Maggie had told him very little about the Chapel and its doings, and he had shrunk from asking her any questions, but everything that was odd and unusual in her behaviour he attributed to her months under that influence. As he stared at the flaunting pink sheet he felt as though it were a direct personal assault on himself and his church.

And yet he knew that he could do nothing. Once before there had been something of the kind in Skeaton and he had tried with others to stop it. He had failed utterly; the civic authorities in Skeaton seemed almost to approve of these horrors. He looked at the thing once more and then turned back towards home. Something must be done... Something must be done ... but, as on so many earlier occasions in his life, he could face no clear course of action.

That Saturday evening he tried to change his sermon. He had determined to deliver a very fine address on "Brotherly Love" and then, most fortunately, he had discovered a five-years' old sermon that would, with a little adaptation, exactly fit the situation.

To-night he was sick of his adaptation. The sermon had not been a good one at the first, and now it was a tattered thing of shreds and patches. He tried to add to it some sentences about the approaching "Revival." No sentences would come. What a horrible fortnight it had been! He looked back upon his district visiting, his meetings, his choir-practices with disgust. Something had come in between himself and his people. Perhaps the relationship had never been very real? Founded on jollity. An eagerness to accept anybody's mood for one's own if only that meant jollity. What had he thought, standing in the puddle that afternoon? That they were all dead, he and his congregation and God, all dead together? He sank into his chair, picked up the Church Times, and fell asleep.

Next morning as he walked into the choir this extraordinary impression that his congregation was dead persisted. As he recited the "Confession" he looked about him. There was Mr. Maxse, and there Miss Purves. Every one was in his and her appointed place; old Colonel Rideout with the purple gills not kneeling because of his gout; young Edward Walter, heir to the sugar factory, not kneeling because he was lazy; sporting Mr. Harper, whose golf handicap was +3, not kneeling because to do so would spoil the crease of his trousers; old Mrs. Dean with her bonnet and bugles, the worst gossip in Skeaton, her eyes raised to heaven; the Quiller girls with their hard red colour and their hard bright eyes; Mr. Fortinum, senior, with his County Council stomach and his J.P. neck; the dear old Miss Fursleis who believed in God and lived accordingly; young Captain Trent, who believed in his moustache and lived accordingly ... Oh yes, there they all were—and there, too, were Grace and Maggie kneeling side by side.

Maggie! His eyes rested upon her. Her face suddenly struck him as being of extraordinary beauty. He had never thought her beautiful before; very plain, of course. Every one knew that she was plain. But to-day her face and profile had the simplicity, the purity, the courage of a Madonna in one of the old pictures—or, rather, of one of those St. John the Baptist boys gazing up into the face of the Christ—child as it lay in its mother's arms. He finished the "Confession" hurriedly—Maggie's face faded from his view; he saw now only a garden of hats and heads, the bright varnished colour of the church around and about them all.

He gave out the psalms; there was a rustle of leaves, and soon shrill, untrained voices of the choir-boys were screaming the chant like a number of baby steam-whistles in competition.

When he climbed into the pulpit he tried again to discover Maggie's face as he had already seen it. He could not; it had been, perhaps, a trick of light and, in any case, she was hidden now behind the stout stolidity of Grace. He looked around at the other faces beneath him and saw them settle themselves into their customary expressions of torpor, vacuity and expectation. Very little expectation! They knew well enough, by this time, the kind of thing to expect from him, the turn of phrase, the rise and fall of the voice, the pause dramatic, the whisper expostulatory, the thrust imperative, the smile seductive.

He had often been told, as a curate, that he was a wonderful preacher. His round jolly face, his beaming smile, a certain dramatic gift, had helped him. "He is so human," he had heard people say. For many years he had lived on that phrase. For the first time in his life, this morning he distrusted his gift. He was out of touch with them all—because they were dead, killed by forms and repetitions and monotony. "We're all dead, you know, and I'm dead too. Let's close the doors and seal this church up. Our day is over." He said of course nothing of the kind. His sermon was stupid, halting and ineffective.

"Naturally," as Colonel Rideout said over his port at lunch, "when a feller's wife's uncle has just hung himself in public, so to speak, it does take the wind out of you. He usen't to preach badly once. Got stale. They all do."

As Paul dismissed the congregation with the Blessing he felt that everything was over. He was more completely miserable than he had ever been. He had in fact never before been really miserable except when he had the toothache. And now, also, the custom of years made it impossible for him to be miserable for long. He had had no real talk with Maggie since the inquest. Maggie came into his study that afternoon. Their conversation was very quiet and undemonstrative; it happened to be one of the most important conversations in both their lives, and, often afterwards, Paul looked back to it, trying to retrace in it the sentences and movements with which it had been built up. He could never recover anything very much. He could see Maggie sitting in a way that she had on the edge of her chair, looking at him and looking also far beyond him. He knew afterwards that this was the last moment in his life that he had any contact with her. Like a witch, like a ghost, she had come into his life; like a witch, like a ghost, she went out of it, leaving him, for the remainder of his days, a haunted man.

As he looked at her he realised that she had aged in this last fortnight. Yes, that horrible affair had taken it out of her. She seemed to have recovered self-control at some strange and unnatural cost—as though she had taken some potion or drug.

She began by asking Grace's question:

"Paul, what are we going to do?"

But she did not irritate him as Grace had done. His one idea was to help her; unfortunately he had himself thought out nothing clearly.

"Well, Maggie," he answered, smiling, "I thought you might help me about that. I want your advice. I thought—well, as a matter of fact I hadn't settled anything—but I thought that I might get a locum for a month or two and we might go abroad for a trip perhaps. To Paris, or Venice, or somewhere."

"And then come back?" she asked.

"For a time—yes—certainly," he answered.

"I don't think I can ever come back to Skeaton," she said in a whisper, as though speaking to herself. He could see that she was controlling herself and steadying her voice with the greatest difficulty. "Of course I must come, Paul, if you want me to. It's been all my fault from the very beginning——"

"Oh no," he broke in, "it hasn't."

"Yes, it has. I've just spoilt your life and Grace's. You were both very happy until I came. I had no right to marry you when I didn't love you. I didn't know then all I know now. But that's no excuse. I should have known. I was younger than most girls are, though."

Paul said:

"But Maggie, you're not to blame yourself at all. I think if we were somewhere else than Skeaton it would be easier. And now after what has happened—"

Maggie broke in: "You couldn't leave Skeaton, Paul. You know you couldn't. It would just break your heart. All the work of your life has been here—everything you've ever done. And Grace too."

"No, no, you're wrong," said Paul vigorously. "A change is probably what I need. I've been too long in the same place. Time goes so fast that one doesn't realise. And for Grace, too, I expect a change will be better."

"And do you think," said Maggie, "that Grace will ever live with me now in the same house when she knows that I've driven you from Skeaton? Grace is quite right. She's just to feel as she does about me."

"Then Grace must go," said Paul firmly, looking at Maggie and feeling that the one thing that he needed was that she should be in his arms and he kissing her. "Maggie, if we go away, you and I, right away from all of this, perhaps then you can—you will—" he stopped.

She shook her head. "Never, Paul. Never. Do you know what I've seen this last week? That I've left all those who really wanted me. My aunts, very much they needed me, and I was selfish and wouldn't give them what they wanted, and tried to escape from them. You and Grace don't need me. Nobody wants anything here in Skeaton. You're all full. It isn't my fault, Paul, but everything seems to me dead here. They don't mean anything they say in Church, and the Church doesn't mean anything either. The Chapel was wrong in London too, but it was more right than the Church here is. I don't know what religion is or where it is: I don't know anything now except that one ought to be with the people who want one and not with the people who don't. Aunt wanted me and I failed her. Uncle wanted me and I—I—I—"

She broke down, crying, her head in her arms. He went over to her and put his arms around her. At his touch she shrank a little, and when he felt that he went away from her and stood, silently, not knowing what to do.

"Maggie, don't—don't, Maggie. I can't bear to hear you cry."

"I've done all wrong—I've done all wrong," she answered him. "I've been wrong always."

His helplessness was intolerable. He knew that she would not allow him to touch her. He went out closing the door softly behind him.



CHAPTER X

THE REVIVAL

Maggie cried for a little while, then, slowly recovering, realised that she was alone in the room. She raised her head and listened; then she dried her eyes and stood up, wondering what she should do next.

During the last week she had spent all her energy on one thing alone—to keep back from her the picture of Uncle Mathew's death. That at all costs she must not see. There it was, just behind her, hovering with all its detail, at her elbow. All day and most of the night she was conscious of it there, but she would not turn and look. Uncle Mathew was dead—that was all that she must know. Aunt Anne was dead too. Martin had written to her, and then, because she had not answered, had abandoned her. Paul and Grace were to be driven out of Skeaton because of her. Grace hated her; Paul would never love her unless she in return would love him—and that she would never do because she loved Martin. She was alone then.

She had made every one unhappy—Aunt Anne, Uncle Mathew, Paul, Grace; the best thing that she could do now was to go away and hide herself somewhere.

That, at least, she saw very clearly and she clung to it. If she went away Paul and Grace need not leave Skeaton; soon they would forget her and be happy once more as they had been before she came. But where should she go? All her life she had depended upon her own self-reliance, but now that had left her. She felt as though she could not move unless there was some one somewhere who cared for her. But there was no one. Katherine Mark. No, she certainly could never go there again. Behind all this was the constant preoccupation that she must not look, for an instant, at Uncle Mathew's death. If she did everything would break ... She must not. She must not. She must not.

She went up to her bedroom, took from their box Martin's letters and the ring with the three pearls, and the tattered programme. She sat on her bed and turned them over and over. She was bewildered and scarcely knew where she was. She repeated again and again: "I must go away at once ... I must go away at once."

Then as though moved by some compelling force that she did not recognise she fell on her knees beside the bed, crying: "Martin, Martin, I want you. I don't know where you are but I must find you. Martin, tell me where you are. I'll go to you anywhere. Martin, where are you? Where are you?"

It may not have been a vocal cry; perhaps she made no sound, but she waited, there on her knees, hearing very clearly the bells ringing for evening service and seeing the evening sun steal across her carpet and touch gently, the pictures on the wall. Gradually as she knelt there, calm and reassurance came back to her. She felt as though he, somewhere lost in the world, had heard her. She laid her cheek upon the quilt of the bed and, for the first time since Uncle Mathew's death, her thoughts worked in connected order, her courage returned to her, and she saw the room and the sun and the trees beyond the window as real objects, without the mist of terror and despair that had hitherto surrounded her.

She rose from her knees as though she were withdrawing from a horrible nightmare. She could remember nothing of the events of the last week save her talk with Paul that afternoon. She could recall nothing of the inquest, nor whether she had been to Church, nor any scene with Grace.

"So long as I'm alive and Martin's alive it's all right," she thought. She knew that he was alive. She would find him. She put away the things into the box again; she had not yet thought what she would do, but, in some way, she had received during those few minutes in her room a reassurance that she was not alone.

She went out into the spring dusk. She chose the road towards Barnham Wood because it was lonely there and the hedges were thin; you could feel the breath of the sea as it blew across the sparse fields. The hush of an English Sunday evening enfolded the road, the wood, the fields. The sun was very low and the saffron light penetrated the dark lines of the hedges and hung like a curtain of misty gold before the approaches to the wood. The red-brown fields rolled to the horizon and lay, like a carpet, at the foot of the town huddled against the pale sky.

She was near the wood, and could see the little dark twisted cone-strewn paths that led into the purple depths, when a woman came out of it towards her. She saw that it was Miss Toms. It seemed quite natural to see her there because it was on this same road that she had first met the lady and her brother. Miss Toms also did not seem at all surprised. She shook Maggie warmly by the hand.

"You said that I wouldn't come often to see you," said Maggie.

"And it's been true. Things have been more difficult for me than I knew at the time."

"That's all right," said Miss Toms.

"But I ought to tell you," said Maggie, "that although I haven't been to see you, I've felt as though you and your brother were my friends, more than any one in this place. And that's been a great help to me."

They started to walk down the road together.

"You've been in trouble," said Miss Toms. "Of course I've heard about it. I would have liked to come and see you but I didn't know how your sister-in-law would like it."

She put her arm through Maggie's.

"My dear," she said, "don't be discouraged. Because Skeaton is dead it doesn't mean that all the world is. And remember this. The world's view of any one is never the right one. I know that the world thinks my brother's mad, but I know that he's a lot saner than most people. The world thinks your uncle was a rascal, but if you can remember one good thing he did you know he wasn't, and I'm sure you can remember many good things."

"It isn't that," said Maggie. "It is that I seem to have done everything wrong and made every one I had to do with unhappy."

"Nonsense," said Miss Toms. "I'm sure if they've been unhappy it's their own fault. Isn't the evening air lovely? At times like these I wonder that Skeaton can dare to exist. You'll come and see us one day, won't you?"

"I think—I don't know," said Maggie; "I may be going away."

Miss Toms gave her a penetrating look.

"I daresay you're right. Skeaton's not the place for you. I saw that the first time we met. Well, whatever you do, don't lose your pluck. You're yourself, you know, and you're as good as anybody else. Don't you forget that. Because a lot of people say a thing it doesn't mean it's true, and because a set of idiots think a thing shocking it doesn't mean that it's shocking. Think how wrong people have always been about everything!"

They turned down a side lane and arrived in the High Street. The street was very empty. In the fading light a large pink poster attracted Maggie's attention. She went close to it and read the announcement of the Revival services.

When she read the names of Thurston and Mr. Crashaw and Miss Avies it seemed to her incredible, and then at the same time as something that she had always expected.

"Oh," she cried, "it's coming here!" She was strangely startled as though the sign of Thurston's name was strange forewarning.

"What's coming?" asked Miss Toms.

She read the notice.

"I don't know what you think," said Miss Toms, "but that kind of thing's humbug if you ask me."

"Oh!" Maggie cried. "It's so strange. I knew those people in London. I used to go to their services. And now they're coming here!"

She could not explain to Miss Toms the mysterious assurance that she had of the way that her former world was drawing near to her again. She could see now that never for a moment since her arrival in Skeaton had it let her alone, slowly invading her, bit by bit driving in upon her, forcing her to retire ...

It was quite dark now. Because it was Sunday evening the shops were closed. Only behind some of the curtained windows dim lights burned. Very clearly the sea could be heard breaking upon the shore. The last note of the bell from the Methodist Chapel echoed across the roofs and stones.

"Good-night," said Miss Toms.

"Good-night," said Maggie.

She turned back towards home hearing, as she went, Thurston's voice, seeing beyond all the thick shadow of Martin's body, keeping pace with her, as it seemed, step by step with her as she went.

She turned into the Rectory drive. She heard with a startled shiver the long gate swing screaming behind her, she could smell very faintly the leaves of the damp cold laurel bushes that pressed close in upon her. It was as though some one were walking with her and whispering in her ear: "They're coming! They're coming! They've got you! They've got you!"

She opened the hall door; the hall was all dark; some one was there. Maggie gave a little cry. A match was struck and revealed the white face of Grace. The two women stared at one another.

Grace had returned from Church; she was wearing her ugly black hat with the red velvet.

"It's all right," said Maggie, "I've been for a walk."

"Oh—I didn't know," gasped Grace, still staring. "I thought—yes, of course. Fancy, you've been for a walk!"

Still staring as though she could keep Maggie at bay only by the power of her vision she backed on to Paul's study door, turned the handle, and disappeared. The hall was in darkness again. Maggie stumbled her way towards the staircase, then, seeing Grace's terrified eyes, filled with a horror that she, Maggie Cardinal, should cause any one to look at her like that, she ran clumsily upstairs, shutting herself into her bedroom.

During the next fortnight the dominant element in the situation was Grace's terror. Skeaton was already beginning to forget the story of the suicide. Maggie was marked for ever now as "queer and strange," but Paul was not blamed; he was rather, pitied and even liked the more. But Grace could not forget. Maggie intended perhaps to murder her in revenge for her uncle's death; well, then, she must be murdered ... She would not leave her brother. She could not consider the future. She knew that she could not live in the same house with Maggie for long, but she would not go and Maggie would not go ... What was to happen?

Poor Grace, the tortures that she suffered during those weeks will not be understood by persons with self-confidence and a hearty contempt for superstition.

She paid the penalty now for the ghosts of her childhood—and no one could help her.

Maggie saw that Paul was, with every day, increasingly unhappy. He had never been trained to conceal his feelings, and although he tried now he succeeded very badly. He would come into her room in the early morning hours and lie down beside her. He would put his arms around her and kiss her, and, desperately, as though he were doing it for a wager, make love to her. She felt, desperate also on her side, that she could comfort and make him happy, if only he would want something less from her than passion. But always after an hour or a little more, he crept away again to his own room, disappointed, angered, frustrated. These hours were the stranger because, during the day, he showed her nothing of this mood, but was kindly and friendly and distant.

She would have done anything for him; she tried sometimes to be affectionate to him, but always, at once, he turned upon her with a hungry, impassioned look ...

She knew, without any kind of doubt, that the only way that she could make him happy again was to leave him. His was not a nature to brood, for the rest of his days, on something that he had lost.

Only once did he make any allusion to the coming Revival services. He burst out one day, at luncheon: "The most scandalous thing!" he said. "We had them here once, years ago, and the harm they did no one would believe. I've been to Tamar about it; he can do nothing, unless they disturb the public peace, of course. He had the impertinence to tell me that they behaved very well last time they were here!"

"I don't like that man," said Grace. "I don't believe he makes his money properly. Look at the clothes Mrs. Tamar wears! What I mean is, I don't like his wife at all."

"It's very hard," said Paul, his voice trembling with indignation, "that when men and women have been working for years to bring Christ into the hearts of mankind that mountebanks and hypocrites should be allowed to undo the work in the space of a night. I know this man Thurston. They've had letters in the Church Times about him." "Fancy!" said Grace, "and still he dares show his face."

"But do they really do so much harm?" asked Maggie. "I should have thought if they only came once for a week in ten years they couldn't make any real effect on anybody—"

"Maggie, dear," said Paul gently, "you don't understand."

As the day of the Revival approached, Maggie knew that she would go to one of the services. She was now in a strange state of excitement. The shock of her uncle's death had undoubtedly shaken her whole balance, moral, physical, and mental. The fortnight that had followed it, when she had clung like a man falling from a height and held by a rocky ledge to the one determination not to look either behind or in front of her, had been a strain beyond her strength.

She did not know; she did not feel any weakness; she felt rather a curious atmosphere of light and expectation as though that cry to Martin in her bedroom had truly been answered. And she felt more than this. Old Magnus had once said to her: "I don't know what religion is except that it is a fight—and some people join in because they want to, some are forced to join in whether they want to or no, some just leave it alone, and some (most) don't know there's one going on at all. But if you don't join in you seem to me to have wasted your time."

She had not understood in the least what he meant; she did not understand now; but, thinking of his words, it did seem to her that she was sharing in some conflict. The vast armies hidden from her by mist, the contested ground also hidden, but the clash of arms clearly to be heard. Her own part of a struggle seemed to be round her love for Martin; it was as though, if she could get some realisation of that, she would have won her way to a vantage-point whence she could visualise the next place. She did not think this out. She only felt in her heart a little less lonely, a little less wicked and selfish, a little less deserted, as though she were drawing nearer to some hidden fire and could feel the first warm shadow of the flames.

She made one more appeal to Grace on the very morning of the first day of the Revival.

After breakfast Maggie came into the drawing-room and found Grace sitting there sewing.

She stood, timidly, in her old attitude, her hands clasped in front of her, like a child saying her lesson.

"I beg your pardon, Grace."

Grace looked up. She had of course been conscious of Maggie ever since her entrance into the room. Her hands had trembled and her heart leapt furiously.

"Why, Maggie—" she said.

"I'm afraid I'm disturbing you," said Maggie, "but we haven't really said anything to one another for the last fortnight. I don't suppose that you want me to say anything now, but things get worse and worse if no one says anything, don't they?" Now that she had begun she went on quickly: "I wanted to say, Grace, how sorry I am for the trouble and unhappiness that you and Paul have had during the last fortnight through me. I've been nothing but a trouble to you since I first came here, but it wasn't that that I wanted to say. I couldn't bear that you should think that I was just selfishly full of my own affairs and didn't understand how you and Paul must feel about—about my uncle. Not that I mean," she went on rather fiercely, raising her head, "that he was to blame. No one ever understood him. He could have done great things if—if—some one had looked after him a little. But he hadn't any one. That was my fault. I didn't want you and Paul to think I don't blame myself. I do all the time. I can't promise to be better in the future because I've promised so often and I never am. But I am sorry."

Grace said nothing for a moment. Her hands trembled more than ever. Then, without looking up, she murmured as though to her sewing:

"Oh no. Maggie ... no one blames you, I'm sure."

There was another pause, then Grace said:

"I think I'm not well. No, I can't be well because I'm not sleeping, although I've taken aspirin more, I'm sure, than I ought to. What I mean is that they say it's bad for your heart. Of course things have been very unfortunate, from the beginning one might say, but I'm sure it's not been any one's fault exactly. What I mean is that these things never are ... No, they aren't really. I expect we all want a change."

"What are you frightened of me for, Grace," asked Maggie.

Grace started as though Maggie had indeed dropped a bomb at her feet. She looked up at Maggie, wildly, her eyes staring about the room as though she were looking for some exit of escape.

"Frightened?" she repeated.

"Yes, you are," said Maggie. "That's what worries me most. No one's ever been frightened of me before—at least I don't think any one has." Maggie laughed. "Why, Grace, it seems so funny any one being frightened of me. I couldn't hurt any one if I wanted to, and I'm sure I never want to unless it's Mrs. Maxse. Be angry with me as much as you like, Grace, but don't be frightened of me. Why, that's ridiculous!"

It was the worst word to have chosen. Grace flushed a dull unwholesome purple.

"I'm sorry you think me ridiculous, Maggie," she said. "Perhaps I am. I'm sure I don't know. Yes, perhaps I am. What I mean is that what's ridiculous to one is not ridiculous to another. You're a strange girl, Maggie, and you and I will never get on. No, never. But all I ask is that you should make Paul happy. That is enough for me. I care for nothing else. He isn't very happy just now. What I mean is that any one can see he isn't eating his meals properly."

"Oh, Grace," cried Maggie. "I didn't mean that you were ridiculous. I meant that any one being frightened of me was ridiculous. Anyway, I'm very sorry that I've made you and Paul unhappy. That's all."

She turned and went.

It was the most lovely of April days, soft, primrose-coloured, the sea-breeze gently tempered by mist-veiled sun. Maggie sat at her bedroom window overlooking the drive and the blue-grey field that ran to the woods. She knew that there would be no difficulty about her escape to the Revival meeting. Paul had arranged that there should be an evening service at the Church at the same hour, an act of rather Un-Christian defiance. Maggie sat there, looking down in a condition of strange bewildering excitement on to the laurel bushes. It was wonderful to think that in another half-hour she would see Miss Avies once more, hear those wild hymns again, catch the stridency of Thurston's voice; all these things spoke of Martin. She felt as though he were stealing towards her out of the dusk, it was as though, without any reason, she expected to find him at the service ... although she knew that he could not be there.

She heard the Church bell begin to ring, then the hall-door opened and Paul came out. He had on his soft black hat, he was carrying his Bible and prayer-book under his arm. He stood, for a moment, beside the hall-door as though he were listening or expecting something. She had a strange impulse to run down to him; so strong was it that she got up and moved to the door. Then slowly she came back to the window and stood looking down upon him. Suddenly, as though he felt her gaze, he glanced up, saw her, and waved to her. She waved back to him. He turned and walked quickly away, she heard the gate swing, screaming behind him.

She waited for a little, then put on her hat and coat and went out. She knew the Flower Street Hall, a place occasionally used by touring Companies, Wandering Lecturers, Charitable Concerts, and other casual festivals. It was at the far end of the town towards the end of the Promenade.

The town, dim in the first dusk, hummed with loiterers, girls released from the shops walking with their young men, middle-aged couples sauntering out to take a last whiff of the sea before going in to the evening meal, one or two visitors from the Hotel strolling across to the beach to watch the first evening stars and the rising moon. Pianos were playing, children shouting over the last game of the day; all hushed into a coloured mild tranquillity. In the fields beyond the houses the quiet was absolute.

Maggie found the building. The facade was blazing with electric light. A huge poster, of the now familiar pink, declared:

GRAND RELIGIOUS FESTIVAL. All are invited. IS ALL WELL WITH YOU, BROTHER?

There was a crowd about the doors, and continually, with giggles and shamefaced laughter, couples broke away and climbed the steps into the Hall. Maggie, feeling that all eyes were upon her, entered the building. In the vestibule two grave-faced women in black bonnets handed papers with prayers and hymns to every newcomer. Maggie took hers, a door was opened in front of her, and she went in. The auditorium was a large one, semicircular in shape, with tiers of seats rising circus-fashion to a ceiling decorated with silver stars and pink naked cherubs. The stage had upon it a table, some chairs, and a reading-desk draped in crimson cloth. Below the stage was a small orchestra, consisting of two fiddles, a cornet, drum, and a piano. There was also what seemed to Maggie a small choir, some women dressed in white and some men in black coats and white bow ties. Across the stage were suspended broad white bands of cloth with "Come to Jesus!" "Come now!" "He is waiting for you!" in big black letters.

The hall seemed very full, and was violently illuminated with electric light. Maggie took this in as she stood very timidly just inside the door. A steward came forward and showed her a corner-seat. She saw, then, with a dramatic flash of recognition, Thurston and Mr. Crashaw sitting behind the table; then, with a still stranger emotion, Miss Avies as one of the white-robed choir. The sight of those three familiar faces seemed to close, finally and definitely, the impression that she had had during all those last weeks. They had "got" her again, and yet not they, but the power behind them. It seemed only five minutes ago that she had sat in the London Chapel and heard old Crashaw scream "Punishment! Punishment! Punishment!" She turned half in her seat as though she expected to see Aunt Anne and Aunt Elizabeth sitting one on either side of her. She looked at Thurston; he had coarsened very much since she had seen him last. He was fatter, his cheeks stained with an unnaturally high colour, his eyes brighter and sharper and yet sensual too. He was smarter than he had been, his white bow tie stiff and shapely, his cuffs clean and shining, his hair very carefully brushed back from his high and bony forehead. His sharp eyes darted all over the building, and Maggie felt as though at any moment she would be discovered. Crashaw looked more like a decrepit monkey than ever, huddled up in his chair, his back bow-shaped. He breathed into his hands as though he wanted to warm them, and looked at nobody. Miss Avies Maggie could not see clearly.

Her eyes wandered over the audience. She saw many townspeople whom she knew, and she realised, for the first time, that tomorrow everywhere it would be said that the Rector's wife had been at the Revival meeting.

And how different an audience from the old London one. Every one had come on this occasion to see a show, and it was certainly a show that they were going to see. Maggie had entered during a pause, and all the faces that were there wore that look of expectation that demands the rising of the curtain. Soon, Maggie felt, they would stamp and whistle did the play not begin.

Thurston rose and announced:

"My brothers, we will sing hymn No. 14 on the paper."

Maggie looked and discovered that it was the hymn that had once moved her so dramatically in London with the words

By all Thy sores and bloody pain Come down and heal our sins again.

and with the last refrain:

By the blood, by the blood, by the blood of the Lamb We beseech Thee.

Already, in spite of herself, in spite of her consciousness of the melodrama and meretricious glitter of the scene, her heart was beating. She was more deeply moved, even now, than she had ever been by all the services of the Skeaton Church.

And Thurston had learnt his job by this time. Softly one of the violins played the tune. Then Thurston said:

"The first verse of this hymn will be sung by the choir alone. The congregation is asked to stand and then to join in the second verse. The fourth verse will be sung by the soloist."

The audience rose. There was a hush of expectation throughout the building. The choir, to the accompaniment of the fiddlers alone, sang the first verse. They had been well selected and trained. Thurston obviously spared no expense. For the second verse, the whole orchestra combined, the drum booming through the refrain. At first the congregation was timid, but the tune was simple and attractive. The third verse was sung by every one, and Maggie found herself, almost against her will, joining in. At the fourth verse there was again the hush of expectation, then a soprano, thin and clear, accompanied again by one violin, broke the silence.

There was no doubt that this was very moving. Men and women sat down at the hymn's close quite visibly affected.

Thurston got up then and read a lesson from the Bible. He read from the Revelations:

"After this I looked, and, behold, a door was opened in heaven: and the first voice which I heard was as it were of a trumpet talking with me; which said, Come up hither, and I will show thee things which must be hereafter."

"And immediately I was in the Spirit: and, behold, a throne was set in heaven, and one sat on the throne."

"And he that sat was to look upon like a jasper and a sardine stone: and there was a rainbow round about the throne, in sight like unto an emerald. And round about the throne were four and twenty seats: and upon the seats I saw four and twenty elders sitting, clothed in white raiment; and they had on their heads crowns of gold."

Thurston had worked hard during these last years, he had immensely improved his accent, and his h's were all in their right places. He read very dramatically, dropping his voice to a whisper, then pausing and staring in front of him as though he saw God only a few yards away. The people of Skeaton had had few opportunities of any first-class dramatic entertainment. When Thurston finished there passed through the building a wave of excitement, a stir, a faint murmur. An old woman next to Maggie wiped her eyes. "Lovely!" Maggie heard her whisper. "Lovely!"

They sang, then, another hymn, accompanied by the orchestra. This was a dramatic hymn with a fiery martial tune:

The Lord of War He cometh down With Sword and Shield and Armour Bright, His armies all behind him Frown, Who can withstand His Light?

Chorus. Trumpets Blare, The drum-taps Roll, Prepare to meet Thy God, Oh Soul! Prepare! Prepare! Prepare to meet Thy God, oh Soul!

Never before had the men and women of Skeaton heard such hymns. The Revival of ten years ago, lacking the vibrant spirit of Mr. John Thurston, had been a very different affair. This was something quite new in all Skeaton experience. Red-hot expectation flamed now in every eye. Maggie could feel that the old woman next to her was trembling all over.

Thurston announced:

"Brother Crashaw will now deliver an address."

Brother Crashaw, his head still lowered, very slowly got up from his seat. He moved as though it were only with the utmost difficulty and power of self-will that his reluctant body could be compelled into action. He crept rather than walked from his chair to the reading-desk, then very very painfully climbed on to the high platform. Maggie, watching him, remembered that earlier time when he had climbed into just such another desk. She remembered also that day at her aunts' house when he had flirted with Caroline and shown himself quite another Brother Crashaw. He had aged greatly since then. He seemed now to be scarcely a man at all. Then suddenly, with a jerk, as though a string had been pulled from behind, he raised his face and looked at them all. Yes, that was alive. Monkey's mask you might call it, but the eyes behind the yellow lids flamed and blazed. No exaggeration those words. A veritable fire burned there, a fire, it might be, of mere physical irritation and savage exasperation at the too-rapid crumbling of the wilfully disobedient body, a glory, perhaps, of obstinate pride and conceit, a fire of superstition and crass ignorance, but a fire to be doubted of no man who looked upon it.

When he spoke his voice was harsher, angrier, more insulting than it had been before. He spoke, too, in a hurry, tumbling his words one upon another as though he were afraid that he had little mortal time left to him and must make the most of what he had got.

From the first he was angry, rating the men of Skeaton as they had never been rated before. And they liked it. They even revelled in it; it did them no harm and at the same time tickled their skins. Sometimes a preacher at the Methodist Chapel had rated them, but how mild and halting a scolding compared with the fury of this little man. As he continued they settled into their seats with the conviction that this was the best free show that they had ever enjoyed in all their lives. They had been afraid at first that it would not keep up its interest. They had agreed with one another that they would go in "just for a quarter of an hour to see what it was like." Now they were willing that it should continue all night.

"What came ye out for to see?" he screamed at them. "Came out to see? Ye didn't come out at all. None of you. That's what I've come to tell you. For years you've been leading your lazy, idle, self-indulgent lives, eating and drinking, sleeping, fornicating, lying with your neighbours' wives, buying and selling, living like hogs and swine. And is it for want of your being told? Not a bit of it. You are warned again and again and again. Every day gives you signs and wonders had you got eyes to see them and you will not see. Well, be it on your own heads. Why should I care for your miserable, shrivelled-up, parched little souls? Why should I care when I watch you all, with your hanging stomachs and your double chins, marching straight into such a hell as you've never conceived of. I know what's coming to you. I know what's in store for those well-filled stomachs of yours. I can see you writhing and screaming and wailing, 'Why didn't somebody tell us? Why didn't somebody tell us?' Somebody has told you. Somebody's telling you now. And will you listen? Not a bit of it. You'll have heard the music to-night, the drums and the trumpets, you'll have joined in the singing, and to-night you'll go back and tell your friends: 'Yes, we had a fine evening. You ought to go. It's worth while and costs you nothing.' And to-morrow you will have forgotten everything. But I tell you that every man, woman, and child in this building stands in as desperate peril as though his house was on fire over his head and there was no way out."

He stopped for a moment to get breath, leaning forward over the desk and panting. Over the building there was a great silence. Maggie was stirred beyond any earlier experience. She did not know whether he were charlatan or no. She did not care. She had lived for more than two years in Skeaton, where everything and every one was dead. Now here was life. The evidence of it reassured her, whispering to her that Martin still lived, that he could be found, even that he was coming to her. Her nervous excitement increased. The emotion of the people around her, the bands, the singing, all seemed to cry to her, "He is coming! He is coming! He is coming!" ... but it was Martin now and not God.

Old Crashaw, having recovered his breath, went on: he continued for some time to abuse them all, screaming and beating the wooden desk with his fists—then suddenly he changed, his voice softened, his eyes were milder, there was something wistful and pathetic in his old ugly yellow face.

"I know that you came in here to-night, all of you, just as you might into a picture-house or a theatre. Entrance free. Well, then, why not? Had we charged half-a-crown there wouldn't have been one of you. Half-a-crown and the most important thing in life. I say the most important—I say the only important thing in life. A man's soul, its history and growth. What do you know of the soul, you ask me? How do you know there is one? Well, I can only tell you my news. If a man comes into your town and tells you that there is an army marching down upon it to destroy it he may be true or he may not. If he is true then, when you don't listen to him you are doomed. If you do listen the preparation to meet that army will at any rate do you no harm even though the army doesn't exist."

"I tell you that the Soul exists, that God exists, and that one day God and the Soul will meet. You say that hasn't been proved, and until it is proved you will spend your time over other things that you know to be true. Try it at least, give it a chance. Why not? You give other things a chance, marriage, doctors, trades, amusements. Why not the Soul? Don't listen to any one else's definition of religion. Don't believe in it. Make your own. Find out for yourself. My children, I am an old man, I am shortly to die. If I have scolded forgive me. Let me leave with you my blessing, and my earnest prayer that you will not pass by God on the other side. The day will come when you cannot pass Him by. Meet Him first of your own accord and then when that other day comes He will know you as a friend ..."

The old man's voice faltered, failed, stopped. He himself seemed to be deeply affected. Was it acting? Maggie could not tell. At any rate he was old and ill and very shortly to die ...

The woman next her was crying rubbing the knuckles of her shabby old gloves in her eyes, the bugles on her bonnet shaking like live things.

She snuffled through her nose to Maggie "Beautiful—beautiful—I 'aven't 'eard such preaching since I don't know when."

Thurston again rose.

"A solo will now be sung," he said. "After the singing of the solo there will be a prayer offered, then a procession, headed by the choir, will be formed to march, with lanterns, through the town, as a witness to the glory of God. It is hoped that those of the congregation who have received comfort and help during this service will join in the procession. There will be a collection for the expenses of the Mission at the door."

Maggie watching him wondered. Of what was he thinking? Was there any truth in him? Had he, perhaps, behind the sham display and advertisement that he had been building felt something stirring? Was he conscious, against his own will, of his falsehood? Had he, while building only his own success, made a discovery? She looked at him. The dramatic mask hid him from her. She could not, tell what he was.

The soprano, who had sung a verse of the hymn earlier in the evening, now undertook "Hear my Prayer." Very beautifully she sang it.

"Hear my prayer, Oh, God, incline Thine ear, Thyself from my distresses do not hide ..."

The voice rose, soaring through the building to meet the silver stars and the naked cherubs on the ceiling. "The enemy shouteth ... The enemy shouteth ..."

Skeaton sat enraptured. Women let the tears stream down their faces, men blew their noses.

Once again the voice arose.

"Hear my prayer, Oh, God, incline Thine ear ..."

It was Maggie's voice, Maggie's cry. From the very heart of the charlatanism she cried out, appealing to a God who might exist or no, she could not tell, but who seemed now to be leading her by the hand. She saw Aunt Anne at St. Dreot's whispering "The Lord is my Shepherd. He shall lead me ..."

In a dream she shared in the rest of the ceremony. In a dream she passed with the others out of the building. The sea air blew about her; down the promenade she could see the people, she could see the silver stars in the sky, the faint orange light of the lanterns, the dim stretch of the sand, and then the grey sea. She heard the splash and withdrawal of the tide, the murmur of many voices, the singing of the distant hymn, the blare of the trumpet.

Strange and mysterious, the wind blowing through it all like a promise of beauty and splendour to come ...

She turned in the starlit dark, separated herself from the crowd, and hurried home.

In the hall on the table under the lamp she saw a letter. She saw that it was addressed to her and that the writing was Amy Warlock's. Before she picked it up she stood there listening. The house was very still. Grace and Paul had probably begun supper. She picked up the letter and went up to her bedroom.

As though she were scanning something that she had already seen, she read:

I made you a promise and I will now fulfil it.

My brother, Martin, arrived in London three days ago. He is staying at No. 13A Lynton Street, King's Cross.

I have seen him but he has told me that he does not wish to see me again. He is very ill; his heart is bad and his lungs are affected. He has also spent all his money. I mentioned your name but he did not seem to be at all interested. I think it fair to tell you this lest you should have a fruitless journey. I have now kept my promise to you, unwisely perhaps. AMY WARLOCK.

Maggie sat down on the bed and considered. There was a train at 10.30 reaching London about midnight. She could just catch it if she were quick. She found a pencil and a piece of paper and wrote:

DEAR PAUL—I have to go to London suddenly on very urgent business. I will write to you from there. Good-bye. MAGGIE.

She propped this up against the looking-glass. She put a few things, including the box with Martin's letters and the ring into a little bag, put on her hat and coat and went downstairs. She waited for a moment in the hall but there was no sound anywhere. She went out down the dark drive.

As she passed along the lonely road she heard the gate, screaming faintly, behind her.



PART IV

THE JOURNEY HOME AGAIN

CHAPTER I

THE DARK ROOM

It was after midnight when Maggie was turned out on to the long grim platform of the London station. On that other London arrival of hers the terminus had been a boiling cauldron of roar and rattle. Now everything was dead and asleep. No trains moved; they slept, ancient monsters, chained down with dirt and fog. Two or three porters crept slothfully as though hypnotised. The face of the great clock, golden in the dusk, dominated, like a heathen god, the scene. Maggie asked a porter the way to the Station Hotel. He showed her; she climbed stairs, pushed back swing doors, trod oil-clothed passages, and arrived at a tired young woman who told her that she could have a room.

Arrived there, herself somnambulistic, she flung off her clothes, crept into bed, and was instantly asleep.

Next morning she kept to her room; she went down the long dusty stairs before one o'clock because she was hungry, and she discovered the restaurant and had a meal there; but all the time she was expecting Martin to appear. Every step seemed to be his, every voice to have an echo of his tones. Then in the dusky afternoon she decided that she would be cowardly no longer. She started off on her search for No. 13A Lynton Street, King's Cross.

She searched through a strange blue opaque light which always afterwards she recollected as accompanying her with mystery, as though it followed her about deliberately veiling her from the rest of the world. She felt different from them all; she found an omnibus that was going to King's Cross, but when she was inside it and looked at the people around her she felt of them all that they had no reality beside the intensity of her own search. She, hot like a fiery coal, existed in a land of filmy ghosts. She repeated to herself over and over, "No. 13A Lynton Street, King's Cross."

She got out opposite the huge station and looked about her. She saw a policeman and went across to him.

"Can you tell me where Lynton Street is, please?" she asked him.

He smiled. "Yes, miss. Down on your right, then first to your right again."

She thanked him and wanted for a silly moment to remain with him. She wanted to stand there where she was, on the island, she couldn't go back, she was afraid to go forward. Then the moment left her and she moved on. When she saw Lynton Street written up her heart gave a strange little whirr and then tightened within herself, but she marched on and found 13A. A dirty house, pots with ferns in the two grimy windows, and the walls streaky with white stains against the grey. The door was ajar and, pushing it a little, she saw a servant-girl on her knees scrubbing the floor. At the noise of her step the girl looked up.

"Is Mr. Warlock here?" Maggie asked, but the words were choked in her throat.

"Wot d'ye sye?" the girl asked.

Maggie repeated her question.

"Yes—'e's upstairs. Always is. Fust floor, second door on yer left."

Maggie went up. She found the door. She knocked. There was no answer. She pushed the door, peered through and looked in. She saw a room with a dirty grimy window, a broken faded red sofa, a deal table. No one there.

She entered and stood listening. A door beyond her opened and a man came in. She knew at once that it was Martin. Her thoughts followed one another in strange flurried inconsequence. Yes, it was Martin. He was fatter than he had been—fat and ill. Very ill. His face was pale, his hair, thinner than before, unbrushed. He was wearing an old dirty blue suit with a coat that buttoned over the waistcoat like a seaman's jacket. Yes, he was ill and fat and unkempt, but it was Martin. At that reiterated assurance in the depths of her soul she seemed to sink into a marvellous certain tranquillity—so certain that she shed, as it were with a gesture, all the unhappiness and doubt and desolation with which the last years had burdened her.

She had "touched" Martin again, and with that "touch" she was safe. It did not matter how he treated her nor whether he wanted her. She was sane and happy and whole again as she had not been since he left her.

Meanwhile he looked at her across the dark room, frowning.

"Who is it?" he asked. "What do you want?"

The sound of his voice moved her passionately. For how long she had ached and yearned for it! He spoke more huskily, with a thicker tone than he had done, but it was the same voice, rough a little and slow.

"Don't you know me, Martin?" she said, laughing for sheer happiness. She saw before she spoke that he had recognised her. He said nothing, staring at her across the table; and she, held by some safe instinct, did not move from where she was.

At last he said:

"Well ... What do you want?"

"Oh, Martin, don't you recognise me? I'm Maggie."

He nodded. "Yes, I know. You mustn't come here, though. We've nothing to say to one another nowadays—no, nothing." He didn't look at her; his eyes were turned towards the grimy window.

She had an astonishing sense of her possession of him. She laughed and came close to the table.

"I'm not going away, Martin ... not until we've had a talk. Nothing can make me. So there!"

He was looking at her again.

"Why, you've cut your hair!" he said.

"Yes." she said.

Then he turned roughly right round upon her as though he meant to end the matter once and for all.

"Look here! ... I do mean what I say—" He was cut off then by a fit of coughing. He leant back against the wall and fought with it, his hand against his chest. She made no movement and said no word while the attack lasted.

He gasped, recovering his breath, then, speaking in a voice lower than before: "I mean what I say. I don't want you. I don't want any one. There's nothing for us to say to one another. It's only waste of time."

"Yes," she answered. "That's your side of the question. There's also mine. Once before you had your own way and I was very miserable about it. Now it's my turn. I'm going to stay here until we've talked."

He turned, his face working angrily, upon her.

"You can't stay here. It's impossible. What do you do it for when I tell you I don't want you? First my sister ... then you ... come here spying. Well, now you're seen what it's like, haven't you? Very jolly, isn't it? Very handsome? You'd better go away again, then. You've seen all you've wanted to."

"I'm not going away," repeated Maggie, "I didn't come to spy. You know that. Of course you can turn me out, but you'll have to use force."

"Oh, no, I won't," he answered. "There are other ways."

He disappeared into the other room. A moment later he returned; he was wearing a soft black hat and a shabby grey overcoat.

"You'll get tired of waiting, I expect," he said, and, without looking at her but just touching her arm as he brushed past her, he left the room. She heard him descend the stairs. Then the street-door closed.

She sat down upon the shabby red sofa and looked about her. What a horrible room! Its darkness was tainted with a creeping coldness that seemed to steal in wavering gusts from wall to wall. The carpet was faded to a nondescript colour and was gashed into torn strips near the fireplace. No pictures were on the walls from which the wall-paper was peeling. He had done nothing whatever to make it more habitable.

He must have been staying there for several weeks, and yet there were no signs of any personal belongings. Nothing of himself to be seen! Nothing! It was as though in the bitterness of his spirit he had said that he would not touch such a spot save, of necessity, with his body. It should remain, so far as he might go, for ever tenantless.

She felt that. She seemed to be now marvellously perceptive. Until an hour ago she had been lost, ostracised; now she was at home again, clear in purpose, afraid of no one and of nothing. Strangely, although his sickness both of body and soul touched her to the very depths of her being, her predominant sensation was of happiness. She had found him again! Oh, she had found him again! Nothing, in this world or the next, counted in comparison with that. If she were close to him she would make him well, she would make him rich, she would make him happy. Where he had been, what he had done, mattered nothing. Where she had been, what she had done, nothing. Nothing in their two lives counted but their meeting again, and she who had been always so shy and so diffident felt no doubt at all about his returning to her. There would be a fight. As she looked around the gradually darkening room she realised that. It might be a long fight and a difficult one, but that she would win she had no doubt. It had been preordained that she should win. No one on this earth or above it could beat her.

Gradually she became more practical. Slowly she formed her plans. First, what had Martin done? Perhaps he had told the woman of the house that she, Maggie, was to be turned out, did she not, of herself, go away. No, Martin would not do that. Maggie knew quite confidently that he would never allow any one to insult her. Perhaps Martin would not come back at all. Perhaps his hat and his coat were his only possessions. That was a terrible thought! Had he gone, leaving no trace, how would she ever find him again? She remembered then that he had gone straight downstairs and out of the house. He had not spoken to the landlady. That did not look like a permanent departure. But she would make certain.

She pushed open the other door and peeped into the further room. She saw a dirty unmade bed, a tin washhand stand, and an open carpet-bag filled with soiled linen. No, he would come back.

She sat there thinking out her plans. She was suddenly clear, determined, resourceful, all the things that she had never been in her life before. First she must see the landlady; next she must go to the shops—but suppose he should return while she was there, pack his bag and leave for ever? She must risk that. She thought that he would not return at once because he would want, as he said, "to tire her out." "To tire her out!" She laughed at that. She looked about the room and decided how she would improve it. She nodded to herself. Yes, and the bedroom too. All this time she was so happy that she could scarcely prevent herself from singing aloud.

She went out, down the dark stairs, and found the maid, under a swinging candle-flame, still scrubbing. How strange that in that short space of time, when the whole of life had altered for her, that girl had been on her knees scrubbing!

"Could you tell me, please," she asked, "whether I could see somebody who is in charge of this house—the landlady or—"

"Is there anything I can do?" said a voice behind her.

She turned to find a short stout woman in voluminous black—black bonnet, black cape, black gloves—watching her with sharp bright eyes.

"Are you the landlady?" Maggie asked.

"I ham," said the woman. "Mrs. Brandon—ma'am."

The servant-girl had suspended operations, kneeling up and watching with open mouth developments.

"I'm very glad to meet you," said Maggie. "How do you do?"

"How do you do, ma'am?" said Mrs. Brandon.

"The point is just this," said Maggie, speaking rather fast as though she were confused, which she was not. "Mr. Warlock is a very old friend of mine and I'm afraid he's very ill indeed. He's very ill and there's nobody to look after him. What I was wondering was whether there was a bedroom in your house that I could have—so that I could look after him, you see, and get him anything he wants."

Mrs. Brandon overlooked Maggie from head to foot—very slowly she did it, her eyes passing over the rather shabby black hat, the short hair, the plain black dress, the shoes worn and soiled. She also looked at Maggie's wedding-ring.

"Well, Mrs.—" she began.

"Mrs. Trenchard is my name," said Maggie, blushing in spite of herself at the long scrutiny.

"I 'ope you're not reproaching anybody with neglect of the gentleman." She had an action, as she talked, of flinging a very seedy-looking black boa back across her neck vindictively. "Wot I mean to say is that gentleman lodgers must take their chance and e's two weeks overdue with 'is rent as it is ... but of course I'm not saying I couldn't oblige. 'E's a nice gentleman too, although not talkative so to speak, but if it would give 'im 'appiness to 'ave a lady friend close at 'and as you might say, why I wouldn't like to be one to stand in 'is way. 'Live and let live,' 'as always been my motter, and a very good one too."

She said all this very slowly, with a good many significant pauses. Maggie, however, felt nothing but happiness at the prospect of getting her way. She had gone far beyond all personal sensations of shame or fear or hesitation.

"Would you show me the room, please?" she asked.

They pushed past the servant-girl, whose eyes followed them up the stairs with hungry curiosity.

They climbed to the top of the house. Mrs. Brandon displayed a dark sulky little room with damp of the tomb clinging to its wall.

"Ten bob a week," she said. She sunk her voice to a confidential whisper. "The best of this 'ouse is that you can do what you like. No one minds and no one sees. 'Them as lives in glass 'ouses.' That's what I say."

"I'll take it," said Maggie.

"You'll be wanting a key, my dear," said Mrs. Brandon, suddenly very friendly. "To let yerself in an' out at nights. I'll fetch yer one."

She did. Maggie thanked her.

"I wonder," she said, "whether you have such a thing as a small basket you could lend me. I'm going out to buy one or two necessaries."

"Certingly," said Mrs. Brandon, all smiles. "Certingly, and anythink else you'll be needing. All you've got to do is ter ask."

This settled, Maggie departed on her shopping expedition. She was still driven by a curious clarity and decision as to what she wanted to do. She felt as though she could conquer the world to-day and then parcel it out equitably and with success amongst the greedy kings of the earth. What were kings to her now that she had found Martin? Less than the dust ...

Lynton Street offered her nothing but dirty and grime-stained windows, but she found her way into King Edward Street, and here there were many shops. She had not very much money actually upon her, and the remainder of her precious three hundred was locked up in a bank in Skeaton, but it was a bank that had, she knew, branches in London. She looked in her purse and found that she had three pounds, twelve shillings and sixpence. Martin must have his meals upon something other than paper, so the probability was that there was crockery of a kind in his room—or perhaps Mrs. Brandon supplied it. Nevertheless Maggie's first purchases were a blue teapot, two blue plates, and two blue cups and saucers.

As to food she must get something that could be cooked easily on his fire. She bought three of the freshest possible eggs, half a dozen sausages, a loaf of bread, half a pound of butter, two pots of jam, one pot of marmalade, some apples, a pound of tea, a pound of sugar.

"This will do as a start," she said to herself.

She was just about to turn into Lynton Street when she stopped at a flower shop. In the window, smiling at her most fragrantly under the gas-light was a white hyacinth in a blue pot. It seemed to speak to her with, the same significance as once the ring with the three pearls; as though it said: "You've got to use me. I'm a link in the chain."

She went in and asked its price; not very much, considering the splendour of the blue pot. She bought it. She was glad that 13A was not far, because now the basket and the flower weighed heavily upon her.

She climbed the stairs to Martin's room with beating heart. Suppose he had returned and was there and would not let her in? Or suppose, worse than that, that he had returned, packed his bag and gone away again? Her heart was beating so terribly when at last she had arrived outside the door that she had to put down the hyacinth and the basket and stand for a minute there, panting.

She pushed back the door; the room was lit by the reflection from a lamp in a window on the opposite side of the road; this flickered with a pale uncertain glow across the floor. He was not here. She opened the bedroom door. He had not packed his bag. She sighed with relief. She found a bell and pressed it. To her great surprise the scrubbing maid almost instantly presented herself; curiosity had undoubtedly hastened her steps.

"What's your name?" asked Maggie, smiling.

"Emily," said the girl.

"The first thing I want is a box of matches," said Maggie. "You'll light the gas for me, won't you. The truth is, I'm not quite tall enough to reach it."

Emily lit the gas.

"Thank you so much," said Maggie. "I must have a fire. That's the next thing. This cold room must have been a bad thing for Mr. Warlock with his cough."

"Yes, 'e 'as got a corf," said Emily, watching Maggie with all her eyes.

"Well, do you think I could have a fire?" asked Maggie.

Emily considered.

"I'll ask the missus," she said; "I shouldn't wonder."

She returned soon with coal, wood and newspaper. She also informed Maggie that Mrs. Brandon would like to have a "little in advance if convenient, that being the custom."

Maggie delivered up ten and sixpence and was left with exactly two shillings in her pocket. But how beautiful the room appeared! Emily, whose ugly bony countenance now wore a look of excited breathlessness as though she were playing a new kind of game, discovered a piece of dark sad cloth somewhere in the lower region and this was pinned up over the window. The fire was soon blazing away as though the fireplace rejoiced to have a chance of being warm once more. A shabby but clean table-cloth was discovered and placed upon the table, and in the middle of this the hyacinth was triumphantly stationed.

"Now I tell you what would be nice," said Maggie, also by this time breathless, "and that's a lamp. This gas isn't very pleasant, is it, and it DOES make such a noise."

"It DOES make a noise," said Emily, looking at the gas as though she were seeing it for the first time.

"Well, do you think there's a lamp somewhere?"

Emily licked her finger.

"I'll ask the missus," she said and disappeared. Soon she returned with a lamp, its glories hidden beneath a bright pink paper shade.

Maggie removed the paper shade, placed the lamp on the table, then the blue plates, the blue cups and saucers, the blue teapot.

A shrill voice was heard calling for Emily. Maggie had then her kingdom to herself.

She stood there, waiting and listening. The approaching interview must have seemed to her the climax of her whole life. She stood, clasping and unclasping her hands, going to the table, moving the plates, then moving them back again. Perhaps he would not return at all that night, perhaps not until midnight or later. He might be drunk, he might be violent. She did not care. It was enough for her that he should be there.

"Oh I do wish he'd come," she whispered aloud.

She had looked at her watch and seen that it was just eight o'clock when she heard a step on the stair. She had already borrowed from Emily a frying-pan. Quickly she put the sausages into it, placed them on the fire and then stood over them.

The door opened. She knew who it was because she heard him start suddenly with a little exclamation of surprise. She turned and looked at him. Her first thought was that he seemed desperately weary, weary with a fatigue not only physical. His whole bearing was that of a man beaten, defeated, raging, it might be, with the consciousness of his defeat but beyond all hope of avenging it. Her pity for him made her tremble but, with that, she realised that the worst thing that she could do was to show pity. What had he expected? To find her gone? To find her still sitting defiantly where he had left her? To see her crying, perhaps on her knees before him, beseeching him? Anything but not this.

She could see that he was astonished and was resolved not to let her know it.

He moved past her without a word, and went into the other room. She said nothing, but bent over the sausages. They were sizzling and flung out a splendid smell.

He came back without his hat and coat. He stood by the bedroom door and slowly looked round the room, taking everything in.

"I thought you'd have gone," he said; "I warned you."

She looked up at him, laughing:

"I haven't," she said. "Whatever happens afterwards, Martin, we may as well have one meal together. I'm very hungry. I know you'll forgive my using your room like this, but I didn't want to go to a shop. So I just brought the things in here."

His eyes lighted on the hyacinth.

"I know what your game is," he said huskily. "But it isn't any good. You may as well chuck it."

"All right," she said. "After we've had a meal."

Straightening herself up from the heat of the fire she had a terrible temptation then to go to him. It overwhelmed her in a flood; her knees and hands trembled. She wanted just to touch his arm, to put her hand on his shoulder. But she knew that she must not.

"Sit down for a bit," she said very quietly, "and let's have our meal. There's nothing terrible in that, Martin. I've not put poison in your food or anything and the sausages do smell nice."

To her surprise he sat down, suddenly collapsing as though he were too tired to stand any longer. He said nothing more. She finished the sausages, put them on the table, then took a saucepan (also Emily's gift), filled it with water and put in the eggs.

"Come on," she said gently, "or the sausages will get cold."

He went then to the table, cut off some bread and began to eat ravenously. Her heart felt a dim distant triumph when she saw that he was so hungry, but it was too early to feel triumph yet.

She came to the table and began to eat, although she felt no hunger.

"You're married, aren't you?" he asked suddenly.

"Yes," she answered.

"Where's your husband?"

"A place called Skeaton."

"Well, you'd better get back there to-night—"

"I'm staying in London for a day or two."

"Where?"

"Here. I've got a bedroom upstairs."

"You can do what you damn well please," he said. "It doesn't matter to me. I'm going away from here to-morrow morning." Then, after another pause, he said:

"What sort of a man's your husband?"

"A clergyman," she answered.

"A clergyman ... good Lord!" He laughed grimly. "Still religious, I see."

All this time she was thinking how ill he was. Every breath that he drew seemed to hurt him. His eyes were dull and expressionless. He moved his hands, sometimes, with a groping movement as though he could not see. He drank his tea thirstily, eagerly.

At last he had finished. He bent forward, leaning on his hands, looking her steadily in the face for the first time.

"It was clever of you to do this," he said; "damn clever. I was hungry, I don't mind confessing ... but that's the last of it. Do you hear? I can look after myself. I know. You're feeling sorry for me. Think I'm in a dirty room with no one to look after me. Think I'm ill. I bet Amy told you I was ill. 'Oh, poor fellow,' you thought, 'I must go and look after him.' Well, I'm not a poor fellow and I don't want looking after. I can manage for myself very nicely. And I don't want any women hanging round. I'm sick of women, and that's flat."

"I'm not pretending it's not all my own fault. It is. ALL my own fault, but I don't want any one coming round and saying so. AND I don't want any pity. You've had a nice romantic idea in your head, saving the sinner and all the rest of it. Well, you can get back to your parson. He's the sort for that kind of stuff."

"Indeed I haven't," said Maggie. "I don't care whether you're a sinner or not. You're being too serious about it all, Martin. We were old friends. When I heard you were in London I came to see you. That's all. I may as well stay here as anywhere else. Aunt Anne's dead and—and—Uncle Mathew too. There's nowhere else for me to go. I don't pity you. Why should I? You think too much about yourself, Martin. It wasn't to be clever that I got these things. I was hungry, and I didn't want to eat in an A.B.C. shop."

"Oh, I don't know," he said, turning away from the table.

He stood up, fumbling in his pocket. He produced a pipe and some tobacco out of a paper packet. As he filled it she saw that his hand was trembling.

He turned finally upon her.

"Whatever your plan was it's failed," he said. "I'm going to bed straight away now. And to-morrow morning early I'm off. Thank you for the meal and—good-night and good-bye."

He gave her one straight look. She looked up at him, calmly. He dropped his eyes; then, clumsily he walked off, opened his bedroom door, closed it behind him, and was gone.

She sat there, staring in front of her, thinking. What was she to do now? At least she might clear up. She had nowhere to wash the things. She would put them ready for the morning. She tidied the table, put the plates and cups together, then, overcome by a sudden exhaustion, she sat down on the sofa.

She realised then the fight that the day had been. Yes, a fight! ... and she was still only at the beginning of it. If he really went away in the morning what could she do? She could not follow him all round London. But she would not despair yet. No, she was far from despair. But she was tired, tired to death.

She sat on there in a kind of dream. There were no sounds in the house. The fire began to drop very low. There were no more coals. The room began to be very chilly. She laid her head back on the sofa; she was half asleep. She was dreaming—Paul was there and Grace—the Skeaton sands—the Revival procession with the lanterns—the swish of the sea...

Suddenly she was wide awake. The lamp had burnt down to a low rim of light. Martin was coughing in the other room. Coughing! She had never heard such a cough, something inhuman and strange. She stood up, her hands clutched. She waited. Then, as it continued, growing fiercer and fiercer, so that in spite of the closed door it seemed to be in the very room with her, she could bear it no longer.

She opened the door and went in. The room was lit by a candle placed on a chair beside the bed. Martin was sitting up, his hands clenched, his face convulsed. The cough went on—choking, convulsing, as though some terrible enemy had hands at his windpipe. He grasped the bedclothes, his eyes, frightened and dilated, staring in front of him.

She went to him. He did not look at her, but whispered in a voice that seemed to come from miles away:

"Bottle ... over there ... glass."

She saw on the wash-hand stand a bottle with a medicine glass behind it. She read the directions, poured out the drops, took it over and gave it to him. He swallowed it down. She put out her arm to steady him and felt his whole body tremble beneath her hand. Gradually he was quieter. Utterly exhausted he slipped back, his head on the pillow.

She drew her chair close to the bed. He was too exhausted to speak and did not look at her at all. After a while she put her hand on his forehead and stroked it. He did not draw away from her. Slowly his head turned towards her. He lay there in the crook of her arm, she bending forward over him.

Her heart beat. She tried not to be conscious of his closeness to her, but her hand trembled as it touched his cheek.

Still he did not move away. After, as it seemed to her, a long time he was asleep. She listened to his breathing, and only then, when she knew that he could not hear, she whispered:

"Oh, Martin, I love you so! Dear Martin, I love you so much!"

She blew out the candle and, her arm beneath his head, sat there, watching.



CHAPTER II

HOBGOBLINS

The dawn had made the dark room grey when Maggie, stiff and sore from the strained position in which she had been sitting, went up to her room. She had intended not to go to bed, but weariness overcame her; she lay down on her bed, dressed as she was, and fell into a deep, exhausted slumber.

When she woke it was broad daylight. She was panic-stricken. How could she have slept? And now he might have gone. She washed her face and hands in the horrible little tin basin, brushed her hair, and then, with beating heart, went downstairs. His sitting-room was just as she had left it, the unwashed plates piled together, the red cloth over the window, the dead ashes of the fire in the grate. Very gently she opened his bedroom door. He was still in bed. She went over to him. He was asleep, muttering, his hands clenched on the counterpane. His cheeks were flushed. To her inexperienced eyes he looked very ill.

She touched him on the shoulder and with a start he sprang awake, his eyes wide open with terror, and he crying:

"What is it? No ... no ... don't. Don't."

"It's all right, Martin. It's I, Maggie," she said.

He stared at her; then dropping back on to the pillow, he muttered wearily as though he were worn out after a long struggle:

"I'm bad ... It's my chest. There's a doctor. They'll tell you ... He's been here before."

She went into the other room and rang the bell. After a time Mrs. Brandon herself appeared.

"I'm afraid Mr. Warlock is very ill," said Maggie, trying to keep her voice from trembling. "He's asked me to fetch the doctor who's been here to see him before. Can you tell me who he is and where he lives?"

Mrs. Brandon's bright and inquisitive eyes moved round the room, taking in the blue china, the hyacinth and the lamp. "Certingly," she said. "That must be Dr. Abrams. 'E lives in Cowley Street, No. 4—Dr. Emanuel Abrams. A good doctor when 'e's sober, and the morning's the best time to be sure of 'im. Certingly 'e's been in to see your friend several times. They've been merry together more than once."

"Where is Cowley Street?" asked Maggie.

"First to the right when you get out of the 'ouse, and then second to the left again. No. 4's the number. It's most likely 'e'll be asleep. Yes, Dr. Abrams, that's the name. 'E's attended a lot in this 'ouse. Wot a pretty flower! Cheers the room up I must say. Will you be wanting another fire?"

"Yes," said Maggie. "Could Emily see to that while I'm away?"

"Certingly," said Mrs. Brandon, looking at Maggie with a curious confidential smile—a hateful smile, but there was no time to think about it.

Maggie went out. She found Cowley Street without any difficulty. Dr. Abrams was up and having his breakfast. His close, musty room smelt of whisky and kippers. He himself was a little, fat round Jew, very red in the face, very small in the eye, very black in the hair, and very dirty in the hands.

He was startled by Maggie's appearance—very different she was from his usual patients.

"Looked just a baby," he informed Mrs. Brandon afterwards.

"Mrs. Warlock?" he asked.

"No," said Maggie defiantly. "I'm a friend of Mr. Warlock's."

"Ah, yes—quite so." He wiped his mouth, disappeared into another room, returned with a shabby black bag and a still shabbier top hat, and declared himself ready to start.

"It's pneumonia," he told her as they went along. "Had it three weeks ago. Of course if he was out in yesterday's fog that finished him."

"He was out," said Maggie, "for a long time."

"Quite so," said Dr. Abrams. "That's killed him, I shouldn't wonder." He snuffled in his speech and he snuffled in his walk.

Before they had gone very far he put his hand on Maggie's arm; she hated his touch, but his last words had so deeply terrified her that nothing else affected her. If Martin were killed by going out yesterday then she had killed him. He had gone out to escape her. But she drove that thought from her as she had driven so many others.

"The pneumonia's bad enough," said the little man, becoming more confidential as his grip tightened on her arm, "but it's heart's the trouble. Might finish him any day. Tells me his father was the same. What a nice warm arm you've got, my dear—it's a pleasant day, too."

They entered the house and Dr. Abrams stayed chatting with Emily in the passage for a considerable time. Any one of the opposite sex seemed to hare an irresistible attraction for him.

When they went upstairs the doctor was so held by his burning curiosity that it was difficult to lead him into Martin's bedroom. Everything interested him; he bent down and felt the tablecloth with his dirty thumb, then the soil round the hyacinth, then the blue china. Between every investigation he stared at Maggie as though he were now seeing her for the first time. At last, however, he was bending over Martin, and his examination was clever and deft; he had been, like his patient, used to better days. Martin was very ill.

"The boy's bad," he said, turning sharply round upon Maggie.

From the speaking of that word, for six days and six nights he was Maggie's loyal friend and fellow-combatant. They fought, side by side, in the great struggle for Martin's life. They won; but when Maggie tried to look back afterwards on the history of that wrestling, she saw nothing connectedly, only the candle-light springing and falling, the little doctor's sharp eyes, the torn paper of the wall, the ragged carpet, and always that strange mask that was Martin's face and yet the face of a stranger, something tortured and fantastic, passing from Chinese immobility to frenzied pain, from pain to sweating exhaustion, from exhaustion back to immobility.

On the eighth day she rose, as a swimmer rises from green depths, and saw the sunshine and the landscape again.

"He'll do if you're careful," said Dr. Abrams, and suddenly became once more the curious, dirty, sensual little creature that he had been at first. Her only contact with the outer world had been her visits to the neighbouring streets for necessaries and one journey to the bank (the nearest branch was in Oxford Street) to settle about her money. But now, with the doctor's words, the rest of the world came back to her. She remembered Paul. She was horrified to realise that during these days she had entirely forgotten him. He, of course could not write to her because he did not know her address. When she saw that Martin was quietly sleeping she sat down and wrote the following letter:

13A LYNTON STREET, KING'S CROSS, April 28th, 1912.

MY DEAR PAUL,—I have been very wrong indeed not to write to you before this. It's only of a piece with all my other bad behaviour to you, and it's very late now to saw that I am ashamed. I will tell you the truth, which is that on the day I left you I had received a letter telling me that the friend of whom I have often told you was in England, very ill, and with no one to care for him. I had to go. I don't know whether it was right or wrong—wrong I suppose—but I always knew that if he ever wanted me I SHOULD go. I've always been truthful to you about that. When I came here I found that he was in horrible lodgings, very ill indeed, and with no one to look after him. I HAD to stay, and now for a week he has been between life and death. He had pneumonia some weeks ago and went out too soon. His heart also is bad. I believe now he can get well if great care is taken.

Dear Paul, I don't know what to say to you. I have a bedroom in this house and every one is very kind to me, but you will think me very wicked. I can't help it. I can't come back to you and Grace. Perhaps later when he is quite well I shall be able to, but I don't think so. You don't need me; I have never been satisfactory to you, only a worry. Grace will never be able to live with me again, and I can't stay in Skeaton any more after Uncle Mathew's death. It has all been a wretched mistake, Paul, our marriage, hasn't it? It was my fault entirely. I shouldn't have married you when I knew that I would always love Martin. I thought then that I should be able to make you happy. If now I felt that I could I would come back at once, but you know as well as I do that, after this, we shall never be happy together again. I blame myself so much but I can't act differently. Perhaps when Martin is well he will not want me at all, but even then I don't think I could come back. Isn't it better that at least I should stay away for a time? You can say that I am staying with friends in London. You will be happier without me, oh, much happier—and Grace will be happier too. Perhaps you will think it better to forget me altogether and then your life will be as it was before you met me.

I won't ask you to forgive me for all the trouble I have been to you. I don't think you can. But I can't do differently now. Your affectionate MAGGIE.

She felt when she had finished it that it was miserably inadequate, but at least it was truthful. As she wrote it her old feelings of tenderness and affection for Paul came back in a great flood. She saw him during the many, many times when he had been so good to her. She was miserable as she finished it, but she knew that there was nothing else to do. And he would know it too.

A day later a long letter came from Paul. It was very characteristic. It began by saying that of course Maggie must return at once. Throughout, the voice was that of a grieved and angry elder talking to a wicked and disobedient child. She saw that, far beyond everything else, it was his pride that was wounded, wounded as it had never been before. He could see nothing but that. Did she realise, he asked her, what she was doing? Sinning against all the laws of God and man. If she persisted in her wickedness she would be cut off from all decent people. No one could say that he had not shown her every indulgence, every kindness, every affection. Even now he was ready to forgive her, but she must come back at once, at once. Her extreme youth excused much, and both he and Grace realised it.

Through it all the strain—did she not see what she was doing? How could she behave so wickedly when she had been given so many blessings, when she had been shown the happiness of a Christian home? ...

It was not a letter to soften Maggie's resolve. She wrote a short reply saying that she could not come. She thought then that he would run up to London to fetch her. But he did not. He wrote once more, and then, for a time, there was silence.

She had little interval in which to think about Paul; Martin soon compelled her attention. He was well enough now to be up. He would lie all day, without moving except to take his meals, on the old red sofa, stretched out there, his arms behind his head, looking at Maggie with a strange taunting malicious stare as though he were defying her to stand up to him. She did stand up to him, although it needed all her strength, moral and physical. He was attacking her soul and she was saving his ...

He said no more about his going away. He accepted it as a fact that she was there and that she would stay there. He had changed his position and was fighting her on another ground.

Maggie had once, years before, read in a magazine, a story about a traveller and a deserted house. This traveller, lost, as are all travellers in stories, in a forest, benighted and hungry, saw the lights of a house.

He goes forward and finds a magnificent mansion, blazing with light in every window, but apparently deserted. He enters and finds room after room prepared for guests. A fine meal is laid ready and he enjoys it. He discovers the softest of beds and soon is fast asleep; but when he is safely snoring back creep all the guests out of the forest, hideous and evil, warped and deformed, maimed and rotten with disease. They had left the house, that he might be lured in it, knowing that he would never come whilst they were there. And so they creep into all the rooms, flinging their horrible shadows upon the gleaming walls, and gradually they steal about the bed ...

Maggie forgot the end of the story. The traveller escaped, or perhaps he did not. Perhaps he was strangled. But that moment of his awakening, when his startled eyes first stared upon those horrible faces, those deformed bodies, those evil smiles! What could one do, one naked and defenceless against so many?

Maggie thought of this story during Martin's convalescence. She seemed to see the evil guests, crowding back, one after the other into his soul, and as they came back they peeped out at her, smiling from the lighted windows. She saw that his plan was to thrust before her the very worst of himself. He said: "Well, I've tried to get rid of her and she won't go. That's her own affair, but if she stays, at least she shall see me as I am. No false sentimental picture. I'll cure her."