from his lease if opportunity were given. Very well; the man should go.

"I will live there myself. I will get some practical man to live with me, until I understand farming. For profit, I don't care; all will be well if I keep myself alive and furnish food for a certain number of other mortals. This is the work ready to my hand. No preaching, no theorising, no trying to prove that the earth should be parcelled out and every man turn delver. I will cultivate this ground because it is mine, and because no other way offers of living as a man should—taking some part, however humble, in the eternal strife with nature."

The idea had before now suggested itself to him, but not as the result of a living conviction. If he had then turned to farming, it would have been as an experiment in life; more or less vague reflections on the needs of the time would have seemed to justify him. Now he was indifferent to all "questions" save that prime solicitude of the human race, how to hold its own against the hostile forces everywhere leagued against it. Life was a perpetual struggle, and, let dreamers say what they might, could never be anything else; he, for one, perceived no right that he had to claim exemption from the doom of labour. Had he felt an impulse to any other kind of work, well and good, he would have turned to it; but nothing whatever called to him with imperative voice save this task of tilling his own acres. It might not always satisfy him; he took no vow of one sole vocation; he had no desire to let his mind rust whilst his hands grew horny. Enough that for the present he had an aim which he saw as a reality.

On his return home, he found a London letter awaiting him. It was with a nervous shrug that he saw the writing of Mrs. Toplady. Addressing him at his club, she invited him to dine on an evening a fortnight hence, if he chanced to be in town.

"You heard, of course," she added, "of the defeat of Mr. Lashmar at Hollingford. It seems to have been inevitable."

So Lashmar had been defeated. The Hollingford election interested Dymchurch so little that he had never inquired as to its result; in truth, he had forgotten all about it.