"No," he answered; "I suppose that I was too excited."

"What were you thinking of when we bumped against the rocks?" she asked again.

"Well, now that you mention it," he replied, rubbing his forehead with his left hand like a man newly awakened, "I could think of nothing but that song of yours, which you sang upon the vessel. Everything grew dark for an instant, and through the darkness I remembered the song."

"Are you married?" she asked, as though speaking to herself.

"No; I am engaged."

"Then, why——" and she stopped, confused.

Morris guessed what had been in her mind, and of a sudden felt terribly ashamed.

"Because of that witch-song of yours," he answered, with a flash of anger, "which made me forget everything."

She smiled and answered. "It wasn't the song; it was the excitement and struggle which blotted out the rest. One does not really think at all at such moments, or so I believe. I know that I didn't, not just when we bumped against the rock. But it is odd that you should believe that you remembered my song, for, according to tradition, that is just what the chant should do, and what it always did. Its ancient name means 'The Over-Lord,' because those who sang it and those who heard it were said to remember nothing else, and to fear nothing, not even Death our lord. It is the welcome that they give to death."

"What egregious nonsense!" he blurted out.

"I daresay; but then, why do you understand my nonsense so well? Tell me, if you will, of what blood are you?"

"Danish, I believe, in the beginning."

"Oh," she said, laughing, "no doubt that accounts for it. Some forefather of yours may have heard the song of the Over-Lord, perhaps from the lips of some foremother of mine. So, of course, you remembered and understood."

"Such a thing will scarcely bear argument, will it?"

"Of course it won't. I have only been joking all the time, though I do half believe in this old song, as my ancestors did before me. I mean, that as I thought I had to die, I liked to keep up the ancient custom and sing it first. It encouraged my spirits. But where are we going?"

"To where our spirits will need no more encouragement," he answered grimly; "or, at least, I fear it may be so. Miss Fregelius, to drop jests, it is blowing very hard off land; the sea is getting up, and this is but a small boat. We are doing pretty well now, but sooner or later, I fear, and I think it right to tell you, that a wave may poop us and then——"

"There will be an end," said Stella. "Is there anything to be done? Have you any plan?"

"None, except to make the Far Lightship, as I told you; but even if we succeed, I don't know whether it will be possible to get aboard of her unless the sea moderates."

"Won't the lifeboat come out to look for you?" she asked.

He shook his head. "How could they find one tiny sail upon the great ocean? Moreover, it will be supposed either that I have foundered or made some port along the coast. There is the worst of it. I fear that it may be telegraphed everywhere," and he sighed deeply.

"Why?" she asked. "Are you a very important person that they should bother to do that? You see," she added in explanation, "I don't even know your name or where you come from, only that you told me you worked in a shop which," she added reflectively, looking at him, "seems odd."

Even then and there Morris could not help a smile; really this young lady was very original.

"No," he answered, "I am not at all important, and I work in a shop because I am an inventor—or try to be—in the electrical line. My name is Morris Monk, and I am the son of Colonel Monk, and live at the Abbey House, Monksland. Now you know all about me."

"Oh! of course I do, Mr. Monk," she said in some confusion, "how foolish of me not to guess. You are my father's principal new parishioner, of whom Mr. Tomley gave us a full description."

"Did he indeed? What did he say?" he asked idly.

"Do you really want to know, Mr. Monk?"

"Yes, if it is amusing. Just now I shall be grateful for anything that can divert my thoughts."

"And you will promise not to bear malice against Mr. Tomley?"

"Certainly, especially as he has gone away, and I don't expect to see him any more."

"Well, he described your father, Colonel Monk, as a handsome and distinguished elderly gentleman of very good birth, and manners, too, when he chose, who intensely disliked growing old. He said that he thought of himself more than of anybody else in the world, and next of the welfare of his family, and that if we wished to get on with him we must be careful not to offend his dignity, as then he would be quarrelsome."

"That's true enough, or most of it," answered Morris, "a good picture of my father's weak side. And what was his definition of myself?"

"He said that you were in his opinion one of the most interesting people that he had ever met; that you were a dreamer and a mystic; that you cared for few of the things which usually attract young men, and that you were in practice almost a misogynist. He added that, although heretofore you had not succeeded, he thought that you possessed real genius in certain lines, but that you had not your father's 'courtly air,' that was his term. Of course, I am only repeating, so you must not be angry."

"Well," said Morris, "I asked for candour and I have got it. Without admitting the accuracy of his definitions, I must say that I never thought that pompous old Tomley had so much observation." Then he added quickly, to change the subject, since the possible discussion of his own attributes, physical or mental, alarmed him, "Miss Fregelius, you have not told me how you came to be left aboard the ship."

"Really, Mr. Monk, I don't know. I heard a confused noise in my sleep, and when I woke up it was to find myself alone, and the saloon half full of water. I suppose that after the vessel struck, the sailors, thinking that she was going down, got off at once, taking my father, who had been injured and made insensible in some way, with them as he happened to be on deck, leaving me to my chance. You know, we were the only passengers."

"Were you not frightened when you found yourself all alone like that?"

"Yes, at first, dreadfully; then I was so distressed about my father, whom I thought dead, and angry with them for deserting me, that I forgot to be frightened, and afterwards—well, I was too proud. Besides, we must die alone, every one of us, so we may as well get accustomed to the idea."

Morris shrugged his shoulders impatiently.

"You think that I need not talk so much about our mortal end. Well, perhaps under all the circumstances, we may as well keep our thoughts on this world—while it lasts. You have not told me, Mr. Monk, how you came to be sailing about alone this morning. Did you come out to look at the wreck?"

"Do you think that I am mad?" he asked, not without indignation. "Should I make a journey at night, in a November fog, with every chance of a gale coming up, to the Sunk Rocks in this cockle-shell, and alone, merely to look at the place where, as I understood rather vaguely, a foreign tramp steamer had gone down?"

"Well, it does seem rather odd. But why else did you come? Were you fishing? Men will risk a great deal for fishing, I know, I have seen that in Norway."

"Why do you pretend not to understand, Miss Fregelius? You must know perfectly well that I came to look for you."

"Indeed," she answered candidly, "I knew nothing of the sort. How did you find out that I was still on the ship, or that the ship was still above water? And even if you knew both, why should you risk your life just on the faint chance of rescuing a girl whom you never saw?"

"I can't quite tell you; but your father in his delirium muttered some words which made me suspect the truth, and a sailor who could speak a little bad French said that the Trondhjem was lost upon some rocks. Well, these are the only rocks about here; and as the whole story was too vague to carry to the lifeboat people I thought that I would come to look. So you see it is perfectly simple."

"So simple, Mr. Monk, that I do not understand it in the least. You must have known the risks, for you asked no one to share them—the risks that are so near and real;" and, shivering visibly, she looked at the grey combers seething past them, and the wind-torn horizon beyond. "Yet, you—you who have ties, faced all this on the chance of saving a stranger."

"Please, please," broke in Morris. "At any rate, you see, it was a happy inspiration."

"Yes, for me, perhaps—but for you! Oh, if it should end in your being taken away from the world before your time, from the world and the lady who—what then?"

Morris winced; then he said: "God's will be done. But although we may be in danger, we are not dead yet; not by a long way."

"She would hate me whose evil fortune it was to draw you to death, and in life or out of it I should never forgive myself—never! never!" and she covered her eyes with her cold, wet hand and sighed.

"Why should you grieve over what you cannot help?" asked Morris gently.

"I cannot quite explain to you," she answered; "but the thought of it seems so sad."



CHAPTER X

DAWN AND THE LAND

A day, a whole day, spent upon that sullen, sunless waste of water, with the great waves bearing them onwards in one eternal, monotonous procession, till at length they grew dizzy with looking at them, and the ceaseless gale piping in their ears. Long ago they had lost sight of land; even the tall church towers built by our ancestors as beacons on this stormy coast had vanished utterly. Twice they sighted ships scudding along under their few rags of canvas, and once a steamer passed, the smoke from her funnels blowing out like long black pennons. But all of these were too far off, or too much engaged with their own affairs to see the little craft tossing hither and thither like a used-up herring basket upon the endless area of ocean.

Fortunately, from his youth Morris had been accustomed to the management of boats in all sorts of weather, the occupation of sailing alone upon the waters being one well suited to his solitary and reflective disposition. Thus it came about that they survived, when others, less skilful, might have drowned. Sometimes they ran before the seas; sometimes they got up a few square feet of sail, and, taking advantage of a veer in the wind, tried to tack, and once, when it blew its hardest, fearing lest they should be pooped, for over an hour they contrived to keep head on to the waves.

Thus, diversified by some necessary bailing, passed the short November day, long enough for them, till once more the darkness began to gather. They had still some food and drink left; indeed, had it not been for these they would have perished. Most happily, also, with the sun the wind dropped, although for hours the sea remained dangerously high. Now wet and cold were their enemies, worse than any that they had been called upon to face. Long ago the driving spray had soaked them to the skin, and there upon the sea the winter night was very chill.

While the wind, fortunately for them, by comparison a warm one, still blew from the west, and the sea remained tempestuous, they found some shelter by wrapping themselves in a corner of the sail. Towards midnight, however, it got round to the northeast, enough of it to moderate the sea considerably, and to enable them to put the boat about and go before it with a closely reefed sail. Now, indeed, they were bitterly cold, and longed even for the shelter of the wet canvas. Still Morris felt, and Stella was of the same mind, that before utter exhaustion overtook them their best chance for life lay in trying to make the shore, which was, they knew not how far away.

There, then, for hours they cowered in the stern of the boat, huddled together to protect themselves as best they might from the weather, and plunging forward beneath their little stretch of sail. Sleep they could not, for that icy breath bit into their marrow, and of this Morris was glad, since he did not dare relax his watch for an instant. So sometimes they sat silent, and sometimes by fits and starts they talked, their lips close to each other's face, as though they were whispering to one another.

To while away the weary time, Morris told his companion about his invention, the aerophone. Then she in turn told him something of her previous life—Stella was now a woman of four and twenty. It seemed that her mother had died when she was fourteen at the rectory in Northumberland, where she was born. After that, with short intervals, she had spent five years in Denmark, whither her father came to visit her every summer. Most of this time she passed at a school in Copenhagen, going for her holidays to stay with her grandmother, who was the widow of a small landowner of noble family, and lived in an ancient, dilapidated house in some remote village. At length the grandmother died, leaving to Stella the trifle she possessed, after which, her education being completed, she returned to Northumberland to keep house for her father. Here, too, it would seem that her life was very lonely, for the place was but an unvisited coast village, and they were not rich enough to mix much with the few county families who lived anywhere within reach.

"Have you no brothers or sisters?" asked Morris.

Even then, numb as was her flesh with cold, he felt her wince at the question.

"No, no," she answered, "none now—at least, none here. I have—I mean I had—a sister, my twin, but she died when we were seventeen. This was the most dreadful thing that ever happened to me, the thing which made me what I am."

"I don't quite understand. What are you, then?"

"Oh, something very unsatisfactory, I am afraid, quite different from other people. What Mr. Tomley said you were, Mr. Monk, a mystic and a dreamer of dreams; a lover of the dead; one who dwells in the past, and—in the future."

Morris did not pursue the subject; even under their strange circumstances, favourable as they were to intimacy and confidences, it seemed impertinent to him to pry into the mysteries of his companion's life. Only he asked, at hazard almost:

"How did you spend your time up there in Northumberland?"

"In drawing a little, in collecting eggs, moths, and flowers a great deal; in practising with my violin playing and singing; and during the long winters in making translations in my spare time of Norse sagas, which no one will publish."

"I should like to read them; I am fond of the sagas," he said, and after this, under pressure of their physical misery, the conversation died away.

Hour succeeded to hour, and the weather moderated so much that now they were in little danger of being swamped. This, indeed, was fortunate, since in the event of a squall or other emergency, in their numbed condition it was doubtful whether they could have found enough strength to do what might be necessary to save themselves. They drank what remained of the whiskey, which put life into their veins for a while, but soon its effects passed off, leaving them, if possible, more frozen than before.

"What is the time?" asked Stella, after a long silence.

"It should be daybreak in about two hours," he said, in a voice that attempted cheerfulness.

Then a squall of sleet burst upon them, and after this new misery a torpor overcame Stella; at least, her shiverings grew less violent, and her head sank upon his shoulder. Morris put one arm round her waist to save her from slipping into the water at the bottom of the boat, making shift to steer with the other. Thus, for a while they ploughed forward—whither he knew not, across the inky sea, for there was no moon, and the stars were hidden, driven on slowly by the biting breath of the winter wind.

Presently she awoke, lifted her head, and spoke, saying:

"We can't last much longer in this cold and wet. You are not afraid, are you?"

"No, not exactly afraid, only sorry; it is hard to go with so much to be done, and—to leave behind."

"You shouldn't think like that," she answered, "for what we leave must follow. She will suffer, but soon she will be with you again, where everything is understood. Only you ought to have died with her, and not with me, a stranger."

"Fate settles these things," he muttered, "and if it comes to that, maybe God will give her strength. But the dawn is near, and by it we may see land."

"Yes, yes,"—now her voice had sunk to a whisper,—"the dawn is always near, and by it we shall see land."

Then again Stella's head sank upon his shoulder, and she slept heavily; nor, although he knew that such slumbers are dangerous, did he think it worth while to disturb her.

The invisible seas hissed past; the sharp wind bit his bones, and over him, too, that fatal slumber began to creep. But, although he seldom exercised it, Morris was a man of strong will, and while any strength was left he refused to give way. Would this dreadful darkness never end? For the fiftieth time he glanced back over his shoulder, and now, he was sure of it, the east grew ashen. He waited awhile, for the November dawn is slow in breaking, then looked again. Heaven be thanked! the cold wind had driven away the clouds, and there, upon the edge of the horizon, peeped up the fiery circle of the sun, throwing long rays of sickly yellow across the grey, troubled surface of the waters. In front of him lay a dense bank of fog, which, from its character, as Morris knew well, must emanate from the reeking face of earth. They were near shore, it could not be doubted; still, he did not wake his companion. Perhaps he might be in error, and sleep, even a death-sleep, is better than the cheatings of disappointed hope.

What was that dim object in front of him? Surely it must be the ruin a mile or so to the north of Monksland, that was known as the Death Church? Once a village stood here, but the sea had taken most of it; indeed, all that remained to-day was this old, deserted fane, which, having been built upon a breast of rising ground, still remained, awaiting its destruction by the slow sap of the advancing ocean. Even now, at times of very high tide, the sea closed in behind, cutting the fabric off from the mainland, where it looked like a forsaken lighthouse rather than the tower and chancel of a church. But there, not much more than a mile away, yes, there it was, and Morris felt proud to think how straight he had steered homewards through that stormy darkness.

The sea was still wild and high, but he was familiar with every inch of the coast, and knew well that there was a spot to the south of the Dead Church, just where the last rood of graveyard met the sand, upon which he could beach the boat safely even in worse weather. For this nook Morris headed with a new energy; the fires of life and hope burnt up in him, giving him back his strength and judgment.

At last they were opposite to the place, and, watching his chance, he put the helm down and ran in upon the crest of a wave, till the boat grounded in the soft sand, and began to wallow there like a dying thing. Fearing lest the back-wash should suck them off into the surf again, he rolled himself into the water, for jump he could not; indeed, it was as much as he could do to stand. With a last effort of his strength he seized Stella in his arms and struggled with her to the sandy shore, where he sank down exhausted. Then she woke. "Oh, I dreamed, I dreamed!" she said, staring round her wildly.

"What?" he asked.

"That it was all over; and afterwards, that I——" and she broke off suddenly, adding: "But it was all a dream, for we are safe on shore, are we not?"

"Yes, thank Heaven!" said Morris. "Sit still, and I will make the boat secure. She has served us a good turn, and I do not want to lose her after all."

She nodded, and wading into the water, with numbed hands he managed to lift the little anchor and carry it ashore in his arms.

"There," he said, "the tide is ebbing, and she'll hold fast enough until I can send to fetch her; or, if not, it can't be helped. Come on, Miss Fregelius, before you grow too stiff to walk;" and, bending down, he helped her to her feet.

Their road ran past the nave of the church, which was ruined and unroofed. At some time during the last two generations, however, although the parishioners saw that it was useless to go to the cost of repairing the nave, they had bricked in the chancel, and to within the last twenty years continued to use it as a place of worship. Indeed, the old oak door taken from the porch still swung on rusty hinges in the partition wall of red brick. Stella looked up and saw it.

"I want to look in there," she said.

"Wouldn't it do another time?" The moment did not strike Morris as appropriate for the examination of ruined churches.

"No; if you don't mind I should like to look now, while I remember, just for one instant."

So he shrugged his shoulders, and they limped forward up the roofless nave and through the door. She stared at the plain stone altar, at the eastern window, of which part was filled with ancient coloured glass and part with cheap glazed panes; at the oak choir benches, mouldy and broken; at the few wall-slabs and decaying monuments, and at the roof still strong and massive.

"I dreamed of a place very like this," she said, nodding her head. "I thought that I was standing in such a spot in a fearful gale, and that the sea got under the foundations and washed the dead out of their graves."

"Really, Miss Fregelius," he said, with some irritation, for the surroundings of the scene and his companion's talk were uncanny, "do you think this an occasion to explore ruins and relate nightmares?" Then he added, "I beg your pardon, but I think that the cold and wet have affected your nerves; for my part, I have none left."

"Perhaps; at least forgive me, I did so want to look," she answered humbly as, arm-in-arm, for she needed support, they passed from the altar to the door.

A grotesque imagination entered the numbed mind of Morris. Their slow and miserable march turned itself to a vision of a bridal procession from the altar. Wet, dishevelled, half-frozen, they two were the bride-groom and the bride, and the bride was a seer of visions, and the bridegroom was a dreamer of dreams. Yes, and they came up together out of the bitter sea and the darkness, and they journeyed together to a vault of the dead——

Thank Heaven! they were out of the place, and above was the sun shining, and, to the right and left, the grey ocean and the purple plough-lands, cold-looking, suggesting dangers and labour, but wholesome all of them, and good to the eye of man. Only why did this woman see visions, and why did he dream dreams? And what was the meaning of their strange meeting upon the sea? And what——

"Where are we going?" asked Stella after a while and very faintly.

"Home; to the Abbey, I mean, where your father lies. Now it is not much more than a mile away."

She sighed; her strength was failing her.

"You had better try to walk, it will warm you," he urged, and she struggled on.

It was a miserable journey, but they reached the house at length, passing first through a street of the village in which no one seemed to be awake. A wretched-looking couple, they stumbled up the steps into the porch, where Morris rang the bell, for the door was locked. The time seemed an age, but at last steps were heard, the door was unbarred, and there appeared a vision of the lad Thomas, yawning, and clad in a nightshirt and a pair of trousers, with braces attached which dangled to the floor.

"Oh, Lord!" he said when he saw them, and his jaw dropped.

"Get out of the way, you young idiot," said Morris, "and call the cook."



It was half-past seven in the evening, that is, dinner time, and Morris stood in the study waiting for Stella, who had announced through the housemaid that she was coming down.

After telling the servants to send for the doctor and attend to his companion, who had insisted upon being led straight to her father's room, Morris's first act that morning on reaching home was to take a bath as hot as he could bear. Then he drank several cups of coffee with brandy in it, and as the office would soon be open, wrote a telegram to Mary, which ran thus:

"If you hear that I have been drowned, don't believe it. Have arrived safe home after a night at sea."

This done, for he guessed that all sorts of rumours would be abroad, he inquired after Mr. Fregelius and Stella. Having learned that they were both going on well and sent off his telegram, Morris went to bed and slept for ten hours.



Morris looked round the comfortable sitting-room with its recessed Tudor windows, its tall bookcases and open hearth, where burned a bright fire of old ship's timbers supported on steel dogs, and thought to himself that he was fortunate to be there. Then the door opened, he heard the housemaid's voice say, "This way please, Miss," and Stella came in. She wore a plain white dress that seemed to fit her very well, though where she got it from he never discovered, and her luxuriant hair was twisted up into a simple knot. On the bosom of her dress was fixed a spray of brilliant ampelopsis leaves; it was her only ornament, but none could have been more striking. For the rest, although she limped and still looked dark and weary about the eyes, to all appearances she was not much the worse for their terrible adventure.

Morris glanced at her. Could this dignified and lovely young lady be that red-cloaked, loose-haired Valkyrie whom he had seen singing at daybreak upon the prow of the sinking ship, or the piteous bedraggled person whom he had supported from the altar in the Dead Church?

She guessed his thought—from the beginning Stella had this curious power of discovering his mind—and said with a smile:

"Fine feathers make fine birds, and even Cleopatra would have looked dreadful after a November night in an open boat."

"Have you recovered?" he asked.

"Yes, Mr. Monk; that is, I don't think I am going to have inflammation of the lungs or anything horrid of the sort. The remedies and that walk stopped it. But my feet are peeling from being soaked so long in salt water, and my hands are not much better. See," and she held them towards him.

Then dinner was announced, and for the second time that day they walked arm-in-arm.

"It seems a little strange, doesn't it?" suggested Morris as he surveyed the great refectory in which they two, seated at the central table, looked so lone and small.

"Yes," she answered; "but so it should, anything quite usual would have been out of place to-day."

Then he asked her how her father was going on, and heard what he had already learned from the doctor, that he was doing as well as could be expected.

"By the way, Mr. Monk," she added; "if you can spare a few minutes after dinner, and are not too tired, he would so much like to see you."

"Of course," answered Morris a little nervously, for he scented a display of fervent gratitude.

After this they dropped into desultory conversation, curiously different from the intimate talk which passed between them in the boat. Then they had been in danger, and at times in the very shadow of Death; a condition that favours confidences since those who stand beneath his wings no longer care to hide their hearts. The reserves which so largely direct our lives are lifted, their necessity is past, and in the face of the last act of Nature, Nature asserts herself. Who cares to continue to play a part when the audience has dispersed, the curtain is falling, and the pay-box has put up its shutters? Now, very unexpectedly these two were on the stage again, and each assumed the allotted role.

Stella admired the room; whereon Morris set to work to explain its characteristics, to find, to his astonishment, that Miss Fregelius had more knowledge of architecture than he could boast. He pointed out certain details, alleging them to be Elizabethan work, to which age they had been credited for generations, whereon she suggested and, indeed, proved, that some of them dated from the earlier years of Henry VIII., and that some were late Jacobean. While Morris was wondering how he could combat this revolutionary opinion, the servant brought in a telegram. It was from Mary, at Beaulieu, and ran:

"Had not heard that you were drowned, but am deeply thankful that you are saved. Why did you pass a night at sea in this weather? Is it a riddle? Grieved to say my father not so well. Best love, and please keep on shore. MARY."

At first Morris was angry with this rather flippant message; then he laughed. As he had already discovered, in fact, his anxieties had been quite groundless. The page-boy, Thomas, it appeared, when questioned, had given the inquirers to understand that his master had gone out to fish, taking his breakfast with him. Later, on his non-appearance, he amended this statement, suggesting out of the depths of a fertile imagination, that he had sailed down to Northwold, where he meant to pass the night. Therefore, although the cook, a far-seeing woman who knew her Thomas and hated him, had experienced pangs of doubt, nobody else troubled the least, and even the small community of Monksland remained profoundly undisturbed as to the fate of one of its principal inhabitants.

So little is an unsympathetic world concerned in our greatest and most particular adventures! A birth, a marriage, an inquest, a scandal—these move it superficially, for the rest it has no enthusiasm to spare. This cold neglect of events which had seemed to him so important reacted upon Morris, who, now that he had got over his chill and fatigue, saw them in their proper proportions. A little adventure in an open boat at sea which had ended without any mishap, was not remarkable, and might even be made to appear ridiculous. So the less said about it, especially to Mary, whose wit he feared, the better.

When dinner was finished Stella left the room, passing down its shadowed recesses with a peculiar grace of which even her limp could not rob her. Ten minutes later, while Morris sat sipping a glass of claret, the nurse came down to tell him that Mr. Fregelius would like to see him if he were disengaged. Reflecting that he might as well get the interview over, Morris followed her at once to the Abbot's chamber, where the sick man lay.

Except for a single lamp near the bed, the place was unlighted, but by the fire, its glow falling on her white-draped form and pale, uncommon face, sat Stella. As he entered she rose, and, coming forward, accompanied him to the bedside, saying, in an earnest voice:

"Father, here is our host, Mr. Monk, the gentleman who saved my life at the risk of his own."

The patient raised his bandaged head and stretched out a long thin hand; he could stir nothing else, for his right thigh was in splints beneath a coffer-like erection designed to keep the pressure of the blankets from his injured limb.

"Sir, I thank you," he said in a dry, staccato voice; "all the humanity that is lacking from the hearts of those rude wretches, the crew of the Trondhjem, must have found its home in you."

Morris looked at the dark, quiet eyes that seemed to express much which the thin and impassive face refused to reveal; at the grey pointed beard and the yellowish skin of the outstretched arm. Here before him, he felt, lay a man whose personality it was not easy to define, one who might be foolish, or might be able, but of whose character the leading note was reticence, inherent or acquired. Then he took the hand, and said simply:

"Pray, say no more about it. I acted on an impulse and some wandering words of yours, with results for which I could not hope. There is nothing to thank me for."

"Then, sir, I thank God, who inspired you with that impulse, and may every blessing reward your bravery."

Stella looked up as though to speak, but changed her mind and returned to her seat by the fire.

"What is there to reward?" said Morris impatiently; "that your daughter is still alive is my reward. How are you to-night, Mr. Fregelius?"



CHAPTER XI

A MORNING SERVICE

Mr. Fregelius replied he was as well as could be expected; that the doctor said no complications were likely to ensue, but that here upon this very bed he must lie for at least two months. "That," he added, "is a sad thing to have to say to a man into whose house you have drifted like a log into a pool of the rocks."

"It is not my house, but my father's, who is at present in France," answered Morris. "But I can only say on his behalf that both you and your daughter are most welcome until you are well enough to move to the Rectory."

"Why should I not go there at once?" interrupted Stella. "I could come each day and see my father."

"No, no, certainly not," said Morris. "How could you live alone in that great, empty house?"

"I am not afraid of being alone," she answered, smiling; "but let it be as you like, Mr. Monk—at any rate, until you grow tired of us, and change your mind."

Then Mr. Fregelius told Morris what he had not yet heard—that when it became known that they had deserted Stella, leaving her to drown in the sinking ship, the attentions of the inhabitants of Monksland to the cowardly foreign sailors became so marked that their consul at Northwold had thought it wise to get them out of the place as quickly as possible. While this story was in progress Stella left the room to speak to the nurse who had been engaged to look after her father at night.

Afterwards, at the request of Mr. Fregelius, Morris told the tale of his daughter's rescue. In the course of it he mentioned how he found her standing on the deck of the sinking ship and singing a Norse song, which she had informed him was an ancient death-dirge.

The old clergyman turned his head and sighed.

"What is the matter?" asked Morris.

"Nothing, Mr. Monk; only that song is unlucky in my family, and I hoped that she had forgotten it."

Morris looked at him blankly.

"You don't understand—how should you? But, Mr. Monk, there are strange things and strange people in this world, and I think that my daughter Stella is one of the strangest of them. Fey like the rest—only a fey Norse woman would sing in such a moment."

Again Morris looked at him.

"Oh, it is an old northern term, and means foreseeing, and foredoomed. To my knowledge her grandmother, her mother, and her sister, all three of them, sang or repeated that song when in some imminent danger to their lives, and all three of them were dead within the year. The coincidence is unpleasant."

"Surely," said Morris, with a smile, "you who are a clergyman, can scarcely believe in such superstition?"

"No, I am not superstitious, and I don't believe in it; but the thing recalls unhappy memories. They have been death-lovers, all of them. I never heard of a case of one of that family who showed the slightest fear at the approach of death; and some have greeted it with eagerness."

"Well," said Morris, "would not that mean only that their spiritual sight is a little clearer than ours, and their faith a little stronger? Theoretically, we should all of us wish to die."

"Quite so, yet we are human, and don't. But she is safe, thanks to you, who but for you would now be gone. My head is still weak from that blow—you must pay no attention to me. I think that I hear Stella coming; you will say nothing to her—about that song, I mean—will you? We never talk of it in my family."

When, still stiff and sore from his adventure in the open boat, Morris went to bed, it was clear to his mind after careful consideration that fortune had made him the host of an exceedingly strange couple. Of Mr. Fregelius he was soon able to form an estimate distinct enough, although, for aught he knew, it might be erroneous. The clergyman struck him as a person of some abilities who had been doomed to much disappointment and suffered from many sorrows. Doubtless his talents had not proved to be of a nature to advance him in the world. Probably, indeed—and here Morris's hazard was correct—he was a scholar and a bookworm without individuality, to whom fate had assigned minor positions in a profession, which, however sincere his faith, he was scarcely fitted to adorn.

The work of a clergyman in a country parish if it is to succeed, should be essentially practical, and this man was not practical. Clearly, thought Morris, he was one of those who beat their wings against the bars with the common result; it was the wings that suffered, the bars only grew a trifle brighter. Then it seemed that he had lost a wife to whom he was attached, and the child who remained to him, although he loved her and clung to her, he did not altogether understand. So it came about, perhaps, that he had fallen under the curses of loneliness and continual apprehension; and in this shadow where he was doomed to walk, flourished forebodings and regrets, drawing their strength from his starved nature like fungi from a tree outgrown and fallen in the forest.

Mr. Fregelius, so thought Morris, was timid and reticent, because he dared not discover his heart, that had been so sorely trampled by Fate and Fortune. Yet he had a heart which, if he could find a confessor whom he could trust, he longed to ease in confidence. For the rest, the man's physical frame, not too robust at any time, was shattered, and with it his nerve—sudden shipwreck, painful accident, the fierce alternatives of hope and fear; then at last a delirium of joy at the recovery of one whom he thought dead, had done their work with him; and in this broken state some ancient, secret superstition became dominant, and, strive as he would to suppress it, even in the presence of a stranger, had burst from his lips in hints of unsubstantial folly.

Such was the father, or such he appeared to Morris, but of the daughter what could be said? Without doubt she was a woman of strange and impressive power. At this very moment her sweet voice, touched with that continual note of pleading, still echoed in his brain. And the dark, quiet eyes that now slept, and now shone large, as her thoughts fled through them, like some mysterious sky at night in which the summer lightning pulses intermittently! Who might forget those eyes that once had seen them? Already he wished to be rid of their haunting and could not. Then her beauty—how unusual it was, yet how rich and satisfying to the eye and sense; in some ways almost Eastern notwithstanding her Norse blood!

Often Morris had read or heard of the bewildering power of women, which for his part hitherto he had been inclined to attribute to shallow and very common causes, such as underlie all animate nature. Yet that of Stella—for undoubtedly she had power—suggested another interpretation to his mind. Or was it, after all, nothing but a variant, one of the Protean shapes of the ancient, life-compelling mystery? And her strange chant, the song of which her father made light, but feared so much; her quick insight into the workings of his own thought; her courage in the face of danger and sharp physical miseries; her charm, her mastery. What was he to make of them? Lastly, why did he think so much about her? It was not his habit where strangers were concerned. And why had she awakened in his somewhat solitary and secluded mind a sympathy so unusual that it seemed to him that he had known her for years and not for hours?

Pondering these things and the fact that perhaps within the coming weeks he would find out their meaning, Morris went to sleep. When he awoke next morning his mood had changed. Somewhat vaguely he remembered his perturbations of the previous night indeed, but now they only moved him to a smile. Their reasons were so obvious. Such exaggerated estimates and thoughts follow strange adventures—and in all its details this adventure was very strange—as naturally as nightmares follow indigestion.

Presently Thomas came to call him, and brought up his letters, among them one from Mary containing nothing in particular, for, of course, it had been despatched before her telegram, but written in her usual humorous style, which made him laugh aloud.

There was a postscript to the letter screwed into the unoccupied space between the date line and the "Dearest Morris" at its commencement. It ran:

"How would you like to spend our honeymoon? In a yacht in the Mediterranean? I think that would do. There is nothing like solitude in a wretched little boat to promote mutual understanding. If your devotion could stand the strain of a dishevelled and seasick spouse, our matrimonial future has no terrors for your loving Mary."

As Morris read he ceased to laugh. "Yes," he thought to himself, "'solitude in a wretched little boat' does promote mutual understanding. I am not certain that it does not promote it too much." Then, with an access of irritation, "Bother the people! I wish I could be rid of them; the whole thing seems likely to become a worry."

Next he took up a letter from his father, which, when perused, did not entertain him in the least. There was nothing about Lady Rawlins in it, of whom he longed to hear, or thought that he did; nothing about that entrancing personality, the bibulous and violent Sir Jonah, now so meek and lamblike, but plenty, whole pages indeed, as to details connected with the estate. Also it contained a goodly sprinkling of sarcasms and grumblings at his, Morris's, bad management of various little matters which the Colonel considered important. Most of all, however, was his parent indignant at his neglect to furnish him with details sufficiently ample of the progress of the new buildings. Lastly, he desired, by return of post, a verbatim report of the quarrel that, as he was informed, had occurred on the school board when a prominent Roman Catholic threatened to throw an inkstand at a dissenting minister who, coram populo, called him the son of "a Babylonian woman."

By the time that Morris had finished this epistle, and two others which accompanied it, he was in no mood for further reflections of an unpractical or dreamy nature. Who can wonder when it is stated that they contained, respectively, a summary demand for the amount of a considerable bill which he imagined he had paid, and a request that he would read a paper before a "Science Institute" upon the possibilities of aerial telephones, made by a very unpleasing lady whom he had once met at a lawn-tennis party? Indeed it would not be too much to say that if anyone had given him the opportunity he would have welcomed a chance to quarrel, especially with the lady of the local Institute. Thus, cured of all moral distempers, and every tendency to speculate on feminine charms, hidden or overt, did he descend to the Sabbath breakfast.

That morning Morris accompanied Stella to church, where the services were still being performed by a stop-gap left by Mr. Tomley. Here, again, Stella was a surprise to him, for now her demeanour, and at a little distance her appearance also, were just such as mark ninety-eight out of every hundred clergyman's daughters in the country. So quiet and reserved was she that anyone meeting her that morning might have imagined that she was hurrying from the accustomed Bible-class to sit among her pupils in the church. This impression indeed was, as it were, certificated by an old-fashioned silk fichu that she had been obliged to borrow, which in bygone years had been worn by Morris's mother.

Once in church, however, matters changed. To begin with, finding it warm, Stella threw off the fichu, greatly to the gain of her personal appearance. Next, it became evident that the beauties of the ancient building appealed to her, which was not wonderful; for these old, seaside, eastern counties churches, relics of long past wealth and piety, are some of them among the most beautiful in the world. Then came the "Venite," of which here and there she sang a line or so, just one or two rich notes like those that a thrush utters before he bursts into full song. Rare as they might be, however, they caused those about her in the church to look at the strange singer wonderingly.

After this, in the absence of his father, Morris read the lessons, and although, being blessed with a good voice, this was a duty which he performed creditably enough, that day he went through it with a certain sense of nervousness. Why he was nervous at first he did not guess; till, chancing to glance up, he became aware that Miss Fregelius was looking at him out of her half-closed eyes. What is more, she was listening critically, and with much intenseness, whereupon, instantly, he made a mistake and put a false accent on a name.

In due course, the lessons done with, they reached the first hymn, which was one that scarcely seemed to please his companion; at any rate, she shut the book and would not sing. In the case of the second hymn, however, matters were different. This time she did not even open the book. It was evident that she knew the words, perhaps among the most beautiful in the whole collection, by heart. The reader will probably be acquainted with them. They begin:

"And now, O Father, mindful of the love That bought us, once for all, on Calvary's tree."

At first Stella sang quite low, as though she wished to repress her powers. Now, as it happened, at Monksland the choir was feeble, but inoffensive; whereas the organ was a good, if a worn and neglected instrument, suited to the great but sparsely peopled church, and the organist, a man who had music in his soul. Low as she was singing, he caught the sound of Stella's voice, and knew at once that before him was a woman who in a supreme degree possessed the divinest gift, perhaps, with which Nature can crown her sex, the power and gift of song. Forgetting his wretched choir, he began to play to her. She seemed to note the invitation, and at once answered to it.

"Look, Father, look on His anointed face,"

swelled from her throat in deep contralto notes, rich as those the organ echoed.

But the full glory of the thing, that surpassing music which set Monksland talking for a week, was not reached till she came to the third verse. Perhaps the pure passion and abounding humanity of its spirit moved her. Perhaps by this time she was the thrall of her own song. Perhaps she had caught the look of wonder and admiration on the face of Morris, and was determined to show him that she had other music at command besides that of pagan death-chants. At least, she sang up and out, till her notes dominated those of the choir, which seemed to be but an accompaniment to them; till they beat against the ancient roof and down the depth of the long nave, to be echoed back as though from the golden trumpets of the angels that stood above the tower screen; till even the village children ceased from whispers and playing to listen open-mouthed.

"And then for those, our dearest and best, By this prevailing Presence we appeal; O! fold them closer to Thy mercy's breast, O! do Thine utmost, for their souls' true weal; From tainting mischief keep them white and clear, And crown Thy gifts with strength to persevere."

It was as her voice lingered upon the deep tones of these last words that suddenly Stella seemed to become aware that practically she was singing a solo; that at any rate no one else in the congregation was contributing a note. Then she was vexed, or perhaps a panic took her; at least, not another word of that hymn passed her lips. In vain the organist paused and looked round indignantly; the little boys, the clerk, and the stout coach-builder were left to finish it by themselves, with results that by contrast were painful.

When Stella came out of church, redraped in the antique and unbecoming fichu, she found herself the object of considerable attention. Indeed, upon one pretext and another nearly all the congregation seemed to be lingering about the porch and pathway to stare at the new parson's shipwrecked daughter when she appeared. Among them was Miss Layard, and with her the delicate brother. They were staying to lunch with the Stop-gap's meek little wife. Indeed, this self-satisfied and somewhat acrimonious lady, Miss Layard, engaged Morris in conversation, and pointedly asked him to introduce her to Miss Fregelius.

"We are to be neighbours, you know," she explained, "for we live at the Hall in the next parish, not more than a mile away."

"Indeed," answered Stella, who did not seem much impressed.

"My brother and I hope to call upon Mr. Fregelius and yourself as soon as possible, but I thought I would not wait for that to have the pleasure of making your acquaintance."

"You are very kind indeed," said Stella simply. "At present, I am afraid, it is not much use calling upon my father, as he is in bed with a broken thigh; also, we are not at the Rectory. Until he can be moved we are only guests at the Abbey," and she looked at Morris, who added rather grumpily, by way of explanation:

"Of course, Miss Layard, you have heard about the wreck of the Trondhjem, and how those foreign sailors saw the light in my workshop and brought Mr. Fregelius to the Abbey."

"Oh, yes, Mr. Monk, and how they left Miss Fregelius behind, and you went to fetch her, and all sorts of strange things happened to you. We think it quite wonderful and romantic. I am writing to dear Miss Porson to tell her about it, because I am sure that you are too modest to sing your own praises."

Morris grew angry. At the best of times he disliked Miss Layard. Now he began to detest her, and to long for the presence of Mary, who understood how to deal with that not too well-bred young person.

"You really needn't have troubled," he answered. "I have already written."

"Then my epistle will prove a useful commentary. If I were engaged to a modern hero I am sure I could not hear too much about him, and," fixing her eyes upon the black silk fichu, "the heroine of the adventure."

Meanwhile, Stella was being engaged by the brother, who surveyed her with pale, admiring eyes which did not confine their attentions to the fichu.

"Monk is always an awfully lucky fellow," he said. "Just fancy his getting the chance of doing all that, and finding you waiting on the ship at the end of it," he added, with desperate and emphatic gallantry. "There's to be a whole column about it in the 'Northwold Times' to-morrow. I wish the thing had come my way, that's all."

"Unless you understand how to manage a boat in a heavy sea, and the winds and tides of this coast thoroughly, I don't think that you should wish that, Mr. Layard," said Stella.

"Why not?" he asked sharply. As a matter of fact the little man was a miserable sailor and suspected her of poking fun at him.

"Because you would have been drowned, Mr. Layard, and lying at the bottom of the North Sea among the dogfish and conger-eels this morning instead of sitting comfortably in church."

Mr. Layard started and stared at her. Evidently this lady's imagination was as vivid as it was suggestive.

"I say, Miss Fregelius," he said, "you don't put things very pleasantly."

"No, I am afraid not, but then drowning isn't pleasant. I have been near it very lately, and I thought a great deal about those conger-eels. And sudden death isn't pleasant, and perhaps—unless you are very, very good, as I daresay you are—what comes after it may not be quite pleasant. All of which has to be thought of before one goes to sea in an open boat in winter, on the remotest chance of saving a stranger's life—hasn't it?"

Somehow Mr. Layard felt distinctly smaller.

"I daresay one wouldn't mind it at a pinch," he muttered; "Monk isn't the only plucky fellow in the world."

"I am sure you would not, Mr. Layard," replied Stella in a gentler voice, "still these things must be considered upon such occasions and a good many others."

"A brave man doesn't think, he acts," persisted Mr. Layard.

"No," replied Stella, "a foolish man doesn't think, a brave man thinks and sees, and still acts—at least, that is how it strikes me, although perhaps I have no right to an opinion. But Mr. Monk is going on, so I must say good-morning."

"Are many of the ladies about here so inquisitive, and the young gentlemen so?"—"decided" she was going to say, but changed the word to "kind"—asked Stella of Morris as they walked homeward.

"Ladies!" snapped Morris. "Miss Layard isn't a lady, and never will be; she has neither birth nor breeding, only good looks of a sort and money. I should like," he added, viciously—"I should like to shut her into her own coal mine."

Stella laughed, which was a rare thing with her—usually she only smiled—as she answered:

"I had no idea you were so vindictive, Mr. Monk. And what would you like to do with Mr. Layard?"

"Oh! I—never thought much about him. He is an ignorant, uneducated little fellow, but worth two of his sister, all the same. After all, he's got a heart. I have known him do kind things, but she has nothing but a temper."

Meanwhile, at the luncheon table of the Stop-gap the new and mysterious arrival, Miss Fregelius, was the subject of fierce debate.

"Pretty! I don't call her pretty," said Miss Layard; "she has fine eyes, that is all, and they do not look quite right. What an extraordinary garment she had on, too; it might have come out of Noah's Ark."

"I fancy," suggested the hostess, a mild little woman, "that it came out of the wardrobe of the late Mrs. Monk. You know, Miss Fregelius lost all her things in that ship."

"Then if I were she I should have stopped at home until I got some new ones," snapped Miss Layard.

"Perhaps everybody doesn't think so much about clothes as you do, Eliza," suggested her brother Stephen, seeing an opportunity which he was loth to lose. Eliza, in the privacy of domestic life, was not a person to be assailed with a light heart, but in company, when to some extent she must keep her temper under control, more might be dared.

She shifted her chair a little, with her a familiar sign of war, and while searching for a repartee which would be sufficiently crushing, cast on Stephen a glance that might have turned wine into vinegar.

Somewhat tremulously, for unless the fire could be damped before it got full hold, she knew what they might expect, the little hostess broke in with—

"What a beautiful singing voice she has, hasn't she?"

"Who?" asked Eliza, pretending not to understand.

"Why, Miss Fregelius, of course."

"Oh, well, that is a matter of opinion."

"Hang it all, Eliza!" said her brother, "there can't be two opinions about it, she sings like an angel."

"Do you think so, Stephen? I should have said she sings like an opera dancer."

"Always understood that their gifts lay in their legs and not in their throats. But perhaps you mean a prima donna," remarked Stephen reflectively.

"No, I don't. Prima donnas are not in the habit of screeching at the top of their voices, and then stopping suddenly to make an effect and attract attention."

"Certainly she has attracted my attention, and I only wish I could hear such screeching every day; it would be a great change." It may be explained that the Layards were musical, and that each detested the music of the other.

"Really, Stephen," rejoined Eliza, with sarcasm as awkward as it was meant to be crushing, "I shall have to tell Jane Rose that she is dethroned, poor dear—beaten out of the field by a hymn-tune, a pair of brown eyes, and—a black silk fichu."

This was a venomous stab, since for a distance of ten miles round everyone with ears to hear knew that Stephen's admiration of Miss Rose had not ended prosperously for Stephen. The poisoned knife sank deep, and its smart drove the little pale-eyed man to fury.

"You can tell her what you like, Eliza," he replied, for his self-control was utterly gone; "but it won't be much use, for she'll know what you mean. She'll know that you are jealous of Miss Fregelius because she's so good looking; just as you are jealous of her, and of Mary Porson, and of anybody else who dares to be pretty and," with crushing meaning, "to look at Morris Monk."

Eliza gasped, then said in a tragic whisper, "Stephen, you insult me. Oh! if only we were at home, I would tell you——"

"I have no doubt you would—you often do; but I'm not going home at present. I am going to the Northwold hotel."

"Really," broke in their hostess, almost wringing her hands, "this is Sunday, Mr. Layard; remember this is Sunday."

"I am not likely to forget it," replied the maddened Stephen; but over the rest of this edifying scene we will drop a veil.

Thus did the advent of Stella bring with it surprises, rumours, and family dissensions. What else it brought remains to be told.



CHAPTER XII

MR. LAYARD'S WOOING

The days went by with an uneventful swiftness at the Abbey, and after he had once accustomed himself to the strangeness of what was, in effect, solitude in the house with an unmarried guest of the other sex, it may be admitted, very pleasantly to Morris. At first that rather remarkable young lady, Stella, had alarmed him somewhat, so that he convinced himself that the duties of this novel hospitality would prove irksome. As a matter of fact, however, in forty-eight hours the irksomeness was all gone, to be replaced within twice that period by an atmosphere of complete understanding, which was comforting to his fearful soul.

The young lady was never in the way. Now that she had procured some suitable clothes the young lady was distinctly good looking; she was remarkably intelligent and well-read; she sang, as Stephen Layard had said, "like an angel"; she took a most enlightened interest in aerophones and their possibilities; she proved a very useful assistant in various experiments; and made one or two valuable suggestions. While Mary and the rest of them were away the place would really be dull without her, and somehow he could not be as sorry as he ought when Dr. Charters told him that old Mr. Fregelius's bones were uniting with exceeding slowness.

Such were the conclusions which one by one took shape in the mind of that ill-starred man, Morris Monk. As yet, however, let the student of his history understand, they were not tinged with the slightest "arriere-pensee." He did not guess even that such relations as already existed between Stella and himself might lead to grievous trouble; that at least they were scarcely wise in the case of a man engaged.

All he felt, all he knew, was that he had found a charming companion, a woman whose thought, if deeper, or at any rate different to his and not altogether to be followed, was in tune with his. He could not always catch her meaning, and yet that unrealised meaning would appeal to him. Himself a very spiritual man, and a humble seeker after truth, his nature did intuitive reverence to one who appeared to be still more spiritual, who, as he conjectured, at times at any rate, had discovered some portion of the truth. He believed it, although she had never told him so. Indeed that semi-mystical side of Stella, whereof at first she had shown him glimpses, seemed to be quite in abeyance; she dreamed no more dreams, she saw no more visions, or if she did she kept them to herself. Yet to him this woman seemed to be in touch with that unseen which he found it so difficult to weigh and appreciate. Instinctively he felt that her best thoughts, her most noble and permanent desires, were there and not here.

As he had said to her in the boat, the old Egyptians lived to die. In life a clay hut was for them a sufficient lodging; in death they sought a costly, sculptured tomb, hewn from the living rock. With them these things were symbolical, since that great people believed, with a wonderful certainty, that the true life lay beyond. They believed, too, that on the earth they did but linger in its gateway, passing their time with such joy as they could summon, baring their heads undismayed to the rain of sorrow, because they knew that very soon they would be crowned with eternal joys, whereof each of these sorrows was but an earthly root.

Stella Fregelius reminded Morris of these old Egyptians. Indeed, had he wished to carry the comparison from her spiritual to her physical attributes it still might have been considered apt, for in face she was somewhat Eastern. Let the reader examine the portrait bust of the great Queen Taia, clothed with its mysterious smile, which adorns the museum in Cairo, and, given fair instead of dusky skin, with certain other minor differences, he will behold no mean likeness to Stella Fregelius. However this may be, for if Morris saw the resemblance there were others who could not agree with him; doubtless although not an Eastern, ancient or modern, she was tinged with the fatalism of the East, mingled with a certain contempt of death inherited perhaps from her northern ancestors, and an active, pervading spirituality that was all her own. Yet her manners were not gloomy, nor her air tragic, for he found her an excellent companion, fond of children and flowers, and at times merry in her own fashion. But this gaiety of hers always reminded Morris of that which is said to have prevailed in the days of the Terror among those destined to the guillotine. Never for one hour did she seem to forget the end. "'Vanity of vanities,' saith the Preacher"; and that lesson was her watchword.

One evening they were walking together upon the cliff. In the west the sun had sunk, leaving a pale, lemon-coloured glow upon the sky. Then far away over the quiet sea, showing bright and large in that frosty air, sprang out a single star. Stella halted in her walk, and looked first at the sunset heaven, next at the solemn sea, and last at that bright, particular star set like a diadem of power upon the brow of advancing night. Morris, watching her, saw the blood mantle to her pale face, while the dark eyes grew large and luminous, proud, too, and full of secret strength. At length his curiosity got the better of him.

"What are you thinking of?" he asked.

"Do you wish me to tell you?"

"Yes, if you will."

"You will laugh at me."

"Yes—as I laugh at that sky, and sea, and star."

"Well, then, I was thinking of the old, eternal difference between the present and the future."

"You mean between life and death?" queried Morris, and she nodded, answering:

"Between life and death, and how little people see or think of it. They just live and forget that beneath them lie their fathers' bones. They forget that in some few days—perhaps more, perhaps less—other unknown creatures will be standing above their forgotten bones, as blind, as self-seeking, as puffed up with the pride of the brief moment, and filled with the despair of their failure, the glory of their success, as they are to-night."

"Perhaps," suggested Morris, "they say that while they are in the world it is well to be of the world; that when they belong to the next it will be time to consider it. I am not sure that they are not right. I have heard that view," he added, remembering a certain conversation with Mary.

"Oh, don't think that!" she answered, almost imploringly; "for it is not true, really it is not true. Of course, the next world belongs to all, but our lot in it does not come to us by right, that must be earned."

"The old doctrine of our Faith," suggested Morris.

"Yes; but, as I believe, there is more behind, more which we are not told; that we must find out for ourselves with 'groanings which cannot be uttered; by hope we are saved.' Did not St. Paul hint at it?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that as our spirit sows, so shall it reap; as it imagines and desires, so shall it inherit. It is here that the soul must grow, not there. As the child comes into the world with a nature already formed, and its blood filled with gifts of strength or weakness, so shall the spirit come into its world wearing the garment that it has woven and which it cannot change."

"The garment which it has woven," said Morris. "That means free will, and how does free will chime in with your fatalism, Miss Fregelius?"

"Perfectly; the material given us to weave with, that is Fate; the time which is allotted for the task, that is Fate again; but the pattern is our own. Here are brushes, here is pigment, so much of it, of such and such colours, and here is light to work by. 'Now paint your picture,' says the Master; 'paint swiftly, with such skill as you can, not knowing how long is allotted for the task.' And so we weave, and so we paint, every one of us—every one of us."

"What is your picture, Miss Fregelius? Tell me, if you will."

She laughed, and drew herself up. "Mine, oh! it is large. It is to reign like that star. It is to labour forward from age to age at the great tasks that God shall set me; to return and bow before His throne crying, 'It is done. Behold, is the work good?' For the hour that they endure it is still to be with those whom I have loved on earth, although they cannot see me; to soothe their sorrows, to support their weakness, to lull their fears. It is that the empty longing and daily prayer may be filled, and filled, and filled again, like a cup from a stream which never ceases."

"And what is that daily prayer?" asked Morris, looking at her.

"O! God, touch me with Thy light, and give me understanding—yes, understanding—the word encloses all I seek," she replied, then, checking herself, added in a changed voice, "Come, let us go home; it is foolish to talk long of such things."



Shortly after this curious conversation, which was never renewed between them, or, at least, but once, a new element entered into the drama, the necessary semi-comic element without which everything would be so dull. This fresh factor was the infatuation, which possibly the reader may have foreseen, of the susceptible, impulsive little man, Stephen Layard, for Stella Fregelius, the lady whose singing he had admired, and who had been a cause of war between him and his sister. Like many weak men, Stephen Layard was obstinate, also from boyhood up he had suffered much at the hands of Eliza, who was not, in fact, quite so young as she looked. Hence there arose in his breast a very natural desire for retaliation. Eliza had taken a violent dislike to Miss Fregelius, whom he thought charming. This circumstance in their strained relations was reason enough to induce Stephen to pay court to her, even if his natural inclination had not made the adventure very congenial.

Therefore, on the first opportunity he called at the Abbey to ask after the rector, to be, as he had hoped, received by Stella. Finding his visit exceedingly agreeable, after a day or two he repeated it, and this time was conducted to the old clergyman's bedroom, upon whom his civility made a good impression.

Now, as it happened, although he did not live in Monksland, Mr. Layard was one of the largest property owners in the parish, a circumstance which he did not fail to impress upon the new rector. Being by nature and training a hard-working man who wished to do his best for his cure even while he lay helpless, Mr. Fregelius welcomed the advances of this wealthy young gentleman with enthusiasm, especially when he found that he was no niggard. A piece of land was wanted for the cemetery. Mr. Layard offered to present an acre. Money was lacking to pay off a debt upon the reading-room. Mr. Layard headed the subscription list with a handsome sum. And so forth.

Now the details of these various arrangements could not conveniently be settled without many interviews, and thus very soon it came about that scarcely a day went by upon which Mr. Layard's dog-cart did not pass through the Abbey gates. Generally he came in the morning and stopped to lunch; or he came in the afternoon and stopped to tea. In fact, or thus it seemed to Morris, he always stopped to something, so much so that although not lacking in hospitality, at times Morris found his presence wearisome, for in truth the two men had nothing in common.

"He must have turned over a new leaf with a vengeance, for he never would give a sixpence to anything during old Tomley's time," remarked Morris to Stella. "I suppose that he has taken a great fancy to your father, which is a good thing for the parish, as those Layards are richer than Croesus."

"Yes," answered Stella with a curious little smile.

But to herself she did not smile; for, if Morris found his visitor a bore, to Stella he was nothing short of an infliction, increased rather than mitigated by numerous presents of hot-house fruit and flowers offered to herself, and entailing, each of them, an expression of thanks verbal or written. At first she treated the thing as a joke, till it grew evident that her admirer was as much in earnest as his nature would permit. Thereon, foreseeing eventualities, she became alarmed.

Unless some means could be found to stop him it was now clear to Stella that Mr. Layard meant to propose to her, and as she had not the slightest intention of accepting him this was an honour which she did not seek. But she could find no sufficient means; hints, and even snubs, only seemed to add fuel to the fire, and of a perpetual game of hide and seek she grew weary.

So it came about that at last she shrugged her shoulders and left things to take their chance, finding some consolation for her discomfort in the knowledge that Miss Layard, convinced that the rector's daughter was luring her inexperienced brother into an evil matrimonial net, could in no wise restrain her rage and indignation. So openly did this lady express her views, indeed, that at length a report of them reached even Morris's inattentive ears, whereon he was at first very angry and then burst out laughing. That a man like Stephen Layard should hope to marry a woman like Stella Fregelius seemed to him so absurd as to be almost unnatural. Yet when he came to think it over quietly he was constrained to admit to himself that the match would have many advantages for the young lady, whereof the first and foremost were that Stephen was very rich, and although slangy and without education in its better sense, at heart by no means a bad little fellow. So Morris shrugged his shoulders, shut his eyes, continued to dispense luncheons and afternoon teas, and though with an uneasy mind, like Stella herself, allowed things to take their chance.

All this while, however, his own friendship with Stella grew apace, enhanced as it was in no small degree by the fact that now her help in his scientific operations had become most valuable. Indeed, it appeared that he was destined to owe the final success of his instrument to the assistance of women who, at the beginning, at any rate, knew little of its principles. Mary, it may be remembered, by some fortunate chance, made the suggestion as to the substance of the receiver, which turned the aerophone from a great idea into a practical reality. Now to complete the work it was Stella, not by accident, but after careful study of its problem who gave the thought that led to the removal of the one remaining obstacle to its general and successful establishment.

To test this new development of the famous sound deflector and perfect its details, scores of experiments were needed, most of which he and she carried out together. This was their plan. One of them established him or herself in the ruined building known as the Dead Church, while the other took up a position in the Abbey workshop. From these respective points, a distance of about two miles, they tested the machines with results that day by day grew better and clearer, till at length, under these conditions they were almost perfect.

Strange was the experience and great the triumph when at last Morris, seated in the Abbey with his apparatus before him, unconnected with its twin by any visible medium, was able without interruption for a whole morning to converse with Stella established in the Dead Church.

"It is done," he cried in unusual exultation. "Now, if I die to-morrow it does not matter."

Instantly came the answer in Stella's voice.

"I am very happy. If I do nothing else I have helped a man to fame."

Then a hitch arose, the inevitable hitch; it was found that, in certain states of the atmosphere, and sometimes at fixed hours of the day, the sounds coming from the receiver were almost inaudible. At other times again the motive force seemed to be so extraordinarily active that, the sound deflector notwithstanding, the instrument captured and transmitted a thousand noises which are not to be heard by the unobservant listener, or in some cases by any human ear.

Weird enough these noises were at times. Like great sighs they came, like the moan of the breeze brought from an infinite distance, like mutterings and groanings arisen from the very bowels of the earth. Then there were the splash or boom of the waves, the piping of the sea-wind, the cry of curlew, or black-backed gulls, all mingled in one great and tangled skein of sound that choked the voice of the speaker, and in their aggregate, bewildered him who hearkened.

These, and others which need not be detailed, were problems that had to be met, necessitating many more experiments. Thus it came about that through most of the short hours of winter daylight Morris and Stella found themselves at their respective positions, corresponding, or trying to correspond, through the aerophones. If the weather was very bad, or very cold, Morris went to the dead Church, otherwise that post was allotted to Stella, both because it was more convenient that Morris should stay in his laboratory, and by her own choice.

Two principal reasons caused her to prefer to pass as much of her time as was possible in this desolate and unvisited spot. First, because Mr. Layard was less likely to find her when he called, and secondly, that for her it had a strange fascination. Indeed, she loved the place, clothed as it was with a thousand memories of those who had been human like herself, but now—were not. She would read the inscriptions upon the chancel stones and study the coats-of-arms and names of those departed, trying to give to each lost man and woman a shape and character, till at length she knew all the monuments by appearance as well as by the names inscribed upon them.

One of these dead, oddly enough, had been named Stella Ethel Smythe, daughter of Sir Thomas Smythe, whose family lived at the old hall now in the possession of the Layards. This Stella had died at the age of twenty-five in the year 1741, and her tombstone recorded that in mind she was clean and sweet, and in body beautiful. Also at the foot of it was a doggerel couplet, written probably by her bereaved father, which ran:

"Though here my Star seems set, I know 'twill light me yet."

Stella, the live Stella, thought these simple words very touching, and pointed them out to Morris. He agreed with her, and tried in the records of the parish and elsewhere to discover some details about the dead girl's life, but quite without avail.

"That's all that's left," he said one day, nodding his head at the tombstone. "The star is quite set."

"'I know 'twill light me yet,'" murmured his companion, as she turned away to the work in hand. "Sometimes," she went on, "as I sit here at dusk listening to all the strange sounds which come from that receiver, I fancy that I can hear Stella and her poor father talking while they watch me; only I cannot understand their language."

"Ah!" said Morris, "if that were right we should have found a means of communication from the dead and with the unseen world at large."

"Why not?" asked Stella.

"I don't know, I have thought of it," he answered, and the subject dropped.

One afternoon Stella, wrapped in thick cloaks, was seated in the chancel of the Dead Church attending to the instrument which stood upon the stone altar. Morris had not wished her to go that morning, for the weather was very coarse, and snow threatened; but, anticipating a visit from Mr. Layard, she insisted, saying that she should enjoy the walk. Now the experiments were in progress, and going beautifully. In order to test the aerophones fully in this rough weather, Morris and Stella had agreed to read to each other alternate verses from the Book of Job, beginning at the thirty-eighth chapter.

"'Canst thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion?'" read Stella presently in her rich, clear voice.

Instantly from two miles away came the next verse, the sound of those splendid words rolling down the old church like echoes of some lesson read generations since.

"'Canst thou bring forth Mazzaroth in his season, or canst thou guide Arcturus with his sons?'"

So it went on for a few more verses, till just as the instrument was saying, "'Who hath put wisdom in the inward parts, or who hath given understanding to the heart?'" the rude door in the brick partition opened, admitting a rush of wind and—Stephen Layard.

The little man sidled up nervously to where Stella was sitting on a camp-stool by the altar.

"How do you do?" said Stella, holding out her hand, and looking surprised.

"How do you do, Miss Fregelius? What—what are you doing in this dreadfully cold place on such a bitter day?"

Before she could answer the voice of Morris, anxious and irritated, for as the next verse did not follow he concluded that something had gone wrong with the apparatus, rang through the church asking:

"'Who hath put wisdom in the inward parts, or who hath given understanding to the heart?'"

"Good gracious," said Mr. Layard. "I had no idea that Monk was here; I left him at the Abbey. Where is he?"

"At the Abbey," answered Stella, as for the second time the voice of Morris rolled out the question from the Book.

"I don't understand," said Stephen, beginning to look frightened; "has it anything to do with his electrical experiments?"

Stella nodded. Then, addressing the instrument, said:

"Please stop reading for a while. Mr. Layard is calling here."

"Confound him," came the swift answer. "Let me know when he is gone. He said he was going home," whereon Stella switched off before worse things happened.

Mr. Layard, who had heard these words, began a confused explanation till Stella broke in.

"Please don't apologise. You changed your mind, and we all do that; but I am afraid this is a cold place to come to."

"You are right there. Why on earth do you sit here so long?"

"To work, Mr. Layard."

"Why should you work? I thought women hated it, and above all, why for Monk? Does he pay you?"

"I work because I like work, and shall go on working till I die, and afterwards I hope; also, these experiments interest me very much. Mr. Monk does not pay me. I have never asked him to do so. Indeed, it is I who am in his debt for all the kindness he has shown to my father and myself. To any little assistance that I can give him he is welcome."

"I see," said Mr. Layard; "but I should have thought that was Mary Porson's job. You know he is engaged to her, don't you?"

"Yes, but Miss Porson is not here; and if she were, perhaps she would not care for this particular work."

Then came a pause, which, not knowing what this awkward silence might breed, Stella broke.

"I suppose you saw my father," she said; "how did you find him looking?"

"Oh! better, I thought; but that leg of his still seems very bad." Then, with a gasp and a great effort, he went on: "I have been speaking to him about you."

"Indeed," said Stella, looking at him with wondering eyes.

"Yes, and he says that if—it suits us both, he is quite willing; that, in fact, he would be very pleased to see you so well provided for."

Stella could not say that she did not understand, the falsehood was too obvious. So she merely went on looking, a circumstance from which Mr. Layard drew false auguries.

"You know what I mean, don't you?" he jerked out.

She shook her head.

"I mean—I mean that I love you, that you have given me what this horrid thing was talking about just now—understanding to the heart; yes, that's it, understanding to the heart. Will you marry me, Stella? I will make you a good husband, and it isn't a bad place, and all that, and though your father says he has little to leave you, you will be treated as liberally as though you were a lady in your own right."

Stella smiled a little.

"Will you marry me?" he asked again.

"I am afraid that I must answer no, Mr. Layard."

Then the poor man broke out into a rhapsody of bitter disappointment, genuine emotion, and passionate entreaty.

"It is no use, Mr. Layard," said Stella at last. "Indeed, I am much obliged to you. You have paid me a great compliment, but it is not possible that I should become your wife, and the sooner that is clear the better for us both."

"Are you engaged?" he asked.

"No, Mr. Layard; and probably I never shall be. I have my own ideas about matrimony, and the conditions under which I would undertake it are not at all likely ever to be within my reach."

Again he implored,—for at the time this woman really held his heart,—wringing his hands, and, indeed, weeping in the agony of a repulse which was the more dreadful because it was quite unexpected. He had scarcely imagined that this poor clergyman's daughter, who had little but her looks and a sweet voice, would really refuse the best match for twenty miles round, nor had his conversation with her father suggested to his mind any such idea.

It was true that Mr. Fregelius had given him no absolute encouragement; he had said that personally the marriage would be very pleasing to himself, but that it was a matter of which Stella must judge; and when asked whether he would speak to his daughter, he had emphatically declined. Still, Stephen Layard had taken this to be all a part of the paternal formula, and rejoiced, thinking the matter as good as settled. Dreadful indeed, then, was it to him when he found that he was called upon to contemplate the dull obverse of his shield of faith, and not its bright and shining face, in which he had seen mirrored so clear a picture of perfect happiness.

So he begged on piteously enough, till at last Stella was forced to stop him by saying as gently as she could:

"Please spare us both, Mr. Layard; I have given my answer, and I am sorry to say that it is impossible for me to go back upon my word."

Then a sudden fury seized him.

"You are in love with somebody else," he said; "you are in love with Morris Monk; and he is a villain, when he is engaged, to go taking you too. I know it."

"Then, Mr. Layard," said Stella, striving to keep her temper, "you know more than I know myself."

"Very likely," he answered. "I never said you knew it, but it's true, for all that. I feel it here—where you will feel it one day, to your sorrow"—and he placed his hand upon his heart.

A sudden terror took hold of her, but with difficulty she found her mental balance.

"I hoped, Mr. Layard," she said, "that we might have parted friends; but how can we when you bring such accusations?"

"I retract them," broke in the distracted man. "You mustn't think anything of what I said; it is only the pain that has made me mad. For God's sake, at least let us part friends, for then, perhaps, some day we may come together again."

Stella shook her head sadly, and gave him her hand, which he covered with kisses. Then, reeling in his gait like one drunken, the unhappy suitor departed into the falling snow.

Mechanically Stella switched on the instrument, and at once Morris's voice was heard asking:

"I say, hasn't he gone?"

"Yes," she said.

"Thank goodness! Why on earth did you keep him gossiping all that time? Now then—'Who can number the clouds in wisdom——'"

"Not Mr. Layard or I," thought Stella sadly to herself, as she called back the answering verse.



CHAPTER XIII

TWO QUESTIONS, AND THE ANSWER

At length the light began to fade, and for that day their experiments were over. In token of their conclusion twice Stella rang the electric warning bell which was attached to the aerophone, and in some mysterious manner caused the bell of its twin instrument to ring also. Then she packed the apparatus in its box, for, with its batteries, it was too heavy and too delicate to be carried conveniently, locking it up, and left the church, which she also locked behind her. Outside it was still snowing fast, but softly, for the wind had dropped, and a sharp frost was setting in, causing the fallen snow to scrunch beneath her feet. About half-way along the bleak line of deserted cliff which stretched from the Dead Church to the first houses of Monksland, she saw the figure of a man walking swiftly towards her, and knew from the bent head and broad, slightly stooping shoulders that it was Morris coming to escort her home. Presently they met.