Why had she said "No," and was it not in reality another woman who had said it, and why had he been so quiet? It was not his way. There had been no storm. She shivered a little behind her gloves.

"Dearly beloved brethren," began the Precentor, pleading, impersonal.

Slowly her brain, like a little dark fish striking up from deep green waters, rose to the surface of her consciousness. What she was then most surely aware of was that she was on the very edge of something; it was a quite physical sensation, as though she had been walking over mist-soaked downs and had suddenly hesitated, to find herself looking down along the precipitances of jagged black rock. It was "jagged black rock" over which she was now peering.

The two sides of the choir were now rivalling one another over the psalms, hurling verses at one another with breathless speed, as though they said: "Here's the ball. Catch. Oh, you are slow!"

In just that way across the field of Amy Brandon's consciousness two voices were shouting at one another.

One cried: "See what she's in for, the foolish woman! She's not up to it. It will finish her."

And the other answered: "Well, she is in for it! So it's no use warning her any longer. She wants it. She's going to have it."

And the first repeated: "It never pays! It never pays! It never pays!"

And the second replied: "No, but nothing can stop her now. Nothing!"

Could nothing stop her? Behind the intricacies of one of Smart's most elaborate "Te Deums," with clenched hands and little shivers of apprehension, she fought a poor little battle.

"We praise Thee, O God. We acknowledge Thee to be the Lord...."

"The goodly fellowship of the prophets praise Thee...." A boy's voice rose, "Thou did'st not abhor the Virgin's womb...."

Let her step back now while there was yet time. She had her children. She had Talk. Falk! She looked around her, almost expecting him to be at her side, although she well knew that he had long ago abandoned the Cathedral services. Ah, it wasn't fair! If only he loved her, if only any one loved her, any one whom she herself could love. If any one wanted her!

Lawrence was waiting, his back turned to the nave. As the last words of the "Te Deum" rose into a shout of triumphant confidence he turned and solemnly, his staff raised, advanced, Archdeacon Brandon behind him. Now, as always, a little giggle of appreciation ran down the nave as the Archdeacon marched forward to the Lectern. The tourists whispered and asked one another who thai fine-looking man was. They craned their necks into the aisle. And he did look fine, his head up, his shoulders back, his grave dignity graciously at their service. At their service and God's.

The sight of her husband inflamed Mrs. Brandon. She stared at him as though she were seeing him for the first time, but in reality she was not seeing him as he was now, but rather as he had been that morning bending over her bed in his shirt and trousers. That movement that he had made as though he would lift her bodily out of the bed.

She closed her eyes. His fine rich voice came to her from a long way off. Let him boom as loudly as he pleased, he could not touch her any more. She had escaped, and for ever. She saw, then, Morris as she had seen him at that tea-party months ago. She recovered that strange sense that she had had (and that he had had too, as she knew) of being carried out right away from one's body into an atmosphere of fire and heat and sudden cold. They had no more been able to avoid that look that they had exchanged than they had been able to escape being born. Let it then stay at that. She wanted nothing more than that. Only that look must be exchanged again. She was hungry, starving for it. She must see him often, continually. She must be able to look at him, touch the sleeve of his coat, hear his voice. She must be able to do things for him, little simple things that no one else could do. She wanted no more than that. Only to be near to him and to see that he was cared for...looked after. Surely that was not wrong. No one could say....

Little shivers ran continually about her body, and her hands, clenched tightly, were damp within her gloves.

The Precentor gave out the words of the Anthem, "Little children, love one another."

Every one rose—save Lady St. Leath, who settled herself magnificently in her seat and looked about her as though she challenged anybody to tell her that she was wrong to do so.

Yes, that was all Amy Brandon wanted. Who could say that she was wrong to want it? The little battle was concluded.

Old Canon Foster was preaching to-day. Always at the conclusion of the Anthem certain ruffians, visitors, tourists, clattered out. No sermon for them. They did not matter very greatly because they were far away at the back of the nave, and nobody need look at them; but on Foster's preaching days certain of the aristocracy also retired, and this was disconcerting because their seats were prominent ones and their dresses were of silk. Often Lady St. Leath was one of these, but to-day she was sunk into a kind of stupor and did not move. Mrs. Combermere, Ellen Stiles and Mrs. Sampson were the guilty ones.

Rustle of their dresses, the heavy flop of the side Cloister door as it closed behind them, and then silence once more and the thin angry voice of Canon Foster, "Let us pray."

Out in the grey Cloisters it was charming. The mild April sun flooded the square of grass that lay in the middle of the thick rounded pillars like a floor of bright green glass.

The ladies stood for a moment looking out into the sunny silence. The Cathedral was hushed behind them; Ellen Stiles was looking very gay and very hideous in a large hat stifled with flowers, set sideways on her head, and a bright purple silk dress pulled in tightly at the waist, rising to high puffed shoulders. Her figure was not suited to the fashion of the day.

Mrs. Sampson explained that she was suffering from one of the worst of her nervous headaches and that she could not have endured the service another moment. Miss Stiles was all eager solicitude.

"I am so sorry. I know how you are when you get one of those things. Nothing does it any good, does it? I know you've tried everything, and it simply goes on for days and days, getting worse and worse. And the really terrible part of them is that, with you, they seem to be constitutional. No doctors can do anything—when they're constitutional. There you are for the rest of your days!"

Mrs. Sampson gave a little shiver.

"I must say, Dr. Puddifoot seems to be very little use," she moaned.

"Oh! Puddifoot!" Miss Stiles was contemptuous. "He's past his work. That's one comfort about this place. If any one's ill he dies. No false hopes. At least, we know where we are."

They walked through the Martyr's Passage out into the full sunlight of the Precincts.

"What a jolly day!" said Mrs. Combermere, "I shall take my dogs for a walk. By the way, Ellen," she turned round to her friend, "how did Miss Burnett's tea-party go? I haven't seen you since."

"Oh, it was too funny!" Miss Stiles giggled. "You never saw such a mixture, and I don't think Miss Burnett knew who any one was. Not that she had much time to think, poor dear, she was so worried with the tea. Such a maid as she had you never saw!"

"A mixture?" asked Mrs. Combermere. "Who were they?"

"Oh, Canon Ronder and Bentinck-Major and Mrs. Brandon and—Oh, yes! actually Falk Brandon!"

"Falk Brandon there?"

"Yes, wasn't it the strangest thing. I shouldn't have thought he'd have had time—However, you told me not to, so I won't—"

"Who did you talk to?"

"I talked to Miss Burnett most of the time. I tried to cheer her up. No one else paid the least attention to her."

"She's a very stupid person, it seems to me," Mrs. Sampson murmured. "But of course I know her very slightly."

"Stupid!" Miss Stiles laughed. "Why, she hasn't an idea in her head. I don't believe that she knows it's Jubilee Year. Positively!"

A little wind blew sportively around Miss Stiles' large hat. They all moved forward.

"The funny thing was—" Miss Stiles paused and looked apprehensively at Mrs. Combermere. "I know you don't like scandal, but of course this isn't scandal—there's nothing in it—"

"Come on, Ellen. Out with it," said Mrs. Combermere.

"Well, Mrs. Brandon and Mr. Morris. I caught the oddest look between them."

"Look! What do you mean?" asked Mrs. Combermere sharply. Mrs. Sampson stood still, her mouth a little open, forgetting her neuralgia.

"Of course it was nothing. All the same, they were standing at the window saying something, looking at one another, well, positively as though they had known one another intimately for years. I assure you—"

Mrs. Combermere turned upon her. "Of all the nasty minds in this town, Ellen, you have the nastiest. I've told you so before. People can't even look at one another now. Why, you might as well say that I'd been gazing at your Ronder when he came to tea the other day."

"Perhaps I shall," said Miss Stiles, laughing. "It would be a delightful story to spread. Seriously, why not make a match of it? You'd just suit one another."

"Once is enough for me in a life-time," said Mrs. Combermere grimly. "Now, Ellen, come along. No more mischief. Leave poor little Morris alone."

"Mrs. Brandon and Mr. Morris!" repeated Mrs. Sampson, her eyes wide open. "Well, I do declare."

The ladies separated, and the Precincts was abandoned for a time to its beautiful Sunday peace and calm.



Chapter III

The May-day Prologue



May is the finest month of all the year in Glebeshire. The days are warm but not too hot; the sky is blue but not too blue, the air is soft but with a touch of sharpness The valleys are pressed down and overflowing with flowers; the cuckoo cries across the glassy waters of blue harbours, and the gorse is honey-scented among the rocks.

May-day in Polchester this year was warm and bright, with a persistent cuckoo somewhere in the Dean's garden, and a very shrill-voiced canary in Miss Dobell's open window. The citizens of Polchester were suddenly aware that summer was close upon them. Doors were flung open and the gardens sinuously watered, summer clothes were dragged from their long confinement and anxiously overlooked, Mr. Martin, the stationer, hung a row of his coloured Polchester views along a string across his window, the dark, covered ways of the market-place quivered and shone with pots of spring flowers, and old Simon's water-cart made its first trembling and shaking appearance down the High Street.

All this was well enough and customary enough, but what marked this spring from any other spring that had ever been was that it was Jubilee Year. It was on this warm May-day that Polchester people realised suddenly that the Jubilee was not far away. The event had not quite the excitement and novelty that the Jubilee of 1887 had had; there was, perhaps, in London and the larger towns, something of a sense of repetition. But Polchester was far from the general highway and, although the picture of the wonderful old lady, now nearly eighty years of age, was strong before every one's vision, there was a deep determination to make this year's celebration a great Polchester affair, to make it the celebration of Polchester men and Polchester history and Polchester progress.

The programme had been long arranged—the great Service in the Cathedral, the Ball in the Assembly Rooms, the Flower Show in the St. Leath Castle grounds, the Torchlight Procession, the Croquet Tournament, the School- children's Tea and the School Cricket-match. A fine programme, and the Jubilee Committee, with the Bishop, the Mayor, and the Countess of St. Leath for its presidents, had already held several meetings.

Nevertheless, Glebeshire has a rather languishing climate. Polchester has been called by its critics "a lazy town," and it must be confessed that everything in connection with the Jubilee had been jogging along very sleepily until of a sudden this warm May-day arrived, and every one sprang into action. The Mayor called a meeting of the town branch of the Committee, and the Bishop out at Carpledon summoned his ecclesiastics, and Joan found a note from Gladys Sampson beckoning her to the Sampson house to do her share of the glorious work. It had been decided by the Higher Powers that it would be a charming thing for some of the younger Polchester ladies to have in charge the working of two of the flags that were to decorate the Assembly Room walls on the night of the Ball. Gladys Sampson, who, unlike her mother, never suffered from headaches, and was a strong, determined, rather masculine girl, soon had the affair in hand, and the party was summoned.

I would not like to say that Polchester had a more snobbish spirit than other Cathedral towns, but there is no doubt that, thirty years ago, the lines were drawn very clearly indeed between the "Cathedral" and the "Others."

"Cathedral" included not only the daughters of the Canons and what Mr. Martin, in his little town guide-book, called "General Ecclesiastical Phenomena," but also the two daughters of Puddifoot's sister, Grace and Annie Trudon; the three daughters of Roger McKenzie, the town lawyer; little Betty Callender, the only child of old, red-faced Major Callender; Mary and Amy Forrester, daughters of old Admiral Forrester; and, of course, the St. Leath girls.

When Joan arrived, then, in the Deanery dining-room there was a fine gathering. Very unsophisticated they would all have been considered by the present generation. Lady Rose and Lady Mary, who were both of them nearer forty than thirty, had of course had some experience of London, and had been even to Paris and Rome. Of the "Others," at this time, only Betty Callender, who had been born in India, and the Forresters had been farther, in all their lives, than Drymouth. Their lives were bound, and happily bound, by the Polchester horizon. They lived in and for and by the local excitements, talks, croquet, bicycling (under proper guardianship), Rafiel or Buquay or Clinton in the summer, and the occasional (very, very occasional) performances of amateur theatricals in the Assembly Rooms.

Moreover, they were happy and contented and healthy. For many of them Jane Eyre was still a forbidden book and a railway train a remarkable adventure.

Polchester was the world and the world was Polchester. They were at least a century nearer to Jane Austen's day than they were to George the Fifth's.

Joan saw, with relief, so soon as she entered the room, that the St. Leath women were absent. They overawed her and were so much older than the others there that they brought constraint with them and embarrassment.

Any stranger, coming suddenly into the room, must have felt its light and gaiety and happiness. The high wide dining-room windows were open and looked, over sloping lawns, down to the Pol and up again to the woods beyond. The trees were faintly purple in the spring sun, daffodils were nodding on the lawn and little gossamer clouds of pale orange floated like feathers across the sky. The large dining-room table was cleared for action, and Gladys Sampson, very serious and important, stood at the far end of the room under a very bad oil-painting of her father, directing operations. The girls were dressed for the most part in white muslin frocks, high in the shoulders and pulled in at the waist and tight round the neck—only the McKenzie girls, who rode to hounds and played tennis beautifully and had, all three of them, faces of glazed red brick, were clad in the heavy Harris tweeds that were just then beginning to be so fashionable.

Joan, who only a month or two ago would have been devoured with shyness at penetrating the fastnesses of the Sampson dining-room, now felt no shyness whatever but nodded quite casually to Gladys, smiled at the McKenzies, and found a place between Cynthia Ryle and Jane D'Arcy.

They all sat, bathed in the sunshine, and looked at Gladys Sampson. She cleared her throat and said in her pounding heavy voice—her voice was created for Committees: "Now all of you know what we're here for. We're here to make two banners for the Assembly Rooms and we've got to do our very best. We haven't got a great deal of time between now and June the Twentieth, so we must work, and I propose that we come here every Tuesday and Friday afternoon, and when I say here I mean somebody or other's house, because of course it won't be always here. There's cutting up to do and sewing and plenty of work really for everybody, because when the banners are done there are the flags for the school-children. Now if any one has any suggestions to make I shall be very glad to hear them."

There was at first no reply to this and every one smiled and looked at the portrait of the Dean. Then one of the McKenzie girls remarked in a deep bass voice:

"That's all right, Gladys. But who's going to decide who does what? Very decent of you to ask us but we're not much in the sewing line—never have been."

"Oh," said Gladys, "I've got people's names down for the different things they're to do and any one whom it doesn't suit has only got to speak up."

Soon the material was distributed and groups were formed round the room. A chatter arose like the murmur of bees. The sun as it sank lower behind the woods turned them to dark crimson and the river pale grey. The sun fell now in burning patches and squares across the room and the dim yellow blinds were pulled half-way across the windows. With this the room was shaded into a strong coloured twilight and the white frocks shone as though seen through glass. The air grew cold beyond the open windows, but the room was warm with the heat that the walls had stolen and stored from the sun.

Joan sat with Jane D'Arcy and Betty Callender. She was very happy to be at rest there; she felt secure and safe. Because in truth during these last weeks life had been increasingly difficult—difficult not only because it had become, of late, so new and so strange, but also because she could not tell what was happening. Family life had indeed become of late a mystery, and behind the mystery there was a dim sense of apprehension, apprehension that she had never felt in all her days before. As she sank into the tranquillity of the golden afternoon glow, with the soft white silk passing to and fro in her bands, she tried to realise for herself what had been occurring. Her father was, on the whole, simple enough. He was beginning to suffer yet again from one of his awful obsessions. Since the hour of her earliest childhood she had watched these obsessions and dreaded them.

There had been so many, big ones and little ones. Now the Government, now the Dean, now the Town Council, now the Chapter, now the Choir, now some rude letter, now some impertinent article in a paper. Like wild fierce animals these things had from their dark thickets leapt out upon him, and he had proceeded to wrestle with them in the full presence of his family. Always, at last, he had been, victorious over them, the triumph had been publicly announced, "Te Deums" sung, and for a time there had been peace. It was some while since the last obsession, some ridiculous action about drainage on the part of the Town Council. But the new one threatened to make up in full for the length of that interval.

Only just before Falk's unexpected return from Oxford Joan had been congratulating herself on her father's happiness and peace of mind. She might have known the omens of that dangerous quiet. On the very day of Falk's arrival Canon Ronder had arrived too.

Canon Ronder! How Joan was beginning to detest the very sound of the name! She had hated the man himself as soon as she had set eyes upon him. She had scented, in some instinctive way, the trouble that lay behind those large round glasses and that broad indulgent smile. But now! Now they were having the name "Ronder" with their breakfast, their dinner, and their tea. Into everything apparently his fat fingers were inserted; her father saw his rounded shadow behind every door, his rosy cheeks at every window.

And yet it was very difficult to discover what exactly it was that he had done! Now, whatever it might be that went wrong in the Brandon house, in the Cathedral, in the town, her father was certain that Ronder was responsible,—but proof. Well, there wasn't any. And it was precisely this absence of proof that built up the obsession.

Everywhere that Ronder went he spoke enthusiastically about the Archdeacon. These compliments came back to Joan again and again. "If there's one man in this town I admire——" "What would this town be without——" "We're lucky, indeed, to have the Archdeacon——" And yet was there not behind all these things a laugh, a jest, a mocking tone, something that belonged in spirit to that horrible day when the elephant had trodden upon her father's hat?

She loved her father, and she loved him twice as dearly since one night when on driving up to the Castle he had held her hand. But now the obsession had killed the possibility of any tenderness between them; she longed to be able to do something that would show him how strongly she was his partisan, to insult Canon Ronder in the market-place, to turn her back when he spoke to her—and, at the same time, intermingled with this hot championship was irritation that her father should allow himself to be obsessed by this. He who was so far greater than a million Ronders!

The situation in the Brandon family had not been made any easier by Falk's strange liking for the man. Joan did not pretend that she understood her brother or had ever been in any way close to him. When she had been little he had seemed to be so infinitely above her as to be in another world, and now that they seemed almost of an age he was strange to her like some one of foreign blood. She knew that she did not count in his scheme of life at all, that he never thought of her nor wanted her. She did not mind that, and even now she would have been tranquil about him had it not been for her mother's anxiety. She could not but see how during the last weeks her mother had watched every step that Falk took, her eyes always searching his face as though he were keeping some secret from her. To Joan, who never believed that people could plot and plan and lead double lives, this all seemed unnatural and exaggerated.

But she knew well enough that her mother had never attempted to give her any of her confidence. Everything at home, in short, was difficult and confused. Nobody was happy, nobody was natural. Even her own private history, if she looked into it too closely, did not show her any very optimistic colours. She had not seen Johnny St. Leath now for a fortnight, nor heard from him, and those precious words under the Arden Gate one evening were beginning already to appear a dim unsubstantial dream. However, if there was one quality that Joan Brandon possessed in excess of all others, it was a simple fidelity to the cause or person in front of her.

Her doubts came simply from the wonder as to whether she had not concluded too much from his words and built upon them too fairy-like a castle.

With a gesture she flung all her wonders and troubles out upon the gold- swept lawn and trained all her attention to the chatter among the girls around her. She admired Jane D'Arcy very much; she was so "elegant." Everything that Jane wore became her slim straight body, and her pale pointed face was always a little languid in expression, as though daily life were an exhausting affair and not intended for superior persons. She had been told, from a very early day, that her voice was "low and musical," so she always spoke in whispers which gave her thoughts an importance that they might not otherwise have possessed. Very different was little Betty Callender, round and rosy like an apple, with freckles on her nose and bright blue eyes. She laughed a great deal and liked to agree with everything that any one said.

"If you ask me," said Jane in her fascinating whisper, "there's a lot of nonsense about this old Jubilee."

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

"Yes. Old Victoria's been on the throne long enough, 'Tis time we had somebody else."

Joan was very much shocked by this and said so.

"I don't think we ought to be governed by old people," said Jane. "Every one over seventy ought to be buried whether they wish it or no."

Joan laughed aloud.

"Of course they wouldn't wish it," she said.

Laughter came, now here, now there, from different parts of the room. Every one was very gay from the triple sense that they were the elect of Polchester, that they were doing important work, and that summer was coming.

Jane D'Arcy tossed her head.

"Father says that perhaps he'll be taking us to London for it," she whispered.

"I wouldn't go if any one offered me," said Joan. "It's Polchester I want to see it at, not London. Of course I'd love to see the Queen, but it would probably be only for a moment, and all the rest would be horrible crowds with nobody knowing you. While here! Oh! it will be lovely!"

Jane smiled. "Poor child. Of course you know nothing about London. How should you? Give me a week in London and you can have your old Polchester for ever. What ever happens in Polchester? Silly old croquet parties and a dance in the Assembly Rooms. And never any one new."

"Well, there is some one new," said Betty Callender, "I saw her this morning."

"Her? Who?" asked Jane, with the scorn of one who has already made up her mind to despise.

"I was with mother going through the market and Lady St. Leath came by in an open carriage. She was with her. Mother says she's a Miss Daubeney from London—and oh! she's perfectly lovely! and mother says she's to marry Lord St. Leath——"

"Oh! I heard she was coming," said Jane, still scornfully. "How silly you are, Betty! You think any one lovely if she comes from London."

"No, but she was," insisted Betty, "mother said so too, and she had a blue silk parasol, and she was just sweet. Lord St. Leath was in the carriage with them."

"Poor Johnny!" said Jane. "He always has to do just what that horrible old mother of his tells him."

Joan had listened to this little dialogue with what bravery she could. Doom then had been pronounced? Sentence had fallen? Miss Daubeney had arrived. She could hear the old Countess' voice again. "Claire Daubeney- Monteagle's daughter—such, a nice girl—Johnny's friend——-"

Johnny's friend! Of course she was. Nothing could show to Joan more clearly the difference between Joan's world and the St. Leath world than the arrival of this lovely stranger. Although Mme. Sarah Grand and others were at this very moment forcing that strange figure, the New Woman, upon a reluctant world, Joan belonged most distinctly to the earlier generation. She trembled at the thought of any publicity, of any thrusting herself forward, of any, even momentary, rebellion against her position. Of course Johnny belonged to this beautiful creature; she had always known, in her heart, that her dream was an impossible one. Nevertheless the room, the sunlight, the white dresses, the long shining table, the coloured silks and ribbons, swam in confusion around her. She was suddenly miserable. Her hands shook and her upper lip trembled. She had a strange illogical desire to go out and find Miss Daubeney and snatch her blue parasol from her startled hands and stamp upon it.

"Well," said Jane, "I don't envy any one who marries Johnny—to be shut up in that house with all those old women!"

Betty shook her head very solemnly and tried to look older than her years.

The afternoon was drawing on. Gladys came across and closed the windows.

"I think that's about enough to-day," she said. "Now we'll have tea."

Joan's great desire was to slip away and go home. She put her work on the table, fetched her coat from the other end of the room.

Gladys stopped her. "Don't go, Joan. You must have tea."

"I promised mother——-" she said.

The door opened. She turned and found herself close to the Dean and Canon Ronder.

The Dean came forward, nervously rubbing his hands together as was his custom. "Well, children," he said, blinking at them. Ronder stood, smiling, in the doorway. At the sight of him Joan was filled with hatred— vehement, indignant hatred; she had never hated any one before, unless possibly it was Miss St. Clair, the French mistress. Now, from what source she did not know, fear and passion flowed into her. Nothing could have been more amiable and genial than the figure that he presented.

As always, his clothes were beautifully neat and correct, his linen spotless white, his black boots gleaming.

He beamed upon them all, and Joan felt, behind her, the response that the whole room made to him. They liked him; she knew it. He was becoming popular.

He had towards them all precisely the right attitude; he was not amiable and childish like the Dean, nor pompous like Bentinck-Major, nor sycophantic like Ryle. He did not advance to them but became, as it were, himself one of them, understanding exactly the way that they wanted him.

And Joan hated him; she hated his red face and his neatness and his broad chest and his stout legs—everything, everything! She also feared him. She had never before, although for long now she had been conscious of his power, been so deeply aware of his connection with herself. It was as though his round shadow had, on this lovely afternoon, crept forward a little and touched with its dim grey for the first time the Brandon house.

"Canon Ronder," Gladys Sampson cried, "come and see what we've done."

He moved forward and patted little Betty Callender on the head as he passed. "Are you all right, my dear, and your father?"

It appeared that Betty was delighted. Suddenly he saw Joan.

"Oh, good evening, Miss Brandon." He altered his tone for her, speaking as though she were an equal.

Joan looked at him; colour flamed in her cheeks. She did not reply, and then feeling as though in an instant she would do something quite disgraceful, she slipped from the room.

Soon, after gently smiling at the parlourmaid, who was an old friend of hers because she had once been in service at the Brandons, she found herself standing, a little lost and bewildered, at the corner of Green Lane and Orange Street. Lost and bewildered because one emotion after another seemed suddenly to have seized upon her and taken her captive. Lost and bewildered almost as though she had been bewitched, carried off through the shining skies by her captor and then dropped, deserted, left, in some unknown country.

Green Lane in the evening light had a fairy air. The stumpy trees on either side with the bright new green of the spring seemed to be concealing lamps within their branches. So thick a glow suffused the air that it was as though strangely coloured fruit, purple and orange and amethyst, hung glittering against the pale yellow sky, and the road running up the hill was like pale wax.

On the other side Orange Street tumbled pell-mell into the roofs of the town. The monument of the fierce Georgian citizen near which Joan was standing guarded with a benevolent devotion the little city whose lights, stealing now upon the air, sprinkled the evening sky with a jewelled haze. No sound broke the peace; no one came nor went; only the trees of the Lane moved and stirred very faintly as though assuring the girl of their friendly company.

Never before had she so passionately loved her town. It seemed to-night when she was disturbed by her new love, her new fear, her new worldly knowledge, to be eager to assure her that it was with her in all her troubles, that it understood that she must pass into new experiences, that it knew, none better indeed, how strange and terrifying that first realisation of real life could be, that it had itself suffered when new streets had been thrust upon it and old loved houses pulled down and the river choked and the hills despoiled, but that everything passes and love remains and homeliness and friends.

Joan felt more her own response to the town than the town's reassurance to her, but she was a little comforted and she felt a little safer.

She argued as she walked home through the Market Place and up the High Street and under the Arden Gate into the quiet sheltered Precincts, why should she think that Ronder mattered? After all might not he be the good fat clergyman that he appeared? It was more perhaps a kind of jealousy because of her father that she felt. She put aside her own little troubles in a sudden rush of tenderness for her family. She wanted to protect them all and make them happy. But how could she make them happy if they would tell her nothing? They still treated her as a child but she was a woman now. Her love for Johnny. She had admitted that to herself. She stopped on the path outside the decorous strait-laced houses and put her cool gloved hand up to her burning cheek.

She had known for a long time that she loved him, but she had not told herself. She must conquer that, stamp upon it. It was foolish, hopeless.... She ran up the steps of their house as though something pursued her.

She let herself in and found the hall dusky and obscure. The lamp had not yet been lit. She heard a voice:

"Who's that?"

She looked up and saw her mother, a little, slender figure, standing at the turn of the stairs holding in her hand a lighted candle.

"It's I, mother, Joan. I've just come from Gladys Sampson's."

"Oh! I thought it would be Falk. You didn't pass Falk on your way?"

"No, mother dear."

She went across to the little cupboard where the coats were hung. As she poked her head into the little, dark, musty place, she could feel that her mother was still standing there, listening.



Chapter IV

The Genial Heart



Ronder was never happier than when he was wishing well to all mankind.

He could neither force nor falsify this emotion. If he did not feel it he did not feel it, and himself was the loser. But it sometimes occurred that the weather was bright, that his digestion was functioning admirably, that he liked his surroundings, that he had agreeable work, that his prospects were happy—then he literally beamed upon mankind and in his fancy showered upon the poor and humble largesse of glittering coin. In such a mood he loved every one, would pat children on the back, help old men along the road, listen to the long winnings of the reluctant poor. Utterly genuine he was; he meant every word that he spoke and every smile that he bestowed.

Now, early in May and in Polchester he was in such a mood. Soon after his arrival he had discovered that he liked the place and that it promised to suit him well, but he had never supposed that it could develop into such perfection. Success already was his, but it was not success of so swift a kind that plots and plans were not needed. They were very much needed. He could remember no time in his past life when he had had so admirable a combination of difficulties to overcome. And they were difficulties of the right kind. They centred around a figure whom he could really like and admire. It would have been very unpleasant had he hated Brandon or despised him. Those were uncomfortable emotions in which he indulged as seldom as possible.

What he liked, above everything, was a fight, when he need have no temptation towards anger or bitterness. Who could be angry with poor Brandon? Nor could he despise him. In his simple blind confidence and self-esteem there was an element of truth, of strength, even of nobility.

Far from despising or hating Brandon, he liked him immensely—and he was on his way utterly to destroy him.

Then, as he approached nearer the centre of his drama, he noticed, as he had often noticed before, how strangely everything played into his hands. Without undue presumption it seemed that so soon as he determined that something ought to occur and began to work in a certain direction, God also decided that it was wise and pushed everything into its right place. This consciousness of Divine partnership gave Ronder a sense that his opponents were the merest pawns in a game whose issue was already decided.

Poor things, they were helpless indeed! This only added to his kindly feelings towards them, his sense of humour, too, was deeply stirred by their own unawareness of their fate—and he always liked any one who stirred his sense of humour.

Never before had he known everything to play so immediately into his hands as in this present case. Brandon, for instance, had just that stupid obstinacy that was required, the town had just that ignorance of the outer world and cleaving to old traditions.

And now, how strange that the boy Falk had on several occasions stopped to speak to him and had at last asked whether he might come and see him!

How lucky that Brandon should be making this mistake about the Pybus St. Anthony living!

Finally, although he was completely frank with himself and knew that he was working, first and last, for his own future comfort, it did seem to him that he was also doing real benefit to the town. The times were changing. Men of Brandon's type were anachronistic; the town had been under Brandon's domination too long. New life was coming—a new world—a new civilisation.

Ronder, although no one believed less in Utopias than he, did believe in the Zeitgeist—simply for comfort's sake if for no stronger reason. Well, the Zeitgeist was descending upon Polchester, and Ronder was its agent. Progress? No, Ronder did not believe in Progress. But in the House of Life there are many rooms; once and again the furniture is changed.

One afternoon early in May he was suddenly aware that everything was moving more swiftly upon its appointed course than he, sharp though he was, had been aware. Crossing the Cathedral Green he encountered Dr. Puddifoot. He knew that the Doctor had at first disliked him but was quickly coming over to his side and was beginning to consider him as "broad-minded for a parson and knowing a lot more about life than you would suppose." He saw precisely into Puddifoot's brain and watched the thoughts dart to and fro as though they had been so many goldfish in a glass bowl. He also liked Puddifoot for himself; he always liked stout, big, red-faced men; they were easier to deal with than the thin severe ones. He knew that the time would very shortly arrive when Puddifoot would tell him one of his improper stories. That would sanctify the friendship.

"Ha! Canon!" said Puddifoot, puffing like a seal. "Jolly day!"

They stood and talked, then, as they were both going into the town, they turned and walked towards the Arden Gate. Puddifoot talked about his health; like many doctors he was very timid about himself and eager to reassure himself in public. "How are you, Canon? But I needn't ask— looking splendid. I'm all right myself—never felt better really. Just a twinge of rheumatics last night, but it's nothing. Must expect something at my age, you know—getting on for seventy."

"You look as though you'll live for ever," said Ronder, beaming upon him.

"You can't always tell from us big fellows. There's Brandon now, for instance—the Archdeacon."

"Surely there isn't a healthier man in the kingdom," said Ronder, pushing his spectacles back into the bridge of his nose.

"Think so, wouldn't you? But you'd be wrong. A sudden shock, and that man would be nowhere. Given to fits of anger, always tried his system too hard, never learnt control. Might have a stroke any day for all he looks so strong!"

"Really, really! Dear me!" said Ronder.

"Course these are medical secrets in a way. Know it won't go any farther. But it's curious, isn't it? Appearances are deceptive—damned deceptive. That's what they are. Brandon's brain's never been his strong point. Might go any moment."

"Dear me, dear me," said Ronder. "I'm sorry to hear that."

"Oh, I don't mean," said Puddifoot, puffing and blowing out his cheeks like a cherub in a picture by Sir Joshua Reynolds, "that he'll die to- morrow, you know—or have a stroke either. But he ain't as secure as he looks. And he don't take care of himself as he should."

Outside the Library Ronder paused.

"Going in here for a book, doctor. See you later."

"Yes, yes," said Puddifoot, his eyes staring up and down the street, as though they would burst out of his head. "Very good—very good. See you later then," and so went blowing down the hill.

Ronder passed under the gloomy portals of the Library and found his way, through faith rather than vision, up the stone stairs that smelt of mildew and blotting-paper, into the high dingy room. He had had a sudden desire the night before to read an old story by Bage that he had not seen since he was a boy—the violent and melancholy Hermsprong.

It had come to him, as it were, in his dreams—a vision of himself rocking in a hammock in his uncle's garden on a wonderful summer afternoon, eating apples and reading Hermsprong, the book discovered, he knew not by what chance, in the dusty depths of his uncle's library. He would like to read it again. Hermsprong! the very scent of the skin of the apple, the blue-necked tapestry of light between the high boughs came back to him. He was a boy again.... He was brought up sharply by meeting the little red-rimmed eyes of Miss Milton. Red-rimmed to-day, surely, with recent weeping. She sat humped up on her chair, glaring out into the room.

"It's all right, Miss Milton," he said, smiling at her. "It's an old book I want. I won't bother you. I'll look for myself."

He passed into the further dim secrecies of the Library, whither so few penetrated. Here was an old ladder, and, mounted upon it, he confronted the vanished masterpieces of Holcroft and Radcliffe, Lewis and Jane Porter, Clara Reeve and MacKenzie, old calf-bound ghosts who threw up little clouds of sighing dust as he touched them with his fingers. He was happily preoccupied with his search, balancing his stout body precariously on the trembling ladder, when he fancied that he heard a sigh.

He stopped and listened; this time there could be no mistake. It was a sigh of prodigious intent and meaning, and it came from Miss Milton. Impatiently he turned back to his books; he would find his Bage as quickly as possible and go. He was not at all in the mood for lamentations from Miss Milton. Ah! there was Barham Downs. Hermsprong could not be far away. Then suddenly there came to him quite unmistakably a sob, then another, then two more, finally something that horribly resembled hysterics. He came down from his ladder and crossed the room.

"My dear Miss Milton!" he exclaimed. "Is there anything I can do?"

She presented a strange and unpoetic appearance, huddled up in her wooden arm-chair, one fat leg crooked under her, her head sinking into her ample bosom, her whole figure shaking with convulsive grief, the chair creaking sympathetically with her.

Ronder, seeing that she was in real distress, hurried up to her.

"My dear Miss Milton, what is it?"

For a while she could not speak; then raised a face of mottled purple and white, and, dabbing her cheeks with a handkerchief not of the cleanest, choked out between her sobs:

"My last week—Saturday—Saturday I go—disgrace—ugh, ugh—dismissed— Archdeacon."

"But I don't understand," said Ronder, "who goes? Who's disgraced?"

"I go!" cried Miss Milton, suddenly uncurling her body and her sobs checked by her anger. "I shouldn't have given way like this, and before you, Canon Ronder. But I'm ruined—ruined!—and for doing my duty!"

Her change from the sobbing, broken woman to the impassioned avenger of justice was so immediate that Ronder was confused. "I still don't understand, Miss Milton," he said. "Do you say you are dismissed, and, if so, by whom?"

"I am dismissed! I am dismissed!" cried Miss Milton. "I leave here on Saturday. I have been librarian to this Library, Canon Ronder, for more than twenty years. Yes, twenty years. And now I'm dismissed like a dog with a month's notice."

She had collected her tears and, with a marvellous rapidity, packed them away. Her eyes, although red, were dry and glittering; her cheeks were of a pasty white marked with small red spots of indignation. Ronder, looking at her and her dirty hands, thought that he had never seen a woman whom he disliked more.

"But, Miss Milton," he said, "if you'll forgive me, I still don't understand. Under whom do you hold this appointment? Who have the right to dismiss you? and, whoever it was, they must have given some reason."

Miss Milton, was now the practical woman, speaking calmly, although her bosom still heaved and her fingers plucked confusedly with papers on the table in front of her. She spoke quietly, but behind her words there were so vehement a hatred, bitterness and malice that Ronder observed her with a new interest.

"There is a Library Committee, Canon Ronder," she said. "Lady St. Leath is the president. It has in its hands the appointment of the librarian. It appointed me more than twenty years ago. It has now dismissed me with a month's notice for what it calls—what it calls, Canon Ronder— 'abuse and neglect of my duties.' Abuse! Neglect! Me! about whom there has never been a word of complaint until—until——"

Here again Miss Milton's passions seemed to threaten to overwhelm her. She gathered herself together with a great effort.

"I know my enemy, Canon Ronder. Make no mistake about that. I know my enemy. Although, what I have ever done to him I cannot imagine. A more inoffensive person——"

"Yes.—But," said Canon Ronder gently, "tell me, if you can, exactly with what they charge you. Perhaps I can help you. Is it Lady St. Leath who——"

"No, it is not Lady St. Leath," broke in Miss Milton vehemently. "I owe Lady St. Leath much in the past. If she has been a little imperious at times, that after all is her right. Lady St. Leath is a perfect lady. What occurred was simply this: Some months ago I was keeping a book for Lady St. Leath that she especially wished to read. Miss Brandon, the daughter of the Archdeacon, came in and tried to take the book from me, saying that her mother wished to read it. I explained to her that it was being kept for Lady St. Leath; nevertheless, she persisted and complained to Lord St. Leath, who happened to be in the Library at the time; he, being a perfect gentleman, could of course do nothing but say that she was to have the book.

"She went home and complained, and it was the Archdeacon who brought up the affair at a Committee meeting and insisted on my dismissal. Yes, Canon Ronder, I know my enemy and I shall not forget it."

"Dear me," said Canon Ronder benevolently, "I'm more than sorry. Certainly it sounds a little hasty, although the Archdeacon is the most honourable of men."

"Honourable! Honourable!" Miss Milton rose in her chair. "Honourable! He's so swollen with pride that he doesn't know what he is. Oh! I don't measure my words. Canon Ronder, nor do I see any reason why I should.

"He has ruined my life. What have I now at my age to go to? A little secretarial work, and less and less of that. But it's not that of which I complain. I am hurt in the very depths of my being, Canon Ronder. In my pride and my honour. Stains, wounds that I can never forget!"

It was so exactly as though Miss Milton had just been reading Hermsprong and was quoting from it that Ronder looked about him, almost expecting to see the dusty volume.

"Well, Miss Milton, perhaps I can put a little work in your way."

"You're very kind, sir," she said. "There's more than I in this town, sir, who're glad that you've come among us, and hope that perhaps your presence may lead to a change some day amongst those in high authority."

"Where are you living, Miss Milton?" he asked.

"Three St. James' Lane," she answered. "Just behind the Market and St. James' Church. Opposite the Rectory. Two little rooms, my windows looking on to Mr. Morris'."

"Very well, I'll remember."

"Thank you, sir, I'm sure. I'm afraid I've forgotten myself this morning, but there's nothing like a sense of injustice for making you lose your self-control. I don't care who hears me. I shall not forgive the Archdeacon."

"Come, come, Miss Milton," said Ronder. "We must all forgive and forget."

Her eyes narrowed until they almost disappeared.

"I don't wish to be unfair, Canon Ronder," she said. "But I've worked for more than twenty years like an honourable woman, and to be turned out.— Not that I bear Mrs. Brandon any grudge, coming down to see Mr. Morris so often as she does. I daresay she doesn't have too happy a time if all were known."

"Now, now," said Ronder. "This won't do, Miss Milton. You won't make your case better by talking scandal, you know. I have your address. If I can help you I will. Good afternoon."

Forgetting Hermsprong, having now more important things to consider, he found his way down the steps and out into the air.

On every side now it seemed that the Archdeacon was making some blunder. Little unimportant blunders perhaps, but nevertheless cumulative in their effect! The balance had shifted. The Powers of the Air, bored perhaps with the too-extended spectacle of an Archdeacon successful and triumphant, had made a sign....

Ronder, as he stood in the spring sunlight, glancing up and down the High Street, so full of colour and movement, had an impulse as though it were almost a duty to go and warn the Archdeacon. "Look out! Look out! There's a storm coming!" Warn the Archdeacon! He smiled. He could imagine to himself the scene and the reception his advice would have. Nevertheless, how sad that undoubtedly you cannot make an omelette without first breaking the eggs! And this omelette positively must be made!

He had intended to do a little shopping, an occupation in which he delighted because of the personal victories to be won, but suddenly now, moved by what impulse he could not tell, he turned back towards the Cathedral. He crossed the Green, and almost before he knew it he had pushed back the heavy West door and was in the dark, dimly coloured shadow. The air was chill. The nave was scattered with lozenges of purple and green light. He moved up the side aisle, thinking that now he was here he would exchange a word or two with old Lawrence. No harm would be done by a little casual amiability in that direction.

Before he realised, he was close to the Black Bishop's Tomb. The dark grim face seemed to-day to wear a triumphant smile beneath the black beard. A shaft of sunlight played upon the marble like a searchlight upon water; the gold of the ironwork and the green ring and the tracery on the scrolled borders jumped under the sunlight like living things.

Ronder, moved as always by beauty, smiled as though in answer to the dead Bishop.

"Why! you're the most alive thing in this Cathedral," he thought to himself.

"Pretty good bit of work, isn't it?" he heard at his elbow. He turned and saw Davray, the painter. The man had been pointed out to him in the street; he knew his reputation. He was inclined to be interested in the man, in any one who had a wider, broader view of life than the citizens of the town. Davray had not been drinking for several weeks; and always towards the end of one of his sober bouts he was gentle, melancholy, the true artist in him rising for one last view of the beauty that there was in the world before the inevitable submerging.

He had, on this occasion, been sober for a longer period than usual; he felt weak and faint, as though he had been without food, and his favourite vice, that had been approaching closer and closer to him during these last days, now leered at him, leaning towards him from the other side of the gilded scrolls of the tomb.

"Yes, it's a very fine thing." He cleared his throat. "You're Canon Ronder, are you not?"

"Yes, I am."

"My name's Davray. You probably heard of me as a drunkard who hangs about the town doing no good. I'm quite sure you don't want to speak to me or know me, but in here, where it's so quiet and so beautiful, one may know people whom it wouldn't be nice to know outside."

Ronder looked at him. The man's face, worn now and pinched and sharp, must once have had its fineness.

"You do yourself an injustice, Mr. Davray," Ronder said. "I'm very glad indeed to know you."

"Well, of course, you parsons have got to know everybody, haven't you? And the sinners especially. That's your job. But I'm not a sinner to-day. I haven't drunk anything for weeks, although don't congratulate me, because I'm certainly not going to hold out much longer. There's no hope of redeeming me, Canon Ronder, even if you have time for the job."

Ronder smiled.

"I'm not going to preach to you," he said, "you needn't be afraid."

"Well, let's forget all that. This Cathedral is the very place, if you clergymen had any sense of proportion, where you should be ashamed to preach. It laughs at you."

"At any rate the Bishop does," said Render, looking down at the tomb.

"No, but all of it," said Davray. Instinctively they both looked up. High above them, in the very heart of the great Cathedral tower, a mist, reflected above the windows until it was coloured a very faint rose, trembled like a sea about the black rafters and rounded pillars. Even as they looked some bird flew twittering from corner to corner.

"When I'm worked up," said Davray, "which I'm not to-day, I just long to clear all you officials out of it. I laugh sometimes to think how important you think yourselves and how unimportant you really are. The Cathedral laughs too, and once and again stretches out a great lazy finger and just flicks you away as it would a spider's web. I hope you don't think me impertinent."

"Not in the least," said Ronder; "some of us even may feel just as you do about it."

"Brandon doesn't." Davray moved away. "I sometimes think that when I'm properly drunk one day I'll murder that man. His self-sufficiency and conceit are an insult to the Cathedral. But the Cathedral knows. It bides its time."

Ronder looked gravely at the melancholy, ineffective figure with the pale pointed beard, and the weak hands. "You speak very confidently, Mr. Davray," he said. "As with all of us, you judge others by yourself. When you know what the Cathedral's attitude to yourself is, you'll be able to see more clearly."

"To myself!" Davray answered excitedly. "It has none! To myself? Why, I'm nobody, nothing. It doesn't have to begin to consider me. I'm less than the dung the birds drop from the height of the tower. But I'm humble before it. I would let its meanest stone crush the life out of my body, and be glad enough. At least I know its power, its beauty. And I adore it! I adore it!"

He looked up as he spoke; his eyes seemed to be eagerly searching for some expected face.

Ronder disliked both melodrama and sentimentality. Both were here.

"Take my advice," he said smiling. "Don't think too much about the place...I'm glad that we met. Good afternoon."

Davray did not seem to have noticed him; he was staring down again at the Bishop's Tomb. Ronder walked away. A strange man! A strange day! How different people were! Neither better nor worse, but just different. As many varieties as there were particles of sand on the seashore.

How impossible to be bored with life. Nevertheless, entering his own home he was instantly bored. He found there, having tea with his aunt and sitting beneath the Hermes, so that the contrast made her doubly ridiculous, Julia Preston. Julia Preston was to him the most boring woman in Polchester. To herself she was the most important. She was a widow and lived in a little green house with a little green garden in the Polchester outskirts. She was as pretty as she had been twenty years before, exactly the same, save that what nature had, twenty years ago, done for the asking, it now did under compulsion. She believed the whole world in love with her and was therefore a thoroughly happy woman. She had a healthy interest in the affairs of her neighbours, however small they might be, and believed in "Truth, Beauty, and the Improvement of the Lower Classes."

"Dear Canon Ronder, how nice this is!" she exclaimed. "You've been hard at work all the afternoon, I know, and want your tea. How splendid work is! I often think what would life be without it'."

Ronder, who took trouble with everybody, smiled, sat down near to her and looked as though he loved her.

"Well, to be quite honest, I haven't been working very hard. Just seeing a few people."

"Just seeing a few people!" Mrs. Preston used a laugh that was a favourite of hers because she had once been told that it was like "a tinkling bell." "Listen to him! As though that weren't the hardest thing in the world. Giving out! Giving out! What is so exhausting, and yet what so worth while in the end? Unselfishness! I really sometimes feel that is the true secret of life."

"Have one of those little cakes, Julia," said Miss Ronder drily. She, unlike her nephew, bothered about very few people indeed. "Make a good tea."

"I will, as you want me to, dear Alice," said Mrs. Preston. "Oh, thank you, Canon Ronder! How good of you; ah, there! I've dropped my little bag. It's under that table. Thank you a thousand times! And isn't it strange about Mrs. Brandon and Mr. Morris?"

"Isn't what strange?" asked Miss Ronder, regarding her guest with grim cynicism.

"Oh well—nothing really, except that every one's asking what they can find in common. They're always together. Last Monday Aggie Combermere met her coming out of the Rectory, then Ellen Stiles saw them in the Precincts last Sunday afternoon, and I saw them myself this morning in the High Street."

"My dear Mrs. Preston," said Ronder, "why shouldn't they go about together?"

"No reason at all," said Mrs. Preston, blushing very prettily, as she always did when she fancied that any one was attacking her. "I'm sure that I'm only too glad that poor Mrs. Brandon has found a friend. My motto in life is, 'Let us all contribute to the happiness of one another to the best of our strength.'

"Truly, that's a thing we can all do, isn't it? Life isn't too bright for some people, I can't help thinking. And courage is the thing. After all, it isn't life that is important but simply how brave you are.

"At least that's my poor little idea of it. But it does seem a little odd about Mrs. Brandon. She's always kept so much to herself until now."

"You worry too much about others, dear Julia," said Miss Ronder.

"Yes, I really believe I do. Why, there's my bag gone again! Oh, how good of you, Canon! It's under that chair. Yes. I do. But one can't help one's nature, can one? I often tell myself that it's really no credit to me being unselfish. I was simply born that way. Poor Jack used to say that he wished I would think of myself more! I think we were meant to share one another's burdens. I really do. And what Mrs. Brandon can see in Mr. Morris is so odd, because really he isn't an interesting man."

"Let me get you some more tea," said Ronder.

"No, thank you. I really must be going. I've been here an unconscionable time. Oh! there's my handkerchief. How silly of me! Thank you so much!"

She got up and prepared to depart, looking so pretty and so helpless that it was really astonishing that the Hermes did not appreciate her.

"Good-bye, dear Canon. No, I forbid you to come out. Oh, well, if you will. I hear everywhere of the splendid work you're doing. Don't think it flattery, but I do think we needed you here. What we have wanted is a message—something to lift us all up a little. It's so easy to see nothing but the dreary round, isn't it? And all the time the stars are shining.... At least that's how it seems to me."

The door closed; the room was suddenly silent. Miss Ronder sat without moving, her eyes staring in front of her.

Soon Ronder returned.

Miss Ronder said nothing. She was the one human being who had power to embarrass him. She was embarrassing him now.

"Aren't things strange?" he said. "I've seen four different people this afternoon. They have all of their own accord instantly talked about Brandon, and abused him. Brandon is in the air. He's in danger."

Miss Ronder looked her nephew straight between the eyes.

"Frederick," she said, "how much have you had to do with this?"

"To do with this? To do with what?"

"All this talk about the Brandons."

"I! Nothing at all."

"Nonsense. Don't tell me. Ever since you set foot in this town you've been determined that Brandon should go. Are you playing fair?"

He got up, stood opposite her, legs apart, his hands crossed behind his broad back.

"Fair? Absolutely."

Her eyes were full of distress. "Through all these years," she said, "I've never truly known you. All I know is that you've always got what you wanted. You're going to get what you want now. Do it decently."

"You needn't be afraid," he said.

"I am afraid," she said. "I love you, Fred; I have always loved you. I'd hate to lose that love. It's one of my most precious possessions."

He answered her slowly, as though he were thinking things out. "I've always told you the truth," he said; "I'm telling you the truth now. Of course I want Brandon to go, and of course he's going. But I haven't to move a finger in the matter. It's all advancing without my agency. Brandon is ruining himself. Even if he weren't, I'm quite square with him. I fought him openly at the Chapter Meeting the other day. He hates me for it."

"And you hate him."

"Hate him? Not the least in the world. I admire and like him. If only he were in a less powerful position and were not in my way, I'd be his best friend. He's a fine fellow—stupid, blind, conceited, but finer made than I am. I like him better than any man in the town."

"I don't understand you"; she dropped her eyes from his face. "You're extraordinary."

He sat down again as though he recognised that the little contest was closed.

"Is there anything in this, do you think? This chatter about Mrs. Brandon and Morris."

"I don't know. There's a lot of talk beginning. Ellen Stiles is largely responsible, I fancy."

"Mrs. Brandon and Morris! Good Lord! Have you ever heard of a man called Davray?"

"Yes, a drunken painter, isn't he? Why?"

"I talked to him in the Cathedral this afternoon. He has a grudge against Brandon too...Well, I'm going up to the study."

He bent over, kissed her forehead tenderly and left the room.

Throughout that evening he was uncomfortable, and when he was uncomfortable he was a strange being. His impulses, his motives, his intentions were like a sheaf of corn bound tightly about by his sense of comfort and well-being. When that sense was disturbed everything fell apart and he seemed to be facing a new world full of elements that he always denied. His aunt had a greater power of disturbing him than had any other human being. He knew that she spoke what she believed to be the truth; he felt that, in spite of her denials, she knew him. He was often surprised at the eagerness with which he wanted her approval.

As he sat back in his chair that evening in Bentinck-Major's comfortable library and watched the other, this sense of discomfort persisted so strongly that he found it very difficult to let his mind bite into the discussion. And yet this meeting was immensely important to him. It was the first obvious result of the manoeuvring of the last months. This was definitely a meeting of Conspirators, and all of those engaged in it, with one exception, knew that that was so. Bentinck-Major knew it, and Foster and Ryle and Rogers. The exception was Martin, a young Minor Canon, who had the living of St. Joseph's-in-the-Fields, a slum parish in the lower part of the town.

Martin had been invited because he was the best clergyman in Polchester. Young though he was, every one was already aware of his strength, integrity, power with the men of the town, sense of humour and intelligence. There was, perhaps, no man in the whole of Polchester whom Ronder was so anxious to have on his side.

He was a man with a scorn of any intrigue, deeply religious, but human and impatient of humbug.

Ronder knew that he was the Polchester clergyman beyond all others who would in later years come to great power, although at present he had nothing save his Minor Canonry and small living. He was not perhaps a deeply read man, he was of no especial family nor school and had graduated at Durham University. In appearance he was common-place, thin, tall, with light sandy hair and mild good-tempered eyes. It had been Ronder's intention that he should be invited. Foster, who was more responsible for the meeting than any one, had protested.

"Martin—what's the point of Martin?"

"You'll see in five years' time," Ronder had answered.

Now, as Ronder looked round at them all, he moved restlessly in his chair.

Was it true that his aunt was changing her opinion of him? Would he have to deal, during the coming months, with persistent disapproval and opposition from her? And it was so unfair. He had meant absolutely what he said, that he liked Brandon and wished him no harm. He did believe that it was for the good of the town that Brandon should go....

He was pulled up by Foster, who was asking him to tell them exactly what it was that they were to discuss. Instinctively he looked at Martin as he spoke. As always, with the first word there came over him a sense of mastery and happiness, a desire to move people like pawns, a readiness to twist any principle, moral and ethical, if he might bend it to his purpose. Instinctively he pitched his voice, formed his mouth, spread his hands upon the broad arms of his chair exactly as an actor fills in his part.

"I object a little," he said, laughing, "to Foster's suggestion that I am responsible for our talking here. I've no right to be responsible for anything when I've been in the place so short a time. All the same, I don't want to pretend to any false modesty. I've been in Polchester long enough to be fond of it, and I'm going to be fonder of it still before I've done. I don't want to pretend to any sentimentality either, but there are broader issues than merely the fortunes of this Cathedral in danger.

"Because I feel the danger, I intend to speak out about it, and get any one on my side I can. When I find that Canon Foster who has been here so long and loves the Cathedral so passionately and so honestly, if I may say so, feels as I do, then I'm only strengthened in my determination. I don't care who says that I've no right to push myself forward about this. I'm not pushing myself forward.

"As soon as some one else will take the cause in hand I'll step back, but I'm not going to see the battle lost simply because I'm afraid of what people will say of me.... Well, this is all fine words. The point simply is that, as every one knows, poor Morrison is desperately ill and the living of Pybus St. Anthony may fall vacant at any moment. The appointment is a Chapter appointment. The living isn't anything very tremendous in itself, but it has been looked upon for years as the jumping-off place for preferment in the diocese. Time after time the man who has gone there has become the most important influence here. Men are generally chosen, as I understand it, with that in view. These are, of course, all commonplaces to you, but I'm recapitulating them because it makes my point the stronger. Morrison with all his merits was not out of the way intellectually. This time we want an exceptional man.

"I've only been here a few months, but I've noticed many things, and I will definitely say that the Cathedral is at a crisis in its history. Perhaps the mere fact that this is Jubilee Year makes us all more ready to take stock than we would otherwise have been. But it is not only that. The Church is being attacked from all sides. I don't believe that there has ever been a time when the west of England needed new blood, new thought, new energy more than it does at this time. The vacancy at Pybus will offer a most wonderful opportunity to bring that force among us. I should have thought every one would realise that.

"It happens, however, that I have discovered on first-hand evidence that there is a strong resolve on the part of most important persons in this town (I will mention no names) to fill the living with the most unsatisfactory, worthless and conservative influence that could possibly be found anywhere. If that influence succeeds I don't believe I'm exaggerating when I say that the progress of the religious life here is flung back fifty years. One of the greatest opportunities the Chapter can ever have had will have been missed. I don't think we can regard the crisis as too serious."

Foster broke in: "Why not mention names, Canon? We've no time to waste. It's all humbug pretending we don't know whom you mean. It's Brandon who wants to put young Forsyth into Pybus whom we're fighting. Let's be honest."

"No. I won't allow that," Ronder said quickly. "We're fighting no personalities. Speaking for myself, there's no one I admire more in this town than Brandon. I think him reactionary and opposed to new ideas, and a dangerous influence here, but there's no personal feeling in any of this. We've got to keep personalities out of this. There's something bigger than our own likes and dislikes in this."

"Words! Words," said Foster angrily. "I hate Brandon. You hate him, Ronder, for all you're so circumspect. It's true enough that we don't want young Forsyth at Pybus, but it's truer still that we want to bring the Archdeacon's pride down. And we're going to."

The atmosphere was electric. Rogers' thin and bony features were flushed with pleasure at Foster's denunciation. Bentinck-Major rubbed his soft hands one against the other and closed his eyes as though he were determined to be a gentleman to the last; Martin sat upright in his chair, his face puzzled, his gaze fixed upon Ronder; Ryle, the picture of nervous embarrassment, glanced from one face to another, as though imploring every one not to be angry with him—all these sharp words were certainly not his fault.

Ronder was vexed with himself. He was certainly not at his best to-night. He had realised the personalities that were around him, and yet had not steered his boat among them with the dexterous skill that was usually his.

In his heart he cursed Foster for a meddling, cantankerous fanatic.

Rogers broke in. "I must say," he exclaimed in a strange shrill voice like a peacock's, "that I associate myself with every word of Canon Foster's. Whatever we may pretend in public, the great desire of our hearts is to drive Brandon out of the place. The sooner we do it the better. It should have been done long ago."

Martin spoke. "I'm sorry," he said. "If I had known that this meeting was to be a personal attack on the Archdeacon, I never would have come. I don't think the diocese has a finer servant than Archdeacon Brandon. I admire him immensely. He has made mistakes. So do we all of course. But I have the highest opinion of his character, his work and his importance here, and I would like every one in the room to know that before we go any further."

"That's right. That's right," said Ryle, smiling around nervously upon every one. "Canon Martin is right, don't you think? I hope nobody here will say that I have any ill feeling against the Archdeacon. I haven't, indeed, and I shouldn't like any one to charge me with it."

Ronder struck in then, and his voice was so strong, so filled with authority, that every one looked up as though some new figure had entered the room.

"I should like to emphasise at once," he said, "so that no one here or anywhere else can be under the slightest misapprehension, that I will take part in nothing that has any personal animus towards anybody. Surely this is a question of Pybus and Forsyth and of nothing else at all. I have not even anything against Mr. Forsyth; I have never seen him—I wish him all the luck in life. But we are fighting a battle for the Pybus living and for nothing more nor less than that.

"If my own brother wanted that living and was not the right man for it I would fight him. The Archdeacon does not see the thing at present as we do; it is possible that very shortly he may. As soon as he does I'm behind him."

Foster shook his head. "Have it your own way," he said. "Everything's the same here—always compromise. Compromise! Compromise! I'm sick of the cowardly word. We'll say no more of Brandon for the moment then. He'll come up again, never fear. He's not the sort of man to avoid spoiling his own soup."

"Very good," said Bentinck-Major in his most patronising manner. "Now we are all agreed, I think. You will have noticed that I've been waiting for this moment to suggest that we should come to business. Our business, I believe, is to obtain what support we can against the gift of the living to Mr. Forsyth and to suggest some other candidate...hum, haw...yes, other candidate."

"There's only one possible candidate," Foster brought out, banging his lean fist down upon the table near to him. "And that's Wistons of Hawston. It's been the wish of my heart for years back to bring Wistons here. We don't know, of course, if he would come, but I think he could be persuaded. And then—then there'd be hope once more! God would be served! His Church would be a fitting Tabernacle!..."

He broke off. Amazing to see the rapt devotion that now lighted up his ugly face until it shone with saintly beauty. The harsh lines were softened, the eyes were gentle, the mouth tender. "Then indeed," he almost whispered, "I might say my 'Nunc Dimittis' and go."

It was not he alone who was stirred. Martin spoke eagerly: "Is that the Wistons of the Four Creeds?—the man who wrote The New Apocalypse?"

Foster smiled. "There's only one Wistons," he said, pride ringing in his voice as though he were speaking of his favourite son, "for all the world."

"Why, that would be magnificent," Martin said, "if he'd come. But would he? I should think that very doubtful."

"I think he would," said Foster softly, still as though he were speaking to himself.

"Why, that, of course, is wonderful!" Martin looked round upon them all, his eyes glowing. "There isn't a man in England——" He broke off. "But surely if there's a real chance of getting Wistons nobody on the Chapter would dream of proposing a man like Forsyth. It's incredible!"

"Incredible!" burst in Foster. "Not a bit of it! Do you suppose Brandon—I beg pardon for mentioning his name, as we're all so particular—do you suppose Brandon wouldn't fight just such a man? He regards him as dangerous, modern, subversive, heretical, anything you please. Wistons! Why, he'd make Brandon's hair stand on end!"

"Well," said Martin gravely, "if there's any real chance of getting Wistons into this diocese I'll work for it with my coat off."

"Good," said Bentinck-Major, tapping with a little gold pencil that he had been fingering, on the table. "Now we are all agreed. The next question is, what steps are we to take?"

They all looked instinctively at Ronder. He felt their glances. He was happy, assured, comfortable once more. He was master of them. They lay in his hand for him to do as he would with them. His brain now moved clearly, smoothly, like a beautiful shining machine. His eyes glowed.

"Now, it's occurred to me——" he said. They all drew their chairs closer.



Chapter V

Falk by the River



Upon that same evening when the conspirators met in Bentinck-Major's handsome study Mrs. Brandon had a ridiculous fit of hysterics.

She had never had hysterics before; the fit came upon her now when she was sitting in front of her glass brushing her hair. She was dressing for dinner and could see her reflection, white and thin, in the mirror before her. Suddenly the face in the glass began to smile and it became at that same instant another face that she had never seen before.

It was a horrid smile and broke suddenly into laughter. It was as though the face had been hit by something and cracked then into a thousand pieces.

She laughed until the tears poured down her cheeks, but her eyes protested, looking piteously and in dismay from the studied glass. She knew that she was laughing with shrill high cries, and behind her horror at her collapse there was a desperate protesting attempt to calm herself, driven, above all, upon her agitated heart by the fear lest her husband should come in and discover her.

The laughter ceased quite suddenly and was followed by a rush of tears. She cried as though her heart would break, then, with trembling steps, crossed to her bed and lay down. Very shortly she must control herself because the dinner-bell would ring and she must go. To stay and send the conventional excuse of a headache would bring her husband up to her, and although he was so full of his own affairs that the questions that he would ask her would be perfunctory and absent-minded, she felt that she could not endure, just now, to be alone with him.

She lay on her bed shivering and wondering what malign power it was that had seized her. Malign it was, she did not for an instant doubt. She had asked, did ask, for so little. Only to see Morris for a moment every day. To see him anywhere in as public a place as you please, but to see him, to hear his voice, to look into his eyes, to touch his hand (soft and gentle like a woman's hand)—that had been now for months an absolute necessity. She did not ask more than that, and yet she was aware that there was no pause in the accumulating force of the passion that was seizing her. She was being drawn along by two opposite powers—the tenderness of protective maternal love and the ruthlessness of the lust for possession.

She wanted to care for him, to watch over him, to guard him, to do everything for him, and also she wanted to feel her hold over him, to see him move, almost as though he were hypnotised, towards her.

The thought of him, the perpetual incessant thought of him, ruled out the thought of every one else in the world—save only Falk. She scarcely now considered her husband at all; she never for an instant wondered whether people in the town were talking. She saw only Morris and her future with Morris—only that and Falk.

Upon Falk now everything hung. She had made a kind of bargain. If Falk stayed and loved her and cared for her she would resist the power that was drawing her towards Morris. Now, a million times more than before she had met Morris, she must have some one for whom she could care. It was as though a lamp had been lit and flung a great track of light over those dark, empty earlier years. How could she ever have lived as she did? The hunger, the desperate, eager, greedy hunger was roused in her. Falk could satisfy it, but, if he would not, then she would hesitate no longer.

She would seize Morris as a tiger seizes its prey. She did not disguise that from herself. As she lay now, trembling, upon her bed, she never hesitated to admit to herself that the thought of her domination over Morris was her great glory. She had never dominated any one before. He followed her like a man in a dream, and she was not young, she was not beautiful, she was not clever....

It was her own personal, personal, personal triumph. And then, on that, there swept over her the flood of her tenderness for him, how she longed to be good to him, to care for him, to mend and sew and cook and wash for him, to perform the humblest tasks for him, to nurse him and protect him. She knew that the end of this might be social ruin for both of them!... Ah, well, then, he would only need her the more! She was quieter now—the trembling ceased. How strange the way that during these months they had been meeting, so often without their own direct agency at all! She recalled every moment, every gesture, every word. He seemed already to be part of herself, moving within herself.

She sat up on her bed; moved back to her glass. She bathed her face, slipped on her dress, and went downstairs.

They were a family party at dinner, but, of course, without Falk. He was always out in the evening now.

Joan talked, chattered on. The meal was soon over. The Archdeacon went to his study, and the two women sat in the drawing-room, Joan by the window, Mrs. Brandon, hidden in a high arm-chair, near the fireplace. The clock ticked on and the Cathedral bells struck the quarters. Joan's white dress, beyond the circle of lamp-light was a dim shadow. Mrs. Brandon turned the pages of her book, her ears straining for the sound of Falk's return.

As she sat there, so inattentively turning the pages of her book, the foreboding sense of some approaching drama flooded the room. For how many years had she lived from day to day and nothing had occurred—so long that life had been unconscious, doped, inert. Now it had sprung into vitality again with the sudden frantic impertinence of a Jack-in-the-Box. For twenty years you are dry on the banks, half-asleep, stretching out lazy fingers for food, slumbering, waking, slumbering again. Suddenly a wave comes and you are swept off—swept off into what disastrous sea?

She did not think in pictures, it was not her way, but to-night, half- terrified, half-exultant, in the long dim room she waited, the pressure of her heart beating up into her throat, listening, watching Joan furtively, seeing Morris, his eternal shadow, itching with its long tapering fingers to draw her away with him beyond the house. No, she would be true with herself. It was he who would be drawn away. The power was in her, not in him....

She looked wearily across at Joan. The child was irritating to her as she had always been. She had never, in any case, cared for her own sex, and now, as so frequently with women who are about to plunge into some passionate situation, she regarded every one she saw as a potential interferer. She despised women as most women in their secret hearts do, and especially she despised Joan.

"You'd better go up to bed, dear. It's half-past ten."

Without a word Joan got up, came across the room, kissed her mother, went to the door. Then she paused.

"Mother," she said, hesitating, and then speaking timidly, "is father all right?"

"All right, dear?"

"Yes. He doesn't look well. His forehead is all flushed, and I overheard some one at the Sampsons' say the other day that he wasn't well really, that he must take great care of himself. Ought he to?"

"Ought he what?"

"To take great care of himself."

"What nonsense!" Mrs. Brandon turned back to her book impatiently. "There never was any one so strong and healthy."

"He's always worrying about something. It's his nature."

"Yes, I suppose so."

Joan vanished. Mrs. Brandon sat, staring before her, her mind running with the clock—tick-tick-tick-tick—and then suddenly jumping at the mellow liquid gurgle that it sometimes gave. Would her husband come in and say good-night?

How she had grown, during these last weeks, to loathe his kiss! He would stand behind her chair, bending his great body over her, his red face would come down, then the whiff of tobacco, then the rough pressure on her cheek, the hard, unmeaning contact of his lips and hers. His beautiful eyes would stare beyond her, absently into the room. Beautiful! Why, yes, they were famous eyes, famous the diocese through. How well she remembered those years, long ago, when they had seemed to speak to her of every conceivable tenderness and sweetness, and how, when he thus had bent over her, she had stretched up her hand and found the buttons of his waistcoat and pushed her fingers in, stroking his shirt and feeling his heart thump, thump, and so warm beneath her touch.

Life! Life! What a cheat! What a cheat! She jumped from her chair, letting the book drop upon the floor, and began to pace the room. And why should not this, too, cheat her once again? With the tenderness, the poignancy with which she now looked upon Morris so once she had looked upon Brandon. Yes, that might be. She would cheat herself no longer. But she was older now. This was the last chance to live—definitely, positively the last. It was not the desire to be loved, this time, that drove her forward so urgently as the desire to love. She knew that, because Falk would do. If Falk would stay, would let her care for him and mother him and be with him, she would drive Morris from her heart and brain.

Yes, she almost cried aloud in the dark room. "Give me Falk and I will leave the other. Give me my own son. That's my right—every mother's right. If I am refused it, it is just that I should take what I can get instead."

"Give him to me! Give him to me!" One thing at least was certain. She could never return to the old lethargy. That first meeting with Morris had fired her into life. She could not go back and she was glad that she could not....

She stopped in the middle of the room to listen. The hall-door closed softly; suddenly the line of light below the door vanished. Some one had turned down the hall-lamp. She went to the drawing-room door, opened it, looked out, crying softly:

"Falk! Falk!"

"Yes, mother." He came across to her. He was holding a lighted candle in his hand. "Are you still up?"

"Yes, it isn't very late. Barely eleven. Come into the drawing-room."

They went back into the room. He closed the door behind him, then put the candle down on to a small round table; they sat in the candle-light, one on either side of the table.

He looked at her and thought how small and fragile she looked and how little, anyway, she meant to him.

How much most mothers meant to their sons, and how little she had ever meant to him! He had always taken his father's view of her, that it was necessary for her to be there, that she naturally did her best, but that she did not expect you to think about her.

"You ought to be in bed," he said, wishing that she would release him.

For the first time in her life she spoke to him spontaneously, losing entirely the sense that she had always had, that both he and his father would go away and leave her if she were tiresome.

To-night he would not go away—not until she had struck her bargain with him.

"What have you been up to all these weeks, Falk?" she asked.

"Up to?" he repeated. Her challenge was unexpected.

"Yes; of course I know you're up to something, and you know that I know. You must tell me. I'm your mother and I ought to be told."

He knew at once as soon as she spoke that she was the very last person in the world to whom he wished to tell anything. He was tired, dead tired, and wanted to go to bed, but he was arrested by the urgency in her voice. What was the matter with her? So intent had he been, for the past months, on his own affairs that he had not thought of his mother at all. He looked across the table at her—a little insignificant woman, colourless, with no personality. And yet to-night something was happening to her. He felt all the impatience of a man who is closely occupied with his own drama but is forced, quite against his will, to consider some one else.

"There isn't anything to tell you, mother. Really there is not. I've just been kicking my heels round this blasted town for the last few months and I'm restless. I'll be going up to London very shortly."

"Why need you?" she asked him. The candle flame seemed to jump with the sharpness of her voice.

"Why need I? But of course I must. I ask you, is this a place for any one to settle down in?"

"I don't know why it shouldn't be. I should have thought you could be very happy here. There are so many things you could do."

"What, for instance?"

"You could be a solicitor, or go into business, or—or—why, you'd soon find something."

He got up, taking the candle in his hand.

"Well, if that's your idea, mother, I'm sorry, but you can just put it out of your head once and for all. I'd rather be buried alive than stay in this hole. I would be buried alive if I stayed."

She looked up at him. He was so tall, so handsome, and so distant— some one who had no connection with her at all. She too got up, putting her little hand on his arm.

"Then are we, all of us, to count for nothing at all?"

"Of course you count," he answered impatiently, irritated by the pressure of her fingers on his coat. "You'll see plenty of me. But you can't possibly expect me to live here. I've completely wasted my beautiful young life so far—now apparently you want me to waste the rest of it."

"Then," she said, coming nearer to him and dropping her voice, "take me with you."

"Take you with me!" He stepped back from her. He could not believe that he had heard her correctly. "Take you with me?"

"Yes."

"Take you with me?"

"Yes, yes, yes."

It was the greatest surprise of his life. He stared at her in his amazement, putting the candle back upon the table.

"But why?"

"Why?...Why do you think?...Because I love you and want to be with you."

"Be with me? Leave this? Leave Polchester?...Leave father?"

"Yes, why not? Your father doesn't need me any longer. Nobody wants me here. Why shouldn't I go?"

He came close to her, giving her now all his attention, staring at her as though he were seeing her for the first time in his life.

"Mother, aren't you well?...Aren't you happy?"

She laughed. "Happy? Oh, yes, so happy that I'd drown myself to-night if that would do any good."

"Here, sit down." He almost pushed her back into her chair. "We've got to have this out. I don't know what you're talking about. You're unhappy? Why, what's the matter?"

"The matter? Oh, nothing!" she answered. "Nothing at all, except for the last ten years I've hated this place, hated this house, hated your father."

"Hated father?"

He stared at her as though she had in a moment gone completely mad.

"Yes, why not?" she answered quietly. "What has he ever done that I should feel otherwise? What attention has he ever paid to me? When has he ever considered me except as a sort of convenient housekeeper and mistress whom he pays to keep near him? Why shouldn't I hate him? You're very young, Falk, and it would probably surprise you to know how many quiet stay-at- home wives there are who hate their good, honest, well-meaning husbands."

He drew a deep breath.

"What's father ever done," he said, "to make you hate him?"

She should have realised then, from the sound in his voice, that she was, in her preoccupation with her own affairs, forgetting one of the principal elements in the whole case, his love for his father.

"It isn't what he's done," she answered. "It's what he hasn't done. Whom has he ever considered but himself? Isn't his conceit so big that he can't see any one but himself. Why should we go on pretending that he's so great and wonderful? Do you suppose that any one can live for twenty years and more with your father and not see how small and selfish and mean he is? How he——"

"You're not to say that," Falk interrupted her angrily. "Father may have his faults—so has every one—but we've got worse ones. He isn't mean and he isn't small. He may seem conceited, but that's only because he cares so for the Cathedral and knows what he's done for it. He's the finest man I know anywhere. He doesn't see things as I do—I don't suppose that father and son ever do see alike—but that needn't prevent me from admiring him. Why, mother, what's come over you? You can't be well. Leave father! Why, it would be terrible! Think of the talk there'd be! Why, it would ruin father here. He'd never get over it."

She saw then the mistake that she had made. She looked across at him beseechingly.

"You're right, Falk. I didn't mean that, I don't mean that. But I'm so unhappy that I don't know what I'm saying. All I want is to be with you. It wouldn't hurt father if I went up to London with you for a little. What I really want is a holiday. I could come back after a month or two refreshed. I'm tired."

Suddenly while she was speaking the ironical contrast hit him. Here was he amazed at his mother for daring to contemplate a step that would do his father harm, while he, he who professed to love his father, was about to do something that would cause the whole town to talk for a year. But that was different. Surely it was different. He was young and must make his own life. He must be allowed to marry whom he would. It was not as though he were intending to ruin the girl....

Nevertheless, this sudden comparison bewildered and shocked him.

He leant across the table to her. "You must never leave father—never," he said. "You mustn't think of it. He wants you badly. He mayn't show it exactly as you want it. Men aren't demonstrative as women are, but he'd be miserable if you went away. He loves you in his own fashion, which is just as good as yours, only different. You must never leave him, mother, do you hear?"

She saw that she was defeated, entirely and completely. She cried to the Powers:

"You've refused me what I ask. I go my own way, then."

She got up, kissed him on the forehead and said: "I daresay you're right, Falk. Forget what I've said. I didn't mean most of it. Good-night, dear."

She went out, quietly closing the door behind her.

Falk did not sleep at all that night. This was only one of many sleepless nights, but it was the worst of them. The night was warm, and a faint dim colour lingered behind the treetops of the garden beyond his open window. First he lay under the clothes, then upon the top of his bed, then stripped, plunging his head into a basin of water, then naked save for his soft bedroom slippers, paced his room...His head was a flaming fire. The pale light seemed for an instant to vanish, and the world was dark and silent. Then, at the striking of the Cathedral clock, as though it were a signal upon some stage, the light slowly crept back again, growing ever stronger and stronger. The birds began to twitter; a cock crew. A bar of golden light broken by the squares and patterns of the dark trees struck the air.

The shock of his mother's announcement had been terrific. It was not only the surprise of it, it was the sudden light that it flung upon his own case. He had gone, during these last weeks, so far with Annie Hogg that it was hard indeed to see how there could be any stepping back. They had achieved a strange relationship together: one not of comradeship, nor of lust, nor of desire, nor of affection, having a little of all these things but not much of any of them, and finally resembling the case of two strangers, shipwrecked, hanging on to a floating spar of wood that might bring them into safety.

She was miserable; he was miserable; whether she cared for him he could not tell, nor whether he cared for her. The excitement that she created in him was intense, all-devouring, but it was not an excitement of lust. He had never done more than kiss her, and he was quite ready that it should remain so. He intended, perhaps, to marry her, but of that he could not be sure.

But he could not leave her; he could not keep away from her although he was seldom happy when he was with her. Slowly, gradually, through their meetings there had grown a bond. He was more naturally himself with her than with any other human being. Although she excited him she also tranquillised him. Increasingly he admired and respected her—her honesty, independence, reserve, pride. Perhaps it was upon that that their alliance was really based—upon mutual respect and admiration. There had been never, from the very first moment, any deception between them. He had never been so honest with any one before—certainly not with himself. His desire, beyond everything else in life, was to be honest: to pretend to no emotion that he did not truly feel, to see exactly how he felt about life, and to stand up before it unafraid and uncowed. Honesty seemed to him the greatest quality in life; that was why he had been attracted to Ronder. And yet life seemed to be for ever driving him into false positions. Even now he was contemplating running away with this girl. Until to-night he had fancied that he was only contemplating it, but his conversation with his mother had shown him how near he was to a decision. Nevertheless, he would talk to Ronder and to his father, not, of course, telling them everything, but catching perhaps from them some advice that would seem to him so true that it would guide him.

Finally, when the gold bar appeared behind the trees he forced himself into honesty with his father. How could he have meant so sincerely that his mother must not hurt his father when he himself was about to hurt him?

And this discovery had not lessened his determination to take the step. Was he, then, utterly hypocritical? He knew he was not.

He could look ahead of his own affair and see that in the end his father would admit that it had been best for him. They all knew—even his mother must in her heart have known—that he was not going to live in Polchester for ever. His departure for London was inevitable, and it simply was that he would take Annie with him. That would be for a moment a blow to his father, but it would not be so for long. And in the town his father would win sympathy; he, Falk, would be condemned and despised. They would say: "Ah, that young Brandon. He never was any good. His father did all he could, but it was no use...." And then in a little time there would come the news that he was doing well in London, and all would be right.