No, she must get out into the world and discover these things for herself. She did not know how the way of escape would come, but she was certain of its arrival.

It arrived, and through her third visitor. Her third visitor was Mrs. Mark.

When Katherine Mark came in Maggie was writing to Uncle Mathew. She put aside her writing-pad with a little exclamation of surprise. Mrs. Mark, the very last person in all the world whom she had expected to see! As she saw her come in she had a swift intuition that this was Destiny now that was dealing with her, and that a new scene, involving every sort of new experience and adventure, was opening before her. More than ever before she realised how far Katherine Mark was from the world in which she, Maggie, had during all these months been living. Katherine Mark was Real—Real in her beautiful quiet clothes, in her assurance, her ease, the sense that she gave that she knew life and love and business and all the affairs of men at first hand, not only seen through a mist of superstition and ignorance, or indeed not seen at all.

"This is what I want," something in Maggie called to her.

"This will make me busy and quiet and sensible—at last—"

When Katherine Mark sat down and took her hand for a moment, smiling at her in the kindliest way, Maggie felt as though she had known her all her life.

"Oh! I'm so glad you've come!" she cried spontaneously; and then, as though she felt she'd gone too far, she blushed and drew back.

But Katherine held her hand fast.

"I wrote," she said, "some weeks ago to you, and your aunt answered the letter saying you were very ill. Then, as I heard nothing of you, I was anxious and came to see what had happened. You've not kept your word, Maggie, you know. We were to have been great friends, and you've never been near me."

At the use of her Christian name Maggie blushed with pleasure.

"I couldn't come," she said. "I didn't want to until—until—until some things had settled themselves."

"Well—and they have?" asked Katherine.

"Yes—they have," said Maggie.

"What's been the matter?" asked Katherine.

"I was worried about something, and then I was ill," said Maggie.

"And you're not worried now?" said Katherine.

"I'm not going to give in to it, anyway," said Maggie. "As soon as I'm well, I'm off. I'll find some work somewhere."

"I've got a plan," said Katherine. "It came into my head the moment I saw you sitting there. Will you come and stay with us for a little?"

That sense that Maggie had had when she saw Katherine of fate having a hand in all of this deepened now and coloured her thoughts, so that she could feel no surprise but only a curious instinct that she had been through all this scene before.

"Stay with you!" she cried. "Oh, I should love to!"

"That's good," said Katherine. "Your aunts won't mind, will they?"

"They can't keep me," said Maggie. "I'm free. But they won't want to. Our time together is over—"

"I'll come and fetch you to-morrow," said Katherine. "You shall stay with us until you're quite well, and then we'll find some work for you."

"Why are you good to me like this?" Maggie asked.

"I'm not good to you," Katherine answered, laughing. "It's simply selfish. It will be lovely for me having you with me."

"Oh, you don't know," said Maggie, throwing up her head.

"No, I don't think I'll come. I'm frightened. I'm not what you think. I'm untidy and careless and can't talk to strangers. Perhaps I'll lose you altogether as a friend if I come."

"You'll never do that," said Katherine, suddenly bending forward and kissing her. "I don't change about people. It's because I haven't any imagination, Phil says."

"I shall make mistakes," Maggie said. "I've never been anywhere. But I don't care. I can look after myself."

The thought of her three hundred pounds (which were no longer three hundred) encouraged her. She kissed Katherine.

"I don't change either," she said.

She had a strange conversation with Aunt Anne that night, strange as every talk had always been because of things left unsaid. They faced one another across the fireplace like enemies who might have been lovers; there had been from the very first moment of this meeting a romantic link between them which had never been defined. They had never had it out with one another, and they were not going to have it out now; but Maggie, who was never sentimental, wondered at the strange mixture of tenderness, pity, affection, irritation and hostility that she felt.

"Aunt Anne, I'm going away to-morrow," said Maggie.

"To-morrow!" Aunt Anne looked up with her strange hostile arrogance. "Oh no, Maggie. You're not well yet."

"Mrs. Mark," said Maggie, "the lady I told you about, is coming in a motor to fetch me. She will take me straight to her house, and then I shall go to bed."

Aunt Anne said nothing.

"You know that it's better for me to go," said Maggie. "We can't live together any more after what happened. You and Aunt Elizabeth have been very very good to me, but you know now that I'm a disappointment. I haven't ever fitted into the life here. I never shall."

"The life here is over," said Aunt Anne. "Everything is over—the house is dead. Of course you must go. If you feel anger with me now or afterwards remember that I have lost every hope or desire I ever had. I don't want your pity. I want no one's pity. I wanted once your affection, but I wanted it on my own terms. That was wrong. I do not want your affection any longer; you were never the girl I thought you. You're a strange girl, Maggie, and you will have, I am afraid, a very unhappy life."

"No, I will not," said Maggie. "I will have a happy life."

"That is for God to say," said Aunt Anne.

"No, it is not," said Maggie. "I can make my own happiness. God can't touch it, if I don't let Him."

"Maggie, you're blasphemous," said Aunt Anne, but not in anger.

"I'm not," said Maggie. "When I came here first I didn't believe in God, but now—I'm not sure. There's something strange, which may be God for all I know. I'm going to find out. If He has the doing of everything then He's taken away all I cared for, and I'm not going to give Him the satisfaction of seeing that it hurt; if He didn't do it, then it doesn't matter."

"You'll believe in Him before you die, Maggie," said Aunt Anne. "It's in you, and you won't escape it. I thought it was I who was to bring you to Him, but I was going too fast. The Lord has His own time. You'll come to Him afterwards."

"Oh," cried Maggie. "I'm so glad I'm going somewhere where it won't be always religion, where they'll think of something else than the Lord and His Coming. I want real life, banks and motor-cars and shops and clothes and work ..."

She stopped suddenly.

Aunt Anne was doing what Maggie had never seen her do before, even in the worst bouts of her pain—she was crying ... cold solitary lonely tears that crept slowly, reluctantly down her thin cheeks.

"I meant to do well. In everything I have done ill ... Everything has failed in my hands—"

Once again, as long before at St. Dreot's, Maggie could do nothing.

There was a long miserable silence, then Aunt Anne got up and went away.

Next day Katherine came in a beautiful motor-car to fetch Maggie. Maggie had packed her few things. Bound her neck next her skin was the ring with three pearls ...

She said good-bye to the house: her bedroom beneath which the motor-omnibuses clanged, the sitting-room with the family group, the passage with the Armed Men, the dark hall with the green baize door ... then good-bye to Aunt Elizabeth (two kisses), Aunt Anne (one kiss), Martha, Thomas the cat, the parrot ... all, everything, good-bye, good-bye, good-bye!

May I never see any of you again. Never, never, never, never! ...

She was helped into the car, rugs were wrapped round her, there was a warm cosy smell of rich leather, a little clock ticked away, a silver vase with red and blue flowers winked at her, and Katherine was there close beside her ...

Never again, never again! And yet how strange, as they turned the corner of the street down into the Strand, Maggie felt a sudden pang of regret, of pathos, of loneliness, as though she were leaving something that had loved her dearly, and leaving it without a word of friendliness.

"Poor dear!" She wanted to return, to tell it ... to tell it what? She had made her choice. She was plunging now into the other half of the world, and plunging not quite alone, because she was taking Martin with her.

"I do hope you won't mind, dear," said Katherine. "My cousin Paul—the clergyman you met once—is staying with us. He and his sister. No one else."

"Oh, I shan't mind," said Maggie. Her fingers, inside her blouse, tightly clutched the little pearl ring.



CHAPTER II

PLUNGE INTO THE OTHER HALF

For a week Maggie was so comfortable that she could think of nothing but that. It must be remembered that she had never before known what comfort was, never at St. Dreot's, never at Aunt Anne's, and these two places had been the background of all her life.

She had never conceived of the kind of way that she now lived. Her bedroom was so pretty that it made her almost cry to look at it: the wall-paper scattered with little rosy trees, the soft pink cretonne on the chairs, the old bureau with a sheet of glass covering its surface that was her dressing-table, the old gold mirror—all these things were wonders indeed. She was ordered to have breakfast in bed; servants looked after her with a kindliness and ease and readiness to help that she had never dreamed of as possible. The food was wonderful; there was the motor ready to take her for a drive in the afternoon, and there was the whole house at her service, soft and cosy and ordered so that it seemed to roll along upon its own impulse without any human agency.

"I believe if every one went away and left it," she thought, "it would go on in exactly the same way."

Figures gradually took their places in front of this background. The principals at first were Katherine and Philip, Henry and Millicent, Katherine's brother and sister, Mr. Trenchard senior, Katherine's father, Lady Rachel Seddon, Katherine's best friend, and Mr. Faunder, Katherine's uncle. She saw at once that they all revolved around Katherine; if Katherine were not there they would not hold together at all. They were all so different—so different and yet so strangely alike. There was, for instance, Millicent Trenchard, whom Maggie liked best of them all after Katherine. Millie was a young woman of twenty-one, pretty, gay, ferociously independent, enthusiastic about one thing after another, with hosts of friends, male and female, none of whom she took very seriously. The love of her life, she told Maggie almost at once, was Katherine. She would never love any one, man or woman, so much again. She lived with her mother and father in an old house in Westminster, and Maggie understood that there had been some trouble about Katherine's marriage, so that, although it happened three years ago, Mrs. Trenchard would not come to see Katherine and would not allow Katherine to come and see her.

Then there was Henry, a very strange young man. He was at Cambridge and said to be very clever. He did indeed seem to lead a mysterious life of his own and paid very little attention to Maggie, asking her once whether she did not think The Golden Ass wonderful, and what did she think of Petronius; and when Maggie laughed and said that she was glad to say she never read anything, he left her in an agitated horror. Lady Rachel Seddon was very grand and splendid, and frightened Katherine. She was related to every kind of duke and marquis, and although that fact did not impress Maggie in the least, it did seem to remove Lady Rachel into quite another world.

But they were all in another world—Maggie discovered that at once. They had, of course, every sort of catch-word and allusion and joke that no one but themselves and the people whom they brought into the house understood; Katherine was kindness itself. Philip too (he seemed to Maggie a weak, amiable young man) took a lot of trouble about her, but they did not belong to her nor she to them.

"And why should they?" said Maggie to herself. "I must look on it as though I were staying at a delightful hotel and were going on with my journey very soon."

There was somebody, however, who did not belong any more than Maggie did, and very soon he became Maggie's constant companion—this was the Rev. Paul Trenchard, Katherine's cousin.

From the very moment months ago, when Maggie and he had first met in Katherine's drawing-room, they had been friends. He had liked her, Maggie felt, at once. She on her side was attracted by a certain childlike simplicity and innocence. This very quality, she soon saw, moved the others, Philip and Henry and Mr. Trenchard senior, to derision. They did not like the Rev. Paul. They chaffed him, and he was very easily teased, because he was not clever and did not see their jokes. This put Maggie up in arms in his defence at once. But they had all the layman's distrust of a parson. They were all polite to him, of course, and Maggie discovered that in this world politeness was of the very first importance, so that you really never said what you thought nor did what you wanted to. They frankly could not understand why Katherine asked the parson to stay, but because they loved Katherine they were as nice to him as their natures would allow them to be. Paul did not apparently notice that they put him outside their life. He was always genial, laughed a great deal when there WAS no reason to laugh at all, and told simple little stories in whose effect he profoundly believed. He was supported in his confidence by his sister Grace, who obviously adored him. She too was "outside" the family, but she seemed to be quite happy telling endless stories of Paul's courage and cleverness and popularity. She did indeed believe that Skeaton-on-Sea, where Paul had his living, was the hub of the universe, and this amused all the Trenchard family very much indeed. It must not be supposed that Paul and his sister were treated unkindly. They were shown the greatest courtesy and hospitality, but Maggie knew that that was only because it was the Trenchard tradition to do so, and not from motives of affection or warmth of heart.

They could be warm-hearted; it was wonderful to see the way that they all adored Katherine, and they had many friends for whom they would do anything, but the Rev. Paul seemed to them frankly an ass, and they would be glad when he went away.

He did not seem to Maggie an ass. She thought him the kindest person she had ever known, kinder even than Katherine, because with Katherine there was the faintest suspicion of patronage; no, not of patronage—that was unfair ... but of an effort to put herself in exactly Maggie's place so that she might understand perfectly what were Maggie's motives. With Paul Trenchard there was no effort, no deliberate slipping out of one world into another one. He was frankly delighted to tell Maggie everything—all about Skeaton-on-Sea and its delights, about the church and its marvellous east window, about the choir and the difficulties with the choir-boys and the necessity for repairing the organ, about the troubles with the churchwardens, especially one Mr. Bellows, who, in his cantankerous and dyspeptic objections to everything that any one proposed, became quite a lively figure to Maggie's imagination, about the St. John's Brotherhood which had been formed to keep the "lads" out of the public-houses and was doing so well, about the Shakespeare Reading Society and a Mrs. Tempest (who also became a live figure in Maggie's brain), "a born tragedian" and wonderful as Lady Macbeth and Katherine of Aragon. Skeaton slowly revealed itself to Maggie as a sunny sparkling place, with glittering sea, shining sand, and dark cool woods, full of kindliness, too, and friendship and good-humour. Paul and Grace Trenchard seemed to be the centre of this sunshine. How heartily Paul laughed as he recounted some of the tricks and escapades of his "young scamps." "Dear fellows," he would say, "I love them all ..." and Grace sat by smiling and nodding her head and beaming upon her beloved brother.

To Maggie, fresh from the dark and confused terrors of the Chapel, it was all marvellous. Here was rest indeed, here, with Martin cherished warmly in her heart, she might occupy herself with duties and interests. Here surely she would be useful to "somebody." She heard a good deal of an old Mr. Toms, "a little queer in his head, poor man," who seemed to figure in the outskirts of Skeaton society as a warning and a reassurance. ("No one in Skeaton thinks of him in any way but tenderly.") Maggie wondered whether he might not want looking after ...

The thought gradually occurred to her that this kindly genial clergyman might perhaps find her some work in Skeaton. He even himself hinted at something ... She might be some one's secretary or housekeeper.

About Grace Trenchard Maggie was not quite so sure. She was kindness itself and liked to hold Maggie's hand and pat it—but there was no doubt at all that she was just a little bit tiresome. Maggie rebuked herself for thinking this, but again and again the thought arose. Grace was in a state of perpetual wonder, everything amazed her. You would not think to look at her flat broad placidity that she was a creature of excitement, and it might be that her excitement was rather superficial. She would say: "Why! Just fancy, Maggie! ... To-day's Tuesday!" Then you wondered what was coming next and nothing came at all. She had endless stories about her adventures in the streets of London, and these stories were endless because of all the details that must be fitted in, and then the details slipped out of her grasp and winked at her maliciously as they disappeared. The fact was perhaps that she was not very clever, but then Maggie wasn't very clever either, so she had no right to criticise Miss Trenchard, who was really as amiable as she could be. Henry Trenchard said once to Maggie in his usual scornful way:

"Oh, Grace! ... She's the stupidest woman in Skeaton, which means the stupidest woman in the world."

The Trenchards, Maggie thought, were rather given to scorning every one save themselves. Even Philip, who was not a Trenchard, had caught the habit. Katherine, of course, despised no one and liked every one, but that was rather tiresome too.

In fact at the end of her first week Maggie thought that as soon as possible she would find a room for herself somewhere and start to earn her living. She discovered that she was developing a new sensitiveness. When she was living with the aunts she had not minded very seriously the criticisms made upon her; she had indeed been disappointed when Aunt Anne had not admired her new dress, and she had hated Amy Warlock's rudeness, but that was because Martin had been involved. This new sensitiveness worried her; she hated to care whether people laughed at the way she came into a room or whether she expressed foolish opinions about books and pictures. She had always said just what she thought, but now, before Philip's kindly attention and Mr. Trenchard senior's indulgence (he wrote books and articles in the papers), she hated her ignorance. Paul Trenchard knew frankly nothing about Art. "I know what I like," he said, "and that's enough for me." He liked Watts's pictures and In Memoriam and Dickens, and he heard The Messiah once a year in London if he could leave his parish work. He laughed about it all. "The souls of men! The souls of men!" he would say. "That is what I'm after, Miss Cardinal. You're not going to catch them with the latest neurotic novel, however well it's written."

Oh, he was kind to her! He was kinder and kinder and kinder. She told him everything—except about Martin. She told him all about her life at St. Dreot's and her father and Uncle Mathew, the aunts and the Chapel.

He was frankly shocked by the Chapel. "That's not the way to get into heaven," he said. "We must be more patient than that. The daily round, the daily task, that's the kind."

His physical presence began to pervade all her doings. He was not handsome, but so clean, so rosy, and so strong. No mystery about him, no terrors, no invasions from the devil. Everything was clear and certain. He knew just where he was and exactly whither he was going. One afternoon, when they were out in the motor together, he took Maggie's hand under the rug and he held it so calmly, so firmly, with so kindly a benevolence that she could not be frightened or uncomfortable. He was like a large friendly brother ...

One day he called her Maggie. He blushed and laughed. "I'm so sorry," he said. "It slipped out. I caught it from Katherine."

"Oh, please, ... never mind," she answered. "Miss Cardinal's so stiff."

"Then you must call me Paul," he said.

A little conversation that Maggie had after this with Millicent showed her in sharp relief exactly where she stood in relation to the Trenchard family. They had been out in the motor together. Millie had been shopping and now they were rolling back through the Park.

"Are you happy with us, Maggie?" Millicent suddenly asked.

"Very happy," Maggie answered.

"Well, I hope you are," said Millicent. "I don't think that as a family we're very good at making any one happy except ourselves. I think we're very selfish."

"No, I don't think you're selfish," said Maggie, "but I think you're sufficient for yourselves. I don't fancy you really want any one from outside."

"No, I don't think the others do. I do though. You don't suppose I'm going to stay in the Trenchard bosom for ever, do you? I'm not, I assure you. But what you've said means that you don't really feel at home with us."

"I don't think I want to feel at home with you," Maggie answered. "I don't belong to any of you. Contrast us, for instance. You've got everything—good looks, money, cleverness, position. You can get what you like out of life. I've got nothing. I'm plain, poor, awkward, uneducated—and yet you know I wouldn't change places with any one. I'd rather be myself than any one alive."

"Yes, you would," said Millicent, nodding her head. "That's you all over. I felt it the moment you came into the house. You're adventurous. We're not. Katherine was adventurous for a moment when she married Philip, but she soon slipped back again. But you'll do just what you want to always."

"I shall have to," said Maggie, laughing. "There's no one else to do it for me. It isn't only that I don't belong to you—I've never belonged to any one, only one person—and he's gone now. I belong to him—and he'll never come back."

"Were you frightfully in love?" asked Millie, deeply interested.

"Yes," said Maggie.

"He oughtn't to have gone away like that," said Millicent.

"Yes, he ought," said Maggie. "He was quite right. But don't let's bother about that. I've got to find some place now where I can work. The worst of it is I'm so ignorant. But there must be something that I ran do."

"There's Paul," said Millie.

"What do you mean?" asked Maggie.

"Oh, he cares like anything for you. You must have noticed. It began after the first time he met you. He was always asking about you. Of course every one's noticed it."

"Cares for me," Maggie repeated.

"Yes, of course. He's wanted to marry for a long time. Tired of Grace bossing him, I expect. That doesn't sound very polite to you, but I know that he cares for you apart from that—for yourself, I mean. And I expect Grace is tired of housekeeping."

Maggie's feelings were very strange. Why should he care about her? Did she want him to care? A strange friendly feeling stole about her heart. She was not alone then, after all. Some one wanted her, wanted her so obviously that every one had noticed it—did not want her as Martin had wanted her, against his own will and judgment. If he did offer her his home what would she feel?

There was rest there, rest and a real home, a home that she had never in all her life known. Of course she did not love him in the least. His approach did not make her pulses beat a moment faster, she did not long for him to come when he was not there—but he wanted her! That was the great thing. He wanted her!

"Of course if he asked you, you wouldn't really think of marrying him?" said Millicent.

"I don't know," said Maggie slowly.

"What! Marry him and live in Skeaton!" Millicent was frankly amazed. "Why, Skeaton's awful, and the people in it are awful, and Grace is awful. In the summer it's all nigger-minstrels and bathing-tents, and in the winter there isn't a soul—" Millicent shivered.

Maggie smiled. "Of course it seems dull to you, but my life's been very different. It hasn't been very exciting, and if I could really help him—" she broke off. "I do like him," she said. "He's the kindest man I've ever met. Of course he seems dull to you who have met all kinds of brilliant people. I hate brilliant people."

The car was in Bryanston Square. Just before it stopped Millie bent over and kissed Maggie.

"I think you're a darling," she said.

But Millie didn't think Maggie "a darling" for long—that is, she did not think about her at all for long; none of the family did.

So quiet was Maggie, so little in any one's way that, at the end of a fortnight, she made no difference to any one in the house. She was much better now, looking a different person, colour in her cheeks and light in her eyes. During her illness they had cut her hair and this made her look more than ever like a boy. She wore her plain dark dresses, black and dark blue; they never quite fitted and, with her queer odd face, her high forehead, rather awkward mouth, and grave questioning eyes she gave you the impression that she had been hurried into some disguise and was wearing it with discomfort but amusement. Some one who met her at the Trenchards at this time said of her: "What a funny girl! She's like a schoolboy dressed up to play a part in the school speeches." Of course she was not playing a part, no one could have been more entirely natural and honest, but she was odd, strange, out of her own world, and every one felt it.

It was, perhaps, this strangeness that attracted Paul Trenchard. He was, above everything, a kindly man-kindly, perhaps a little through laziness, but nevertheless moved always by distress or misfortune in others. Maggie was not distressed—she was quite cheerful and entirely unsentimental—nevertheless she had been very ill, was almost penniless, had had some private trouble, was an orphan, had no friends save two old aunts, and was amazingly ignorant of the world.

This last was, perhaps, the thing that struck him most of all. He, too, was ignorant of the world, but he didn't know that, and he was amazed at the things that Maggie brushed aside as unimportant. He found that he was beginning to think of her as "my little heathen." His attitude was the same as that of a good missionary discovering a naked but trusting native.

The thought of training this virgin mind was delightful to him.

He liked her quaintness, and one day suddenly, to his own surprise, when they were alone in the drawing-room, he kissed her, a most chaste kiss, gently on the forehead.

"Oh. my dear child—" he said in a kind of dismay.

She looked up at him with complete confidence. So gentle a kiss had it been that it had been no more than a pressure of the hand.

A few days later Katherine spoke to her. She came up to her bedroom just as Maggie was beginning to undress. Maggie stood in front of the glass, her evening frock off, brushing her short thick hair before the glass.

"Have you made any plans yet, dear?" asked Katherine.

Maggie shook her head.

"No." she said. "Not yet."

Katherine hesitated.

"I've got a confession to make," she said at last.

Maggie turned to look at her with her large childish eyes.

"Oh, I do hope you've done something wrong," she said, laughing, "something really bad that I should have to 'overlook.'"

"What do you mean?" asked Katherine.

Maggie only said: "We'd be more on a level then."

"I don't think it's anything very bad. But the truth is, Maggie, that I didn't ask you here only for my own pleasure and to make you well. There was a third reason."

"I know," said Maggie; "Paul."

"My dear!" said Katherine, amazed. "How did you guess? I never should have done."

"Paul's asked you to find out whether I like him," said Maggie.

"Yes," said Katherine.

"Well, I do like him." said Maggie.

"Don't think that I've been unfair," said Katherine. They were sitting now side by side on Maggie's bed and Katherine's hand was on Maggie's knee. "I'll tell you exactly how it happened. Paul was interested in you from the moment that he saw you at my house ever so long ago. He asked ever so many questions about you, and the next time he stayed he wanted me to write and ask you to come and stay. Well, I didn't. I knew from what you told me that you cared for somebody else, and I didn't want to get Paul really fond of you if it was going to be no good. You see, I've known Paul for ages. He's nearly ten years older than I, but he used to come and stay with us at Garth, when he was at Cambridge and before he was a clergyman."

"I'm very fond of him. I know the others think he's stupid simply because he doesn't know the things that they do, but he's good and kind and honest, and just exactly what he seems to be."

"I like him," repeated Maggie, nodding her head.

"He's been wanting to be married," went on Katherine, "for some time. I'm going to tell you everything so that I shall have been perfectly fair. Grace wants him to be married too. All her life she's looked after him and he's always done exactly what she told him. He's rather lazy and it's not hard for some one to get an influence over him. Well, she's not really a very good manager. She thinks she is, but she isn't. She arranges things and wants things to stay just where she puts them, but she arranges all the wrong unnecessary things. Still, it's easy to criticise, and I'm not a very good manager myself. I think she's growing rather tired of it and would like some one to take it off her hands. Of course Paul must marry the right person, some one whom she can control and manage, and some one who won't transplant her in Paul's affection. That's her idea. But it's all nonsense, of course. You can't have your cake and eat it. She simply doesn't understand what marriage is like. When Paul marries she'll learn more about life in a month than she's learnt in all her days. Well, Maggie, dear, she thinks you're just the girl for Paul. She thinks she can do what she likes with you. She thinks you're nice, of course, but she's going to 'form' you and 'train' you. You needn't worry about that, you needn't really, if you care about Paul. You'd manage both of them in a week. But there it is—I thought I ought to warn you about Grace."

"As to Paul, I believe you'd be happy. You'd have your home and your life and your friends. Skeaton isn't so bad if you live in it, I believe, and Paul could get another living if you weren't happy there."

Did Katherine have any scruples as she pursued her argument? A real glance at Maggie's confiding trustful gaze might have shaken her resolve. This child who knew so little about anything—was Skeaton the world for her? But Katherine had so many philanthropies that she was given to finishing one off a little abruptly in order to make ready for the next one.

She was interested just now in a scheme for adopting illegitimate babies. She thought Maggie an "angel" and she just longed for her to be happy. Nevertheless Maggie was very ignorant, and it was a little difficult to see what trade or occupation she would be able to adopt. She was nearly well now and Katherine did not know quite what to do with her. Here was an admirable marriage, something that would give a home and children and friends. What could be better? She had just passed apparently through a love affair that could have led to no possible good—solve the difficulty, make Maggie safe for life, and pass on to the illegitimate babies!

"Of course, I don't love him," said Maggie, staring in front of her.

"But you like him," said Katherine. "It isn't as though Paul were a very young man. He wouldn't expect anything very romantic. He isn't really a romantic man himself."

"And I shall always love Martin," pursued Maggie.

Katherine's own romance had fulfilled itself so thoroughly that it had almost ceased to be romantic. The Trenchard blood in her made her a little impatient of unfulfilled romances.

"Don't you think, Maggie, dear," she said gently, "that it would be better to forget him?"

"No, I don't," said Maggie, moving away from Katherine. "And I should have to tell Paul about him. I'd tell Paul the exact truth, that if I married him it was because I liked him and I thought we'd be good friends. I see quite clearly that I can't sit for ever waiting for Martin to come back, and the sooner I settle to something the better. If Paul wants a friend I can be one, but I should never love him—even though Martin wasn't there. And as to the managing, I'm dreadfully careless and forgetful."

"You'd soon learn," said Katherine.

"Do you think I should?" asked Maggie. "I don't know, I'm sure. As to Grace, I think we'd get on all right. There's a greater difficulty than that though."

"What?" asked Katherine as Maggie hesitated.

"Religion," said Maggie. "Paul's a clergyman and I don't believe in his religion at all. Two months ago I'd have said I hated all religion—and so would you if you'd had a time like me. But since Martin's gone I'm not so sure. There's some-thing I want to find out... But Paul's found out everything. He's quite sure and certain. I'd have to tell him I don't believe in any of his faith."

"Tell him, of course," said Katherine. "I think he knows that already. He's going to convert you. He looks forward to it. If he hadn't been so lazy he'd have been a missionary."

"Tell me about Skeaton," said Maggie.

"I've only been there once," said Katherine. "Frankly, I didn't like it very much, but then I'm so used to the Glebeshire sea that it all seemed rather tame. There was a good deal of sand blowing about the day I was there, but Paul's house is nice with a garden and a croquet-lawn, and—and—Oh! very nice, and nice people next door I believe."

"I'm glad it's not like Glebeshire," said Maggie. "That's a point in its favour. I want to be somewhere where everything is quiet and orderly, and every one knows their own mind and all the bells ring at the right time and no one's strange or queer, and—most of all—where no one's afraid of anything. All my life I've been with people who were afraid and I've been afraid myself. Now Paul and Grace are not afraid of anything."

"No, they're not," said Katherine, laughing.

Suddenly Maggie broke out:

"Katherine! Tell me truly. Does Paul want me, does he need me? Does he indeed?"

The storm of appeal in Maggie's voice made Katherine suddenly shy; there was a hint at loneliness and desolation there that was something beyond her reach. She wanted to help. She was suddenly frightened at her urging of Paul's suit. Something seemed to say to her: "Leave this alone. Don't take the responsibility of this. You don't understand ..."

But another voice said: "Poor child ... all alone, penniless, without a friend. What a chance for her! Paul such a kind man."

So she kissed Maggie, and said: "He wants you dreadfully, Maggie dear."

Maggie's cheeks flushed.

"That's nice," she said in her most ordinary voice. "Because no one ever has before, you know."

Paul's proposal came the very next day. It came after luncheon in a corner of the drawing-room.

Maggie knew quite well that it was coming. She was lying in a long chair near the fire, a shawl over her knees. It was a blustering day at the end of February. The windows rattled, and the wind rushing down the chimney blew the flame into little flags and pennants of colour.

Paul came and stood by the fire, warming his hands, his legs spread out. Maggie looked at him with a long comprehensive glance that took him in from head to foot. She seemed to know then that she was going to marry him. A voice seemed to say to her: "Look at him well. This is the man you're going to live with. You'd better realise him."

She did realise him; his white hair, his rosy cheeks, his boyish nose and mouth and rounded chin, his broad chest, thick long legs and large white hands—soft perhaps, but warm and comfortable and safe. Maggie could think of little else as she looked at him but of how nice it would be to lay her head back on that broad chest, feel his arms around her, and forget—forget—forget!

That was what she needed—forgetfulness and work ... She did not love him—no, not one little atom. She had never felt less excitement about anybody, but she liked him, respected him, and trusted him. And he wanted her, wanted her desperately, Katherine had said, that was the chief thing of all.

"Maggie!" he said suddenly, turning round to her. "Would you ever think of marrying me?"

She liked that directness and simplicity, characteristic of him.

She looked up at him.

"I don't think I'd be much of a success, Paul," she said.

He saw at once from that that she did not intend instantly to refuse him. His rosy cheeks took on an added tinge of colour and he caught a chair, drew it up to her long one and sat down, bending eagerly towards her.

"Leave that to me," he said.

"I oughtn't to think of it," she answered, shaking her head. "And for very good reasons. For one thing I'm not in love with you, for another I'm not religious, and for a third I'm so careless that I'd never do for your wife."

"Of course I knew about the first," he said eagerly. "I knew you didn't love me, but that will come, Maggie. It MUST come ..."

Maggie shook her head. "I love some one else," she said, "and I always will. But he's gone away and will never come back. I've made up my mind to that. But if he did come back and wanted me I couldn't promise that I wouldn't—" She broke off. "You can see that it wouldn't do."

"No, I can't see," he said, taking her hand. "I can see that you like me, Maggie. I can see that we're splendid friends. If your other—friend—has left you altogether, then—well, time makes a great difference in those things. I think after we'd been together a little—Oh, Maggie, do!" he broke off just like a boy. "Do! We suit each other so well that we MUST be happy, and then Grace likes you—she likes you very much. She does indeed."

"Let's leave Grace out of this," Maggie said firmly. "It's between you and me, Paul. It's nobody else's affair. What about the other two objections? I don't believe in your faith at all, and I'm unpunctual and forgetful, and break things."

Strangely she was wanting him urgently now to reassure her. She realised that if now he withdrew she would be faced with a loneliness more terrible than anything that she had known since Martin had left her. The warm pressure of his hand about hers reassured her.

"Maggie dear," he said softly, "I love you better because you're young and unformed. I can help you, dear, and you can help me, of course; I'm a dreadful old buffer in many ways. I'm forty, you know, and you're such a child. How old are you, Maggie?"

"Twenty," she said.

"Twenty! Fancy! And you can like an old parson—well, well ... If you care for me nothing else matters. God will see to the rest."

"I don't like leaving things to other people," Maggie said slowly. "Now I suppose I've shocked you. But there you are; I shall always be shocking you."

"Nothing that you can say will shock me," he answered firmly. "Do you know that that's part of the charm you have for me, you dear little wild thing? If you will come and live with me perhaps you will see how God works, how mysterious are His ways, and what He means to do for you—"

Maggie shivered: "Oh, now you're talking like Aunt Anne. I don't want to feel that I'm something that some one can do what he likes with. I'm not."

"No. I know you're not," Paul answered eagerly. "You're very independent. I admire that in you—and so does Grace—"

"Would Grace like us to marry?" asked Maggie.

"It's the desire of her heart," said Paul.

"But how can you want to marry me when you know I don't love you?"

"Love's a strange thing. Companionship can make great changes. You like me. That is enough for the present. I can be patient. I'm not an impetuous man."

He was certainly not. He was just a large warm comfortable creature far, far from the terrified and strangely travelled soul of Martin ... Insensibly, hardly realising what she did, Maggie was drawn towards Paul. He drew close to her, moved on to the sofa, and then with one arm about her let her head rest against his chest. Maggie could neither move nor speak. She only felt a warm comfort, an intense desire for rest.

Very, very gently he bent down and kissed her forehead. The clock ticked on. The flames of the fire spurted and fell. Maggie's eyes closed, she gave a little sigh, and soon, her cheek against his waistcoat, like a little child, was fast asleep.

The engagement was a settled thing. Every one in the house was relieved. Maggie herself felt as though she had found lights and safety, running from a wood full of loneliness and terror. She was sharp enough to see how relieved they all were that she was 'settled.' They were true kindly people, and now they were more kind to her than ever: that showed that they had been uneasy about her. She was 'off their hands now.'

Maggie, when she saw this in the faces of Philip and Mr. Trenchard, and even of Millicent, was glad that she was engaged. She was somebody's now; she had friends and a home and work now, and she would banish all that other world for ever. For ever? ... How curious it was that from the moment of her engagement her aunts, their house, the Chapel, and the people around it began to press upon her attention with a pathos and sentiment that she had never felt before. She went to see the aunts, of course, and sat in the old drawing-room for half-an-hour, and they were kind and distant. They were glad that she was to be married; they hoped that she would be happy. Aunt Anne looked very ill, and there was a terrible air of desertion about the house as though all the life had gone out of it. Maggie came away very miserable. Then she said to herself: "Now, look here. You're in a new house now. You've got to think of nothing but that—nothing, nothing, nothing ..."

She meant Martin. She might think of Martin (how indeed could she help it?) but she was not to long for him. No, no ... not to long for him. She did wish that she could go to sleep more quickly when she went to bed.

Paul and Grace were very kind to her. Paul was just the big elder brother that she loved him to be. No more sentiment than that. A kiss morning, a kiss evening, that was all. Grace behaved to them both with a motherly indulgence. Maggie saw that she considered that she had arranged the whole affair. There were signs that she intended to arrange everything for Maggie. Well, it was rather pleasant just now to have things arranged for you. Maggie had only one wish—that Grace would not take so long to explain everything. Maggie always ran ahead of her long before she had finished her involved sentences and then had to curb her impatience. However one would get used to Grace; one would have to because she was going to live with them after they were married. Maggie had hoped that it would be otherwise, but it was at once obvious that neither Paul nor Grace dreamt of being separated.

The wedding was to be as soon as possible, and very, very quiet. In a little church close by, no bridesmaids, everything very simple. Maggie was glad of that. She would have hated a church full of staring people. She enjoyed immensely buying her trousseau. Paul was very generous with his money; it was evident that Grace thought him too generous. Maggie and Katherine went together to buy things, and Katherine was a darling. Maggie fancied that Katherine was not quite easy in her mind about her share in the affair.

"You won't expect Skeaton to be wildly exciting, Maggie dear, will you?" she said. "You'll find plenty to do and there are lots of nice people, I'm sure, and you'll come up and stay with us here."

"I think it sounds delightful," said Maggie. "If you'd lived for years in St. Dreot's, Katherine, you wouldn't talk about other places being dull. It isn't excitement I want. It's work."

"Don't you let Grace bully you," said Katherine.

"Bully me? Grace?" Maggie was very astonished. "Why, she's the kindest old thing. She wants me to do everything."

"So she says," said Katherine doubtfully. "But she's very jealous of Paul. How much she'll really like giving up her authority when it comes to the point I don't know. You stick up to her. Paul's weak."

"I don't think he is." said Maggie rather indignantly. "Grace always does what he says." "Yes, just now," said Katherine.

And Maggie had one funny little conversation with Henry Trenchard. That wild youth catching her alone one day said abruptly:

"What the devil have you done it for?"

"Done what?" asked Maggie, her heart beating a little faster. Strangely Henry reminded her of Martin. He alone of all the Trenchards had something that was of that other world.

"Engaged yourself to Paul," said Henry.

"Why shouldn't I?" asked Maggie.

"You don't love him—of course you couldn't. You're not his sort in the least. You're worth a million Pauls."

This was so odd for Henry, who was certainly not given to compliments, that Maggie burst out laughing.

"Yes, you may laugh," said Henry. "I know what I'm talking about. Have you ever seen Paul asleep after dinner?"

"No," said Maggie.

"I wish you had. That might have saved you. Have you ever seen Grace lose her temper?"

"No," said Maggie, this time a little uneasily.

"Look here," he came close to her, staring at her with those eyes of his that could be very charming when he liked. "Break it off. Say you think it's a mistake. You'll be miserable."

"Indeed I shan't," said Maggie, tossing her head. "Whatever happens I'm not going to be miserable. No one can make me that."

"So you think," Henry frowned. "I can't think what you want to be married for at all. These days women can have such a good time, especially a woman with character like you. If I were a woman I'd never marry."

"You don't understand," said Maggie. "You haven't been lonely all your life as I have, and you're not afraid of making yourself cheap and—and—looking for some one who doesn't want—you. It's so easy for you to talk. And Paul wants me—really he does—"

"Yes, he does," said Henry slowly. "He's in love with you all right. I'm as sorry for Paul as I am for you."

Maggie laughed. "It's very kind of you to be sorry," she said, "but you needn't trouble. I believe we can look after ourselves."

For a quarter of an hour after this conversation she was a little uneasy. He was a clever boy, Henry; he did watch people. But then he was very young, It was all guesswork with him.

She became now strangely quiescent; her energy, her individuality, her strength of will seemed, for the time, entirely to have gone. She surrendered herself to Grace and Paul and Katherine and they did what they would with her.

Only once was she disturbed. Two nights before the wedding she dreamt of Martin. It did not appear as a dream at all. It seemed to her that she had been asleep and that she suddenly woke. She was gazing, from her bed, into her own room, but at the farther end of it instead of the wall with the rosy trees and the gold mirror was another room. This room was strange and cheerless with bare boards, a large four-poster bed with faded blue hangings, two old black prints with eighteenth-century figures and a big standing mirror. In front of the bed, staring into the mirror, was Martin, He was dressed shabbily in a blue reefer coat. He looked older than when she had seen him last, was stouter and ill, with white puffy cheeks and dark shadows under his eyes. She saw him very clearly under the light of two candles that wavered a little in the draught.

He was staring into the mirror, absorbed apparently in what he saw there. She cried his name and he seemed to start and turn towards the door listening. Then the picture faded. She woke to find herself sitting up in bed crying his name ...

In the morning she drove this dream away from her, refusing to think of it or listen to it, but somewhere far down in her soul something trembled.

The wedding was over so quickly that she scarcely realised it. There was the stuffy little church, very empty and dusty, with brass plates on the wall. She could hear, in the street, rumblings of carts and the rattle of wheels; somewhere a barrel-organ played. The clergyman was a little man who smiled upon her kindly. When Paul put the ring on her finger she started as though for a moment she awoke from a dream. She was glad that he looked so clean and tidy. Grace was wearing too grand a hat with black feathers. In the vestry Paul kissed her, and then they walked down the aisle together. She saw Katherine and Millie and Henry. Her fingers caught tightly about Paul's stout arm, but she would have been more at home she thought with Uncle Mathew just then.

It was a nice bright spring day, although the wind blew the dust about. They had a meal in Katherine's house and some one made a speech, and Maggie drank some champagne. She hoped she looked nice in her grey silk dress, and then caught sight of herself in a glass and thought she was as ever a fright.

"My little wild thing—mine now," whispered Paul. She thought that rather silly; she was not a wild thing, but simply Maggie Cardinal. Oh, no! Maggie Trenchard ... She did not feel Maggie Trenchard at all and she did not suppose that she ever would.

They were to have a fortnight alone at Skeaton before Grace came. Maggie was glad of that. Paul was really nicer when Grace was not there.

They were all very kind to her. They had given her good presents—Millie some silver brushes, Henry some books, Philip a fan, and Katherine a most beautiful dressing-bag. Maggie had never had such things before. But she could have wished for something from her own people. She had written to Uncle Mathew but had not heard from him.

At the very last moment, on the morning of the wedding day, a present came from the aunts—an old box for handkerchiefs. The cover was inlaid with sea-shells and there was a little looking-glass inside.

Very soon it was all over and then to her own intense surprise she was alone in the train with Paul. What had she expected? She did not know—but somehow not this.

They were in a first-class carriage. Paul was doing the thing nobly. He sat close to her, his broad knee against her dress. How broad his knee was, a great expanse of black shining cloth. He took her hand and rested it on the expanse, and, at the touch of the stuff and the throb of the warm flesh beneath it, she shivered a little and would wish to have drawn her hand away. He seemed so much larger than she had expected; from his knee to his high shining white collar was an immense distance and midway there was a thick gold watch-chain rising and falling as he breathed. He smelt very faintly of tooth-powder.

But on the whole she was comfortable; only the thin gold ring round her finger felt strange. Deep in a little pocket inside her blouse was the ring with the three little pearls.

"I do hope, Maggie darling," he said, "you don't think it strange our not going somewhere else for our honeymoon. My lads will be expecting me back—I was kept longer in London than I should have been—by you, you little witch. My witch now—"

He put his arm round her waist and urged her head towards his coat. But her hat, her beautiful hat that had cost so much more than she had ever spent on a hat before, was in the way. It struck into his chin. They were both uncomfortable and then, thank heaven, the train slowed down; they were at a station and some one got into their carriage, a stout man, all newspaper and creases to his trousers. That, in the circumstances, was a great relief and soon Maggie dozed, seeing the telegraph wires and the trees like waving hands through a mist of sleep.

As she fell asleep she realised that this was only the second time in all her life that she had been in a train. Some one bawled in her car "Skeaton! Skeaton!" and she looked up to find a goat-faced porter gazing at her through the window. She was on a storm-driven platform, her husband's arm was through hers, she was being helped into an old faded cab. Now they were driving down a hill, under a railway-arch, along a road with villas and trees, trees and villas, and then villas alone. What a wind! The bare branches were in a frenzy, and from almost every villa blew little pennons of white curtains. "They like to have their windows open any way," she thought. Paul said very little; he was obviously nervous of how she would take it all. She took it all very well.

"What pretty houses!" she said. "And here are the shops!"

Only a few—a sweet-shop, a grocer's, a stationer's with "Simpson's Library" on the door, a post-office.

"The suburbs," said Paul.

What a wind! It rolled up the road like a leaping carpet, you could almost see its folds and creases. No one about—not a living soul.

"The cab I ordered never came. Lucky thing there was one there," said Paul.

Not a soul about. Does any one live here? She could not see much through the window, and she could hear nothing because the glass rattled so.

"Here we are!" The cab stopped with a jerk. Here they were then. A gate swung to behind them, there was a little drive with bushes on either side of it and then the house.

Not a very handsome house, Maggie thought. A dull square grey with chimneys like ears in exactly the right places. Some pieces of paper were whirled up and down by the wind, they danced about the horse's feet. She noticed that the door-handles needed polishing. A cavernous hall, a young girl with untidy hair and a yelping dog received them.

"That's Mitch!" said Paul. "Dear old Mitch. How are you, dear old fellow? Down Mitch! Down! There's a good dog."

The young girl was terrified of Maggie. She gulped through her nose.

"I've put tea in the study, sir," she said.

"Tea at once, little woman, eh?" said Paul. "I'm dying for some. Thank you, Emily. All well? That's right. Dear, dear, It IS nice to be home again."

Yes, he was nervous, poor Paul. She felt a great tenderness for him, but she could not say the right words. She should have said: "It is nice," but it was not. The hall was so cold and dark, and all over the house windows were rattling.

They went straight into the study. What a room! It reminded Maggie at once, in its untidiness and discomfort, of her father's, study, and that thought struck a chill into her very heart, so that she had to pause for a moment and control herself. There were piles of newspapers heaped up against the shelves; books run to the ceiling, old, old books with the covers tumbling off them. On the stone mantelpiece was a perfect litter—old pipes, bundles of letters, a ball of string, some yellow photographs, a crucifix and a small plant dead and shrivelled in its pot.

"Now then, darling. Hurrah for some tea!"

She poured it out and he watched her in an ecstasy. Strangely she began to be frightened and a little breathless, as though the walls of the room were slowly closing in. The tea had been standing a long time, it was very strong and chill.

The house was a firing-ground of rattle and whirs, but there were no human sounds anywhere. There was dust all over the room.

They had said nothing for some time.

He spoke suddenly, his voice husky and awkward, as though he were trying a new voice for the first time.

"Maggie!" he said. "Don't sit so far away. Come over here."

She crossed over to him. He, with an arm that seemed to be suddenly of iron, pulled her on to his knee. She was rebellious. Her whole body stiffened. She did not want this, she did not want this! Some voice within cried out: "Take care! Take care!" ... He pressed her close to him; he kissed her furiously, savagely, her eyes, her mouth, her cheek. She could feel his heart pounding beneath his clothes like a savage beast. His hands were all about her; he was crushing her so that she was hurt, but she did not feel that at all; there was something else ...

With all her might she fought down her resistance. This was her duty. She must obey. But something desolate and utterly, utterly lonely crept away and cried bitterly, watching her surrender.



CHAPTER III

SKEATON-ON-SEA

She was swinging higher, higher, higher—swinging with that delightful rhythm that one knows best in dreams, lazily, idly, and yet with purpose and resolve. She was swinging far above the pain, the rebellion, the surrender. That was left for ever; the time of her tears, of her loneliness was over. Above her, yet distant, was a golden cloud, soft, iridescent, and in the heart of this lay, she knew, the solution of the mystery; when she reached it the puzzle would be resolved, and in a wonderful tranquillity she could rest after her journey. Nearer and nearer she swung; the cloud was a blaze of gold so that she must not look, but could feel its warmth and heat already irradiating about her. Only to know! ... to connect the two worlds, to find the bridge, to destroy the gulf!

Then suddenly the rhythm changed. She was descending again; slowly the cloud diminished, a globe of light, a ball of fire, a dazzling star. The air was cold, her eyes could not penetrate the dark; with a sigh she awoke.

It was early morning, and a filmy white shadow pervaded the room. For a moment she did not know where she was; she saw the ghostly shadows of chairs, of the chest of drawers, of a high cupboard. Then the large picture of "The Crucifixion," very, very dim, reminded her. She knew where she was; she turned and saw her husband sleeping at her side, huddled, like a child, his face on his arm, gently breathing, in the deepest sleep. She watched him. There had been a moment that night when she had hated him, hated him so bitterly that she could have fought him and even killed him. There had been another moment after that, when she had been so miserable that her own death seemed the only solution, when she had watched him tumble into sleep and had herself lain, with burning eyes and her flesh dry and hot, staring into the dark, ashamed, humiliated. Then the old Maggie had come to her rescue, the old Maggie who bade her make the best of her conditions whatever they might be, who told her there was humour in everything, hope always, courage everywhere, and that in her own inviolable soul lay her strength, that no one could defeat her did she not defeat herself.

Now, most strangely, in that early light, she felt a great tenderness for him, the tenderness of the mother for the child. She put out her hand, touched his shoulder, stroked it with her hand, laid her head against it. He, murmuring in his sleep, turned towards her, put his arm around her and so, in the shadow of his heart, she fell into deep, dreamless slumber.

At breakfast that morning she felt with him a strange shyness and confusion. She had never been shy with him before. At the very first she had been completely at her ease; that had been one of his greatest attractions for her. But now she realised that she would be for a whole fortnight alone with him, that she did not know him in the least, and that he himself was strangely embarrassed by his own discoveries that he was making.

So they, both of them, took the world that was on every side of them, put it in between them and left their personal relationship to wait for a better time.

Maggie was childishly excited. She had, for the first time in her life, a house of her own to order and arrange; by the middle of that first afternoon she had forgotten that Paul existed.

She admitted to herself at once, so that there should be no pretence about the matter, that the house was hideous. "Yes, it's hideous," she said aloud, standing in the middle of the dining-room and looking about her. It never could have been very much of a house, but they (meaning Paul and Grace) had certainly not done their best for it.

Maggie had had no education, she had not perhaps much natural taste, but she knew when things and people were sympathetic, and this house was as unsympathetic as a house could well be. To begin with, the wall-papers were awful; in the dining-room there was a dark dead green with some kind of pink flower; the drawing-room was dressed in a kind of squashed strawberry colour; the wall-paper of the staircases and passages was of imitation marble, and the three bedrooms were pink, green, and yellow, perfect horticultural shows.

It was the distinctive quality of all the wall-papers that nothing looked well against them, and the cheap reproductions in gilt frames, the religious prints, the photographs (groups of the Rev. Paul at Cambridge, at St. Ermand's Theological College, with the Skeaton Band of Hope) were all equally forlorn and out of place.

It was evident that everything in the house was arranged and intended to stay for ever where it was, the chairs against the walls, the ornaments on the mantelpieces, the photograph-frames, the plush mats, the bright red pots with ferns, the long blue vases, and yet the impression was not one of discipline and order. Aunt Anne's house had been untidy, but it had had an odd life and atmosphere of its own. This house was dead, utterly and completely dead. The windows of the dining-room looked out on to a lawn and round the lawn was a stone wall with broken glass to protect it. "As though there were anything to steal!" thought Maggie. But then you cannot expect a garden to look its best at the beginning of April. "I'll wait a little," thought Maggie. "And then I'll make this house better. I'll destroy almost everything in it."

About mid-day with rather a quaking heart Maggie penetrated the kitchen. Here were gathered together Alice the cook, Emily the housemaid, and Clara the between maid.

Alice was large, florid, and genial. Nevertheless at once Maggie distrusted her. No servant had any right to appear so wildly delighted to see a new mistress. Alice had doubtless her own plans. Emily was prim and conceited, and Clara did not exist. Alice was ready to do everything that Maggie wanted, and it was very apparent at once that she had not liked "Miss Grace."

"Ah, that'll be much better than the way Miss Grace 'ad it, Mum. In their jackets, Mum, very well. Certainly. That would be better."

"I think you'd better just give us what seems easiest for dinner, Cook," said Maggie, thereby handing herself over, delivered and bound.

"Very well, Mum—I'm sure I'll do my best," said Alice.

Early on that first afternoon she was taken to see the Church. For a desperate moment her spirits failed her as she stood at the end of the Lane and looked. This was a Church of the newest red brick, and every seat was of the most shining wood. The East End window was flaming purple, with a crimson Christ ascending and yellow and blue disciples amazed together on the ground. Paul stood flushed with pride and pleasure, his hand through Maggie's arm.

"That's a Partright window," he said with that inflection that Maggie was already beginning to think of as "his public voice."

"I'm afraid, Paul dear," said Maggie, "I'm very ignorant."

"Don't know Partright? Oh, he's the great man of the last thirty years—did the great East window of St. Martin's, Pontefract. We had a job to get him I can tell you. Just look at that purple."

"On the right you'll see the Memorial Tablet to our brave lads who fell in the South African War—Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori—very appropriate. Brave fellows, brave fellows! Just behind you, Maggie, is the Mickleham Font, one of the finest specimens of modern stone-work in the county—given to us by Sir Joseph Mickleham—Mickleham Hall, you know, only two miles from here. He used to attend morning service here frequently. Died five years ago. Fine piece of work!"

Maggie looked at it. It was enormous, a huge battlement of a font in dead white stone with wreaths of carved ivy creeping about it.

"It makes one feel rather shivery," said Maggie.

"Now you must see our lectern," said Paul eagerly.

And so it continued. There was apparently a great deal to be said about the Lectern, and then about the Choir-Screen, and then about the Reredos, and then about the Pulpit, and then about the Vestry, and then about the Collecting-Box for the Poor, and then about the Hassocks, and finally about the Graveyard ... To all this Maggie listened and hoped that she made the proper answers, but the truth of the matter was that she was cold and dismayed. The Chapel had been ugly enough, but behind its ugliness there had been life; now with the Church as with the house there was no life visible. Paul, putting his hand on her shoulder, said:

"Here, darling, will be the centre of our lives. This is our temple. Round this building all our happiness will revolve."

"Yes, dear," said Maggie. She was taken then for a little walk. They went down Ivy Road and into Skeaton High Street. Here were the shops. Mr. Bloods, the bookseller's, Tunstall the butcher, Toogood the grocer, Father the draper, Minster the picture-dealer, Harcourt the haberdasher, and so on. Maggie rather liked the High Street; it reminded her of the High Street in Polchester, although there was no hill. Out of the High Street and on to the Esplanade. You should never see an Esplanade out of the season, Katherine had once said to Maggie. That dictum seemed certainly true this time. There could be no doubt that this Esplanade was not looking its best under the blustering March wind. Here a deserted bandstand, there a railway station, here a dead haunt for pierrots, there a closed and barred cinema house, here a row of stranded bathing-machines, there a shuttered tea-house—and not a living soul in sight. In front of them was a long long stretch of sand, behind them to right and left the huddled tenements of the town, in front of them, beyond the sand, the grey sea—and again not a living soul in sight. The railway line wound its way at their side, losing itself in the hills and woods of the horizon.

"There are not many people about, are there?" said Maggie. Nor could she wonder. The East wind cut along the desolate stretches of silence, and yet how strange a wind! It seemed to have no effect at all upon the sea, which rolled in sluggishly with snake-like motion, throwing up on the dim colourless beach a thin fringe of foam, baring its teeth at the world in impotent discontent.

"Oh! there's a boy!" cried Maggie, amazed at her own relief. "How often do the trains come in?" she asked.

"Well, we don't have many trains in the off-season," said Paul. "They put on several extra ones in the summer."

"Oh, what's the sand doing?" Maggie cried.

She had seen sand often enough in her own Glebeshire, but never sand like this. Under the influence of the wind it was blowing and curving into little spirals of dust; a sudden cloud, with a kind of personal animosity rose and flung itself across the rails at Maggie and Paul. They were choking and blinded—and in the distance clouds of sand rose and fell, with gusts and impulses that seemed personal and alive.

"What funny sand!" said Maggie again. "When it blows in Glebeshire it blows and there's a perfect storm. There's a storm or there isn't. Here—" She broke off. She could see that Paul hadn't the least idea of what she was speaking.

"The sand is always blowing about here," he said. "Now what about tea?"

They walked back through the High Street and not a soul was to be seen.

"Does nobody live here?" asked Maggie.

"The population," said Paul quite gravely, "is eight thousand, four hundred and fifty-four."

"Oh, I see," said Maggie.

They had tea in the dusty study again.

"I'm going to change this house," said Maggie.

"Change it?" asked Paul. "What's my little girl going to do?"

"She's going to destroy ever so many things," said Maggie.

"You'd better wait," said Paul, moving a little away, "until Grace comes back, dear. You can consult with her."

Maggie said nothing.

Next day Mrs. Constantine, Miss Purves, and Mrs. Maxse came to tea. They had tea in the drawing-room all amongst the squashed strawberries. Three large ferns in crimson pots watched them as they ate. Maggie thought: "Grace seems to have a passion for ferns." She had been terribly nervous before the ladies' arrival—that old nervousness that had made her tremble before Aunt Anne at St. Dreot's, before the Warlocks, before old Martha. But with it came as always her sense of independence and individuality.

"They can't eat me," she thought. It was obvious at once that they did not want to do anything of the kind. They were full of kindness and curiosity. Mrs. Constantine took the lead, and it was plain that she had been doing this all her life. She was a large black and red woman with clothes that fitted her like a uniform. Her hair was of a raven gleaming blackness, her cheeks were red, her manner so assured and commanding that she seemed to Maggie at once like a policeman directing the traffic. The policeman of Christian Skeaton she was, and it did not take Maggie two minutes to discover that Paul was afraid of her. She had a deep bass voice and a hearty laugh.

"I can understand her," thought Maggie, "and I believe she'll understand me."

Very different Miss Purves. If Mrs. Constantine was the policeman of Skeaton, Miss Purves was the town-crier. She rang her bell and announced the news, and also insisted that you should tell her without delay any item of news that you had collected.

In appearance she was like any old maid whose love of gossip has led her to abandon her appearance. She had obviously surrendered the idea of attracting the male, and flung on her clothes—an old black hat, a grey coat and skirt—with a negligence that showed that she cared for worthier things. She gave the impression that there was no time to be lost were one to gather all the things in life worth hearing.

If Mrs. Constantine stood for the police and Miss Purves the town-crier, Mrs. Maxse certainly represented Society. She was dressed beautifully, and she must have been very pretty once. Her hair was now grey, but her cheeks had still a charming bloom. She was delicate and fragile, rustling and scented, with a beautiful string of pearls round her neck (this, in the daytime, Maggie thought very odd), and a large black hat with a sweeping feather. Her voice was a little sad, a little regretful, as though she knew that her beautiful youth was gone and was making the best of what she had.

She told Maggie that "she couldn't help" being an idealist.

"I know it's foolish of me," she said in her gentle voice, smiling her charming smile. "They all tell me so. But if life isn't meant to be beautiful, where are we? Everything must have a meaning, mustn't it, Mrs. Trenchard, and however often we fail—and after all we are only human—we must try, try again. I believe in seeing the best in people, because then they live up to that. People are what we make them, don't you think?"

"The woman's a fool," thought Maggie. Nevertheless, she liked her kindness. She was so strangely driven. She wished to think of Martin always, never to forget him, but at the same time not to think of the life that was connected with him. She must never think of him as some one who might return. Did that once begin all this present life would be impossible—and she meant to make this new existence not only possible but successful. Therefore she was building, so hard as she could, this new house; the walls were rising, the rooms were prepared, every window was barred, the doors were locked, no one from outside should enter, and everything that belonged to it—Paul, Grace, the Church, these women, Skeaton itself, her household duties, the servants, everything and every one was pressed into service. She must have so much to do that she could not think, she must like every one else so much that she could not want any one else—that other world must be kept out, no sound nor sight of it must enter ... If even she could forget Martin. What had he said to her. "Promise me whatever I am, whatever I do, you will love me always"—and she had promised. Here she was married to Paul and loving Martin more than ever! As she looked at Mrs. Constantine she wondered what she would say did she know that. Nevertheless, she had not deceived Paul ... She had told him. She would make this right. She would force this life to give her what she needed, work and friends and a place in the world. Her face a little white with her struggle to keep her house standing, she turned to her guests. She was afraid that she did not play the hostess very well. She felt as though she were play-acting. She repeated phrases that she had heard Katherine Mark use, and laughed at herself for doing so. She suspected that they thought her very odd, and she fancied that Mrs. Constantine looked at her short hair with grave suspicion.

Afterwards, when she told Paul this, he was rather uncomfortable.

"It'll soon be long again, dear, won't it?" he said.

"Don't you like it short then?" she asked.

"Of course I like it, but there's no reason to be unusual, is there? We don't want to seem different from other people, do we, darling?"

"I don't know," said Maggie. "We want to be ourselves. I don't think I shall ever grow my hair long again. It's so much more comfortable like this."

"If I ask you, dear," said Paul.

"No, not even if you ask me," she answered, laughing.

She noticed then, for the first time, that he could look sulky like a small school-boy.

"Why, Paul," she said. "If you wanted to grow a beard I shouldn't like it, but I shouldn't dream of stopping you."

"That's quite different," he answered. "I should never dream of growing a beard. Grace won't like it if you look odd."

"Grace isn't my teacher," said Maggie with a sudden hot hostility that surprised herself.

She discovered, by the way, very quickly that the three ladies had no very warm feelings for Grace. They showed undisguised pleasure at the thought that Maggie would now be on various Committees instead of her sister-in-law.

"It will be your place, of course, as wife of the vicar," said Mrs. Constantine. "Hitherto Miss Trenchard—"

"Oh, but I couldn't be on a Committee," cried Maggie. "I've never been on one in my life. I should never know what to do."

"Never been on a Committee!" cried Miss Purves, quivering with interest. "Why, Mrs. Trenchard, where have you been all this time?"

"I'm only twenty," said Maggie. They certainly thought it strange of her to confess to her age like that. "At home father never had any Committees, he did it all himself, or rather didn't do it."

Mrs. Constantine shook her head. "We must all help you," she said. "You're very young, my dear, for the responsibilities of this parish."

"Yes, I am," said Maggie frankly. "And I'll be very glad of anything you can tell me. But you mustn't let me be Treasurer or Secretary of anything. I should never answer any of the letters, and I should probably spend all the money myself."

"My dear, you shouldn't say such things even as a joke," said Mrs. Constantine.

"But it isn't a joke," said Maggie. "I'm terribly muddleheaded, and I've no idea of money at all. Paul's going to teach me."

Paul smiled nervously.

"Maggie will soon fit into our ways," he said.

"I'm sure she will." said Mrs. Constantine very kindly, but as though she were speaking to a child of ten.

The bell rang and Mr. Flaunders the curate came in. He was very young, very earnest, and very enthusiastic. He adored Paul. He told Maggie that he thought that he was the very luckiest man in the world for having, so early in his career, so wonderful a man as Paul to work under. He had also adored Grace, but very quickly showed signs of transferring that adoration to Maggie.

"Miss Trenchard's splendid," he said. "I do admire her so, but you'll be a great help to us all. I'm so glad you've come."

"Why, how do you know?" asked Maggie. "You've only seen me for about two minutes."

"Ah, one can tell," said Mr. Flaunders, sighing.

Maggie liked his enthusiasm, but she couldn't help wishing that his knees wouldn't crack at unexpected moments, that he wasn't quite so long and thin, and that he wouldn't leave dried shaving-soap under his ears and in his nostrils. She was puzzled, too, that Paul should be so obviously pleased with the rather naif adoration. "Paul likes you to praise him," she thought a little regretfully.

So, for the moment, these people, the house and the Church, fitted in her World. For the rest of the fortnight she was so busy that she never went on to the beach nor into the woods. She shopped every morning, feeling very old and grown-up, she went to tea with Mrs. Constantine and Mrs. Maxse, and she sat on Paul's knee whenever she thought that he would like her to. She sat on Paul's knee, but that did not mean that, in real intimacy, they approached any nearer to one another. During those days they stared at one another like children on different sides of a fence. They were definitely postponing settlement, and with every day Maggie grew more restless and uneasy. She wanted back that old friendly comradeship that there had been before their marriage. He seemed now to have lost altogether that attitude to her. Then on the very day of Grace's return the storm broke. It was tea-time and they were having it, as usual, in his dusty study. They were sitting someway apart—Paul in the old leather armchair by the fire, his thick body stretched out, his cheerful good-humoured face puckered and peevish.

Maggie stood up, looking at him.

"Paul, what's the matter?" she asked.

"Matter," he repeated. "Nothing."

"Oh yes, there is ... You're cross with me."

"No, I'm not. What an absurd idea!" He moved restlessly, turning half away, not looking at her. She came close up to him.

"Look here, Paul. There is something the matter. We haven't been married a fortnight yet and you're unhappy. Whatever else we married for we married because we were going to be friends. So you've just got to tell me what the trouble is."

"I've got my sermon to prepare," he said, not looking at her, but half rising in his chair. "You'd better go, darling."

"I'm not going to," she answered, "until you've told me why you're worrying."

He got up slowly and seemed then as though he were going to pass her. Suddenly he turned, flung his arms round her, catching her, crushing her in his arms, kissing her wildly.

"Love ... love me ... love me," he whispered. "That's what's the matter. I didn't know myself before I married you, Maggie. All these years I've lived like a fish and I didn't know it. But I know it now. And you've got to love me. You're my wife and you've got to love me."

She would have given everything that she had then to respond. She felt an infinite tenderness and pity for him. But she could not. He felt that she could not. He let her go and turned away from her. She thought for a moment wondering what she ought to say, and then she came up to him and gently put her hand on his shoulder.

"Be patient, Paul," she said. "You know we agreed before we married that we'd be friends at any rate and let the rest come. Wait ..."

"Wait!" he turned round eagerly, clutching her arm. "Then there is a chance, Maggie? You can get to love me—you can forget that other man?"

She drew back. "No, you know I told you that I should never do that. But he'll never come back nor want me again and I'm very fond of you, Paul—fonder than I thought. Don't spoil it all now by going too fast—"

"Going too fast!" he laughed. "Why, I haven't gone any way at all. I haven't got you anywhere. I can hardly touch you. You're away from me all the time. You're strange—different from every one ..."

"I don't know anything about women. I've learnt a lot about myself this week. It isn't going to be as easy as I thought."

She went up to him, close to him, and said almost desperately: "We MUST make this all right, Paul. We can if we try. I know we can."

He kissed her gently with his old kindness. "What a baby you are. You didn't know what you were in for ... Oh, we'll make it all right."

They sat close together then and drank their tea. After all, Grace would be here in an hour! They both felt a kind of relief that they would no longer be alone.

Grace would be here in an hour! Strange how throughout all these last days Maggie had been looking forward to that event with dread. There was no definite reason for fear; in London Grace had been kindness itself and had shown real affection for Maggie. Within the last week she had written two very affectionate letters. What was this, then, that hung and hovered? It was in the very air of the house and the garden and the place. Grace had left her mark upon everything and every one, even upon the meagre person of Mitch the dog. Especially upon Mitch, a miserable creeping fox-terrier with no spirits and a tendency to tremble all over when you called him. He had attached himself to Maggie, which was strange, because animals were not, as a rule, interested in her. Mitch followed her about, looking up at her with a yellow supplicating eye. She didn't like him and she would be glad when Grace collected him again—but why did he tremble?

She realised, in the way that she had of seeing further than her nose, that Grace was going to affect the whole of her relations with Paul, and, indeed, all her future life. She had not realised that in London. Grace had seemed harmless there and unimportant. Already here in Skeaton she seemed to stand for a whole scheme of life.

Maggie had moved and altered a good many of the things in the house. She had discovered a small attic, and into this she had piled pell-mell a number of photographs, cheap reproductions, cushions, worsted mats, and china ornaments. She had done it gaily and with a sense of clearing the air.

Now as Grace's hour approached she was not so sure.

"Well, I'm not afraid," she reassured herself with her favourite defiance. "She can't eat me. And it's my house."

Paul had not noticed the alterations. He was always blind to his surroundings unless they were what he called "queer."

There was the rattle of the cab-wheels on the drive and a moment later Grace was in the hall.

"Dear Paul—Maggie, dear ..."

She stood there, a very solid and assured figure. She was square and thick and reminded Maggie to-day of Mrs. Noah; her clothes stood cut out around her as though they had been cut in wood. She had her large amiable smile, and the kiss that she gave Maggie was a wet, soft, and very friendly one.

"Now I think I'll have tea at once without taking my hat off. In Paul's study? That's nice ... Maggie, dear, how are you? Such a journey! But astonishing! Just fancy! I got into Charing Cross and then—! Why! Here's the study! Fancy! ... Maggie, dear, how are you? Well? That's right. Why, there's tea! That's right. Everything just as it was. Fancy! ..." She took off her gloves, smiled, seated herself more comfortably, then began to look about the room. Suddenly there came: "Why, Paul, where's the Emmanuel football group?"

There was a moment's silence. Maggie felt her heart give a little bump, as it seemed to her, right against the roof of her mouth. Paul (so like him) had not noticed that the football group had vanished. He stared at the blank place on the wall where it had once been.

"Why, Grace ... I don't know. I never noticed it wasn't there."

"I took it down," said Maggie. "I thought there were too many photographs. It's in the attic."

"In the attic? ... Fancy! You put it away, did you, Maggie? Well, fancy! Shan't I make the tea, Maggie, dear? That tea-pot, it's an old friend of mine. I know how to manage it."

They changed seats. Grace was as amiable as ever, but now her eyes flashed about from place to place all around the room.

"Why, this is a new kind of jam. How nice! As I was saying, I got into Charing Cross and there wasn't a porter. Just fancy! At least there was a porter, an old man, but when I beckoned to him he wouldn't move. Well, I was angry. I can tell you, Paul, I wasn't going to stand that, so I-what nice jam, dear. I never knew Mitchell's had jam like this!"

"I didn't get it at Mitchell's," said Maggie. "I've changed the grocer. Mitchell hasn't got anything, and his prices are just about double Brownjohn's ..."

"Brownjohn!" Grace stared, her bread and jam suspended. "Brownjohn! But, Maggie dear, he's a dissenter."

"Oh. Maggie!" said Paul. "You should have told me!"

"Why!" said Maggie, bewildered. "Father never minded about dissenters. Our butcher in St. Dreot's was an atheist and—"

"Well, well," said Grace, her eyes still flashing about like goldfish in a pool. "You didn't know, dear. Of course you didn't. I'm sure we can put it right with Mitchell, although he's a sensitive man. I'll go and see him in the morning. I am glad I'm back. Well, I was telling you ... Where was I? ... about the porter—"

Something drove Maggie to say:

"I'd rather have a good grocer who's a dissenter than a bad one who goes to church—"

"Maggie," said Paul, "you don't know what you're saying. You don't realise what the effect in the parish would be."

"Of course she doesn't," said Grace consolingly. "She'll understand in time. As I was saying, I was so angry that I caught the old man by the arm and I said to him, 'If you think you're paid to lean up against a wall and not do your duty you're mightily mistaken, and if you aren't careful I'll report you—that's what I'll do,' and he said—what were his exact words? I'll remember in a minute. I know he was very insulting, and the taxi-cabman—why, Paul, where's mother's picture?"

Grace's eyes were directed to a large space high above the mantelpiece. Maggie remembered that there had been a big faded oil-painting of an old lady in a shawl and spectacles, a hideous affair she had thought it. That was now reposing in the attic. Why had she not known that it was a picture of Paul's mother? She would never have touched it had she known. Why had Paul said nothing? He had not even noticed that it was gone.

Paul stared, amazed and certainly—yes, beyond question—frightened.

"Grace—upon my word—I've been so busy since my return—"

"Is that also in the attic?" asked Grace.

"Yes, it is," said Maggie. "I'm so sorry. I never knew it was your mother. It wasn't a very good painting I thought, so I took it down. If I had known, of course, I never would have touched it. Oh Grace, I AM so sorry."

"It's been there," said Grace, "for nearly twenty years. What I mean to say is that it's always been there. Poor mother. Are there many things in the attic, Maggie?"

At that moment there was a feeble scratching on the door. Paul, evidently glad of anything that would relieve the situation, opened the door.

"Why, it's Mitch!" cried Grace, forgetting for the moment her mother. "Fancy! It's Mitch! Mitch, dear! Was she glad to see her old friend back again? Was she? Darling! Fancy seeing her old friend again? Was she wanting her back?"

Mitch stood shivering in the doorway, then, with her halting step, the skin of her back wrinkled with anxiety, she crossed the room. For a moment she hesitated, then with shamefaced terror, slunk to Maggie, pressed up against her, and sat there huddled, staring at Grace with yellow unfriendly eyes.



CHAPTER IV

GRACE

Not in a day and not in a night did Maggie find a key to that strange confusion of fears, superstitions, and self-satisfactions that was known to the world as Grace Trenchard. Perhaps she never found it, and through all the struggle and conflict in which she was now to be involved she was fighting, desperately, in the dark. Fight she did, and it was this same conflict, bitter and tragic enough at the time, that transformed her into the woman that she became ... and through all that conflict it may be truly said of her that she never knew a moment's bitterness—anger, dismay, loneliness, even despair-bitterness never.

It was not strange that Maggie did not understand Grace; Grace never understood herself nor did she make the slightest attempt to do so. It would be easy enough to cover the ground at once by saying that she had no imagination, that she never went behind the thing that she saw, and that she found the grasping of external things quite as much as she could manage. But that is not enough. Very early indeed, when she had been a stolid-faced little girl with a hot desire for the doll possessed by her neighbour, she had had for nurse a woman who rejoiced in supernatural events. With ghost stories of the most terrifying kind she besieged Grace's young heart and mind. The child had never imagination enough to visualise these stories in the true essence, but she seized upon external detail-the blue lights, the white shimmering garments, the moon and the church clock, the clanking chain and the stain of blood upon the board.