These things were not for her, and indeed did she allow her fancy to dwell, for a moment, upon them she was besieged at once by so horrid a panic that she lost all control and self-possession. She therefore very quickly put those things from her and thenceforth lived in the world as in a castle surrounded by a dark moat filled with horrible and slimy creatures who would raise a head at her did she so much as glance their way.

She decided then never to look, and from a very early age those quarters of life became to her "queer," indecent, and dangerous. All the more she fastened her grip upon the things that she could see and hold, and these things repaid her devotion by never deceiving her or pretending to be what they were not. She believed intensely in forms and repetitions; she liked everything to be where she expected it to be, people to say the things that she expected them to say, clocks to strike at the right time, and trains to be up to the minute. With all this she could never be called an accurate or careful woman. She was radically stupid, stupid in the real sense of the word, so that her mind did not grasp a new thought or fact until it had been repeated to her again and again, so that she had no power of expressing herself, and a deep inaccuracy about everything and every one which she endeavoured to cover by a stream of aimless lies that deceived no one. She would of course have been very indignant had any one told her that she was stupid. She hated what she called "clever people" and never had them near her if she could help it. She was instantly suspicious of any one who liked ideas or wanted anything changed. With all this she was of an extreme obstinacy and a deep, deep jealousy. She clung to what she had with the tenacity of a mollusc. What she had was in the main Paul, and her affection for him was a very real human quality in her.

He was exactly what she would have chosen had she been allowed at the beginning a free choice. He was lazy and good-tempered so that he yielded to her on every possible point, he was absolutely orthodox and never shocked her by a thought or a word out of the ordinary, he really loved her and believed in her and said, quite truly, that he would not have known what to do without her.

It seems strange then that it should have been in the main her urgency that led to the acquisition of Maggie. During the last year she had begun to be seriously uneasy. Things were not what they had been. Mrs. Constantine and others in the parish were challenging her authority, even the Choir boys were scarcely so subservient as they had been, and, worst of all, Paul himself was strangely restive and unquiet. He talked at times of getting married, wondered whether she, Grace, wouldn't like some one to help her in the house, and even, on one terrifying occasion, suggested leaving Skeaton altogether. A momentary vision of what it would be to live without Paul, to give up her kingdom in Skeaton, to have to start all over again to acquire dominion in some new place, was enough for Grace.

She must find Paul a wife, and she must find some one who would depend upon her, look up to her, obey her, who would, incidentally, take some of the tiresome and monotonous drudgery off her shoulders. The moment she saw Maggie she was resolved; here was just the creature, a mouse of a girl, no parents, no money, no appearance, nothing to make her proud or above herself, some one to be moulded and trained in the way she should go. To her great surprise she discovered that Paul was at once attracted by Maggie: had she ever wondered at anything she would have wondered at this, but she decided that it was because she herself had made the suggestion. Dear Paul, he was always so eager to fall in with any of her proposals.

Her mind misgave her a little when she saw that he was really in love. What could he see in that plain, gauche, uncharming creature? See something he undoubtedly did. However, that would wear off very quickly. The Skeaton atmosphere was against romance and Paul was too lazy to be in love very long. Once or twice in the weeks before the wedding Grace's suspicions were aroused.

Maggie seemed to be an utter little heathen; also it appeared that she had had some strange love affair that she had taken so seriously as actually to be ill over it. That was odd and a little alarming, but the child was very young, and once married-there she'd be, so to speak!

It was not, in fact, until that evening of her arrival in Skeaton that she was seriously alarmed. To say that that first ten minutes in Paul's study alarmed her is to put it mildly indeed. As she looked at the place where her mother's portrait had been, as she stared at the trembling Mitch cowering against Maggie's dress, she experienced the most terrifying, shattering upheaval since the day when as a little girl of six she had been faced as she had fancied, with the dripping ghost of her great-uncle William. Not at once, however, was the battle to begin. Maggie gave way about everything. She gave way at first because she was so confident of getting what she wanted later on. She never conceived that she was not to have final power in her own house; Paul had as yet denied her nothing. She moved the pictures and the pots and the crochet work down from the attic and replaced them where they had been-or, nearly replaced them. She found it already rather amusing to puzzle Grace by changing their positions from day to day so that Grace was bewildered and perplexed.

Grace said nothing—only solidly and with panting noises (she suffered from shortness of breath) plodded up and down the house, reassuring herself that all her treasures were safe.

Maggie, in fact, enjoyed herself during the weeks immediately following Grace's return. Paul seemed tranquil and happy; there were no signs of fresh outbreaks of the strange passion that had so lately frightened her. Maggie herself found her duties in connection with the Church and the house easier than she had expected. Every one seemed very friendly. Grace chattered on with her aimless histories of unimportant events and patted Maggie's hand and smiled a great deal. Surely all was very well. Perhaps this was the life for which Maggie was intended.

And that other life began to be dim and faint-even Martin was a little hidden and mysterious. Strangely she was glad of that; the only way that this could be carried through was by keeping the other out of it. Would the two worlds mingle? Would the faces and voices of those spirits be seen and heard again? Would they leave Maggie now or plan to steal her back? The whole future of her life depended on the answer to that ...

During those weeks she investigated Skeaton very thoroughly. She found that her Skeaton, the Skeaton of Fashion and the Church, was a very small affair consisting of two rows of villas, some detached houses that trickled into the country, and a little clump of villas on a hill over the sea beyond the town. There were not more than fifty souls all told in this regiment of Fashion, and the leaders of the fifty were Mrs. Constantine, Mrs. Maxse, Miss Purves, a Mrs. Tempest (a large black tragic creature), and Miss Grace Trenchard—and they had for their male supporters Colonel Maxse, Mr. William Tempest, a Mr. Purdie (rich and idle), and the Reverend Paul. Maggie discovered that the manners, habits, and even voices and gestures of this sacred Fifty were all the same. The only question upon which they divided was one of residence. The richer and finer division spent several weeks of the winter abroad in places like Nice and Cannes, and the poorer contingent took their holiday from Skeaton in the summer in Glebeshire or the Lake District. The Constantines and the Maxses were very fine indeed because they went both to Cannes in the winter and Scotland in the summer. It was wonderful, considering how often Mrs. Constantine was away from Skeaton, how solemn and awe-inspiring an impression she made and retained in the Skeaton world. Maggie discovered that unless you had a large house with independent grounds outside the town it was impossible to remain in Skeaton during the summer months. Oh! the trippers! ...Oh! the trippers! Yes, they were terrible-swallowed up the sands, eggshells, niggers, pierrots, bathing-machines, vulgarity, moonlight embracing, noise, sand, and dust. If you were any one at all you did not stay in Skeaton during the summer months-unless, as I have said, you were so grand that you could disregard it altogether.

It happened that these weeks were wet and windy and Maggie was blown about from one end of the town to the other. There could be no denying that it was grim and ugly under these conditions. It might be that when the spring came there would be flowers in the gardens and the trees would break out into fresh green and the sands would gleam with mother-of-pearl and the sea would glitter with sunshine. All that perhaps would come. Meanwhile there was not a house that was not hideous, the wind tore screaming down the long beaches carrying with it a flurry of tempestuous rain, whilst the sea itself moved in sluggish oily coils, dirt-grey to the grey horizon. Worst of all perhaps were the deserted buildings at other times dedicated to gaiety, ghosts of places they were with torn paper flapping against their sides and the wind tearing at their tin-plated roofs. Then there was the desolate little station, having, it seemed, no connection with any kind of traffic-and behind all this the woods howled and creaked and whistled, derisive, provocative, the only creatures alive in all that world.

Between the Fashion and the Place the Church stood as a bridge.

Centuries ago, when Skeaton had been the merest hamlet clustered behind the beach, the Church had been there-not the present building, looking, poor thing, as though it were in a perpetual state of scarlet fever, but a shabby humble little chapel close to the sea sheltered by the sandy hill.

The present temple had been built about 1870 and was considered very satisfactory. It was solid and free from draughts and took the central heating very well. The graveyard also was new and shiny, with no bones in it remoter than the memories of the present generation could compass. The church clock was a very late addition—put up by subscription five years ago-and its clamour was so up to date and smart that it was a cross between the whistle of a steam-engine and a rich and prosperous dinner-bell.

All this was rightly felt to be very satisfactory. As Miss Purves said: "So far as the dear Church goes, no one had any right to complain about anything."

When Maggie had first arrived in Skeaton her duties with regard to the Church were made quite plain to her. She was expected to take one of the classes in Sunday school, to attend Choir practice on Friday evening, to be on the Committees for Old Women's Comforts, Our Brave Lads' Guild, and the Girls' Friendly Society, to look after the flowers for the Altar, and to attend Paul's Bible Class on Wednesdays.

She had no objection to any of these things-they were, after all, part of her "job." She found that they amused her, and her life must be full, full, full. "No time to think—No time to think," some little voice far, far within her cried. But on Grace's return difficulties at once arose. Grace had, hitherto, done all these things. She had, as she called it, "Played a large part in the life of our Church." She was bored with them all, the Choir practices, the Committees, the Altar flowers, and the rest; she was only too pleased that Maggie should do the hard work—it was quite fair that she, Grace, should have a rest. At the same time she did not at all want to surrender the power that doing these things had given her. She did not wish Maggie to take her place, but she wanted her to support the burden-very difficult this especially if you are not good at "thinking things out."

Grace never could "think things out." It seemed as though her thoughts loved wilfully to tease and confuse her. Then when she was completely tangled, and bewildered, her temper rose, slowly, stealthily, but with a mighty force behind it; suddenly as a flood bursts the walls that have been trying to resist it, it would sweep the chambers of her mind, submerging, drowning the flock of panic-stricken little ideas.

She then would "lose her temper" so much to her own surprise that she at once decided that some one else must be responsible. A few days after her return she decided that she "must not let these things go," so she told Maggie that she would attend the Committee of Old Women's Comforts and be responsible for the Choir practice. But on her return to these functions she found that she was bored and tired and cross; they were really intolerable, she had been doing them for years and years and years. It was too bad that Maggie should suffer her to take them on her shoulders. What did Maggie think she was a clergyman's wife for? Did Maggie imagine that there were no responsibilities attached to her position?

Grace did not say these things, but she thought them. She did not of course admit to herself that she wanted Maggie both to go and not to go. She simply knew that there was a "grievance" and Maggie was responsible for it. But at present she was silent ...

The next factor in the rapidly developing situation was Mr. Toms. One day early in April Maggie went for a little walk by herself along the lane that led to Marsden Wood. Marsden Wood was the most sinister of all the woods; there had once been a murder there, but even had there not, the grim bleakness of the trees and bushes, the absence of all clear paths through its tangles and thickets made it a sinister place. She turned at the very edge of the wood and set her face back towards Skeaton.

The day had been wild and windy with recurrent showers of rain, but now there was a break, the chilly April sun broke through the clouds and scattered the hedges and fields with primrose light.

Faintly and with a gentle rhythm the murmur of the sea came across the land and the air was sweet with the sea-salt and the fresh scent of the grass after rain. Maggie stood for a moment, breathing in the spring air and watching the watery blue thread its timid way through banks of grey cloud. A rich gleam of sunlight struck the path at her feet.

She saw then, coming towards her, a man and a woman. The woman was ordinary enough, a middle-aged, prim, stiffly dressed person with a pale shy face, timid in her walk and depressed in mouth and eyes. The man was a stout, short, thick-set fellow with a rosy smiling face. At once Maggie noticed his smile. He was dressed very smartly in a black coat and waist-coat and pepper-and-salt trousers. His bowler was cocked a little to one side. She passed them and the little round man, looking her full in the face, smiled so happily and with so radiant an amiability that she was compelled to respond. The woman did not look at her.

Long after she had left them she thought of the little man's smile. There was something that, in spite of herself, reminded her both of Uncle Mathew and Martin. She felt a sudden and warm kinship, something that she had not known since her arrival in Skeaton. Had she not struggled with herself every kind of reminiscence of her London life would have come crowding about her. This meeting was like the first little warning tap upon the wall ...

On her return she spoke of it.

"Oh," said Paul, "that must have been poor little Mr. Toms with his sister."

"Poor?" asked Maggie.

"Yes. He's queer in his head, you know," said Paul. "Quite harmless, but he has the strangest ideas."

Maggie noticed then that Grace shivered and the whole of her face worked with an odd emotion of horror and disgust.

"He should have been shut up somewhere," she said. "It's disgraceful letting him walk about everywhere just like any one else."

"Shut up!" cried Maggie. "Oh, no! I don't think any one ought to be shut up for anything."

"My dear Maggie!" said Paul in his fatherly protecting voice. "No prisons? Think what would become of us all."

"Oh!" said Maggie impatiently, "I'm not practical of course, I don't know what one should do, but I do know that no one should be shut up."

"Chut-chut—" said Grace.

Now this "Chut, chut," may seem a very little thing, but very little things are sometimes of great importance. Marriages have been wrecked on an irritating cough and happy homes ruined by a shuffle. Grace had said "Chut, chut," for a great many years and to many people. It expressed scorn and contempt and implied a vast store of superior knowledge. Grace herself had no idea of the irritating nature of this exclamation, she would have been entirely amazed did you explain to her that it had more to do with her unpopularity in Skeaton than any other thing. She had even said "Chut, chut," to Mrs. Constantine.

But she said it to Maggie more than to any other person. When she had been in the house a few days she said to her brother:

"Paul, Maggie's much younger than I had supposed."

"Oh, do you think so?" said Paul.

"Yes, I do. She knows nothing about anything. She's been nowhere. She's seen nobody ... Poor child."

It was the "poor child" position that she now, during these first weeks, adopted. She was very, very kind to Maggie. As she explained to Mrs. Maxse, she really was very fond of her—she was a GOOD girl. At the same time ... Well! ... Mrs. Maxse would understand that Paul can hardly have known what he was marrying. Ignorance! Carelessness! Strange ideas! Some one from the centre of Africa would have known more ... and so on. Nevertheless, she was a GOOD girl ... Only she needed guidance. Fancy, she had taken quite a fancy to poor Mr. Toms! Proposed to call on his sister. Well, one couldn't help that. Miss Toms was a regular communicant ... Nevertheless ... she didn't realise, that was it. Of course, she had known all kinds of queer people in London. Paul and Grace had rescued her. The strangest people. No, Maggie was an orphan. She had an uncle, Grace believed, and two aunts who belonged to a strange sect. Sex? No, sect. Very queer altogether.

Mrs. Maxse went home greatly impressed.

"The girl's undoubtedly queer," she told her husband.

"The parson's got a queer sort of wife," Colonel Maxse told his friends in the Skeaton Conservative Club. "He rescued her from some odd sort of life in London. No. Don't know what it was exactly. Always was a bit soft, Trenchard."

Maggie had no idea that Skeaton was discussing her. She judged other people by herself. Meanwhile something occurred that gave her quite enough to think about.

She had understood from Grace that it was expected of her that she should be at home on one afternoon in the week to receive callers. She thought it a silly thing that she should sit in the ugly drawing-room waiting for people whom she did not wish to see and who did not wish to see her, but she was told that it was one of her duties, and so she would do it. No one, however, had any idea of the terror with which she anticipated these Friday afternoons. She had never been a very great talker, she had nothing much to say unless to some one in whom she was interested. She was frightened lest something should happen to the tea, and she felt that they were all staring at her and asking themselves why her hair was cut short and why her clothes didn't fit better. However, there it was. It was her duty.

One Friday afternoon she was sitting alone, waiting. The door opened and the maid announced Mrs. Purdie. Maggie remembered that she had been told that Mr. Alfred Purdie was the richest man in Skeaton, that he had recently married, and was but now returned from his honeymoon.

Mrs. Purdie entered and revealed herself as Caroline Smith. For a moment, as Maggie looked upon that magnificent figure, the room turned about her and her eyes were dim. She remembered, as though some one were reminding her from a long way off, that Caroline had once told her that she was considering the acceptance of a rich young man in Skeaton.

She remembered that at the time she had thought the coincidence of Caroline and Paul Trenchard strange. But far stronger than any such memory was the renewed conviction that she had that fate did not intend to leave her alone. She was not to keep the two worlds apart, she was not to be allowed to forget.

The sight of Caroline brought Martin before her so vividly that she could have cried out. Instead she stood there, quietly waiting, and showed no sign of any embarrassment.

Caroline was dressed in peach-coloured silk and a little black hat. She was not confused in the least. She seized Maggie's hand and shook it, talking all the time.

"Well now, I'm sure you're surprised to see me," she said, "and perhaps you're not too glad either. Alfred wanted to come too, but I said to him, 'No, Alfred, this will be just a little awkward at first, for Maggie Trenchard's got a grievance, and with some reason, too, so you'd better let me manage it alone the first meeting.' Wasn't I right? Of course I was. And you can just say right out now, Maggie, exactly what's in your mind. It's not my fault that we're both in the same town. I'm sure you'd much rather never set eyes on me again, and I'm sure I can quite understand if you feel like that. But there it is. I told you long ago in London that Alfred was after me, and I was in two minds about it-but of course I didn't dream you were going to marry a parson. You could have knocked me down with less than a feather when I saw it in the Skeaton News, 'That can't be my Margaret Cardinal,' I said, and yet it seemed so strange the two names and all. Well, and then I found it really WAS the same. I WAS astonished. You of all people the wife of a parson! However, you know your own mind best, and I'm sure Mr. Trenchard's a very lucky man. So you can just start off and curse me, Maggie, as much as you like."

The strange thing was that as Maggie listened to this she felt a desire to embrace rather than curse. Of course Caroline had done her harm, she had, perhaps ruined Martin's life as well as her own, but the mistake had been originally Maggie's in trusting Caroline with more confidence than her volatile nature would allow her to hold. And now, as she looked at Caroline and saw that pretty pink and white face, the slim beautiful body, the grace and gaiety, and childish amiability, her whole soul responded. Here was a friend, even though an indiscreet one, here was some one from home, the one human being in the whole of Skeaton who knew the old places and the old people, the Chapel, and the aunts—and Martin. She knew at once that it would have been far safer had Caroline not been there, that the temptation to discuss Martin would be irresistible, that she would yield to it, and that Caroline was in no way whatever to be trusted-she realised all these things, and yet she was glad.

"I don't want to curse you, Caroline," said Maggie. "Sit down. Tea will be here in a minute. I was very unhappy about what you did, but that's all a long time ago now, and I was to blame too."

"Oh, that's just sweet of you," said Caroline, running over and giving Maggie an impulsive kiss. "I said to Alfred, 'Maggie may be angry. I don't know how she'll receive me, I'm sure. She had the sweetest nature always, and it isn't like her to bear a grudge. But whatever way it is, I'll have to take it, because the fact is I deserve it.' But there you are, simply angelic and I'm ever so glad. The fact is I was ridicilous in those days. I don't wonder you lost your patience with me, and it was just like your honest self to be so frank with me. But marriage has just taught me everything. What I say is, every one ought to be married; no one knows anything until they're married. It's amazing what a difference it makes, don't you think so? Why, before I was married I used to chatter on in the most ridicilous way (Caroline always said ridicilous) and now-but there I go, talking of myself, and it's you I want to hear about. Now, Maggie, tell me—" But the sudden entrance of Grace and Paul checked, for the moment, these confidences. Caroline did not stay long this first time. She talked a little, drank some tea, ate a biscuit, smiled at Paul and departed. She felt, perhaps, that Grace did not approve of her. Grace had not seen her before, certainly she would not approve of the peach-coloured dress and the smile at Paul. And then the girl talked too much. She had interrupted Grace in the middle of one of her stories.

When Caroline had departed (after kissing Maggie affectionately) Grace said:

"And so you knew her before, Maggie?"

"I knew her in London," said Maggie.

"I like her," said Paul. "A bright young creature."

"Hum!" said Grace.

That was a wonderful spring evening, the first spring evening of the year. The ugly garden swam in a mist faintly cherry-colour; through the mist a pale evening sky, of so rich a blue that it was almost white, was shadowing against a baby moon sharply gold. The bottles on the wall were veiled by the evening mist; a thrush sang in the little bush at the end of the lawn.

Paul whispered to Maggie: "Come out into the garden."

She went with him, frightened; she could feel his arm tremble against her waist; his cold hard fingers caught hers. No current ran from her body to his. They were apart, try as she may. When they had walked the length of the lawn he caught her close to him, put his hand roughly up to her neck and, bending her head towards his, kissed her. She heard his words, strangled and fierce.

"Love me, Maggie-love me-you must—"

When he released her, looking back towards the dark house, she saw Grace standing there with a lamp in her hand.

Against her will she shared his feeling of guilt, as, like children caught in a fault, they turned back towards the house.



CHAPTER V

THE BATTLE OF SKEATON

FIRST YEAR

Afterwards, when Maggie looked back she was baffled. She tried to disentangle the events between that moment when Grace, holding the lamp in her hand, blinked at them as they came across the lawn, and that other most awful moment when, in Paul's study, Grace declared final and irrevocable war.

Between those two events ran the history of more than two years, and there was nothing stranger than the way that the scene in the garden and the scene in the study seemed to Maggie to be close together. What were the steps, she used to ask herself afterwards, that led to those last months of fury and tragedy and disaster? Was it my fault? Was it hers? Was it Paul's? What happened? If I had not done this or that, if Grace had not said—no, it was hopeless. She would break off in despair. Isolated scenes appeared before her, always bound, on either side, by that prologue and that finale, but the scenes would not form a chain. She could not connect; she would remain until the end bewildered as to Grace's motives. She never, until the day of her death, was to understand Grace.

"She was angry for such little things," she said afterwards.

"She hated me to be myself." The two years in retrospect seemed to have passed with incredible swiftness, the months that followed them were heavy and slow with trouble. But from the very first, that is, from the moment when Grace saw Paul kiss Maggie in the evening garden, battle was declared. Maggie might not know it, but it was so-and Grace knew it very well.

It may be said, however, in Grace's defence that she gave Maggie every chance. She marvelled at her own patience. For two years after that moment, when she decided that Maggie was "queer," and that her beloved Paul was in real danger of his losing his soul because of that "queerness," she held her hand. She was not naturally a patient woman-she was not introspective enough to be that—and she held no brief for Maggie. Nevertheless for two whole years she held her hand...

They were, all three, in that ugly house, figures moving in the dark. Grace simply knew, as the months passed, that she disliked and feared Maggie more and more; Paul knew that as the months passed—well, what he knew will appear in the following pages. And Maggie? She only knew that it needed all her endurance and stubborn will to force herself to accept this life as her life. She must-she must. To give way meant to run away, and to run away meant to long for what she could not have, and loneliness and defeat. She would make this into a success; she would care for Paul although she could not give him all that he needed. She would and she could... Every morning as she lay awake in the big double-bed with the brass knobs at the bed-foot winking at her in the early light she vowed that she would justify her acceptance of the man who lay sleeping so peacefully beside her. Poor child, her battle with Grace was to teach her how far her will and endurance could carry her...

Grace, on her side, was not a bad woman, she was simply a stupid one. She disliked Maggie for what seemed to her most admirable reasons and, as that dislike slowly, slowly turned into hatred, her self-justification only hardened.

Until that moment, when she saw a faded patch of wall-paper on the wall instead of her mother's portrait, she had no doubts whatever about the success of what she considered her choice. Maggie was a "dear," young, ignorant, helpless, but the very wife for Paul. Then slowly, slowly, the picture changed. Maggie was obstinate, Maggie was careless, Maggie was selfish, idle, lazy, irreligious—at last, Maggie was "queer."

Then, when in the dusk of that summer evening, she saw Paul kiss Maggie, as the moths blundered about her lamp, her stolid unimaginative heart was terrified. This girl, who was she? What had she been before they found her? What was this strange passion in Paul isolating him from her, his sister? This girl was dangerous to them all-a heathen. They had made a terrible mistake. Paul had been from the first bewitched by some strange spell, and she, his sister, had aided the witch.

And yet, to her credit be it remembered, for two years, she fought her fears, superstitions, jealousies, angers. That can have been no easy thing for a woman who had always had her own way. But Maggie helped her. There were many days during that first year at any rate when Grace thought that the girl was, after all, only the simple harmless child that she had first found her.

It was so transparently clear that Maggie bore no malice against any one in the world, that when she angered Grace she did so always by accident, never by plan-it was only unfortunate that the accidents should occur so often.

Maggie's days were from the very first of the utmost regularity. Breakfast at 8.30, then an interview with the cook (Grace generally in attendance here), then shopping (with Grace), luncheon at 1.30, afternoon, paying calls or receiving them, dinner 7.45, and after dinner, reading a book while Paul and Grace played bezique, or, if Paul was busy upon a sermon or a letter (he wrote letters very slowly), patience with Grace. This regular day was varied with meetings, choir practices, dinner-parties, and an occasional Penny Reading.

In this framework of the year it would have appeared that there was very little that could breed disturbance. There were, however, little irritations. Maggie would have given a great deal could she have been allowed to interview the cook in the morning alone.

It would seem impossible to an older person that Grace's presence could so embarrass Maggie; it embarrassed her to the terrible extent of driving every idea out of her head.

When Maggie had stammered and hesitated and at last allowed, the cook to make a suggestion, Grace would say. "You mustn't leave it all to cook, dear. Now what about a nice shepherd's pie?"

The cook, who hated Grace, would toss her head.

"Impossible to-day, Mum ... Quite impossible."

"Oh, do you think so?" Maggie would say.

This was the cook's opportunity.

"Well, for you, Mum, I'll see if it can't be managed. Difficult as it is."

Grace's anger boiled over.

"That woman must go," she insisted.

"Very well," said Maggie.

Cook after cook appeared and vanished. They all hated Grace.

"You're not very good at keeping servants, are you, Maggie, dear?" said Grace.

Then there was the shopping. Grace's conversation was the real trouble here. Grace's stories had seemed rather a joke in London, soon, in Skeaton, they became a torture. From the vicarage to the High Street was not far, but it was far enough for Grace's narrative powers to stretch their legs and get a healthy appetite for the day's work. Grace walked very slowly, because of her painful breathing. Her stout stolid figure in its stiff clothes (the skirt rather short, thick legs in black stockings and large flat boots), marched along. She had a peculiar walk, planting each foot on the ground with deliberate determination as though she were squashing a malignant beetle, she was rather short-sighted, but did not wear glasses, because, as she said to Maggie, "one need not look peculiar until one must." Her favourite head-gear was a black straw hat with a rather faded black ribbon and a huge pin stuck skewer-wise into it. This pin was like a dagger.

She peered around her as she walked, and for ever enquired of Maggie, "who that was on the other Bide of the road." Maggie, of course, did not know, and there began then a long cross-questioning as to colour, clothes, height, smile or frown. Nothing was too small to catch Grace's interest but nothing caught it for long. Maggie, at the end of her walk felt as though she were beset by a whirl of little buzzing flies. She noticed that Paul had, from, long habit, learnt to continue his own thoughts during Grace's stories, and she also tried to do this, but she was not clever at it because Grace would suddenly stop and say, "Where was I, Maggie?" and then when Maggie was confused regard her suspiciously, narrowing her eyes into little thin points. The shopping was difficult because Grace would stand at Maggie's elbow and say: "Now, Maggie, this is your affair, isn't it? You decide what you want," and then when Maggie had decided, Grace simply, to show her power, would say: "Oh, I don't think we'd better have that ... No, I don't think we'll have that. Will you show us something else, please?"-and so they had to begin all over again.

Nevertheless, throughout their first summer Maggie was almost happy; not QUITE happy, some silent but persistent rebellion at the very centre of her heart prevented her complete happiness. What she really felt was that half of her-the rebellious, questioning, passionate half of her-was asleep, and that at all costs, whatever occurred, she must keep it asleep. That was her real definite memory of her first year-that, through it all, she was wilfully, deliberately drugged.

Every one thought Paul very strange that summer. Mr. Flaunders, the curate, told Miss Purves that he was very "odd." "He was always the most tranquil man-a sunny nature, as you know, Miss Purves. Well now, I assure you, he's never the same from one minute to another. His temper is most uncertain, and one never can tell of what he's thinking. You know he took the Collects in the wrong order last Sunday, and last night he read the wrong lesson. Two days ago he was quite angry with me because I suggested another tune for 'Lead Kindly Light'-unlike himself, unlike himself."

"To what do you attribute this, Mr. Flaunders?" said Miss Purves. "You know our vicar so well."

"I'm sure I can't tell what it is," said Mr. Flaunders, sighing.

"Can it be his marriage?" said Miss Purves.

"I'm sure," said Mr. Flaunders, flushing, "that it can be nothing to do with Mrs. Trenchard. That's a fine woman, Miss Purves, a fine woman."

"She seems a little strange," said Miss Purves. "Why doesn't she let her hair grow? It's hardly Christian as it is."

"It's her health, I expect," said Mr. Flaunders.

Paul was very gentle and good to Maggie all that summer, better to her than any human being had ever been before. She became very fond of him, and yet it was not, apparently, her affection that he wanted. He seemed to be for ever on the verge of asking her some question and then checking himself. He was suddenly silent; she caught him looking at her in odd, furtive ways.

He made love to her and then suddenly checked himself, going off, leaving her alone. During these months she did everything she could for him. She knew that she was not satisfying him, because she could give him only affection and not love. But everything that he wanted her to do she did. And they never, through all those summer months, had one direct honest conversation. They were afraid.

She began to see, very clearly, his faults. His whole nature was easy, genial, and, above all, lazy. He liked to be liked, and she Was often astonished at the pleasure with which he received compliments. He had a conceit of himself, not as a man but as a clergyman, and she knew that nothing pleased him so much as when people praised his "good-natured humanity."

She saw him "play-acting," as she called it, that is, bringing forward a succession of little tricks, a jolly laugh, an enthusiastic opinion, a pretence of humility, a man-of-the-world air, all things not very bad in themselves, but put on many years ago, subconsciously as an actor puts on powder and paint. She saw that he was especially sensitive to lay opinion, liked to be thought a good fellow by the laymen in the place. To be popular she was afraid that he sometimes sacrificed his dignity, his sincerity and his pride. But he was really saved in this by his laziness. He was in fact too lazy to act energetically in his pursuit of popularity, and the temptation to sink into the dirty old chair in his study, smoke a pipe and go to sleep, hindered again and again his ambition. He had, as so many clergymen have, a great deal of the child in him, a remoteness from actual life, and a tremendous ignorance of the rough-and-tumble brutality and indecency of things. It had not been difficult for Grace, because of his laziness, his childishness, and his harmless conceited good-nature to obtain a very real dominion over him, and until now that dominion had never seriously been threatened.

Now, however, new impulses were stirring in his soul. Maggie saw it, Grace saw it, before the end of the summer the whole parish saw it. He was uneasy, dissatisfied, suffering under strange moods whose motives he concealed from all the world. In his sleep he cried Maggie's name with a passion that was a new voice in him. When she awoke and heard it she trembled, and then lay very still ...

And what a summer that was! To Maggie who had never, even in London, mingled with crowds it was an incredible invasion. The invasion was incredible, in the first place, because of the suddenness with which it fell upon Skeaton. One day Maggie noticed that announcements were pasted on to the Skeaton walls of the coming of a pierrot troupe ... "The Mig-Mags." There was a gay picture of fine beautiful pierrettes and fine stout pierrots all smiling together in a semi-circle. Then on another hoarding it was announced that the Theatre Royal, Skeaton, would shortly start its summer season, and would begin with that famous musical comedy, "The Girl from Bobo's."

Then the Pier Theatre put forward its claim with a West End comedy. The Royal Marine Band announced that it would play (weather permitting) in the Pergola on the Leas every afternoon, 4.20-6. Other signs of new life were the Skeaton Roller-Skating Rink, The Piccadilly Cinema, Concerts in the Town Hall, and Popular Lectures in the Skeaton Institute. There was also a word here and there about Wanton's Bathing Machines, Button's Donkeys, and Milton and Rowe's Char-a-bancs.

Then, on a sunny day in June the invasion began. The little railway by the sea was only a loop-line that connected Skeaton with Lane-on-Sea, Frambell, and Hooton. The main London line had its Skeaton station a little way out of the town, and the station road to the beach passed the vicarage. Maggie soon learnt to know the times when the excursion trains would pour their victims on to the hot, dry road. Early in the afternoon was one time, and she would see them eagerly, excitedly hurrying to the sea, fathers and mothers and babies, lovers and noisy young men and shrieking girls. Then in the evening she would see them return, some cross, some too tired to speak, some happy and singing, some arguing and disputing, babies crying-all hurrying, hurrying lest the train should be missed. At first she would not penetrate to the beach. She understood from Paul and Grace that one did not go to the beach during the summer months; at any rate, not the popular beach. There was Merton Sand two miles away. One might go there ... it was always deserted. This mysterious "one" fascinated Maggie's imagination. So many times a day Grace said "Oh, I don't think one ought to." Maggie heard again and again about the trippers, "Oh, one must keep away from there, you know."

In fact the Skeaton aristocracy retired with shuddering gestures into its own castle. Life became horribly dull. The Maxses, the Constantines, and the remainder of the Upper Ten either went away or hid themselves in their grounds.

Once or twice there would be a tennis party, then silence ...

This summer was a very hot one; the little garden was stifling and the glass bottles cracked in the sun.

"I want to get out. I want to get out," cried Maggie-so she went down to the sea. She went surreptitiously; this was the first surreptitious thing she had done. She gazed from the Promenade that began just beyond the little station and ran the length of the town down upon the sands. The beach was a small one compared with the great stretches of Merton and Buquay, and the space was covered now so thickly with human beings that the sand was scarcely visible. It was a bright afternoon, hot but tempered with a little breeze. The crowd bathed, paddled, screamed, made sand-castles, lay sleeping, flirting, eating out of paper bags, reading, quarrelling. Here were two niggers with banjoes, then a stout lady with a harmonium, then a gentleman drawing pictures on the sand; here again a man with sweets on a tray, here, just below Maggie, a funny old woman with a little hut where ginger-beer and such things were sold. The noise was deafening; the wind stirred the sand curiously so that it blew up and about in little wreaths and spirals. Everything and everybody seemed to be covered with the grit of this fine small sand; it was in Maggie's eyes, nose, and mouth as she watched.

She hated the place—the station, the beach, the town, and the woods—even more than she had done before. She hated the place—but she loved the people.

The place was sneering, self-satisfied, contemptuous, inhuman, like some cynical, debased speculator making a sure profit out of the innocent weaknesses of human nature. As she turned and looked she could see the whole ugly town with the spire of St. John's-Paul's church, raised self-righteously above it.

The town was like a prison hemmed in by the dark woods and the oily sea. She felt a sudden terrified consciousness of her own imprisonment. It was perhaps from that moment that she began to be definitely unhappy in her own life, that she realised with that sudden inspiration that is given to us on occasion, how hostile Grace was becoming, how strange and unreal was Paul, and how far away was every one else!

Just below her on the sand a happy family played-some babies, two little boys digging, the father smoking, his hat tilted over his eyes against the sun, the mother finding biscuits in a bag for the youngest infant. It was a very merry family and full of laughter. The youngest baby looked up and saw Maggie standing all alone there, and crowed. Then all the family looked up, the boys suspended their digging, father tilted back his hat, the mother shyly smiled.

Maggie smiled back, and then, overcome by so poignant a feeling of loneliness, tempted, too, almost irresistibly to run down the steps, join them on the sand, build castles, play with the babies, she hurried away lest she should give way.

"I must be pretending at being married," she thought to herself. "I don't feel married at all. I'm not natural. If I were sitting on the sand digging I'd be quite natural. No wonder Grace thinks me tiresome. But how does one get older and grown up? What is one to do?"

She did not trust herself to go down to the sands again that summer. The autumn came, the woods turned to gold, the sea was flurried with rain, and the Church began to fill the horizon. The autumn and the winter were the times of the Church's High Festival. Paul, as though he were aware that he had, during these last months, been hovering about strange places and peering into dark windows, busied himself about the affairs of his parish with an energy that surprised every one.

Maggie was aware of a number of young women of whom before she had been unconscious. Miss Carmichael, Misses Mary and Jane Bethel, Miss Clarice Hendon, Miss Polly Jones ... some of these pretty girls, all of them terribly modern, strident, self-assured, scornful, it seemed to Maggie. At first she was frightened of them as she had never been frightened of any one before. They did look at her, of course, as though they thought her strange, and then they soon discovered that she knew nothing at all about life.

Their two chief employments, woven in, as it were, to the web of their church assistance, were Love and Mockery-flirtations, broken engagements, refusals, acceptances, and, on the other hand, jokes about everybody and everything. Maggie soon discovered that Grace was one of their favourite Aunt Sallies; this made her very angry, and she showed so plainly her indignation on the first occasion of their wit that they never laughed at Grace in Maggie's presence again.

Maggie felt, after this, very tender and sympathetic towards Grace, until she discovered that her good sister-in-law was quite unaware that any one laughed at her and would have refused to believe it had she been told. At the same time there went strangely with this confidence an odd perpetual suspicion. Grace was for ever on guard against laughter, and nothing made her more indignant than to come into a room and see that people suddenly ceased their conversation. Maggie, however, did try this autumn to establish friendly relations with Grace. It seemed to her that it was the little things that were against the friendliness rather than the big ones. How she seriously blamed herself for an irritation that was really childish. Who, for instance, a grown woman and married, could do other than blame herself for being irritated by Grace's habit of not finishing her sentences. Grace would say:

"Maggie, did you remember to-oh well, it doesn't matter—"

"Remember what, Grace?"

"No, really it doesn't matter. It was only that—"

"But Grace, do tell me, because otherwise you'll be blaming me for something I ought to have done."

"Blaming you! Why, Maggie, to hear you talk any one would think that I was always scolding you. Of course if that's what you feel—"

"No, no, I don't. But I'm so careless. I forget things so. I don't want to forget something that I ought to do."

"Yes, you are careless, Maggie. That's quite true. It's one of your faults."

(Strange how willing we are ourselves to admit a fault and irritated when a friend agrees about it with us.)

"Oh, I'm not always careless," said Maggie.

"Often you are, dear, aren't you? You must learn. I'm sure you'll improve in time. I wonder whether-but no, I decided I wouldn't bother, didn't I? Still perhaps, after all—No, I daresay it's wiser to leave it alone."

Another little thing that the autumn emphasised was Grace's inability to discover when a complaint or a remonstrance was decently deceased. One evening Paul, going out in a hurry, asked Maggie to give Grace the message that Evensong would be at 6.30 instead of 7 that day. Maggie forgot to give the message and Grace arrived at the Church during the reading of the second lesson.

"Oh Grace, I'm so sorry!" said Maggie.

"It doesn't matter," said Grace; "but how you could forget, Maggie, is so strange! Do try not to forget things. I know it worries Paul. For myself I don't care, although I do value punctuality and memory—I do indeed. What I mean is that it isn't for my own happiness that I mind—"

"I don't want to forget," said Maggie. "One would think to hear you, Grace, that you imagine I like forgetting."

"Really, Maggie," said Grace, "I don't think that's quite the way to speak to me."

And again and again throughout the long winter this little episode figured.

"You'll remember to be punctual, won't you, Maggie? Not like the time when you forgot to tell me."

"You'll forgive me reminding you, Maggie, but I didn't want it to be like the time you forgot to give me—"

"Oh, you'd better not trust to Maggie, Paul. Only the other day when you gave her the message about Evensong—"

Grace meant no harm by this. Her mind moved slowly and was entangled by a vast quantity of useless lumber. She was really shocked by carelessness and inaccuracy because she was radically careless and inaccurate herself but didn't know it.

"If there's one thing I value it's order." she would say, but in struggling to remember superficial things she forgot all essentials. Her brain moved just half as slowly as everything else.

That winter was warm and muggy, with continuous showers of warm rain that seamed to change into mud in the air as it fell.

The Church was filled with the clammy mist of its central heating. Maggie, as she sat through service after service, watched one headache race after another. The air was full of headache; she asked once that a window might be kept open. "That would mean Death in Skeaton. You don't understand the Skeaton air," said Grace.

"That's because I don't get enough of it," said Maggie. She found herself looking back to the Chapel services with wistful regret. What had there been there that was not here? Here everything was ordered, arranged, in decent sequence, in regular symmetry and progression. And yet no one seemed to Maggie to listen to what they were saying, and no one thought of the meaning of the words that they used.

And if they did, of what use would it be? The affair was all settled; heaven was arrayed, parcelled out, its very streets and courts mapped and described. It was the destination of every one in the building as surely as though they were travelling to London by the morning express. They were sated with knowledge of their destiny—no curiosity, no wonder, no agitation, no fear. Even the words of the most beautiful prayers had ceased to have any meaning because the matter had been settled so long ago and there was nothing more to be said. How that Chapel had throbbed with expectation, with amaze, with curiosity, with struggle! Foolish much of it perhaps, stifling it had seemed then in its superstition. Maggie had been afraid then, so afraid that she could not sleep at nights. How she longed now for that fear to return to her!

At this point she would discover that she was beckoning back to her the figures of that other world. They must not come ... the two worlds must not join or she was lost ... she turned her back from her memories and her desires.

During this winter there were the two affairs of Mr. Toms and Caroline.

Maggie carried out her resolve of calling on Mr. Toms. She did it one dark afternoon a few days before Christmas, moved, it must be confessed, partly by a sense of exasperation with Grace. Grace had been that day quite especially tiresome. She had a cold, and a new evening dress had cost twice as much as it ought to have done. Mitch had broken into eczema, and Mrs. Constantine had overruled her at a committee meeting. With a flood of disconnected talk she had overwhelmed Maggie until the girl felt as though her head had been thrust into a bag of flour. Through it all there had been an undercurrent of complaint as though Maggie were responsible.

Early in the afternoon Grace declared that her head was splitting and retired to her bedroom. Maggie, in a state of blinded and deafened exasperation, remembered Mr. Toms and decided to call on him. She found a neat little house standing in a neat little garden near the sea just beyond the end of the Promenade, or The Leas, as the real Skeatonian always called it. Miss Toms and Mr. Toms were sitting in a very small room with a large fire, a pale grey wallpaper, and a number of brightly-painted wooden toys arranged on a shelf running round the room. The toys were of all kinds—a farm, cows and sheep, tigers and lions, soldiers and cannon, a church and a butcher's shop, little green tufted trees, and a Noah's ark. Mr. Toms was sitting, neat as a pin, smiling in an armchair beside the fire, and Miss Toms near him was reading aloud.

Maggie saw at once that her visit embarrassed Miss Toms terribly. It was an embarrassment that she understood perfectly, so like her own feelings on so many occasions. This put her at once at her ease, and she was the old, simple, direct Maggie, her face eager with kindness and understanding. Mr. Toms smiled perpetually but shook hands like the little gentleman he was.

Maggie, studying Miss Toms' face, saw that it was lined with trouble—an ugly face, grave, severe, but brave and proud. Maggie apologised for not coming before.

"I would have come—" she began.

"Oh, you needn't apologise," said Miss Toms brusquely. "They don't call on us here, and we don't want them to."

"They don't call," said Mr. Toms brightly, "because they know I'm queer in the head, and they're afraid I shall do something odd. They told you I was queer in the head, didn't they?"

Strangely enough this statement of his "queerness," although it brought a lump into Maggie's throat, did not disturb or confuse her.

"Yes," she said, "they did. I asked who you were after I had seen you in the road that day."

"I'm not in the least dangerous," said Mr. Toms. "You needn't be afraid. Certain things seem odd to me that don't seem odd to other people—that's all."

"The fact is, Mrs. Trenchard," said Miss Toms, speaking very fast and flushing as she spoke, "that we are very happy by ourselves, my brother and I. He is the greatest friend I have in the world, and I am his. We are quite sufficient for one another. I don't want to seem rude, and it's kind of you to have come, but it's better to leave us alone—it is indeed."

"Well, I don't know," bald Maggie, smiling. "You see, I'm a little queer myself—at least I think that most of the people here are coming to that conclusion. I'm sure I'm more queer than your brother. At any rate I can't do you any harm, and we may as well give it a trial, mayn't we?"

Mr. Toms clapped his hands with so sudden a noise that Maggie jumped.

"That's right," he said. "That's the way I like to hear people talk. You shall judge for yourself, and WE'LL judge for ourselves." His voice was very soft and pleasant. The only thing at all strange about him was his smile, that came and went like the ripple of firelight on the wall. "You'd like to know all about us, wouldn't you? Well, until ten years ago I was selling corn in the City. Such a waste of time! But I took it very seriously then and worked, worked, worked. I worked too hard, you know, much too hard, and then I was ill—ill for a long time. When I was better corn didn't seem to be of any importance, and people thought that very odd of me. I was confused sometimes and called people by their wrong names, and sometimes I said what was in my head instead of saying what was in my stomach. Every one thought it very odd, and if my dear sister hadn't come to the rescue they would have locked me up—they would indeed!"

"Shut me up and never let me walk about—all because I didn't care for corn any more."

He laughed his little chuckling laugh. "But we beat them, didn't we, Dorothy? Yes, we did—and here we are! Now, you tell us your history."

Miss Toms had been watching Maggie's face intently while her brother spoke, and the clear steady candour of Maggie's eyes and her calm acceptance of all that the little man said must have been reassuring.

"Now. Jim," she said, "don't bother Mrs. Trenchard. You can't expect her to tell us her history when she's calling for the first time."

"Why not expect me to?" said Maggie. "I've got no history. I lived in Glebeshire most of my life with my father, who was a clergyman. Then he died and I lived with two aunts in London. Then I met Paul and he married me, and here I am!"

"That's not history," said Mr. Toms a little impatiently. "However, I won't bother you now. You're only a child, I see. And I'm very glad to see it. I don't like grown up people."

"How do you like Skeaton?" asked Miss Toms, speaking more graciously than she had done.

"Oh I shall like it, I expect," said Maggie. "At least I shall like the people. I don't think I shall ever like the place—the sand blows about, and I don't like the woods."

"Yes, they're greasy, aren't they?" said Mr. Toms, "and full of little flies. And the trees are dark and never cool—"

They talked a little while longer, and then Maggie got up to say good-bye. When she took Mr. Tom's hand and felt his warm confident pressure, and saw his large trusting eyes looking into hers, she felt a warmth of friendliness, also it seemed to her that she had known him all her life.

Miss Toms came with her to the door. They looked out into the dark. The sea rustled close at hand, far on the horizon a red light was burning as though it were a great fire. They could hear the wave break on the beach and sigh in the darkness as it withdrew.

"I shall come again," said Maggie.

"Don't you be too sure," said Miss Toms. "We shall quite understand if you don't come, and we shan't think the worse of you. Public opinion here is very strong. They don't want to be unkind to Jim, but they think he ought to be shut up ...Shut up!" Maggie could feel that she was quivering. "Shut up!"

Maggie tossed her head.

"Anyway, they haven't shut me up yet," she said.

"Well—good-night," said Miss Toms, after a little pause in which she appeared to be struggling to say more.

She told Grace and Paul at supper that night that she had been to see the Toms. She saw Grace struggling not to show her disapproval and thought it was nice of her.

"Do you really think—?" said Grace. "Oh, perhaps, after all—"

"Paul," said Maggie, "do you not want me to see the Toms?"

Paul was distressed.

"No, it isn't that ...Miss Toms is a very nice woman. Only—"

"You think it's not natural of me to take an interest in some one who's a little off his head like Mr. Toms."

"Well, dear, perhaps there is something—"

Maggie laughed. "I'm a little off my head too. Oh! you needn't look so shocked, Grace. You know you think it, and every one else here thinks it too. Now, Grace, confess. You're beginning to be horrified that Paul married me."

"Please, Maggie—" said Paul, who hated scenes. Grace was always flushed by a direct attack. Her eyes gazed in despair about her while she plunged about in her mind.

"Maggie, you mustn't say such things—no, you mustn't. Of course it's true that you've got more to learn than I thought. You ARE careless, dear, aren't you? You remember yesterday that you promised to look in at Pettits and get a reel of cotton, and then of course Mr. Toms is a good little man—every one says so—but at the same time he's QUEER, you must admit that, Maggie; indeed it wasn't really very long ago that he asked Mrs. Maxse in the High Street to take all her clothes off so that he could see what she was really made of. Now, that ISN'T nice, Maggie, it's odd—you can't deny it. And if you'd only told me that you hadn't been to Pettits I could have gone later myself."

"If it isn't one thing," said Maggie, "it's another. I may be a child and careless, and not be educated, and have strange ideas, but if you thought, Grace, that it was going to be just the same after Paul was married as before you were mistaken. Three's a difficult number to manage, you know."

"Oh, if you mean," said Grace, crimsoning, "that I'm better away, that I should live somewhere else, please say so openly. I hate this hinting. What I mean to say is I can leave to-morrow."

"My dear Grace," said Paul hurriedly, "whoever thought such a thing? We couldn't get on without you. All that Maggie meant was that it takes time to settle down. So it does."

"That isn't all I meant," said Maggie slowly. "I meant that I'm not just a child as you both think. I've got a life of my own and ideas of my own. I'll give way to you both in lots of things so long as it makes you happy, but you're not—you're not going to shut me up as you'd like to do to Mr. Toms."

Perhaps both Grace and Paul had a sharp troubling impression of having caught some strange creature against their will. Maggie had risen from the table and stood for the moment by the door facing them, her short hair, standing thick about her head, contrasting with her thick white neck, her body balanced clumsily but with great strength, like that of a boy who has not yet grown to his full maturity. She tossed her head back in a way that she had and was gone.

The Caroline affair was of another sort. Some days after Christmas, Maggie went to have tea with Caroline. She did not enjoy it at all. She felt at once that there was something wrong with the house. It was full of paintings in big gold frames, looking-glasses, and marble statues, and there was a large garden that had an artificial look of having been painted by some clever artist in the course of a night. Maggie did not pay a long visit. There were a number of men present; there was also a gramophone, and after tea they turned up the carpet in the dining-room and danced.

Caroline, in spite of her noise and laughter, did not seem to Maggie to be happy. She introduced her for a moment to the master of the house, a stout red-faced man who looked as though he had lost something very precious, but was too sleepy to search for it. He called Caroline "Sweet," and she treated him with patronage and contempt. Maggie came away distressed, and she was not surprised to hear, a day or two later, from Grace that Mrs. Purdie was "fast" and had been rude to Mrs. Constantine.

One day early in the spring Grace announced that Maggie ought not to go and see Mrs. Purdie any more. "There are all sorts of stories," said Grace. "People say—Oh, well, never mind. They have dancing on Sunday."

"But she's an old friend of mine," said Maggie.

"You have others to think of beside yourself, Maggie," said Grace. "And there is the Church."

"She's an old friend of mine," repeated Maggie, her mouth set obstinately.

"I will ask Paul what he thinks," said Grace.

"Please," said Maggie, her colour rising into her cheeks, "don't interfere between Paul and me. I'll speak to him myself."

She did. Paul maintained the attitude of indifference that he had adopted during the last six months.

"But would you rather I didn't go?" asked Maggie, aggravated.

"You must use your judgment," said Paul.

"But don't you see that I can't leave a friend just because people are saying nasty things."

"There's your position in the parish," said Paul.

"Oh, Paul!" Maggie cried. "Don't be so aggravating! Just say what you really think."

"I'm sorry I'm aggravating," said Paul patiently.

It was this conversation that determined Maggie. She had been coming, through all the winter months, to a resolution. She must be alone with Paul, she must have things out with him. As the months had gone they had been slipping further and further apart. It had been Paul who had gradually withdrawn into himself. He had been kind and thoughtful but reserved, shy, embarrassed. She understood his trouble, but at her first attempt to force him to speak he escaped and placed Grace between them. Well, this summer should see the end of that. They must know where they stood, and for that they must be alone ...

One day, early in June, Paul announced that he thought of exchanging duties, for the month of August, with a Wiltshire clergyman. This was Maggie's opportunity. Finding him alone in his study, she attacked.

"Paul, did you mean Grace to come with us to Little Harben in August?"

"Of course, dear. She has nowhere else to go."

"Well, she mustn't come. I've given way about everything since we were married. I'm not going to give way about this. That month we are to be alone."

"Alone!" said Paul. "But we're always alone."

"We're never alone," said Maggie, standing with her legs apart and her hands behind her back. "I don't mean to complain about Grace. She's been very good to me, I know, and I've got much to be grateful for. All the same she's not coming to Little Harben. She's got you all the rest of the year. She can give you up for a month."

"But Maggie—" said Paul.

"No, I'm quite determined about this. I may be a child and a fool, but I know what I'm talking about this time. You're not happy. You never talk to me as you used to. There are many things we ought to have out, but Grace is always there in the daytime and at night you're too tired. If we go on like this we'll be strangers in another six months."

He turned round to stare at her, and she saw in his eyes an odd excited light.

"Maggie," he said in a low voice. "If we go alone to Little Harben does it mean that you think—you can begin to love me?"

She turned her eyes away. "I don't know. I don't know about myself, I only know that I want us to be happy and I want us to be close together—as we were before we were married. It's all gone wrong somehow; I'm sure it's my fault. It was just the same with my father and my aunts. I couldn't say the things to them I wanted to, the things I really felt, and so I lost them. I'm going to lose you in the same way if I'm not careful."

He still looked at her strangely. At last, with a sigh, he turned back to his desk.

"I'll speak to Grace," he said. That night the storm broke.

During supper Grace was very quiet. Maggie, watching her, knew that Paul had spoken to her. Afterwards in the study the atmosphere was electric. Grace read The Church Times, Paul the Standard, Maggie Longfellow's Golden Legend, which she thought foolish.

Grace looked up. "So I understand, Maggie, that you don't want me to come with you and Paul this summer?"

Maggie, her heart, in spite of herself, thumping in her breast, faced a Grace transfigured by emotion. That countenance, heavily, flabbily good-natured, the eyes if stupid, also kind, was now marked and riven with a flaming anger.

But Maggie was no coward. With her old gesture of self-command she stilled her heart. "I'm very sorry, Grace," she said. "But it's only for a month. I want to be alone with Paul."

Grace, her hands fumbling on the arms of her chair as though she were blind, rose.

"You've hated my being here, Maggie ... all this time I've seen it. You've hated me. You don't know that you owe everything to me, that you couldn't have managed the house, the shops, the servants—nothing, nothing. This last year I've worked my fingers to the bone for you and Paul. What do you think I get out of it? Nothing. It's because I love Paul ... because I love Paul. But you've hated my doing things better than you, you've wanted me to fail, you've been jealous, that's what you've been. Very well, then, I'll go. You've made that plain enough at any rate. I'll leave to-morrow. I won't wait another hour. And I'll never forgive you for this—never. You've taken Paul away from me ... all I've ever had. I'll never forgive you—never, never, never."

"Grace, Grace," cried Paul.

But she rushed from the room.

Maggie looked at her husband.

"Why, Paul," she said, "you're frightened. Grace doesn't mean it. She won't go to-morrow—or ever. There's nothing to be frightened of."

His red cheeks were pale. His hands trembled.

"I do so hate quarrels," he said.

Maggie went up to him and rather timidly put her hand on his arm.

"We'll have a lovely time at Harben," she said. "Oh, I do want you to be happy, Paul."



CHAPTER VI

THE BATTLE OF SKEATON

SECOND YEAR

Strangely enough Maggie felt happier after this disturbance. Grace, in the weeks that followed, was an interesting confusion of silent and offended dignity and sudden capitulations because she had some news of fussing interest that she must impart. Nevertheless she was deeply hurt. She was as tenacious of her grievances as a limpet is of its rock, and she had never been so severely wounded before. Maggie, on her side, liked Grace better after the quarrel. She had never really disliked her, she had only been irritated by her.

She thought it very natural of her to be angry and jealous about Paul. She was determined that this month at Little Harben should put everything right. Looking back over these past years she blamed herself severely. She had been proud, self-centred, unfeeling. She remembered that day so long ago at St. Dreot's when Aunt Anne had appealed for her affection and she had made no reply. There had been many days, too, in London when she had been rebellious and hard. She thought of that night when Aunt Anne had suffered so terribly and she had wanted only her own escape. Yes—hard and unselfish that was what she had been, and she had been punished by losing Martin.

Already here, just as before in London, she was complaining and angry, and unsympathetic. She did care for Paul—she could even love Grace if she would let her. She would make everything right this summer and try and be a better, kinder woman.

Then, one morning, she found a letter on the breakfast table. She did not recognise the handwriting; when she opened it and saw the signature at the end for a moment she also did not recognise that. "William Magnus." ... Then—why, of course! Mr. Magnus! She saw him standing looking down at her with his mild eyes, staring through his large spectacles.

Her heart beat furiously. She waited until breakfast was over, then she took it up to her bedroom.

The letter was as follows:

Dear Miss Maggie,

I know you are not "Miss Maggie" now, but that is the only way that I can think of you. I expect that you have quite forgotten me, and perhaps you don't want to hear from me, but I must not lose sight of you altogether. I haven't so many friends that I can lose one without a word. I don't know quite what to begin by telling you. I ought to ask you questions about yourself, I suppose, but I know that your aunts hear from you from time to time and they give me news from your letters. I hear that you are happily married and are quite settled down to your new life. I'm very glad to hear that, although it isn't quite the life that I would have prophesied for you. Do you like Skeaton? I've never cared much for seaside resorts myself, but then I'm a queer cranky old man, and I deserve all I get. I wish I could tell you something cheerful about all your friends here, but I'm afraid I can't. Your aunt is so brave and plucky that probably she said nothing to you in her last letter about how ill she has been, but she's just had a very bad bout, and at one time we were afraid that we were going to lose her. You can imagine how anxious we all were. But she is better again now, although very much shattered. The Chapel is closed. There's a piece of news for you! It never recovered from poor Warlock's death; he was the spirit that gave it life, and although he may have had his dreams and imaginations that deceived him, there was some life in that building that I have never found anywhere else and shall never find again. You remember that Amy Warlock married that scamp Thurston. Well, she has left him and has come back to live with her mother. She had a rather bad experience, I'm afraid, poor woman, but she says nothing to any one about it. She and the old lady have moved from this part of London and have gone to live somewhere in Kensington. Some one saw Martin Warlock in Paris the other day. I hear that he has been very seriously ill and is greatly changed, looking years older. I can say, now that you are happily married, that I am greatly relieved that you were not engaged to him. You won't think this presumptuous of a man old enough to be your father, will you? I am sure he had many good things in him, but he was very weak and not fitted to look after you. But he had a good heart, I'm sure, and his father's death was a great shock to him. Thurston, I hear, is having revival meetings up and down the country. Miss Avies, I believe, is with him. You remember Miss Pyncheon? She and many other regular attendants at the Chapel have left this neighbourhood. The Chapel is to be a cinematograph theatre, I believe. There! I have given you all the gossip. I have not said more about your aunts because I want you to come up one day to London, when you have time, and see them. You will do that, won't you? I expect you are very busy—I hope you are. I would like to have a line from you, but please don't bother if you have too much to do.

Always your friend,

WILLIAM MAGNUS.

When Maggie saw Martin's name the other writing on the page transformed itself suddenly into a strange pattern of webs and squares. Nevertheless she pursued her way through this, but without her own agency, as though some outside person were reading to her and she was not listening.

She repeated the last words "Always your friend, William Magnus" aloud solemnly twice. Her thoughts ran in leaps and runs, hurdle-race-wise across the flat level of her brain. Martin. Old. Ill. Paris. Those walls out there and the road-man with a spade—little boy walking with him—chattering—it's going to be hot. The light across the lawn is almost blue and the beds are dry. His room. The looking-glass. Always tilts back when one tries to see one's hair. Meant to speak about it. Martin. Ill. Paris. Paris. Trains. Boats. How quickly could one be there? No time at all. Paris. Never been to Paris. Perhaps he isn't there now ...

At that definite picture she controlled her mind again. She pulled it up as a driver drags back a restive horse. Her first real thought was: "How hard that this letter should have come now when I was just going to put everything right with Paul." Her next: "Poor Paul! But I don't care for him a bit ... I don't care for any one but Martin. I never did." Her next: "Why did I ever think I did?" And her next: "Why did I ever do this?" She knew with a strange calm certainty that from this moment she would never be rid of Martin's presence again. She had maintained for more than a year a wonderful make-believe of indifference. She had fancied that by, pushing furiously with both hands one could drive things into the past. But Fate was cleverer than that. What he wanted to keep he kept for you—the weaving of the pattern in the carpet might be your handiwork, but the final design was settled before ever the carpet was begun. Not that any of these fine thoughts ever entered Maggie's head. All that she thought was "I love Martin. I want to go to him. He's ill. I've got to do my duty about Paul." She settled upon that last point. She bound her mind around it, fast and secure like thick cord. She put Mr. Magnus' letter away in the shell-covered box, the wedding-present from the aunts; in this box were the programme of the play that she had been to with Martin, the ring with the three pearls, Martin's few letters, and some petals of the chrysanthemum, dry and faded, that she had worn on the great day of the matinee. Something had warned her that it was foolish to keep Martin's letters, but why should she not? She had never hidden her love for Martin. Then, standing in the middle of the room, close beside the large double-bed, with a football-group and "The Crucifixion" staring down upon her, she had her worst hour. Nothing in all life could have moved her as did that picture of Martin's loneliness and sickness. Wave after wave of persuasion swept over her: "Go! Go now! Take the train to Paris. You can find out from Mr. Magnus where he was living. He is sick. He needs you. You swore to him that you would never desert him, and you have deserted him. They don't want you here. Grace hates you, and Paul is too lazy to care!"

At the thought of Paul resolution came to her. She looked up at the rather fat, amiable youth with the stout legs and the bare knees in the football photograph, and prayed to it: "Paul, I'm very lonely and tempted. Care for me even though I can't love you as you want. Don't give me up because I can't let you have what some one else has got. Let's be happy, Paul—please."

She was shivering. She looked back with a terrified, reluctant glance to the drawer where Mr. Magnus' letter was, then she went downstairs.

Soon after they started for Little Harben. The last days in Skeaton had scarcely been happy ones. Grace had erected an elaborate scaffolding of offended dignity and bitter misery. She was not bitterly miserable, indeed she enjoyed her game, but it was depressing to watch Paul give way to her. He was determined to leave her in a happy mind. Any one could have told him that the way to do that was to leave her alone altogether. Instead he petted her, persuading her to eat her favourite pudding, buying her a new work-box that she needed, dismissing a boy from the choir (the only treble who was a treble) because he was supposed to have made a long-nose at Grace during choir-practice.

He adopted also a pleading line with her. "Now, Grace dear, don't you think you could manage a little bit more?"

"Do you think you ought to go out in all this rain, Grace dear?"

"Grace, you look tired to death. Shall I read to you a little?"

He listened to her stories with a new elaborate attention. He laughed heartily at the very faintest glimmer of a joke. Through it all Grace maintained an unreleased solemnity, a mournful superiority, a grim forbearance.

Maggie, watching, felt with a sinking heart that she was beginning to despise Paul.

His very movement as he hurried to place a cushion for Grace sent a little shiver down her back. "Oh, don't do it, Paul!" she heard herself cry internally, but she could say nothing. She had won her victory about Harben. She could only now be silent. Still, she bore no grudge at all against Grace. She even liked her.

Grace made many sinister allusions to her fancied departure. "Ah, in November ... Oh! of course I shall not be here then!" or, "That will be in the autumn then, won't it? You'd better give it to some one who will be here at the time." With every allusion she scored a victory. It was evident that Paul was terrified by the thought that she should leave him. He did not see what he would do without her. His world would tumble to pieces.

"But she hasn't the remotest intention of going," said Maggie. "She'll never go."

"Well, I don't know. It would be strange without her, Maggie, I must confess. You see, all our lives we've been together—all our lives."

Nevertheless he felt perhaps some relief, in spite of himself, when they were safely in a train for Little Harben. It was rather a relief, just for a day or two, not to see Grace's reproachful face. Yes, it was. He was quite gay, almost like the boy he used to be. Little Harben was one of the smallest villages in Wiltshire and its Rectory one of the most dilapidated. The Rectory was sunk into the very bottom of a green well. Green hills rose on every side above it, green woods pressed in all around it, a wild, deserted green garden crept up to the windows and clambered about the old walls. There was hardly any furniture in the house, and many many windows all without curtains. Long looking-glasses reflected the green garden at every possible angle so that all the lights and shadows in the house were green. There was a cat with green eyes, and the old servant was so aged and infirm that she was, spiritually if not physically, covered with green moss.

From their bedroom they could see the long green slope of the hill. Everywhere there was a noise of birds nestling amongst the leaves, of invisible streams running through the grass, of branches mysteriously cracking, and, always, in the distance some one seemed to be chopping with an axe. If you pushed a window open multitudes of little insects fell in showers about you. All the roses were eaten with green flies.

"What a place!" said Maggie; nevertheless it was rather agreeable after the sand of Skeaton.

During the first three days they preserved their attitude of friendly distance. On the fourth evening Maggie desperately flung down her challenge. They were sitting, after supper, in the wild deserted garden. It was a wonderful evening, faintly blue and dim crocus with flickering silver stars. The last birds twittered in the woods; the green arc of the hill against the evening sky had a great majesty of repose and rest. "Now, Paul!" said Maggie.

"What is it, dear?" but he slowly changed colour and looked away from her, out into the wood.

"We've got to face it some time," she said. "The sooner, then, the better—"

"Face what?" he asked, dropping his voice as though he were afraid that some one would overhear.

"You and me." Maggie gathered her resources together. "Before we were married we were great friends. You were the greatest friend I ever had except Uncle Mathew. And now I don't know what we are."

"Whose fault is that?" he asked huskily. "You know what the matter is. You don't love me. You never have ... Have you?" He suddenly ended, turning towards her.

She saw his new eagerness and she was frightened, but she looked at a little bunch of stars that twinkled at her above the dark elms and took courage.

"I'm very bad at explaining my feelings," she said. "And you're not very good either, Paul. I know I am very fond of you, and I feel as though it ought to be so simple if I were wiser or kinder. I've been thinking for weeks about this, and I want to say that I'm ready to do anything that will make you happy."

"You'll love me?" he asked.

"I'm very fond of you, and I always will be."

"No, but love."

"A word like that isn't important. Affection—"

"No. It's love I want."

She turned away from him, pressing her hands together, staring into the wood that was sinking into avenues of dark. She couldn't answer him. He came over to her. He knelt on the dry grass, took her head between his hands, and kissed her again and again and again.

She heard him murmur: "Maggie ... Maggie ... Maggie. You must love me. You must. I've waited so long. I didn't know what love was. God in His Mercy forgive me for the thoughts I've had this year. You've tormented me. Tantalised me. You're a witch. A witch. You're so strange, so odd, so unlike any one. You've enchanted me. Love me. Maggie ... Love me ... Love me."

She caught his words all broken and scattered. She felt his heart beating against her body, and his hands were hot to the touch of her cold cheek. She felt that he was desperate and ashamed and pitiful. She felt, above all else, that she must respond—and she could not. She strove to give him what he needed. She caught his hands, and then, because she knew that she was acting falsely and the whole of her nature was in rebellion, she drew back. He felt her withdraw. His hands dropped.

She burst into tears, suddenly hiding her face in her hands as she used to do when she was a little girl.

"Oh, Paul," she wept. "I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm wicked. I can't—"

He got up and stood with his back to her, looking towards the night sky that flashed now with stars.

She controlled herself, feeling desperately that their whole future together hung on the approaching minutes. She went up to him, standing at first timidly behind him, then putting her hand through his arm.

"Paul. It isn't so hopeless. If I can't give you that I can give you everything else. I told you from the first that I couldn't help loving Martin. All that kind of love I gave to him, but we can be friends. I want a friend so badly. If we're both lonely we can come together closer and closer, and perhaps, later on—"

But she could not go on. She knew that she would never forget Martin, that she would never love Paul. These two things were so clear to her that she could not pretend. As the darkness gathered the wood into its arms and the last twitter of the birds sank into silence, she felt that she too was being caught into some silent blackness. The sky was pale green, the stars so bright that the rest of the world seemed to lie in dim shadow. She could scarcely see Paul now; when he spoke his voice came, disembodied, out of the dusk.

"You'll never forget him, then?" at last he asked.

"No."

"You're strange. You don't belong to us. I should have seen that at the beginning. I knew nothing about women and thought that all that I wanted—oh God, why should I be so tempted? I've been a good man ..." Then he came close to her and put his hand on her shoulder and even drew her to him. "I won't bother you any more, Maggie. I'll conquer this. We'll be friends as you want. It isn't fair to you—"

She felt the control that he was keeping on himself and she admired him. Nevertheless she knew, young though she was, that if she let him go now she was losing him for ever. The strangest pang of loneliness and isolation seized her. If Paul left her and Martin wasn't there, she was lonely indeed. She saw quite clearly how his laziness would come to his aid. He would summon first his virtue and his religion, and twenty years of abstinence would soon reassert their sway; then he would slip back into the old, lazy, self-complacent being that he had been before. Staring into the dark wood she saw it all. She could completely capture him by responding to his passion. Without that she was too queer, too untidy, too undisciplined, to hold him at all. But she could not lie, she could not pretend.

She kissed him.

"Paul, let's be friends, then. Splendid friends. Oh! we will be happy!"

But as he kissed her she knew that she had lost him.

Paul was very kind to her during their stay at Little Harben, but they recovered none of that old friendship that had been theirs before they married. Too many things were now between them. By the end of that month Maggie longed to return to Skeaton. It was not only that she felt crushed and choked by the strangling green that hemmed in the old house—the weeds and the trees, and the plants seemed to draw in the night closer and closer about the windows and doors—but also solitude with Paul was revealing to her, in a ruthless, cruel manner, his weaknesses. They were none of them, perhaps, very terrible, but she did not wish to see them. She would like to shut her eyes to them all. If she lost that friendly kindness that she felt for him then indeed she had lost everything. She felt as though he were wilfully trying to tug it away from her.

Why was it that she had never shrunk from the faults of Martin and Uncle Mathew—faults so plain and obvious—and now shrunk from Paul's? Paul's were such little ones—a desire for praise and appreciation, a readiness to be cheated into believing that all was well when he knew that things were very wrong, an eagerness to be liked even by quite worthless people, sloth and laziness, living lies that were of no importance save as sign-posts to the cowardice of his soul. Yes, cowardice! That was the worst of all. Was it his religion that had made him cowardly? Why was Maggie so terribly certain that if the necessity for physical defence of her or some helpless creature arose Paul would evade it and talk about "turning the other cheek"? He was so large a man and so soft—a terrific egoist finally, in the centre of his soul, an egoist barricaded by superstitions and fears and lies, but not a ruthless egoist, because that demanded energy.

And yet, with all this, he had so many good points. He was a child, a baby, like so many clergymen. Even her father could have been defended by that plea ...

He was not radically bad, he was radically good, but he had never known discipline or real sorrow or hardship. Wrapped in cotton wool all his life, spoilt, indulged, treated by the world as men treat women. His effeminacy was the result of his training because he had always been sheltered. Now his contact with Maggie was presenting him for the first time with Reality. Would he face and grapple with it, or would he slip away, evade it, and creep back into his padded castle?

The return to Skeaton and the winter that followed it did not answer that question. Maggie, Grace, and Paul were figures, guarded and defended, outwardly friendly. Grace behaved during those months very well, but Maggie knew that this was a fresh sign of hostility. The "Chut-Chut," "My dear child," and the rest that had been so irritating had been after all signs of intimacy. They were now withdrawn. Maggie made herself during that winter and the spring that followed as busy as possible. She ruthlessly forbade all thoughts of Martin, of the aunts, of London; she scarcely saw Caroline, and the church was her fortress. She seemed to be flung from service to service, to be singing in the choir (she had no voice), asking children their catechism, listening to Paul's high, rather strained, voice reading the lessons, talking politely to Mrs. Maxse or one of the numerous girls, knitting and sewing (always so badly), and above all struggling to remember the things that she was for ever forgetting. Throughout this period she was pervaded by the damp, oily smell of the heated church, always too hot, always too close, always too breathless.

She had many headaches; she liked them because they held back her temptation to think of forbidden things.

Gradually, although she did not know it, the impression gained ground that she was "queer." She had not been to the Toms' often, but she was spoken of as their friend. She had seen Caroline, who was now considered by the church a most scandalous figure, scarcely at all, but it was known that she was an old friend. Above all, it was understood that the rector and his wife were not happy.

"Oh, she's odd—looks more like a boy than a woman. She never says anything, seems to have no ideas. I don't believe she's religious really either."

She knew nothing of this. She did not notice that she was not asked often to other houses. People were kind (the Skeaton people were neither malicious nor cruel) but left her more and more alone. She said to herself again and again: "I must make this a success—I must"—but the words were becoming mechanical. It was like tramping a treadmill: she got no further, only became more and more exhausted. That spring and summer people noticed her white face and strange eyes. "Oh, she's a queer girl," they said.

The summer was very hot with a little wind that blew the sand everywhere. Strange how that sand succeeded in penetrating into the very depth of the town. The sand lay upon the pavement of the High Street so that your feet gritted as you walked. The woods and houses lay for nearly two months beneath a blazing sun. There was scarcely any rain. The little garden behind the Rectory was parched and brown; the laurel bushes were grey with dust. They saw very few people that summer; many of their friends had escaped.

Maggie, thinking of the green depths of Harben a year ago, longed for its coolness; nevertheless she was happy to think that she would never have to see Harben again.

As she had foretold, laziness settled upon Paul. What he loved best was to sink into his old armchair in the dusty study and read old volumes of Temple Bar and the Cornhill. He had them piled at his side; he read article after article about such subjects as "The Silkworm Industry" and "Street Signs of the Eighteenth Century." He was very proud of his sermons, but now he seldom gave a new one. He always intended to. "Don't let any one disturb me to-night, Maggie," he would say at supper on Fridays. "I've got my sermon." But on entering the study he remembered that there was an article in Temple Bar that he must finish. He also read the Church Times right through, including the advertisements. Grace gradually resumed her old functions.

She maintained, however, an elaborate pretence of leaving everything to Maggie. Especially was she delighted when Maggie forgot something. When that happened she said nothing; her mouth curled a little. She treated Maggie less and less to her garrulous confidences. They would sit for hours in the drawing-room together without exchanging a word. Maggie and Paul had now different bedrooms. Early in the autumn Maggie had a little note from Mr. Magnus. It said:

"You have not written to any of us for months. Won't you come just for a night to see your aunts? At least let us know that you are happy."

She cried that night in bed, squeezing her head into the pillow so that no one should hear her. She seemed to have lost all her pluck. She must do something, but what? She did not know how to deal with people. If they were kind and friendly there were so many things that she could do, but this silent creeping away from her paralysed her. She remembered how she had said to Katherine: "No one can make me unhappy if I do not wish it to be." Now she did not dare to think how unhappy she was. She knew that they all thought her strange and odd, and she felt that strangeness creeping upon her. She MUST be odd if many people thought her so. She became terribly self-conscious, wondering whether her words and movements were strange.

She was often so tired that she could not drag one foot after another.

A few weeks before Christmas something happened. A terrible thing, perhaps—but she was delivered by it ...

She was sitting one afternoon a few weeks before Christmas in the drawing-room alone with Grace. It was her "At Home" day, a Friday afternoon. Grace was knitting a grey stocking, a long one that curled on her lap. She knitted badly, clumsily, twisting her fingers into odd shapes and muddling her needles. Now and then she would look up as though she meant to talk, and then remembering that it was Maggie who was opposite to her she would purse her lips and look down again. The fire hummed and sputtered, the clock ticked, and Grace breathed in heavy despairing pants over the difficulties of her work. The door opened and the little maid, her eyes nervously wandering towards Grace, murmured, "Mr. Cardinal, mum."

The next thing of which Maggie was conscious was Uncle Mathew standing clumsily just inside the door shifting his bowler hat between his two hands.

The relief of seeing him was so great that she jumped up and ran towards him crying, "Oh, Uncle Mathew! I'm so glad! At last!"

He dropped his bowler in giving her his hand. She noticed at once that he was looking very unhappy and had terribly run to seed.

He was badly shaved, his blue suit was shabby and soiled. He was fatter, and his whole body was flabby and uncared for. Maggie saw at once that he had been drinking, not very much, but enough to make him a little uncertain on his feet and unsteady in his gaze. Maggie, when she saw him, felt nothing but a rush of pity and desire to protect him. Very strangely she felt the similarity between him and herself. Nobody wanted either of them—they must just love one another because there was no one else to love them.

She was aware then that Grace had risen and was standing looking at them both.

She turned round to her saying, "Grace, this is my uncle. You've heard me speak of him, haven't you? He was very kind to me when I was a little girl ... Uncle, this is my sister-in-law, Miss Trenchard."

Uncle Mathew smiled and, rather unsteadily, came forward; he caught her hand in both his damp, hot ones. "Very pleased to meet you, Miss Trenchard. I know you've been very good to my little Maggie; at least when I say 'my little Maggie' she's not mine any longer. She belongs to your brother now, doesn't she? Of course she does. I hope you're well."

Maggie realised then the terrified distress in Grace's eyes. The grey stocking had fallen to the ground, and Grace stared at Uncle Mathew in a kind of fascinated horror. She realised of course at once that he was what she would call "tipsy." He was not "tipsy," but nevertheless "tipsy" enough for Grace. Maggie saw her take in every detail of his appearance—his unshaven cheeks, the wisps of hair over the bald top of his head, the spots on his waistcoat, the mud on his boots, and again as she watched Grace make this summary, love and protection for that unhappy man filled her heart. For unhappy he was! She saw at once that he had had a long slide downhill since his last visit to her. He was frightened—frightened immediately now of Grace and the room and the physical world—but frightened also behind these things at some spectre all his own. Grace sat down and tried to recover herself. She began to talk in her society voice. Maggie knew that she was praying, over and over again, with a monotony possible only to the very stupid, that there would be no callers that afternoon.