"But what have we done for any one," Beth asked, in her equable way, "that we should be specially remembered?"

He made no reply, and Beth went on with the sandwiches.

"I thought," he began at last, "I did think that you at least would understand and feel for me."

Beth stopped eating and considered a moment.

"Are you in any real trouble?" she asked at last.

He rose and began to pace up and down. "I will tell you," he said, "and leave you to judge for yourself."

Beth looked somewhat ruefully at the tray, and wished that the conversation had been more suited to the satisfaction of an honest appetite.

"I have made it plain to you what my marriage is without blaming anybody," he proceeded. "It is the rock upon which all my hopes were wrecked. I found my ideal. I won her like a man. I haven't a word to say against her. She is a woman who might have made any ordinary man happy; but she has been no help to me. It is not her fault. She has done her best. And it is not my fault."

"Then whose fault is it?" said Beth; "it must be somebody's. I think of marriage as I think of life; it is pretty much what people choose to make it. It does not fail when husband and wife have good principles, and live up to them; and good manners in private as well as in public—not to mention high ideals. When we are not happy in the intimate relations of life, it is generally for some trivial reason—as often as not because we don't take the trouble to make ourselves agreeable, as because we fail in other duties. I consider it a duty to be agreeable. In married life happiness depends on loyalty, to begin with, the loyalty that will not even let its thoughts stray. All that we want in everyday intercourse is truth and affection, kindness, consideration, and unvarying politeness. If people practised these as a duty from the first, sympathy would eventually come of the effort. Marriage is the state that develops the noblest qualities, and that is why happily married people are the best worth knowing, the most delightful to live amongst. You have no fault to find with your wife, therefore the fault must be in yourself if you are not happy. Do your duty like a man, and cure yourself of it."

"It surprises me to hear you talk in that way," he exclaimed, "you who have suffered so much yourself!"

"I make no pretence of having suffered," she answered. "I have no patience with people who do. We have our destiny in our own hands to make or mar, most of us. If we fail in one thing we shall succeed in another. Life is a fertile garden, full of plants that bud and blossom and bear fruit not once but every season while it lasts. If the crop of happiness fails one year, we should set to work bravely, and cultivate it all the more diligently for the next."

"All this is beside the mark," he responded peevishly. "You are offering me the generalisations that only apply to ordinary people. Allowance must be made for exceptional natures. Look at me! I tell you if I had met the right woman, I should have been at the top of the tree by this time. I have the greatest respect for woman. I believe that her part in life is to fertilise the mind of man; and if the able man does not find the right woman for this purpose, he must remain sterile, and the world will be the loser. I never knew such a woman till I met you; but in you I have discovered one rich in all womanly attributes, mental, moral, and physical; and, beyond these, dowered also with genius, the divine gift—the very woman to help a man to do his best."

"And what is the man going to do for me?" Beth inquired with a twinkle in her eyes.

"He would surround you with every comfort, every luxury—jewels——"

"Like a ballet-girl!" she interjected. "I am really afraid you are old-fashioned. You begin by offering me gewgaws—the paltry price women set on themselves in the days of their intellectual infancy. We know our value better now."

"You should have all that an ideal woman ought to have," he put in. "What more can a woman require?"

"She would like to know what all she ought to have consists of," Beth replied. "As a rule, a man's ideal woman is some one who will make him comfortable; and he thinks he has done all that is necessary for her when he allows her to contribute to his happiness."

"Ah, be serious!" he ejaculated. "You should be above playing in that cruel way with a man who is in earnest. Hear what I have to say. Remember we are the people who make history. You talk about knowing your own value! You do not know it. Without me you never will know it. You do not know what is being said already about your unpublished work. Those who have read it tell me you promise to be to England what Georges Sand was to France when she appeared, a new light on the literary horizon. But where would Georges Sand have been without De Musset? They owe half their prestige to each other. While they were alive every one talked of them, and now that they are dead reams are written about them. Let us also go down to posterity together. All I want is you; what you want is me. Will you—will you let me be to you—De Musset?"

"What you really do want," said Beth, "is a sense of humour."

"For God's sake, do not be trivial!" he exclaimed. "You cannot think what this means to me—how I have set my heart on it—how I already seem to hear the men at the clubs mention my name and yours when I pass. Night after night I have paced up and down outside this house, looking up at your window, thinking it all out."

Beth flushed angrily. "I consider that a most improper proceeding," she said, "and I do not know how you can excuse it to yourself."

"I—much may be excused when a man feels as strongly as I do," he protested.

"And how about your wife?" said Beth, "where do you place her in your plans? Has she no feelings to be considered?"

"I shall not hurt her feelings, I assure you, I never do," he answered. "I keep her in a quiet country place so that she may hear no gossip, and I excuse my long absences from home on the plea of work. She understands that my interests would suffer if I were not on the spot."

"In other words, you lie to your wife," said Beth, aghast at the shabby deceit.

"That is scarcely polite language," he rejoined in an offended tone.

"It is correct language," she retorted. "We shall understand what we are talking about much better if we call things by their right names. But are you never afraid of what your wife may be driven to in the dulness of the country, while you are here in town, dancing attendance on other men's wives?"

"Never in the least," he answered complacently. "She is entirely devoted to me and to her duty. Her faith in me is absolute."

"And so you deceive her."

"I am not bound to tell her all my doings," he protested.

"You are in honour bound not to deceive her," Beth said; "and if you deceive her it is none the less low because she does not suspect you. On the contrary. It seems to me that one of the worst things that can happen to a man is to have docile women to deal with."

"I am grieved to hear you talk like that," he said. "I am really grieved. It shows a want of refinement that surprises and shocks me. I maintain that I do her no injury. These things can always be arranged so that no one is injured; that is all that is necessary."

"These things can never be arranged so that no one is injured," Beth replied. "We injure ourselves, if no one else. We are bound to deteriorate when we live deceitfully. How can you be honest and manly and lead a double life? The false husband in whom his wife believes must be a sneak; and for the man who rewards a good faithful wife by deceiving her, I have no term of contempt sufficiently strong."

"I am disappointed in you," he said. "I should never have suspected that you were so narrow and conventional."

"Are you prepared to defy public opinion?" Beth asked.

"No, that would be gross," he said. "Outwardly we must conform. Only the elite understand these things, and only the elite need know of them. You are of the elite yourself; you must know, you must feel the power, the privilege conferred by a great passion."

"Pray do not class me with the elite if passion is what they respect," Beth said. "Passion at the best—honourable passion—is but the efflorescence of a mere animal function. The passion that has no honourable object is a gaudy, unwholesome weed, rapid of growth, swift and sure to decay."

"Passion is more than that, the passion of which I speak. It is a great mental stimulant," he declared.

"Yes," said Beth, "passion is a great mental stimulant—passion resisted."

"Georges Sand, whom I would have you follow, always declared that she only wrote her best under the influence of a strong passion," he assured her.

"But how do we know that she might not have written better than that best under some holier influence?" Beth rejoined. "George Eliot's serener spirit appeals to me more. I believe it is only those who renounce the ruinous riot of the senses, and find their strength and inspiration in contemplation, who reach the full fruition of their powers. Ages have not talked for nothing of the pains of passion and the pleasures of love. Love is a great ethical force; but passion, which is compact of every element of doubt and deceit, is cosmic and brutal, a tyrant if we yield to it, but if we master it, an obedient servant willing to work. I would rather die of passion myself, as I might of any other disease, than live to be bound by it."

Pounce, who had been pacing about the room restlessly until now, sat down by the fire, and gazed into it for a little, discomfited. He had come primed with the old platitudes, the old sophistries, the old flatteries, come to treat amicably, and found himself met with armed resistance, his flatteries and platitudes ridiculed, his sophistries exposed, and his position attacked with the confidence and courage of those who are sure of themselves.

"Have you no feeling for me?" he said at last, after a long pause, speaking somewhat hoarsely.

"I feel sorry for you," was the unexpected answer.

"Pity is akin to love," he said.

"Pity is also akin to contempt," she rejoined. "And how can a woman feel anything else for a man who is false to the most sacred obligations? who makes vows and breaks them according to his inclination? If we make a law of our own inclinations, what assurance can we give to any one that we shall ever be true?"

"I have found at last what I have yearned for all my life long," he protested. "I know I shall never waver in my devotion to you."

"That may be," she answered. "But what guarantee could you give me that I should not waver? What comfort would your fidelity be if I tired of you in a month?"

Again he was discomfited, and there was another pause.

"If you did change," he said at last, "I should be the only sufferer."

Beth sat silent for a little, then she said slowly, "What you have ventured to propose to me to-night, Mr. Cayley Pounce, is no more credit to your intelligence than it is to your principles. You come here and find me living openly, in an assured position, with powerful friends, whose affection and respect for me rest on their confidence in me, and with brilliant prospects besides, as you say, which, however, depend to a great extent upon my answering to the expectations I have raised. You allow that I have some ability, some sense, and yet you offer me in exchange for all these——"

"I offer you love!" he exclaimed fervently.

"Love!" she ejaculated with contempt, "you offer me yourself for a lover, and you seek to inspire confidence in me by deceiving your wife. You would have me sacrifice a position of safety for a position of danger—one that might be changed into an invidious position by the least indiscretion—and all for what?"

"For love of you," he pleaded, "that I may help you to develop the best that is in you."

"All for the prestige of having your name associated with mine by men about town in the event of mine becoming distinguished," she interrupted.

He winced.

"I only ask you to do what George Eliot did greatly to her advantage," he answered reproachfully.

"You asked me to do what Georges Sand did greatly to her detriment," Beth said. "George Eliot is an after-thought. And you certainly have no intention of asking me to do what she did, for she acted openly, she deceived no one, and injured no one."

"And you do not blame her?" he exclaimed with a flash of hope.

Beth answered indirectly: "When I think about that, I ask myself have Church and State arranged the relations of the sexes successfully enough to convince us that they cannot be better arranged? Are marriages holier now than they were in the days when there were no churches to bless them? or happier here than in other countries where they are simple private contracts? And it seems to me that we have no historical proof that the legal bond is necessarily the holiest between man and woman, or that there is never justification for a more irregular compact. I know that 'holy matrimony' is often a state of absolute degradation, especially for the woman; and I believe that two honourable people can live together honourably without the conventional bond, so long as no one else is injured, no previous compact broken. But all the same I think the legal bond is best. It is a safeguard to the family and a restraint on the unprincipled. And, at any rate, all my experience, all my thought, all my hope argue for the dignity of permanence in human relations. Anything else is bad for the individual, for the family, for the state. As civilisation, as evolution advances from lower to higher, we find it makes more and more for monogamy. Our highest types of men and women are monogamous. Those whose contracts are lightly made and lightly broken are trivial people. That useful Oneida Creek experiment proved that the instinct, if not the ideal, of modern humanity is monogamous."

"What was that?" he asked.

"A number of people formed a community at Oneida Creek to live together in a kind of ordered promiscuity, but the experiment failed because it was found eventually that the members were living together secretly in pairs. No. The more I know of life the less I like the idea of allowing any laxity in the marriage relation. In certain cases of course there is good and sufficient reason for two people to separate. But I believe that right-minded people can generally, and almost always do, make their marriages answer. Marriage is compact of every little incident in life, it is not merely made up of one strong feeling, otherwise men and women would be as the animals who pair and part casually; therefore, if two people are disappointed in each other in some things, they must have other things in common to fall back upon. My ideal of life is love in marriage and loyal friends."

"It is interesting to hear you express these views," he said bitterly, "considering what your experience has been."

"I don't see that my petty personal experience has anything to do with the truth of the matter," said Beth, bridling somewhat. "You really have a poor opinion of me if you think I shall allow my judgment to be warped by anything that may happen to myself. Because my own experience is not a happy one, you would have me declare that family life is a mistake! Doubtless many an outcry is raised for no better reason. But do you not see yourself that the tranquil home-life is the most beautiful, the most conducive to the development of all that is best in us—that there is nothing like the delight of being a member of a large and united family. Can you come into a house like this and not see it?"

"This house was not always a model of domestic felicity," he sneered.

"That proves my point," she rejoined. "The difficulties can be lived down if people are right-minded."

"Your argument does not alter the fact that I am a miserable man," he said dejectedly.

"You were not born to be a miserable man," she answered gently, "and 'we always may be what we might have been.' But you have lost much ground, Alfred Cayley Pounce, since the days when you roamed about the cliffs and sandy reaches of Rainharbour with Beth Caldwell, making plans. You had your ideals then, and lived up to them. You cultivated your flowers for delight in their beauty, and went to your modelling for love of the work. You gave your flowers to your friends with an honest intention to please; you modelled with honest ambition to do good work. In those days you were above caring to cultivate the acquaintance of the best people. You had touched the higher life at that time; you had felt such rapture in it as has never come to you since—even among the best people—I am sure; yet you fell away; you deserted Beth—not basely, perhaps, but weakly; and you have been deteriorating ever since."

He had started straight in his chair when she mentioned Beth Caldwell, and was staring at her now with puzzled intentness.

"What do you know about Beth?" he said quickly. "Have you ever met her?"

She smiled. "I can honestly say I never have," she answered. But she looked away from him into the fire as she spoke, and he recognised the set of her head on her shoulders as she turned it; he had noted it often.

"God!" he exclaimed, "what a blind idiot I have been—Beth! Beth!" He threw himself down on his knees beside her chair, caught her hand, and covered it with kisses.

Beth snatched her hand away, and he returned embarrassed to his seat and sat gazing at her for a little, then took out his handkerchief and suddenly burst into tears.

"What a mess I have made of my life!" he exclaimed. "Everything that would have been best for me has been within reach at some time or other, but I invariably took the wrong thing and let the right one go. But, Beth, I was only a boy then, and I suffered when they separated us."

This reflection seemed to ease his mind on the subject. That she might also have suffered did not occur to him; as usual his whole concern was for himself.

"Yes, you are right, Beth," he proceeded. "I have deteriorated; but 'we always may be what we might have been'—and you have been sent to me again as a sign that it is not too late for me. You were my first love, my earliest ideal, and I have not changed, you see, I have been true to you; for, although I never suspected you were Beth, I recognised my rightful mate in you the moment we met. Yes, I was on the right road when we were boy and girl together, but the promise of that time has not been fulfilled. All the poetry in me has lain dormant since the days when you drew it forth. I gave up modelling when I went to the 'Varsity because they didn't care for that kind of thing in my set, you know. They were all men of position, who wouldn't associate with artists unless they were at the top of the tree; clever fellows, and good themselves at squibs and epigrams. If you'd ever been to the 'Varsity you'd know that a man must adapt himself to his environment if he means to get on. My dream had been to make my visions of beauty visible, as you used to suggest; but I had to give that up, there was nothing else for it. Still, I was not content to do nothing, to be nobody; therefore, when I abandoned the clay, I took to the pen; I gave up the marble for the manuscript. Many men of position have written, you know, and so long as you didn't mug, fellows didn't mind. In fact, they thought you smart if they fancied you could dash things off without an effort. You understand now why I am a literary man instead of a sculptor."

"Perfectly," Beth said drily. "It was in those days, I suppose, that you were bitten by French literature, and began to idealise mean intrigues, and to delight in foul matter if the manner of its presentation were an admirable specimen of style."

"Ah," he said solemnly, "style is everything."

"It is all work of word-turning and little play of fancy with those who make style everything," said Beth, glad to get away from love, "and that makes your Jack-of-style a dull boy and morbid in spite of his polish. Less style and more humour would be the saving of some of you, the making of others."

"Flaubert wrote 'Madame Bovary' six times," he assured her impressively.

"I wonder how much it lost each time," said Beth. "But you know what Flaubert himself said about style before he had done—just what I am saying!"

"I cannot understand your being insensible to the charms of style," he said, evading the thrust.

"I am not. I only say it is not of the most vital importance. Thackeray was a Titan—well, look at his slipshod style in places, his careless grammar, his constant tautology. He knew better, and he could have done better, and it would have been well if he had, I don't deny it; but his work would not have been a scrap more vital, nor he himself the greater. I have seen numbers of people here in town studying art. They go to the schools to learn to draw, not because they have ideas to express, apparently, but in the hope that ideas will come when they know how to express them. And I think it is the same in literature. One school talks of style as if it were the end and not the means. They form a style, but have nothing to express that is worth expressing. It would be better to pray the gods to send them the matter; if the matter is there in the mind it will out, and the manner will form itself in the effort to produce it—so said the great."

There was a pause, during which Alfred Cayley Pounce sighed heavily and Beth looked at the clock.

"You were stimulating as a child, Beth," he said at last, "and you are stimulating still. Think what it would be to me to have you always by my side! I cannot—I cannot let you go again now that I have found you! We were boy and girl together."

"That does not alter anything in our present position," Beth answered; "nor does it affect my principles in any way. But even if I had been inclined—if I had had no principles, I should have been just clever enough to know better than to run any risk of the kind you suggest. You do not know perhaps that you have injured your own standing already—that there are houses in which you are not welcome because you are suspected of intrigue."

"Me—suspected of intrigue!" he exclaimed. "It isn't possible!"

Beth laughed. "If it is so disagreeable to be suspected," she said, "what would it be to be found out! And what have you gained by it? What says the Dhammapada? 'There is bad reputation, and the evil way (to hell); there is the short pleasure of the frightened in the arms of the frightened, and the king imposes heavy punishment; therefore let no man think of his neighbour's wife.'"

"It is evident that you don't trust me," he said in an injured tone. "Ah, Beth! does the fact that we were boy and girl together not weigh with you?"

"Well, it would," Beth said soberly, "even if worldly wisdom were my only guide in life. I should think of the time that we got into that scrape, and you wriggled out of it, leaving me to shift for myself as best I could; and I should remember the boy is father to the man. But I have been trying to show you that worldly wisdom is not my only guide in life. I have professed the most positive puritan principles of conduct, and given you the reasons upon which they are based, yet you persist; you ignore what I say as if you had not heard me or did not believe me, and pursue the subject as if you were trying to weary me into agreement. And you have wearied me, but not into agreement; so, if you please, we will not discuss it any longer."

"You will be sorry, I think, some day for the way you have treated me," he exclaimed, showing temper; "and what you expect to gain by it I cannot imagine."

"Oh, please," Beth protested, "I am not imbued with the commercial spirit of the churches. I do not expect a percentage in the way of reward on every simple duty I do."

"Virtue is its own reward," he sneered.

"It has been said that 'the pleasure of virtue is one which can only be obtained on the express condition of its not being the object sought,'" she rejoined good-naturedly. "Try it, Alfred, and see if you do not become a happier man insensibly. Order your thoughts to other and nobler ends, for thoughts are things, and we are branded or beautified by them. An American scientist has been making experiments to test the effect of thought on the body, and has found that a continuous train of evil thought injures the health and spoils the personal appearance, but high and holy thoughts have a beautifying effect. Be a man and embrace a manly creed. Live for others, live openly. Deceit is treachery, and treachery is cowardice of the most despicable kind. Life has to be lived. It might as well be lived earnestly. Life is better lived when it is held earnestly. Personally I detest all flippancy and cynicism, all cheapening of serious subjects by lack of reverence. Irreverence portends defects of character and poverty of intellect. All serious subjects are sacred subjects, and to treat them with levity or insincerity is to prove yourself a person to be avoided."

Alfred Cayley Pounce was stooping forward with his elbows on his knees and his face between his hands, gazing blankly into the fire. The light shone on his bald forehead and accentuated the lines which wounded vanity, petty purposes thwarted, and an ignoble life had written prematurely on his face, and his attitude emphasised the attenuation of his body. He looked a poor, peevish, neurotic specimen; and although he had only himself to thank for it, Beth, remembering the promise of his youth, felt a qualm of pity.

"What a mistake my marriage has been!" he ejaculated at last. "But I doubt if I should ever have found a woman who would have understood me enough to be all in all to me. For a man of my temperament there is nothing but celibacy."

"I don't believe in celibacy at all," Beth said cheerfully. "Celibacy is an attempt to curb a healthy instinct with a morbid idea. He is the best man and the truest gentleman who honourably fulfils every function of life. And I don't believe your marriage was of necessity a mistake either. But if you must be miserable, be loyal as well. You will find that the best in the end. If, being miserable, we are also disloyal, then we are insensibly degraded—so insensibly, perhaps, that we are not conscious of any part of the process, and only become aware of what has been going on when we have to face a crisis, and find ourselves prepared to act ignobly, and to justify the act with specious excuses." She glanced up at the mantelpiece. "Come," she said, "it is four o'clock, and I am sleepy. I must go to bed."

He started to his feet. "Good heavens!" he exclaimed, "you can talk of being sleepy when I——"

"Never mind about that now," said Beth, yawning frankly. "Everybody has gone to bed and forgotten us, I suppose. I shall have to let you out."

She gathered the evening cloak she had come back in from the theatre about her as she spoke, and led the way. He let her open the hall-door for him. It was grey daylight in the street. At the foot of the steps a policeman was standing on the pavement making a note in a little book.

"Is it any use whistling for a hansom at this hour?" Beth asked.

The policeman looked up at her. "I'll try, miss, if you like," he said.

He whistled several times, but there was no response, and Alfred Cayley Pounce at last crammed his hat down on his head with a peevish show of impatience, and walked off down the street, without a word of leave-taking. The fact that Beth was sleepy had wounded his vanity more than any word she had said. She smiled and shrugged her shoulders as she watched him depart, then went down on to the pavement and strolled about, enjoying the freshness. The policeman kept watch and ward, meanwhile, at the open door, and, before she went in, Beth stood and talked to him a little in her pretty kindly way. She found his tone and manner in their simple directness strengthening and refreshing to the mind after the tortuous posings of Mr. Alfred Cayley Pounce.



CHAPTER XLIX

At breakfast next morning Beth described the way in which Mr. Alfred Cayley Pounce had forced his attentions upon her the night before. Mr. Kilroy was exceedingly angry. "He shall not come into any house of mine again," he declared, and gave the old butler Roberts, who happened to be the only servant in the room at the moment, orders to that effect. "Do you mean to say," he asked Beth, "that the fellow had the assurance to tell you he had actually been hanging about the house?"

"He seemed rather proud of that, as of something poetical and romantic," Beth answered.

"I suppose the illness was all an excuse," Angelica observed.

"I don't know," Beth said. "He certainly looked ill, but he's a poor neurotic creature now, and might easily work himself up into a state of hysterical collapse, I should think. What was your impression, Roberts?"

"He looked real bad, ma'am; and well he might, the way he's been goin' on, 'anging about 'alf the night We've all seen im," Roberts rejoined imperturbably.

"Why didn't you report it to me?" Mr. Kilroy wanted to know.

"Well, sir, I couldn't be sure it was this 'ouse, sir, in partic'lar. You see there's a good many in the square, sir. I was just waitin' to make sure. He come after you'd gone last night, and said he 'ad to meet the ladies, but he'd forgotten where they were goin' to, and James, suspectin' nothin', told 'im."

"Well, I don't think he will trouble me again," Beth said cheerfully, concerned to see Mr. Kilroy so seriously annoyed. "I told him what I thought of him in such unmistakable terms that he walked out of the house without any form of farewell."

Angelica looked grave. "I am afraid you've made a spiteful enemy, Beth," she observed. "That kind of cat-man is capable of any meanness if his vanity is wounded; if he can injure you, he will."

"Oh, as to that, I don't see what he can do," said Mr. Kilroy.

"He can supply the press with odious personal paragraphs, spread calumnies at the clubs, and write scratch-cat criticisms on the book when it appears," Angelica said. "There are plenty of people who will listen to that kind of man, and take their opinions from him."

"But what does it matter," said Beth in her tolerant way. "All you whom I love and respect will judge me and my work for yourselves. If you are pleased, I shall rejoice; if you find fault, I shall be grateful and profit. But I should be a poor shallow thing, like society itself, if I allowed myself to be disturbed or influenced by the Alfred Cayley Pounces of the press. And as to society!" Beth laughed. "At first, when I went anywhere, I used to ask myself all the time when would the pleasure begin! But now I am younger, thanks to you; and I enjoy everything. I look on and laugh. But for the rest, I must be indifferent. It would be an insult to one's intellect to set any store on such tinsel as that of which the verdicts of society are made."

* * * * *

Beth had been thinking a good deal about Dan lately, and had come to the conclusion that, with all his faults, he was very much to be preferred to the Alfred Cayley Pounce kind of creature. She had more hope of him, somehow; and she went back determined that it should not be her fault if they did not arrive at a better understanding. He gave her a good opportunity on the evening of her arrival. They were sitting out in the garden after dinner, on that comfortable seat by the privet hedge which Beth overlooked from her secret chamber. Behind them the hedge was thick, and in front a border of flowers surrounded a little green lawn, which was shut in beyond by a belt of old trees in full foliage. It was an exquisite evening, warm and still; and Dan, having dined well, and begun a good cigar, was in a genial mood. As he grew older he attached a more enormous importance than ever to meals. If the potatoes were boiled when he wanted them mashed or baked, it made a serious difference to him, and he would grow red in the face and shout at the servants if his eggs for breakfast were done a moment more or less than he liked. He was a ridiculous spectacle in his impatience if dinner were late, and a sad one in his sensual satisfaction if it answered to his expectations. Beth watched him at such times with sensations that passed through various degrees of irritation from positive contempt to the kindly tolerance one feels for the greed of a hungry child. Dan had been "doing himself well," as he called it, during her absence, and was looking somewhat bloated and blotched. His wonderful complexion was no longer so clear and bright as it had been; the red was redder and the white opaque. A few more years and his character would be seen distinctly in the shape and colour of his face; and Beth, who had marked the first signs of deterioration slowly set in, was saddened by the progress it had made. Alfred Cayley Pounce would succumb to his nerves, Daniel Maclure to his tissues; the one was earning atrophy for himself, the other fatty degeneration. Beth was right. The real old devil is disease, and our evil appetites are his ministers.

"You seem solemn this evening," Daniel said to her. "I suppose you're regretting your friends."

"Yes," said Beth; "but I have been away long enough, and I am glad to be back. I saw some things in the great wicked city that made me think—Dan," she broke off abruptly, "I wish you and I were better friends. So very little would bring us to a right understanding, and I am sure we should both be the better and the happier."

"Speak for yourself," said Dan complacently. "Personally, I feel good enough and happy enough. We have our differences, like other people, I suppose; but whose fault is that, I should like to know?"

"Partly mine," Beth acknowledged. "I don't think I should have been so defiant. But if you had been different, I should have been different."

"If I had been different!" he ejaculated, knocking the ash from the end of his cigar. "Well, I'd like to know what fault you have to find with me? Different indeed!"

"That is the principal one," Beth answered, smiling. "Your great fault is that you don't believe you have any faults."

"Oh, well," he conceded, "of course I know I've my faults. Who hasn't? But I'll undertake to say that they're a man's faults. Now, come!"

This reflection seemed to deepen his self-satisfaction, as if it must be allowed that he was all the better for the faults to which he alluded. As he spoke, Beth seemed to see him at her wardrobe with his hand in the pocket of one of her dresses, hunting for treasonable matter to satisfy his evil suspicions, and she sighed. She would not acknowledge to herself that she was fighting for the impossible, yet even at the outset she half despaired of ever making him understand. It is pitiful to think of her, with her tender human nature, seeking a true mate where human law required that she should find one, only to be repulsed and baffled and bedraggled herself in the end if she persevered. A good man might have failed to comprehend Beth, but a good man would have felt the force of goodness in her, and would have reverenced her. Maclure recognised no force in her and felt no reverence; all that was not animal in her was as obscure to him as to the horse in his stable that whinnied a welcome to her when she came because he expected sugar. It is pleasant to give pleasure; but there must be more in marriage for it to be satisfactory than free scope to exercise the power to please.

"Well, look here, Dan," Beth pursued. "I'll make a bargain with you. If you will do your best to correct your faults—what I think your faults—I'll do my best to correct all you find in me. Only let us discuss them temperately, and try conscientiously to live up to some ideals of thought and conduct."

Dan smoked on silently for a little, then he said, with some show of irritation tempering his self-satisfaction, "Well, all I can say is, I cannot for the life of me see what you have to complain of."

"I have to complain of your conduct with Bertha Petterick, for one thing," Beth answered desperately. "Let us be frank with each other. I know that you have not been loyal to me. I saw you together here on this seat the day you gave her the bracelet. I saw you put it on her arm and kiss her; and that decided me to go to Ilverthorpe."

Dan looked round about him with an altered countenance, but nothing that he knew to be a window overlooked the spot, neither was it possible to see through the thickness of the privet hedge, nor from any other point, without being seen.

"You must have imagined it!" he exclaimed.

"I did not imagine that bracelet," Beth replied.

"Well, even if I did give her the bracelet," he said, "you're not going to be nasty-minded enough to insinuate that there was anything in that!"

"There was deceit in it," Beth answered, "and in your whole attitude towards that girl while she was under this roof. If we act so that we cannot be open and honest about our dealings with people, then there must be something wrong. Life would be intolerable if it had to be lived among people any one of whom, while professing friendship for us, was deceiving us in some vital particular. From the moment that we act on our own inclinations rather than up to what the noblest of our friends expect of us, we have gone wrong. But you and I are both young enough, Dan, to put the past behind us, and forget it. Let us start together afresh in another place, where there will be no evil associations, nothing to vex us by reminding us of unhappy days; and let us be loyal to each other, and honest and open in every act, making due allowance for each other, and doing our best to help and please each other. We shall be happy, I am sure. You will see we shall be very happy."

Dan took his cigar out of his mouth, and flicked the ash from the end of it with his little finger: "You'd have me give up my appointment here, I suppose, and the half of my income with it?"

"Most of all I would have you give up your appointment here," she answered earnestly. "No honest woman can endure to have her husband pandering to vice. It would not be so much of a sacrifice either," she added, "for the next session will end this iniquity."

"Thanks to the influence of you cursed women," he exclaimed.

"Thanks to our influence, yes," she answered dispassionately, "and to some sense of justice in men."

"If you knew how men talk about women who meddle in these matters," he said, "you would keep out of them, I think."

"Oh, I know the kind of thing they say," she answered, smiling; "but the people you mean have no influence nowadays. The blatant protest of the debauched against our demand for a higher standard of life is not the voice of the community. It is the cry of those who feel their existence threatened, who only live upon lies, and must be extinguished when the inevitable day of reckoning comes which shall expose them. Even now the kind of man who catches at every straw of opinion which shall secure to him his sacred carnal rights, at no matter what cost of degradation and disease to women, is out of date, and we pay no attention to him."

"Oh, women!" Dan jeered. "That is all very fine! But who the devil cares what women think?"

"Now don't be old-fashioned, Dan," Beth answered, laughing. "When women only did what they were told, men used to vow at their feet that there was nothing they couldn't accomplish, their influence was so great. But now that women have proved that what they choose to do they can do, men sneer at their pretensions to power, and try to depreciate them by comparing the average woman with men in the front rank of their professions. Really, men are disheartening."

The evening calm had deepened about them, a big bright star was shining above the belt of trees, and waves of perfume from the flowers made the air a delight to inhale.

"What a heavenly night!" Beth pursued. "Who would live in London when they might be here?"

"Well, that's consistent!" he exclaimed, "after entreating me to leave the place!"

"This is not the only peaceful spot in the world," she said with a little sigh; "and I would rather live in London even than have you here in an invidious position. Dan, give it up, there's a good fellow! and learn to look on life from this newer, wider point of view. You will find interests and pleasures in it you have never even suspected, I assure you, and you will never regret it."

"For the life of me," he said again, throwing the end of his cigar into the bushes with an irritated jerk of his arm,—"for the life of me, I cannot see what you have to complain of; and I shall certainly not give up any bird in the hand for two such birds in the bush as you promise me." He rose as he spoke, and shook out first one leg and then the other to straighten his trousers. "I'm going out," he added. "I've a patient to see. Ta! ta! Take care of yourself."

* * * * *

Some little time after Beth's return, they were sitting at lunch together, and Maclure was reading a daily paper.

"Matters look bad for that fellow, Cayley Pounce," he observed.

"Why, what has he been doing?" Beth asked.

"Poking a fellow's eye out with his umbrella," Dan answered. "He was talking to a girl in the street one night, and got into a row with some roughs, and jabbed one in the eye with his umbrella, and the fellow died. The inquiry is now going on, and it's likely the coroner's jury will bring in a verdict of manslaughter against Mr. Cayley Pounce. His defence is that he wasn't anywhere near that part of London on that particular night, and it's a case of mistaken identity; but as he refuses to say where he was, and produces no evidence by way of an alibi, that story won't avail him much."

"What night was it?" said Beth.

"On the 30th, just after midnight," Dan read out of the paper.

"Why, that was the night he insisted on escorting me home from the theatre," Beth exclaimed. "He did not leave the Kilroys' until four o'clock in the morning."

"Then why on earth doesn't he say so?" Dan asked.

"I can't imagine," Beth said. "I let him out myself; everybody else had gone to bed. And I'm sure of the time, because I thought he was never going away, and I was tired; and I looked at the clock and said, 'It's four o'clock, and I must go to bed.'"

Dan's face had darkened. "Do you mean to say you were sitting up with him alone?" he demanded.

"Yes, for my sins!" Beth answered in a tone of disgust. "The Kilroys were out when I returned from the theatre, and did not come in till very late; and they went straight upstairs, supposing I had gone to bed. As a rule they come into the library first. So Mr. Cayley Pounce was left on my hands."

"Then," said Dan, pushing his plate away from him with a clatter, "it is obvious why he is holding his tongue. He is determined not to compromise you."

"Thank you!" said Beth, bridling. "I should think I am not so easily compromised."

"Gad!" Dan ejaculated, "I don't know what you call easily compromised! A man takes you home from a theatre, and stays with you alone till four o'clock in the morning; if that isn't compromising I don't know what is. No jury in the world would acquit you, and the fellow knows that perfectly well, and is holding his tongue to screen you."

"I should think it's a great deal more likely he's holding his tongue in order to get the credit of it," Beth observed drily. "It is a mere pose. He knows I shall have to come forward to clear him if he doesn't explain himself. I suppose I must go at once and stop the case; but if it were not for his wife I declare I should hesitate. What is the form of procedure? You will come with me, of course?"

"I go with you!" Dan exclaimed brutally, "and see you make a public exhibition of yourself, and bring disgrace on my name in a court of justice! I'm damned if I do! And what's more, if you go, you don't return to this house. I've too much self-respect for that. You hadn't much of a reputation when I married you, and if you lose the little you've got, you can go and I shall divorce you. My wife must be above suspicion."

Beth folded her serviette slowly while he was speaking, and, when he stopped, she rose from the table.

"It is unfortunate for me," she said, "that the Kilroys have gone abroad. They know the man and the facts of the case, and would have advised me. In their absence I must do what seems right without advice. I cannot see that I have any choice in the matter. You could make it perfectly easy for me by supporting me; if you do not support me I must go alone. I shall pack up and go to town at once in order to appear in court to-morrow morning, and I shall telegraph to Roberts, the Kilroys' butler, to meet me there, and confirm my story. There are the coachman and footman too, and the police constable—witnesses enough, in all conscience."

"You are determined to go?" Dan demanded angrily.

"I must go," she rejoined.

"It is going to the devil, then," said Dan deliberately; "and I always said you would. Remember, you don't return to this house!"

* * * * *

When Beth arrived in town, she found that there would be no need to appear in the case at all, for the Kilroys' old butler Roberts had seen the name of Mr. Alfred Cayley Pounce in the papers, and had unwittingly frustrated his manoeuvre by going to the coroner's court himself and volunteering to give evidence. He was accompanied by the footman who had been out with the carriage on the night in question, and the two together had no difficulty in proving an alibi. Thus, in an ordinary commonplace manner, what had promised to be the triumph of his life, the moment when he should stand confessed to the world a chivalrous gentleman, sacrificing himself to save a lady of prepossessing appearance, was converted into another of the many failures of Mr. Alfred Cayley Pounce. This ended the case so far as he and Beth were concerned; but with regard to Dan, Beth recognised that her position remained the same. There was no return for her from the step she had taken, and she would have to begin her life anew.



CHAPTER L

Beth went out into the world alone, knowingly and willingly. The prospect had no terrors for her, neither did she feel any regret for the past. She took it all as a matter of course. The days with Dan at Slane were over, but life had still to be lived, and she set to work to arrange it and live it to the best of her ability; what she most urgently felt being merely that there were things she must see to at once and settle about, and that she was rather pushed for time. The first thing she did in London was to buy a map so that she might find her way about economically, and some newspapers recommended to her by the stationers as likely to have advertisements of respectable lodgings in them. She studied these over a cup of coffee and a roll, cut all the promising addresses out of the papers, found on the map the best way to go by omnibus or railway, and then set off on her quest, taking the red Hammersmith 'bus first of all, and explored West Kensington. Her efforts in that direction were not successful. Everything she saw at first was dear, dingy, and disheartening. Landladies, judging her by her appearance, would only show her their best rooms. When she explained that all she wanted was a nice, clean, roomy attic because she was poor, they became suspicious, and declared that she wasn't likely to get anything of that sort in a good neighbourhood. Beth wondered what the bad neighbourhoods were like if the one she was in were a good one. Later in the afternoon she found herself on the Bayswater side in a street of tall houses off the main thoroughfare. They were good houses, that must have been built for the families of affluent people, and Beth was afraid it would be useless to ask at any of them for the modest kind of accommodation which was all she could afford. While she hesitated, however, standing in the street before the one she had come to find, the hall-door opened, and a young man came out. He and Beth looked at each other as he ran down the steps, and Beth saw something so attractive in his face that she spoke to him without hesitation.

"Can you tell me," she said, "if they have any attics to let at a moderate price in this house?"

"Well, I got one out of them," he said, smiling, "and I guess there's another empty that would just about hold you, dress boxes and all. I'll ring the bell, if you'll allow me, and get Ethel Maud Mary to show you up. You'll make a better bargain with her than with her ma."

The door was opened at this moment by a grimy servant.

"Gwendolen, will you give my compliments to Miss Ethel, if you please," the young man said with grave formality, "and ask her if she will be so good as to speak to me here for a moment."

Gwendolen nodded and retired to the back regions, whence presently a plump, fair-complexioned, yellow-haired young person came hurrying with a look of inquiry on her face.

"Oh, Miss Ethel," the young man began, taking off his hat, "I'm real sorry to trouble you, but I want to introduce this young lady. I've been recommending her to get a room here. I know she'll find you moderate and comfortable, and the situation is one of the best for getting into town."

Beth recognised the wording of the advertisement that had brought her to the house.

"It is handy," Miss Ethel agreed. "But we've nothing but an attic unlet. Are you in Art, miss?"

"No, Literature," Beth answered, with presence of mind.

"Lady's, I suppose?" Ethel Maud Mary observed, meaning lady's papers, and glancing at Beth's dress. "You've got to be smart for that, and it doesn't leave much for living. Come this way, miss, please. And thank you, Mr. Brock, for mentioning us."

She led the way upstairs, talking all the time with cheerful inconsequence. "He's a real gentleman is Mr. Brock, as doubtless you know, though an American, and dry, and you never know which is his fun; and in Art, which is not much to reckon on, and that's why I thought that you might be, though you do look more like Fashion. Art is apt to be towzled, but why, goodness knows. You're not used to the stairs, I see. I wish it wasn't such a height up."

"Oh, I don't mind the height, if the price is proportionately low," Beth said. "I must live within my means, and keep out of debt, you know."

"That's a rhyme—low and you know. Did you do it on purpose?" Ethel Maud Mary asked with interest.

"No," said Beth.

"Then that's for luck," said Ethel. "You'll keep out of debt all right. I see it in your face. And I know a face when I see it. They'll keep you on the Lady's for the sake of your appearance, even if you're not much use. You're elegant and speak nice, and that's what they want to go about for them, particularly if it's a man."

"If what is a man?" Beth asked.

"The editor, you know. We 'ad a young lady here who used to say she'd undertake to get an extra half-sovereign out of any editor in town; but editresses there was no managing. Which is yours?"

"I don't know yet," said Beth. "I've only just arrived."

"What are you getting?"

"A pound a week," Beth answered, that being her exact income; "but I have a little by me besides, to keep me going till I get started, you know."

Ethel Maud Mary nodded her yellow head intelligently, and began to climb the narrow flight of stairs which led to the attics, moving her lips the while, as if she were making calculations. There was no carpet on this last flight of stairs, but the boards were well washed, and the attic itself smelt sweet and clean.

"This is it," Ethel explained. "Mr. Brock is in the other, next door. There's only two of them. This is the biggest room, but the other is north, and has the biggest window, and being in Art, he's got to think of the light. If you look out there to the right, you'll see some green in the Park. You'll like the Park. It's no distance if you're a walker. Now, just let's see. I've been calculating about the money. Mr. Brock pays fourteen shillings, but you'll not be able to afford more than seven out of a pound. You shall have it for seven."

"But surely that will be a loss to you!" Beth exclaimed.

Ethel sat herself down on the side of the bed and smiled up at her. "I'll not pretend we couldn't get more if we waited," she said; "but waiting's a loss, and we're doing very well downstairs, and can afford to pick and choose. You'll find in business that it pays better in the end to get a good tenant you can trust, who'll stay, than one who gives you double the amount for a month, and then goes off with the blankets."

"You don't deceive me a bit," said Beth, sitting down opposite to her on a cane-bottomed chair. "Your good-heartedness shines out of your face. But I'm not going to take a mean advantage of it. There's an honest atmosphere in this house that would suit me, I feel, and I am sure I shall do well here; but all the same I won't come unless you make a bargain with me. If I take the rooms for such a small sum now, while I am poor, will you let me make it up to you when I succeed? I shall succeed!" The last words burst from her involuntarily, forced from her with emphasis in spite of herself.

"That's what I like to hear; that's spirit, that is!" Ethel Maud Mary exclaimed, nodding approvingly. "You'll do all right. So it's a bargain. Washing's included, you know. You didn't bring your box, did you?"

"No, I left my luggage at Charing Cross when I arrived last night. I slept at the hotel," Beth answered.

"At the Charing Cross Hotel? Gracious! that must have cost you a small fortune."

"I didn't know what to do," Beth explained apologetically.

"You should have tried the Strand, Surrey Street, and there. You'd have got bed and breakfast for five shillings, and that's more than enough. However, it's no use crying over spilt milk. You'll have to fetch your luggage, I suppose. You can go by train from Nottinghill Gate to Charing Cross. It's about as cheap as the 'bus, and much quicker. I'll come with you, and show you the way, if you like. A breath of fresh air will do me good."

"Yes, do come," Beth answered gratefully, glad of the kindly human fellowship. "What is your name, may I ask?"

"Ethel Maud Mary Gill; and what is yours, if you please?"

"Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure."

Beth had emptied her secret chamber and packed all her little possessions before she left Slane. She had sometimes suspected that Dan would be glad of an excuse to get rid of her, to relieve himself of the cost of her keep; and that he would do it in some gross way, and so as to put all the blame of it upon her, if possible, she also expected. She was therefore prepared to consider the matter settled the moment he threatened her, and would have felt it useless to remonstrate even had she been inclined. But she was not inclined. She had for years done everything patiently that any one in any code of morality could expect of her in such a marriage, and no good had come of it. As Daniel Maclure was, so would he remain for ever; and to associate with him intimately without being coarsened and corrupted was impossible. Beth had fought hard against that, and had suffered in the struggle; but she had been lowered in spite of herself, and she knew it, and resented it. She was therefore as glad to leave Maclure as he was to get rid of her; and already it seemed as if with her married life a great hampering weight had fallen from her, and left her free to face a promising future with nothing to fear and everything to hope. Poverty was pleasant in her big bright attic, where all was clean and neat about her. There she could live serenely, and purify her mind by degrees of the garbage with which Dan's habitual conversation had polluted it.

The settling-in occupied her for some days, and the housekeeping was a puzzle when she first began. She had only been able to bring the most precious of her possessions, her books and papers, and clothes enough for the moment, away with her from Slane; the rest she had left ready packed to be sent to her when she should be settled. When she wrote to Maclure for them, she sent him some housekeeping keys she had forgotten to leave behind, and an inventory of everything she had had charge of, which she had always kept carefully checked. He acknowledged the receipt of this letter, and informed her that he had gone over the inventory himself, and found some of the linen in a bad state and one silver teaspoon missing. Beth replied that the linen had been fairly worn out, but she could not account for the missing spoon, and offered to pay for it. Dr. Maclure replied by return of post on a post-card that the price was seven shillings. Beth sent him a postal order for that amount. He then wrote to say that the cost of the conveyance of the luggage to the station was half-a-crown. Beth sent him half-a-crown, and then the correspondence ended. She received letters from some of her relations, however, to whom Maclure had hastened to send his version of the story. Poor old Aunt Grace Mary was the only one, who did not accept it. "Write and tell me the truth of the matter, my dear," she said. The others took it for granted that Beth could have nothing to say for herself, and her brother Jim was especially indignant and insulting, his opinion of her being couched in the most offensive language. Having lived with disreputable women all his life, he had the lowest possible opinion of the whole sex, his idea being that any woman would misconduct herself if she had the chance and was not well watched. He warned Beth not to apply to him if she should be starving, or to claim his acquaintance should she meet him in the street. Beth's cheeks burned with shame when she read this letter and some of the others she received, and she hastened to destroy them; but the horror they set up in her brought on a nervous crisis such as she had suffered from in the early days when Dan first brought her down to his own low level of vice and suspicion, and turned her deadly sick. She answered none of these letters, and, by dint of resolutely banishing all thought of them and of the writers, she managed in time to obliterate the impression; but she had to live through some terrible hours before she succeeded.

Once settled in her attic home, she returned to the healthy, regular, industrious habits which had helped her so much in the days when she had been at her best. Her life was of the simplest, but she had to do almost everything for herself, such time as Gwendolen could command for attendance being wholly insufficient to keep the attic in order. Her daily duties kept her in health, however, by preventing indolence either of mind or body, and so were of infinite use. She had added a few things to the scanty furniture of her attic—a new bath, a second-hand writing-table, book-shelves with a cupboard beneath for cups, saucers, and glasses, and a grandfather chair—all great bargains, as Ethel Maud Mary assured her. Ethel Maud Mary's kindness was inexhaustible. She took Beth to the second-hand shop herself, and showed her that the writing-table and book-shelves would be as good as new when they were washed and rubbed up a bit; and all the grandfather chair wanted was a new cretonne cover at sixpence a yard—four yards, two shillings, and she could make it herself. She also advised Beth to buy a little oil-stove, the only one she knew of that really didn't smell if you attended to it yourself; and a tin to hold oil for it—crystal oil at sevenpence a gallon, the best.

"You can do all you want with that, and keep yourself warm enough too when the weather's bad," she said; "and there's no waste, for you can turn it out when you've done with it. Fires are too dear for you at sixpence a scuttle for coals, and they're dirtier besides, and a trouble to light and look after. You'll find it as good as a lamp, too, if you're doing nothing particular at night."

When Beth had made a cosy corner of the window for work, arranged her books, put her ornaments about on mantelpiece and brackets, hung her pictures and the draperies she had used in her secret chamber, spread the rugs and covered the grandfather chair, her attic looked inviting. The character of her little possessions gave the poor place a distinction which enchanted Ethel Maud Mary.

Beth fetched up the water overnight for her bath in the morning, and made coffee for her breakfast on the little oil-stove. She lived principally on bread and butter, eggs, sardines, salad, and slices of various meats bought at a cook-shop and carried home in a paper. Sometimes, when she felt she could afford it, she had a hot meal at an eating-house for the good of her health; but she scarcely required it, for she never felt stronger in her life, and so long as she could get good coffee for her breakfast and tea for her evening meal, she missed none of the other things to which she had been accustomed. She made delicious coffee in a tin coffee-pot, and brewed the best tea she had ever drunk in brown earthenware, which Ethel Maud Mary considered the best thing going for tea. She used to join Beth in a cup up in the attic, but she never came empty-handed. Dull wet days, likely to be depressing, were the ones on which her yellow head appeared oftenest at the top of the attic stairs.

"Miss Maclure, may I come in?" she would say, after knocking.

And Beth would answer, rising from her work with a smile of welcome, "Yes, by all means. I'm delighted to see you. You take the big chair and I'll make the tea. I'm dying for a cup."

Then Ethel Maud Mary would uncover something she held in her hand, which would prove to be cakes, or hot buttered toast and watercresses, or a bag of shrimps and some thin bread and butter; and Beth, sparkling at the kindness, would exclaim, "I never was so spoilt in my life!" to which Ethel Maud Mary would rejoin, "There'll not be much to boast about between two of us."

Beth was busy with another book by this time, but found the work more of a task and less of a pleasure than it used to be. Ethel Maud Mary still took it for granted that she was a journalist, and showed no interest in her work beyond hoping that she got her pay regularly, and would soon be making more. Beth wondered sometimes when the little book which had been accepted in the summer would appear, and what she would get for it, if anything, and she thought of inquiring, but she put it off. Her new work took all her time and strength, and wearied her, so that nothing else seem to signify.

Besides Ethel Maud Mary and Gwendolen, the only person she had to talk to was Arthur Milbank Brock, the young American, her neighbour in the next attic. She met him coming upstairs with his hat in his hand soon after her instalment, and was even more attracted by his face than she had been when she first saw him in the street.

"You've settled in by this time, I hope," he said.

"Yes, and very comfortably too, thanks to you," Beth answered.

"Ah, Ethel Maud Mary's a good sort," he replied, "golden hair, blue eyes, and all. She has the looks of a lady's novel and the heart of a holy mother. Her grammar and spelling are defective, but her sense is sound. I wouldn't give much for her opinion of a work of art, but I'd take her advice in a difficulty if it came anywhere within range of her experience. She knows this world well, but picks her steps through it in such a way that I guess she'll reach the threshold of the next with nice clean shoes."

He stepped aside for Beth to pass when he had spoken, and stood a moment watching her thoughtfully as she descended. "And may you too," he said to himself as he turned to go up, then, perceiving that the hope implied a doubt, he began to wonder whence it came.

As Beth went out, she reflected on his face, on a certain gravity which heightened its refinement. It was a young face, but worn, as by some past trial or present care, and with an habitually sober expression which contrasted notably with the cheery humour of his speech, adding point to it, as is frequently the case with his countrymen. He wore his thick brown hair rather longer than is usual, but was clean shaven. His features were delicate and regular, his eyes deep and dark, his head large and finely formed. In figure he was tall and slim, and in his whole appearance there was something almost ethereal, as of a young poet or philosopher still moving among his fellow-men, yet knowing himself to be prematurely smitten, set apart, and consecrated to death, by some insidious slow disease from which there is no escape. This was Beth's first notion of him, but she always hoped it was fanciful. She thought about him a good deal in the solitary walks which were her principal recreation. When she was tired of working or wanted to think, she used to go out and wander alone. At first she was afraid to venture far, for she had always been assured that she had no head for topography, and would never be able to find her way; and so long as she went about under escort, with some one to save her the necessity of observing, she never knew where she was. Now, however, that she had to look after herself, she found no difficulty after her first timidity wore off; and this little experience taught her why it is that the intelligence of women seems childishly defective as regards many of the details of the business of life. They have the faculty, but when they are not allowed to act for themselves, it remains imperfectly developed or is altogether atrophied for want of exercise.

It was in these days of peace that the ugly downward droop of the corners of Beth's mouth, which had always spoilt the expression of her face, entirely disappeared, and her firm-set lips softened into keeping with the kindliness of her beautiful grey eyes; but she still wanted much loving to bring out the natural tenderness which had been so often and so cruelly nipped back in its growth. Beth had been born to be a woman, but circumstances had been forcing her to become a career. Strangely enough, some of the scenes she saw during her rambles in London helped to soften her. While she was under her husband's influence, she saw the evil only, and was filled with bitterness. London meant for her in those days the dirt and squalor of the poor, the depravity of the rich, the fiendish triumph of the lust of man, and the horrible degradation of her own sex; but now that her mind was recovering its tone, and she could see with her own eyes, she discovered the good at war with the evil, the courage and kindliness of the poor, signs of the growth of better feeling in the selfish and greedy rich, the mighty power of purity at war with the license of man, and the noble attitude of women wherever injustice was rife, the weak oppressed, and the wronged remained unrighted; then her heart expanded with pity, and instead of the torment of unavailing hate, she began to revive in the glow of strengthening gleams of hope. It was in those days too that she learnt to appreciate the wonder and beauty of the most wonderful and beautiful city ever seen; and her eyes grew deep from long looking and earnest meditating upon it. She occasionally experienced the sickening sensation of being followed about by one of those specimens of mankind so significantly called "sly dogs" by their fellow-men. They made themselves particularly objectionable in Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park; but she found that an appeal to a policeman or a Park-keeper, or to any decent workman, was enough to stop the nuisance. Genuine respect for women, which is an antidote to the moral rottenness that promotes the decay of nations, and portends the indefinite prolongation of the life of a race, is of slow growth, but it is steadily increasing among the English-speaking peoples.

During her rambles, Beth composed long letters to her friends, but somehow none of them were ever written. She had managed to send a few hurried lines of explanation to Mrs. Kilroy in the midst of her packing before she left Slane. As she had not known where she would be, she had asked Angelica to address her letters to Slane to be forwarded; but no reply had come as yet, and Beth was just a little sore and puzzled about it. However, she knew that, what with her public and private duties, Angelica was overwhelmed with work, and might well have overlooked the fact that she had not answered Beth's letter, so Beth determined to write again. Time passed, however, and she got into such a groove of daily duties that anything outside the regular routine required a special effort which she always postponed, and letters were quite outside the regular routine. After the first no one wrote to her except the old lawyer who sent her half-yearly dividend; and she had written to no one. She had dropped altogether out of her own world, yet, because of her work and of her power to interest herself in every one about her, and to appreciate the goodness of her humblest friends, her life was full, and she had not known a moment's discontent. Little things were great pleasures now. To be able to get on the top of an omnibus at Piccadilly Circus when the sun was setting, and ride to Hammersmith Broadway, engrossed in watching the wonderful narrow cloudscape above the streets, changing from moment to moment in form and colour; the mystery of the hazy distances, the impression of the great buildings and tall irregular blocks of houses appearing all massed together among the trees from different points of view, and taking on fine architectural effects, now transformed into huge grey palaces, large and distinct, now looming in the mist, sketchily, with uncertain outlines, and all the fascination of the fabrics, innocent of detail, that confront the dreamer in enchanted woods, or lure him to the edge of fairy lakes with twinkling lights all multiplied by their own reflection in the water. Beth had rolled in that direction in luxurious carriages often, and never joyed in the scene, her mind being set on other things—things prosaic, such as what she should wear, or whether she was late, scraps of society gossip, conversations which had satiated without satisfying her, and remained in her mind to be items of weariness if not of actual irritation. She had noticed in those days how very seldom she saw a happy face in a carriage, unless it was a very young face, full of expectation. Even the very coachmen and footmen in the Park looked enervated, as the long lines of carriages passed in wearisome procession. And in everything there had been that excess which leaves no room for healthy desire. At first, the shop windows, set out with tasteless profusion, no article in the heterogeneous masses telling, however beautiful, each being eclipsed by the other in the horrible glut, had interested her, and she had looked at everything. But she soon sickened at the sight. The vast quantities of things, crowded together, robbed her of all pleasure of choice, and made her feel as if she had eaten too much. Occasionally she would see two or three things of beauty displayed with art in a large window; but everywhere else excessive quantity produced indifference, disgust, or satiety, according to the mood of the moment. And even in the days of her poverty and obscurity, when her faculties were sharpened into proper appreciation by privation, those congested windows teeming with jewels, with wearing apparel, with all things immoderately, set up a sort of mental dyspepsia that was distressing, and she was glad to turn away to relieve the consequent brain-fag. But by degrees she became accustomed to the tasteless profusion. It did not please her any better, but at all events it did not afflict her by always obtruding itself upon her attention. She saw it, not in detail, but as a part of the picture; and she found in the new view of London and of London life from the top of omnibuses more of the unexpected, of delight, of beauty for the eyes and of matter for the mind, of humour, pathos, poetry, of tragedy and comedy, suggestive glimpses caught in passing and vividly recollected, than she could have conceived possible when she rolled along with society on carriage cushions, soothed by the stultifying ease into temporary sensuous apathy.

Winter set in suddenly and with terrible severity that year. London became a city of snow, cruelly cold, but beautiful, all its ugliness disguised by the white mantle, all its angles softened, all its charms enhanced. Commonplace squares, parks, gardens, and dirty streets were transformed into fairyland by the delicate disposition of snow in festoons on door-post and railing, ledge and lintel, from roof to cellar. The trees especially, all frosted with shining filigree, were a wonder to look upon; and Beth would wander about the alleys in Kensington Gardens, and gaze at the glory of the white world under the sombre grey of the murky clouds, piled up in awesome magnificence, until she ached with yearning for some word of human speech, some way to express it, to make it manifest.

She returned one afternoon somewhat wet and weary from one of her rambles. The little window of her attic was half snowed up, and the gloom under the sloping roof struck a chill to her heart as she entered; but when she had lighted the lamp (a new investment that helped up the temperature besides giving light), and set her little oil-stove going with the kettle on it, her surroundings took on an air of homely comfort that was grateful. As she busied herself preparing the tea, she noticed that her neighbour in the next attic was coughing a good deal, and then it occurred to her that she had not seen him about lately, and she wondered if he could be ill. The thought of a young man of small means, ill alone in a London lodging, probably without a bell in the room, and certainly with no one anxious to answer it if he should ring, though not cheering, is stimulating to the energy of the benevolent, and Beth went downstairs to ask as soon as the notion occurred to her.

"Mr. Brock? there now!" Gwendolen exclaimed in dismay. "If I didn't forget altogether! I've so much to see to, and the missus ill in bed with bronchitis, and Miss Ethel run off her feet, and not too fit 'erself with that cold as 'ud be called influenza if it wasn't for frightening the lodgers. Whatever it is, it's going through the 'ouse, and Mr. Brock seems to have got it bad. 'E ast me when I went wiv 'is shyving-water this morning to tike 'im some coals and mike 'im some tea, an' I never thought no more about it—I clean forgot."

"This morning!" Beth cried. "Why that was at eight o'clock, and now it is four!"

"I'll get 'em at once," Gwendolen said with contrition. But the girl herself looked worn to death. She had been on her feet since early morning, and had no prospect of a rest till she dropped on her bed late at night, too exhausted to undress.

"Never mind," Beth said. "Give me the coals, and I'll carry them up, and see to the rest. I have nothing else to do."

"Bless you," Gwendolen muttered.

Beth found Mr. Brock in bed, with bright eyes, and burning spots of colour on each cheek. A lamp was burning beside him. When he saw who it was, he raised his eyebrows; but smiled at the same time, as if he were both surprised and pleased. The room struck cold to Beth.

"What! no fire?" she exclaimed.

"I tried to light the pesky thing," he said, "but it wouldn't burn."

"Gwendolen forgot you altogether," Beth said. "She has far too much to do, poor girl, and I have only just heard that you were ill. Why didn't you call me?"

He smiled again.

"We are all of the same family here, you know," Beth said, "the great human family. You had only to say 'Sister!' and I should have come."

The smile faded from his lips, but it was replaced by another expression, which, when she saw it, caused Beth to ejaculate inwardly, "Surely of such are the Kingdom——"

Each had seen in the other's face at the same time something there is no human utterance to describe, and, recognising it, had reverently held their peace.

Beth fetched her oil-stove first, with the kettle on it, and, while the water was boiling, she cut bread and butter and lighted the fire.

"We'll have tea together, if you please," she said cheerfully. "I've a horrible suspicion that you've had nothing to eat or drink all day."

Her sympathy recalled his pleasant, patient smile.

"My appetite is not devouring," he said, "but my thirst is. Talk about selling one's birthright! I'd sell my brains, I believe, for a cup of tea at this moment."

"There's a bowl full for nothing, then," Beth rejoined. "Sip it while I boil you an egg."

He took the bowl in both hands and tried the tea.

"Oh!" he exclaimed with a long-drawn sigh, "it's nectar! it's mead! it's nepenthe! it's all the drinks ever brewed for all the gods in one! But I'm afraid to touch it lest I should finish it."

"Don't be afraid, then," said Beth, "for you'll find it like liquor for the gods in another respect; it will be to be had whenever you want it. What's the matter?"

"Did I make lament?" he asked. "I didn't know it. But I'm all one ache. I can't lie still for it, and I can't move without adding to it. I've been watching the ice-floes on the river from the Embankment and bridges by all lights lately; I never saw finer effects—such colour! It's wonderful what colour there is under your sombre sky if you know how to look for it; and it has the great advantage over the colour other countries teem with of being unexpected. It's not obvious; you have to look out for it; but when you have found it, you rejoice in it as in something rare and precious, and it excites you to enthusiasm beyond your wont—which should prevent chills, but it doesn't, as witness my aches."

Beth felt his hand and found it dry and burning.

"The doctor is the next and only thing for you, young man, after this frugal meal," she said, "and I'll go and fetch him. I hope to goodness these are the right things to give you."

He objected to the doctor, but she paid no attention to his remonstrance, and when she had done all she could think of for the moment, she put on her wet boots and walking things again, got the address of a good man from Ethel Maud Mary, and sallied out into the snow once more.

Rheumatic fever was the doctor's diagnosis, and his directions to Beth concluded with a long list of expensive medical comforts which it seemed were absolutely necessary. She went out again when he had gone, and brought back everything, toiling up the long flights of stairs with both arms full, breathless but cheerful; and having set all in order for use—sheets of medicated cotton-wool, medicines, Valentine's extract, clinical thermometer and chart—she settled herself to watch the patient, the clock, and the temperature of the room, which had to be equable, with the exactness and method of a capable nurse. Before the household retired, she went downstairs to fetch more coals, fearing they might run short in the night.

"He's 'ad one scuttle to-day," Gwendolen reminded her, warningly.

"He must have two more, then, if necessary," said Beth.

"They're sixpence a scuttle, you know," Gwendolen remonstrated.

"Two for a shilling, and no charge for delivery," said Beth as she toiled up the long ascent once more with her heavy burden.

"Eh! it would be a gay glad world if they all took it like you," Gwendolen muttered, as she stood, with the pencil in her mouth, studying the slate that hung outside the coal-cellar, and let her generosity war with her accuracy and honesty for a little before she made two more strokes on the line that began with the name of Brock; and no sooner done than regretted.

"I wish to goodness I'd put 'em down to old Piggot and Mother Hauseman," she thought. "They'd never miss the money, and it 'ud be a good deed for the likes of them to help their betters, and might likely profit their own souls, though unbeknown."

For many weeks Beth watched beside the sick man's bed, doing all that was possible to ease his pain day and night, snatching brief intervals of rest when she could, and concealing her weariness at all times. She used to wonder at the young man's uncomplaining fortitude, his gentleness, gratitude, and unselfish concern about her fatigue. Even when he was at his worst, he would struggle back to consciousness in order to entreat her to lie down; and when, to please him, she had settled herself on a little couch there was in his room, he would make a superhuman effort to keep still as long as his flickering consciousness lasted. There was only one thing he was ever exacting about—to keep her in sight. So long as he could see her he was satisfied, and would lie for hours, patiently controlling himself for fear of disturbing her by uttering exclamations or making other signs of suffering; but when she had to leave him alone, he broke down and moaned in his weakness and pain for her to come back and help him.

The doctor having declared that the north-east aspect of his attic was all against the patient, Beth insisted on changing with him, and, as soon as he could be moved, she, Ethel Maud Mary, and Gwendolen, with the doctor's help, carried him into her room in a sheet; an awkward manoeuvre because of his length, which made it hard to turn him on the narrow landing; his weight was nothing, for he was mere skin and bone by that time—all eyes, as Beth used to tell him.

It was Christmas Eve when they moved him, and late that night Beth kept her vigil by him, sitting over the fire with her elbows on her knees and her face between her hands, listening dreamily to the clang and clamour of the church-bells, which floated up to her over the snow, mellowed by distance and full-fraught with manifold associations. As she sat there she pondered. She thought of the long way she had drifted from the days when she knelt in spirit at the call of the bells and lost herself in happy prayer. She thought of her husband's hypocrisy, and the way in which, when it dawned upon her, her own faith had melted from her; and she pondered on the difference it would have made if only she had been married early—just to a good man. It would not have been necessary for her to have loved him—not with passion—only to have relied upon him. Some one to trust, she craved for, more than some one to love; yet she allowed that a loveless marriage is a mock marriage. She did not regret the loss of her conventional faith, but she wished she could join the congregation just for the human fellowship. She felt the need of union, of some central station, a centre of peace, unlike the church, the house of disunion. Without knowing it, she leant to Quaker-Catholicism, the name assumed for her religious principles by Caroline Fox—Quaker-Catholicism having direct spiritual teaching for its distinctive dogma.

"What are you thinking about?" Arthur Brock said suddenly from the bed.

Beth started. She thought he was asleep.

"God," she said; with a gasp, "and going to church," she added, laughing at her own abruptness. "I was wanting a church to go to."

"You don't belong to the Established Church, then," he said. "Well, I don't go to church myself; but I make a difference on Sundays. I don't work, and I read another kind of book. It is my day for the plains of heaven. I should like to be there all the time, if I could manage it; but I can't, not being a monk in a cell. When I can, I make the ascent, however, with the help of the books that take one there."

"I used to read religious books too," said Beth; "but I found little illumination in them, most of them being but the dry husks of the subject, uninformed of the spirit, containing no vital spark, and stained with blood."

"How?" he exclaimed.

"This God of the Hebrews," Beth began, looking dreamily into the fire, "what is his history? He loved cruelty and bloodshed. The innocent animals first suffered in his service; but, not content with that, he went from bad to worse, as men do, and ended by demanding human sacrifice, the sacrifice of his own son. And for that specially we are required to adore him, although it must be clear to the commonest capacity to-day that the worship of such a deity is devil-worship. I do not say there is no God; I only say this is not God—this blood-lover, this son-slayer, this blind omniscience, this impotent omnipotence, this merciful cruelty, this meek arrogance, this peaceful combatant; this is not God, but man. The mind of man wars with the works of God to mar them. Man tries to make us believe that he is made in the image of God; but what happened was just the reverse. Man was of a better nature originally, a more manifold nature. He had intellect for a toy to play with on earth, and spirit for a power to help him to heaven. But instead of toiling to strengthen his spirit, he preferred to play with his intellect; and he played until he became so expert in the use of it, and so interested in the game, that he forgot his origin. And then it was that he projected an image of himself into space, and was so delighted with his own appearance from that point of view, that he called it God and fell down and worshipped it. If you would understand man, consider God; if you would know his God, study man."

Arthur Brock reflected for a little.

"What you say sounds real smart," he said at last, "and there's a kind of glamour in your words that dazzles and prevents one seeing just how much they mean at first. It is true that religion culminates in human sacrifice both here and in Africa, and, for refinement of horror, we have here the literal bloody sacrifice of a son by his father. But that is not God, as you say; that is the ultimate of the priest. And the priest is the same at all times, in all ages, beneath all veneers of civilisation. His credit depends upon a pretence to power. He is not a humble seeker after truth, but a bigoted upholder of error and an impudent time-server. He destroys the scientific discoverer in one age; in the next he finds his own existence is threatened because he refuses to acknowledge that the discoverer was right; then he confesses the truth, and readjusts his hocus-pocus to suit it. He does not ask us to pin our faith to fancies which seem real to a child in its infancy, yet he would have us credulous about those which were the outcome of the intellectual infancy of the race. What he can't get over in himself is the absence of any sense of humour. I'm real sorry for him at times, and I tell him so."

Beth smiled. "I could not be so kindly courteous," she said. "Some things make me fierce. The kingdom of heaven is or is not within us, I believe; and half the time I know it is not in me, because there is no room for anything in me but the hate and rage that rend me for horror of all the falsehood, injustice, and misery I know of and cannot prevent. A sense of humour would save the church perhaps; but I'm too sore to see it. All I can say is: your religion to me is horrifying—human sacrifice and devil-worship, survivals from an earlier day welded on to our own time, and assorting ill with it. I would not accept salvation at the hands of such futile omnipotence, such cruel mercy, such blood-stained justice. The sight of suffering was grateful to man when the world was young, as it still is to savages; but we revolt from it now. We should not be happy in heaven, as the saved were said to be in the old tales, within sight of the sinners suffering in hell."

"Which is to say that there is more of Christ in us now than there was in the days of old," he said, speaking dispassionately, and with the confident deliberation of one who takes time to think. "I believe those old tales were founded on muddle-headed confusion of mind in the days when dreams were as real to mankind as the events of life. There are obscure tribes still on earth who cannot distinguish between what they have done and what they have only dreamt they did, and probably every race has gone through that stage of development. I don't know if excessive piety be a disease of the nerves, as some say, although what is piety in one generation does appear to be perversity in the next, as witness the sons of the clergy, and other children of pious people, who don't answer to expectation, as a rule. And I don't go much on churches or creeds, or faith in this personality or that. The old ideas have lost their hold upon me, as they have upon you; but that is no reason why we should give up the old truths that have been in the world for all time, the positive right and wrong, which are facts, not ideas. I believe that there is good and evil, that the one is at war with the other always; and that good can do no evil, evil no good. I've got beyond all the dogma and fiddle-faddle of the intellect with which the church has overlaid the spirit, and all the ceremonial so useful and necessary for individual souls in early stages of development. I used to think if I could find a religion with no blood in it, I would embrace it. Now I feel sure that it does not matter what the expression of our religious nature is so that it be religious. Religion is an attitude of mind, the attitude of prayer, which includes reverence for things holy and deep devotion to them. I would not lose that for anything—the right of appeal; but now, when I think of our Father in heaven, I do not despise our mother on earth."